Anti-Semitic, racist slogans appeared across t-shirts at an Exeter Snowsports white t-shirt social, according to co-founder of +972 Magazine, Dimi Reider.
Anti-Semitic, white supremacist slogans at Exeter University event | +972 Magazine https://t.co/1uIXLv1rmN
— Dimi Reider (@dimireider) September 21, 2016
The slogans read “Don’t speak to me if you’re not White” and “The Holocaust was a good time”. The t-shirts were worn at the ‘Freshtracks Bar Crawl’ on 20th September, the Tuesday after Freshers’ Week. Another student was seen with a swastika on their t-shirt.
The Freshtracks Freshers’ Week social finished at Timepiece and is billed on the Exeter Snowsports website as “the rowdiest bar crawl in Exeter”.
Mark Kiner speaking on behalf of Jewish Society and Friends of Israel said: “We condemn this and any other kind of Antisemitism and racism in the strongest terms. Some individuals might think that it’s merely a joke and doesn’t mean much but these were real events which happened to real people, and as such they should be respected. We urge the university to investigate and punish the students involved accordingly.”
Anti-semitic incidents rose by 11 per cent in the first six months of 2016, according to Jewish charity, Community Support Trust.
Snowsports released a statement on the t-shirts:
“Comments like these are not tolerated within our club. Unfortunately, as only eight committee members, we can not be responsible for everything written by other students, especially when there is over 1,000 people. Timepiece were asking people to leave or change if they were seen in the venue with any abusive slogans on their t- shirts. As far as I’m aware no complaints were made. We apologise if we offended any one and we feel appropriate action was taken on the night to deal with these type of slogans if they were seen on anyone at our social. Snowsports has a zero tolerance policy for these actions and we will be contacting our members in due course to express this.”
A University of Exeter spokesperson said: “The university does not tolerate racist or bigoted behaviour in any form. This is the first we knew of this and shall be launching a full investigation.”
Additional reporting: Susannah Keogh
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