Durham Uni withdraws three offers for incoming freshers over racist group chat

TW: Racism, sexism, ableism 

Durham University has withdrawn its offer of study to three prospective students following the use of racist, homophobic, ableist and misogynistic comments made in an unofficial offer holders group chat.

In screenshots seen by The Durham Tab, one person used “t*rd” and “f*ggot” to address other members of the chat, well as using emojis to spell “n***a”.

All three individuals had their offers formally withdrawn on July 2nd after an investigation was conducted by the university, with one claiming that the decision had a “significant impact” on their “life and career prospects.”

Created by incoming students as an unofficial Freshers’ group chat for 2024/25 offer holders, screenshots from the WhatsApp group were sent to Durham University after members began using slurs and other derogatory language.

Alex*, an individual in the chat who had accepted an offer to study Law at the university starting in September, is one of three people to have had his offer withdrawn with immediate effect after he used multiple slurs in the chat.

In messages seen by The Durham Tab, Alex used emojis to spell “n***a” as well as calling others in the chat “f****t” and “fr****t”. He also replied to another chat member, saying “What u saying T**d” and “R****d has two” when discussing the number of letter Rs in the ableist slur words.

Messages with a strong anti-immigrant rhetoric were sent by Alex including: “I hate immigrants” and “Immigrants fucking suck, apart from the good ones”. He also told a member of the group chat: “Shut up migrant.” Alex also asked the group chat: “If you were to choose to eradicate Romani g*****s or Irish g***s, which one would you do?”.

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The offer holder also expressed classist sentiments, sending the message: “Why should the poor be able to repopulate?”, later referring to low income individuals as “bloody breeders”.

Another individual, Liam* had his offer to study natural sciences at Durham University from September revoked after sending sexist messages into the group chat.

In messages seen by The Durham Tab, Liam sent a screenshot that read: “Letting women vote was [one of the] top three biggest mistakes of [the] past 300 years. 1. Women [are] dumb and vote left. 2. Encourages women to have opinions and a life outside raising kids. 3. Breaks apart couples since instead of the vote being made by the man on behalf of the family, women can vote diff to their husband causing divide.”

Liam also sent a message explaining that male victims may not report rape if their attacker is good looking. Replying to another offer holder who said “Men are never able to report being raped because they’re told they’re supposed to ‘enjoy it’ or some BS”, Liam replied: “Depends how fit she is tbh. I might, I might not.”

A third offer holder, Jon*, had his offer of study revoked after sending an ableist slur in the chat. Discussing with Alex the amount of letter Rs in the slur, he replied saying: “R*****d”.

He also called another person in the chat a “vanilla gorilla” and sent a message reading: “I’m gonna touch you lil vro”

The Tab is revealing these messages to expose the issue of racism and slur culture amongst incoming freshers across UK campuses.

Speaking to The Tab Durham about the use of homophobic slurs in his messages, Alex said: “Whilst I can apologise for any unintentional offence caused to members of the group chat who misinterpreted my humour as a genuine threat upon the safety of a gay person, I am disappointed by the lack of context that has been provided by these screenshots and hope that my poorly thought out response does not brand me as ‘homophobic’ in spite of my own sexuality and vehement opposition to any form of violence directed towards minority groups.

“It is instead a running joke between me and [another group chat member] who are close friends. Although there was no malice in my words, I acknowledge that I was ignorant of the full effects these words could have on people unaware of the context. Regardless of my own reclaiming of the word, I should have been aware that other people were not comfortable with it and, as such, should have confined this sort of language to groups of people I already know are comfortable with more ‘close to the line’ humour.”

In regards to his comments on immigration, Alex said: “I cannot overstate enough that these comments regarding immigration are not an expression of my genuine beliefs and are satirical and intended to ridicule the far right who genuinely hate immigrants. I would not be in this country without immigration, as both my parents are immigrants themselves. My comments on immigration are meant to be taken as facetious and not as a genuine expression of my beliefs.

“I can understand why this could be taken at face value by just looking at the message without context; however, with this context, it is clear that this joke between [another group chat member] and me was not intended to cause discomfort for anyone else. I did not consider how other people may have interpreted these messages as legitimate, even within context, and on my own part, I can only apologise to anyone who took these facetious statements to heart or who felt offended by this joke.

“It is rather an obvious example of me completely misjudging the tone of the conversation and escalating a joke too far. I take responsibility for my own ineptitude and lack of judgment at this moment and cannot overstate how apologetic I am for misrepresenting my own character and portraying myself as a bigot when I am not.”

Commenting on his use of a racist slur in the chat, Alex told The Durham Tab: “I cannot justify my naive and childish belief that by not actually typing out the N-word itself, it would not have the same impact. It was incredibly juvenile of me to think that since I had not actually said the word in plain text, I was somehow avoiding the controversy surrounding the use of the N-word. As a white person, I should not even be joking about that word, and I can only apologise for my childishness, immaturity and impulsiveness in this situation. There is nothing I can offer other than my most sincerest apologies and commitment to be better in the future.”

On 2nd July 2024, Alex received an email from the university informing him that following an investigation into the messages sent in the group chat, his offer to study at the university had been withdrawn with immediate effect and that as he is not currently a Durham student he is unable to appeal the decision.

On the decision to withdraw his offer, the university cited the breach of “a range of university regulations”, including “General Regulation IV – Discipline”. The email described this as conduct which “disrupts, frustrates or interferes with the proper functioning or activities of the university or those who work or study in the university.”

The university also referred to its Non-Academic Misconduct Disciplinary Procedure, which read: “Students are expected to treat all members of the community with respect, including their peers, staff and visitors to the university and members of the local community.”

It explained that Alex’s conduct fell into a category of “actions which cause actual or potential distress or harm to others”.

Speaking to The Tab Durham about the use of sexist language in his messages, Liam said: “In the context of a political discussion, I did indeed share views from a person I know outside of the group chat to make fun of these views, I thought it was funny due to the absurdity of this person being an ethnically mixed African yet adopting “white nationalist” sentiment. This was never meant to me an endorsement of my own views, and I am appalled that they were misconstrued to the uni this way.”

In regards to his comment on rape, Liam said: “This comment was part of a good-faith discussion the group chat was having based on the social perspectives of male rape. I took “enjoyment” here to mean “physical pleasure” as it would be paradoxical for someone to ‘enjoy getting raped’ if enjoyment were to mean consent.

“My point was meant to convey that regardless of where the male victim gave consent, it may still be physically pleasurable to the victim (may be based on non-emotional factors such as physical attractiveness), which was not to downplay the atrocious act that rape is. I was not intending to endorse rape in this statement.”

On his use of the ableist slur in the group chat, Jon told The Tab Durham: “Looking back, I realise that I should’ve known that this word had caused far more offence than I intended. I knew at the time that this was a slur, however following EDI training at work I looked into the word and I now realise the offence that this may have caused. I absolutely regret my use of the word and I will be more careful with my choice of words and jokes in the future.

“I did not think that in this case my humour would be offensive to other people until a conversation with **** in which he mentioned how he was using the word in an attempt to reclaim it and it also made me realise the seriousness of what I said. Following this discussion I refrained from using the word in that group chat and only recently did I find out its true meaning.”

Commenting on his use of the term “vanilla gorilla” to refer to another chat member, Jon said: “The comment ‘ok vanilla gorilla’ was another inside joke between me and **** based on an internet meme and was not actually intended as a slur, even though it may seem as such in the context of the messages. I apologise for any potential offence caused by this.”

On the comment Jon sent about “touching” another chat member, he said: “The comment where I said ‘I’m gonna touch you lil vro’ had missing context to it, since this was a long-running joke between two friends and it was not intended to come across as anything but that. My mistake was saying this in a large group chat and I did not consider how it would be misconstrued by other people on the group chat.

“These sorts of jokes are commonplace between me and ****, therefore he would not have considered it to be inappropriate. I realise that many in that group chat were not aware of the context behind this joke and in the future I will be more careful with where I make these jokes.”

Another offer holder who sent a classist comment into the chat in the above screenshots told The Durham Tab: “I think this was taken massively out of context; it is a very satire play into the “posh durham student” stereotype that had been mentioned many times in that group chat – someone spelled ‘Grey Goose vodka’ wrong and, joking about this, I replied with this in a sarcastic manner as they had been discussing this stereotype in relation to their prior message.

“It is very obviously not a reflection of my beliefs, nor of my own background. I understand sarcasm can be difficult to detect over messages, but I would argue with the full context of the conversation you can see there is no malice behind this message.”

An offer holder who sent a screenshot of a homophobic Tweet visible in the screenshots above told The Durham Tab: “Many of the screenshots were taken out of context as it was a joke with [another chat member] who knows I am bisexual, as [they] later replied to the tweet that he wants to marry ‘or buy’ the woman who Tweeted that.

“I understand the offence the screenshot could have caused as my levels of comfort with the word are not the same as others, and people would not know my sexual orientation. It is not a reflection of my beliefs.”

Another prospective Durham University student whose message reading “Ok my f****t” can be seen in the above screenshots told The Durham Tab: “[This] one was me challenging an individual over them saying nothing was a slur. Rather than an attempt to goad them into saying it.”

The same individual who also wrote to another chat member “Say the n word then” said: “[This] was in relation to someone saying ‘women’ was a slur as a joke. I should also add I am a pretty outspoken queer individual hence my use of the ‘f slur’.”

Alex has since claimed that the results of Durham University’s investigation were unfair, explaining that when revoking his offer of study, the university cited regulations expected of registered students, but denied the right of appeal which is typically allowed to registered students. Liam echoed these sentiments and also believed that the outcome of the university’s investigation was “inconsistent”.

Alex also claimed that the informal nature of this unofficial chat had “no relation to [his] academic application to study at Durham University.”

A Durham University spokesperson told The Durham Tab: “Durham University has stringent admissions processes and regulations which are applied robustly and consistently. We do not comment on individual cases.

“In applying for Durham University, all applicants are subject to our admissions processes and regulations which are robustly and consistently applied.

“The university condemns in the strongest possible terms any incidents of prejudice or discrimination. We take such reports extremely seriously, and we will investigate and take appropriate action.

“We are committed to creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for all students, staff and visitors.”

Featured image via Google Maps

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity