Polish schools cancel LGBT tolerance day under government pressure

Several schools in Poland canceled activities promoting tolerance
for gays and lesbians following government pressure and threats in some places.

More than 200 schools had planned to take part in "Rainbow Friday," an anti-discrimination event that a civic rights group, the Campaign Against Homophobia, had promoted in hopes of building greater acceptance for LGBT students.

Broadcaster TVN reported some schools pulled out of the event following outcry.

The education minister of Poland’s conservative government, Anna Zalewska, had warned ahead of time that any principals who allowed such events to take place could face negative consequences. She also asked parents to report any such activities to authorities.

It was not immediately clear how many schools canceled plans to participate.

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Drinking vodka from a pig's head, chilli powder on genitals and fishing a dead rat from barrel of cider: The deadly student initiation rituals rife in UK universities

Deadly university initiations similar to the one which was attended by Ed Farmer before his death continue to blight British higher academic institutions - despite being banned by a number of students' unions.

The death of Newcastle University student Ed Farmer, 18, following an night out involving drinking vodka from a pig's head and apple bobbing in urine, has brought the rituals under further scrutiny.

During the initiation-style bar crawl attended by Farmer in December 2016, two rounds of at least 100 tripples vodka and oranges were bought to be shared between 40 students.

His death following the Agricultural Society event joins the continuing spate of alcohol-related deaths linked to initiations.

Farmer's tragic case is just the latest in a string of historic initiation incidents which have led to the death of students.

In 2003, Staffordshire University fresher Alex Doji, 18, died after choking on his own vomit following a rugby team initiation. Back in 2005, Hull University student Tom Ward, 19, died after drinking 12 pints and up to six shots in a rugby team initiation.

And in 2008, Exeter University banned all student initiation ceremonies after fresher Gavin Britton, 18, took part in a drinking initiation that involved downing a cocktail of shots, followed by pure spirits during a three-hour pub crawl.

Following the challenge, Mr Britton was violently sick and died from acute ethanol poisoning according to toxicology reports.

Newcastle University also officially bans initiations to its student societies.

The university website warns 'anyone found to have organised or participated in an initiation ritual will be subject to disciplinary action.'

But when asked about the university ban on initiations, students were only vaguely aware of it. 'You get emails, but I don't think anybody is really going to listen to it - they'd just call them something else,' one said.

'You'd pour spirits into a football boot and drink them, or do shots of something that's a bit disgusting,' one student recalled. 

Lesley Braiden, academic registrar at Newcastle University, said it was 'difficult, if not impossible, to monitor' initiation events.

Warwick University student Jason Venezia, 19, lost his life after drinking half a litre of vodka in 20 minutes during a university drinking game in 2008, an inquest heard. 

Despite these tragic incidents, footage of excessive drinking and 'lad-culture' behaviour has been proudly shared online, with students made to drink pints upside down, strip to their underwear and eat animal food.

In a report uncovered by The Times last year students at Loughborough University were challenged to drink four litres of cider and then told to vomit into a bucket. The last to finish then had the vomit thrown over them.

In another absurd ritual, University of Bath students reportedly performed in an initiation that saw them being blindfolded before having their hands urinated on.

In 2017, there were reports of students at Manchester University having urine, faeces, vomit and even chilli powder rubbed on their genitals during a rugby team initiation event.

Other initiation rituals allegedly involved a type of apple bobbing event in which students were told to fish out a dead rat from a barrel of cider, according to The Tab. 

One student told The Tab Manchester: 'I know someone who had to shave their head as a forfeit so their friend [who was already paralytic] didn't have to down another pint.'

In one of the many initiation videos posted online, around 30 Aston University rugby freshers appear to drink copious copious amounts of alcohol through a funnel as the older, fully-clothed students look on.

In another clip posted online, one of the male students pulled his trousers down and had toilet roll hanging out of his bum, which was then lit while still attached to him.

In shocking footage posted on YouTube in 2009, freshers from Oxford Brookes university were made to eat chilis and cat food, drink pints while upside down and carry out degrading acts on the floor while beer, cream and flour were thrown over them.

Footage posted online by Kent's korfball team shows them injecting fruit with alcohol during an initiation-style event where students were in fancy dress.

Even though the rituals are banned by some universities, the absurd ceremonies that remain in existence are a significant cause for concern and continue to pressure young academics into dangerous drinking.

The 'rite-of-passage' remains popular, particularly for 'fresher' students joining sports societies.

Often first year students are made to drink heavily and carry out dangerous stunts in order to impress their older peers.

Last year an unnamed student posted on the social media site The Student Room about their initiation experience.

They wrote: 'The initiation was the final straw for me, don't wanna be too extreme with it on here but we were expected to drink whatever they asked us to and I'm not talking alcohol and strip naked whilst they dragged our knees across the street.

'I packed it in at that point, went down to a local club instead and just played there. If you don't play along you don't get picked basically.'

In 2016 there were reports of female Cambridge University students taking part in initiations including 'beer baguette', that saw them drink lager through a hollowed-out French stick and 'heels relays', where members had to run in their highest pair of shoes while passing shots to teammates.

This year, Buckinghamshire's ski and snowboarding society shared a well-edited video of their initiation on social media.

Students are seen drinking 85p cans of cheap lager through funnels during the mixed-gender event, while other drinks the cans from in between the legs of the other undergraduates.

In one of the clips, one of the boys drinking from the legs of another man is slapped over the head as he drinks the cheap lager.

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Australia: 'Knuckle-dragging philistines': Labor targets Liberals for blocking arts grants

So we have a Leftist party wanting to transfer taxpayers' money to middle-class ivory-tower types.  That leaves the conservatives as defenders of the workers' money.  Something wrong there?

My own first degree was an Arts degree but I think the argument in favour of Humanities involvement is greatly over-egged.  I am not sure that any arts and humanities courses should be publicly funded.  There is very little evidence that they do any good.  All we get are high flown assertions to that effect

I myself greatly enjoyed my studies of Homer, Thucydides, Chaucer, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Hopkins, Goethe, Wittgenstein, Schubert, Bach and Beethoven etc. and still do -- but I can't see that I needed to go to university to acquire that familiarity


Labor has accused former education minister Simon Birmingham of pandering to "knuckle-dragging rightwing philistines" by blocking 11 Australian Research Council grants in the humanities totalling $4m.

Senate estimates hearings on Thursday revealed that Birmingham blocked $1.4m of discovery grants for topics including a history of men’s dress from 1870-1970, "beauty and ugliness as persuasive tools in changing China’s gender norms" and "post orientalist arts in the Strait of Gibraltar".

Birmingham, now trade minister, also blocked $1m of early career awards announced in November 2017 including a $330,000 grant for research into legal secularism in Australia and $336,000 for a project titled "Soviet cinema in Hollywood before the blacklist".

Two further grants announced in June 2018 were also blocked: "The music of nature and the nature of music" ($765,000) and "writing the struggle for Sioux and US modernity" ($926,372).

The grant projects were proposed by researchers at universities including the Australian Catholic University, the Australian National University as well as Sydney, Melbourne, New South Wales and Monash universities. All grants were independently approved by the ARC.

Labor’s innovation spokesman, Kim Carr, accused Birmingham of judging research on its title and targeting the humanities because no research in other disciplines such as science were blocked.  "He’s pandering to rightwing extremism in an attempt to peddle ignorance," Carr told Guardian Australia. "There is no case for this blatant political interference to appease the most reactionary elements of the Liberal and National party and the shock-jocks.

"These are grants in arts, culture, music and history which somehow or other in his mind are not acceptable … what is his research expertise to justify interventions of that type?"

Carr said that when the former education minister Brendan Nelson vetoed humanities grants in 2004-05 there was "outcry from the Australian research community".

When in government Labor instituted a protocol that blocking research required a special declaration so the decision was public, which Carr said the Coalition had rescinded.

Birmingham responded on Twitter: "I‘m pretty sure most Australian taxpayers preferred their funding to be used for research other than spending $223,000 on projects like ‘Post orientalist arts of the Strait of Gibraltar

In a statement the Australian Academy of the Humanities expressed "shock and anger" that the minister intervened and called for the $4m of funding to be restored.

The academy president, Joy Damousi, said Australia’s research funding system "is highly respected around the world for its rigour and integrity". "Political interference of this kind undermines confidence and trust in that system," Damousi said.  "The rigour of that system and the competition for funding means that only exceptional applications make it through the process.

"A panel of experts have judged these projects to be outstanding, yet that decision has apparently been rejected out of hand by the former minister."

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