NUI Galway should drop all disciplinary proceedings against students being punished for posting memes on Twitter.
Why is this important?
NUIG is setting a very dangerous precedent. For years homophobia has gone unchallenged. Prior to the Same Sex Marriage referendum, there were horrendously homophobic campaigns ran on campus. More recently, last years SU elections were blighted by homophobia and harassment, with one candidate comparing his opponents to the KKK.
LGBT+ students now feel unsafe on campus, where homophobia will go unpunished but challenging homophobia will be punished.
Furthermore, students are going to be afraid to challenge hate speech on campus. The precedent set by NUIG is that if you have the money and a good legal team, you can bully them into acting in your favour. What happens when students are afraid to put themselves forward for SU elections, or to call out the people running for fear of prosecution? This is a blatant stifling of political debate.
UPDATE: Our hearings were due to be held on Wednesday but have been postponed. This is because NUIG initially skipped over an entire step in the due process, which was the investigation stage- they jumped straight to adjudication! This shows how much of a shambles the entire process has been, and also prolongs the distress and disruption to our education indefinitely.
(Opinions expressed are my own, and do not represent any other group or individual).
