So what do the Vindicats need to do before the RUG puts its foot down?
Translated by Thomas Ansell
The horrific and continued behaviour of Vindicat still isn’t bad enough for it to lose its official accreditation and place of honour at various official university events, reports RTV Noord.
Instead, in the RUG and Hanzehogeschool want to work hand in hand with the student association to gently massage out the few bad apples that are causing such unfortunate missteps as grievous bodily harm in its brutal hazing rituals, awful misogyny, and smashing stuff up whilst drunk.
Vindicat only got its official accreditation back last July, and the committee that decides such things concluded this July that the association was taking ‘good steps in the direction of a better culture’.
“There have been regulations introduced to stop out of control alcohol misuse, and there is an explicit attempt by the hierarchy of the club to stop sexual intimidation, and improve communication”, says the committee- damning with faint praise.
After last weekend’s out of control party, which saw Vindicats attacking public buses and destroying public space, Mayor Koen Schuiling decided to gently punish the organisation by banning the following party, and extending his hand towards them to help the association improve.
In a breathtaking piece of understatement, RUG spokesperson Anja Hulshof says: “this incident suggests that the cultural change isn’t really happening. Not only the alcohol covenant, but also agreements on drug use and intimidation. We find these events to be unacceptable, and Vindicat must do more to work on itself.”
New accreditation system might (but probably won’t) have more teeth
In any case, the University points to its new accreditation system to be introduced in the next year, where student associations visit each other to judge if they are still abiding by the rules- doing away with the accreditation committee altogether.
Image via Unsplash
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