The sexist WhatsApp group that welcomes the teaching students in La Rioja: “We have to break their panties”

The shameful episode carried out a year ago by students of the Elías Ahuja residence hall in Madrid for the sexist shouting against students of their female counterpart Santa Mónica, at the beginning of the last academic year, is not an isolated case. A WhatsApp group made up of 199 first and second year Teaching students (today divided into Primary and Infant Education degrees) from the University of La Rioja includes comments such as “lately they are all very whores” and “you have to break their panties” referring to new students who are going to begin their degree studies on campus. The academic center has opened a file to investigate the case.

The chat, which is called Novatadas magis primaria, is to organize the hazing of the 2023-2024 academic year, which started at the University of La Rioja on September 4. The University of La Rioja prohibits hazing, as has the University Coexistence Law since last year. In chat, the boys attach photos of their new classmates, obtained on social networks, to comment on their physique. “But which girls are coming in?” asks one, who receives responses like: “I hope hotties”, “it’s a fucking goat cheese from the ciborium”, “another one is like a fucking Babybel cheese”, it reads . The information has been provided by Cadena SER of La Rioja.

Some students suggest in the WhatsApp group to contact some of the new Teaching students. “She looks easy” or “we have to break their panties.” To which another responds “when she meets (…) she is not going to take them, because lately they are all very whores.”

Only one student in the group dares to respond to these sexist and humiliating behaviors against women with a message of: “You are disgusting HAHAHAHA”, which is met with the response: “We’re done”, from another of the members.

The group also collects homophobic messages. A student sends a video of one of the enrollees and one of the members of the chat points out: “Tell him that they don’t accept sissies in teaching.” “This guy promises,” says another.

The University of La Rioja has roundly condemned these behaviors. “We are outraged. We find expressions disgusting, degrading and rude and, in some cases, violent. We absolutely condemn the content of this chat, of which we were unaware,” said the university’s Vice Chancellor for Students, Marian Martínez. These attitudes, she has added, are “unbecoming of young people” and aspiring future teachers, as well as “of the values ​​that we intend to instill as a society.” Finally, she stressed that “the most worrying thing is that it seems that this type of expression is being normalized.”

The university has announced that it is going to open an information file to “gather all the details about the case.” The file could lead, in turn, to “activate the disciplinary regime” approved by the academic center last February to adapt to the University Coexistence Law of 2022. The rector Juan Carlos Ayala has specified that “if the facts were classified as very serious offenses could determine an expulsion from two months to three years, and with a notation in their academic record. Ayala has encouraged people “who have felt damaged by the messages” to report the case, and has recalled “that hazing is expressly prohibited on campus and is considered a very serious offense in the disciplinary regime regulations.” This means that they may lead to expulsion from the university center and loss of registration.

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