A school in Australia is in hot water after they forced all their male students to stand up during a student assembly and apologize to their female counterparts on behalf of their gender.
Because there are evidently no real problems in the First World to deal with, the land down under is inventing new ones. During an all-student assembly, Brauer College in Warrnambool (which, for our American readers, apparently isn’t a college but rather a public secondary schooll) addressed the issue of sexual assault and harassment against girls, then forced all the male students to stand up “as a symbolic gesture of apology for the behaviours of their gender that have hurt or offended girls and women.”
Nicole Daniels, a parent whose son goes to the school, told the Australian Today show she was outraged that her child was made to apologize for things he hadn’t even done, saying, “What they have made the boys do, they have labeled them and categorized them all into the same category as a perpetrator and a rapist when these boys have done absolutely nothing wrong,”
Another mom, whose 15-year-old son Vini was left confused and demoralized by the incident, accused the school of labeling all boys as future sex predators.
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"He has got to say sorry to a girl who he has never done anything to,” she said. “All it’s doing is saying they're perpetrators in the future, they are going to be predators, they are going to be rapists,” she said.
In a statement, Brauer College said:
“This week, at a whole school assembly, Brauer College discussed the topic of respect for woman and the importance of bystander behaviour and speaking up to report incidents of inappropriate behaviour.
…As part of this discussion boys were asked to stand as a symbolic gesture of apology for the behaviours of their gender that have hurt or offended girls and women.
“In retrospect, while well-intended, we recognise that this part of the assembly was inappropriate.”
As if anything this stupid and discriminatory can be justified, local reports state the assembly was part of a growing effort by Australian grade schools to address female students’ accusations of sexual harassment assault on campus after thousands girls came forward in recent months to say they were victimized by boys at their schools. The avalanche of accusations were apparently triggered by a Kambala School student named Chanel Contos, who launched a petition in February demanding local schools deal with the alleged problem and begin teaching male students about “consent.”