At least 10 prospective students of the Harvard Class of 2021 have reportedly had their admissions rescinded from the highly competitive university after allegedly posting offensive memes in a group Facebook chat.
Several members of the newly admitted class allegedly created a group chat, at one point titled “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens,” where they posted jokes about sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the death and abuse of children.
Emails obtained by the college newspaper show the school started investigating the chat group in mid-April.
“The Admissions Committee was disappointed to learn that several students in a private group chat for the Class of 2021 were sending messages that contained offensive messages and graphics,” an Admissions Office to some prospective students read.
Prospective students suspected of belonging to the group were asked to submit a statement to explain their contributions. About a week later, at least 10 received notification that their acceptance had been revoked, according to The Harvard Crimson..
Harvard Public Affairs and Communications official Rachael Dane told The Independent that the university does not comment publicly on the admissions status of individual applicants.
Colleges and universities frequently start Facebook groups where admitted students can connect before arriving on campus.
Members of the Harvard Facebook group initially started a public messaging group for admitted students to share pop culture memes, participants told The Crimson. From there, a few admitted students allegedly started a private chat, for more subversive posts.
Students who wanted “in” to the private group had to post provocative memes in the public group in order to prove themselves, group members told The Crimson.
“This was a just-because-we-got-into-Harvard-doesn’t-mean-we-can’t-have-fun kind of thing.” Cassandra Luca ’21, who joined the first meme group but not the second, said.
Posts in the private group included jokes directed at different racial and ethnic groups, including one that referred to the hanging of a Mexican child as “piñata time”. The nature of the group’s jokes eventually began to disturb some of its members, according to screenshots of conversations obtained by The Tab.
“Some people replied with ‘lol’, a fire emoji or ‘omg’ and found them either funny or shocking,” said Jessica Zhang, who joined and then left the group. “More and more people began leaving the chat when they saw those memes.”
A disclaimer in the Class of 2021 Facebook page reminds admitted students that the school “reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission ... if an admitted student engages in behaviour that brings into question his or her honesty, maturity, or moral character”.
The school previously investigated reports of admitted students posting offensive content in a Class of 2020 GroupMe message thread. Posts included racially-charged jokes, and jokes mocking feminists. The admitted students who posted these messages were not disciplined by the school.
Just this year, a meme-sharing group for current students sparked controversy when students used it to mock Asian tourists, and even engage in personal attacks.
Given the popularity of memes in youth culture, some Harvard students say they’re not shocked by their peers behaviour.
"There's a broader desensitization to these types of memes, so while I found it alarming that these were future classmates posting these, I was not as surprised as I should have been,” junior Saul Urbina-Johanson told BuzzFeed News.
