[Editorial] University Sports Insensitive to Violence

The details of an initiation ritual at one university's physical education department have been made public. The "freshmen orientation" described by one incoming student is reminiscent of harsh military training. He says they were even made to hold their against an asphalt basketball court, to the point that several began bleeding, but violence on the part of upperclassmen continued. In this day and age even the military is not that bad. It is truly shameful that in a "temple of the intellect" violence is being perpetrated in the name of "school tradition" and "teaching propriety."

According to a 2004 study, seven out of ten university students in sports-related studies experience regular or occasional physical abuse. That being the case, there may be variations in how serious it is but the violence in this one university's physical education department is probably not limited to that particular school. It would be worth taking a look at other schools as well.

The biggest obstacle to ridding a community of violence is insensitivity to the problem. Universities are not closed to the outside world, so the fact that this kind of violence barely gets out is largely because of that insensitivity. It would have been uprooted by now if those directly involved or somehow associated with what goes on had not just looked the other way, assuming it is just what happens in physical education departments. You can see the problem in the way professors at this particular department argue that it's "worse at other schools," that the schools has a unique tradition of "training in propriety," and "students need to fit the school culture." If that's what professors think, what is it that students will learn from them?

The professors and students are of course not the only ones who bear responsibility. School authorities must also be held responsible, whether they did not know of what was going on or whether they chose to ignore it. They need to eradicate the violence in order to restore the school's honor, before an outside body intervenes. We call on members of the university community to wake up to the problem.

The Hankyoreh, 10 March 2006.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]