Harvard Rescinds Acceptance Letters After Obscene Posts in Chat Room

At least 10 hopeful would-be freshmen won’t be attending the Harvard this fall, after the university found that the students traded sexually explicit and racist images in a private chat room.

The student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, reported that the messages were exchanged in a private Facebook group for incoming freshmen which was, at one point, titled “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens.”

The comments and images referred to child abuse as sexually arousing, joke about sexual assault and the Holocaust, and one messaged referred to the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child as “pinata time.”

The Crimson cites multiple members of the incoming class of freshmen, one of whom said that his acceptance had been revoked following the messages. The university notified the students that their acceptances had been revoked in April.

University officials have not yet commented on the situation.

“We do not comment publicly on the admissions status of individual applicants,” Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane said.

Harvard University policy allows for acceptance to be revoked in certain circumstances, including if students fail to graduate high school, are shown to have lied on their applications or take part in conduct that “brings their honesty, maturity or moral character into question.”

According to the Crimson, one original Facebook group was started as a way for incoming students to share similar interests. From there, a second group was started that was “more R-rated.” It was in this group that things turned “dark.” One student, whose acceptance was not revoked, described it as “a just-because-we-got-into-Harvard-doesn’t-mean-we-can’t-have-fun kind of thing.”

As it turns out, just because they got into Harvard, doesn’t mean they can’t get kicked out.

Harvard’s decision to revoke the students acceptance comes as universities and colleges across the country are cracking down on sexual assault and harassment.