Pembroke College Rugby Football Club (PCRFC) at Oxford has issued an apology for circulating an e-mail invite to 50 club players on Oct.21 with the subject line, 'FREE PUSSY'.
The email was a party invite sent by Woo Kim, the club's social secretary, asking players to pick a female fresher of their choice as 'Crew Date'. The mail further instructed to bring two bottles of wine where they were free to spike one with a 'substance' of their choice. There was also a mention of a 'bring a positive pregnancy text.'
"Please bring TWO bottles of wine - one for yourself and one for your guest. You must open the bottle in advance, and include a substance of your choice. It may be spirits or food or anything you like," the e-mail read.
"Please be as clandestine as possible in your deed". The email further stated that the theme of the crew date was "VILLAINS" and that "Villains must be discrete [sic] in their work."
".....every fresher at Pembroke is quaking in their boots thinking that they might be picked as our date."
The 'Crew Date,' an Oxford tradition involving drinking parties with other similar societies, was scheduled to take place Thursday, but was cancelled following angry protests from Pembroke College's JCR and women's groups in Oxford.
"We fear that the rugby committee do not seem to have grasped the seriousness of their offences, and will shrug this off as an overreaction of a female-led JCR committee," Pembroke JCR president Rebecca Howe told Cherwell.
"The captain and [former] social secretary will be issuing an apology to the JCR, and plans to speak about the issue at our next JCR meeting. A constitutional motion to introduce measures to formally sanction each club or society wishing to be affiliated with the JCR is being considered. We will also reconsider the JCR's contribution to the funding of PCRFC if this behaviour continues."
Pembroke College has condemned the email invite and the planned event strongly. The university officials will be imposing "appropriate disciplinary action" against the perpetrators.
"The content of this e-mail is completely unacceptable, and I am taking the appropriate action on behalf of the College authorities. These actions of a small number of students have been met with universal condemnation from their peers," Dr Clive Siviour, Dean of Pembroke College, told Cherwell, Oxford student newspaper, which broke the story.
Following the disclosure of the email contents, Kim, the social secretary, has stepped down from his position. The society was also made to attend a sexual consent discussion forum with college chiefs organized by Pembroke's JCR committee on Wednesday night.
"I, like the vast majority of students at Pembroke, was disgusted by these comments. They represent an ugly, corrosive form of misogyny that simply shouldn't be tolerated in any level of society, and that can't just be dismissed as yet another supposedly harmless juvenile 'joke'," Will Brown, third-year Pembroke student told Cherwell.
The email invite went out after the club declined an invitation to a Good Lad campaign workshop run by Oxford University Rugby Club to promote 'positive masculinity.'
"We accept that the emails circulated earlier this week about our proposed Crew Date were entirely misguided and represent a serious case of poor judgment. We would like to clarify that the "challenge" proposed in advance of the intended Crew Date was intended to be a harmless drinking game joke, and was in no way intended to mean that the team member should lace their dates' drinks with anything illegal and/or to engage in any sexual abuse,' a spokesman for Pembroke rugby club told Daily Mail UK.
