We Interviewed The People Behind The ‘White Student Unions’ Who Insist It’s Not A Hoax

A rapid spread of ‘White Student Union’ (WSU) Facebook pages across Australian Universities has lead many to assume that it’s all a hoax.

The accusation comes amid the recent creation of WSU pages from seven universities spanning Australia-wide, including the University of Queensland, the University of Southern Queensland, the University of Technology, Sydney, Macquarie University, Western Sydney University, the University of NSW and the University of Western Australia.

The assumption that these pages aren’t legitimate echoes similar findings across the United States and Canada. In the international cases, the racist pages largely originated from trolls on the dingy bulletin boards of 4chan and 8chan, rather than students who want to proliferate a non-white excluded student union.

But this may not be the case in Australia.

While all seven WSU’s that have suddenly appeared may not all be legit, there are cases to suggest that some do stem from students. So we decided to go straight to the horses mouth and ask them what it’s all about.

In speaking with an admin from the University of Queensland (UQ) WSU – a page that has the most likes (over 400) compared to the other six unions – they completely reject the notion that it’s all a hoax.

View the full conversation here

An admin on the page confirmed the following:

“We can firmly and truthfully tell you that we are indeed students enrolled at UQ. We range from many different faculties ranging from the arts, to the sciences and medicine, as well as engineering.

We all believe that white students deserve the same rights that other students who are not white receive, and this is expressed through the allowance of white students at UQ to be able to have a union that fights for their interests”

They went further to say that they still hold hope that their university will accept and support their association:

“We at UQWSU do wish to be a supported union at UQ, however given the recent outlash we have received from the university itself, based on the notion that white people creating a union for themselves is somehow “racist”, the possibility of this becoming a reality is difficult to foretell.”

The UQWSU was originally promoted by the United Patriots Front, however they said they were not connected to the anti-Islam party or similar initiatives.

“We are not affiliated with the United Patriots Front, nor Rise Up Australia. We do however share similar sentiments in regards to the rights of white people, and in particular, their rights to the preservation of their homeland.

If the situation was reversed and Asia or Africa was receiving massive influxes of non-Africans or non-Asians, a global outcry would be presented demanding that a restriction on immigrants/international people be placed. This however is not the case for white countries and only white countries,” said a spokesperson.”

Representation from the WSU at the Western Sydney University reached out to news.com.au, confirming that the page admin was a 24-year-old journalism student and that the group made up of a six person committee will seek to gain formal registration in the new year.

A spokesperson from the WSU at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) said the page was created after being inspired by other university WSU’s from around Australia.

When asked whether the association was a hoax formed by non-students, they stated:

“Short answer: no this is a serious cause. You think white rights is a troll agenda? And yeah I do study at UTS. Come say hi to me when you do see me”

Whether these pages were stemmed from university students or not, the universities themselves were quick to call them out for being fake. The University of South Queensland even posted to the associated WSU page with the following message (which is now removed):

“University Of South Australia is the latest university to be caught up in what seems a global hoax that’s targeting university web pages with racist posts. The Facebook page which purportedly calls for a White Student Union is the latest in a series of attacks launched against Australian Universities. USQ Vice Chancellor and President Professor Jan Thomas condemned the post and that the University had contacted Facebook to have the page removed,”

Meanwhile UTS and Macquarie University rejected the formed WSU’s, stating that were not official and did not reflect the views of the universities.

While some of the pages may prove to be from trolls hidden behind a keyboard rather than students, shrugging off the movement as a hoax would be to ignore the underlying racist intention.