Russell Group university has launched an investigation
A law student has caught the media’s attention this week after he spoke out against racism he’s experienced at the University of Bristol.
Now in his final year at the Russell Group law school, Timi Ariyo (pictured top) went public with claims he’s been called a ‘n***er’ and other racist terms.
He also alleged an abusive Snapchat video about him was shared with hundreds of students across the country. In the clip (embedded below), it seems you can hear a group chanting “Timi Ariyo, he swings where he wants”, followed by monkey noises.
Ariyo thinks this abuse has come from a number of sources. One of the perpetrators, he claims, is a law student at Cambridge University, while others are fellow Bristol students.
His pal, Tami Sotire — who studies psychology at the university and has interned at Clifford Chance — also claims to have fallen victim to online abuse. Now, the pair has gone public with their claims, and the country’s media is listening.
Speaking to the BBC, Sotire lambasted her abusers and said she hoped their racist mentality would be stamped out before they graduate. She explained:
These are future lawyers, future doctors, future politicians… You shouldn’t want to put these people out in public. It reflects badly on your establishment.
But, during a radio interview, Ariyo — who completed an internship at London-based fraud specialist Bark & Co Solicitors — said their perpetrators “just don’t care”.
Ariyo and Sotire admitted they did not want to report the abuse because they feared nothing would be done about it. However, Sotire said she’s received “public support” since speaking out and now knows that the abusers “are in the minority and should really be brought to justice for the stuff they’ve put us through”.
Having reported the abuse, the University of Bristol has launched an investigation. It’s understood the police are also looking into the allegations.
Last year, a similar tail of abuse unfolded at another Russell Group law school — the University of York.
There, law student Zachary Confino spoke out about the anti-Semitic trolling he’d experienced while studying for his degree. He claimed he was called a “Stupid Israeli Twat” and told “Hitler was onto something”.
He was eventually offered a formal apology and £1,000 from the university.
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