Queen’s University marching band suspended for distributing ‘explicit’ and ‘degrading’ material

Canada’s largest and oldest university marching band troupe will be sitting out of Toronto’s Santa Claus Parade this Sunday after materials they had been distributing, which contained “offensive language that is particularly demeaning to women” spurred the university to suspend them.

Queen’s University’s co-ed Bands will not be appearing at any of their scheduled events due to the materials, which came in the form of member guides and songbooks including lyrics such as “I wish all the ladies were pies on a shelf and [if I] was the baker, I’d eat ‘em all myself,” to quote one of the tamer tunes.

Wikimedia Commons

The logo of the Queen's Bands

Apart from sitting out of Bands events, which included an alumni dinner this coming weekend, Sunday’s parade and a handful of other holiday parades this season including one in Kingston, the school’s administration said members have been ordered to undergo human rights training. The executive will also have to review and revise their policies and practices.

The timing is particularly bad for the prestigious, century-old Kingston, Ont. band, which have become fixtures in the Santa Claus Parade — a massive affair that is broadcast across the country.

Parade president Peter Beresford has confirmed that the Queen’s Bands, which include brass, pipes, cheerleaders and highland dancers, will not be participating this year — something he just learned Friday.

“[The university] informed us that they had made a decision, which is entirely at their discretion,” he said. “We respect the decision and so they’ve decided that they won’t participate.”

The suspension is significant because the parade is one of the highlights for the student-run Bands, which serves among the most public faces of school spirit at one of Canada’s most prestigious universities. They also perform at Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade and are scheduled to play at the 2012 Calgary Stampede, which will be celebrating its Centennial.

The school was in full damage control mode this week, addressing the suspension through a strongly worded denunciation of the bands’ alleged conduct.

“The materials, and the behaviours they promote, are unacceptable,” Ann Tierney, vice-provost and dean of student affairs at Queen’s, said in a statement. “They point to a sub-culture within the Bands where explicit, disrespectful and degrading language marginalizes community members who may remain silent for fear of exclusion.”

The statement, posted on the Alma Mater Society’s website Thursday, also noted that the bands are partly funded through student fees.

“We are committed to supporting the Bands as they take action to ensure all of their activities reflect the values and principles of Queen’s as a welcoming, safe, positive and inclusive environment,” Ms. Tierney went on to say.

The decision was not complaints based, and Ms. Tierney told the Queen’s Journal an anonymous source had dropped the materials off at her desk early last week. She told the Post Friday that the “materials came to the attention” of her office and she decided to act.

“When I received the material last week, that was the first information I’d had about anything like this,” she said.

The president of the AMS also said in a statement: “We recognize the Bands has a special place in the Queen’s community, but this only serves to reinforce the need for the Bands to reflect the university’s mission and standards at all times,” said Morgan Campbell. “When groups are representing Queen’s, the community expects behaviour that reflects the principles of equality we strive to uphold. We look forward to seeing the Bands resume their performances and continue to be a proud part of the Queen’s tradition into the future.”

The university and the student government said they’ll review the Bands’ progress in the new year. The Bands will not lose their funding in the meantime and have still been permitted to practice.

Friday evening, Queen’s Bands said, in a statement sent to the National Post, that they have taken responsibility for their actions “but do not take responsibility for the university’s reaction with regards to the suspension of our performances. It is unfortunate that such a small part of the Queen’s Bands past has tarnished our 2011-2012 year, and overshadowed many of our charity and community-based initiatives.

“The Queen’s Bands have canceled our participation in all upcoming events for the rest of the 2011 calendar year. We have issued formal apologies to the organizers and attendees of the John Orr Dinner [the aforementioned alumni event], and to the organizers of the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. It is also unfortunate that the small, local holiday parades in which we would have participated will suffer as a result of these consequences.”

They also said they look forward to working with the school to find a “mutually beneficial solution” and achieve “positive change.”

“At this turning point in Queen’s Bands history, we hope to remain a strong traditional presence on campus and in the community at large.”

A Queen’s Bands songbook obtained by the Queen’s Journal suggests a culture of sexualization, boozing and partying threaded throughout an Anglo-Saxon lens: Traditional folk songs such as Black Velvet Band appear alongside ditties titled ‘I Just Want To Be In Queen’s Band’ which feature lyrics like “I don’t want an oboe up the a–hole.”

The Queen’s Journal also obtained three years worth of pamphlets handed out by the Bands’, which contained phrases like “I will rape you with a lamp” and photos of band members as “people with d—s in their mouths.” Titles on the front page included “Sucking nipple and biting the t– since 1905″ and “Perpetuating racial stereotypes since 1905.”

The student paper also reported that band members were instructed to destroy all hard copies and digital copies of the Queen’s Bands Songbook.

The Bands were also forced to apologize in 2007 for distributing flyers for cheerleading tryouts emblazoned with lines such as “Hotties wanted” and “Do you like this spread” written in reference to a sexually suggestive photo, the Queen’s Journal said.

Other bodies within the school have also been forced to apologize for politically incorrect or “inappropriate” behaviour.

In March 2010, the AMS wrote a two page apology and cancelled a food-bank fundraiser that featured students lumbering around in Sumo suits, outfits that turned racial identity into a “costume” and “devalue[d] an ancient and respected Japanese sport which is rich in history and cultural tradition,” according to the student government.

The school also cancelled the annual (and notorious) Homecoming weekend in 2008 — the year a student collapsed in a fast-food restaurant after an assault, fell into a coma and woke up a month later with brain damage. That was three years after a crowd of party-goers rolled over a car and torched it.

In 2010, the school said it will continue canceling the event until 2014.

National Post