One of Liverpool John Moores University’s societies has been forced to issue a public apology after they arranged a fancy dress costume night out that mocked the homeless.
The trampolining club held an event last Wednesday evening called “Tramps night”. The advertisement facebook post for the event encouraged partygoers to “dress as trampy as you can”.
The post went on to encourage members to visit Primark for their costumes stating “Primark do cheap shirts if you need to get them”. The post ended with a Rat and Cigarette emoji.
Following the event, a picture was posted to Instagram thanking attendees. The picture showed members of the trampolining society dressed in the offensive costume and was captioned “Thank you to everyone who came to Tramps Night. Always our favourite social. Until the next one”.
Members of the group had signs around their necks asking for money. One particular sign said “50p for a bounce on my bed”.
When approached for a comment on the event a representative for the society said “”We realise now, that our annual choice of costume could cause offence and are sorry for any upset this may have caused, it was never our intention. We will of course be changing our annual fancy dress theme and once again apologise to anyone who may have found this inappropriate.”
A spokesperson for Liverpool John Moores Students Union, who help fund university societies said “We have recently been made aware of the annual tramps night out fancy dress social held by our Trampolining Society. As a Students’ Union we do not endorse fancy dress that could be deemed as offensive or discriminatory and have reached out directly to the society involved who realise that an error in judgement has been made with this choice of costume. They apologise for any offence caused, and will be changing their annual social theme with immediate effect.”
“JMSU believes that all events and socials held by its students should be welcoming and inclusive. As such, going forwards we’ll be working closely with all our clubs and societies to make sure incidents like this do not happen again and will be making sure clear guidelines are in place for our students with regards to fancy dress.”