Dishing the historical dirt on Massey University
We dished dirt on ourselves too just to keep things fair
Content Warning: Mentions of racism and sexual assault
From the aqua mafia, burning magazines, articles about cannibalism and the Catholic church, kidnapping a student for ransom, 28 complaints against Massive and an anonymous exposé of a private lecturer chat, Massey has quite the appetite for scandal. A trip down memory lane takes us on a deep dive into past controversies...
The ‘Aqua Mafia’
While The Pink Hostel sounds like a brothel, it is actually a former Massey Manawatū Hall of Residence.
Pink Hostel (later known as McHardy Hall) originally served as a dormitory for army staff during World War II. It was transferred to Massey in 1944 where it served as a residence hall until the early 1990s.
In a paper called Memories of Massey From Alumni Throughout Decades, 1956 Massey graduate, Dr T.S. Shang said The Pink Hostel housed mischievous residents.
A group known as ‘Aqua Mafia’ was known for being little shits and would drop water bombs on pre-selected victims from the top of the building.
A student was suspended from The Pink Hostel in 1966 for creating a water fight during a power cut.
Unmasking the Masskerade
From 1939 to 1985, the Massey College Students Assocation ran an annual capping magazine called Masskerade.
The magazine was boasted to be the curator of ‘student humour’ and challenged societal norms with sexuality and drinking culture.
The 1965 issue of Masskerade sported two controversial articles: I was a Radioactive Sex Maniac and a guide on how to play strip poker (without losing).
The risky content was met with the confiscation of 300 copies by the police and hundreds burnt by students in protest.
To combat the controversy and boost sales, students involved with Masskerade walked backwards from Palmerston North to Wellington on stilts (yes that's correct), according to the alumni memories.
The following year bicycles were hoisted on flagpoles around Palmerston North in the name of the magazine.
The magazine faced ANOTHER scandal in 1970 after gaining severe backlash from the Catholic Church for a satirical article titled, Priest Acquitted on charges of Cannibalism.
The article described a priest drinking the blood of a dead Jewish person who he believed to be Jesus.
The Roman Catholic Church called the article “grossly offensive” and called for students to understand “standards of decency”, according to The Press.
Protest at Procesh week
‘Procesh’ or ‘capping season’ was Massey Palmy students’ full moon. It was when Palmerston North graduates would go crazy before the end of their uni days.
Floats, cars and trick cyclists parading along Broadway and around the square was a celebrated Procesh week tradition.
In the 1963 Procesh, students performed a mock funeral procession to protest the demise of Massey Agricultural School and the arrival of Massey University.
The following year, students ‘borrowed’ an army truck, vamped it up with painted slogans and dumped in in the City Centre.
The police were not impressed, and the students had to appear in court and apologise for the stunt.
According to the Tamiro archives, Procesh gradually lost public interest in the 70s, due to a lack of well-prepared floats and a decline in student behaviour.
In 1988, the Massey University Students' Association (MUSA) decided to cancel Procesh, after the City Council and police put firm restrictions in place.
The ‘Haka Party’
In 1963, Massey students started a tradition called the ‘Haka Party’, according to a paper titled Fools Abroad.
The tradition consisted of a group of men dressed in grass skirts, ‘darkened skin’, and ‘crudely painted body decoration’.
While heavily drinking, the men would perform an impromptu rendition of Ka Mate and sell copies of the annual magazine Masskerade.
MUSA (Massey University Students’ Association) gave students a slap on the wrist, recommending future Haka Party members should use more discretion when tattooing themselves, in trying not to be too offensive.
The tradition came to an end in 1972 when a member's skirt was ‘accidentally’ set alight. There were originally suggestions that it had been deliberate, and a police inquiry was launched. However, it is unclear what the results were.
Kidnapping in Christchurch
During the 1970 capping season (graduation week), Christchurch student pranksters sold 3000 copies of their capping magazine disguised as the Massey annual magazine, Masskerade.
According to The Press, Lincoln University students jumped on board the ‘prank’ and kidnapped the editor of Masskerade, ‘Miss R. Frost’, from her bed and kept her captive at Lincoln University.
The students demanded $20 for her release and a promise to not sell the Masskerade in Christchurch the next year.
The haunting Massive sex cover
Massive made national headlines in 2016, landing in hot water for a controversial cover.
The annual sex issue cover created an outrage after depicting a cartoon sex worker who was also a student. She was naked and bent over reading a textbook while her hair was being pulled and a hand sat on her buttock. The women looked like she was wincing in pain.
The image accompanied an article inside the magazine by an investigative journalist looking at student sex workers.
The backlash prompted the editor to pull the image from the web and Facebook, place a warning over magazine stands at university, and ask other media to remove the image.
2016 editor Carwyn Walsh told Stuff at the time, "We are respecting and listening to complainants' issues on this ... but we don't apologise for covering what is a very delicate topic: students involved in the sex trade.
He said, "Although we understand this image will be a trigger, we are deciding to continue with the cover as such a topic deserves such a cover."
Massive teams since 2016 have recognised the cover as grossly disturbing.
Massive Justice for Gingers
2016 Massive editor Carwyn Walsh continued to spark trouble with a satirical article titled Massey University bans ginger students for 2017.
The article covered an announcement by the university to exclude all red-haired students from study from 2017 onwards. It described having red hair as a contagious disease, gross, and associated with inbreeding.
At least 28 complaints were made to the editor, along with a formal complaint to the media council by a Massey lecturer.
The complaint wasn’t upheld as they said the article was clearly marked as satire. The case file states, “The report is clearly a spoof, and is comprised of fictitious quotes by Maharey, Prime Minister John Key, Labour’s Tertiary spokesman Chris Hipkins, a parent, a ‘ginger-haired’ student, and three presidents of university student associations.”
At the time, editor Walsh said the article was meant to highlight how easily discrimination could perpetuate in society. He said, "We believe the article conforms with the history of student satire, and that satire is a complex form of expression that on the surface can often shock, but beneath the surface has nuance."
Whingegate
In 2021, two Wellington School of Design lecturers were caught talking shit about a student via a leaked text screenshot.
The lecturer shared their screen on a zoom class and accidentally showed the chat.
A screenshot was sent anonymously to MAWSA (Massey University Wellington Student Assocation) by a student after the class.
The chat discusses a student who was unlikely to succeed because their assessment had “more holes than Saddam Hussein”.
The other lecturer said the student was going to have a “whinge” to her about the assignment.
At the time, vice chancellor for College of Creative Arts, Clare Robinson said that whilst discussing a student’s progress between two lecturers is normal, the comments made were disrespectful.
Naughty namesake William M*****
The founding father of scandal is Massey University’s very own namesake, William Ferguson Massey, the Prime Minister of NZ from 1912 to 1925.
His rhetoric was horrifically offensive, openly expressing his disdain for the Chinese immigrants. He said, "I am not a lover or admirer of the Chinese race. I should be one of the very first to insist on very drastic legislation to prevent them coming here in numbers."
The Immigration Restriction Amendment Act was passed during his term in 1920, aiming to limit Asian immigrants. That year he said, “Clearly, we want to keep the race as pure in this Dominion as it is possible to keep it.”
Every few years, the idea of a name change circulates around the university. In 2016, lecturer Steven Elers made news headlines saying that Massey's remarks were not unusual for his time, but it is not appropriate for the university to be named after someone who spread a damaging rhetoric in the public sphere.
In 2021, Massive featured a cover with the words “Bill Massey was a racist prick” over a picture of his face, which sparked the idea of a name change again. Most recently in 2022, vice chancellor Jan Thomas told Massive, “The University is not defined by its namesake, but rather the diverse and inclusive community of staff, students and alumni.” She went on to say that the university had other issues to focus on, and its gifted Māori name, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, is used routinely.