Police asked to investigate sexism scandal at prestigious private school

Police have been called in to investigate a sexism scandal at a prestigious Melbourne private school concerning male students using derogatory language to rank their female classmates.

Year 11 students from Yarra Valley Grammar School at Ringwood shared a spreadsheet of photographs of female students to the messaging app Discord and ranked them in categories.

The girls were ranked from top to bottom as "wifeys", "cuties", "mid", "object", "get out" and then finally "unrapable".

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The school was alerted to the post last Wednesday, and by Friday the students involved in creating the post had been suspended pending further inquiries.

The parents of the girls pictured in the post were notified by the school.

Yarra Valley Grammar principal Mark Merry described the post as "disgraceful".

"Respect for each other is in the DNA of this school, and so this was a shock not only to us … but it was a shock to the year level and the boys in the year level that see this as way, way out of line," he said.

The final category on the spreadsheet, which referred to girls as "unrapable", was particularly concerning, Merry said.

"As a father, I find it absolutely outrageous, disgraceful, offensive. As a principal, I need to make some decisions [about] what we do about all of this," he said.

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"My first impulse and concern is about the wellbeing of the girls concerned. I want to make sure they feel assured and supported by the school."

Police are being notified by the school about the use of the word "unrapable" in case there has been any criminality involved.

"We are going to be consulting the police because the language used could be an inferred threat. I don't think it was, but we need to get further advice on that … I'm hoping it was an appalling lapse in judgment," Merry said.

Fees at the prestigious co-ed school in Melbourne's east cost about $30,000 a year per student. There are 185 students in year 11.

The school holds regular "respectful relationship" classes and seminars for students throughout the school year.

There will be a meeting today for the parents of the 40 girls involved pictured on the spreadsheet.

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