Stallholder quits Freshers’ Fair after racist abuse

Graduate careers website Milkround left on first morning after incident

The company did not attend for the second dayLouis Ashworth

by Louis Ashworth

This article is 9 years old

Thursday October 13 2016, 10:12pm

Graduate careers website Milkround abandoned Cambridge’s Freshers’ Fair last week, allegedly after one of its stallholders was racially abused by an attendee, Varsity has learnt.

The incident took place early last Tuesday morning, on the first day of the fair. Milkround immediately left the fair afterwards, and did not return for the second day. A spokesperson for the website, which allows students to apply for jobs, internships and graduate schemes, confirmed to Varsity that the incident had occurred, and said that Milkround is “currently in the process of filing a formal complaint” to the central University.

The nature of the abuse, or any details about the identity of the attacker, are currently unknown. The fair, at which societies and businesses advertise themselves to students, is attended by 15,000 people a year according to CUSU, which organises the event.

Amatey Doku, CUSU President, told Varsity he had not been made aware that the incident had taken place until after the two-day event had finished.

“After the fair, I was alerted to a complaint that CUSU had received about racist comments made to one of the corporate stall-holders by an attendee to the Freshers’ Fair,” he said.

He called for anyone with information to contact him, saying: “We have a zero-tolerance approach to racism or discrimination of any kind and it completely goes against everything that CUSU stands for and we have communicated this to the affected party.”

There was controversy at the Freshers’ Fair in 2010 when some students criticised student radio station CamFM for accepting sponsorship from Nestlé.

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