The Facebook page, which has since shut but ran from August until late last month, is part of a broader culture at the residential colleges that demeans women in a sexist and often sexually violent way, experts say. The Herald has spoken to several women, also past and present residential college students, who have experienced sexual assault and attempted assaults on campus. They say the privileged atmosphere of colleges, combined with a culture of binge drinking and few restraints on behaviour, mean most rapes go unreported. Allegations include: * A young woman was raped at a college festival. * A college resident adviser had to use a master key to enter a room and stop a man from another residence continuing to rape a student.

* Another young woman was raped in her room. * Yet another was attacked after a party but managed to fight the man off and escape. * About 30 drunk, naked men broke into a college and surrounded a young woman, touching and taunting her. Concerned with levels of binge drinking and the subsequent violence, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Michael Spence, convened a meeting of all the residential college leaders in May. That meeting resulted in the development of a Liquor Accord between the university, colleges and other key players, including Newtown Police Local Area Command, although the document fails to mention sexual assault.

''It is a delicate issue as the colleges are very closed communities - it is not the whole of the story about college life, but I do think that it is an issue,'' Dr Spence said. He condemned the Facebook page, saying: ''It is in every way abhorrent and in every way at odds with what we are trying to achieve at the university''. The Reverend Canon Ivan Head, who has been the warden of St Paul's College since 1995, said he had no knowledge of the Facebook page before the Herald contacted him, describing it as ''directly contrary to stated college policies'' and acknowledging that ''this could be a site that encourages criminality''. He said he had received no complaints about the site. ''College officers ... endeavour to listen to gender-based conflict or complaint[s] with compassion, insight and the capacity to refer to relevant legal authorities,'' Dr Head wrote in a statement.

The outgoing master of Wesley College, the Reverend David Russell, was much more frank about the issues facing the university's residential colleges, saying in his eight years in the role he had spoken to several female students who felt they had to leave college. ''They say 'I just don't feel safe.''' For Mr Russell, ''this is a story that has to be told. There is no question in my mind, women are seen as meat. That is the awful, ugly truth of it.'' The commander of the NSW Police sex crimes squad, Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, said when operational, the Facebook page - tagged ''pro-rape, anti-consent'' - was ''inciting people to sexual violence''. ''This is the first occasion I have heard of a Facebook site being set up to promote, or publicise ... sexual assault or any other behaviour that is criminal behaviour.'' In an environment where alcohol consumption was often at binge levels, men ''feel they can do anything, and the Facebook page wouldn't be helping,'' Supt Kerlatec said.

The Herald contacted the creator of the Facebook page, as well as some of its members, via Facebook, and invited them to explain their actions, but at the time of publication had yet to receive a response. Loading ''It is fairly clear to me that if this culture remains, the colleges have responded poorly,'' said Karen Willis, manager of the Rape Crisis Centre.

