"While the SMU students involved surely failed to grasp the severity of what they were doing and saying, this very fact highlights the need to speak out about sexism when we see it."
Dear, that's not just sexism. That's advocating rape of minors.
Sadly, this seems par for the course in any Catholic institution nowadays.
Saint Mary's is a public institution with no religious affiliation.
I'm confused. How does a secular institution carry a name specific to religion?
I don't know the specific history of St. Mary's in Halifax or whether or not it has any religious affiliation, but quite a few public facilities in Canada carry Catholic names because they were originally connected with the church. The Grey Nun's hospital in Edmonton, for instance, isn't specifically Catholic (as far as I know), yet carries the name because it traces its roots to the Grey Nuns of Montreal (again, as far as I know).
Keep in mind that Canada doesn't have the same barrier between church and state written into law like you do down in the US, so cosmetic signs of Christian origins in publicly funded areas aren't uncommon. Hell, we even have a publicly funded Catholic school system, which is separate from the regular schools (property owners are able to choose whether their taxes go to the secular or public system).
ETA: A little bit of Googling tells me that Saint Mary's is, in fact, not secular, though it accepts students of all faiths (according to the sites I found).
