One of Melbourne\u2019s most prestigious state schools is under fire for a social media post depicting its principal posing among gagged students in a confronting image to promote the year 12 formal.<\/p>\n
Melbourne High School\u2019s student representative council posted the mock film poster to its Instagram account last week, teasing the release of its formal celebration video.<\/p>\n
In the image, principal Dr Tony Mordini and seven students were posed side-by-side in a room with black bars digitally edited across their eyes. <\/p>\n
Three students sat on the floor with their hands restrained behind their backs and their mouths taped shut.<\/p>\n
Text on the image read: \u201cThe Formal Files\u201d and \u201c2026 formal video by MHS SRC\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelease the Files\u201d was written in the caption, with some students suggesting it was in reference to the Jeffrey Epstein files. <\/p>\n
The image was swiftly deleted from Instagram on Thursday after the Herald Sun contacted the Department of Education for comment.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Mr Mordini said: \u201cThis image was not authorised by the school and has been taken down\u201d. <\/p>\n
A department spokesman said: \u201cThis image together with the accompanying text is completely unacceptable and has been removed. The department is seeking clarification from the school of the circumstances of the post.\u201d <\/p>\n
It is understood the school has taken action against the students who posted the image.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether the photo was AI-generated or if Mr Mordini posed for it. <\/p>\n
A student, who wished not to be named, said the image appeared to reference the Epstein Files.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis formal video promotion is a blatant reference to the Epstein Files \u2026 it should never ever be joked about,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCapitalising on the suffering, torture, rape, sexual abuse and trafficking of children perpetuated by America\u2019s elites, and then turning that into a disgusting and distasteful theme for a marketing campaign to promote a year 12 formal event is sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sort of blatant insensitivity is what has led to the unsavoury reputations which all-boys schools have obtained. I think the post is horribly insensitive.\u201d <\/p>\n
The student said it was \u201cconcerning\u201d that no senior leaders raised concerns about the image before it was posted. <\/p>\n
The video is set to be published on July 24, a day after the school\u2019s formal.<\/p>\n
Melbourne High School is an all-boys top performing selective state school in South Yarra. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Melbourne\u2019s most prestigious state schools is under fire for a social media post depicting its principal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26915,23,133,9277,26917,15725,26925,26913,26923,26922,15147,882,260,26924,26919,120,26921,26916,26914,18274,881,26918,26911,26912,26920,68],"class_list":["post-29407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-all-boys-schools","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brooke-grebert-craig","tag-confronting-image","tag-department-of-education","tag-formal-celebration-video","tag-formal-video","tag-formal-video-promotion","tag-gagged-students","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-mark","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-high-school","tag-mock-film-poster","tag-oceania","tag-prestigious-state-schools","tag-principal-posing","tag-selective-state-school","tag-senior-leaders","tag-stewart","tag-student-gag-photo","tag-student-representative-council","tag-students-sat","tag-tony-mordini","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}