Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities

INTRODUCTION: SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN THE IVORY TOWER

Elizabeth Quinlan

Several recent incidents of sexual violence on Canadiancampuses have garnered considerable media coverage. The stories draw particularattention to the perniciousness of a rape culture on campus and the inadequacyof Canadian universities’ prevention and response to sexual violence.

During orientation week at Saint Mary’s University (SMU) inthe fall of 2013, senior students led several hundred first-year students in achant that glorified nonconsensual sex with underage girls. A videotape of thecheer appearing on social media sparked outrage across the country. Thepresident of the student union resigned the following day, declaring that thechant was the biggest mistake of his life while admitting that he, along withmany others, had recited the chant every year since coming to the university.Shortly thereafter, the university announced the formation of a ten-memberPresident’s Council, chaired by a Dalhousie professor in law and ethics, tomake recommendations that would attempt to foster “cultural change thatprevents sexual violence, and inspires respectful behaviour and a safe learningenvironment” (President’s Council, 2013, p. 16).

Within days of the uncovering of the Saint Mary’s chant, asimilar cheer surfaced at the University of British Columbia (UBC), followed bya quick succession of reported sexual assaults on the UBC campus the next month.Students reported the chant had been used for 20 years. The story found ample purchasein the traditional media. In response, the university president struck the TaskForce on Intersectional Gender-Based Violence and Aboriginal Stereotypes todevelop “actionable recommendations” addressing the violence rendered visibleby the revelations of the chant (University of British Columbia, 2014).

Later that fall, a Lakehead University student who had beensexually assaulted by a fellow student a year earlier went to the media withher story. After several unsuccessful attempts to lodge a formal complaint andarrange her classes to avoid the perpetrator, she was instructed to obtainwritten documentation of her “learning disability” from a campus doctor as thebest way to avoid having to write her exams in the same room as theperpetrator. She told the media that she didn’t blame the university for theactions of her fellow student, but did hold it responsible for its injuriousresponse to her requests for help. Soon after, the president formed a taskforce with a mandate to reduce or eliminate incidents of sexual assault and toensure that when reporting, survivors would have access to counselling, assistancewith medical care and academic concerns, and support in choices regardingreporting of the crime to law authorities. In particular, the task force wasmandated to make recommendations regarding changes to the Code of StudentBehaviour and Disciplinary Procedures, and the Employee Code of Conduct.

While the task forces at SMU, UBC, and Lakehead weredeveloping recommendations to address sexual violence on their campuses, inearly December 2014 a female dental student alerted the administration atDalhousie University to the posts from a Facebook group of 13 male dentalstudents, which promoted the use of sexual violence against their fellow femalestudents. One particularly offensive post appeared on the 25th anniversary ofthe Montreal Massacre. Like the 14 engineering students killed at l’ÉcolePolytechnique de Montréal, the female dental students were pursuing careers ina traditionally male preserve. The female dental student at Dalhousie whoalerted the administration wanted to lodge a formal complaint, but wasdissuaded from doing so in a meeting with the administrators. A week later, themedia obtained screenshots of the offending posts from an unknown source.Public outrage ensued. An online petition pressing the university to expel thestudents garnered 1000 signatures in a single afternoon. By mid-January, thenumber of signatures shot up to 50,000. While the provincial government wasannouncing it would monitor the situation, alumni across the country wereremoving their diplomas from their office walls and professional dentalassociations in various provinces were requesting the names of the Facebookgroup members, a request that the university refused, arguing it would violatethe students’ privacy. In early January, the 13 group members were suspended,only later to be offered alternative delivery formats for their courses so theycould graduate on schedule. A number of fourth-year female students wrote anopen letter to the president to convey their discomfort with the restorativejustice process they felt pressured to accept in place of a formal complaint.The president of the university launched a task force in early January 2015.

As events at Dalhousie were continuing to solicitconsiderable media attention, in February 2014 a sexual assault was reported inThunder Bay. The alleged perpetrators were two University of Ottawa (UofO)hockey team members. A criminal investigation was initiated. A month later, thefemale president of the university’s student union went public with an onlinediscussion in which five male students directed violently misogynist comments towardher. The next day, the hockey team was suspended, and several months later thehockey coach was fired and the university president established a 15-membertask force to provide recommendations on how to foster a culture that preventssexual violence.

In the fall of 2015, UBC was in the news again, with severalwomen alerting the media about the university’s delayed reaction to numerouscomplaints of sexual violence by a male doctoral student. UBC officials urgedthe complainants to pursue mediation and to keep quiet (Mayor, 2015). Laterthat year, coverage of the story by the CBC’s Fifth Estate brought anannouncement from the university that the doctoral student had been expelled(“School of Secrets,” 2015).

The spring of 2016 brought a fresh round of campus sexualviolence stories on the front pages of the national news outlets (Crabb, 2016).A student group at Brandon University revealed that the administration hadrequired a student to sign a contract agreeing to not speak publicly about anassault, after she disclosed the incident to the university in September 2015.Failing to comply with the terms of the contract was to risk a range ofdisciplinary actions, including expulsion. Shortly after the initial mediareports, eight more alleged survivors came forward, including the formerstudent president, who was told by the senior administrator to whom she hadreported sexual harassment by a faculty member that filing a formal complaint“isn’t going to be in your best interest … you’re in a position of leadership,you’re a woman, this is something that happens to you and you just need tolearn how to deal with it” (Macyshon, 2016). The university reply to the floodof media coverage included an announcement that, following the September 2015incident, a task force had been established to examine services and supports(Crabb, 2016).

On the heels of the Brandon story, a Brock Universitystudent who was sexually harassed by a professor in the fall of 2015 went tothe media to describe the university’s response to her complaint. During andfollowing the university’s internal investigation of her complaint, the studentwas warned to keep quiet about the incident (Sawa, 2016). Within a month of themedia story, another student came forward to the local newspaper with similarallegations of sexual harassment the previous year and the university’smishandling of her complaint (Firth, 2016). The university president was quickto announce the establishment of the Human Rights Task Force, mandated toreview all the campus policies and procedures related to sexual violence.

— excerpted from the introduction, Elizabeth Quinlan, in Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities