
Photo, The Canadian Press/Francis Vachon.
Early in April, a group of Carleton University students, some of them sexual assault survivors, and outreach workers gathered to meet with the school’s administration to draft a sexual assault policy, a requirement of Ontario’s new Sexual Violence and Workplace Harassment Action Plan. According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, students were angry that members of the school’s administration failed to attend and that Carleton’s president had not responded to a letter the students sent after the meeting expressing their concern.
“The university is in complete denial that sexual violence happens on campus,” Dawn Moore, a law professor and equity chair of Carleton’s University Academic Staff Association, told the Ottawa Citizen.
Steven Reid, Carleton Media Relations Officer, said a letter from school president Roseann O’Reilly Runte that pledges commitment to the creation of a sexual assault policy was sent out to students on April 28, the same day of the Citizen story. A new meeting is set to take place on May 16.
Unfortunately, Carleton isn’t the only school under scrutiny for its handling of the issue of sexual assault. A recent spate of stories in the Canadian media show how ineffectual universities’ responses to allegations can be. Many schools don’t have clear sexual assault protocols in place — and even when they do, the takeaway message for students is often that their reports just don’t matter. Here’s an overview of recent examples that, combined, paint a pretty bleak picture.
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This piece was updated with a response from Carleton University on May 6.
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