Diana Majury, Academic Co-Lead for CFICE’s Violence Against Women (VAW) Hub, and four other researchers are looking at how campuses are dealing with sexual violence and their interrelationship with local police forces.

As part of her work with CFICE, Majury found out in January they could move forward with the project being done for the Ontario government.

The aim of the project is to fuel the discussion about reducing violence against women on campuses.

“I’m not really interested in helping either party [the university or the police], I’m more interested in getting rid of violence against women,” Majury says.

“I’m interested in holding all the parties accountable and putting forward the best policies that we can in terms of addressing the issues. And I think that’s done through partnerships.”

Majury says this work is important to CFICE because it’s looking at a community-campus partnership, specifically a partnership between ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University and the Ottawa Police. Through the project, researchers will gain a better understanding of how the academic and community partners work together to address on-campus sexual violence.

“Thinking about what might make those relationships better is really a key issue.”

Majury says it’s also about seeing the university itself as an academic-community partnership.

“It is us, as researchers, partnering with students and administrators. There’s all different communities within the university setting, and students are an example of that. It’s raising really interesting questions about internal partnerships,” she says.

The research is being conducted on three campuses across Ontario: ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University in Ottawa, the University of Waterloo, and Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

The project will involve Majury and four other researchers, three from ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University and one from the University of Waterloo, conducting focus groups with survivors of sexual violence. Researchers will also talk to students about their experiences with sexual violence on campus and the school’s existing policies.

The researchers are currently waiting for their ethics clearance before they can begin interviews.

“Ethics is clearly very important here because we are going to be interviewing survivors of sexual violence. So we want to make sure we’re doing that in a way that does not, in any way, shape or form, add to the harm they’ve already experienced,” Majury says.

Administrators working in areas related to the universities’ sexual violence policies will also be interviewed. For example, the head of housing, the head of equity services, sexual assault coordinators, the vice president in charge of students, the centre for students with disabilities, the Aboriginal centre, campus security, and the local police force will all be approached for interviews.

“Sexual violence is chronically underreported, both internally to campuses and to the local police force. We can only imagine the project will replicate that,” Majury says.

The project will give insight into the problems students face, allowing researchers to suggest better ways to reduce violence against women on campuses.

“I think we will find that there are huge barriers and problems with how campuses respond to violence against women. [There’s] not a lot of creative thinking going on in terms of how to address it. The criminal justice system, and the police being involved in that system, is an even harder place to be creative and to have new ways of doing things. I think if we can get some insights into the problems, we will be a little further ahead.”

Majury and the researchers are in the preliminary stages of the project and will be working on it until the end of March 2016.

For more information, contact Diana Majury at Diana.Majury@carleton.ca

On Tuesday January 19th, 2016, the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University community with the support of every ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ faculty and the Office of the Vice-President (Students and Enrollment) plus numerous campus  institutes, departments, associations, and centres was invited to a screening of the documentary “The Hunting Ground “. The campus was a fitting setting for the screening as the film provides an “exposĂ© of rape crimes on U.S. college campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and the devastating toll they take on students and their families”. Over 100 people, primarily students, attended the event. A panel discussion of current issues related to sexual violence on Canadian University campuses, and more specifically ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University,  followed the screening of the film. GSA’s Leigh-Ann Worrell and ‘s Tara Henderson contributed as panel members, as did Dawn Moore and from the Department of Law and Legal Studies.

The event raised interesting questions about community and about the nature of partnerships. As members of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project, we often question what constitutes a community. When we refer to community in an academic setting, do we actually mean the community outside the University premises? What about the campus community? Similar issues of access and power apply to internal partnerships within the campus community and haunt academic/community partnerships. Do the current legislative initiatives on campus violence offer an opportunity to build a strong university- campus community partnership through the development and implementation of a campus sexual violence policy? And what is the potential to extend that partnership to work with off-campus activists and survivors to strengthen the movement against sexual violence?

In recent years, we have witnessed highly publicized incidents of sexual violence at Canadian universities (for example the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University).  These incidents and the responses to them highlighted the entrenched problem of on campus sexual violence and campus rape culture. Consequently, universities across Canada and Quebec are looking to develop or revise campus sexual violence policies. Through Bill 132 – Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act (Supporting Survivors and Challenging Sexual Violence and Harassment,) – the Ontario Government is seeking to make stand alone campus policies on sexual violence mandatory for Ontario universities and colleges. In her panel remarks following the film screening, Diana Majury, the Academic Co-Lead for the of CFICE, spoke to the potential and the concerns with this proposed legislation. She raised questions about the definition of sexual violence, about how to entrench transparency and accountability, and how to ensure that the expertise of campus activists and survivors is used in developing and implementing the policy at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

Majury made a number of recommendations for revisions to the legislation and the content of the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ policy. She pointed out that the legislation currently only refers to sexual violence involving students and recommended that coverage be extended to include faculty, staff and visitors who are also at risk. She emphasized the need for public input into the Bill and the regulations, and the need for an intersectional systemic approach to the issue and to the development of the policy. Majury raised a number of matters that need to be addressed, noting the importance of avoiding tokenism in fulfilling the requirement of student input into the policy. This process opens up an opportunity for a student/administration partnership that could be a model for addressing campus issues.

In thinking about policy content, Majury raised questions about who would be appointed in the roles of investigators and decision makers and what training would be provided to them. She noted that, if imposed, a mandatory reporting requirement might be counterproductive and actually inhibit survivors from seeking support and advice. She raised the possibility of anonymous reporting, recognizing that many victims are understandably reluctant to report because of stigma, fear of reprisal and because complaint processes often re-traumatize the victim. These concerns were dramatically demonstrated in the cases covered in The Hunting Ground. Decisions will have to be made about the investigation and adjudication processes – whether formal or informal. Majury warned against processes dominated by lawyers. The questions of what sanctions should be available and on what basis they would be imposed are central. The policy will need to be clear on the purpose of the sanction and how to ensure the safety and support of victims. And importantly, the policy will need to address the underlying rape culture. Majury advised that ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ seriously consider adopting a system of oversight over the implementation of the policy by external community experts on sexual violence as is in place with respect to sexual assault complaints to police in some cities in the USA. This would be an opportunity for a productive and unique campus/community partnership that would put community expertise first.

Important issues were also raised by ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ community members who attended the event. The film depicted the many incentives for universities to deny, cover up and down play the level of sexual violence on their campus. Concerns were raised about these issues on our campus. Students raised the need for faculty to get more involved in these issues — to stand up against sexual violence and to support sexual violence survivors. The suggestion was made that the development of, and compliance with, campus sexual violence policies should be tied to government funding.

The film and the discussion were an effective call to action. Within three days, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ graduate students had organized and submitted recommendations on Bill 132 to the Standing Committee on Social Policy where the Bill is under review.

References

Gilbert, D., & Sheehy, E. (2015). “Responding to Sexual Assault on Campus: What Can Canadian Universities Learn from US Law and Policy?” (Forthcoming, in Elizabeth Quinlan, Andrea Quinlan, Curtis Fogel & Gail Taylor, Eds Sexual Assault on Canadian University and College Campuses (Wilfrid Laurier University Press) Retrieved from      

Ontario Government  (March, 2015). It’s Never Okay: An Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment.