​BC to Make Campuses Get Their Act Together on Sexual Assault

When a student at the University of Victoria finally got her hands on redacted documents recounting the school's investigation into her sexual assault complaint, she says she was furious. "It was contradictory and victim blaming," she told VICE. "It took a couple days to calm down."

Those documents came with a letter warning her not to discuss the details with anyone except family, police, lawyers, or a professional therapist. The letter also said failure to maintain confidentiality could result in the university pursuing disciplinary actions.

The student, who requested anonymity, said the school's response to her case failed to protect her and left her silenced. The incident, which happened last November, was determined not an assault because the student didn't say "no" despite her assertion she refused physically.

"What we're seeing is institution mismanaging cases and failing the students who have experienced the harm," said Kenya Rogers, director of external relations for UVic's student society. "There's no policies in place and no process for survivors."

As many campuses across Canada take heat for not having formal sexual assault policies, the premier of BC is taking action to make sure the province's schools get their shit together and protect survivors of sexual assault.

"A rapist's best friend is silence," Premier Christy Clark told the legislature Wednesday. "A rapist's best friend is the failure of authorities to recognize a complaint when it comes forward and fail to act on it… We need to do more to protect women on campus from sexual assault because these life-changing, traumatic events don't need to happen."

Last week, Andrew Weaver, the leader of the BC Green Party ,introduced a bill that would require campuses to write and maintain policies to prevent sexual violence. Though the BC Liberal government originally dismissed the idea, Clark said yesterday she looks forward to working with him to "either pass this bill or amend it and pass a similar version."

The move comes as campus assaults are making headlines from coast to coast. At the University of Victoria, one student is accused of sexually assaulting four women, and University of British Columbia grad students say the school was slow to act on reports of a serial attacker. The latest investigation out of Brock University in Ontario found a history professor gave a student alcohol and attempted to force sex on her. The student was warned by the school to keep silent, even though the professor continued teaching up until two weeks ago.

Though the bill may not be passed in its current form, Rogers stressed the need to force campuses to bring students and communities to the table when writing these policies. Earlier this month, Ontario passed a similar bill that requires student involvement and a review every three years.

After their dragging heels on this for months, British Columbia universities now say they're eager to support the government's move. A University of Victoria spokesperson said the school had already been participating in the British Columbia education minister's push to create formal guidelines on sexual assault. Now that British Columbia is taking a legislative approach, they're happy to work with the government on that too.

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