Administration officials at the University of Saskatchewan are embroiled in a debate over when and in what circumstances students should be notified after a sexual assault on campus.
The university has been criticized by a sexual assault survivor and other members of the school for having a six-week delay in notifying students about the New Year’s Day sexual assault on campus.
The victim, a 20-year-old woman who wasn’t a University of Saskatchewan student, was out at a Saskatoon bar early morning
New Year’s Day when she drank a shot she believes was laced with drugs, she told the StarPhoenix. She was seen entering campus around 4 a.m., where she said she woke up, paralyzed, to see a man sexually assault her. This went on for hours until she escaped at 10 a.m.
A suspect was arrested March 2, according to the Sheaf, the university paper.
Administration at the university didn’t notify campus until Feb. 17 — six weeks later.
“There were a couple of reasons for the delay,” said David Hannah, the university’s associate vice-president (student affairs).
The university had “sketchy” information initially, Hannah said, and there was also concern because of the ongoing police investigation.
“We talked to safety folks and city police [about] whether or not there was any threat to students in the campus community,” he said. “And based on the information they had, they believed there was not.”
But the incident has raised concerns about what policy universities should follow when reporting sexual assault.
“Is the perception that there might be continuing risk of harm to others, is that the right criteria to use to decide whether or not to send one of these notifications out?” Hannah said.
“We did take a look at evolving practices at other campuses and many other universities are moving to a standard now where they don’t make that judgement. They notify the campus when the incidents are reported, whether they think there is continuing risk of harm to others or not.”
Hannah said the university might move towards this approach.
“It’s a difficult question, it’s a controversial question, and it’s one that I think many campuses will be viewing over the next few months.”
Carleton University has also seen debate over the issue of sexual assault notifications.
Carleton’s current policy is to notify campus if there is an ongoing threat or danger posed, according to Brian Billings, campus safety’s operations manager. Typically a notification would take the form of a poster with certain information on it.
The problem with a poster, Billings said, is that it can sometimes take 48 hours to put up. If time is of the essence, an email might be sent out.
“Our emergency notification system wouldn’t necessarily be used to notify the community about a sexual assault. [That system] is for more immediate ‘take action’ kinds of commands that would come out, like if there’s a need to evacuate a building rather quickly, or if there was an imminent threat on campus.”
But there also are problems with notifying staff and students on campus without giving away too many details, Billings said.
“It is a sensitive issue. It always has to be done with the privacy of the victim in mind.”
“In a residence community, because it’s so close-knit, it would take very little information for them to connect the dots and then be able to identify the [victim],” he said.
“The last thing you want to do for a survivor, a victim, is have people . . . probe the individual for information.”
Sarah McCue, a member of the Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Support Centre, said she’s in favour of using notification systems to notify the campus of sexual assaults, but only with the consent of the victim.
“Consent from a survivor is of huge importance,” she said.
McCue added that she would like to see the university offer support services when it sends out notifications.
But in terms of Carleton’s overall policy on notifications, it doesn’t appear things will be changing any time soon.
“It just depends upon the circumstances and each one needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis,” Billings said.
