Twelve of 13 Dalhousie University dentistry students involved in the Facebook group which made sexually threatening comments towards women in their class will be allowed to return to clinic practice, but some of them won’t graduate on schedule.
The update issued by the university on March 2 outlined the restorative justice process the entire fourth-year dentistry class is going through. The class includes 12 members of the Facebook group, 14 women, and three other men.
The 13th member of the Facebook group is still under consideration for returning to clinic duty.
The two-month suspension from the clinic already excluded some of the men from gaining the hours necessary to graduate this spring.
Screenshots of the “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen” Facebook group showed fourth-year male dentistry students joking about using chloroform on women and voting on who from their class they’d most like to have “hate sex” with.
The class has dedicated more than 1,000 collective hours to the restorative justice process since it began two months ago, university president Richard Florizone said in the update.
The process has included educational workshops supported by various experts, including those in sexualized and gendered violence and trauma.
The university posted an open statement from the restorative justice process participants to its website on the same day as its own update.
The letter includes statements by the men involved in the Facebook group, the women involved in the restorative justice group, and one from both men and women.
The men’s statement focuses on taking responsibility for their actions.
“We know much more than saying ‘sorry’ is required. We are doing the hard work to figure out how to truly be sorry—to confront the harms we have caused, to accept our responsibility, to figure out what is needed of us to make things right, and to gain the knowledge, skills, and capacities to be trusted healthcare professionals,” the students wrote.
A statement from all 29 participants in the restorative justice group said “public attention has been harmful and even sometimes threatening to us, our families, and friends.”
The letter said the decision to segregate the members of the Facebook group from the rest of the class is inconsistent with their own needs.
“It has done nothing for us in terms of instilling a sense of safety or respect,” the letter said, adding they feel safe with the members of the Facebook group.
The women’s statement said they had felt their voices have been silenced by others speaking for them.
Beau Welter, who works at Carleton’s Sexual Assault Services, said “the most important thing, no matter what is to respect the wishes of the women who were targeted.”
“If they want to take a restorative justice route and feel as though that will enact the most change and make them feel safest, we need to respect that,” Welter said.
The Academic Standards Class Committee, which originally suspended the men from the clinic, will determine if the students involved have met the professional standards for graduation.
The university has also initiated a task force on misogyny, sexism, and homophobia in the faculty of dentistry to investigate the culture and policies related to the school. The task force will be run by a University of Ottawa professor.
