Dalhousie University is offering the whistleblower of the male dentistry Facebook group a conditional offer to return to the clinic where dentistry students work in order to gain practice and eventually graduate.
Fourth-year dentistry student Ryan Millet received the ruling from Dalhousie’s Academic Standards Class Committee on March 6. Millet has yet to accept the offer because it requires him to acknowledge his own guilt in the scandal, according to his lawyer.
“[The ruling] continues to find him guilty of professional misconduct related to issues of sexism, misogyny and homophobia,” a press release from Millet’s lawyer Bruce MacIntosh said.
The other 12 men involved in the Facebook group were permitted to return to the clinic March 2, according to a press release from Dalhousie.
Millet was not extended the same offer because he has not participated in the restorative justice process initiated by the school. In the restorative justice process, members of the Facebook group work with facilitators and the women in their class who were victimized to “understand the harms they caused, to accept responsibility and to repair the damage,” Dalhousie president Richard Florizone said in a March 2 press release.
If Millet returned to the clinic, he would be required to participate in private counselling, written essays, and public lectures that would acknowledge his guilt through submission, according to the press release from MacIntosh.
In January, the CBC reported Millet wrote a letter of apology received by women in the class as well as the men who were involved.
Refusing Dalhousie’s offer to return to the clinic would mean a delayed graduation for Millet, who was previously expected to graduate this spring.
“Any exercise of legal options of appeal will almost inevitably lead to the loss of his academic year,” MacIntosh’s press release said.
So far, Millet has been suspended from the clinic for more than two months.
In December, the CBC received screenshots of the Facebook group shown from Millet’s Facebook account. The images showed members of the group making jokes about using chloroform on women, and voting on who in their class they would most like to have “hate sex” with.
While Millet did not make any posts himself, he was a member of the group and participated by liking a post. A screenshot published by the CBC showed Millet liked a photo of a “public entrance” sign appearing underneath a woman’s thighs.
“He has some difficult choices to make,” MacIntosh said.
Basia Lepingwell-Tardieu, a fourth-year marine biology student at Dalhousie, said there should be harsher punishments for the men involved in the Facebook group.
“I feel like there should be some repercussions,” she said, “not just a slap on the wrist.”
Students on campus have organized rallies and sent out letters stating their disagreement with how the school handled the scandal, according to Lepingwell-Tardieu.
She said the student response has made her proud to be a Dalhousie student, but not the school’s response.
“There was a really long time where we didn’t know what was going on,” Lepingwell-Tardieu said. “And now, we don’t even know the names of the people. I also think that’s not fair because everyone in that year will be under speculation.”
