After two executives had to step down due to sexual violence allegations, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) is developing their own sexual violence policy in hopes of avoiding such events in the future.
David Arid, a former vice-president (external) with the SSMU, stepped down in February 2017 after a group of students called the Community Disclosure Network (CDN) called for his resignation.
This came after more than a dozen students anonymously came forward and accused him of sexual violence in spaces that he had access to as the former president, explained Connor Spencer, the current vice-president (external) with the SSMU.
The allegations first arose during the student union’s elections in September 2016, when a student came forward with an allegation against Arid, according to The McGill Daily, the university’s campus paper.
The executives at the time then decided to deal with the issue by establishing ‘weekly check-ins’ with then-president Ben Ger and Arid, which Spencer describes as “incredibly inappropriate.”
“Who knows what those weekly check-ins were,” Spencer added.
Ger later resigned just weeks after Arid, citing “personal reasons.” At the time, SSMU council heard that there had been allegations of gendered violence made against Ger as well, according to the McGill Daily.
Following the resignation of the two members, the SSMU and the CDN worked together throughout the spring of 2017, and participated in consultations.
After consultations, the CDN presented a report to the students’ society in July 2017 on the changes they had for them on addressing such issues moving forward.
“The biggest recommendation they had was the creation of an internal sexualized and gendered violence policy because the reason that CDN had to make an anonymous public statement was because there were no internal regulations,” Spencer said.
In the past, survivors had to testify at a general assembly in front of all the executive members to get the board to have a vote on whether to remove an executive or not. This was the only semblance of a policy that they had on sexual violence, Spencer explained.
Over the summer of 2017, the SSMU organized a group of people to draft the policy and started working with Our Turn, she said.
Our Turn is a student-led initiative to end sexual violence on campus, which was started by former Carleton University student Caitlin Salvino.
Twenty student unions have signed onto the Our Turn National Action Plan which tailors the plan to each individual campus.
Spencer said they then presented the draft to “stakeholder groups” and the student-run Sexual Support Centre of SSMU and got important feedback from them, including that they found it inappropriate for executives to be the ones leading this initiative.
The SSMU proceeded to create a team, hiring three people, including Salvino, to coordinate the initiative moving forward.
Salvino said they have been working throughout the past semester with the stakeholder groups and have had seven consultations so far.
She said a draft policy will be presented in March of this year for more feedback, while the final report and draft will be presented at the end of May 2018.
Salvino said they are going to be mandating that all clubs get sexual violence prevention training and that all employees at the SSMU also receive it.
She explained that universities have their own sexual violence policies in place, but they have no jurisdiction over student unions since they are separate corporations.
In addition, since student executives are not hired into their positions, they cannot necessarily be fired, according to Salvino.
“We are focusing on prevention, support, advocacy, and response,” she said.
Photo by Aaron Hemens
