All 20 Ontario universities have committed to reviewing their policies for prevention and response to sexual assault.
The commitment follows an ongoing Toronto Star investigation released in October which revealed only nine of Canada’s 78 public universities have stand-alone policies to address campus sexual assault.
The investigation probed incidents where students sought help following a sexual assault but met a confusing administrative system and little support.
The advantage of a stand-alone policy is clarity for how victims can seek support, and the message to students that sexual assault is taken seriously by administration.
Most schools’ sexual assault policies are included in other policies that also deal with plagiarism and bomb threats, according to the Star.
Bonnie Patterson, president of the Council of Ontario Universities, said these policies “aren’t easy enough for survivors to access quickly and navigate through to seek needed support.”
Western University is one of the nine schools with a stand-alone policy to prevent and respond to sexual assault.
“We decided about a year or two ago that with the demographic we serve here at the university that a stand-alone policy on sexual violence was the best practice,” Western University housing executive Susan Grindrod said. “It’s something very important to our students.”
Western University has a webpage that defines consent and sexual assault and directs victims to emergency resources to file a report and seek counseling or medical attention.
“Obviously, when you think of the media and all the things that have happened, we’re on the right track,” Grindrod said.
According to the Star, many schools argued the problem with their sexual assault policies is their accessibility, not the policy itself.
All 20 Ontario universities currently offer counseling, prevention education, support services, and a complaints process, according to Patterson.
“The review of existing policies and procedures will continue over the next few months,” Patterson said, “Universities are committed to working together to share best practices and address what they’ve each been dealing with until now individually.”
The handling of a 2012 sexual assault at the University of Saskatchewan was singled out in the Star’s investigation.
A rape was reported to the university, but there was no follow-up and it took six weeks for the school to alert other students of the incident, according to the Star.
Patti McDougall, University of Saskatchewan vice-provost (teaching and learning) has been given the mandate of reviewing the school’s policies.
McDougall said since the school committed to reviewing sexual assault policies, she has started researching the policies at the nine schools where they are already in effect to “make use of the good work of others.”
McDougall highlighted Carleton University’s co-ordinator of sexual assault services position, and said she might call the school to find out how it works, for example.
McDougall added she plans to go out on her own campus and consult the people the policies would affect, otherwise her work would be a failure.
McDougall said as long as they “did everything right [and] did all the right consultation,” the new policy would hopefully be in place for the fall of 2015.
All Ontario universities who had already committed to reviewing their policies also promised to implement their own websites to offer students information on how to a launch formal complaint against perpetrators, inform victims of their rights and options, and link them to support and counseling services.
Each university will make sure the website is accessible through an online search engine, according to Patterson.
The Star’s investigation also found that all of Ontario’s public colleges lack policies to address sexual assault on campus.
The college presidents voted to work together to create a provincial, stand-alone policy to address the issue.
