Over the past year, unions and student representatives from across campus have been working on the Carleton stand-alone sexual assault policy. In the past month, two stakeholder meetings have been cancelled, and disagreement has erupted over the use of the term “rape culture” in the policy. The process has been fraught with tension.
The ‘risk management’ approach of Carleton administrators prioritizes the university’s reputation over the needs of students, workers, and survivors, and has been particularly discouraging. The disregard for survivors in the process has been heartbreaking. Students and workers are the real experts in creating a consent culture at Carleton.
Carleton needs to respect, prioritize, and incorporate the needs and experiential knowledge of survivors, rather than ignoring or speaking for us. Even though Carleton is legally required to consult with the campus community on the development of the policy, mid- and upper-level administrators (with some exceptions) have failed to meaningfully consult with students and unions, and particularly survivors of sexual violence.
Furthermore, unions, student services centres, and student representatives know the working and learning conditions of their members, and have the best ability to be able to consult with these members. Historically, they have been the ones leading the anti-violence work on campus. Their knowledge and skills must be taken seriously and respected.
Meaningful consultation must also be ongoing, and incorporated into every aspect of anti-violence work at Carleton. Students, workers, and survivors should have seats on the review committee for the sexual assault policy, which should undertake frequent reviews of the policy. There should also be community oversight to make sure that the policy is being implemented correctly, and in a way that serves the needs of survivors. By excluding our voices in these processes, Carleton puts the safety of students, faculty, workers, and community members at risk.
Alongside procedures and protocols for responding to sexual violence, the university also needs to prioritize increased funding for Equity Services and Health and Counselling Services at Carleton. These services are desperately needed on campus, providing key sources of support for survivors, but they are chronically underfunded with a disproportionate share of the costs borne directly by students. Without proper funding for these services, Carleton is not meeting its duty to care to students and workers on campus.
Equity Services and its representatives have been significant allies for survivors on campus and have been meaningfully working with students and workers to end rape culture for years. Their front line service provision is central to the creation of a sustainable, equity driven, survivor centred policy that will work towards ending rape culture. Their role needs to be recognized and respected in the policy creation process, and they must be given sufficient autonomy to do their work.
Addressing rape culture and building a consent culture at Carleton requires that we work as a community to proactively address rape culture in an ongoing manner. This requires that we incorporate widespread consent training into undergraduate orientation as well as graduate and new teaching assistant (TA) orientation. It requires mandatory consent training for all new employees and volunteers on campus including new faculty, TAs, and residence fellows. Finally, it requires that consent training and broader discussions of consent be built into curriculum, and mandatory consent training required prior to the beginning of classes.
Students, workers, and survivors at Carleton have a great deal of expertise and knowledge, and can be an enormous resource in the development of a strong sexual assault policy. Unfortunately, the university has so far chosen to push us away and marginalize our role in the process. Unless administrators change their approach, Carleton will remain a university deeply embedded in a culture that legitimizes sexual assault and gender based violence.
