Students for Consent Culture (SFCC)—a student-led not-for-profit organization seeking to end campus sexual violence—has released a one-year report on school sexual violence policies nationwide.
The group—formerly known as OurTurn—had released a National Action Plan in 2017.
The national action plan was the first document to grade Canadian post-secondary institutions’ sexual violence policies, coming up with a national average of C-, according to the group’s website.
Caitlin Salvino, co-founder of OurTurn and SFCC advocacy lead for 2018-19, said in the report, titled “In Our Turn—A Year After,” that the National Action Plan’s impact “feels almost immeasurable.”
Some of the things hailed as successes in the report were cross-country student movement which saw 42 student groups from across eight provinces signing or using the National Action Plan to support their work in fighting sexual violence.
However, the SFCC also recognized the shortcomings of its scoreboard which garnered a lot of media attention in the report.
“As a centralized scoring method, it was not able to properly be adapted to the specific nuances and differing needs between rural, urban, small and/or larger campuses,” the report read.
There were important sections, such as whether institutions have acknowledged the intersectional impacts of sexual violence, that were unable to evaluate whether institutions are supporting marginalized students—specifically, those who experience sexual violence beyond the preamble or definitions section, according to the report.
Additionally, the report notes that some schools—those that received scores such as B+ or higher—used the scoreboard to justify not reforming or amending their policies.
But, some student unions found it helpful to identify key sections of their policies that they can improve on.
The SFCC’s report found that Dalhousie University has had some of the most successful policy reforms.
According to the SFCC, the school’s policy improved from an D+ to an A+ between 2017 and 2019, making it one of the best in Canada.
Graphic from files
