Above: Tough talk from those in charge at the University of Ottawa after allegations of sexual assault involving the men’s hockey team and other male students being reprimanded for lashing out at a female student leader. Mike Le Couteur reports.
OTTAWA – The president of the University of Ottawa announced the creation of a Task Force on Respect and Equality after allegations of sexual misconduct involving students, but one student leader doesn’t think it will lead to change on campus.
Allan Rock made his first public comments Thursday morning since the university’s men’s hockey program was suspended Monday amid a police investigation of an alleged sexual assault while the team was on a road trip for a game in Thunder Bay, Ont.
“For us to jump to a conclusion now and take academic sanctions against people subject to a police investigation…that would not be right,” said Rock.
President of CUPE 2626 and masters student Isabelle Hetu is part of the Independent Initiative Against Rape Culture on campus, and agrees that punishment is the job of the police, not the university.
But Hetu said she doesn’t expect to see results of the task force in the near future.
“A lot of other task forces that have been created by the University of Ottawa in the past years, they’ve all ended up on a shelf and no one’s heard about it,” she told reporters following Rock’s press conference.
“They talked about discouraging people, not changing the culture on campus.”
Hetu’s initiative believes the way to change things is through a “bottom up” approach, and has eight recommendations she’s hoping to discuss with university officials.
“One of them is to make a mandatory course about harassment and discrimination…and get credits for it,” she said. Other ideas included improved access to women’s resources and a working group during frosh week made up of members from the department of women’s studies who can inform students on issues of harassment.
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Thunder Bay Police haven’t released any details about the alleged sexual assault, but said Thursday they were looking at a number of players on the team—not necessarily as suspects—who they will be working with during the investigation.
“Anyone who had any connection with the incident in Thunder Bay who was travelling with the team, et cetera, who may have information—we will be looking at,” said spokesperson Chris Adams.
Adams declined to comment on whether the female victim knew the players allegedly involved. He said police can’t comment on whether there’s a potential that the public is at risk, since players are still attending classes in Ottawa.
“That’s strictly something that the university has to be responsible for,” said Adams.
When asked for the university’s rationale behind the program suspension, Rock gave two answers: The university wanted to investigate why weeks passed before university management learned of the alleged incident, and then alluded to interviews conducted by coaches which brought to light some information that “justified a suspension.”
The Task Force’s mandate will be to report back by fall 2014 with specific recommendations to the university’s president on “ways to promote respectful behaviour on campus, particularly towards women.”
“Our campus is safe. We have policies and practices in place to protect students, employees and staff from sexual violence and from harassment. The question we are now asking is whether these policies and practices can be improved,” said Rock in his statement.
The university is also facing allegations of having a so-called rape culture after sexually threatening banter about the school’s student federation president was posted online.
Four student leaders resigned on the weekend after a private Facebook chat about student union leader Anne-Marie Roy was made public. Rock said Roy was involved in a discussion of next steps, and didn’t believe those students should face academic sanctions.
University of Ottawa Chancellor Michaëlle Jean joined Rock at the press conference, and said the incidents are the “tip of a systemic iceberg” that’s part of a continuum of violence.
“A continuum of violence that extends from locker room talk, where abuse may be spoken in jest, to actual physical violation,” said Jean. “We also saw how the violence and degradation behind the words are minimized…accepted and even glorified by many.”
Jean said sexualized violence against women and discrimination are broader societal issues and that the university will use the “task force for a collective solution to rid our community, to rid humanity from its heritage of violence.”
As for the hockey team, Rock said he hoped it wasn’t the end of the University of Ottawa’s men’s varsity program.
“I hope it’s the beginning of a hockey program which has answers to some of the questions on our minds now,” he said.
“And we look forward to having a team back on the ice which we can all support.”
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