HALIFAX – Françoise Baylis, a Dalhousie professor and the Canada Research Chair in bioethics and philosophy, says students have told her they’re worried about returning to class.
“They have real concerns about coming back to the classroom with people that seem to have very strong misogynistic views,” she said.
Baylis is one of four Dalhousie University faculty members who have gone public in an effort to expedite a formal complaint with the university.
The complaint, which was also submitted by Jocelyn Downie, Brian Noble and Jacqueline Warwick, calls on Dalhousie University to temporarily suspend members of the dentistry school who posted sexist and abusive comments about female students on a private Facebook page. They hoped their complaint would trigger an interim suspension before Jan. 5, the first day of classes.
Baylis says when the faculty members first submitted the formal complaint with the university two weeks ago, they had requested their names be kept confidential. She explains the reasoning behind the request was to “establish a positive precedent for future complaints.” However, with the start of classes looming, and because of what the four professors say are “unexplained delays,” they decided to release their names.
“The complaint didn’t seem to be dealt with in a timely fashion and we began to worry that our request that the names be kept confidential was part of the delay process,” said Baylis.
According to Dalhousie spokesman Brian Leadbetter, an update on the process will be made public this week.
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“In December, we advised that Dalhousie will have our preliminary assessment of the formal complaint filed on December 22 completed in early January. We fully expect to share that update this week,” said Leadbetter in a statement.
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Baylis says while she’s disappointed with the time the university is taking, she’s pleased the issue is being addressed.
“We may have different strategies and different ways of thinking about it but we’re all on the same page to say that we cannot and will not tolerate this kind of misogynistic behaviour,” she said.
A protest to demand more action on the issue is planned for Monday. It will be held at noon at Dalhousie University.
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