Sexual harassment policies reviewed


KARL JAROSIEWICZ | The new season of Senate began on September 17, and the meeting got under way with extended discussion of the long-awaited final Report of the Board of Governors Committee on the Regulations Concerning Complaints of Sexual Harassment. Five years in the making, the report contains changes to the University's sexual harassment policy and procedures which were made in response to a student motion dating back to December 1992.

Although the University had had a sexual harassment policy in place since 1986, the student motion called for an in-depth review, to be based on consultations with the McGill community, comparisons with other universities and a review of court cases involving sexual harassment. A workgroup to review the policy was appointed in February 1993.

This workgroup's original report, accompanied by a minority report written by Professor Katherine Young, was discussed in Senate on May 4 and May 18, 1994. On both occasions, the documents were referred back to the workgroup for further consideration. The minority report addressed concerns that the definition of sexual harassment was too vague in the original and that it didn't contain any provision for formal investigative hearings in contested cases.

On September 26, 1994, the Board of Governors approved reconstitution of the workgroup because, despite unanimous agreement on nearly all points, the first workgroup was unable to reach consensus on the two items mentioned above.

By November 1995, the second workgroup presented the revised Regulations Concerning Complaints of Sexual Harassment to Senate, but recommended that the discussion be deferred until the regulations concerning disciplinary measures for academic staff were presented to the Board. These new disciplinary procedures were approved by the Board, effective September 1, 1997, allowing Senate discussion on the sexual harassment policy revisions to continue.

According to the report's foreword, the revised regulations contain "a number of relatively minor changes...made in the interests of clarity and accuracy." They also contain some major changes involving the definition of sexual harassment, the role of the assessors (who will now be referred to as officers), and the opportunity for a hearing in contested cases.

During discussion, there was consensus among senators on the issues and definitions, although some attempted to broaden the language in an effort to cover instances of sexual harassment that might not be obvious in the wording presented.

Students' Society president Tara Newell asked that the "environment" referred to in the definition of sexual harassment include any extracurricular activity. This idea was supported by PGSS representative Anna Kruzynski, because "a lot of sexual harassment occurs during extracurricular activities."

Dean of Law Stephen Toope said he was in favour of the amendment since it was "useful," and it "broadened and included" circumstances that might not be covered in the clause. Professor Nick de Takacsy was not convinced and expressed concern over the word "extracurricular."

"If the university is responsible, sure, but if it's off campus it's outside our jurisdiction."

Dean of Students Rosalie Jukier countered that section 2 applied the regulations to harassment by members of the "University community on property occupied by the University, in a residence, or otherwise in a University context."

The amendment was voted on and carried. However, a further effort by Newell to add a sentence to include electronic communications failed. The majority of senators agreed that all forms of sexual harassment, even those made through e-mail, were covered in the wording.

One of the items that generated a lot of discussion was an effort to include "an assessment of the assessors." Newell tried to add a clause calling for "a review of an officer's performance at the end of each year." Both Newell and Kruzynski stated that performance appraisals were necessary because, in the past, the University had ignored students' complaints about the performance of one officer in particular.

"On what criteria would the officers be evaluated?" was a question asked by Professor Patrick Farrell and echoed by senator Sharon Bezeau, a sexual harassment officer herself. She added that she had a problem with being evaluated by a complainant, not with a performance appraisal itself. Newell answered that students often consulted the Students' Society's Sexual Assault Centre with complaints about sexual harassment officers. She suggested that the centre could, therefore, perform the appraisals.

Considering the confidential nature of the process, Bezeau asked how the centre could possibly be in a position to know what had transpired. "How would they then assess the performance?"

Dean Jukier put forth an amendment to read that "officers would continue to serve at the discretion of the Principal." This would allow the Principal to remove an officer if complaints against him or her warranted such action. The suggested amendment was accepted.

Interestingly, the most heated discussions were not policy-related but word-related. For instance, section 7.3 used the word "file" to describe variously documents, reports and cases. There were numerous attempts to interpret the original sense of the passage. Moreover, the confusion was not alleviated by the fact that no one present could sort out the different meanings.

Finally, with suitable changes to the wording, the entire report, as amended, was accepted by Senate and recommended for approval to the Board of Governors.

A second recommendation was introduced, to ensure "that the composition of any hearing panel struck in cases of sexual harassment contain a representative of the constituency of the complainant."

Dean Toope spoke eloquently against this recommendation, urging that we avoid getting lost in the politics of identity. He said that the concept of constituency was simply too difficult in the University context.

"I despair that at this late hour we're beginning this discussion," commented Principal Shapiro. He called for a motion to refer this recommendation back to the committee. A motion was made and approved.

Quarterly reports on staffing changes, both academic and support staff, reveal that numbers continue on a downward spiral. Vice-Principal (Academic) Bill Chan, during his report on academic staff, stated that the decline can't continue and warned of dire consequences if it does.

"We must renew we can't sustain this loss."

Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) Phyllis Heaphy noted that the administrative and support staff has in effect declined by 15% over the past couple of years.

"Management (M-level) staff has stayed steady because of the creation of temporary contract positions. They're certainly full-time, but not permanent." She added that the overall decrease in staff can be attributed to the hiring freeze. Executive positions alone have decreased dramatically since May 1993, from 28 to only 15.

"Many departments are doing less with less! Many of us are doing more than one job." She called this a serious situation that will affect the level and quality of service.