Tough questions are being raised about how Simon Fraser University responded to three separate sexual assault allegations against the same student.
On Tuesday, the university confirmed it received complaints from three female students about the same male student at some point during the spring semester.
“We immediately began the process of investigating and sent those investigations to the RCMP, who are right now carrying on an ongoing investigation,” SFU spokesman Kurt Heinrich told CTV News.
Heinrich said the university also conducted a thorough safety assessment with input from Mounties and specialists from SFU, and “put in place measures in order to mitigate any potential safety concerns.”
But the university has said it can’t provide any details about what specific measures were taken for reasons of privacy, leaving some concerned students with as many questions as answers.
According to one source who attended a meeting about the issue on campus, the male student lived in the same residence building as two of the alleged victims, and was moved to another building in light of their complaints.
Concerns from a victim
If true, that response would be completely unacceptable, according to another SFU student who told CTV News she was the victim of an unrelated sexual assault last September.
“Simply moving him to another room is really trivializing what happened,” said the young woman, who asked not to be named.
The student said one thing she would have liked to have seen, in response to several sexual assault allegations against the same person, is a public warning.
“I feel like it’s almost inviting more cases to develop because people aren’t being adequately warned about it,” she said.
Asked how she feels about the university’s response to her own sexual assault last fall, the young woman said she was promised unspecified “sanctions” were handed out, but she has seen her alleged attacker on campus and she feels no safer than she did before she came forward.
“I feel like nothing came out of the reporting process,” she said. “I don’t know what [the sanctions] are, I don’t know what’s stopping him from violating them.”
Accused not on campus
SFU said the subject of the spring complaints is not on campus, but could not confirm whether he was asked to leave or is simply away for the summer and potentially returning next semester.
“I can’t get into those specific details,” Heinrich said.
The SFU Women’s Centre said security staff and administrators can face serious challenges balancing the need to keep sexual assault reports confidential while protecting the community.
“This is one situation where we’re really seeing that tension come up,” centre coordinator Leah Horlick said.
But there’s no question that SFU’s current policy for dealing with sexual assault reports could use improvement, she added.
Fortunately, improvement could soon be coming, thanks to the recently passed Bill 23 requiring all post-secondary institutions in B.C. to write standalone policies dealing with sexual violence.
“Everyone recognizes that it is lacking,” Horlick said. “Even if we have a conduct policy, it needs to be spelled out clearly so that students, survivors, staff members have something to fall back on to say, ‘No, that was sexual assault and it’s not OK, we won’t tolerate it.’”
Survivors of sexual violence can find resources on SFU’s website and can contact campus security at 778-782-4500. Students who are interested in submitting input on SFU’s new policy can do so online.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Mi-Jung Lee
