SECOND PERSON COMES FORWARD IN SEX SCANDAL

Second student recounts experience with CBU prof fired for demands of sex, moose meat

A former Cape Breton University student says she regrets not making a formal complaint three years ago against a professor who was fired this summer for demanding moose meat, lobster and sex from a student in exchange for better grades.

“I wish I did something back then. I wish I got him fired,” Jess Hardy said. “Then this situation wouldn’t have happened.”

Hardy was a first-year student at the university in 2016 when, she said, Shimal Fernandopulle made inappropriate comments and suggestions to her about her appearance and implied that he wanted a sexual relationship with her.

She said Fernandopulle was her chemistry lab professor and he spoke to her in class. He knew she had done some modelling work and her image was on posters around the campus for a mental health advocacy initiative.

“He asked me if I ever considered doing nude modelling, and I was very beautiful for it. That was a little much.”

She said he also commented on her relationship breakup, and said that he admired that she could have multiple partners, because he only had a relationship with his wife.

“It was mostly just inappropriate questions, like when

I lost my virginity and how many people I had slept with,” she said. “Different uncomfortable things like that.”

The number of sexual partners was a question he also asked the complainant in the harassment investigation earlier this year.

Hardy said students were far enough apart in the class that others couldn’t hear the conversation.

“He asked who was the oldest person I’d slept with, and if I’d consider sleeping with another man,” she said. “He worded it like he had been with his partner so long, he would love to be with someone else if he could find someone to keep it a secret with.”

She said she was shaken by the questioning.

“He subtly asked me if I would sleep with him. He didn’t outright say it, but every single question out of his mouth was leading toward whether I would sleep with him.”

She said she was young and nervous, and while she went to a dean of the university to explain what happened, “at the time I didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s life ... there was no part of me that wanted to be responsible for ruining his career.”

She said she decided to leave the issue as it was, rather than making a formal complaint to the human rights office, which she understood could lead to his dismissal.

“At the time I was terrified and young, and he would have known it was me who came forward about it, and I didn’t want that knowledge out there either.”

She ended up switching classes, but her marks suffered because she was avoiding the science building as much as possible. She switched her course of study the next year, but with concerns about seeing Fernandopulle in the hallways, her marks suffered further. She failed the year, and didn’t return to university.

The dean gave Fernandopulle a warning after Hardy’s complaint, and he had to take a class on appropriate behaviour with students.

A year after that, there was another complaint filed against Fernandopulle about inappropiate discussions with a student, The Chronicle Herald learned through mulitiple sources. That resulted in a formal written warning.

Hardy met with the other student who filed the complaint this year, having connected through a mutual friend. Her story was almost the same, she said.

Both the complainant earlier this year and the university hadn’t identified Fernandopulle, but Hardy said she quickly figured out who was at the centre of the complaint by talking to the woman who was asked for food and sex.

“I just used initials, I didn’t want to use names,” she said. “Hearing he was still doing it made me really angry and frustrated.”

Fernandopulle’s profile was removed from the university’s website in July, not long after officials told the complainant her harasser was being dismissed.

The university on Thursday declined further comment.

Hardy said she wants to tell her story now because she regrets not filing a formal complaint three years ago.

“I’ve had a long time to think about it, and I’ve had a lot of regrets that I’ve lived with for not going ahead with it,” she said. “I don’t want him to be able to do that to anybody ever again. I’m not the same person I was then, I’m definitely stronger and I’m not afraid of him. I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

She said she also wants people in similar situations to know that they should stand up when people in a position of power abuse that power.