Edmonton Journal

Serious cases of gender-based violence at University of Alberta hold steady

Discipline office deals with only the most egregious offences, official says

- JURIS GRANEY jgraney@postmedia.com

Serious sexual assault or harassment complaints filed at Alberta’s largest university have remained largely steady over the past two academic years, the latest figures show.

Thirteen cases of what the university categorize­s as sexual assault, threats of violence based on gender, creating a condition that threatens the safety or well-being of others and sexual harassment were referred to the University of Alberta’s Student Conduct and Accountabi­lity office in the 2016-17 academic year.

In 2015-16 those complaints numbered 12.

While that may seem low, the discipline office only deals with the most serious and egregious cases of gender-based violence and as such only records complaints made under the Code of Student Behaviour to the university’s protective services.

Director Deb Eerkes said the number represents “a very specific part of the picture of sexual violence” at the university.

Several other bodies on campus collect data about the number of victims who have come forward to report gender-based violence, such as the sexual assault centre and Residence Services.

But because a victim may disclose an attack to multiple services and not make an official complaint and because the university, in protecting students’ privacy does not collect their names or student ID numbers, disclosure­s are not counted in the annual student conduct and accountabi­lity statistica­l report released last week.

“We are never going to claim that we know how many people have experience­d sexual violence,” Eerkes said.

The university released a new Sexual Violence Policy in June to address disclosure­s and complaints, as well as codifying responses and support services for victims.

The policy’s creation was one

We are never going to claim that we know how many people have experience­d sexual violence.

of 46 recommenda­tions of the Review of the University of Alberta’s Response to Sexual Assault in 2016.

As for other student conduct, serious plagiarism offences dropped to eight this past year from 20 in 2015-16 and 10 in 2014-15, a decrease attributab­le to the fact that a lot of first-time plagiarist­s are learning their lessons when first caught, Eerkes said.

Meanwhile, severe sanctions levelled against U of A students have normalized after spiking dramatical­ly in 2015-16.

In that year, the accountabi­lity office handed out 29 suspension­s and three expulsions, but in this past year, 14 students were suspended and five students were expelled.

In 2013-14, those numbers were six and one, respective­ly.

“I don’t know if that is any type of pattern. Every once in a while we have those anomalous years where the planets align,” she said.

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