Tribunal says it will investigate baby-talk complaint

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will investigate a complaint against Vancouver Island University to determine whether female employees and students were harassed by an adult male student who favoured diapers and baby talk.

Initially, the tribunal did not accept the human rights complaint filed last July by Katrin Roth, VIU’s former director of human rights and workplace safety.

Roth alleged that the university failed to support and protect professors, staff and students who were threatened by the middleage man’s infantilist fetishes. She alleged that the student sexually harassed at least half a dozen women at two of the university’s campuses over approximately a two-year period, starting around 2015 and that VIU failed to take quick or meaningful action.

In August 2017, the tribunal gave Roth an opportunity to file additional information. Last week, tribunal chairwoman Diana Juricevic said she was prepared to accept the complaint with conditions and certain deadlines.

A Feb. 23 statement from the president’s office at VIU said the matter is in the preliminary stages of the tribunal process.

“VIU has not received the materials that were submitted and has not had an opportunity to respond. … Due to the high moral and legal obligations related to student and community member privacy, we have been unable to and cannot comment on or discuss any specific details,” the statement said.

“We appreciate the clarifications set out in the decision and, if the matter proceeds, welcome the opportunity to review the confidential details surrounding this situation in a fair, impartial and legal setting.”

Roth’s 105-page complaint to the human rights tribunal said the man submitted a photo of himself in a diaper as part of an English essay. In the photo, he is pointing to a dirty diaper. He asked the university’s nurse practitioner to change his dirty diapers twice. She refused to the second time.

He wore a soother and asked his English professor to read children’s books to him.

The student communicated in baby talk. For example, he sent an email to an English teacher, beginning with “Hewoh.”

Then he wrote about enjoying the day’s stories, “especially the pee pee part!”

In the same email, according to the complaint, he said: “I sometimes call people poo poo heads,” explaining that he doesn’t like to swear and enjoyed alliteration.

According to the complaint, one woman became so concerned she had her husband accompany her to a night class.

Another became frightened because she felt the man was watching her come and go from the university.

When the English professor reported the student’s conduct to a university official, she was told to grade the assignment with the diaper photo anyway.

The professor later learned the student wanted to file a human rights complaint against her, saying he was being discriminated against.

The complaint said the university asked the professor to meet with the student and let him continue in her course. She refused.

When the complaint became public, Shelley Legin, the university’s chief financial officer and vice-president of administration, said the university is confident it took all appropriate actions to maintain safety for everyone on campus.

Legin said VIU hired a legal expert, who acknowledged the university acted appropriately.

Roth said she believes the student needed professional psychological help. “The case is about his behaviour, the imposition of his fetish on non-consenting women at the university and the inadequacy of the university’s response to the concerns of those women,” she said.