She ended up on Zoom with the man accused of raping her. She doesn't want it to happen to other students

She still remembers how her hands shook uncontrol‐ lably as she logged into the initial video hearing con‐ vened by her university af‐ ter she reported being raped on campus in 2021, dreading seeing the man, a fellow student, accused of assaulting her.

The young woman, whose name is protected by a court publication ban, said coming forward to Université SainteAnne forced her to recount her experience several times, including to professors, staff and students at the small francophone university in southwestern Nova Scotia.

The woman said her men‐ tal health deteriorated as she tried to cope with the after‐ math of the alleged rape, while struggling to get acade‐ mic accommodations, over‐ hearing hateful rumours around campus, and trying to navigate both a police inves‐ tigation and the school's.

"I had a horrible panic at‐ tack afterward. It was just … I had to see him again, and hear him and feel watched," she said of the initial hearing.

"I was just falling apart. I didn't even want to be alive anymore."

The young woman said she attempted to end her life, was hospitalized and subsequently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disor‐ der.

In an effort to turn things around for herself and oth‐ ers at Sainte-Anne, last fall the woman helped launch an online campaign calling for the end to rape culture on the campus of about 350 fulltime students in Church Point, N.S.

The woman's experience, which she said involved the school going to police on her behalf and a drawn-out hear‐ ing process, is an example of how sexual assaults should not be handled, she and some professors following the campaign told CBC News.

"I just didn't want studen‐ ts, present or future, to have to go through what I went through," said the woman. "I knew if nothing was done, it would keep happening. It's been happening for decades and it's been brought to their attention over, and over, and over again."

University administrators declined multiple requests for an interview and did not respond to a request for more information about the reporting process, the wom‐ an's experience and how the university has responded to the SA Change Now cam‐ paign.

The school said in an emailed statement to CBC News in November that is has installed more lighting on campus and recently revam‐ ped its sexual violence policy. However, it remains unclear what has changed.

A wider issue

Sainte-Anne may be the latest university in Atlantic Canada to grapple with alle‐ gations of fostering a rape culture, but calls for reckon‐ ings around sexual violence have been a familiar refrain for the past decade, with stu‐ dents imploring their institu‐ tions to adopt approaches that support survivors and strip away the silence around a problem they say is all too common.

According to a 2020 Statis‐ tics Canada report, 71 per cent of students at Canadian post-secondary institutions had witnessed or experi‐ enced "unwanted sexualized behaviours" in the previous year.

Eight years ago in Nova Scotia, the provincial govern‐ ment even tied funding in‐ creases to measures, includ‐ ing having policies for sexual violence, in response to calls from students who said there were a patchwork of ap‐ proaches and services on campuses.

There have been high-pro‐ file cases of sexual assault al‐ legations at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., leading to one criminal case, and a lawsuit launched by a complainant alleging the school failed to protect stu‐ dents that's still winding its way through the courts.

Late last year, the Univer‐ sity of Prince Edward Island created seven new positions following a scathing external review that looked at allega‐ tions of sexual violence, bul‐ lying, racism and sexism on campus, with both students and staff as victims.

Nearly every public uni‐ versity and college in Atlantic Canada has an office or per‐ son on staff dedicated to hearing complaints and working with survivors of sexual assault. But members of the SA Change Now cam‐ paign said Sainte-Anne is far behind its counterparts, and that not enough has been done on campus to address

the issue.

After a student-led cam‐ paign erupted at Mount Alli‐ son University in Sackville, N.B., in 2020, the school com‐ missioned an external review of its policies.

"A lot of people have been here a long time and it's of‐ ten hard to see where the problems are when you've just been doing the same thing for decades potential‐ ly," said Lisa Dawn Hamilton, a psychology professor and sexual health researcher who co-chaired an internal com‐ mittee that responded to the review and examined the school's approach to sexual violence.

As a result of that work, the school created a new po‐ sition and Hamilton said there's more emphasis on ensuring the staff who work with students reporting sexu‐ al violence or harassment have trauma-informed train‐ ing.

There are also options for counselling, help accessing academic support and efforts to ensure people don't en‐ counter any surprises through the school investiga‐ tion and hearing process, she said.

Policies must be 'trauma-informed'

She said being trauma-in‐ formed requires prioritizing consent when working with survivors, respecting bound‐ aries and ensuring someone tells their story as few times as possible.

The criteria laid out by Hamilton as to what's consid‐ ered best practices were not in place at Sainte-Anne, the young woman said, but they're similar to the goals laid out by the SA Change Now campaign.

The campaign has called for reforms including better lighting on campus, more support for survivors, includ‐ ing a psychologist, a sexual assault complaints office, an external review of the sexual assault hearing process, and trauma-informed profession‐ als throughout the hearing process.

The Sainte-Anne student reported her experience to her school's sole student ser‐ vices staff member, whom she said informed the admin‐ istration, the people in charge of her academic fu‐ ture.

The woman said that the university then reported her assault to the RCMP without her consent, which prompted officers to show up at her dorm room asking for a statement.

"I wasn't ready to give that statement yet," she said.

CBC News has been un‐ able to verify this indepen‐ dently, as police are not per‐ mitted to disclose this infor‐ mation, according to RCMP spokesperson Const. Do‐ minic Laflamme.

The university would not comment on this claim when asked.

The university paused its investigation as the police in‐ vestigation unfolded, and the process dragged on for more than a year. By that time, the student accused of the as‐ sault was graduating. It all became too much for the young woman, who eventual‐ ly ended her complaint in early 2023, feeling defeated, she said.

"I completely understood why victims and survivors sometimes choose not to re‐ port," she said.

The man was charged with sexual assault, but the Crown later dropped the charges.

The SA Change Now web‐ site launched last Septem‐ ber. As part of the initiative, the young woman and dozens of others shared their experiences of sexual assault and harassment on the cam‐ pus. In response, a petition garnered 800 signatures of support.

These accounts also prompted the Meteghan RCMP to launch a public ap‐ peal for information re‐ garding more than 50 inci‐ dents of alleged historical sexual assaults at the univer‐ sity.

But it's unclear what, if anything, has changed in the six months since then. Gib‐ son and the young woman said they have felt like their efforts have gone nowhere.

Sainte-Anne's director of communications, Rachelle LeBlanc, told CBC News in an email in November that the school's administration "un‐ reservedly condemns inap‐ propriate conduct of any kind" and she linked to the September 2023 sexual vio‐ lence policy.

In February, Const. Laflamme told CBC News that no one came forward to police and unless someone does, the investigation will remain closed.

Brian Gibson, an English professor and faculty adviser to SA Change Now, said he has been appalled by the ad‐ ministration's lack of re‐ sponse and behaviour to‐ ward the campaign, saying posters have been ripped down on campus.

"I think it's pretty embar‐ rassing for the university," said Gibson. "It's unfortu‐ nately symbolic of this ad‐ ministration not only not tak‐ ing the issue seriously, but in some cases, attacking the campaign in really trivial, sort of juvenile, delinquent ways."

Threats of academic consequences

Gibson said the administra‐ tion and many of his col‐ leagues still refuse to recog‐ nize the issue of rape culture on campus, often giving him the cold shoulder for his in‐ volvement with the cam‐ paign.

The young woman said one school administrator even called her cellphone and, during a conversation that lasted an hour, threat‐ ened her with academic con‐ sequences because of her role in the campaign.

The administrator in‐ structed the woman to stop putting up campaign flyers around campus, referring to them as "vandalism and ha‐ rassment."

"I'll get severe conse‐ quences for that, but my rapist and so many other rapists had no consequences and were just able to walk away with nothing. It's nice to see where their priorities lie, I guess."

CBC News reached out to the university about that alle‐ gation, as well as to the ad‐ ministrator, but did not re‐ ceive a response.

A pledge to keep going

Looking back on the hearing process, the young woman said that seeing the accused student at an administrative hearing was unnecessary. More discussion around how to hold those hearings in a way that supported her would have been helpful, she said.

She's still trying to cope with her PTSD, but continues with her studies and advo‐ cacy.

"I'm not optimistic about anything changing within the university because they don't care about their students. They have shown that for so long," she said. "They have neglected their duty of care for so long."

Despite feeling discour‐ aged, the woman said she re‐ fuses to give up and plans to stick with the campaign even after she graduates.

"I'll do it for as long as I have to, to make sure that they implement changes that are necessary to keep their students safe," she said.

For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of oth‐ ers around you, please call 911.

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