November | 2015 | Caesuria

thefragilityofmylife:

allthecanadianpolitics:

At every possible level, The University of British Columbia has failed its students who reported sexual assaults – and nothing looks like it will change.

On Sunday, three current and former graduate students in History held a press conference in which they condemn the university for a failure to act on multiple allegations of sexual violence. Multiple women allege that Dmitry Mordvinov, a 28-year old PhD student, is a serial abuser who committed a large range of sexual assaults including harassment, groping and rape.

The first approach to UBC over Mordvinov’s assaults was made in January 2014 with the first formal complaint following later that spring. While Mordvinov is no longer a student at UBC, he was registered as a UBC student at three conferences in the United States this month. His student status was not removed from UBC websites until November 19.

The women Mordvinov assaulted – and those who witnessed his assaults – made multiple complaints at the departmental level, at UBC’s Equity Inclusion Office, to Associate Vice-President of Equity and Inclusion Sara-Jane Finlay, the UBC ombudsperson and Student Conduct and Safety Services. There were likely more. Every office failed these women.

As if testimony from multiple women was not enough – and we know, in fact, that it rarely is – Mordvinov has admitted an assault took place and shows no remorse for his action. The fifth estate documentary that broke the story reported that Mordvinov told them in an email: “I do realize that in Canada drunk sex is non-consensual, although this thought unfortunately did not cross my mind back then.”

MA graduate Glynnis Kirchmeier witnessed one of Mordvinov’s assaults and was one of the first to make a complaint to the department. She aptly summed up the whole calamity in Sunday’s press conference: “UBC’s chance to do the right thing is over,” she said. She intends to file a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal by the end of the year. She’s asking anyone who reported sexual misconduct to the school during the past 20 years to contact her at ubcsexualassault@gmail.com.

UBC remains defiant

UBC is doing its best to spin this disgraceful episode positively. University President Martha Piper issued a textbook response to Sunday’s press conference: “I want to apologize to the women in these cases who feel they have been let down by our university.” None of the women involved in the complaint were approached personally by Piper with an apology. They weren’t even forwarded a link to the official UBC press release.

As rabble.ca blogger Lucia Lorenzi put it on Twitter, “If your apology is “I’m sorry you FEEL we let we down” when there’s concrete evidence you let survivors down…that’s not an apology.“ Incidentally, Lorenzi was also assaulted on UBC campus in a separate incident. She complained. Virtually nothing has happened.

While Piper acknowledged that “the process took too long,” in what reads almost as a rebuke to the complainants, she added that “Due process can be frustrating and time-consuming.” No one, neither Mordvinov nor the complainants received anything close to “due process.”

In fact, the entire episode is characterized by an allergy to process of any kind. In an email, Kirchmeier characterized the university’s response to her repeated requests for clarity as “appease, appease, appease and fade.” She also revealed that Mordvinov wasn’t informed of the complaints against him until May 2015 and the details were not disclosed to him until August. It’s also unclear what internal appeal process is available to Mordvinov now that he has been expelled over a non-academic matter.

For her part, Finlay told The National that UBC hoped to “learn” from the experiences of the complainants. Aside from the fact that the experiences of sexual assault survivors should not be treated as archives or seminars for institutions unable to adequately support its students, UBC doesn’t need to “learn” anything. In fact, it already has all the answers it needs.

Some of this may sound familiar: in 2013, UBC made national headlines because of a chant celebrating rape used during frosh week at Sauder School of Business. The university commissioned a task force to address the culture of sexual violence at the school. Almost none of the recommendations have been implemented.

Kaitlin Russel, one of the complainants, has demanded UBC implement a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) designed to deal with similar complaints quickly and efficiently. For years, UBC refused to create a sexual assault resource or survivors centre so UBC’s student union, the AMS, opened their own in 2002. Like most student-run campus centres nationwide, it remains chronically underfunded and understaffed.

When a report came out earlier this year showing that UBC’s internal statistics for reported sexual assaults were roughly one-fifth of the number recorded by the on-campus RCMP detachment, Vice President of Students Louise Cowin, incredulously, again attempted to spin the report positively: “UBC as a campus culture, as a campus environment, really, holds a space where the intention of care and inclusion are very much present so that those who are survivors of sexual assault know that they can come forward in a safe space where their voices will be heard.”

If those words sounded suspect then, they are downright farcical now.

To say I’m ashamed to be a part of this institution is an understatement. Year after year, UBC has continuously failed to protect victims in any way from their perpetrators and instead told them to keep it quiet to save UBC’s face as an prestigious academic institution.

And for anyone who thinks this is a one-time isolated incident, UBC’s internal statistics reports only one-fifth of the sexual assaults on campus, whereas the RCMP databases lists much, much more.

Martha Piper did not care about these women; she, alongside with every staff who these women and others turned to for help, let them down, to prevent disgrace and shame on the university. Once these allegations came to light, the blame is put upon due process and other bullshit and an apology is made to the victims, indirectly.

For the past four years, I have never felt safe on campus. Those rape whistles UBC handed out to keep me safe; they’re fucking useless if UBC intentionally let Dmitry Mordvinov walk the campus, despite the victims speaking out and instead asked the victims to talk things out with him. For an university that is advanced and known internationally, UBC surely says some dumb shit.

Sorry to tell you UBC, but I am not UBC.

UBC failed its students who reported sexual assault at every level

talesofthestarshipregeneration:

ralfmaximus:

fyeahlilbit3point0:

On NPR they were talking to this guy who specializes in created languages, who does all the languages for like Game of Thrones, Penny Dreadful, and a bunch of sci-fi and fantasy movies.

I applauded when the interviewer asked the guy if he ever considered using obscure native languages because “It’s not like anybody would notice,” and he scoffed like “Are you asking me if I’m gonna take someone’s cultural heritage and ascribe it to aliens or demons or elves? Because the answer is no.”

That would be David J. Peterson!

Here’s the npr interview.

its not like anyone would would notice?!??! what they think native people dont watch tv or something?