Proposed changes to UBC student union sexual violence policy draw student outrage, national criticism

A national sexual violence advocacy organization says proposed changes to the University of British Columbia's students union's sexual violence policy would be "a step backwards" for survivors on campus.

The Alma Mater Society (AMS) is Canada's largest student union and is entirely independent of the university, though their sexual violence and misconduct policy jurisdictions do overlap.

The changes the AMS proposed would allow it to take "corrective action" against people who make false allegations and would decrease the frequency of automatic policy reviews from every two years to every three.

"To suggest that people coming forward are disclosing these experiences or making it up really downplays the issue at hand," said Kelsey Friesen, outreach lead for Students for Consent Culture Canada (SFCC). 

Friesen and campus advocates say the draft policy also doesn't meet the "bare minimum" policy standards the society itself has advocated the university and provincial government adopt. 

These standards, developed by Students for Consent Culture Canada, include protection from face-to-face contact between survivors and the accused, reasonable and binding timelines for the complaint process and explicit protections from gag orders.

"It's inappropriate that they would be advocating for these [principles] to be included in the government's policies when they're not implementing them in their own," Friesen. "If these go through, it causes harm to survivors and it harms everyone."

On Friday, AMS Council voted to defer the proposed changes following criticism and outrage from student groups who say they were blindsided and the proposal threw their feedback "out the window."

The elected student body has been reviewing the sexual violence and respectful workplace policies since 2021, but the final draft proposals were only published six hours before the previously-unannounced Council meeting.

"This is not what the community has been advocating for and is not what survivors of sexual violence need," read a Friday Instagram post by the student-run UBC Social Justice Centre, whose members spoke at the meeting but did not respond to a CBC interview request.

Outgoing AMS president Eshana Bhangu, whose term ended on April 30, said the proposed changes "captured the spirit" of the majority of SFCC's eleven principles, to which the AMS is a signatory.

"This was the version that the executive committee, human resources and the legal team felt … would benefit students and AMS employees," said Bhangu.

The AMS declined to make the new president, Esmé Decker, available for interview before publication.

Changes could discourage reporting: SFCC

But Friesen says the AMS's proposed draft is missing many important mechanisms to support survivors, including rape shield protections that prevent investigators from questioning a survivor about their sexual history and dedicated expert staff to take disclosures and investigate complaints.

"Already so few people report their experiences, we know that it's about one in 10," said Friesen. "The changes within this policy would even further discourage people from doing that."

Student leaders also raised transparency concerns about the last-minute meeting announcement, which violated the 48-hour notice AMS Code requires.

"It infringes on students rights to participate in creating democracy," said Daniel Anene-Akosa, president of the Student Legal Fund Society, which advocates on legal issues that concern UBC students.

Aashna Josh, manager of the AMS's Sexual Assault Support Centre which provides frontline support for students, says she and her team were consulted on the changes up until last fall.

"These policies are new on campuses, so there are a lot of changes in practice now that need to be made," she told CBC.

But Josh was not aware a draft had been finalized until the CBC phoned her for comment on Friday afternoon. "It would have been nice to be included," she said.

Bhangu said the late posting of the documents and meeting announcement was an internal issue caused by the busy end-of-term and transition period.

'Not in the best interest'

The university's Vancouver campus has been an epicentre of activism for universities to meaningfully prevent and respond to sexual violence in the wake of several high-profile allegations against instructors.

In 2016, the provincial government mandated post-secondaries to develop standalone sexual violence policies.

But the AMS's policy, introduced in 2019, applies to people and contexts that aren't necessarily covered by the university's measures, including the society's approximately 60 permanent and 400 temporary employees, and complaints the university deems don't have a "real and substantial" connection to UBC.

Friesen hopes the incoming executive will listen to community concerns and revise the draft before bringing it to a vote again.

"It's not trauma-informed and it's not in the best interest of students and survivors," she said.