This article contains mention of sexual assault.
The BC Human Rights Tribunal has rejected UBC’s application to dismiss a UBC alumna’s human rights complaint over the university's handling of an early 2010s sexual assault case.
Glynnis Kirchmeier filed a human rights complaint against UBC in March 2016 on behalf of several students assaulted by alleged assailant Dmitry Mordvinov. Mordvinov was a PhD student expelled in 2015 due to non-academic misconduct.
Kirchmeier is alleging that UBC mishandled the Mordvinov situation — several complaints were made to the university about his misconduct, with inexplicable delays before he was finally expelled in 2015. In her initial filings, Kirchmeier alleged that the university discriminated on the basis of sex by not having a developed and published formal sexual harassment and assault policy or “fact-finding process” which could detail the university’s liability, as well as a failure to “formally accept third-party reporting of sexual harassment, sexual violence and sexual assault.”
UBC began developing a stand-alone sexual violence policy shortly after Mordvinov’s expulsion and CBC released a documentary on UBC’s policy failures around sexual assault. The policy, SC-17, was updated in 2020.
UBC asked to have the complaint dismissed without a hearing, claiming that Kirchmeier “has no reasonable prospect of proving that it discriminated against her or the class members she represents.”
UBC also claimed that it acted diligently when expelling Mordvinov, that Kirchmeier “has no reasonable prospect” to claim that sex was a discriminatory factor in UBC’s response and that because it now has a new sexual violence policy, the issues brought up in the complaint have already been remedied.
The tribunal member, Devyn Cousineau, is also overseeing former UBC Okaganan student Stephanie Hale’s sexual assault policy human rights complaint. Hearings for Hale have been adjourned as of late, with a tentative resumption not yet set.
In the filing, Cousineau sought to determine whether Kirchmier had no prospect of proving discrimination and whether the issues have been remedied due to the new policy.
On discrimination, Cousineau wrote “that test simply requires Ms. Kirchmeier to prove that she and the class members experienced an adverse impact in respect of a service provided by UBC, and that their sex was a factor in that impact.”
“It is not a stretch, or significant expansion of the law, to suggest that an employer or service provider could discriminate against a person raising a complaint even if the person is not complaining about discrimination they experienced,” she wrote.
On the new policy, Cousineau wrote that while UBC’s new policies and procedures likely resolve some of Kirchmeier’s complaints, “they do not address the impact of any discrimination which Ms. Kirchmeier or class members may have experienced.”
It’s been nearly six years since she initially filed the complaint, but Kirchmeier said she’s still fighting in search of accountability for the women hurt by UBC’s policies.
“I think it’s worth it because institutional acceptance of sexual misconduct as just a thing that students have to put up with as the price of going to college is bullshit,” Kirchmeier told The Ubyssey. “I want to make sure that there are consequences at least, even if it’s just a little bit of embarrassment.”
UBC declined to comment as the case is still before the tribunal.
The hearing has not been set, but will likely occur in the second half of 2022, according to Kirchmeier.
This article has been updated to correct that Kirchmeier was not personally assaulted by Mordvinov.
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