ConU Student’s Complaint Accepted by Quebec Human Rights Commission

NewsSam Slotnick — Published October 23, 2012

A human rights complaint filed by a Concordia student and former employee of Concordia Instructional and Information Technology Services over a string of homophobic and sexist remarks in the workplace could change how universities across Quebec manage issues relating to homophobia on their campuses.

Last fall, Sofia, who asked that her last name not be used, filed an internal human rights complaint with Concordia following comments made by a coworker at IITS, which she thought to be harassment and discriminatory.

The university dismissed her complaint based on a recommendation made by Employee Relations staff that concluded, “the comment (‘that is so gay’ or ‘what a homo’) made by the respondent had not been directed at the complainant.”

The document also states that, “The action of engaging into argumentative discussions with an openly gay individual that happens to study women’s studies on the subjects mentioned above does not constitute harassment.”

Following the dismissal of her complaint, Sofia enlisted the help of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations and then went to the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission, who have accepted the complaint.

The case is now scheduled to enter mediation in November and will be the first case of this nature since the introduction of the Quebec government’s “Action Plan Against Homophobia,” which recommends—among other things—that universities adopt training programs regarding homophobia in the workplace.

According to Fo Niemi, the executive director of CRARR, this means that the upcoming negotiations could set a significant precedent regarding sensitivity training at universities, the lack of which Sofia thinks is one of the main sources of the problem.

“The university really needs to start training their employees before they put them to work—this is 2012, this is Concordia, this is Montreal,” said Sofia. “There aren’t many excuses for this behavior. If they don’t institute training, this kind of thing could happen again.”

But those who work closely with the Concordia procedure say the problem extends beyond just Sofia’s case and have called into question the university’s overall effectiveness when dealing with human rights complaints themselves.

“The biggest problem we have is that the remedies take the duration of the student’s stay and then [the students] are gone,” said Walter Chi-yan Tom of the CSU Legal Information Clinic, who aided Sofia in launching her complaint.

A submission recently sent by the CSU Legal Information Clinic to the working group that will be involved in the Universal Periodic Review on Canada—which is a UN branch responsible for reporting on human rights in a given country—tries to demonstrate what it calls the “systemic ineffectiveness of Concordia University’s procedural infrastructure in handling human rights complaints and the resulting impediment to students’ access to justice.”

Due to extenuating circumstances, representatives from Concordia could not be reached for a comment by press time.