Students for Survivors

Among student activists and peer supporters at the University of Toronto, there is an unspoken understanding that the Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre should be held at an arm’s length. While it is the only place that students can go for academic accommodations after an incident of sexual violence, it is underfunded, difficult to access, and lacking in its intersectional approach. 

Reaching out for support is a daunting task. When a survivor makes the brave initial step to call the Centre, there should be someone there to answer.

To date, there is no policy at the University of Toronto which bars a professor from pursuing an intimate relationship with a student. This is despite the known harm such relationships cause to students, and despite bans at other leading institutions. There is no situation in which the power dynamic between a member of faculty/staff and an undergraduate student does not make consent suspect. Universities are institutions of learning, not dating pools for staff. 

The most effective way to address an incident of sexual violence is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Unfortunately, the University’s response to sexual violence to date is almost entirely reactionary, with little to no preventative action. Once the University has investigated the driving factors of rape culture on campus, it must determine next steps for adequately minimizing them through prevention-based mechanisms.

For those who experience sexual violence on-campus, the institution has already failed to protect them once. It is imperative that the University be honest with them about their options, as well as potential complications that may occur. A survivor of sexual violence should be made aware of the details of the disclosure/reporting procedures before they choose to do so – this is the basic principle of informed consent.

Universities have been a known sexual violence “hot spot” for decades, and rates have not declined since they began to be recorded. Rape culture is the normalization of societal attitudes which excuse and trivialize sexual violence, and it is alive and well at the University of Toronto. It is impossible to address an issue without determining its root cause, and for that reason, the University must commit to investigating the driving factors or rape culture on campus.