Montreal (AFP) – A university in westernmost Canada Wednesday became the latest in North America to face a backlash over its handling of sexual assault allegations by students.
Three women at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver, British Columbia alleged that a fellow student sexually assaulted them in separate incidents on campus last semester.
Since then, two of the accusers have dropped out of school, apparently after the man was allowed to continue his studies while under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“We know of three allegations of sexual assault that were made last semester by female students against one male student,” SFU vice president Jon Driver said in a statement Tuesday.
“The individual who is the subject of these allegations is not on campus,” he said, but did not elaborate on the suspect’s enrollment.
SFU economics professor Marjorie Griffin Cohen, who is also a member of a network of female academics, called the university’s reaction “indifferent.”
Sexual assaults at universities across North American have ignited controversy in recent years over the way school administrators and the justice system handles them.
An American judge drew protests earlier this month after he handed down only a six month sentence against a former Stanford University student who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman in 2015.
The man is likely to serve just three months of the sentence.
The entire University of Ottawa men’s hockey team, meanwhile, was suspended in 2014 after two players were charged with sexually assaulting a female student at an away game in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
At Simon Fraser University, 14 sexual assaults were reported over the last four years, not including the latest cases.
Last week, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark revealed for the first time that as a child she had been pulled into bushes by a stranger, but managed to escape.
Her revelation was made in the context of supporting a bill that gives local universities one year to put in place policies on sexual violence that better respond to complaints.
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