Gwen Schwartz is trying to get her life back. And in the process, she’s changing U of T policy forever.

The PhD candidate filed a complaint of sexual harassment against a colleague in March, 2003, while she was working within the University Health Network (UHN), the group of teaching hospitals associated with U of T’s Faculty of Medicine.

Since then, Schwartz has only been able to reclaim bits and pieces of her research data. Her operating grants, teaching assistantship, and scholarship money were withdrawn and the PhD candidate had to fight to reclaim them. She has since brought the case to the Ontario Human Rights Commission where it is now under review.

UHN administrators declined to comment on Schwartz’s particular case, but The Varsity did obtain a letter stating: “UHN is committed to a workplace within which no one suffers harassment of any kind. To that end, policies and procedures are in place and are reviewed regularly to foster an environment of respect in the workplace and to have all understand that harassment is not acceptable.”

This is not the first time the UHN has had to deal with complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace. Last February, The Varsity profiled Loralyn Benoit, a PhD student who worked within the UHN. Benoit filed a sexual harassment complaint against an employee of the Princess Margaret Hospital in February of 2003. She found the process so lengthy, ineffective, and stressful that she attempted suicide. (See February 23, 2004 issue online at thevarsity.ca.)

Schwartz and Benoit’s cases have prompted U of T to fill in gaps in its complaint process, especially where the UHN and other off-campus organizations are involved. The Faculty of Medicine has initiated a communication strategy to stress the importance of handling sexual harassment complaints in a fair and efficient manner. This will be channelled through its graduate and professional education programs and its orientation process.

More recently, the Graduate Student Union (GSU) has put in place a committee that deals with issues grad students encounter while working at off-site locations. The issue of sexual harassment is not new to the union, said GSU president Mahadeo Sukhai. To help cope, grad students need more access to support networks, and the subcommittee hopes to bridge the gap between students and the policies designed to protect them.

Catharine Whiteside, Dean of Graduate and Inter-Faculty Affairs, said she is optimistic about Schwartz’s future, academically and professionally.

“She [Schwartz] has identified a new supervisor with whom the University is working diligently to ensure that Ms. Schwartz has access to her research data and that appropriate steps are taken for her to continue with her thesis program,” said Whiteside.

Before this incident, Schwartz was a top-notch student. For her master’s research in spinal cord injuries and repair, she was awarded Fellowship of the Year by the Cervical Spine Research Society. She’s received scholarships and attended numerous conferences all over North America and Europe to talk about her work.

Schwartz’s troubles began, she said, when a consensual relationship with her academic supervisor, Michael Fehlings, a top neurosurgeon and professor in U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, went sour. Until recently, no U of T policy addressed relationships between supervisors and their graduate students.

She alleges that he left her phone messages, followed her and confronted her at work, even after she felt that their relationship had ended. Schwartz said his advances became more persistent over time, and that although she resisted him, she found it difficult to continue her studies.

“At work it was meetings in his office where he would just fondle me and touch me and just degrading things,” she said. “He wouldn’t let me do my work. I tried to do my work but…it was always work, with something else.”

“I vehemently deny the allegations which Ms. Schwartz has made,” Dr. Fehlings told The Varsity, but also said he could not comment further because he is bound by a settlement not to discuss the specifics of the case.

A confidentiality agreement among the parties involved in the case prevents The Varsity from disclosing the particulars of the mediation, although Schwartz said that she does not feel bound by it.

A letter from Fehlings’ lawyer, Julian Porter, stressed Fehlings’ denial of the charges, and alleged that all parties involved had agreed to remain silent. Another letter from the UHN’s lawyers discouraged The Varsity from pursuing the story.

In March, 2003, Schwartz filed a complaint against Fehlings with the UHN. She was told by Emma Pavlov, VP Human Resources, that she was not allowed to go back to her supervisor’s research environment.

Unsatisfied with her treatment, Schwartz went to U of T for help. Steve Moate, U of T’s legal counsel, told her the university would not intervene because they wanted to avoid a duplicate process. U of T would not look at her complaint until the UHN had done so.

In the meantime, Schwartz was having difficulty continuing her research, and her first replacement supervisor was not a specialist in the field of spinal cord injury; Schwartz claims that her student status was terminated-an allegation that Dean Whiteside denies; Schwartz had difficulty being reimbursed for expenses and receiving her pay.

Schwartz did sign a draft-though not the final copy-of a settlement with the UHN. She said the settlement required her to sign numerous legal releases and did not protect her intellectual property, conditions with which she could not come to terms. Both Moate and Patty Stamp, U of T’s sexual harassment officer, now consider the matter closed. Schwartz does not.

Schwartz doesn’t feel like she has been protected at all. She believes that deliberate reprisals have been issued against her for filing the complaint.

“I think [the reprisals were] to shut me up,” she said. “I brought a complaint against a director of a research program and a full professor of the Faculty of Medicine.”

Brenda Gallie, Schwartz’s current graduate supervisor, said the problems with Schwartz’s case were not evidence of any deliberate attempt to silence her, but were the result of a lack of experience on U of T’s part in dealing with such complaints. Instead, said Gallie, “A simple answer might be that her academic area had not been considered-how she would continue as a grad student in a constructive way.”

The development of a humane complaint process is essential, said Gallie, one that is unhampered by the legal issues that marked Schwartz’s case.

Benoit is less optimistic. Her harasser was solely employed by the UHN; this is why, according to her, the university agreed to help her. In Benoit’s case, U of T helped facilitate an external investigation arranged by the UHN, which eventually found evidence of sexual harassment. Schwartz, on the other hand, brought forward complaints against an employee of both U of T and the UHN, and the university ceded authority over the case to the UHN.

Schwartz said that U of T’s decision not to take jurisdiction in her case made the complaints process more convoluted and difficult than it should have been. “I hold the university mostly culpable for everything, because the university stands for more than the hospital,” she said.

The university has taken notice, however: a new sexual harassment policy has just come out, authored by Whiteside and Stamp. The policy determines more clearly whether U of T or off-site locations, such as the UHN, are responsible for handling individual complaints. It also directs that the university is to be notified of every complaint and kept up to date on any procedures and policies that are to be followed, even if the allegation is against a non-U of T employee.

University policy on harassment and abuse may be improving, but the particulars of Schwartz’s case remain contentious.

A professor in the faculty of medicine contacted The Varsity, and wishing to remain unnamed, alleged that Schwartz is known for “going after” her colleagues and creating conflict.

“Most, if not all, of Ms. Schwartz’s allegations are fabricated lies,” he said. “I…like many colleagues and fellow students, have witnessed and experienced the abusive behaviour and intimidating tactics that the so-called ‘victim,’ Ms. Schwartz, has exhibited….”

Karlene Moore, a counsellor at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre who has been working with Schwartz over the past year, has heard this story before.

“When a woman tries to complain or achieve justice, whether it’s in the workplace or anywhere, one of the first things we hear back is some variation of ‘she’s crazy’,” said Moore. When women report sexual harassment, she said, they, not the situation itself, often come under the microscope.

Schwartz has dealt with being called a liar before; her complaint process was complicated by similar statements.

The answer, said Moore, is for workplaces to foster an environment that does not support sexual harassment and makes the investigation process less toxic for everyone involved.

Schwartz and Benoit said that they know of several other instances of sexual harassment within the UHN, but that victims are scared to come forward.

“I don’t feel that confidentiality is upheld in workplace diversity at the UHN,” said a PhD candidate who wished to remain anonymous. “So I’m afraid that if my name gets out there it could be a problem graduating, or make it a little difficult, and I don’t need that.”

Gallie says that it boils down to a particular mentality surrounding people in high-ranking positions, such as leading researchers: a willingness to tolerate what would ordinarily be deemed unacceptable.

“I’ll blame it on the vast commercial influence that people at the top…have. In several circumstances, [they have] an immunity to constraints on [their] behavior…,” she said.

Problems also arise, said Gallie, from the immense power that supervisors have over their students. The intense working relationship between graduate students and their faculty supervisors can be fraught with emotion, especially when a student’s future career hangs in the balance.

The dilemma remains: how does U of T ensure the right educational environment for students who are working at off-campus workplaces like the UHN? The university has had a “Procedural Memorandum” in place for eight years: like the new sexual harassment policy, it outlines responsibilities in the event of a complaint. U of T also now requires the disclosure of any personal relationships that might result in a conflict of interest.

Schwartz said she is determined to hold the university to their policies. She hopes, she said, that by making her story public, she can prevent such trouble for others in the future.

“She’s not doing this to get money; she’s determined to do her own grad work. It’s shouldering a load for all of us,” said Gallie. “If she just takes on another life, what will happen to the next student?”