Content warning: This article discusses sexual and racial violence, gender-based violence, and rape culture.

The Prevention, Empowerment, Advocacy, and Response for Survivors (PEARS) Project has postered for over two years at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine (TFM) to address concerns over the school protecting predatory faculty at the expense of students and survivors. 

On October 2, GradPEARS — the PEARS Project graduate student division — led a study-in at the TFM. The PEARS’ Project is a student grassroots and trauma-informed coalition that offers peer support and resources for sexual violence survivors at U of T.

For about two hours, PEARS Project members and allies postered across the main floor of the medicine building and handed out informational programs linking to their open letter condemning predatory, racist, and violent behaviour at the TFM. 

PEARS’ Project advocacy

According to a GradPEARS Instagram post, the recent wave of TFM faculty’s predatory behaviour and rape culture is based on numerous student reports it received about professors’ sexual harassment, inappropriate comments, touching, stalking, and instances of racism in the faculty.

Throughout September of this year, GradPEARS posted infographics about professors at the TFM ripping up specific sections of posters that mention supporting survivors, and proceeding to tear the posters down. In a now-deleted Instagram comment, TFM Vice Dean Justin Nodwell admitted that he took down the posters, as they “were in a clearly unauthorized location.” 

In a September 20 Instagram post, GradPEARS uploaded a September 12 email from TFM that offered a response to the posters and other printed materials, directing students to the school’s Workplace Harassment Policy, Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment Policy, and to their principal investigator or professors. The same post also mentioned an email a student received from TFM that linked to the U of T’s User Guide on U of T Policies on Protest, listing violations that could lead to Campus Safety actions and municipal police involvement.

In an email to The Varsity, a U of T spokesperson referred students seeking to put up posters to the “longstanding guidelines on postering in designated spaces” and students seeking to report sexual violence on campus to the university’s policy on Sexual Violence and Sexual Prevention, the Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre, as well as Campus Safety or the appropriate municipal police services. They stated that commenting on GradPEARS’ social media posts “would be premature,” and wrote that “a poster doesn’t constitute a report or disclosure under our [sexual violence] policy.”

Open letter

On September 18, GradPEARS circulated a letter on Instagram that listed four demands to the faculty and university: putting out an actionable statement of commitment to a violence-free and police-free space of learning that acknowledges the faculty and university’s culture of harm toward students; mandating third-party anti-violence, consent, and inclusive training for all faculty; allowing and encouraging the sharing of third-party workplace resources for survivors; and ensuring gender-neutral, accessible washrooms and free menstrual supplies in all labs and Temerty Faculty buildings.

Among the signatories are the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU). In an email to The Varsity, UTGSU President Amir Moghadam reiterated the union’s unwavering solidarity with survivors and the work of the PEARS Project. 

“The reported incidents of harassment, discrimination, and institutional negligence are deeply alarming. Such behavior has no place in our academic community, and the silencing of survivors is utterly unacceptable. Every student deserves a safe, respectful environment in which to learn and work,” Moghadam wrote.

Study-in

Throughout the afternoon of the study-in, PEARS Project member and recent U of T graduate Jay Prentice spoke to numerous community members about GradPEARS’ advocacy. Prentice described the study-in as part of building awareness, support, and conversation about sexual violence within the TFM.

“Is this really the environment that you want to set up? Is this really the type of medicine that you want to create? Why is this [study-in] not welcome?” they said towards the school. “Why is creating cultures of harassment, cultures that allow racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism to persist, why is that something that is allowed to persist when we can together break it down?”

The study-in extended the PEARS Project’s ongoing organizing for students across the university about sexual violence and the specific ways that cultures of silencing, transphobia, and racism deny survivors visibility and justice. 

Students weigh in

The Varsity spoke to graduate students at the study-in about their experiences of silencing and marginalization at the TFM. Each student requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation because of their personal connections to TFM. 

H described how the faculty’s “unspoken contract” of social relationships “systematically disempower[s]” survivors. H explained that students in STEM programs, such as the Faculty of Medicine, do a lot of work under a direct supervisor, which increases the risk for exploitation, abuse, sexual violence, and sexual harassment, and the ability to report becomes more difficult in those situations.

“Every aspect of this relationship is very, [in] my opinion, very one-sided and extractive, exploitative,” H said.

For graduate student A, this relationship “amplif[ies] the contradiction that grad students feel,” when the university acknowledges power hierarchies but allows grad students to live within them. 

“The way that they do things is definitely not trauma-informed, not survivor-centered,” A added.

Policies and posters

The PEARS Project argues that the responses from the Temerty Faculty of Medicine perpetuate rape culture. 

In an interview with The Varsity, Co-Director and PEARS Project founder Micah Kalisch outlined how tearing down posters and silencing students manifests as harm to survivors. In her current role, Kalisch has spent multiple years learning about the experiences of student survivors across U of T, including the university’s responses to TFM professor Robert Reisz’s violation of U of T’s Sexual Harassment Policy and allegations of sexual harassment against former Trinity College Provost Andy Orchard. 

For Kalisch, allowing any professor found guilty of gender-based violence, racism, and academic bullying to teach, supervise, and run labs shows a “large-scale institutional negligence” to how power plays out in practice.

The PEARS Project has been closely involved in the progress and changes to U of T’s Sexual Violence Policy. As it stands, the policy outlines that “The [u]niversity recognizes that power dynamics are inherent in institutions of higher learning and is committed to appropriately account for these dynamics in the processes set out in this Policy.” 

“Posters have been going up say[ing] things like ‘we don’t tolerate sexual harassment in our labs.’ For anybody to look at that poster and oppose that or to feel personally attacked by that is incredibly concerning, and really is at its core, rape culture,” Kalisch said. “To look at a poster that says ‘we don’t allow sexual harassment in our labs,’ and to feel like somehow we’re attacking you, that’s a concern.”

If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence or harassment at U of T:

  • Visit svpscentre.utoronto.ca for information, contact details, and hours of operation for the tri-campus Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre. Centre staff can be reached by phone at 416-978-2266 or by email at [email protected].
  • Call Campus Safety Special Constable Service to make a report at 416-978-2222 (for U of T St. George and U of T Scarborough) or 905-569-4333 (for U of T Mississauga)
  • Call the Women’s College Hospital Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Care Centre at 416-323-6040
  • Call the Scarborough Grace Sexual Assault Care Centre at 416-495-2555
  • Call the Assaulted Women’s Helpline at 866-863-0511