OUSA Sexual Misconduct Policy Two Months Away

OUSA Sexual Misconduct Policy Two Months Away

The development of an OUSA sexual misconduct policy began in 2019. Seven months into 2020, club leaders are still waiting. OUSA told Critic that the policy will be “achieved… during second semester” through OUSA’s Affiliated Clubs Council.

Last September, Critic covered the stories of students who had been sexually assaulted in multiple OUSA-affiliated clubs. At the time, the OUSA Clubs Development officer said OUSA expected club leaders to offer support to the best of their abilities, and to reach out to appropriate support services for help. An advocate at OUSA Student Support also recommended that club leaders sought professional development opportunities so that they could learn how to support survivors of sexual violence.

Ten months later, an OUSA-affiliated club had to navigate allegations of sexual violence without one. Brin Ryder, Treasurer of the Dunedin Fire and Circus Club (DFCC), launched an internal survey to investigate sexual abuse in the club at the advice of the Ōtepoti Collective Against Sexual Abuse. Other than that, Brin felt that “at the moment [responding to sexual violence is] entirely on an ad hoc basis and up to club execs, which are students with no experience in these things and often only here for a short period of time… the skills are not there to deal with these things properly.”

Kayli Taylor, Director of Thursdays in Black Otago (TiB), another OUSA-affiliated club, said that they have been “in talks” with the OUSA Executive about this policy “since January 2020” but that “progress has been stalled”. Ominously, they added that they “will let OUSA fill in the reasons for this delay”. TiB are calling on OUSA to provide training for club leaders in areas of “good hosting behaviour, how to create safe spaces, and appropriate handling of issues around sexual misconduct”.

Brin believes that OUSA “need[s] to be more interactive with clubs as it relates to student safety and rights and making sure that people are that people feel safe”. A combined comment from OUSA Welfare and Equity Representative, Michaela Waite-Harvey, and Administrative Vice-President, Georgia Mischefski-Gray, said “[t]he job description of the clubs and socs rep covers these matters. The Clubs Development Officer is employed to support clubs.”

Josh Smith/Smythe told Critic that while he was the Clubs and Societies Representative in 2019 (then called the Recreation Officer), the development of this policy was “taken off my desk … cuz [the OUSA Vice-President Georgia Mischefski-Gray] wanted to develop it.”

Georgia’s first quarterly report for 2020 gave a deadline of “August/early September” for the policy to be passed.

Brin hopes that when the policy is ready, OUSA makes following it “practicable” rather than just letting it be “a bit of paper that exists somewhere that [asks], ‘everyone follow this, please'.”

This article first appeared in Issue 10, 2020.
Posted 2:20pm Sunday 12th July 2020 by Erin Gourley.