Mount Allison has launched a new way for people to report sexual misconduct, harrassment or assault on campus.
The school announced this week a new partnership with REES, a secure, online system where people can create a record of an incident and choose from multiple reporting options, including anonymous reporting.
The move comes as part of an ongoing effort to respond to decades long concerns about sexual violence on the Mount A campus. Those concerns boiled over into a massive campus protest in November 2020, after then-student Michelle Roy posted an image of herself on social media, in graduation attire and holding a sign accusing the school of supporting rapists and silencing victims.
Since then, the university has brought in a third party organization to respond to and support survivors of sexual violence, commissioned an independent review of its practices, and hired Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Coordinator, Dr. Tasia Alexopolous. Another position will be eventually created to focus on counselling and support for survivors.
Adding REES to the mix is the latest move, and Alexopolous says its an important one, because of the various types of reporting that the system makes possible.
“REES offers an anonymous reporting option, which was just very exciting for us,” says Alexopolous, “because anonymous reporting is really important, but it’s also very difficult to do properly.”
Anonymous reports on REES are limited in scope, with no identifying information attached, and they are not considered formal complaints. “It allows students to notify the institution that something has happened, even if they aren’t comfortable coming forward with an official report or disclosure,” says Alexopolous.
Then three times a year, the data from anonymous reports is aggregated by REES and reported back to the university, giving them more accurate statistics on the incidence of sexual violence on campus, something shown to be dramatically underreported. The idea is that Mount A will use that data to help assess the policies in place on campus, show the gap between reported and anonymous incidents, and also track general trends in the frequency of harassment or assaults.
In the fall of 2020, when Michelle Roy’s social media posts sparked a full-on protest with about 400 people gathering on the front lawn of the student centre, social media was blowing up with stories and accounts of sexual harassment and assault. “It’s critical, really, that we we listen to these anonymous stories,” says Alexopolous. “There are so many barriers to coming forward and reporting something.”
“[REES] is a way for us to put a tool in place to collect that data, in a confidential way, that we can then use to make our our procedures and our systems better,” says Alexopolous. The new tool is part of a “spectrum of responses” that’s needed, she says, ranging from, “supporting and believing survivors when they do come forward, even just on social media, to making sure that we have the information we need to make sure that we have services and infrastructure in place for survivors.”
And REES offers more than anonymous reporting. People can use it to find out their options, make contact with campus support workers, and start the process of official reporting. There’s also a third option, in which students identify themselves and the perpetrator, but that information is kept confidential and secure until such a time as a repeat perpetrator is suspected.
The REES Repeat Perpetrator Identification (RPI) form allows students to “let the institution know that someone has committed harm,” but without submitting a formal report that requires immediate action. Instead, people give whatever information they have about the perpetrator, be it the social media handle of an assaulter, or the email address of someone sending harassing emails.
“Once it’s submitted, it just sits there until somebody else inputs the same information,” says Alexopolous. “When two names or two pieces of identifying information are submitted, our counsellors get a notification.”
She stresses that REES promises secure encryption, and only counsellors have access to the system. And even they won’t have access to RPI reports until a match has been identified.
“Then we have options around intervention,” says Alexopolous. “If something is very serious, and is a threat to, say, the entire community, then we’re aware of it and can take action. If somebody needs resources, then we can get in touch with them. So it gives us options for early intervention, which is really, really great. And it gives people the ability to notify that harm has been done without going through the whole reporting system.”
Alexopolous says the RPI function is especially useful for a small campus like Mount Allison.
“One of the issues that we see quite frequently is that somebody wants to disclose on behalf of someone, or let us know that there’s behaviour happening that shouldn’t be happening. And REES gives us a way of managing that, whereas we didn’t necessarily have something in place before to do so in a survivor-centred and trauma-informed way,” says Alexopolous.
Mount Allison is the first New Brunswick university to adopt REES, and the second on the east coast, after St. Francis Xavier in Antigonish. Alexopolous says its difficult to compare uptake and success of REES at different schools, because it can be implemented differently on different campuses, reflecting specific policies and procedures. But she says that anecdotally and based on its continued use, “people are feeling more comfortable speaking out and sharing their stories.” She says the active social media presence of REES is also a good sign. “There’s a lot of engagement across campuses, which is a really great indicator of students trusting the REES system,” says Alexopolous.
People can access REES via a link on the Mount Allison website, under resources for current students. People can also go directly to the Mount Allison REES portal at mta.reescampus.ca