Many of you know me as the Memorial University (MUNL) student who was banned from campus for protesting the administration. I wish to provide an update on my case with additional information and analysis.
I recently read an article by Former International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, where she discusses the critical principles of a fair justice system.
While Memorial University’s internal processes do not constitute a legal system, they do set and enforce standards of behaviour to protect and serve their community. The principles that Bensouda discusses could have important implications, especially as the university makes changes to its Student Code of Conduct, while the Office of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) takes on, what I see as, an increasingly prosecutorial role.
In her article, Bensouda states that the central principle of the ‘rule of law’ concept is that the law should be “applied equally and fairly in a manner that no actor — state or non-state — is above the law.”
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At Memorial University, when the student union protested, the administration did not prosecute these students through the Student Code of Conduct. And yet, when a single student—me—protested the president, the administration selectively weaponized the university’s Code of Conduct against me.
Another example of the university’s unfair application of the rules happened after I filed a complaint against former President Vianne Timmons. The complaint took issue with her inappropriate public comments about me regarding the tuition protest posters I placed around campus. MUNL refused to hear my complaint, demonstrating that the former president was above the law.
Bensouda further states, “Any institution saddled with upholding the rule of law must be independent, impartial and transparent.” As the examples mentioned above indicate, MUNL is not impartial in its application of its rules. It is also becoming more secretive about its rules.
MUNL has proposed adding a section to the Student Code of Conduct titled “Confidentiality and Privacy,” where those involved in the process would be strictly prohibited from speaking publicly and they could face sanctions if they do. The university’s former manager of communications, David Sorensen, previously told The Independent that the proposed changes are intended to help students feel comfortable to come forward with concerns without fear of publication. If this were MUNL’s primary objective, they could have proposed a section regarding sharing personal information and not an all-encompassing section on confidentiality that states, “All persons involved in any process related to this Code are required to maintain confidentiality.”
Impartiality is essential, Bensouda states, because it “guarantees the credibility of both the process and the institution.” Moreover, she says, “Political will or the lack of it could greatly impact the efficacy of the rule of law.” She says it is important not to allow justice to be “sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.” However, without transparency there is no way to address the politics that might be in play.
Selective application of the Student Code of Conduct
Two different pictures show two similar protests occurring exactly one year apart. One picture was taken December 2, 2021, and the other was taken December 2, 2022. Both instances involved former President Vianne Timmons, who was removed in April 2023 amid a scandal involving her unsubstantiated claims of Indigeneity. Yet, the responses to the two protests could not have been more different.
The first picture shows me silently protesting tuition hikes and out-of-control spending in the university. I am standing off to the side holding a very small sign while Timmons gives a speech. As a result of this action, the university banned me from campus for three months, persecuted me through the Student Code of Conduct, and gave me one-year probation. This process was fraught with issues and it left me with no choice but to take MUNL to court.
The second picture also shows a peaceful protest of Timmons’s administration. This time, however, it was the MUNL Students’ Union disrupting the former president’s speech. During her “Report to The Community,” they held up a pink slip in front of her as she spoke. Timmons later suggested on CBC’s On The Go that the student protest may have created a safety issue, while Memorial Chief Risk Officer Greg McDougall said in an email that the students acted aggressively and irrationally, and that they had a “silly” sign. Despite this, the university did not discipline these students through the Student Code of Conduct.
The disparate responses to these two student protests highlight what I see as an unfair application of the rules at MUNL. In order to defend their ability to prosecute the complaint against me through the Chief Risk Officer, Memorial hides behind the fact that past student protests have not prompted the filing of any individual complaints.
A ‘targeted operation’
I’ve engaged in many protests in the past and I looked at the precedents before I protested Timmons’s leadership. The university justified not prosecuting past student protests because Student Code of Conduct matters are complaint-driven—meaning if nobody complains about a violation, no Student Code of Conduct investigation occurs. This enables rules to be selectively applied, on the whim of individual complaints. In my case, the investigator Kimberley Horwood stated in her report on February 28, 2022, “This is concerning because the Student Code of Conduct should be uniformly applied to all students.”
In order to have a working justice system in any jurisdiction, it is not enough to ensure fair trials. Equal application of the law is critical, too. A hallmark of unfair justice systems is that some people in society do not get prosecuted, or receive little punishment, while other people do get prosecuted, even for minor violations, and receive disproportionately harsher punishments.
My protest action was fundamentally tied to a political criticism I was making about Memorial’s administration at the highest levels, especially then-President Timmons. I believe that the university’s complaint against me represents a targeted operation by the administration in an attempt to silence one of their most vocal and visible critics.
In my case, Chief Risk Officer Greg McDougall was the ‘complainant.’ Although McDougall viewed pictures of the event, he was not actually in attendance when my protest occurred. Allowing someone who was neither the target of a protest, nor present at a protest, to file a complaint regarding a protest under the Student Code of Conduct sets a dangerous precedent. It means a complaint can be filed without cause, by anyone, on behalf of any interested parties.
Indeed, throughout Memorial’s investigation of me, they have stated that the administration can undertake the Student Code of Conduct process through McDougall. Given that Memorial has the power to file complaints using their chief risk officer, they could have easily initiated one for the MUNSU student protest on December 2, 2022. While it would not have been justified—their protest, like mine, was justified and peaceful—had they done so, it would have at least signalled a willingness to apply the Student Code of Conduct equally. In the MUNSU case, so many students overpowered the administration that initiating Code of Conduct investigations against all of them—about 10—would be an enormous undertaking. By contrast, as a single protestor, I believe MUNL saw me as an easy target.
Chief Risk Officer overreach
McDougall took office as Chief Risk Officer in July 2020. Since his hiring, there has been a pattern of questionable behavior that has earned McDougall a reputation for disliking student protests and trying to quell dissent.
On October 7, 2021, for example, the Memorial University Faculty Association (MUNFA) penned a letter to Timmons expressing concern about McDougall’s misuse of the University’s Respectful Workplace Policy. MUNFA had been copied on a correspondence between an academic staff member and McDougall, where he responded to the staff member’s thoughtful, critical questions regarding the implementation of the vaccine mandate with reference to the Respectful Workplace Policy. In his comment on the exchange, MUNFA President Josh Lepawsky states, “Any such use of the RWP to stifle an ASM’s commentary on Memorial’s implementation of the vaccine mandate would constitute a clear violation of the ASM’s right to discuss and criticize policies and actions of the University, as enshrined in Clause 2.04 of the Collective Agreement.”
A couple of months later, on December 8, 2021—days after my first protest—McDougall filed his complaint against me. Regarding my protest on December 2, he stated, “Mr. Barter waited for a female member of the University leadership team to move to the podium at the front of the room…” He went on to describe the protest as “a form of intimidation and harassment” that he also claimed was gender-based. These statements by McDougall are false, inflammatory, and misleading.
Former Provost and Vice-President Noreen Golfman–who had herself been a subject of my past protests–called Memorial’s actions against me a “real overreach.” Golfman also disputed Memorial’s characterization of me deliberately targeting women. “I just don’t buy it,” she said, adding she never once felt that my protests against her were personal, nor did they have sexist or misogynistic elements. “He was a kind of [an] equal opportunity activist as far as I was concerned,” she said.
McDougall sparked outrage again the next year when he confronted student union members on December 2, 2022 following their peaceful protest against funding cuts and tuition hikes. He threatened to silence the union members in favour of students who had more positive things to say about the university. “This is really disheartening,” Political Science Professor Russell Williams said in response. “Student participation and dialogue about things like huge tuition hikes does not have to be positive.”
Curious about just how many Student Code of Conduct complaints McDougall has filed since January 1, 2020, I filed an access-to-information request for the total number between that date and July 14, 2023.
On July 27, 2023, I received a response from Memorial University’s Information Access and Privacy Office. They stated, “In accordance with your request, we can advise that there was 1 Student Code of Conduct complaint filed by the Chief Risk Officer, Greg McDougall.”
Given that the chief risk officer apparently has the power to initiate a complaint against anyone he deems to be in violation of the Student Code of Conduct, it is interesting that I was the only person who had received a complaint in three and a half years. It appears that the CRO has not been able to find a single other unreported incident on campus that deserves a complaint.
The position of Chief Risk Officer as Memorial is only a decade old. For years, the university operated fine without one. Now they are increasing their investment in the position. Since his hiring in 2020, McDougall’s salary has increased from $174,245 to $198,400 a year.
I have filed a total of 257 access-to-information requests with Memorial University since 2017. And I have published over 100 articles on my blog about my findings, giving special attention to the university’s financial mismanagement. The chief risk officer position strikes me as another unnecessary expenditure, and I suggest eliminating the position and slashing the budget of that unit.
In the meantime, if the university seeks to improve its internal processes to ensure they are free from biases and conflicts of interest, I suggest creating an independent office at arms-length of the administration to process complaints.
Complaint against Timmons unresolved
Some of the most notable discoveries I made in the process of reviewing the university’s financial information included the high expenses related to former president Dr. Timmons: her employment contract, travel expenses, and office renovations. These became some of the fodder for my protests against her and her administration.
In turn, my protests became fodder for her and her administration. While undergoing the Student Code of Conduct review process, I felt an element of animosity against me and a sense that the complaint filed against me by the McDougall was unduly targeted. But there had been other incidents prior that demonstrated a similar, unfair, characterization of me.
In particular, I took issue with comments made by Timmons on September 16, 2021, to the CBC. She claimed that my posters calling for her resignation violated the university’s Respectful Workplace Policy. My response was that the university’s president should not be the one to determine whether something violates this policy, especially if it involves them. Since I was a student, and not an employee of the university, the policy is not applicable. I argued that the statement by Timmons served to inappropriately discredit me in the eyes of the students, the entire university community, and the province.
I also took issue with Timmons’s statement about me in December 2021 that freedom of expression does not protect behaviour that becomes “intimidating and harassing.” This marked another attempt to discredit my reputation and the validity of my criticism against the president and her administration.
On March 15, 2022, I filed a formal complaint with the Memorial University Office of Student Support against Timmons for what I believed was inappropriate behaviour. On March 25, 2022, MUNL’s Student Support Team Lead, Roxanne Rideout-Scott, responded that the matter was reviewed by her office and the Office of General Counsel. She said that the complaint did not provide a “sufficient basis” to meet the definition under the complaint policy. “Complaints that do not meet the definition of inappropriate, unfair or objectionable complaints cannot move forward,” she said.
Regarding my first allegation, Rideout-Scott stated, “Timmons did not suggest that the Respectful Workplace Policy applied to you. She mentioned that the university was a respectful workplace, and that means for everyone. She did not suggest that you specifically were in violation of the policy.” Regarding my second allegation, she stated, “Timmons had nothing to do with providing a statement to the media. That is not her role…”
In the end, the university refused to accept my complaint and did not investigate the matter. Since all the members of the administration who had been involved in this decision answered to Timmons, there is a possibility they were trying to protect her.
But now, Timmons is no longer in the position. On April 6, 2023, she was removed as president. However, the issues I had with her administration remain. The university denied me a process to resolve the issues I had, which led me to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador.
I have taken Memorial to both the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Human Rights Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador for their unfair treatment of me. I will always stand up to administrators who impose tuition hikes and additional fees, and who misspend the university’s funds at the expense of students’ access to affordable education.
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