Warwick University students stage sit-in over sexual abuse (The Guardian)
Protesters speak of ‘culture of fear’ and university’s failure to support victims.
Extract:
Georgina Calvert-Lee, a senior counsel at the law firm McAllister Olivarius, represented two of the victims of the rape chat scandal in their discrimination case against the university for the way it handled its investigation, and has been involved in similar cases.
“It’s not just Warwick: these are issues we see across the board in many universities. The whole sector is struggling to find ways to improve processes,” she said. “The people in charge don’t seem to realise the long-term damage this can cause.”
She said university procedures often placed complainants at a disadvantage compared with the accused, and some institutions used confidentiality agreements to prevent victims from talking about their experiences afterwards. “That just seems to me totally wrong and it’s most likely a breach of their duty of care to the students.”