How Dalhousie University Protects Criminals and Criminalizes Whistleblowers

Of course, I am not the first to raise this possibility.

Annotated Chronology of Events (Tentative)

The following is an annotated chronology of events.

~2011: “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen” private Facebook Group is created by Dentistry students in their first year, approximately two months after starting their semester. Two other Facebook Groups are created as well by Dentistry students.

6th December 2014: A poll appears on “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen” private Facebook Group asking which of two female DDS classmates the men would prefer to “hate fuck.” Five or six gentlemen responded to the poll. One of the female DDS classmates listed was in the same room when several of the gentlemen came cross the poll. She observed their reaction and became curious. Ryan Millet, one of the 13 members of this group showed her the post later that day. She made a screenshot and reported it to Dalhousie. On her insistence, he stayed in the group for six more days rather than leaving immediately, so that he could gather more information on the perps.

When I first came across Ryan Millet’s whistleblowing actions, I was dumbfounded because such traits are generally absent among spineless Maritimers. I was right. He is not a Maritimer. He is an American from the Midwest with a Mormon background. He should have never come to Halifax.

12th  December 2014: The female student says that Dalhousie Faculty wants more information on the Facebook Group to process her complaint (maybe just an excuse for ignoring her complaint). Ryan Millet gives her his login. Soon afterwards, Millet left the group and deleted his Facebook account. Dalhousie later told Ryan’s lawyer  that instead of assisting the female, he should have approached them!

This was probably Ryan Millet’s parting message to the Facebook Group:

Sometime before 15th December 2014: “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen” private Facebook group taken down. CBC still manages to get copies of the postings made, somehow. 13 of the 26 (or 19?) male students in the class were part of it, although the number continues to be disputed as 15, or even 20. The female student had taken screenshots and saved them. Had she not done so quickly enough, we would have probably never heard this story. Remember that the Facebook group was deleted within days after her first complaint. Somebody within the Dalhousie administration tipped off the Gentlemen.

15th December 2014: News of the complaint appears in Mainstream Media. In addition to the misogyny, one of the postings is that of a partially exposed clinical patient, and this is a serious violation of patient confidentiality. Halifax Police quickly chimed in to deny any wrongdoing had taken place.They don’t enjoy barking at their master’s voice.

15th December 2015: One of the “gentlemen” direct CBC to their lawyer when asked for an interview. That was some quick lawyering.

15th December 2014 (Evening): Dalhousie University spokesman Brian Leadbetter tells the Media ““It has come to our attention that there were inappropriate comments that were posted and shared on a private Facebook group … that was connected to the Dalhousie dentistry … students,”

15th December 2014 (Evening): Dalhousie University president Richard Florizone issued a statement indicating at least one of those steps later Monday. “Given the significance of the issue and the anxiety it has caused for our students, we have also made the decision to cancel the remaining fourth-year exams in the Faculty of Dentistry effective immediately,”

24 hours after 15th December 2014: Three of the “gentlemen” remove their Facebook profiles.

17th December 2015: Dalhousie President Richard Florizone claimed in a Press Conference that after the issue went public, more women from the class have come forward with complaints about the Facebook group. He also dropped a subtle hint that not all women of the class were on board the “restorative justice” scheme. Restorative Justice” is merely a trick, straight from the cookbook of shady management consultants, to keep the issue contained within Dalhousie University rather than let the Police and the Courts get involved. It is damage control of the worst kind. He also stated that an investigation (parallel to “restorative justice”) would have been “against the wishes of the women students who were harmed” even though Dalhousie had consulted only consulted four of the 21 female students in the class at that point. He kept implying that the majority of women in the class had agreed with “restorative  justice” even though four out of 21 women had agreed to it at that point.

18th December 2014: In a CTV interview, Florizone repeatedly states that the women opted for “restorative justice” rather than him pushing it. To quote Florizone on CTV,

What I would have had to do was to take a different process than the women elected to. And we could take a different process to seek expulsion. What I want to do is follow the process that they’ve outlined, and that may lead to other considerations or other processes, I don’t rule any of that out.”

19th December 2014: The Globe and Mail and CBC report that Dalhousie emailed a questionnaire to the women of the class asking among many things, how they had been impacted or harmed by the group. The deadline for returning the questionnaire was 2nd January 2015. Why would they do that when the screenshots of the Facebook Group’s posts were not shown to the class until 5th January 2015? There is a big discrepancy here. To quote,

Who was shown which screenshots? When were they shown the screenshots? To what extent was each screenshot censored? How could any of the women in the class appropriately decide how they would like to respond to this situation unless they had the opportunity to see the full package of uncensored screenshots?

21st December 2014: Four female students send a formal complaint to Vice Provost, Student Affairs, Anne Forrestall (See entry for 6th January 2015).

21st December 2014: Françoise Baylis of the university’s medical school and three other professors file a formal complaint under the students’ code of conduct to Anne Forrestall, the school’s acting vice-provost of student affairs. The complaint would be denied on 10th January 2015.

22nd December 2014: 13 of the Gentlemen are suspended indefinitely from Clinical practice. Why 13? given that the Facebook Group had several members join and leave over the years. Maybe because the number 13 has some kind of symbolism to the Criminal Elite, and using that number helps them discreetly signal their others across the country that this is their mess. Among the 13 suspended is whistlenblower Ryan Millet, for liking a funny meme, that isn’t even remotely rapey. This is probably the first time in history that a University student got suspended over a Facebook® Like.

23rd December 2014: Anonymous @opexpelmisogyny threatens to release the names of the Gentlemen on Twitter (they never do though). Interestingly, Anonymous Halifax @HalifaxOp is not fully participative in the unfolding drama, and seems to create some kind of drama of its own by threatening the press.

Frank Magazine is Halifax’s gossip rag, though selective gossip rag would be a better term, because they (recently) tend to avoid the Irvings, the Sobeys, Dalhousie University, Shell Oil, the Conservative Party and instead focus on minor celebrities and small businesses stuck in nasty court cases. This appears to have become a trend after a takeover management reshuffle. To quote Wikipedia,

In June 2011 conventional media outlets such as CBC and The Chronicle Herald reported that the publication’s newsroom underwent a massive shakeup when four of its five reporters left, three having been fired by managing editor Andrew Douglas and one resigning. CBC reported that the first reporter to be fired, Mairin Prentiss, occurred after she had questioned a recent column on sexism. The firing of Prentiss apparently triggered Walsh’s resignation, which was followed by terminations for Neal Ozano and Jacob Boon who allegedly acted insubordinately.^[1][2]

In issue 711 (24th March 2015) page 31, a Frank editor devotes a whole page to griping about the intended Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa, which is strangely out of context with gossip politics. They have no problems with Holocaust Memorials though. In Nova Scotia, those targeted by the Powers That Be end up facing problems from Revenue Canada, and Frank is always there to relay their tax problems.

26th December 2014: A list of everyone in the DDS 2015 class available online at the Dalhousie Dentistry Student Society website goes offline. The Dalhousie Gazette “emailed members of the executive council of the DDSS asking if they were aware this list was public.  They did not respond, but the list was taken offline within minutes.” This contradicts Dalhousie’s earlier claims that they could not make the list of Gentlemen public to protect their privacy and reputation (The list was already public!).

31st December 2015: Ontario licensing board (Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario) wants names of 13 suspended Dal dentistry students.

5th January 2015: Dalhousie holds an information session on the “restorative justice” process, asking all female class members for their consent (See entry for 6th January 2015).

6th January 2015: An anonymous letter is released to the media. It was penned by four women within the DDS4 class, and they have serious misgivings about participating in “restorative justice” hogwash. To quote,

We are writing this open letter to inform you that, after considering the information that was presented in that meeting, we do not wish for the sexual harassment and discrimination perpetrated by members of our class to be dealt with through this restorative justice process or under the Sexual Harassment Policy. We feel that the University is pressuring us into this process, silencing our views, isolating us from our peers, and discouraging us from choosing to proceed formally. This has perpetuated our experience of discrimination. This approach falls far below what we expected from you, and what we believe we deserve.

Telling us that we can either participate in restorative justice or file a formal complaint is presenting us with a false choice. We have serious concerns about the impact of filing formal complaints on our chances of academic success at the Faculty of Dentistry, and believe that doing so would jeopardize our futures. The reason we have not filed formal complaints is also the reason we have not signed our names to this letter.

From what we can glean from the document,

• On 5th January 2015, Dalhousie held an information session on the “restorative justice” process and this was the first time all women of the class, including those affected were given the option of consenting to participate in the process. It seems that Dalhousie  was grandstanding early on that all women of the class were on board with them as soon as the situation unfolded.
• On 21st December 2014, they had sent a formal complaint to Vice Provost, Student Affairs, Anne Forrestall. It was published in the media on 3rd January 2015, although I have not been able to locate it. The four female DDS students stand by it, and want the formal complaint to be addressed as per the Student Code of Conduct, as opposed to “restorative justice.” To quote, “If, despite our requests, this matter is not properly investigated or considered formally as a Code of Conduct complaint, Dalhousie will send the message that there is no penalty for harming its female students in this way. You will be telling us that we don’t matter.” At the same time, they are apprehensive that being asked to identify themselves for the formal complaint would have a negative impact upon their future years at Dalhousie.
• They also believe that Dalhousie has enough information to proceed investigating, and that female students should no longer be expected to advance more formal complaints individually.
• Dalhousie has a copy of the Facebook posts since 12th December 2014, but rather than investigating, preferred to sit on it hoping the controversy would go away.
• The Gentlemen have still not been publicly identified, and the four female students can’t understand why.

6th January 2015: In an interview with the Dalhousie Gazette, Florizone continues to insist that “the women that came forward” opted for restorative justice. To quote a commentary on the interview, “Neither Florizone, any of Dalhousie’s communications staff nor the online Q&A page had said at the time of this Jan. 6 interview that one of the five women who had consulted with the university by Dec. 17 had rejected restorative justice as an appropriate option.”

7th January 2015: The Feminist Collective of McGill Law Students write an open letter the Dalhousie Feminist Legal Association. It seems that rather than espousing Feminism, the Dalhousie Feminist Legal Association went to root for Florizone. This pretty much exemplifies how anything connected to Dalhousie is inherently compromised. To quote,

We are troubled by your recent Statement (28 December 2014) in support of the Dalhousie administration’s decision to pursue a restorative justice approach in response to the School of Dentistry scandal. Restorative justice is a powerful tool which, when used properly, can achieve positive, transformative outcomes. However, when used improperly, it further entrenches negative power dynamics, trivializes wrongs, and causes greater trauma to victims. We believe that Dalhousie’s current approach to restorative justice in the context of the School of Dentistry scandal has the potential to do the latter. Furthermore, we are disturbed by the lack of clear protection for those making formal complaints under Dalhousie’s Code of Student Conduct and Sexual Harassment Policy; this absence has silenced women who may otherwise have made formal complaints.

8th January 2015: According to a leaked email, Dalhousie has hired an outside PR firm, National Public Relations to deal with the Gentlemen scandal. Their services will be retained for a year at least, and they congratulate Dalhousie in doing a good job in scaling things so far! Are they behind Dalhousie’s new culture of respect whitewash?

In other news, Dalhousie has been raising Dentistry tuition by 36% over the course of four years.

9th January 2015: The Dalhousie Website releases a Q & A regarding the situation. It contradicts Florizone’s 17th December 2015 statement that women from the class approached them on their own volition. To quote, “Five female students were identified in those posts and the university contacted all of them.” Somebody is lying. The Q & A further states that four out of the five women had opted for Dalhousie’s “restorative justice.” But one of the women refused the “restorative justice” whitewash. This was never mentioned by Florizone in his 17th December 2015 Press Conference. To the contrary, he said, “……And so the route that we’ve taken is the route that the women have selected.”

9th January 2015: Dalhousie’s Board of Governors tells the media the board unanimously approved Florizone’s handling of the mess, but this would not have been possible without a vote, and this probably did not take place, at least the way it was described as having taken place.

18th January 2015: Ryan Millet, one of the 13 Gentlemen speaks to local newspaper Chronicle Herald, claiming he also chose not to participate in Dalhousie’s “restorative justice” hogwash. To quote,

Millet is the only one of the 13 men who chose not to participate in the restorative justice process. He says he felt the university tried to pressure him into joining, and says administration gave him the impression that his classmates were all on board — something that was later disputed by at least four of the female students.

But he was worried that participating in the process would somehow be an admission of guilt that he was not prepared to make. He was also concerned that he wouldn’t have an opportunity to fully explain his role in the group.

Instead, Millet hired a lawyer to help him navigate the appeal process. He has appealed his suspension to the academic standards committee, the dentistry school’s disciplinary body.

This contradicts Florizone’s position in his 17th December 2015 Press Conference in which he implied that all 13 of the Gentlemen had agreed to “restorative justice.” Florizone was also unclear on whether the Gentlemen had met with the five women and agreed to the “restorative justice.”

18th January 2015: A CBC news story run at night tries to portray whistleblower Ryan Millet as a perp (no mention of the other Gentlemen though). As you may be aware, Ryan Millet forwarded private messages he had recieved from the Gentlemen to one of the female victims by copy-paste. Obviously, the message would show that it was sent from his account, even if he was not the author. CBC keeps running stories with the full-blown screenshot, complete with Ryan’s nameat the bottom, even after Ryan contacts them and tells them to stop. They later issue a small-print redaction. But the damage is done.

19th January 2015: The Dalhousie Senate holds a private meeting to discuss the Gentlemen situation without giving the public advance notice. Traditionally, senate meetings are open to public.

20th January 2015: Ryan Millet attends a disciplinary hearing conducted by Dalhousie University, where for the first time ever, he gets to tell his side of the story. He insisted on having it public, but his request was rejected. To quote his lawyer before the meeting,

Millet’s lawyer, Bruce MacIntosh, believes Dalhousie made a mistake by failing to investigate the group and speak with its participants before meting out suspensions.

“There has been no investigation or opportunity for Ryan to explain why he was in that Facebook group, what he did. None. … There was a rush to judgment that, quite frankly, smelled a little bit more like a rush to the gallows. And it’s really disturbing legally.”

20th January 2015: Ryan Millet gets an email from one of his classmates, warning him that “they are out to get ya.” An email from CBC to Dentistry students is circulating saying that “Ryan has arranged a news conference for tommorow, which will be carried live across Canada. If you have any questions you think should be put to him that might not be obvious to us, let me know.” Were they planning to ambush him with a gotcha question? Ryan does not attend the news conference the next day, leaving his lawyers to talk. His lawyer points out that CBC has access to all of the Facebook postings, and the identities of the perpetrators. Yet they are strangely focusing on Ryan.

21st January 2015: Ryan Millet’s lawyer holds a press conference. Millet sat before the Academic Standards Committee for more than four hours along with his lawyer, but they both left disappointed, after asking the hearing to be adjourned. According to Ryan Millet’s lawyer,

• The Academic Standards Committee was making up rules and procedures as it went. To quote, “It’s every day, every week, the sands keep shifting.”
• Dalhousie’s Disciplinary Process was irrevocably broken. To quote, ““Our best advice to Ryan is that, despite the best intentions of those people, it can’t work,” he said. “It’s become dysfunctional. It’s irreversible and we need somebody else.”
• Neither Millet nor the Assistant Dean were allowed to make sworn statements. Neither was recording equipment allowed. Whatever transpired was not meant to have any legal basis and was supposed to be off the record. Even their much vaunted “restorative justice” was not binding on the committee.
• Dalhousie could not show any precedent on how they had handled similar cases in the past.
• The Academic Standards Committee invited an “independent observer” to the hearing without notifying him first. That observer was the vice-chairwoman of the university’s senate, Dr. Katherine Harman.
• The Assistant Dean, who played the role of prosecutor, had a a senior litigation partner from Stewart McKelvey (Rory Rogers). Whereas the Gentlemen were not even offered legal aid. In my case, I was suggested a lawyer from Stewart McKelvey, only to find that Dalhousie had beat me to them. With them being offered business from Dalhousie, the lawyer declined on the basis of a conflict of interest.
• One of the female students also showed up at the Hearing, and showed extraordinarily strong support for Ryan Millet and his actions.

26th January 2015: Frank Magazine, Halifax’s selective gossip rag (see earlier entry for 23rd December 2014) publishes a list of the entire class of Dentistry students at the heart of the spectacle. Most of the men were the “Gentlemen.” There are 36 40 names on the list. But it is unclear whether this is the correct, up to date list. I personally suspect that students with stronger ties to the Halifax Criminal Elite would have been omitted.

28th January 2015: Nick Baros-Johnson, a Dalhousie Graduate and host of a bi-weekly radio show on music had created a Facebook Group called “Class of DDS 2015 Dudes” to mock the Gentlemen. He posts Frank Magazine’s list of the 40 students enrolled in the fourth year of Dentistry at Dalhousie. This post is the first time the list goes online (Frank’s articles are online too but behind a paywall). For some reason, the list is edited from 40 students to 36 ones later on. He was soon paid a visit by Dalhousie Security and banned from Dalhousie premises. To quote,

The ban warns of the possibility of a fine up to $500 for Baros-Johnson if he appears on any location owned by Dalhousie other than the Student Union Building, which hosts CKDU’s offices; and the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, where he works as an usher.

2nd March 2015: 12 of the 13 Gentlemen who had been suspended from clinical practice are allowed to return to clinical practice. The only one not allowed is the whistleblower, Ryan Millet! justice served, Dalhousie style. To quote,

Mr. Millet believes “that there is an underlying attitude among some within the Dalhousie community that he is partially to blame for the… reputational harm” that Dalhousie has suffered, according to a letter sent to media on Tuesday by his lawyer, Bruce MacIntosh.

In other words, nobody messes with the Criminal Elite at Dalhousie. And no matter how serious the trouble Dalhousie gets into, it always emerges, shameless and unscathed. No scandal is too big for Dalhousie.

15th March 2015: Ryan Millet finally allowed to resume Dentistry at Dalhousie. To quote,

Millet says he is “willingly engaging in the remediation training sessions with an open mind.” He also states that he is too invested in his chosen career to stop his education, as he has a wife and three children under four.

16th March 2015: Lesley Barnes, an assistant professor of health promotion at Dalhousie University starts a fundraising campaign to assist Ryan Millet.

26th July 2015: Dalhousie has released a 100-page task force report to pretend they care about the victims of the DDS Gentlemen Scandal. This isn’t as purely a PR stunt as the restorative justice hogwash was. Here are some gems from the same:

The report found faculty behaved inappropriately towards female students, making comments such as “She is hot” or “Not too hard to look at”.“In some respects, sexist comments had become normalized and went unnoticed,” the report states. “Students who attempt to call professors to account for inappropriate behaviour are ignored or told they are being unprofessional. There is very little evidence that faculty members are regularly monitored or held accountable for inappropriate behaviour.”

There was also a revelation in the report – the university admitted that a dentistry faculty member was fired two years ago because of sexual relationships with two female students.

Another faculty member told a female junior colleague that “he wouldn’t mind having an affair with her” while another is “widely known for looking at women’s breasts and not their faces”.

There was explicit graffiti in the Cavity, a well known student lounge in the dentistry school, that depicted a sketch of a man bending over and another man approaching him with an exposed penis. The caption reads “Oh (name redacted), I’m ready for you this time.”

Conclusion

Its sad to see whistleblower Ryan Millet succumb because of his circumstances, when he had a clear chance of taking things to court. As expected, he can’t wait to leave Nova Scotia.

The message being sent here is that no matter how serious the trouble Dalhousie gets into, it always emerges shining, shameless and unscathed. No scandal is too big for Dalhousie. Something tells me they may have even gotten away with murder in the past. Since no previous cases got the same media scrutiny and are sealed forever, it is unclear what Dalhousie has gotten away with in the past. This is an institution out of control. 

It is also sad to see that none of the other students decided to pursue their legal options, and out of fear of jeopardizing their degree, succumbed to the dance Dalhousie wanted them to perform. Lets hope they sue after they leave Dalhousie (Something tells me they have already been made to sign papers that they wont).

My personal experience proved that Dalhousie University was a very dangerous place for foreign students, independent-minded students and Muslim students.

But this list needs to be expanded.

Any student that is not part of the flakey, spineless, ethically challenged culture of the Maritimes should never set foot in Dalhousie. Apparently, this place is very different from other parts of North America. Its like one of those wierd towns in a Shyamalan movie where everyone works hard to protect the Criminal Elders. Outsiders who stumble in and try to apply theiir own work ethics or principles will end up like Ryan Millet. Note that as a foreign student, he probably pays double tuition for this regrettable experience. Now imagine if he was female, non-Western and lived alone without a family. Things could have easily become gruesome, as in the case of another Halifax University student Loretta Saunders.

To put it in a sentence, this place has become downright dangerous for everyone except those who are part of the flakey, spineless, ethically challenged culture of the Maritimes.

Resources

An in-depth analysis of the Scandal

Some of the Facebook Postings

Some good questions

@opexpelmisogyny: A Twitter account with some good coverage

#dalhateswomen: A Twitter hashtag

Some more screenshots of the postings