Survivor Centeredness and Procedural Fairness

As part of a Winter 2023 webconference series organized by la Chaire de recherche sur les violences sexistes et sexuelles en milieu d’enseignement supérieur (Chaire VSSMES), Dr Christopher Dietzel, Research Associate from iMPACTS, is leading a session about survivor centeredness and procedural fairness. Dr Dietzel will be joined by Clarisse Delaville, PhD student at McGill's Faculty of Law.

Universities’ responses to sexual violence must follow a survivor-centric approach. When a survivor files formal complaint that triggers an investigation, it is crucial to respect standards of procedural fairness, since having a fair and equitable procedure is in the best interests of the survivor, the perpetrator, and the public. Procedural fairness is an element of social acceptability of justice: it reinforces trust in institutions and increases people’s willingness to cooperate and comply. In our research, we are identifying the core elements of procedural fairness that apply to universities’ responses to sexual violence and analyzing the extent to which universities’ current sexual violence policies address standards of procedural fairness. Our results highlight aspects of universities’ policies and procedures that can be improved and offer suggestions of how to develop the public’s trust in universities’ responses.

The session will be on Wednesday, February 22 at 12:45 PM. It will be held on Zoom, and it is free to register. Here is a link to the Facebook event. More information about this session, as well as information about the other sessions in the webconference series, is available on the Chaire VSSMES website.