Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Due to the sexual harassment I experienced from my four housemates, and its¿¿ effects on me academically and emotionally in months following, I am requesting Credit Standing on three of my fall term courses. On September 29th I discovered that four of my housemates posted a photo of me on 4chan.org, asking men to rate my body and were admittedly entertained by the comments, which I was able to view until eventually taken down. Three of the boys showed no remorse by what they had done and its¿¿ effects on me. 4chan has been described as the ¿¿underbelly of the internet¿ where many comments are racist, explicit, and misogynistic in nature. I was humiliated, angry, and upset by what happened and was not able to control my emotions throughout the following weeks, and as a consequence, missed many of my classes the following two weeks. I lost my appetite, cried constantly, had great difficulty falling asleep, and when I did I had nightmares. I was exhausted and upset during the classes that I did attend.

It took me a month before I could tell my parents as I felt humiliated by what was done. While living with my housemates during October they antagonized me and made fun of the situation. They would press their faces up against the glass door when I was heading towards the front door and run away when I would walk in. They would talk about how they thought what I was upset over was petty; attempted to justify what they did, blamed me for others viewing them negatively, and tried getting my attention while I was in the shared common space at the same time as them. I was not able to study effectively while at the house, as it was an upsetting and distracting environment, and upsetting to hear them talking and laughing.

I went to the Human Rights Office to discuss my options and talk about what was done. I ultimately decided not to pursue any further action as it would prolong the experience. I sought support from my counselor shortly after it had happened and she gave me documentation for a request of temporary accommodations for the tutorials I had missed, and to request deferrals of midterms that occurred two and three weeks after the incident. I did not tell all of my TAs and professors about the situation or give them the documentation as I found it upsetting to talk about repeatedly. I believe that is why I did a bit better in some classes versus others. I was never able to catch up with my readings, or participate in tutorials as I was so behind and missed a lot of class. At that point in the term I was not able to bounce back and still had a lot to deal with from the sexual harassment incident.

From October until December, I dealt with explaining the situation to my landlord, two of my professors, four of my TAs, my parents, Margot Coulter at Human Rights, and was distracted with moving out, moving into residence temporarily, and looking for a new house and housemates for the winter term. At no point was I able to put the situation behind me, as there was a lot I had to accomplish to feel safe and found it upsetting to have to repeatedly explain the situation and relive it in a sense. My academics have had to compete with all I have just mentioned, and in addition to this, the loss of my entire friend group as my best friend here sided with her boyfriend, the boy who made the post. My midterms grades suffered due to being scheduled in the following weeks and my papers were affected from my being so behind in reading and out of touch with school.

I would like to add that my marks in my first year are in no way related to this situation. My marks in first year reflect a rough transition from high school and result from a lack of understanding of the effort and workload needed to succeed at Queen¿¿s. The only thing affecting my current emotional status and academic results of last term are entirely related to the sexual harassment experience from last September.