Week 8 ran from October 10, the day after Thanksgiving, to October 13. Clark Lundeen of Green College finished giving evidence this week, and Sarah Thornton, MA student in the History Department during the events, began her evidence.
Week 9 ran from December 4 to December 8. Sarah Thornton’s evidence was completed (direct ended December 4) and we began both Kaitlin Russell, MA Student in the History Department, and Steve Bohnen of UBC Security. All three witnesses very graciously accommodated each others’ limited schedules, and the occasional long breaks from testimony for legal argument, and I am very grateful to all three of them for being flexible so that we could make the most use of the scheduled time.
Prior to Mr. Bohnen giving evidence, Clea made a verbal Application and argued that she should be permitted to cross examine him – and all the adverse witnesses – from the beginning rather than use the direct exam mode and then have UBC “cross” him. The argument was extensive, but it boiled down to the fact that Lundeen and his evidence was not tested (a point affirmed by Member Prince, that UBC’s questioning of Lundeen did not constitute cross examination), and that the Tribunal need to have evidence tested to make the best decision, especially from the UBC witnesses, who have key knowledge not possessed by the complainants: what UBC was doing out of our view. UBC opposed the Application, arguing among other things that it was unsupported by case law. Member Prince made a ruling that mostly favored UBC’s arguments. She did not permit Clea to conduct the questioning in a cross mode most of the time. The direct mode will continue. However, Member Prince agreed that it was important to the process for evidence to be tested. The solution she ordered was that Clea would, at some time, decide that the direct mode of questioning was not sufficient to test the witness’s evidence at that moment, so Clea will announce that she will begin crossing the witness. Presumably, once the topic under discussion is over, Clea would then go back to the direct mode examination, and this would be verbally clear on the record. So far in Mr. Bohnen’s evidence, we have not yet entered a situation where Clea feels she needed to cross, so the logistics of this method of questioning have yet to be run in practice.
For the case writ large, there were a number of logistical developments. UBC’s counsel advised they may call Professor Leslie Paris and Professor Laura Ishiguro of the History Department. Additionally, a General Class Member, not from the History Department or Green College, indicated their desire to testify and has been gathering documents to produce, which we advised UBC some time ago. Counsel for both sides will submit written arguments to Member Prince sometime in January about whether General Class Member Stephanie Hale may testify. Finally, UBC counsel has been producing to us hundreds of pages of documents not previously produced, apparently mostly for the General Class. We have run into a bottleneck with them because Clea’s associate took a new position in October and Clea herself has been in hearings almost every week from October to December, so she has not had the time to figure out how to get them to me to help review and organize.
UBC Counsel confirmed that the tentative dates booked for February are now available, so currently all the fixed dates on the calendar for 2024 are:
January 29 and 30 (anticipated witnesses Kaitlin Russell/Steve Bohnen)
February 5-9 (anticipated witnesses Kaitlin Russell/Steve Bohnen/Monica Kay??)
April 22-26
July 16-31
On a personal level, I have been sick for most of the past two months, most recently with Covid.
To my great displeasure, I must write about a very unnecessary incident which occurred on December 14, 2023. I write about this reluctantly, because I actually do not enjoy conflict, but I feel my role as the leader of this complaint and the defender of the interests of all the complainants compels me to respond in this public forum.
After completing her testimony, Sarah Thornton had an apparently random encounter in public with Professor Leslie Paris (whom she had not seen for years) on December 14 which she described to me as “pretty unpleasant,” and “uncomfortable,” in which Dr. Paris initiated contact with her and to Ms. Thornton “it felt like she was simmering with anger.” Dr. Paris told Ms. Thornton “without being specific” that what Ms. Thornton had testified was untrue. Ms. Thornton was polite in response: she invited Dr. Paris to sit down with her over coffee after this complaint was resolved to talk (Dr. Paris said, “Absolutely not.”) and further wishing her happy holidays, which apparently surprised Dr. Paris.
I can say that Dr. Paris was NOT a member of the public observing any part of Ms. Thornton’s testimony – testimony given under solemn promise – and therefore Dr. Paris has no basis to accuse Ms. Thornton of being untruthful, although it was unclear to Ms. Thornton about what, specifically, Dr. Paris thought she lied about.
Ms. Thornton, Dr. Paris’ former student, is not the only witness testifying to her actions. Paul Krause also testified about her actions and Kaitlin Russell, also her former student, is in the midst of testifying. I spoke with Ms. Russell about Dr. Paris’s choice to initiate an interaction with Ms. Thornton, and she affirmed to me that she would find initiation of a confrontation from Dr. Paris extremely unwelcome, as would I. Hearing about it made her afraid of experiencing a similar incident. Ms. Russell avoids the UBC campus and would ignore anyone from UBC that she encounters in public.
I remind Dr. Paris, and ALL individuals currently or formerly affiliated with UBC, that subjecting ANY of my witnesses to bad treatment may be considered retaliation for participation in the complaint, and the BC Human Rights Tribunal prohibits retaliation against anyone participating in a complaint process. I strongly encourage Dr. Paris to refrain from initiating contact with Sarah Thornton, Paul Krause, and especially Kaitlin Russell, and to simply walk away from them if she encounters them in public.
Sarah Thornton and Kaitlin Russell both gave me permission to write about this incident here.
Glynnis Kirchmeier - and - Kirchmeier obo Others v. UBC 