Kaitlin Russell, who testified in December 2023 and January 29-31, finished her cross examination testimony on February 5.
On February 6, Mr. Bohnen returned to continue his direct testimony through February 9. He later returned to testify April 22 through April 25, 2024. His testimony was finished for the General Class member previously discussed, and he testified as to his involvement in the Mordvinov matter. Then his testimony moved on to focus on other members of the General Class, specifically those members for whom the University disclosed relevant documents in the past few months. We have an outstanding request to ensure these particular, new to us (and unknown, because their names are redacted) General Class members were properly notified of the existence of the complaint. It is troubling that, a year into the Hearing, the University has still not transparently provided such basics.
As a representative of the Classes, one of my concerns is that if/when we prevail and are awarded monetary compensation, one or many Class Members will be excluded from receiving money to which she is entitled by the fact that she was never informed she was in the Class. UBC successfully argued before Member Trerise back in 2017 that it need not provide the names of the Class Members (though not third parties who are not Class Members – see Kirchmeier No. 2) to me, and it obviously failed to keep a list of the actual women it contacted as Member Trerise ordered (instead, it says keeping a list of the University employees it tasked to reach out to an unknown number of women is sufficient). It hasn’t disclosed proof that it contacted anyone. UBC’s counsel have argued at various moments that the Tribunal should not consider documentary evidence by Class Members who do not personally testify, as they say there’s “no way” the Tribunal can reasonably find harm accrued to someone unless that individual personally shows up to the Tribunal to say so. UBC’s counsel also informed us that they are going to argue in writing that the Class formation process in this case was incorrect. It’s not clear right now what Member Prince’s posture is on such arguments. I would encourage the Class Members not to worry about it, as these are defenses we will have to deal with in argument. Practically speaking, if every Class Member had to testify in order for them to receive compensation, this Hearing would probably not end for some time, maybe when the sun explodes. I certainly do think Member Prince would like to see the Hearing wrapped up before any major extinction events.
There were a lot of breaks in Mr. Bohnen’s testimony for argument amongst the lawyers. Some of the argument was not contentious, such as an agreement reached on how to discuss the General Class members in the Hearing, and eventually in Member Prince’s final decision such that their identities would be protected. Also, it seems likely that most of the males discussed will not be named, other than Mordvinov, whose name is already out in the world (though it is possible Member Prince will choose to anonymize him too in the final decision). A big area of argument centered around redactions in disclosure, as UBC’s counsel took it upon themselves to censor quite a bit more than was permitted by Member Trerise’s order. At one point Mr. Bohnen stated he could not testify more because he could not understand the document in front of him due to the redactions. He was then excused, and Clea took point on a long argument that involved referring to Member Trerise’s second order on the topic and going through it together. There was also late disclosure as Mr. Bohnen was sent to find and produce Incident Reports (a special document only he could enter, as UBC Security’s record of reports to it, which were typically authored by him) relevant to various Class Members, some of which were then entered into evidence. All in all, I would say at least a day and probably more was lost to argument about late disclosure, documents redacted by UBC to the extent of losing their meaning, and missing disclosure, and Mr. Bohnen’s testimony probably extended by a day or two.
On Thursday afternoon, April 25, 2024, the questioning started of Monica Kay, the Director of Conflict Management at the UBC Equity and Inclusion Office at the time at issue in the human rights complaint. Before she came on the stand, UBC tried to argue that Ms. Kay was NOT an adverse witness, in large part because she is not currently a UBC employee, but did not prevail. As with all witnesses, she began with background information about herself, how she came to UBC, her knowledge of policies when she first arrived, etc. As we had only a day and a half of testimony, we did not get beyond these questions to any of the particular Class Member situations.
UBC provided a revised witness list. At this point, their anticipated witnesses are:
- Robbie Morrison [Chair of the UBCV Non-Academic Misconduct Committee]
- Tina Loo [then-Chair of History Department]
- Chad Hyson [VP Students, in charge of investigations for the NAM process]
- Leslie Paris [NEW – History Professor]
- Laura Ishiguro [NEW – History Professor]
- Carly Stanhope [Director of Investigations at UBC SVPRO – not involved in any facts in 2014-2015 to my knowledge]
- Habi Ba [NEW – this may be a nickname of a name of an individual who appears to be administrative staff at UBC SVPRO – not involved in any facts in 2014-2015 to my knowledge]
- [REMOVED FROM LIST] Sara-Jane Finlay [Monica Kay’s supervisor at UBC Equity and Inclusion Office]
To address the issue of whether General Class Member Stephanie Hale should be permitted to testify, Member Prince ordered the following schedule:
Respondent’s [UBC’s] application due: March 15, 2024
Complainants’ response due: March 28, 2024
Respondent’s reply due: April 11, 2024
I believe these were generally followed, perhaps with some extensions. I did not assist with the submissions on this issue, or read them.
Member Prince sent a new Notice of Hearing with additional dates in 2024. These are:
June: 5, 11, 12, 13 [tentative, depending on UBC counsel]
July: 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31 [firm]
November: 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 [tentative, depending on UBC counsel]
Additionally, Member Prince canvassed for additional dates, so there may be more to come.
Notice of Hearing dated February 9, 2024
I will update the blog to state whether or not the June dates go forward – otherwise, the next big item will be testimony in July.
Glynnis Kirchmeier - and - Kirchmeier obo Others v. UBC 