Author: kirchmeiervubc

Case Documents, Hearing

Update #59: Robbie Morrison Testimony Completed and Chad Hyson Ongoing

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From March 3 to 5, Robbie Morrison, Chair of the Non-Academic Misconduct Committee during 2014 and 2015, testified for UBC. Cross examination by Clea began on March 5 and wrapped up on Monday, March 10. Morrison spoke to the events both of the Mordvinov Class and the General Class, since he ran NAM hearings for both. As with prior witnesses, rolling disclosure before and during testimony has occurred, though it did not hold up the testimony, unlike with witnesses like Clark Lundeen and Steve Bohnen. The most notable new document we received in March 2025 was Dmitry Mordvinov’s written response to the Statement of Allegations: although we had earlier received other elements of the package, Mordvinov’s actual response was not provided before and counsel had Morrison produce it during his testimony.

The direct examination of Chad Hyson, Director of Student Conduct and Safety in the office of VP Students in 2014 and 2015, then commenced and finished mid-Friday afternoon, March 14. Both witnesses remain current employees of UBC.

Cross examination of Chad Hyson will begin during our next April dates, which are April 22 through 25. (April 21 had been scheduled but was lost due to a calendar conflict.) The parties also tentatively scheduled some dates in July, but we hope that Hyson’s cross will finish. Hyson has evidence for both the Mordvinov and General Classes.

UBC plans to call one final witness after Hyson, an administrator who can speak to evidence about the money UBC paid to Mordvinov, whose name I don’t know right now (and also the identity of this person has changed because an earlier potential witness was found to have retired). UBC’s estimate for their testimony was perhaps a day in direct; cross examination would probably be much less. UBC definitely stated earlier this year that it will NOT call the witnesses it listed who work at the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office, which was created in 2017 in direct response to the publicity around the Mordvinov case. (Neither of the then-proposed witnesses had any factual knowledge of the Mordvinov case, nor of the General Class as far as I know.)

The General Class Member who testified earlier this year decided that they would like their name to be used in the blog and in the final decision. Their name is Lauren Fisher. They join Tara McBryan as one of the two General Class Members who testified (as Member Prince cut Stephanie Hale from the Class).

Once the witness testimony completes, both parties will make written submissions to the Tribunal with our closing arguments. This will take several months as I believe it follows the submission-reply-sur-reply structure we’ve seen before. Member Prince will consider the submissions as she digests the evidence and writes her decision, and I expect that will take her a number of months as well. Luckily, British Columbia recently gave the Tribunal more resources and there are more Tribunalmembers recently appointed. However, for a hearing with thousands of documents in evidence, taking place over two years, with very many claimants (many of which are Jane Does shielded from my knowledge by UBC) and testimony from over two dozen witnesses, I certainly expect Member Prince will take plenty of time to write her decision. Once all the witnesses conclude, I will write a brief summary of who testified for the blog.

Hearing

Quick Update #58: Next Hearing Dates Start March 3, 2025

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The one hearing date scheduled for January did not go ahead because of illness.

The next dates will be the week of March 3 and the week of March 10, beginning with UBC’s witness Robbie Morrison, the Chair of the Non-Academic Misconduct Committee, and continuing with Chad Hyson, Student Conduct and Safety with VP Students (at the time of the events). I understand that both individuals are current employees of UBC.

Hearing

Update #57: Complainants’ Case CLOSED. UBC begins to bring its defense witnesses.

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The last block of hearing dates took place November 14, 15, 18-22, and two weeks in December from December 2-13. In that time, we heard from four new witnesses and from myself:

  1. A member of the General Class wholly unconnected to the History Department or Green College testified and was cross examined on November 14 and 15.
  2. Mark Vessey, Principal of Green College from 2008-2023. Vessey was called by myself as an adverse witness when UBC refused to call him. Vessey testified as to his decision-making respecting Dmitry Mordvinov, as well as General Class Members. Like the other adverse witnesses the university forced me to call (Monica Kay, Steve Bohnen, and Clark Lundeen), Vessey’s evidence did not undergo true cross examination.
  3. Tina Loo, then-Chair of the History Department in 2014 and 2015. She testified only with respect to events surrounding Dmitry Mordvinov and the History Department, not any General Class Members.
  4. Leslie Paris, Associate Professor of the History Department, who supervised two Mordvinov Class Members directly. She similarly testified related to the Mordvinov Class/the History Department, not about any General Class Members.
  5. I (Glynnis Kirchmeier) returned to the stand to give direct testimony about expenses incurred since I first testified back in February 2023, and to be cross examined on all the expenses.

Two notable moments in the expense testimony. First, UBC sought, and received, an order from Member Prince ordering me to obtain my resignation letter from my employer this past year, because I quit my job earlier than planned in order to attend the July hearing dates. In order not to delay the hearing progress, though, I’ll make efforts to produce it and testify about it in the spring. Second, I claimed lost wages and expenses for buying health insurance for myself and my spouse in May 2018, because I pushed back the start date for that same employer solely to fly to Vancouver to review UBC’s first tranche of documents, which was incredibly deficient in terms of missing documents and documents so redacted as to be unreadable. (Had I not done so, I would have started work May 1 – for Americans, health insurance coverage kicks in on the first of each month.) The cross exam on this claim was vigorous. UBC objected specifically to me buying health insurance for my spouse and suggested that it wasn’t a necessary expense. My reply was basically that it was, in fact, a necessary expense for me: if he had gotten hurt at that time and needed health insurance, that would have hurt me, too. We’ll see if Member Prince agrees. I found it notable that UBC, an organization which has an annual budget in the billions, belittled me for loving my spouse and being willing to pay money to maintain his health, all so they could maybe save a few hundred bucks. UBC also vigorously complained about a handful of alcoholic drinks I had with meals while in Vancouver – less than the alcohol I consumed at UBC events, paid for by UBC, over my years as a grad student.

Mark Vessey was the last witness for the complainants, and all the evidence from our side is now in (save the last little thing about my resignation letter).

In human rights cases, defendants have the choice of whether to provide an opening statement at the beginning of the case, or at the beginning of their defense witnesses. Here, UBC opted to waive its right to provide an opening statement. Thus, the precise nature of the legal arguments they intend to make will be done in writing, after the witnesses finish.

After witness testimony, both sides will prepare our written closing arguments, which Member Prince will utilize as she considers her ruling.

UBC intends to call the following witnesses in 2025:

  1. Robbie Morrison, who acted as Chair of the Non-Academic Misconduct Committee for Mordvinov and for General Class Members. He will begin testimony on January 7, 2025.
  2. Chad Hyson, the staff in VP Students who “investigated” NAM cases and referred them to the NAM Committee, and seems to have handled post-NAM Hearing elements of cases as well.
  3. [Potential] A staff member who will testify as to the money UBC paid to Dmitry Mordvinov. We were surprised that Tina Loo was unable to testify about this area when we put the (late-disclosed) documents to her.

At various points during the litigation, UBC indicated that it intended to call from the History Department Michel Ducharme, Laura Ishiguro, Leslie Paris, and Tina Loo; from Green College, Clark Lundeen; from NAM/VP Students, Robbie Morrison and Chad Hyson; from the Equity and Inclusion Office, Sara-Jane Finlay and Monica Kay; and from SVPRO Carly Stanhope, Alicia Oeser, and/or Habi Ba.

Finally, due to a scheduling error by my counsel, most of the January 2025 dates are no longer available. The next Hearing dates are:

January 2025: 7

March 2025: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

April 2025: 22, 23, 24, 25

July 2025: 9, 10, 11, 14, 15

October 2025: 14, 15, 16, 17

Please note that we are very hopeful the later dates will not be necessary. UBC’s counsel has generally been faster with witnesses than their provided estimates. At this point we are also hopeful that there are no more batches of previously undisclosed documents to be discovered only in the midst of testimony.

Applications, Hearing

Update #56: Monica Kay testimony completed. Only 2 complainant witnesses left, to be heard in November. Stephanie Hale removed from the General Class.

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From July 16 to July 31, the former Director of Conflict Management for the Equity and Inclusion Office at UBC, Monica Kay, testified. She had previously testified for two days this past April, covering her background, coming to UBC, her knowledge of UBC policies at that time, and establishing some baseline information to understand her later testimony about specific cases. The July testimony covered her knowledge of General Class matters – including a large number of General Class Members whose identities are unknown to us, and only revealed after Steve Bohnen produced a large number of documents during his questioning. It also, of course, covered the events of the Mordvinov case. Although Ms. Kay did testify as to the existence of documents which we not produced (such as her notes of meetings with Zoology Head Bob Shadwick, or running summaries of active cases she sent to her boss Sara-Jane Finlay every two weeks), unlike with Mr. Bohnen, we did not get bogged down in the production of more documents during testimony.

Member Prince on occasion asked Ms. Kay a few questions, and she permitted almost all questions put to her. Part of the reason the testimony took so long was that the witness (reasonably!) wanted to review written documents before she testified to them, and some of the documents were quite long. Her memory also needed refreshing by reference to the documents. After about a day of the usual course of witness testimony that UBC had insisted upon – that the witness exhaust the memory before being brought to a document, because UBC takes the position it is “oath-helping” otherwise – UBC’s counsel eventually permitted Clea to bring Ms. Kay to the documents right away.

On July 24, 2024, Member Prince issued a Decision excluding Stephanie Hale as a member of the General Class for the Kirchmeier action. As a quick reminder, Ms. Hale prevailed in her own standalone human rights complaint against UBC in August 2023 for its mishandling of her multiple reports of rape and for how it forced her through the deficient Non-Academic Misconduct process. However, she was also a member of the General Class in this case, because some of her allegations fell in the timeframe specified in the General Class, and the Tribunal stated her standalone complaint liability timeframe was later than the Kirchmeier General Class timeframe. Ms. Hale was prepared to testify here as a General Class Member, but UBC made an Application to oppose her testimony and her membership here, which Member Prince granted. Therefore, Ms. Hale will not testify, nor will she be entitled to any compensation that Member Prince might order. As the representative complainant for both Classes, I decided that I will not appeal Member Prince’s order excluding Ms. Hale. Ms. Hale has the ability to choose to appeal whether or not I do so.

Although her claim as a General Class Member has merit and I think that she deserves recompense, and although I do think there is a possibility of prevailing in an appeal, I am limited by two considerations. First, I do not have the funds to launch a new legal action. Second, I believe the interests of the other Class Members in completing the Hearing as soon as possible must be balanced against the limited upside for Ms. Hale. If an appeal prevails, more Hearing time for her testimony would need to be scheduled. Her liability period in the Kirchmeier matter was a few months, meaning her possible financial compensation would be relatively low. UBC’s strategy in her case was to dwell heavily on her unrelated personal traumas with the effect of making testimony as unpleasant for her as possible. (I listened in to much of the Hale Hearing.) Ms. Hale understands my thinking.

There are two more witnesses we will call before UBC officially begins its case. The order is not yet set. One is a General Class Member who is completely separate and apart from all the other General Class Members discussed in testimony to date, who approached me after the Hearing had started and eventually decided to testify.

The other remaining witness is adverse witness and Green College Principal Mark Vessey, who permitted Dmitry Mordvinov to conduct himself in an “exclusive” residence in the manner that he did, as well as permitting the general sexist environment at Green College, where he has been as a leader for decades, and Principal from 2008-2023. If Member Prince makes any findings about Green College, after hearing months of facts about it from many, many witnesses, the public should know Green College was and is that way because Mark Vessey wanted it to be.

Due to the availability of counsel, the next dates for the Hearing are:

November: 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

December: 2-6, 9-13

January 2025: 6-17 [tentative]

March 2025: 3-14 [tentative]