Activity Report 2019-2021

ACTIVITY REPORT OF THE SENATE APPEALS COMMITTEE TO THE SENATE
September 1st, 2019 to August 31, 2021

Introduction

The following report of the Senate Appeals Committee (the “Committee”) is presented to the Senate pursuant to the Committee’s terms of reference.

Mandate

In accordance with its mandate, the Committee makes a final decision on the following matters:

• Any appeal submitted by a student concerning the application of regulations governing admissions, promotions and degree requirements, and any other academic regulations of the University;
• Any recommendation of disciplinary sanction, or appeal of a disciplinary sanction, in accordance with relevant Senate regulations;
• Any other appeal referred to the Committee by the Senate or its Executive Committee.

In practice, the bulk of the Committee’s work is concerned with student-initiated appeals regarding the application of academic regulations, including Regulation I-14 – Academic Fraud. A much smaller proportion of the Committee’s work is faculty-initiated and involves the imposition of sanctions that are under the Committee’s exclusive jurisdiction.

The Committee occasionally also recommends to the Senate any amendments it deems appropriate with respect to the regulations and policies it is responsible for applying.

Membership

The Committee consists of eight members: six full-time regular professors, one undergraduate student, and one graduate student. Members are appointed by the Executive Committee of the Senate, which also designates a chair and vice-chair from among the members of the Committee. Terms are for a three-year period and are renewable.

During the reporting period, the following individuals were Committee members:
 

Five members constitute a quorum for purposes of Committee meetings. The chair (or in their absence, the vice-chair) does not vote, other than to break a tie vote. The Secretary-General of the University, or their representative, performs the duties of the secretary of the Committee. The Secretary-General of the University does not vote but is allowed to take part in the Committee’s deliberations.

Secretarial and administrative services are provided by the Office of the Secretary-General.

ACTIVITIES — 2019–2020

The following section summarizes the volume of cases submitted to the Committee during the 2019-2020 academic year.

The Committee met 22 times between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020, and dealt with a total of 97 cases.

Of those, 83 were student-initiated appeals, 10 were requests for extensions of the 10-day deadline for filing their appeals, and four were Faculty-initiated recommendations of sanctions for fraud.

In the latter category, the Committee confirmed the sanctions recommended by the academic unit in question in three of the four cases. In one case, the Committee imposed a sanction that was more severe than that recommended by the academic unit concerned.

With respect to the 83 student-initiated appeals received by the Committee:

• the student’s appeal was granted in whole or in part in 16 cases (19.3%);
• the student’s appeal was dismissed in 66 cases (79.5%); and
• the Committee determined that it did not have enough information from the Faculty to make a final decision in one case (1.2%).

In addition, 48 appeals were filed and then withdrawn by the students concerned before being reviewed by the Committee.

ACTIVITIES — 2020–2021

This section summarizes the volume of cases submitted to the Committee during the 2020-2021 academic year.

The Committee met 25 times between September 1, 2020 and August 31, 2021, and dealt with a total of 115 cases.

Of those, 97 were student-initiated appeals, 12 were requests for extensions of the 10-day deadline for filing their appeals, and six were Faculty-initiated recommendations of sanctions for fraud.

In the latter category, the Committee confirmed the sanctions recommended by the academic unit in question in three of the six cases. In two cases, the Committee imposed a sanction that was more severe than that recommended by the academic unit concerned. In one case, it imposed a sanction that was less severe than that recommended by the academic unit concerned.

With respect to the 97 student-initiated appeals received by the Committee:

• the student’s appeal was granted in whole or in part in 18 cases (18.6%);
• the student’s appeal was dismissed in 73 cases (75.3%); and
• the Committee determined that it did not have enough information to make a final decision in six cases (6.2%).

In addition, 25 appeals were filed and then withdrawn by the students concerned before being reviewed by the Committee.

Outcome of student-initiated appeals

The following table presents the outcome of the student-initiated appeals that were handled by the Committee over the past six years.

Appeals withdrawn
 

Reasons for withdrawing appeals varied. Students may request that their appeal be withdrawn because their Faculty has agreed to settle the appeal directly rather than through the Committee. In some instances, the student did not appeal to the correct body. In other cases, the students availed themselves of their right to withdraw their appeal at any time in the process.

Cases by academic unit of origin

The following table illustrates the number of cases by academic unit over the past five years. This data includes Faculty-recommended sanctions for fraud and requests for extensions of the 10-day deadline for filing an appeal.

Cases by type

The following table shows the types of cases submitted to the Committee over the past six years.

Requests for extensions

Pursuant to the Committee’s procedural rules, a student who wishes to appeal a Faculty decision must file their appeal, along with supporting arguments and documentation, within 10 working days of receipt of the Faculty decision.

Students who failed to abide by the 10-day deadline for filing their appeal with the Committee were required to submit a request for an extension outlining their reasons for their late submission, along with their appeal letter and supporting documents.

The following table illustrates the number of 10-day deadline extension requests that were received over the past six years.

PROCESSING TIMES

Student-initiated appeals

Upon receipt of an appeal, the academic unit concerned is required to file its comments on the appeal, along with any supporting documentation, within 15 working days. The student is then required to submit a final written response, and any other information, in reply to the academic unit’s submission within 15 working days. The appeal is then added to the Committee’s agenda and will be heard either at its next meeting or, since students have the right to appear in person before the Committee, at the next Committee meeting that the student is able to attend.

The following table illustrates the average processing times, in working days, for student-initiated appeals.
 

* The Committed postponed its activities from March 16 to April 24, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, average processing times increased. The Committee has been meeting online via the MS Teams and Zoom platforms since April 24, 2020.

OBSERVATIONS AND REMARKS

• The amendments to Academic Regulation I-14 – Academic fraud, recommended by the Committee in its previous report, were approved by the Senate at its meeting on November 25, 2019.
• The Senate Appeals Committee Appeals Procedure was amended, and the revised version of the procedure was adopted by the Committee on March 26, 2021 and implemented on April 12, 2021.
• In response to the adoption of the new procedure, a new appeals submission form was designed and approved.
• The new procedure includes a section giving the Committee chair the first-level authority to deny any appeals that are outside the Committee’s jurisdiction.
• The Committee would like to emphasize that faculties are expected to respond to grounds for appeal and to provide all documentation, including committee of inquiry reports in cases of fraud, so that the Committee can make an informed decision.
• Over the past two years, the Committee has paid particular attention to the reasons given in support of its decisions, following a recommendation from the ombudsperson in that regard. Where circumstances permit, the Committee’s decision includes the main reasons for allowing or dismissing the appeal. However, it should be noted that if the Committee upholds a Faculty decision that is detailed, reasoned, and free of procedural errors, the absence of valid grounds for dismissing the Faculty decision will constitute the main reason for the Committee’s decision.
• in 2020-2021, the Committee handled 40 fraud cases, a significant increase from the 12 fraud cases the previous year.

• The Committee also notes that appeal claims increasingly include allegations of discrimination and harassment.  The Committee is unable to assess the merits of such allegations as long as there is no process for investigating and handling them properly.
• Lastly, the Committee wishes to reiterate that its decisions may be submitted to the Ontario Divisional Court for review.
  
  Over the period covered by this report, two students filed applications for judicial review with the Ontario Divisional Court, seeking orders quashing Committee decisions. In the first case, a post-doctoral medical resident in the Faculty of Medicine alleged before the Divisional Court that the Committee had erred in law when it determined that the Program’s decision to withdraw the candidate was not tarnished by a reasonable apprehension of bias, and when it assessed the Program’s legal duty to accommodate the applicant until the applicant suffered undue hardship. The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, stating that the Committee had properly defined the criterion of reasonable apprehension of bias, namely that whether a well-informed person, viewing the matter realistically and practically, would believe that the decision maker could not decide the matter fairly. The Court also upheld the Committee’s decision that the Faculty had fulfilled its duty to accommodate. The application for leave to appeal submitted by the medical resident to the Court of Appeal for Ontario was denied. In the second case, a medical resident submitted an application for judicial review to the Ontario Divisional Court, seeking an order quashing the Committee’s decision upholding the Faculty of Medicine’s decision to withdraw a resident from its training program. That case is slated to be heard in fall 2021 in Ottawa.
  
  There are two other cases in which students filed applications with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario following Committee decisions instead of seeking judicial reviews before the Divisional Court. In the first instance, the Tribunal rendered an interim decision dismissing the application on the grounds that another body (the Committee) had dealt with the substance of the application appropriately. In that case, the Tribunal concluded that the Committee’s procedure was another procedure provided for by law, that the Committee had the authority to apply the Code, and that the legal issues to be decided were the same in both cases. In the second instance, the Tribunal allowed the application and gave the student leave to proceed.  The Tribunal stated that the Committee was another body within the meaning of the Code. However, the Tribunal also determined that the legal issues submitted to the Committee were not fundamentally the same as the ones before it.