The University of British Columbia announced on Thursday that its board of governors approved a new sexual misconduct policy, known as Policy #131—Sexual Assault and Other Sexual Misconduct.
The new policy will create a Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office on UBC’s Vancouver and Okanagan campuses. The policy will also cover other issues relating to sexual assault including harassment and stalking.
“We have also begun the process of recruiting a Director of Investigators for each campus. We hope to have the Directors in place within the next few months,” UBC said in a release.
The policy comes after several cases of sexual assaults at the UBC Vancouver campus were made public as well as a 2015 CBC Fifth Estate investigation, which revealed how the school failed to take action against a PhD student who committed multiple acts of sexual misconduct.
In 2016, the BC government introduced the Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act –a bill requiring every post-secondary institution in the province to create a sexual-misconduct policy. The act is expected to come into full effect on May 18.
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