A panel discussion being held at Brock this week will aim to tackle difficult topics related to sexual violence on university campuses.

The Omissions and Erasures: Sexual Violence, Gender Violence, Racial Violence on Campus event Thursday, April 5 will go beyond discussing policies and procedures to focus on areas often considered missed in popular reporting about sexual violence on campuses.

The panel will include Carrie Bourassa, Chair of Indigenous and Northern Health, and Scientific Director of the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in Sudbury; Hijin Park, Associate Professor in Brock’s Department of Sociology; Zanab Jafry, Co-ordinator of the Student Justice Centre, former student ombudsperson and fourth-year Medical Sciences student; and Judy Haiven, a recently retired professor from the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

The event will begin with Bourassa, a Métis scholar, who will critique the exclusion of Indigenous students from most sexual assault policies across Canada, followed by Park presenting on English as a second language students and the continuum of violence.

Jafry will provide a student perspective on the challenges of systemic and interpersonal racism as they intersect with gender violence, and Haiven will share her recent research on rape culture in business schools.

The event is the first presented by the Faculty Sexual Violence Working Group, a subcommittee of Brock’s Sexual Violence Prevention Committee that includes members from five of the University’s Faculties. The group’s core objective is to engage faculty in a wide range of disciplines in order to raise awareness about sexual harassment and assault at universities and to unpack the ways these experiences are entangled with racial and gender violence.

The panel will be held Thursday, April 5 from noon to 2 p.m. in Plaza 600F.

The free event is open to the public and all are welcome to attend. A light lunch will be served.