A student association at Concordia University has agreed to publicly apologize to a student for sexual and racial harassment.
Concordia's largest student association will pay the student for her pain and suffering, and will publicly apologize to her for harassment and discrimination.
The student association will also create a group to examine future complaints.
But that is not all the woman wants, and she is still pursuing a Human Rights Commission complaint against two fellow students.
CTV News, in an agreement to maintain her anonymity, is calling the woman Mei-Ling.
She filed a complaint with Quebec's Human Rights Commission in February, saying she had repeatedly been subjected to sexual and racial harassment by fellow students after she was elected to the Executive of the school's Arts and Science Faculty Association (ASFA).
Mei-Ling, who is of Chinese and Italian descent, said she was repeatedly verbally harassed by two men because of her background.
“As you can imagine it seeped into my emotional life, my personal life, my academic life. I would explain it as it was very dark,” she said.
Fellow members of the AFSA board told her to ignore the slanders, which she did until she stumbled across a series of online conversations between the two men on a public, shared computer.
From February 2013 until March 2014 the two men frequently called Mei-Ling a "chink slave," "whore," and "bitch."
They described her in sexually explicit terms, saying they would try to have her impeached if she didn't agree to have sex with them.
After discovering the Facebook conversations, Mei-Ling went to the Dean of Students at Concordia University, and to Concordia's Office of Rights and Responsibilities, to no avail.
“He said this is a common thing among student associations, especially at Concordia, so I should just overlook it,” she said.
The university didn't confirm that, but did say it should have done more.
“We should have advised her better, and that is a learning experience for us,” said Concordia University spokesperson Chris Mota.
She did get assistance from the school's Centre for Gender and Advocacy and from the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), which helped her file her legal complaint.
Community organizer Brandy de Gaia said she hopes the case sends a strong message.
“I think the key thing here, is to see how civil rights and that a monetary value, if you sue someone for these violations, might ask people to question how they're treating people,” she said.
