The recent incident involving academic accommodations for a student with a hearing disability has been unfortunate on many levels. We regret deeply that the student was put in this situation.

It is the university’s legal obligation to accommodate the special needs of its students and we are committed to this.

On behalf of Memorial University, I apologize to William Sears for our mishandling of his request for accommodation in this class.

When I learned of this incident last week, I asked three questions: How did this happen? What are we doing to fix it? How can we prevent it from happening again?

The answer to the first question of how this happened seems to be that there is a flaw in our current procedures. Typically, a student with special needs will work with our Glenn Roy Blundon Centre for Students with Disabilities to arrange an accommodation to ensure they can participate as fully as possible in the classroom and other university activities.

For almost 25 years, the Blundon Centre has been co-ordinating programs and services that enable students with disabilities to maximize their educational potential and to increase awareness of inclusive values among all members of the university community. In the winter semester 2015, for example, almost 400 students self-identified and received special needs accommodations through the Blundon Centre. Working with the students and their professors, the Blundon Centre makes best efforts to put in place the necessary types of accommodations prior to the start of the semester.

That is what should have happened in this case but clearly an accommodation at the start of the semester was not in place. It was inappropriate that the student arrived at the class without an accommodation in place.

Since we need more clarity, I have directed that a review be undertaken into how the situation with this student happened.

My second question: What are we doing to remedy this situation? We have offered the opportunity to Mr. Sears to return to the class after we have put in place an alternate technology solution. Again, our preference would have been for the need for accommodation to be identified up front and that accommodation arranged with the professor prior to the start of classes. But clearly that did not happen originally, so we wanted to be sure he was aware that this option was still available to him. We understand the reasons that he has rejected this option.

I understand that Mr. Sears has filed a complaint with the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission in relation to the university’s handling of his request for accommodation. The university will work closely with the commission to reach an accommodation that fully meets our obligations to students under human rights legislation, and look forward to clarity regarding the balance of competing rights that was arrived at in 1996.

Memorial is also committed to respecting the rights of our employees.

From reviewing the files over this weekend, I have learned that the agreement in 1996 was the result of a human rights complaint filed by Dr. Panjabi over the decision of the university that she should have worn the microphone as requested by the student. I understand that Memorial officials were working with the commission towards resolving the matter of respecting Dr. Panjabi’s rights while accommodating the student with a hearing disability. The discussion culminated in an accommodation agreement between the university and Dr. Panjabi, which was linked to her withdrawal of her complaint.

To be clear, the 1996 agreement did not mean that students would not be accommodated; rather, it allowed for other forms of accommodation. The details of the agreement were made public in articles in the Telegram in November 1996. Visit here for the agreement.

At the time, this agreement was viewed as a workable solution. Since 20 years have passed, we have begun our own examination of that agreement to see if it is still suitable in today’s environment.

The next question – how can we prevent this from happening again – is one that we have been looking into since we learned of the incident involving Mr. Sears.

This will probably take some time to finalize, but I expect that our first action should be to refine our internal processes to ensure that no student is placed in this type of situation again. So while it is too early to detail precisely the correction we will put in place, we will ensure the institutional processes serving students with special needs will be improved and meet or exceed our required obligation.

We will also continue to explore new technologies that might be alternative or even improved means of accommodating students with hearing challenges so they can participate more fully in our academic programs.

A final note: We regret that the professor has been harassed and I am concerned about the impact this matter has had on her. Dr. Panjabi is being publicly vilified and even threatened with harm. Personally, I am dismayed at the tenor and content of some of the commentary around this matter. At Memorial we have codes of conduct and respectful workplace policies that we expect all members of our community to follow. I realize this important issue has generated much passion and emotional response. However, I urge everyone to keep the discourse respectful.