Last year, UVic fired a professor on the grounds that he had been sexually harassing students on more than one occasion.
Professor Robert Gifford had been teaching at the university for 45 years, and taught in both the department of psychology and environmental studies.
Since being fired, Gifford has been appealing to the BC Labour Relations Board (LRB) and his former union, the University of Victoria Faculty Association (UVFA) to help him get his job back, but both organizations have determined that he has no grounds in this endeavour.
Gifford’s pattern of sexual misconduct
Back in February 2021, Gifford was suspended from teaching at the university because of incidents in 2019 and 2020 that violated UVic’s Sexualized Violence Policy.
At least one of these incidents was found to have stemmed from the sexual harassment of one of Gifford’s graduate students.
Then, in 2023, Gifford was informed that he was going to be investigated by the LRB for the alleged sexual harassment of another graduate student that occurred in 2018.
This affected student met Gifford in 2017 as a visiting student, and she and Gifford co-authored a paper together that they decided to present at a conference in Montreal the following year.
The LRB investigator had copies of emails exchanged between Gifford and the affected student, which illustrates the inappropriate nature of Gifford’s actions.
In an email to the affected student, Gifford wrote, “I am glad to hear your view on this hotel. This is not so easy for me to talk about. I am staying at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, one of the landmarks in Montreal. As you might have guessed, my idea is for us to share a room, partly of course so we can spend more time together, and partly to save money.”
“This arrangement might require a bit of care in terms of other people we know at the congress, but that can be managed. And, of course, anything beyond the mere sharing of the room is to be decided on a completely mutual basis, at the time. How does that sound?” continued Gifford’s email.
The affected student wrote to Gifford two days after receiving this email indicating that she never intended to get to know Gifford better in any way, except on a professional level.
She told him she wanted to remain “strictly professional” with him.
Gifford never disputed having sent this email to the affected student during the investigation of his conduct.
According to the LRB’s investigation report, the affected student did not report Gifford’s actions at the time and continued to work with him in a professional capacity, but decided to come forward after she found out that the professor was behaving similarly with other young, female students.
Gifford’s position was that the affected student only came forward after being convinced to by another party, and that he and the student had maintained a professional relationship after a boundary was set.
The investigator concluded that Gifford’s conduct towards the affected student was harassment, and violated UVic’s Sexualized Violence Policy.
His employment at UVic was terminated in June of last year.
Gifford was terminated for, among other things, “the serious nature of the findings against [him], the repeated harm against junior scholars (as found in both 2018 and 2021), and [his] lack of accountability and understanding of [his] obligations as a senior scholar.”
Post-termination
Gifford disagreed with the conclusion of the investigation, and so he sought the aid of his union, the UVFA.
UVFA filed a grievance on his behalf as the union believed that termination was too severe a punishment, and he was never provided “progressive discipline” for his past transgressions.
In July, 2024, UVFA filed a grievance on the grounds that UVic failed to provide Gifford with progressive discipline, that the situations Gifford was being fired for were not investigated effectively and that the investigation did not meet the “just cause standard,” all of which were contrary to the collective agreement.
Next, the union met with UVic to discuss how they were to proceed. UVFA also met with Gifford so he could submit documents regarding how the termination had been impacting his life.
Ultimately, UVic denied the grievance submitted by UVFA on Gifford’s behalf, which would mean that the matter would have to go to arbitration.
However, the union determined that it would be a waste of time to go to arbitration, as Gifford’s grievance would likely be denied.
Gifford appealed this decision, but this appeal was also denied.
