HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Robyn Joffe
Applicant
-and-
Brock University, Judith Brooder and Margaret Sanderson
Respondents
INTERIM DECISION
Adjudicator: Sherry Liang
Indexed as: Joffe v. Brock University
1This is an Application filed on October 28, 2009, under section 34 of Part IV of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”). The Application alleges discrimination in education services on the ground of disability. The applicant states that Brock University (“Brock”) failed to accommodate her learning disabilities by not providing her with an Educational Assistant (“EA”).
2The applicant filed a Request to Expedite Proceedings along with the Application. The time for responding to the Application has not elapsed and no Response has yet been filed, but the Tribunal has received a response to the Request to Expedite from the respondents.
3The respondents have also filed a Request for an Order During Proceedings. The respondents state that while they do not oppose the request for an expedited hearing, they require immediate production of all of the applicant’s medical and psychological reports and other relevant information pertaining to the applicant’s alleged disabilities, in order to respond to the Application. As well, the respondents seek the applicant’s consent to disclose this information to a Clinical and/or Educational Psychologist that they intend to retain to advise them about the issues raised in this Application. The time for responding to the request for production of documents has elapsed and the applicant has not responded.
BACKGROUND
4The Application states that the applicant was accepted by Brock into a Masters program in May 2008. The applicant states that she contacted Brock’s Services for Students with Disabilities (“SSWD”) office during the summer of 2008 with a view to discussing her need for academic accommodation. She requested that Brock provide her with an EA, which she states is a necessary accommodation for written course requirements, to act as a typist and help facilitate and focus her academic writing. The applicant states that the SSWD did not agree with her request for an EA, and proposed other measures which she did not believe to be appropriate accommodation. The applicant appealed the decision of the SSWD to the Academic Accommodations Appeal Committee at Brock which, by decision communicated to the applicant on October 27, 2008, denied her request for an EA.
5The applicant states that shortly afterwards she decided to file this Application with the Tribunal. However, due to her need for assistance to complete written work and the logistics of scheduling meetings with EA’s to prepare the Tribunal’s Application Form, which took many months to accomplish, the Application and Request to Expedite were filed in October 2009.
DECISION
6The respondents’ consent to an expedited process is a relevant, though not determinative, consideration in a Request to Expedite. Apart from the burden it places on the parties, a decision to expedite an Application results in giving priority for Tribunal resources over other matters before the Tribunal.
7The Tribunal has stated that for a request to expedite to be granted, the applicant must demonstrate that the circumstances are truly urgent, requiring the resolution of the human rights dispute in a particularly rapid manner as compared with the time required to complete the Tribunal’s regular process. In deciding such a request, the Tribunal also considers whether expediting is necessary to ensure a fair adjudication, or to prevent the remedy an applicant is seeking from becoming moot: Ebrahimi v. Durham District School Board, 2009 HRTO 1062.
8In a case involving a school board, the Tribunal stated that “the desirability of dealing expeditiously with a claim that a student is not receiving proper education services is self-evident. However, whether such a claim warrants expediting the Tribunal’s regular processes must be assessed on a case-by-case basis”: Haughton v. Toronto District School Board, 2009 HRTO 655.
9In this case, the Tribunal finds that the factors cited as supporting an expedited process are not meaningfully different from those described in many other applications before the Tribunal, including those relating to educational services in which the Tribunal has denied requests to expedite. The applicant states that she is in the middle of a Masters program, and there is a set amount of time given in which a student may successfully complete the program. She states that there is a real danger that she will reach the limit or be asked to leave before she has reached it due to the academic inactivity she has been forced into. However, the applicant does not provide any further detail about those time limits or the current status of her studies. While the Tribunal appreciates that the loss of an educational opportunity would be significant, there is nothing in the material before it to suggest that such a consequence is imminent or pending. The material also does not demonstrate that the Tribunal would be unable to provide an appropriate remedy if the Application succeeds.
10In the circumstances, the Tribunal denies the Request to Expedite.
11The respondents have indicated consent to participate in mediation of the issues. The Tribunal will contact the applicant to determine whether she will agree to mediation and if she does, a mediation meeting will be scheduled following the filing of the Response.
12Given the Tribunal’s decision not to grant the Request to Expedite, the Tribunal finds the request for production of documents premature. The Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure provide time limits for exchange of arguably relevant documents. There are no special circumstances that justify a production order at this stage of the process. The request for production is therefore dismissed, without prejudice to the respondents’ right to renew the request following the production process.
13I am not seized of this matter.
Dated at Toronto this 25th day of November, 2009.
“Signed by”
Sherry Liang
Vice-chair