Petru Rozoveanu v. St. Andrew’s College, 2013 HRTO 690

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Petru Rozoveanu

Applicant

-and-

St. Andrew’s College

Respondent

DECISION

Adjudicator: Alison Renton

Date: April 24, 2013

Citation: 2013 HRTO 690

Indexed as: Rozoveanu v. St. Andrew’s College

APPEARANCES

Petru Rozoveanu, Applicant

Self-represented

St. Andrew’s College, Respondent

Sherrill Knight, Representative

Introduction

1This is an Application filed under s. 34 of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”), alleging discrimination with respect to employment because of place of origin and ethnic origin. The applicant self identifies as being Romanian. Specifically, the applicant alleges that he was denied an interview after he applied for a position of mathematics teacher with the respondent. The applicant provided a copy of the covering letter and résumé that he sent to the respondent when applying for the mathematics teacher’s position.

2The respondent filed a Response denying the allegations against it. It indicated that it reviewed approximately 151 applications for the mathematics teacher position. It acknowledged that the applicant apparently holds exceptional educational qualifications, but the applicant’s cover letter did not reference his pedagogical approach, provide insight into his commitment to teaching in an all-boys environment or his willingness to contribute to the respondent’s athletic and co-curricular programs. The applicant’s résumé did not indicate from which university or universities the applicant obtained his degrees, when or for how long he held his various teaching assignments, whether he had experience teaching high school students and whether he had training in the area of instructional strategies beyond lecturing.

3The applicant did not file a Reply, and the time for filing has elapsed.

4The Tribunal issued a Case Assessment Direction dated July 6, 2012 (“the CAD”) in which it determined, on its own initiative, that a summary hearing would be held to determine whether the Application should be dismissed, in whole or in part, on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect that the Application or part of the Application will proceed. The Tribunal stated that a half-day summary hearing by teleconference would be held and stated that the applicant would proceed first to make argument about why the Application should not be dismissed as having no reasonable prospect of success, and point to the evidence on which he will prove a link between the respondent’s actions and the grounds cited.

5The Tribunal issued a Notice of Summary Hearing dated July 9, 2012 scheduling the summary hearing (“the hearing”) for October 24, 2012.

6Prior to the hearing, the applicant filed a Request for Order During Proceedings (“RFOP”) in which he requested that the respondent produce the cover letter and résumé of the person “who was hired as the math teacher”. The respondent filed a Response to a RFOP requesting that the Tribunal deny the applicant’s request as disclosing it would disclose personal information about the incumbent and breach its internal privacy policy which is predicated on criteria under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

7Prior to receiving the respondent’s Response to the RFOP, the Tribunal issued a Case Assessment Direction dated September 27, 2012 in which it stated that the Tribunal would review the RFOP and the respondent’s Response to the RFOP, if one was filed, and may issue an Interim Decision or case directions pertaining to it before the hearing. Ultimately, neither an Interim Decision nor a case direction was issued prior to the hearing.

8The Tribunal also stated that it would find it helpful if the parties filed a copy of the mathematics teacher’s job advertisement to which the applicant and others applied in advance of the hearing. The respondent provided the Tribunal with a newspaper clipping dated February 1, 2012 indicating “Upper School Faculty” and stating “for details please visit our website: www.sac.on.ca”.

9Both parties participated in the hearing. The Tribunal heard first from the applicant, then the respondent, and then from the applicant responding to the respondent’s submissions. The submissions made during the summary hearing as well as the materials filed by the parties have been considered by the Tribunal.

the applicant’s submissions

10The applicant asserts that he was qualified for the position. He holds many degrees and has extensive teaching experience from elementary school to university. He submits that it is not necessary to provide the dates for those teaching positions as the purpose of the résuméis to establish that he is an outstanding candidate rather than providing all types of details. As he applied to a boys-only school, the respondent should assume he was interested in teaching at an all-boys school. He did not reference his pedagogical approach because the respondent did not ask for it, however, his resume provided information about his teaching style. His résumé indicates that he was involved in extra-curricular activities, including soccer, martial arts and mathematics contents, which, he asserts, establishes that he would be interested in being involved in extra-curricular activities at the respondent. His degrees and work experiences establish that he is capable of teaching in mathematics as well as other subjects. The reason that he was not interviewed constitutes discrimination.

11During the hearing, the applicant asserted that in the Greater Toronto Area, whites and aboriginals comprise 57.1% of the population with the remaining percentage comprised of visible minorities. The applicant alleges that the mathematics teachers teaching at the respondent have “British names” and “all are white”, which is statistically out of proportion to the population. He asserts that the 48 members of the respondent’s other departments, with the exception of 5 people, “have British names”. This, he asserts, is statistically impossible to establish in a hiring process, and is indicative of why he, with exceptional qualifications, was not invited to be interviewed for the position.

the respondent’s submissions

12Responding to the applicant’s submissions first raised during the hearing, the respondent stated that it is a boarding school as well as a day school and with students from 26 countries from across the world, there is diversity within the student body. The respondent submits that it makes an effort to replicate that diversity in its teaching staff. It admits that it has a number of teachers who have been employed for 25 years or more that perhaps have a British background, but the applicant is incorrect about the current composition of the mathematics department’s teaching staff, and other staff, and that he may have reviewed information that is out of date. The respondent has teachers from South America, Serbia, the Ukraine, China, Indonesia, Scandinavia, Korea, Italy and employs teachers who are visible minorities including Black, Asian and Jewish. The résumés that were submitted by the respondent do not contain pictures. The successful candidate to the job posting is a visible minority and has a substantial résumé. The respondent requests that the Application be dismissed.

LAW AND ANALYSIS

13Rule 19A.1 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure provides:

The Tribunal may hold a summary hearing, on its own initiative or at the request of a party, on the question of whether an Application should be dismissed in whole or in part on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect that the Application or part of the Application will succeed.

14In Dabic v. Windsor Police Service, 2010 HRTO 1994, the Tribunal made the following comments at paras. 8-10:

In some cases, the issue at the summary hearing may be whether, assuming all the allegations in the application to be true, it has a reasonable prospect of success. In these cases, the focus will generally be on the legal analysis and whether what the applicant alleges may be reasonably considered to amount to a Code violation.

In other cases, the focus of the summary hearing may be on whether there is a reasonable prospect that the applicant can prove, on a balance of probabilities, that his or her Code rights were violated. Often, such cases will deal with whether the applicant can show a link between an event and the grounds upon which he or she makes the claim. The issue will be whether there is a reasonable prospect that evidence the applicant has or that is reasonably available to him or her can show a link between the event and the alleged prohibited ground.

15This Application is of the second type. The issue at the summary hearing stage is whether there is no reasonable prospect that the applicant can prove a link between his place of origin and ethnic origin and the respondent’s decision not to grant him an interview for the mathematics teacher position.

16The applicant appears to have a number of degrees, including those at the Bachelor, Masters and PhD level, although the university or universities from which they were bestowed is not identified. Further he appears to have an extensive teaching background, in mathematics and other subjects, although the specific grades and years that he taught these grades is not identified. His résumé indicates that he coached or was involved with training students in extra-curricular activities including soccer, martial arts and math contents. However, it is not sufficient for the applicant to establish that he has the necessary qualifications for the position. The applicant has to establish that there is a link between his place of origin or ethnic origin and the respondent’s failure to interview him for the position. In my review of the materials filed and the submissions made during the hearing, I cannot conclude that the applicant has pointed to evidence that could established this link.

17The respondent is an all-boys school with its students from various international countries. The respondent considered more than 150 applications for the position of mathematics teacher. It submits that the candidate that was selected was a visible minority, although the respondent did not file any information about the successful candidate. As the Tribunal explained in Preddie v. Saint Elizabeth Health Care, 2011 HRTO 2098, at para. 25, while discrimination based on various grounds can be subtle and hard to detect, an applicant must nevertheless provide some reasonable basis for making allegations of such discrimination. It is not sufficient to claim discrimination as a member of a group protected under the Code and to look to a hearing process before the Tribunal as the means to discover whether such discrimination occurred. See also Gazsi v. Cascades Recovery Inc., 2012 HRTO 1899 at para. 20; there must be some reasonable prospect that evidence the applicant has or that is reasonably available to him or her can show a link between the events alleged and a prohibited ground. See Zhao v. Toronto Community Housing Corporation, 2012 HRTO 2187 at para. 12.

18At this point, I am treating the applicant’s statistical submissions as evidence that he could potentially point to at a hearing as there is no evidence called during a summary hearing but only submissions. Also, I note that the statistical submissions are disputed given the respondent’s position that the applicant was relying upon out-of-date information about its current staff complement. I cannot make findings on conflicting evidence during a summary hearing.

19With respect to the applicant’s statistical submissions that were made during the hearing, including his allegations that visible minorities are not represented in the respondent’s teaching force, there is no information before the Tribunal to establish that the applicant himself is a visible minority. This is not referenced on the applicant’s covering letter, résumé, or on the Application itself. The applicant self-identifies as being “…a Romanian immigrant coming from Romania, with a Canadian citizenship”.

20With respect to the applicant’s submissions that certain staff have “British names”, this does not, by itself, establish place of origin or ethnic origin, notwithstanding their skin colour, which, the applicant asserts, is white.

21The applicant’s covering letter and résumé do not specifically identify his place of origin or ethnic origin, although his name is set out. The covering letter contains no information about his background. The applicant’s résumé lists various employment positions he held in Bucharest, and selected publications he authored in Bucharest, all of which are written in English, with the exception of one described in French. On his résumé, the applicant identifies English, French and Romanian as being “languages”, although it is unclear whether those are written and/or spoken. Collectively, these, by themself, do not establish place of origin or ethnic origin.

22Even if this information did establish the applicant’s place of origin or ethnic origin, the applicant has not suggested any evidence that he has or that would reasonably be available to him to show a link between the respondent’s failure to interview him and the prohibited grounds raised in his Application. His assertions are nothing more than speculation to suggest that the applicant’s place of origin or ethnic origin played a factor in the respondent’s decision not to interview him.

23Accordingly, for the reasons set out above, the Application has no reasonable prospect of success and it is therefore dismissed.