DATE:
September 19, 2022
PARTIES:
M.N. ("the Student"). v. the School of Graduate Studies
HEARING DATE(S):
June 9, 2022 via Zoom
COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Professor Hamish Stewart, Chair
Professor Nhung Tran, Faculty Governor
Evan Kanter, Student Governor
SECRETARY:
Nadia Bruno, Special Projects Officer, Office of Appeals, Discipline and Faculty Grievances
APPEARANCES:
FOR THE STUDENT APPELLANT:
The Student
FOR THE school of graduate studies
Jodi Martin, Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP
The Student appeals Graduate Academic Appeals Board (GAAB) decision to affirm the previous decisions of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (the Institute) and Graduate Department Academic Appeals Committee (GDAAC)to remove Professor Wheeler as the Student’s doctoral dissertation supervisor.
The Student enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the Institute in September 2012, under the supervision of Professor Wheeler, and started working in Professor Wheeler’s lab. The Student suffered from a major medical condition and received a number of medical leaves as accommodations for this condition. From the Winter 2018 term onwards, the Student was on a medical leave of absence and anticipated returning at some point in 2019. During the Student’s medical leave, Professor Wheeler determined that he could not serve as the Student’s supervisor any longer. The material the Committee reviewed indicated that Professor Wheeler’s decision had been made well before September 2019.
In September 2019, Professor John Davies, the Institute’s Associate Director of Graduate Programs, informed the Student via email that when he returned from medical leave, Professor Wheeler would no longer be his supervisor. The Institute offered the Student two options for completing his doctoral dissertation and Professor Davies also summarized the options in a letter. Under both options Professor Davies would have served as the Student’s supervisor. The Student rejected both options and indicated he wanted to continue his doctoral researcher under Professor Wheeler’s supervision. The Student appealed to the GDAAC and was dismissed. The Student later appealed to the GAAB and was also dismissed.
Before the Committee, the primary remedy the Student sought was an order allowing him to complete his Ph.D. under Professor Wheeler in Professor Wheeler’s lab, and in the alternative, an order requiring a new hearing at the GDAAC. The Student’s written and oral submission were directed largely at persuading the Committee to order the Institute to require Professor Wheeler to continue supervising his research. The Student’s submission argued that it was unreasonable for the Institute to determine that Professor Wheeler’s continued supervision was no longer possible. The Chair of the Committee is of the view that the Committee has no jurisdiction to make such an order and that even if did, the Committee would not order the remedy sought by the Student.
The Student made five principal submissions to support his position, namely 1) An email dated August 2016 between the Student and Professor Wheeler constituted a contract requiring Professor Wheeler to be his supervisor; 2) He was only three months away from completing his dissertation; 3) Professor Wheeler would have been obliged to continue supervising the Student had he returned to Toronto as of May 2019; 4) The options offered were not feasible; and 5) Continued supervision by Professor Wheeler was required by the University’s obligation to accommodate the Student’s disability.
The Committee found that the email was not a binding commitment and did not render the Institute’s decision unreasonable. The Committee also found that the Student was not three months away from completing his dissertation, but rather that three months were a prerequisite to the Student’s progress towards completion, which would, according to the report, take at least ten months. The Committee found that there was no basis for the Student to submit that Professor Wheeler would have had to accept him back into the lab had he returned May 2019. The Committee noted that the question of what would have happened if the Student had returned in May 2019 was of marginal relevance. The Committee found that assessing the feasibility of the options offered to the Student required, along with other elements, expertise in biomechanical engineer which the GDAAC had but the Committee did not. The Committee deferred to the GDAAC’s assessment that the options were feasible. Lastly, the Committee found the Institute was within the Human Rights Code as it provided the Student with extensive accommodations and despite these accommodations, the Student was unable to function effectively in Professor Wheeler’s lab.
In the alternative, the Student submitted that the GDAAC process was flawed and that the Committee should have ordered a new hearing. The Committee rejected this submission and adopted the reasons of the GAAB for doing so. The Committee agreed with the GAAB that the procedural flaws the Student raised were not so significant as to provide grounds to invalidate the decision and that any negative impact of a delay in decision was mitigated by the extension the Student was provided for submitting his appeal to the GAAB. The Committee added that the absence of the student member for the GDAAC meeting was not a procedural flaw as there was no requirement for the student member to be present.
The appeal was dismissed.