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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63247 Medium The Draft Code Before the Senate

Read the following opinion column from a website.

I believe universities need firmer rules against harassment, and I think the draft code now before the senate at a large Ontario university goes about it the wrong way. In my view, its goals are good. Its wording is so loose that it could punish the very kind of argument a university exists to protect.

Yetunde Baptiste, a student equity advocate, argues that the code must cover harassment in class, students blocking exam rooms, and online pile-ons aimed at people because of their campus roles. She points to a campus survey in which many students said they stopped attending lectures after slurs went unanswered, and she wants temporary no-contact orders issued within a few days rather than at the end of a term. Peregrine Eastwood, a law professor, warns that the draft’s definition of “harm” is so wide that instructors may drop difficult readings, cancel guest speakers and scare off student satirists. He would discipline real threats and blocked exams, but not unpopular research claims.

Marisa Chabot, a lawyer for the university, says the code will collapse the first time a court reviews it unless the university publishes hearing timelines, standards of evidence and the right to bring an adviser. She would support Baptiste’s faster process if those rules are published before any new offences are added. Jun Ogawa, who edits the student paper, says students will only trust the code if it states publicly where harassment ends and fair criticism begins. He also wants appeal rights for anyone given an interim suspension just before exams.

When I was a teaching assistant, a student left my tutorial for good after classmates mocked her accent in an online chat, and nobody had any rule to point to. Harassment is not an abstract topic for me. Still, I share Eastwood’s fear that a vague rule will chill the wrong people, and Chabot’s warning that a sloppy process will not survive its first challenge. The senate should pass the sections on threats and blocked exams now, publish the hearing rules, and send the harm definition back for another draft before its spring vote.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This column is about 1.
.

Who most clearly worries that a broad code could make people afraid to discuss hard ideas? 2.
.

Yetunde Baptiste’s position would most likely be supported by 3.
.

What outcome does Marisa Chabot’s condition call for? 4.
.

The columnist’s attitude toward the draft code is best described as 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

Residence councils see the messiest cases, and in my two years on one, the hardest were always those where the rules said nothing useful. Yetunde Baptiste wants temporary no-contact orders issued 6.
, and our residence council would have welcomed a rule like that. The law professor would punish 7.
, and the column quotes his reasons in some detail. Jun Ogawa also wants 8.
 for anyone suspended just ahead of exams, and that seems only fair. Your story about the student who 9.
 is the reason I kept reading to the end. The senate has until its 10.
 vote to get the wording right, Cosima.

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