Complaints surface about recurring violence against women at St. FX University

There are renewed questions about how a major Nova Scotia university deals with sexualized violence on campus.

The latest questions at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., follow the laying of criminal charges against a student and former football player, Omogbolahan (Teddy) Jegede.

RCMP have charged Jegede, 22, with four counts of sexual assault involving four different women. Police say their investigation is continuing and they suspect there could be more complainants to come forward.

This is not the first time St. FX has faced such allegations. 

In 2019, two former football players were acquitted of sexually assaulting a female student. The allegation stemmed from an incident at a party in one of the university dorms in November 2017.

In 2018, St. FX students protested on campus over the university's handling of other allegations.

In 2021, the university introduced a new reporting program to make it easier for students.

Despite all these measures and all these previous conversations, people who spoke to CBC News said they're not surprised by these latest allegations.

'The same disappointment'

"From my co-workers, it's the same disappointment we get every single time and from everybody else it's, 'Oh, that's not surprising, that's not anything new,'" said one woman, who is a close friend of one of the complainants. We are calling her Jane Doe in this story to avoid the risk of identifying that complainant.

"It sucks that that's what we expect now," she said.

Doe said she has heard from friends and co-workers about other allegations against Jegede involving his treatment of women.

"I have a lot of friends that knew him and were aggressed by him in their first years," she said.

None of these allegations, including the four criminal charges, has yet been tested in court.

Alyssa Spridgeon, a former goalkeeper for St. FX's women's soccer team, said she wasn't surprised about the allegations.

Spridgeon conducts sexualized violence prevention training in the athletics department. She also wrote her thesis for her psychology degree on perceptions of sexual violence on campus.

Not tolerated, says St. FX

"I think that there's a lot of challenges around, especially in athletics, what happens in athletics stays in athletics and folks were aware of problematic behaviour, teammates were aware, coaches were potentially aware and I think that the big challenge was that no one ever thought to bring this to the appropriate people at the university so that there actually could be some kind of action taken," Spridgeon said.

The university responded with a statement on Friday addressing some of the specific concerns raised by the people who spoke to CBC News, including the suggestion that athletes resist taking training to prevent sexual violence. 

"While we are disappointed with this feedback, we do not tolerate sexualized violence on our campus," the university statement said.

"All athletes are required to take mandatory bystander training, and some take advanced bystander training."

But Spridgeon said from her perspective, the training isn't enough.

"One of my concerns as well is the fact that we do this training once a year but that's mainly for the athletes," Spridgeon said.

"Our coaches and athletics administration staff are not required to do any training whatsoever around sexual violence prevention, so if there's harm caused on their team, they don't have the training or education to be able to facilitate conversations."

Small community concerns

For Doe, one of the problems is the fact both the Town of Antigonish and the St. FX campus are relatively small.

"There's not really many places to go, there's only so many places that someone could hide if they so chose," she said. "And I think he might be banned from campus, but if someone has to go get groceries, someone has to go get medications, someone has to go to the hospital, there's no way you could avoid the other person, really."

The university statement also defended the way it has responded to the allegations involving Jegede.

"We take complaints seriously and encourage anyone from our community who has concerns to raise them," the statement reads.

"With respect to sexual violence, our approach is survivor-centred and trauma-informed, and our goal is to provide students with a safe space to make a disclosure or a report." 

Doe disagrees. "That's the same statement, that's the same thing they say every time, it's the same copy and pasted 'We support you, we believe you, we do everything,' but it feels like sometimes you're talking to a brick wall," she said.

Spridgeon says part of the challenge is getting people to change their thinking about the causes of sexualized violence.

Thinking beyond one-bad-apple approach

"So I think we need to move away from the concept that it's one bad apple and think about what is the culture that's perpetuating this? What leadership is taking place? What standards are actually being set? We can't have one conversation, once a year about sexual violence and expect something to change there — it needs to come from the top and filter down," she said.

Brendan Roberts, the president of the St. FX students' union, said the union's emphasis has been on making sure all students get the supports they need, especially under the added pressure of exam season. 

"I think that the conversation needs to now shift toward the preventative approaches to things," Roberts said. "And this isn't just a conversation that can happen when we hear these reports but it needs to be talked about every day. How can we address this issue on our campuses?"

A spokesperson for the provincial Department of Advanced Education said it is monitoring the situation at St. FX and is prepared to help make changes to policies on sexualized violence if necessary.

Jegede is due to make his first appearance in Nova Scotia provincial court on June 14.

Support is available for anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. ​​If your situation is urgent, please contact emergency services in your area.