Dr. Kate Rocklein, the former associate director of undergraduate studies at Queen's School Of Nursing, on campus in Kingston.Johnny C.Y. Lam/The Globe and Mail
A Queen’s University nursing professor who was fired from her administrative role and suspended from teaching alleges she is a victim of discrimination and says the university’s decisions followed her attempts to warn nursing students about the risk of sexual assault.
Kate Rocklein was hired as associate director of undergraduate studies in the school of nursing early last year, after several years teaching in the United States, where she was known for her research on U.S. military special forces medics. She was fired from her administrative role at Queen’s in September and suspended from teaching in November.
The university says it can’t publicly discuss an employment matter, but in private correspondence with Prof. Rocklein that she shared with The Globe and Mail, her superiors said her skills didn’t suit the administrator’s role. They also raised several allegations about her teaching, including that she misled students in a way that made them feel “unsafe and manipulated.”
The crux of the case centres around a professor who was fired from her administrative role and suspended from teaching, and the varying accounts of why that happened. From her perspective, the issue stems from how universities communicate with students on issues of sexual assault and sexual harassment, and whether professors have discretion to raise the alarm within their own classrooms. The conflict comes at a time of heightened concern about the threat of sexual violence on university campuses, as well as a spotlight on the nursing profession itself, which is female-dominated.
But the university frames it as an administrative issue about a professor who lacks the right kind of skills to lead, and a teacher who misled students and failed to meet her professional obligations. The case is now the subject of a workplace investigation.
Prof. Rocklein has filed two complaints with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The first alleges she was discriminated against as a person with autism. The second alleges discrimination on the basis of sex, among other things, and that she was a victim of reprisal for addressing the issue of sexual assault during her lectures, “and attempting to protect and empower” her students.
In Prof. Rocklein’s view, her problems began when she spoke up about the threat of sexual assault for nursing students, urging Queen’s to do more to warn its campus community about the danger, including pro-actively informing the student community about assaults or other crimes. According to her complaint, she says she urged her students to take precautions to protect themselves.
Prof. Rocklein said that she encountered troubling stories of sexual assault among nursing students. She said an “abnormal amount” of student issues she was addressing revolved around mental health or sexual assaults.
Then, in September, 2022, Prof. Rocklein said she was knocked unconscious and robbed on her way home from a school-related function, where she believes she was drugged. In her human-rights complaint, she said her symptoms were consistent with having ingested a date-rape drug. While being treated at a Kingston hospital she says she was told by hospital staff that Queen’s nursing students were the student group most commonly treated for sex assault.
Queen’s said it has no data to support that statement, and Kingston Health Sciences Centre said the same.
Prof. Rocklein subsequently told students in a first-year class what she says she was told at the hospital. She also warned them that “there could be a risk that nursing students are a target for sexual assault,” Prof. Rocklein said.
Shortly after, Prof. Rocklein was called to a meeting with her boss, nursing school director Erna Snelgrove-Clarke, and fired from her administrative post.
Then, in November, Prof. Rocklein received a letter from health sciences dean and former cabinet minister Jane Philpott suspending her from her teaching position and stating that a workplace investigation would look at whether she had met her teaching obligations in a professional manner. Prof. Rocklein said she couldn’t discuss the status of the investigation, which is confidential.
Prof. Rocklein alleges she was suspended and fired from her roles because she spoke out to warn students about sexual violence. “My impression is that it’s just a really unimaginative way of trying to shut someone up,” Prof. Rocklein said in an interview. “I can’t be sliced bread one day and then talk about sexual assault and be complete garbage the next day. That’s not how life works.”
According to Prof. Rocklein’s human-rights complaint, she said the university was aware of her autism before she was hired and she says she was assured she would receive “extensive support.” But Prof. Rocklein said her accommodation requests were not honoured.
In response to questions from The Globe, Queen’s spokeswoman Julie Brown said the university takes all reports of sexual violence seriously. The university said Prof. Rocklein’s statement about the risk of sexual assault had no connection to her administrative role.
The letter from Dr. Snelgrove-Clarke said Prof. Rocklein’s interpersonal and leadership skills didn’t align with the needs of the administrative position.
In a separate letter, Dr. Philpott said Prof. Rocklein was alleged to have misled students, made them feel unsafe and used lecture time inappropriately to discuss personal issues. She was also accused of not making good use of teaching time, not making reasonable efforts to inform students of class cancellations and failing to provide timely information about the format and location of an exam.
In the weeks after Prof. Rocklein lost her administrative job, posters appeared around campus that suggested she was fired at least in part because she raised questions about the threat of sexual assault within the department. The posters, which said “Queen’s nursing students deserve better,” claimed that nursing students reportedly are sexually assaulted more than any other student group. According to a Jan. 13 article in the student newspaper, the Queen’s University Journal, the university’s security services were investigating the source of the posters.
Nursing students discussed the matter at a November meeting. The minutes show that some students said they felt unsafe as a result of what they were told in Prof. Rocklein’s class and some reported “increased stress, psychological trauma and vulnerability.”
“Nursing students living on campus residences stated they felt uncomfortable in their residences, on campus, in Kingston, and beyond,” the meeting record states. “These conversations require a greater level of respect, compassion, understanding, and care.”
Several students who were in Prof. Rocklein’s class declined interviews about what happened. Representatives of the Nursing Students Society passed a message via the university’s media relations department declining interview requests.
The university’s allegations about Prof. Rocklein’s conduct are being assessed as part of the workplace investigation. Prof. Rocklein is waiting for her discrimination claims to be heard by a Human Rights Tribunal.
For her part, Prof. Rocklein defends her choice to speak up. “Everything I was teaching was related to the course and the objectives,” she said, ”and if I’m inadvertently critical of the institution during it, too bad.”