THE Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts student at the centre of sexual harassment allegations against a senior faculty member, and other individuals affiliated with the institution, are expected to give in-camera testimony to the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) at its next sitting.

The suggestion was put forward by Manchester North Western Member of Parliament Mikael Phillips and adopted by the committee at yesterday’s meeting of the PAAC at Gordon House.

The decision comes after the eight Government members on the committee rejected a request for the student, Janell Blair and other persons to give testimony to the PAAC. Blair and the others had requested to address the committee on matters regarding the EMCVPA.

The members objected to the testimonies on the grounds that the committee runs the risk of appearing to try the matter, especially since the accused lecturer would not be present.

PAAC Chairman Dr Wykeham McNeill said he was disappointed at the Government members’ response. He stressed that the proposed appearance of the parties was not intended to ‘try’ the matter, but to hold discussions of a general nature on the issues affecting the institution.

He said Blair’s bravery in coming forward was commendable, but insisted that no immediate case would have been discussed.

“It was not (to be) a trial by any stretch of the imagination; this was something that was requested, and it took great bravery to do so, and it is something that we should commend. It also goes to show that they feel that it is so important to unearth these problems that we may have. I have always believed that this Parliament should be one where we practise the greatest openness and transparency and really try and search for truth, and that people must feel it’s their Parliament. The more we open it up the better it would be.”

Government member and St Catherine North Eastern Member of Parliament Leslie Campbell argued that the appearance of one of the students involved in the matter would not advance the issues.

“…Particularly in circumstances when the alleged offender will not have an opportunity (to appear), I didn’t see the point. In any event, we have this young person who is going to be further out in the public’s view and perhaps ridiculed and chastised in the public domain in furtherance of what I don’t know. I don’t know what we intend to achieve, having had all the information that the institution itself had breached its own rules, I don’t know how much further we could go with it,” he stated.

He said the head of the institution had already admitted at a previous sitting that correct procedures for such matters had not been followed, and that the college should be made to follow those procedures. “Let the chips fall where they may,” he said.

Another Government member, Frank Witter, said the PAAC should allow the investigation into the reports to run its course, then make a determination as to whether the committee would invite both parties involved to appear.

“Inviting the persons to the committee is a clear case of seeming to discuss an instant case. if you invite one and don’t invite the other, then it would seem to be unfair to the person who is being accused by not giving him a chance to express his view, and if you bring both then you run the risk of it being looked at as a trial,” he stated.

His colleague member and MP for Hanover Eastern, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, said despite the insistence by the chairman that the committee would not have discussed the specific incident, this was highly unlikely.

“It’s not a matter of trying a particular case… but the trauma that she has obviously experienced is going to come out, and therefore you leave the person who is being accused without the opportunity of being heard. It is not practical to think that it is not going to be focused on what happened to her,” she stated. At the same time, she commended the student for coming forward. “I do not believe that this type of behaviour should be cloaked in any way. The men in our society do it, I don’t care where they come from, they ought to be exposed.”

Principal of the college, Nicholeen DeGrasse-Johnson, was questioned by the PAAC last month about her handling of sexual harassment reports by a senior lecturer prior to recent claims in the media. She told the committee that reports had been made to her in 2017 by another staff member about students complaining of misconduct of a sexual nature by the senior lecturer in question. De Grasse-Johnson said when those reports came to her she spoke with the lecturer in question who denied the claim.

“At that point I said to him – and he denied it — if it happened again, we would move forward. I didn’t get anything again until this year, and we moved forward,” she told the PAAC.

Following the discussion, the Government members agreed to an in-camera sitting with the student.