Revealed: McMaster paid $610,000 to lawyers investigating an embattled department

It took eight months to get two figures.

The figures in question are: $230,454.98 and $379,030.59. They represent the fees McMaster University paid to two law firms in connection with a climate review" looking at reports of sexual assault and harassment within its Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour (PNB) last year. In total, that's nearly $610,000.

Why did it take eight months to find this out?

In March, The Spectator filed a freedom of information (FOI) request asking for the cost of the review and the cost of separate investigations into seven individuals - professors, staff and a grad student - accused of breaching its sexual violence policy and/or discrimination and harassment policy.

In April, the university denied the request, citing solicitor-client privilege" and arguing the financial information was provided by third parties with the expectation of confidentiality, and where disclosure would significantly interfere with the contractual obligations of those parties."

The Spectator appealed the decision to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Last week, McMaster half-relented, agreeing to release the legal costs of the PNB review and nothing else, only if The Spec agreed to drop its appeal. We dropped it.

Privacy experts say it shouldn't have taken so long to get this information. They question why McMaster refused to hand it over in the first place and why the university changed their mind in the end.

Is the climate' fostered by the university admin one of secrecy and concealment?" asks Arthur Schafer, founding director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. Perhaps the ethically unhealthy climate starts with the university's administration and then seeps down to the faculty and departmental level."

Schafer said the public is entitled to know how public funds are being spent.

Paul Bennett, director of Schoolhouse Institute in Halifax and an adjunct professor of education at Saint Mary's University, says educational institutions are notoriously opaque" when it comes to divulging information about controversial issues such as sexual violence investigations.

Everyone clams up. Walls go up, venues of communication shut off and the cloak of secrecy drops," Bennett said. The (university's) end game is to string it out, delay it long enough and hope that it goes away."

Dean Beeby, an FOI expert and retired CBC reporter, called the university's initial solicitor-client privilege argument frustrating" but not surprising. Precedent-setting legal decisions on similar matters, including a Supreme Court decision from 2003, have ruled that lawyers' fee information can" be considered solicitor-client privilege.

But it is not automatic," he said.

Sometimes lawyers fight fee release, fearful that it will reveal their hourly rates, Beeby said. But aggregate" data, the likes of which was ultimately provided to The Spec, should reveal no such information.

I think that should have been slam dunk when you initially asked for it," he said.

Asked why the university had a change of heart, McMaster spokesperson Michelle Donovan said: The resolution (The Spec dropping its appeal) assured McMaster and the affected third parties of the preservation of sensitive privileged, commercial and financial information contained in the records."

But McMaster always could have provided the aggregate data alone. Privacy legislation allows for partially granted requests.

Of the fees, $230,454 went to Baker McKenzie LLP - McMaster's external general legal counsel," which advised on, among other things, potential legal impacts on faculty, student and staff issues" - and $379,030 went to Rubin Thomlinson LPP - as special independent legal counsel" hired to conduct the review provide legal advice specific to the review's compliance with university policy and any applicable laws," the university said.

The roughly five-month climate review resulted in a summary report, released in December 2020. The review uncovered systemic and cultural issues" in the department that created a degree of complacency that has let inappropriate behaviours go unchecked," according to the report. Included were allegations that a blurring of boundaries" between faculty and students allowed certain faculty to engage in sexually inappropriate behaviour with students." Respondents said that when they tried to raise concerns they felt continually dismissed."

The university has been tight-lipped on the matter ever since.

More than 100 students signed an open letter to the university this past summer, calling for it to be more transparent in its handling of sexual assault allegations in the department. They questioned McMaster's commitment to ensuring student safety." The university said it can't share more because of legal limitations."

The total expenditure operating budget for PNB for the 202-21 fiscal year was $9.126 million. McMaster's total revenues for 2020-21 were approximately $1.3 billion.

Katrina Clarke is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: katrinaclarke@thespec.com