Ali's blog

 Dear Dr. Peever, 

Below, I have included a detailed accounting of the events leading to my present professional impasse. I trust these details will help you determine the necessary next steps.

The spring before I became a PhD student at the Department of Sociology (2019). The professor who had sponsored my successful admissions application, Professor Taylor, recommended I audit a summer course she was teaching. As soon as I joined the course, Professor Taylor began making subtle but persistent sexual and romantic advances towards me. These advances were unwanted and, initially, I was able to redirect and/or gently decline them. But Professor Taylor was undeterred: Professor Taylor said I was a promising academic, even though she had not read any of my work. Professor Taylor said I would go far if I received strong mentorship from someone like her. Professor Taylor told me I was special. 

Eventually, Professor Taylor acquired my phone number by offering to leverage her institutional power to help a friend of mine who was experiencing financial difficulties. After acquiring my phone number, it wasn’t long until Professor Taylor was texting me about sex. Professor Taylor then began texting me to describe her extramarital sexual relationships, some with other faculty members. These texts escalated into sexting between us. Not long after, Professor Taylor invited me to her office where she initiated a pre-sexual interaction. Not long after that, she came to my home on the pretext of requesting support from me. There, she initiated a coercive and predatory sexual relationship that would last until March 2020.

Below I have excerpted some additional details from the report presently under consideration by U of T’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Support Centre. I have been notified by the director of this Centre that Professor Taylor will likely be placed on permanent leave. 

·      Over the duration of our 7-month sexual relationship: Professor Taylor repeatedly made disparaging and degrading comments to me about my writing, academic achievements, future professional prospects, as well as demeaning comments about my character.

·      Professor Taylor also closely monitored my interactions with peers and faculty. I was expected to report to her daily about my communications, including those with my supervisor. Several times, when it appeared I was getting to know another colleague in a meaningful and professional way, Dr. Taylor would intervene by discrediting them, sharing inappropriate details about their lives, or suggesting that they were only interested in me sexually. 

·      Professor Taylor monitored my location via an app on my phone. She repeatedly instructed me to monitor hers, even though several times I refused.

·      Professor Taylor was, at the time, speaking regularly on CBC about male professors exploiting their institutional power to undertake similar predatory sexual relationships with students. 

In March 2020, the COVID social distancing closures gave me an opportunity to finally end Professor Taylor’s sexual exploitation of me. At this time, Professor Taylor’s berating briefly intensified and increased. Despite my demands for no contact, Professor Taylor continued to contact me and then solicited another colleague to continue contacting me on her behalf. At this time, I reported Professor Taylor’s sexual exploitation of me to my supervisor at the time, Dr. Jessica Fields. Professor Fields handled the situation efficiently, by telling me that Professor Taylor – and I quote – “should have said no.” In May 2024, I politely ended my supervision relationship with Dr. Fields. 

In May 2024, I made a formal complaint regarding Professor Taylor’s violation of the University of Toronto’s Sexual Violence Policy to Prof. Milkie, who was at the time sociology’s graduate chair. Rather than providing academic or administrative support or recourse, Prof. Milkie instructed me to meet with a psychologist. It was around this time that I began observing I had become something of a social leper in my department. Despite my accomplishments (with regards to publications, funding,[1] public-intellectual work, and conference presentations) I was told by multiple faculty members in the department that I was untenable to work with, unmotivated, mentally-unwell, and “aggressive.” To punctuate my alienation from the department, on several occasions (when no one else was around) Prof Milkie took the opportunity to walk past my desk initiating sustained, inappropriate, and aggressive eye contact.

In May 2024, I began looking for a new supervisor immediately so that I could continue to make progress towards completing my PhD. Despite approaching nearly every faculty member in my large department, I remain without a supervisor. Attempting to negotiate a pathway to acquire a supervisor within Dr. Fedor Dokshin’s office over the past two years has yielded few effective results. I have attempted pleading with courtesy. I have attempted issuing demands. I have attempted waiting with patient civility. I have attempted seeking assistance from U of T’s Ombuds office. Over a month ago, I initiated yet another request to Dr. Dokshin’s office: I asked for permission to acquire a co-supervisor from an adjacent department. I still have not been provided with a reply. As I trust you are aware, the university model relies upon the peer-review process to produce legitimate and credible university knowledge. In the absence of an appropriate supervisor, I continue to lag farther and farther behind my peers, many of whom have already graduated and secured post-PhD employment. The only recommendation Dr. Dokshin’s office has made: repeated suggestions that I abandon my degree or take a “leave of absence.” At this point, I trust it is evident why my faith in the goodwill of Dr. Dokshin’s office remains severely compromised. 

When I enter the job market, I will be required to account for the delays that the Department of Sociology’s graduate office have imposed on my progress. Further, the circumstances I have detailed in these pages rarely occur in isolation: I would like to remind SGS of their ethical obligation to investigate this issue further, by conducting a thorough departmental review. 

Dr. Peever, I am once again requesting an opportunity to finally secure a suitable and ethically-sound co-supervisor who can read my work and provide critical feedback so that I can restore progress towards completing my degree. I recognize that in order to graduate I will also need a co-supervisor from within my department. Dr. Dokshin’s office has made it impossible for me to secure one at this present time. I remain hopeful that with mentorship from an external supervisor, I might have an opportunity to continue progressing and to incorporate a co-supervisor from within my department at the end.