An unvaccinated student’s request to withdraw his complaint was permitted by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) with the caveat the student couldn’t submit another request with the same allegations.
In HRTO records obtained by The Journal post-adjudication Jan. 11, the student alleged Queen’s failed to exempt them from the 2021 mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy based on their personal beliefs. The original complaint was submitted to the HRTO on Dec. 2, 2021.
The claim, filed by the student, said they were unable to pursue their education in engineering and were discriminated against on the grounds of their ethnic origin, disability, and creed under the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Most engineering courses required the student to attend classes in-person, which they were barred from due to the vaccination requirement, leading the student to drop all their classes and leave on-campus residence.
“Queen’s has refused to honour that deeply governing belief, spiritual faith, that governs bodily autonomy, nutrition, spiritual practices and antrosopic [SIC] medicine,” the student’s application said.
The student requested monetary compensation of $80,000 for moving, educational costs, emotional impact, and legal costs.
In their response, Queen’s stated the student’s reason for not being vaccinated had changed over time, and in their communications with the University, didn’t include information related to their ethnicity. The University gave the student options for completing their studies online and largely refunded the student’s tuition and residence fees.
According to the University, the student didn’t follow the process outlined by the vaccination policy for receiving accommodations and didn’t participate in the rapid antigen testing program mandatory for all unvaccinated individuals.
Tags
Covid-19, human rights, vaccines
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.