A Vancouver court has dismissed claims by a student that she was kicked out of Langara College's Holistic Studies program because she's Wiccan.
Sally Wild was enrolled in a three-year program at Langara, and claimed that inb February 2007, an instructor said to her, "We don't burn witches, we just kick them out of programs." She says she took the complaint to dean Doug Soo. However, Soo says he decided to remove Wild from the holistic program after hearing details of her aberrant behavior. Soo says that Wild told fellow students that she might harm herself if her boyfriend left her, and that she made comments to teachers about having "the mentality of a good sniper." In light of a number of ihghly-publicized shootings, Soo decided it was in the best interests of safety to expell Wild from the program.
Wild complained that she was never allowed to respond to the allegations, and so was reinstated as a student in May 2007. She says that she was "mistreated because of her hereditary gifts of intuitive power and perception." However, in July 2009, a court dismissed Wild's complaint, saying that there was insufficient proof of discrimination.
So, what's the deal here? Was she really kicked out of a holistic program for being Wiccan? One would think that a school that has an entire course of study based on holistic medicine might be used to having people from non-mainstream religions as students, so it seems odd that Wild might be singled out for her beliefs. Furthermore, if she really did make statements about a "sniper mentality" and self-harm, other students may have been at risk because of her behavior.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't give us enough information to determine what really happened, but the fact that the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has found the claims to be without merit is pretty telling.
Well, it seems apparent that this girl has some serious issues completely unrelated to her path at the root of her problems, and not the discrimination factor.
poor girl sounds like she needs phsyciatric help.
She was obviously troubled and in need of some support and attention; kicking her off the course says to me that Langara obviously do not have a sufficient support system in place.
I really am hoping that we only heard one side of the story and that the other side will prove that the girl is mentally stable and not as disillusioned as they made her sound. If she did make all of these statements, they should have contacted the school’s mental health counselor, for her own well-being and possibly for everyone else’s as well.
My name is James Canova. I am Sally’s uncle. I have been working with Sally to understand exactly what happened during her time as a student in the Integrative Energy Healing Certificate Program (the Program) offered by the Continuing Studies Department of Langara College.
Sally began studies in the Program in Sept 2006. The first year program primarily consists of four, week long residential retreats at Loon Lake, BC. Sally attended the first three (Oct 31-Nov4, 2006; Feb 6-10, 2007; April 17-21, 2007).
On April 12, 2007 her and her mother met with the manager of the Program, Ruth Lamb, Registered Nurse (RN), (currently a Registrant named in a review by the Health Professions Review Board of the Province of British Columbia) , at Sally’s request to raise concerns regarding the conduct of some of the Program’s instructors.
On May 3, 2007 Sally met with Ruth Lamb, at Ruth Lamb’s request, ostensibly to review Ms. Lamb’s investigation of Sally’s concerns. Instead, Sally was handed a letter dated May 2, 2007, informing her that she was expelled from the Program. Until being handed the letter, Sally had no knowledge of any concerns about what she might have said or might have done.
I had Sally write to the College Board to let them know that she had been expelled without due process.
The President of the College at that time, Linda Holmes, re-investigated and cleared Sally of all allegations made against her by the first year instructors. Because of her experience, Sally chose not to return to the Program.
Many questions remain unanswered. Many concerns about the operation of the College and the Program were raised.
For one, the Dean of Continuing Studies, Doug Soo, writes in his affidavit to the Human Rights Tribunal that he directed Ruth Lamb to write the expulsion letter of May 2. I have written to the current President of the College, David Ross, and he confirms that Doug Soo had no authority to expel a student.
Also, during the re-investigation by Linda Holmes, the complaints against Sally made by the instructors were found to have covered all three retreats that Sally attended. However, despite the serious nature of the complaints, she was never asked to leave a retreat or asked not to participate in any retreat activity.
(This has a parallel with the comment by Raine, ie the apparent concerns of Langara staff are not reflected in their actions.)
Further, the three instructors (RNs) that had concerns regarding the ‘sniper’ matter ,which was said to have arose during the second retreat, attended the third retreat with Sally and spoke to her during the normal course of the retreat and never mentioned any concerns to her. Given the RNs concerns, and in addition, the shooting incident at Virginia Tech, coincidentally, the day before the start of the third retreat, it is a mystery why the RNs allowed Sally to attend that retreat, and why they, themselves, would attend the retreat with Sally present.
(note: no credence is given to the RNs concerns, however, even if misguided, they apparently had these concerns).
There are many more concerns about the operation of the College and the actions of the Program staff.
There are a couple of actions underway. I am acting as Sally’s agent in both cases. I may write more about these further. One involves the conduct of four Registered Nurses that were instructors of Sally’s.
I’ll write about the Human Rights case in a subsequent posting.
Sally’s experience appears not to be an isolated case at Langara College.
To little effect, on-going efforts have been made by Sally and her family to have the Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development of BC to review the operation of Langara College.
The Minister’s contact information is:
HONOURABLE MOIRA STILWELL
PO BOX 9059 STN PROV GOVT
VICTORIA BC V8W 9E2
Telephone: 250 356-2771
Fax: 250 356-3000
E-mail: ALMD.Minister@gov.bc.ca
James Canova
Hello- I am a fellow student who took this Langara program with Sally and attended all 3 retreats with her as well. While I will say that Sally was different from anyone I have ever met- I will also say with emphasis that I NEVER felt frightened or threatened by her in anyway, nor did I feel that she deserved to be removed from the program. Although Sally and I both have very different backgrounds, I found her to be nice and interesting and enjoyed getting to know her in the course environment. I would also like to point out that during these retreats all of the students there(at least everyone that I ever spoke with) myself included are undergoing some very intense personal work-it’s like therapy times a thousand because you are cutting through the noise of the ego mind and going straight into the energy and feelings that are attatched to whatever you are working through. My point is that we were all under extreme circumstances and I don’t feel as though Sally should have been treated any differently than anyone else in the course. I don’t think it’s right for people who have read a short one sided article to be judging Sally-I was there and I don’t even know the whole story. Be a light, not a judge.
Hi I am also a fellow student who took this Langara program with Sally. She is a dear friend of mine, I first met her at the beginning of this course. I was at all three retreats with Sally, and I can personally testify that many of the things that James Canova has stated. Sally has never made me feel frightened or threatened in any way during our time in the course. I have also never know her to be a danger to her self or others within or out of this course, She has been a very sweet and caring person to me and others in the course. During this course we are expected to develop a certain way of thinking and in that thinking we must examine our deepest thoughts, fears, hates and pain now that may seem easy for some of you who are reading this. Though in my experience this is a very tough challenge that not all succeed at. The pain from events in the past is resurfaced leading to more immediate pain. This was not easy for any of us in the course. In light of this Sally should not have been treated any differently than the rest of us. I also do believe that sally was much more advanced then the rest of us, though she was willing to learn everything from the beginning. She was the one who taught me many of the thing I learned in the course she was also very understanding. (this is my opinion of the situation being in the class) Now whilst I and many others were treated fairly and with reward, Sally was treated with fear and disdain. She had never mentioned to me that she was to not participate in retreat activities and many of the activities I did along side her. Now as I imagine that many of you see that this article is a nasty one about dear Sally and I agree that it is nasty. It is nasty to the point of me being enraged by the sight of it. Having said that I am of complete sound mind and mental judgment. This is only a small portion of the story, I do not and cannot know everything that has occurred. Though I do implore you to see Sally in another light, She is human like us all; kind, strong, proud and understanding. I have also know her to be a very forgiving person. I think it is very unfair and unjust that people should judge her based on an article such as this, with out knowing the real person behind the scrutinies and with out knowing all the facts. NOW I WILL ONLY SAY THIS ONCE! NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS! Find all the facts before you judge them and meet them if you can, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and you will understand. So I beg of you walk a mile in Sally’s shoes before you judge her!
Hello. I am also a fellow student who took this Langara course. Sally is a very dear friend of mine. please don’t let this dissuade you from reading on there are many valid points. Now that I have you attention. I have attended all three retreats along side her. Sally was removed from the program on unfair grounds. I first met at the beginning of the program. Now she is definitely not you’re average person nor would I wish her to be. She is a very wonderful and unique person, very kind, funny, strong, intelligent and lovable person. For the record, she had NEVER made me fearful of her nor feel threatened by her! Being there with her I’ve learned so much more from her than I would have from the course. Also for the record whilst I had attended, Sally and I were together much of the time as friends and I had never felt or heard her utter any words that she would harm herself or others. During this course we were encouraged to think in a specific way and any opposition to that thought process was met either through fear or rigid remarks saying to follow the structure. I had taken several metaphysics courses prier to enrollment in this program and those techniques, thought processes and structures were foreign to the program and many of the teacher teaching our class met them with confusion, I state this because I do believe that Sally was more advanced than many of us including myself. Though Sally was willing to learn everything from the beginning and add on to her knowledge. Some of the precesses involve us(the students) to enter a meditative trance an explore our concisenesses and explore our deepest fears, hates, and pains so that we could remove them, thus allowing us to better help others through integrative energy healing. as the course. So many of us were going through intensive work, I cannot say what kind of self work for it was different for each student, what I can say is that it often involved bringing up past pain. So that being said now were our behavior really so unexpected. I don’t think so. As well as being by Sally there was no outrageous behavior in the class by anyone including Sally and myself. This article is only a small piece of what happened during those three retreats. This article is a nasty one about Sally and most of you will agree. It does not contain all the facts and only a small portion of the facts may be extracted and only from the points of my self, Stephanie and James Canova due to us either being there or gaining the facts from those who were there including Sally. Now this article and some of its comments fill me with putrescent rage. this is only a small portion of the story and to judge someone you don’t know with ignorant facts is stupid, unfair and unjust. First walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you judge them and meet them if you can. So I beg you walk a mile in Sally’s shoes before you judge her. NOW I WILL GIVE YOU A PIECE OF ADVICE. NOTHING MAYBE AS IT SEEMS! So get over it and find the truth!