Harassment and sexual misconduct - guide for students

Definitions

Our consultation refers throughout to 'harassment and sexual misconduct'. Our definitions for the purposes of the consultation are as follows:

Harassment

Harassment includes unwanted behaviour or conduct which makes a person(s) feel offended, intimidated or humiliated if it occurs because of, or connected to, one or more of the following protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation (as defined by Section 26 of the Equality Act 2010).  We would read harassment to also include any incidents of physical violence towards another person(s) on the basis of a protected characteristic. Under our definition, we will understand harassment to include hate crimes, as defined by the Home Office in 2016.

Sexual misconduct

Sexual misconduct relates to all unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, including, but not limited to:

Sexual harassment (as defined by Section 26 (2) of the Equality Act 2010)
Unwanted conduct which creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment (as defined by the Equality Act 2010)
Assault (as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003)
Rape (as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003)
Physical unwanted sexual advances (as set out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission: Sexual harassment and the law, 2017)
Intimidation or promising resources or benefits in return for sexual favours (as set out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission: Sexual harassment and the law, 2017)
Distributing private and personal explicit images or video footage of an individual without their consent (as defined by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015)

Published 09 January 2020

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Harassment and sexual misconduct - guide for students

Definitions

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