Student guide to tackling harassment, hate and sexual misconduct

Speak to your university, college or students' union

We have developed the statement of expectations to help you understand what support and processes should be in place at your university or college.

We want to empower students and students' unions to challenge their university and college if standards are not being met.

If you don't feel your university or college is meeting these standards, you should first speak to staff at your university or college or your students' union. You could ask if they know about the statement of expectations and for more information about how they are tackling harassment and sexual misconduct.

We have also created a communications toolkit to support the statement of expectations that you can share with your university and college or use on social media.

Notify us of an issue

If universities and colleges are not meeting our expectations in responding to and preventing harassment and sexual misconduct, we want to know why.

If you want to let us know about an issue you can submit a notification to us. 

It's important to remember that we do not have a direct role in dealing with individual complaints or with disputes between students and their university or college.

We want to hear from students, student representatives and students' unions about issues in their university or college that are affecting students' abilities to participate in, and have a fulfilling experience of, their studies.

Make a complaint

If you have a complaint about your university or college, you should first go through your university or college's own complaints process.

If this doesn't resolve the issue, you can raise the matter with The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA).

Read more about how to raise a complaint.