What is Sexual Harassment?
Sexual harassment is not okay and has no place in the University community.
Sexual harassment is unwanted and unwelcome words, conduct, or behaviour of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, embarrassing, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the recipient.
Sexual Harassment can include but is not limited to:
Unwanted pressure for sexual favours
· Catcalling, following, making unnecessary and unwanted physical contact
· Sexual jokes and comments, giving unwelcome personal gifts
· Wolf-whistling, leering, derogatory comments, unwelcome comments about a person’s body or clothing, asking unwelcome questions about a person’s sex life and/or sexuality,
· Engaging in unwelcome sexual propositions, invitations and flirtation
· Making somebody feel uncomfortable through displaying or sharing sexual material
· Sexual harassment does not necessarily occur face to face and can be in the form of emails, visual images (such as sexually explicit pictures on walls in a shared environment), social media, telephone, text messages and image based sexual abuse such as revenge porn and upskirting.
Sexual harassment is not a criminal offence under English law, but behaviours aligning with it are addressed under the University's Sexual Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy and Procedure. (3.1 Sexual Misconduct). When touching is involved, such as unwanted physical advances or inappropriate touching, it may intersect with sexual offences in criminal law. Some forms might overlap with other crimes such as harassment, stalking, or revenge porn. The University follows the Equality Act (2010) (S26) considering sexual harassment as part of sexual misconduct under this Policy. Racialised sexual harassment, such as harassment that includes racial stereotypes or fetishisation, is also prohibited under this policy.