Barnard College Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment & Procedures: Discriminatory Harassment

Relevant Excerpt

Discriminatory harassment is defined as subjecting an individual to unwelcome conduct, whether verbal, physical or visual that creates an intimidating, hostile or abusive working, learning or campus living environment: that alters the conditions of employment or education; or unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work or academic performance on the basis of the individual’s membership in a protected class. 

Discriminatory harassment may include, but is not limited to: verbal abuse; epithets or slurs; negative stereotyping; threatening, intimidating or hostile acts; denigrating jokes; insulting or obscene comments or gestures; and display or circulation (including in hard copy, by email or text, or through social media) in the working, learning or living environment of written or graphic material that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward an individual or group. Sexual harassment and gender-based harassment, which are described below, are forms of discriminatory harassment. 

The College will determine whether the conduct was humiliating, abusive or threatening based on both subjective and objective factors, based on the totality of the circumstances surrounding an alleged incident or course of conduct, including without limitation, the frequency, nature and severity of the conduct. The College will determine whether that conduct created a hostile environment by examining whether a reasonable person would find the environment hostile or abusive (as well as whether the Complainant viewed it as such).