Student Handbook: Student Conduct Code - Discriminatory Harassment

Relevant Excerpt

b. Discriminatory harassment does not refer to the use of materials for scholarly purposes appropriate to the academic context, such as class discussions, academic conferences, or meetings. Additionally, discriminatory harassment does not refer to participation in lawfully permitted protests, public forums, or campus publications established for the purpose of freely expressing opinions or ideas in the university community.

1. Discriminatory Harassment includes electronic, verbal, physical, or graphic conduct that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward a targeted student on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, pregnancy, disability, age, religion, veteran status, or any other characteristic or status protected by applicable local, state, or federal law that is both (a) severe, persistent, or pervasive and (b) objectively offensive, such that it unreasonably limits or interferes with the individual’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s education, on-campus living, or employment programs or activities by creating an intimidating, hostile, offensive, or demeaning environment. Whether the conduct creates an intimidating, hostile, offensive, or demeaning environment may depend on a variety of factors, including: the degree to which the conduct affected the education or employment of another person; the type, frequency and duration of the conduct; the relationship between the parties; the number of people involved; and the context in which the conduct occurred. The more severe the conduct, the less need there is to show a repeated pattern of conduct.

c. Examples of discriminatory harassment include, but are not limited to, verbal acts (epithets, slurs, negative stereotyping, comments on physical appearance), physical acts (offensive touching, physical assault, interference with movement, intimidation, damaging property), or graphic acts (posters, cartoons, drawings, graffiti, defacing property, reading materials, computer graphics, or electronic media) that meet the above criteria and serve no scholarly purpose appropriate to the academic context.