Policy Statements

Relevant excerpt

One form of harassment is unwelcome verbal or physical conduct based on sex that, because of its severity, persistence, and/or pervasiveness, creates a hostile environment by interfering significantly with an individual’s work or education, or adversely affecting an individual’s living conditions.

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The conduct alleged to constitute harassment under this policy must be sufficiently severe, persistent, and/or pervasive to actually interfere with the complainant’s work, education, or living conditions to a significant degree. The severity, persistence, and/or pervasiveness of the alleged conduct will also be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person similarly situated to the complainant and in consideration of the context of the behavior.

Examples of conduct that may constitute sex/gender-based harassment include:

• Continued unwelcome questioning about intimate or personal matters
• Unwelcome touching or physical acts of a sexual nature
• Severe or pervasive comments or jokes of a sexual nature
• Severe or pervasive unwelcome comments or conduct regarding an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity
• Sending emails that contain extreme or persistent sexual messages, images, or language
• Repeated derogatory comments of a non-sexual nature relating to a particular sex/gender generally and targeted to (as) specific individual(s) of that sex/gender
• Sex/gender-based violence — non-sexual physical assault of an individual because of the individual’s sex or gender

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