Prevent and address harassment and sexual misconduct

To protect students in a consistent way, we have agreed definitions of harassment and sexual misconduct.

The policies and procedures universities and colleges put in place should use these definitions to identify the issues they need to address.

'Harassment'

We follow the meaning given to harassment in:

• section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 
• section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 

We have summarised section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 as follows:

‘harassment, including sexual harassment, includes unwanted behaviour or conduct which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment because of, or connected to, one or more of the following protected characteristics: age; disability; gender reassignment; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation.’

We have summarised section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 as follows:

‘a course of conduct conducted on at least two occasions that harasses one other person, or a course of conduct that harasses two or more persons at least once each. References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress.’

We have also extended these definitions to include harassment of one student by another student.

These definitions include tests that are designed to establish, objectively and reasonably, whether conduct could be considered as 'harassment'.

This means providers should take into account:

• the perception of the person who is at the receiving end of the conduct
• the other circumstances of the case
• whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have the effect under scrutiny.

Under section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, an offence is committed only if:

• the person knows the conduct amounts to harassment of the other, or
• a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other person.

'Sexual misconduct'

We define sexual misconduct as any unwanted or attempted unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. This includes, but is not limited to:

• sexual harassment
• sexual assault; and
• rape.