Anti-Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment Policies & Procedures for Student: Discriminatory Harassment

Relevant Excerpt

Discriminatory Harassment is defined as subjecting an individual to unwelcome conduct, whether verbal or physical, that creates or contributes to a hostile working, learning, or campus living environment; that alters the conditions of employment or education; or that unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work, academic performance, or ability to participate in or benefit from some aspect of the University’s educational programs or activities on the basis of the individual’s actual or perceived membership in, or association with, a Protected Class. 

Examples of Discriminatory Harassment include, but are not limited to, the following acts that denigrate or show hostility or aversion toward one or more actual or perceived members or associates of a Protected Class: verbal abuse; epithets or slurs; negative stereotyping (including, but not limited to, stereotypes about how an individual looks, including skin color, physical features, or style of dress that reflects ethnic traditions; a foreign accent; a foreign name, including names commonly associated with a particular shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics; or speaking a foreign language); threatening, intimidating, or hostile acts; denigrating jokes; insulting or obscene comments or gestures; calls for genocide and/or violence; and the display or circulation of offensive written or graphic material in any form.   

Speech or conduct expressing views regarding a particular country’s policies or practices generally does not constitute Discriminatory Harassment based on national origin. However, if harassing speech or conduct that otherwise appears to be based on views about a country’s policies or practices is directed at or infused with discriminatory comments about persons from, or associated with, that country or another country, then it may constitute Discriminatory Harassment. The use of code words may implicate the Policy.