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Kennesaw State University follows the established policy on Sexual Harassment of the Board of Regents (BoR) of the University System of Georgia. That policy (BoR Policy Manual, Section 8.2.18.5) is:
It is an unlawful discriminatory practice for any employer, because of the sex of any person, to discharge without cause, to refuse to hire, or to otherwise discriminate against any person with respect to any matter directly or indirectly related to employment or academic standing. Harassment of an employee on the basis of sex violates law and Board of Regents’ Policy.
Sexual harassment of University System of Georgia (USG) employees or students is prohibited and shall subject the offender to dismissal or other sanctions after compliance with procedural due process requirements. Unwelcome sexual advancements, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when:
- Submission to such conduct is made explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment or academic standing; or,
- Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment or academic decisions affecting an individual; or,
- Such conduct unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work or academic performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or academic environment.
KSU’s Sexual Misconduct Policy can be found at: https://equity.kennesaw.edu/titleix/title-ix.php.
Using the definition contained in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines, the 1984 “Policy Statement on Sexual Harassment” defines sexual harassment as follows:
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when (1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment [or academic advancement], (2) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions [or academic decisions] affecting such individual, (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work [or academic] performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working [or academic] environment.
Sexual harassment can occur in situations where one person has power over another, but it can also occur between equals. Both men and women can be sexually harassed, though women are most often victimized.
Examples of Sexually Harassing Behavior
Examples of sexual harassment may be found in campus brochures and other documents. Such examples include sexual innuendoes and comments, intrusive sexually explicit questions, offensive jokes or language, unwanted physical contact, offensive gestures or motions, repeatedly asking a person out for a date, threats, leering or ogling at a person’s body, stalking, displaying of sexually suggestive pictures or written materials, etc.
Consenting Relationships
A relationship between a faculty member and a student should be considered one of professional and client in which sexual relationships are inappropriate. The power differential inherent in such relationships, and in those between a supervisor and an employee, compromise the subordinate’s ability to freely decide.
Although the University does not specifically forbid sexual relationships between individuals where a professional power differential exists, it actively discourages consenting sexual relationships between faculty and student or supervisor and employee. It warns that a faculty member who enters into a sexual relationship with a student (or a supervisor with an employee) where a professional power differential exists, must realize that if a charge of sexual harassment is subsequently lodged, it will be exceedingly difficult to prove immunity on grounds of mutual consent.
AAUP Statement on Sexual Harassment
Kennesaw State University follows the basic principles and procedures recommended by the American Association of University Professors in its “Sexual Harassment: Suggested Policy and Procedures for Handling Complaints” printed in its Policy Documents & Reports (1984).
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