The College has a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of harassment, bullying, or victimisation. Harassment is unacceptable, demeaning to the victim and damaging to the environment of mutual respect and equality of opportunity that the College is committed to maintaining.
Harassment is defined as any unwanted behaviour that has the purpose or effect of violating someone else’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment, where the behaviour either:
- relates to a Protected Characteristic (which the law defines as: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race or ethnicity; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation), or;
- is sexual in nature. Our students and staff should feel able to recognise, challenge, and complain about harassment and bullying with confidence that their concerns will be treated with the utmost seriousness and investigated fairly and promptly.
The College has two or more Harassment Advisors who can offer confidential support and advice to anyone who feels subject to threatening or exploitative behaviour from another member or employee of College. The Harassment Advisors are Nora Khayi and Karen Peake and they can be contacted in confidence by email at harassment.advisor@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk whenever a student or member of staff is concerned that harassment of any kind may be occurring. Students who feel that they are being harassed by a member of the College may also approach the Dean, Dr Damian Jenkins (dean@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk).
For any advice or guidance regarding sexual harassment, the University has a confidential specialist service that works closely with the Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre.
The College’s harassment policy can be found here. The College’s sexual harassment policy can be found here.
