II. DEFINITIONS 

(Back to Sexual Misconduct Protocol Table of Contents) 

Sexual Misconduct
A broad umbrella term used to identify a number of forms of discrimination based on sex. Sexual misconduct includes sexual harassment, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation, and can include dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking when those acts are perpetrated against a person because of their sex. This protocol also prohibits gender-based harassment, which may include acts of verbal, nonverbal, or physical aggression, intimidation, or hostility based on sex or sex-stereotyping, even if those acts do not involve conduct of a sexual nature.
A violation of this protocol will be found when: (1) submission to such conduct is made as express or implicit term or condition of an individual's employment, performance, appraisal, or evaluation of academic performance; or (2) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work or academic performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating, or offensive working or academic environment. 

Sexual Harassment
Defined in Policy FFDA Local and Policy DIAA Local. 

Sexual Assault
Includes: 

Non-consensual Sexual Contact (or attempts to commit the same) defined as any intentional sexual touching with any object(s) or body part that is without consent and/or by force. Sexual contact is defined as kissing or touching another person's intimate parts. Intimate parts are a person’s groin, buttocks, mouth or breasts.
Non-Consensual Sexual Intercourse (or Attempts to Commit the same) defined as penetration of a person's vagina, anus or mouth with any object(s) or body part that is without consent and/or by force. 

Examples of behaviors that may constitute sexual assault include the following:
1. Having sex with a mentally or physically incapacitated person.
2. Forcing someone to perform oral sex on you or another.
3. Touching someone's breasts without consent.
4. Putting your intimate parts on or in another without consent. 

Sexual Exploitation
Occurs when a person takes advantage of another without that individual’s consent for the initiator's own advantage or benefit or to benefit or advantage anyone other than the one being exploited, and that behavior does not otherwise constitute one of the other sexual misconduct offenses. 

Examples of behaviors that may constitute sexual exploitation include the following:
1. Prostituting another.
2. Allowing a third party to watch consensual sexual contact without the permission of both parties involved in the sex act.
3. Recording a voluntary sex act without the other person's knowledge or permission or showing voluntarily recorded sexual activity to others without knowledge or permission.
4. Knowingly giving another a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or HIV.
5. Allowing others to have sex with an incapacitated person. 

Dating Violence
Includes the use or threat of physical force or restraint carried out with the intent of causing pain or injury to another while in a dating relationship. 

Examples of behaviors that may constitute dating violence include the following:
1. Taking away a person's cell phone during an argument in order to prevent the person from calling a friend or the police for help.
2. Threatening to do self-harm if another does not do what is said.
3. Threatening to physically assault someone the individual is dating if the person does not do what is said. 

Domestic Violence
Includes actual physical abuse, an attempt to harm another, placing another in fear of imminent, serious, physical harm, or causing another to engage in sexual relations by force, threat of force, or duress. 

Examples of behaviors that may constitute domestic violence include the following:
1. Hitting, punching, pinching, slapping, or choking someone with whom the person is intimately involved.
2. Violating a protective order.
3. Harming a person's animals or children while in an intimate relationship. 

Stalking
Is when an individual engages in a pattern of conduct or series of acts on more than one occasion directed at a specific person which seriously alarms or annoys that person and would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress or fearfulness for his/her safety or the safety of his/her pets or family members. 

Examples of stalking:
1. Being followed, spied on, or watched at home, or at work.
2. Receiving unwanted phone calls, text messages, letters, or gifts, or having restraining or protective orders violated. 

Other Misconduct Offenses
(will fall under Title IX when gender-based)
1. Threatening or causing physical harm, extreme verbal abuse, or other conduct which threatens or endangers the health or safety of any person;
2. Discrimination, defined as actions that deprive other members of the community of educational or employment access, benefits or opportunities on the basis of gender;
3. Intimidation, defined as implied threats or acts that cause an unreasonable fear of harm in another;
4. Hazing, defined as acts likely to cause physical or psychological harm or social ostracism to any person within the college community, when related to the admission, initiation, pledging, joining, or any other group-affiliation activity (as defined further in Policy FFE Local);
5. Bullying, defined as repeated and/or severe aggressive behavior likely to intimidate or intentionally hurt, control or diminish another person, physically or mentally (that is not speech or conduct otherwise protected by the 1st Amendment).