Harassment is unwanted conduct affecting the dignity of people in the work or study place, and where the comments are viewed as demeaning and unacceptable to the recipient.
Harassment may be related to personal or protected characteristic of the individual such as age, disability, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. The harassment may be ongoing or an isolated incident.
Harassment may include:
- Unwanted physical contact or “horseplay”, including touching, pinching, pushing, grabbing, brushing past someone, invading their personal space, and serious forms of physical or sexual assault.
- Offensive or intimidating comments or gestures, or insensitive jokes or pranks.
- Mocking, mimicking, or belittling a person’s disability.
- Racist, sexist, homophobic, or ageist jokes.
- Outing or threatening to out someone as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans.
- Ignoring or shunning someone, for example, by deliberately excluding them from a conversation or a social activity.
We follow the meaning given to harassment in section 26 of the Equality Act (2010).