Sexual Harassment (Policy and Procedures)

The UMass Chan Medical School (UMass Chan) is firmly committed to working to ensure that all employees, students and individuals who are authorized to conduct business with and/or perform other services on behalf of UMass Chan are not subject to sexual harassment. To that end, it is the policy of UMass Chan to comply with all federal and state laws and regulations: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Chapter 151B, and M.G.L. 151B Sec. 3A.

Sexual Harassment is defined as: Any unwanted and/or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal, written or physical conduct of a sexual nature.

It constitutes sexual harassment when: Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s continued employment or assessment of academic work; Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment or academic decisions affecting such individual; Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work or academic performance or in creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating, uncomfortable or offensive work or academic environment.

Simply stated, sexual harassment, as well as other forms of harassment, have no place in the workplace or classroom.

It is UMass Chan’s policy to protect the rights of all persons by providing fair and impartial investigations of all allegations of harassment. Any member of the UMass Chan community found to have violated the harassment policy will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including possible termination/dismissal.

Complaints will be investigated with every effort made to respect the privacy of those involved, and ensuring that there will be no retaliation. Retaliation against an individual for filing a complaint of sexual harassment or against any individual for cooperating in an investigation of a complaint is against UMass Chan policy and it is against the law. If retaliation is found to have occurred, appropriate action(s) will be taken.

A copy of UMass Chan’s sexual harassment complaint policy and procedure for resolution may be obtained from the Diversity and Inclusion Office (DIO), 508-856-2179, at: http://umassmed.edu/dio/equal-opportunity/ppg-sexual-harassment/.

The complete Sexual Harassment Policy and Procedure, Policy #02.01.07, can also be found at: http://inside.umassmed.edu/Policies/Policies-listing-page/DIO/Sexual-Harassment-Policy-and-Procedures/