Sexual Harassment Policy

Bergen Community College is committed to providing its students and employees with an academic and work environment free from sexual harassment or discrimination. Sexual harassment in any form constitutes prohibited, unprofessional and unacceptable conduct, and is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1990, as amended, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, established case law and State policies. The policy applies to all persons. Administrators, faculty, staff, and students are all covered.

Harassment of students by faculty and staff as well as by other students is covered, as is harassment of faculty and staff by students. Harassment by vendors, including contractors, is prohibited. The College will not tolerate, condone, or allow sexual harassment of any of its students or employees, by any instructional, supervisory, managerial, or administrative personnel, co-workers, students, independent contractors, vendors, or others with whom the College does business. Bergen Community College will enforce this policy and expects all employees and students to be diligent in preventing, detecting, and reporting any incidents of sexual harassment. Bergen Community College expects each employee and student to avoid any acts or statements that may constitute sexual harassment and to ensure that his or her conduct complies with this policy. The College will take appropriate disciplinary action when an investigation reveals that an individual has engaged in any such prohibited conduct.

• A. For the purposes of this policy, Sexual Harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances or sexually explicit comments, requests for sexual favors, and/or other verbal or physical conduct based on the gender of the affected individual when:
  • 1. Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment or academic achievement; or
  • 2. Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment or academic decisions affecting that individual; or
  • 3. Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work or academic performance or creating an unreasonably intimidating, hostile or offensive working or educational environment. Hostile environment sexual harassment includes, but is not limited to:
    • a. Generalized gender-based remarks and behavior;
    • b. Inappropriate, unwanted, offensive physical or verbal sexual advances and comments;
    • c. Solicitation of sexual activity or other sex-linked behavior by promise of reward;
    • d. Coercion of sexual activity by threat of punishment;
    • e. Gross sexual imposition such as touching, fondling, grabbing or assault.
• B. An individual need not be a personal target of harassment to file a complaint. The individual instead may show that other individuals were sexually harassed and that this harassment created a hostile or intimidating work or academic environment.
• C. Conduct under (A1-3) above by any instructional, supervisory, managerial, or administrative personnel, co-workers, students, independent contractors, vendors, or others with whom the College does business constitutes prohibited sexual harassment when a reasonable person of the same sex as the aggrieved individual would consider it sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment or education or to create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or educational environment.
• D. Student-on-student harassment is a violation of Bergen Community College’s Sexual Harassment Policy and must be reported to the Manager of Training and Complaince, Room A-330, telephone number (201) 612-5331. Unwelcome sexual conduct by another student, student-on-student harassment, that disrupts a student’s ability to learn or conduct that creates a hostile learning enviornment will be handled through the College’s policies that address student conduct, including the Rules and Regulations found in this Catalog, not the Complaint Process for resolving Sexual Harassment Complaints.
• E. Every member of the College community should be aware of the fact that the College is strongly opposed to sexual harassment and that the College will take whatever action it deems necessary to prevent, correct, and if necessary, discipline behavior that violates this policy. Disciplinary action for employees can range from reprimands to dismissal. Students violating this policy may be reprimanded, suspended, or dismissed from the College.