Discrimination, harassment and victimisation

Monash University is committed to providing an environment free from discrimination, harassment and vilification for all staff and students.

• Discrimination
• Harassment
• Sexual Harassment
• Who might experience sexual harassment?
• Victimisation

Discrimination

There are two kinds of discrimination.

• Direct Discrimination is treating or proposing to treat a person less favourably on the basis of one of the protected grounds as listed below.

• Indirect Discrimination occurs when there is a requirement, condition or practice that operates to disadvantage a person or group of people on the basis of a protected ground and the requirement, condition or practice is not reasonable in the circumstances.

All forms of direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds listed below are unlawful.

• race, colour, national or ethnic origin, nationality,
• sex or gender, sexual orientation, lawful sexual activity,
• marital status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, breastfeeding, status as a parent or carer,
• religious or political belief or activity, industrial activity,
• age, physical features,
• employment activity (meaning a request for information about or expression of concern about the provision of employment entitlements);
• disability, medical record,
• personal association with a person who is identified by reference to any of these attributes, or
• any other attribute protected under anti-discrimination law.

Unlawful discrimination in education covers students who, based on these grounds, experience disadvantage as a result of the actions or omissions of staff or by the policies of the University.

Unlawful discrimination in employment covers actions or omissions by the University or its staff which disadvantage a job applicant or member of staff in their application or employment on the basis of a protected attribute. It can also include an unreasonable refusal to accommodate disability or parenting or caring responsibilities.

Harassment

Harassment is unwelcome conduct that might reasonably cause a person to be offended, humiliated or intimidated. Harassment which is offensive conduct based on a person’s disability, race or of a sexual nature are forms of discrimination.

Sexual harassment

All sexual conduct whether verbal physical or electronically communicated may constitute sexual harassment if it is UNWELCOME and could reasonably make someone else feel offended, humiliated or intimidated.

Sexual harassment might occur as a single incident or a series of incidents and may include:

• personally offensive comments;
• sexual or smutty jokes;
• comments or teasing about a person's alleged sexual activities or private life;
• persistent unwelcome invitation/s, telephone calls or emails on campus or at home;
• being followed home from campus;
• offensive hand or body gestures;
• physical contact such as patting, pinching, touching or putting an arm around another person;
• the display of sexually-suggestive material;
• unwanted declarations of affection;
• sexual assault and rape; and
• use of University computer systems for the retention and distribution of sexually explicit material.

Who might experience sexual harassment?

Sexual harassment can occur between:

• peers - student to student or staff to staff;
• from staff member to student or supervisor to employee;
• from student to a staff member of employee to supervise, or
• to or from a member of the public in the course of university business.

Victimisation

Victimisation is when a person subjects (or threatens to subject) another person to a detriment (which can include humiliation and denigration) because that other person has made a complaint or been involved in a complaint of discrimination or harassment. Victimisation also covers unfavourable treatment based on the belief that a person intends to make or be involved in making a complaint of discrimination or harassment.

Victimisation can include physical, visual, verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Examples of victimisation include behaviour such as:

• Refusing to provide a student with information about their assessments because the student has made an allegation of discrimination;
• Humiliating a staff member in a meeting because they gave evidence in support of a colleague’s complaint of sexual harassment.

A person may be found liable for victimisation even though the original allegation is not proven. For example, even if an original complaint of sexual harassment is not substantiated, it may constitute victimisation for a manager to give a staff member a poor performance review because that staff member had made a complaint against the manager.

Victimising also covers unfair treatment of a person because of their association with someone who has made a complaint. Students and staff may raise concerns about victimisation in the same way as they would for discrimination or harassment.