Sexual Misconduct

What is Sexual Misconduct?

Sexual misconduct is a term used by Stockton includes sexual harassment, gender-based harassment and sexual violence.

Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Sexual or gender-based harassment are forms of sex discrimination prohibited under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. Additionally, sex discrimination includes claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity. Similarly, actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of the parties does not change Stockton’s obligation to investigate and resolve allegations. An act of sexual and gender-based harassment is sexual misconduct.

In the educational context, quid pro quo harassment occurs when a University employee explicitly or implicitly conditions a student’s participation in an education program or activity or bases an educational decision on the student’s submission to unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Quid pro quo harassment is equally unlawful whether the student resists and suffers the threatened harm or submits and thus avoids the threatened harm.

Preventing and remedying sexual harassment in schools is essential to ensuring a safe environment in which students can learn. Sexual harassment of a student creates a hostile environment if the conduct is sufficiently serious that it denies or limits a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from Stockton’s programs. Sometimes harassment of a student by an employee in the school’s program does not take place in the context of the employee’s provision of aid, benefits, or services but nonetheless is sufficiently serious to create a hostile educational environment.

Presently, if a school knows or reasonably should know about student-on-student harassment that creates a hostile environment, Title IX requires the school to take prompt and effective action calculated to end the harassment, prevent its recurrence, and, as appropriate, remedy its effects (Source: 2020 Title IX Regulations, Nondiscrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs or activities receiving Federal Financial Assistance.) The U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights provides additional guidance through its Dear Colleague Letters.

What is sexual violence?

Sexual violence is a form of sexual harassment. Sexual violence refers to physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person’s will or where a person is incapable of giving consent due to the Complainant’s incapacitation from the use of drugs or alcohol. An act of sexual violence is sexual misconduct.

A number of different acts fall into the category of sexual violence, including dating violence, rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion. Additionally, a single instance of sexual violence can constitute a hostile environment.

While some survivors turn to the criminal justice system, others look to their schools for help or recourse. That can mean a number of things – from giving a Complainant a confidential place to turn for advice and support, to effectively investigating and finding out what happened, to sanctioning the Accused, to doing everything we can to help a survivor recover.

However, where the Accused is not a current Stockton employee or a current enrolled student, Stockton can ban the individual from campus as its options against such individual. Sexual violence can result in trauma to the Complainant and other persons associated with the Complainant.