Sexual Harassment Prevention

California law (AB1825), effective January 1, 2005, requires two hours of mandatory sexual harassment prevention education for all supervisory employees. In addition to staff supervisors, most academic employees (including all faculty) have been identified as having supervisory authority for the purposes of this law, and as such, are required to receive the training. New supervisory employees must receive the training within six months of their assumption of a supervisory position.

Why Retrain in 2007?

The law requires that employers provide two hours of follow up training and education for all supervisory employees every two years for as long as the individual has supervisory authority. The University of California has customized the sexual harassment training courses based on the environment of the supervisor. Two versions are available - one for supervisory employees and one for faculty.

Persons who completed their initial training in 2005 must complete the training again in 2007. New supervisory employees who completed training in 2006 will be required to retrain in 2008. The deadline to complete the 2007 training is December 31, 2007.

What is Sexual Harassment?

The University of California Policy on Sexual Harassment defines sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects a person's employment or education; or which unreasonably interferes with a person's work or educational performance or creates an intimidating hostile or offensive working or learning environment.

Faculty, staff and students are urged to review the Policy itself to understand the different types of sexual harassment, which may include:

• Unwelcome sexual propositions
• Sexual innuendoes or other behavior, such as repeated, unwanted requests for meals, dates, etc.
• Unwelcome sexual comments or jokes; questions or discussions about an individual's sex life; comments about a person's body or appearance
• Unwanted touching or leering
• Sending someone unwanted sexual materials

The behavior must be unwelcome. If sexual propositions or jokes are welcome, they do not constitute a violation of policy.