Definitions

Title IX (Subsection A):

Under Title IX, prohibited sexual harassment includes:

• Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment: An employee conditioning an aid, benefit, or service of the District on an individual’s participation in unwelcome sexual conduct.
• Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment: Unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would determine is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the District’s educational program or activity.

Title 5 / California Law (Subsection B):

Under California law, sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal, visual, or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:

• Submission to the conduct is explicitly or implicitly made a condition of employment, academic status, or progress.
• Submission to or rejection of the conduct is used as the basis for an employment or academic decision.
• The conduct negatively impacts work or academic performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work or educational environment.
• Submission to or rejection of the conduct is used as the basis for a decision affecting benefits, services, honors, programs, or activities.

Sexual assault is an offense classified as a forcible or nonforcible sex offense under the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting system. AP 5910 identifies rape, fondling, incest, and statutory rape as forms of sexual assault.

Affirmative consent means an expressed, affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.

Dating and domestic violence involve acts of violence committed within certain romantic, intimate, or family relationships.

• Dating Violence: Violence committed by someone who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim. Whether such a relationship exists is determined by considering the length and type of the relationship and the frequency of interaction between the individuals.
• Domestic Violence: Felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner; someone similarly situated to a spouse; someone who is or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner; someone who shares a child with the victim; or someone whose acts are prohibited under applicable family or domestic violence laws.

For purposes of these definitions, emotional and psychological abuse alone do not constitute violence.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline produced the Power and Control Wheel and the relationship spectrum to help you see where your relationship falls on a spectrum from healthy to abusive. More information about signs of a healthy and unhealthy behaviors in a relationship can be found at loveisrespect and onelove.

Under Title 5 / California Law (Subsection B), sexual violence means physical sexual acts committed against a person without their affirmative consent. This includes:

• Rape: Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral copulation of a sex organ by another person, without consent.
• Sexual Battery: Intentional touching of another person’s intimate parts without consent, causing another person to touch someone’s intimate parts without consent, or using one’s intimate parts to intentionally touch another person’s body without consent.
• Sexual Exploitation: Taking sexual advantage of another person without their consent for the benefit of someone other than that person. Examples include prostituting or trafficking another person; recording or distributing images, video, or audio of another person’s sexual activity or intimate parts without consent; or viewing another person’s sexual activity or intimate parts without consent in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Retaliation occurs when a materially adverse action is taken against someone because they were involved in the disclosure, reporting, investigation, or resolution of prohibited conduct. This may include threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion, discrimination, violence, or other conduct intended to interfere with rights protected by AP 5910 or law.

Protection from retaliation applies to individuals who participate—or refuse to participate—in an investigation or hearing. Retaliation may occur even when there is ultimately a finding of “Not Responsible.”

Perceived or petty slights and trivial annoyances do not constitute retaliation. Good faith actions lawfully taken in response to a report of prohibited conduct are also not considered retaliation.