UK universities forced to improve their policies on sexual harassment or risk closure

UK universities have been told to improve their policies to protect students from sexual harassment, or risk closure.

The Office for Students (OfS) is introducing a number of requirements and unis will only be allowed to call themselves “universities” and reward degrees if they meet them. These include:

• Compulsory training for staff and students “to improve understanding of what constitutes harassment and sexual misconduct”.

• A ban on non-disclosure agreements when dealing with cases of harassment or sexual misconduct.

• Publishing information about their policies and procedures.

The OfS said it expects ever university to identify the steps it needs to make to meet these requirements. Universities now have until the 1st of August to implement most of the changes. However, for the ban on non-disclosure agreements, universities only have until the 1st September this year.

Universities UK (UUK), which represents 142 universities, said its members would work “constructively and rapidly” with the OfS.

The new measures do however stop short of its initial plan to ban relationships between staff and students. Staff-student relationships are not explicitly banned at many Russell Group universities. 

The OfS also published findings from a survey of students at 12 universities, which found a fifth of students had experienced some sort of sexual harassment. It also found that only twelve per cent of students who experienced sexual harassment in the last year made a formal report to their university. Of those who did make a report, 32 percent said their experience of reporting was good and 43 per cent said it was poor.

Universities UK called the survey results “sobering” and comes “despite much positive work in the sector to tackle” sexual harassment.

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“Universities must go further still, doing everything possible to bring about a cultural change and stamp out sexual misconduct on campus,” it said in a statement.UUK and our members will now work constructively and rapidly with the OfS to help implement changes in support of our shared commitment to tackling harassment.”

In response to the new measures, University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady said: “Sexual violence against students and staff has been allowed to become rife on campus, and action from the OfS to push universities and colleges to properly tackle this issue is long overdue.

“We are also pleased that our calls for universities and colleges to be prevented from using non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases have been heeded.

“Staff on casualised contracts are often held back from speaking up for fear of losing their jobs or not having their short-term contracts renewed. These power imbalances belong in the past and universities and colleges must finally recognise that casualisation can allow sexual violence to more easily continue and that they must take action to bring staff onto secure contracts.”

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Featured image before edits via Chris Boland on Unsplash.