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Committed to Title IX’s promise of ensuring that no person experiences sex discrimination, System Procedure 19-60a provides a process for resolving allegations that an individual has engaged sexual misconduct or discriminatory, harassing, and/or retaliatory behavior. This website provides Answers to Questions regarding the Sexual Misconduct Resolution Process and the terms provided therein.
This Website provides definitions to answer the following questions:
What is Sexual Misconduct? What is Coercion? What is Consent? What is Force? What is Discrimination? What is Harassment? Is Sexual Harassment prohibited? What constitutes a Hostile Environment? What is Quid Pro Quo? What is Incapacitation? What constitutes Sexual Assault? What constitutes Rape? Is Fondling Sexual Assault? What is Incest? What is Dating Violence? What constitutes Domestic Violence? What is Stalking? What is Sexual Exploitation? What are other civil rights offenses covered by SP 19-60? What constitutes Retaliation? What does Jurisdiction mean in this process? What are Supportive Measures?
Any discrimination, harassment, or retaliation based upon sex, including sex harassment, sexual assault (e.g., rape, fondling, incest, statutory rape), domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking
Coercion, in the context of sexual misconduct, is unreasonable pressure for sexual activity. Coercive behavior differs from seductive behavior based on the type of pressure someone uses to get consent from another. When a person makes it objectively clear that they do not want to engage in sexual activity, that they want to stop, or that they do not want to go past a certain point of sexual interaction, continued pressure beyond that point can be coercive.
Consent for sexual activity must be clear, knowing, and voluntary. Consent is active, not passive. Silence, in and of itself, cannot be interpreted as consent. Consent can be given by words or actions, as long as those words or actions demonstrate permission, based on an objective standard, regarding willingness to engage in (and the conditions of) sexual activity. Further, consent to any one form of sexual activity does not automatically imply consent to any other forms of sexual activity. Previous sexual activity or prior consent do not imply consent to future sexual acts. The consideration of prior, irrelevant sexual conduct, except relating to a prior relationship or history between the parties if relevant to some material issue in the process, is prohibited. Consent cannot be given if force, incapacitation, or coercion are used to engage in sexual activity.
Force is the use of physical violence and/or imposing on someone physically to engage in sexual activity. Force also includes threats, intimidation (implied threats) and coercion that overcomes resistance.
Discrimination is any distinction, preference, advantage, or detriment given to a person based on one or more actual or perceived protected classes.
Harassment is a form of discrimination that involves any unwelcome physical or verbal conduct, or any communication directed at an individual or group because of their membership or perceived membership in a protected class, which conduct is subjectively offensive to the Complainant and objectively offensive to a reasonable individual who is a member of the same protected class. It need not be severe or pervasive, but petty slights, minor annoyances, and lack of good manners do not constitute harassment. Types of harassment include quid pro quo and hostile environment. With respect to harassment based upon sex, types of harassment also include sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking.
Yes. Sexual Harassment, also known as sex-based harassment, is prohibited at PPSC. Sex-based harassment may take the form of Hostile Environment, Quid Pro Quo, Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, Domestic Violence or Stalking, as those terms are defined in SP 19-60.
Hostile Environment occurs when a person is subjected to harassment that unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance, denies or limits any person’s ability to participate in or benefit from an education program or activity, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or educational environment. Factors to consider include the degree to which the conduct affected the Complainant’s ability to access the program or activity; the number of individuals engaged in the conduct; type, frequency, duration, and location of the conduct; the context in which the conduct occurred; other sex-based harassment in the education program or activity; the parties’ ages; previous interactions between the parties; whether the conduct is threatening; the parties’ roles within the System/College and the existence of a power differential; use of epithets/slurs that are humiliating or degrading; and stereotypes.
Quid Pro Quo is a type of harassment that exists when submission to the harassing conduct is explicitly or implicitly made a term or condition of employment or education, or when submission to or objection to the harassing conduct is used as a basis for employment or educational decisions.
Incapacitation is a state where someone cannot make rational, reasonable decisions because they lack the capacity to give knowing consent. Incapacitation could result from mental or physical disability, sleep, unconsciousness, involuntary physical restraint, being underage, or from the ingestion of drugs or alcohol.
Sexual activity with someone whom one should know to be — or, based on the circumstances, should reasonably have known to be — mentally or physically incapacitated, is a form of sexual misconduct.
Use of alcohol or other drugs will never function as a defense to a violation of SP 19-60a.
Sexual Assault is an offense classified as a forcible or nonforcible sex offense as defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s uniform crime reporting system. Sexual assault includes rape, fondling, incest, and statutory rape.
Sexual assault further includes any sexual intrusion, sexual penetration, or sexual contact on a victim if the actor knows the victim does not consent, the actor knows the victim is incapable of appraising the nature of the victim’s conduct, the actor knows the victim submits erroneously believing the actor to be the victim’s spouse, the victim is not of legal age to consent, the actor knows the victim is physically helpless and has not consented, or any other circumstances defined by state law to be sexual assault or unlawful sexual contact. (C.R.S. §§ 18-3-402, 404).
Rape is the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the Complainant.
Statutory Rape includes non-forcible sexual intercourse with a person who is under the statutory age of consent.
Yes. Fondling is the touching of the private body parts of another person for the purpose of sexual gratification, forcibly and/or against the person’s will; or not forcibly or against the person’s will where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of their youth or because of their temporary or permanent mental incapacity.
Incest includes non-forcible sexual intercourse between persons who are related to each other within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by law.
Dating Violence is violence committed by a person who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim. The existence of such a relationship shall be determined based on the reporting party’s statement and with consideration of the length of the relationship, the type of relationship, and the frequency of interaction between the persons involved in the relationship. There is no Colorado state law on dating violence; therefore, PPSC & CCCS abide by the definition used in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) of 2013.
Domestic Violence includes any act or threatened act of violence upon a person with whom the actor is or has been involved in an intimate relationship. Domestic Violence also includes any other crime against a person or property, including an animal, or any municipal ordinance violation against a person, or against property, including an animal, when used as a method of coercion, control, punishment, intimidation, or revenge directed against a person with whom the actor is or has been involved in an intimate relationship. (C.R.S. § 18-6-800.3). Domestic violence further includes felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner, by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the victim under the domestic or family violence laws of Colorado, or by any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s acts under the domestic or family violence laws of Colorado.
C.R.S. 18-6-800.3
Domestic violence also includes a pattern of abusive behavior in a relationship that is used by one partner to maintain power and control over another current or former intimate partner.
Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behavior that intimidates, manipulates, humiliates, isolates, frightens, terrorizes, coerces, threatens, hurts, injures, or wounds someone.
Stalking is engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for the person’s safety, or the safety of others, or suffer substantial emotional distress. Stalking further includes directly or indirectly through another person, knowingly:
Sexual Exploitation occurs when a person takes non-consensual or abusive sexual advantage of another for their own advantage or benefit, or to benefit or advantage anyone other than the one being exploited.
Examples include invasion of sexual privacy, prostituting another person, non-consensual recording of sexual activity, going beyond the boundaries of consent, engaging in voyeurism, knowingly transmitting a sexually transmitted infection or disease to another, exposing one’s genitals or inducing another to expose their genitals, possession or viewing of pornography on PPSC property or at PPSC activities, or sexually based bullying.
Other Civil Rights Offenses include, but are not limited to, the following, when the act is based upon one or more actual or perceived protected classes:
System Procedure 19-10, Bullying/Violence/Firearms on Campus
Any adverse employment or educational action taken against a person because of the person’s participation or perceived participation in a complaint or investigation of discrimination and/or harassment. Retaliation also includes any act to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege provided by applicable civil rights laws, policies, and procedures.
Jurisdiction applies to behaviors that take place on a CCCS campus or site, at CCCS sponsored events, and may also apply to off-campus and online behavior when the Title IX/EO Coordinator determines that the off-campus or online behavior affects a substantial CCCS interest.
Supportive Measures are non-disciplinary, non-punitive, individualized services offered as appropriate, as reasonably available, and without fee or charge to the Complainant or the Respondent before or after the filing of a formal complaint or where no formal complaint has been filed. Such measures are designed to restore or preserve equal access to educational and employment programs and/or activities without unreasonably burdening the other party, including measures designed to protect the safety of all parties or the educational/employment environment, or deter sexual harassment. Supportive measures may include counseling, extensions of deadlines or other course-related adjustments, modifications of work or class schedules, campus escort services, mutual restrictions on contact between the parties, changes in work or housing locations, leaves of absence, increased security and monitoring of certain areas of the campus, and other similar measures.
PPSC will maintain as confidential any supportive measures provided to the Complainant or Respondent, to the extent that maintaining such confidentiality would not impair the ability of PPSC to provide the supportive measures. The Title IX/EO Coordinator is responsible for coordinating the effective implementation of supportive measures. Following the completion of the matter, supportive measures may be ended, continued, or made permanent as deemed necessary.