Inappropriate conduct, harassment and bullying
– help for students

Inappropriate conduct means behaviour towards another person that is generally considered inappropriate or is unlawful. It is often systematic and continuous, negative activity intended to subjugate another person that can manifest itself, for example, as actions or neglect. In addition, even isolated, less severe acts can constitute inappropriate conduct when targeted repeatedly at the
same persons. When inappropriate conduct is characterized by some degree of continuity or maintains a more or less stable state, it can have harmful or adverse health effects. Inappropriate conduct can be engaged in by other students, staff members, or a cooperation partner’s representatives.

Inappropriate conduct includes, for example
• threatening and yelling
• physical and mental violence
• making unfounded negative remarks about a person’s characteristics, personality traits or private life, or questioning the mental health of a person
• isolating a person from a community’s social interaction
• Harassment can be targeted at people based on their age, skin colour, opinions, beliefs, or harassment can be inappropriate behaviour of a sexual or gender-based nature. Harassment is behaviour that violates another person through verbal expression, actions or attitudes. Sexual or gender-based harassment can be physical or verbal abuse. Innuendo, making faces and inappropriate gestures, inappropriate touching, inappropriate contact and rude comments are forms of harassment.

Mental violence is continuous, repeated bullying, belittling, or other negative behaviour. The target experiences mental violence as anxiety-provoking, subjugating, humiliating, or threatening and makes them feel unable to defend themselves.

However, not all conflicts constitute inappropriate conduct. For example, the following are not inappropriate conduct:
• constructive academic disagreement and academic debate;
• conflicts arising out of contradictory interpretations regarding decisions concerning work or studies;
• assessment of study attainments and providing feedback about study attainments in a constructive manner; or
• when the university, in an appropriate manner and for a justified reason, gives the student instructions on appropriate conduct, or when the university is exercising its disciplinary power over the student.

No one needs to tolerate any form of inappropriate conduct. If you have experienced inappropriate conduct, you should let the person who engaged in that conduct know that you do not accept their actions and ask them to stop. If you feel that you are unable to do this, you should contact the harassment contact persons of the student union or the subject association, or the dean and the administrative manager of the faculty.

We recommend that you document the date and time of the incident. Likewise, it is recommendable to keep copies of any e-mail messages, social media messages, and other written or image materials related to the incident. The person who engaged in bullying or harassment behaviours cannot be
held accountable if the incident cannot be verified. Inappropriate conduct can be reported by making a phone call, by personal visit or by e-mail.

A) In the event of inappropriate conduct, bullying or harassment experienced between students in a teaching situation or between students when conducting research
• Contact the dean of the faculty directly.

B) In the event of inappropriate conduct, bullying or harassment experienced between a student and a staff member or a cooperation partner’s representative with a role in the student’s studies or research
• Contact the dean of the faculty directly.

C) In the event of inappropriate conduct, bullying or harassment between students during free time
• Contact the harassment contact persons of the student union and the subject associations directly: https://lyy.fi/toiminta/edunvalvonta-lyyssa/#HAIRINTAYHDYSHENKILOT

D) In the event of inappropriate conduct, bullying or harassment between a postgraduate student without an employment relationship with the University of Lapland and a staff member
• Contact the dean of the faculty directly.

Every case will be addressed with utmost confidentiality and, in accordance with the university’s existing processes, it will be agreed how to proceed. The university aims to intervene in any problem situations as quickly and early as possible. Building trust is a characteristic of a sound discussion culture. Most of the situations can be resolved through discussion between the parties involved.

If the criteria of harassment or inappropriate conduct are met or the conflict situation continues after the issue has been brought up, you can submit an official, written notification about the issue to the dean of the faculty.
If you want to discuss the issue, you can seek help and support by contacting the university social worker or the study psychologist, or talk to other students, other persons close to you or contact some other source providing help. If you need more help and support, you can also contact the Student Health Services.

The main stages of the process after the report has been submitted concerning items A, B and D discussed above

1. The report is marked as received and recorded as an ongoing investigation within 14 days. The dean launches the investigation by discussing with the parties involved, and where necessary, with other persons who can provide further information on the issue. The discussions are documented in
a memo. Alternatively, it is possible to proceed by asking the parties involved to provide a written report or response. The discussions can be facilitated by a support person. Where necessary, an additional expert, for example the head of study affairs, the supervisor, or a lawyer can participate in the process.

2. After the investigation has been conducted, measures will be taken. These may include, for example, mediation, issuing guidelines, organising a hearing, and a possible student/staff disciplinary procedure. If considered necessary, a discussion between the parties involved will be organised in order to briefly address the experiences of the parties involved, the necessary measures, and to
agree on how to proceed in the future. The primary goal is to normalise the situation so that studying and working in peace is possible. The discussion may be facilitated by support person(s). If necessary, an additional expert may participate in the discussion.

3. A memo is drafted on the basis of the meeting, and where applicable, it will be agreed how the situation will be monitored. The memo is provided to the parties involved and the Director of Administration of the university.

4. The situation will be monitored as agreed.

The harassment contact persons of the student union:
https://lyy.fi/en/our-work/the-protection-of-interests-in-lyy/

The harassment contact persons of the subject associations:
Contact information is available through each subject association’s web page; a list of the associations can be found at: https://lyy.fi/en/association-work/associations/

The harassment contact persons of the University of Lapland:
Mervi Alatalo, firstname.lastname[at]ulapland.fi, Tel. +358 40 484 4090
Jukka Sankala, firstname.lastname[at]ulapland.fi, Tel. +358 40 042 5492.

The deans of the faculties:

Faculty of Art and Design

Faculty of Education

Faculty of Law

Faculty of Social Sciences

Bullying is repeated inappropriate conduct towards another person, in other words, actions or behaviour that are generally considered inappropriate or are unlawful. There is no exact definition of bullying. Bullying manifests itself, for example, as humiliation, insulting, exclusion, dissemination of
disinformation, defamation, isolation, and ridiculing. Not giving work tasks to a person (in the sense of a ‘non-action’) also constitutes bullying. Bullying behaviours are repeated and systematic.

Harassment refers to deliberate or de facto infringement on the dignity of a person. Harassment occurs when a person is targeted by systematic, repeated and long-term pressurising, insulting, or subjugating behaviours and, as a consequence of this, the person experiences adverse health effects. Harassment occurs when behaviour creates an atmosphere where a person is subjected to
degrading treatment or humiliation or targeted by threatening, malicious, or aggressive behaviours. For example, racist jokes or other kinds of verbal abuse targeted at, for example, colleagues or fellow students belonging to a sexual minority are examples of harassment.

Harassment based on gender means unwanted behaviours related to another person’s sex, gender identity or gender expression that constitute deliberate or de facto infringement on the person’s mental or physical integrity, with the intention of creating a threatening, aggressive, degrading, humiliating, or anxiety-provoking atmosphere. Gender-based harassment is not necessarily sexual in nature.

Sexual harassment refers to unwanted verbal, non-verbal, or physical behaviours of a sexual nature that constitute deliberate or de facto infringement on a person’s mental or physical integrity in particular by creating a threatening, aggressive, degrading, humiliating or anxiety-provoking atmosphere. Sexual harassment includes, for example, innuendo, touching, ambiguous comments
(double entendres), overtly sexual comments, messages and suggestions, and situations involving an intention to violate a person’s right to sexual self-determination.

Discrimination means treating, without an acceptable reason, a person or a group of people differently from others in an equivalent position on the basis of age, origin, nationality, language, religion, belief, opinion, political activity, trade union activity, family relationships, state of health, disability, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics. Indirect discrimination means situations in which an apparently neutral rule, criterion or practice puts a person at a disadvantage compared with others.

Discrimination based on gender means treating persons differently from others in an equivalent position based on the person’s sex, gender identity or gender expression.

An individual’s threatening and anxiety-provoking behaviour is a form of inappropriate conduct. Racism, too, constitutes inappropriate conduct. Racism can manifest itself as discrimination, using belittling or offensive language, or engaging in aggressive actions.

Online targeting, or targeted harassment, is a phenomenon in which one or more actors urge and incite a large group of people to attack an individual by using different means, for example by sending hate messages via e-mail or social media. Online targeting can manifest itself as direct or indirect threatening, disseminating disinformation or searching for information on the person’s
private life and deliberately distorting it.

Inappropriate behaviour may occur in interaction situations. Such situations include teaching situations on or off campus, teaching situations online, or in various formal and informal interaction situations of the work community. Treating another person inappropriately in situations in which the
person targeted by the behaviour is not present also constitutes inappropriate behaviour. For example, harassment and bullying targeted at a person in the university’s communication channels and learning environments as well as in non-university social media accounts constitutes inappropriate behaviour.

Some inappropriate conduct may also constitute a criminal offence. Such actions include sexual harassment, dissemination of information violating personal privacy, defamation and stalking. In these situations, the police should be contacted.

• The university must store sensitive personal data separately from other personal data, and the data will be removed from the register when a legal ground for processing the data for the purpose of performing statutory duties no longer exists, however, within four years of
  the date of entering the data into the register at the latest.
• Personal data are processed in accordance with the current data protection legislation unless otherwise provided in the Universities Act.
• The processing of cases and documents at the University of Lapland is conducted in accordance with the Case and data management guidelines (Operational instructions for case management, data archival and records management plan, and other current instructions on case management)
• In addition, the guidelines on processing data, and other instructions on information security issued by LUC Data Administration are followed
  The University of Lapland’s General Data Protection