Sexual Harrassment and Discrimination

Dealing with Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Harassment at FAU

Your FAU contact at the Office of Equality and Diversity is Harriet Ziegler. The women’s representatives of your faculty are also available for initial and referral counselling. In case of sexual harassment and bullying, you can call the Women’s Emergency Hotline in Erlangen or Nuremberg, regardless of your gender.

The Guidelines on preventing and dealing with cases of discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and Universitätsklinikum Erlangen (UKER) came into effect on 1 June 2021.

These guidelines are an important contribution towards ensuring equal treatment and promoting a culture based on treating others with respect, where each and every individual is valued and ignoring discrimination is not tolerated. They ensure that cases of discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment are dealt with transparently at FAU and UKER, provide information on the rights and obligations of all parties, provide details of which initial points of contact and counselling services are available for those affected and stipulate a structured procedure for submitting official complaints. They also set out a catalogue of preventative measures and sanctions.

The guidelines are based on the General Equal Treatment Act (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, AGG). However, as this only applies to members of staff at FAU and UKER, the guidelines specifically include all students and external parties (who are associated with either FAU or UKER). At the same time, these guidelines set out transparent rules governing employees’ rights to file a complaint at FAU pursuant to Section 13 AGG.

A diagram illustrates the procedure for filing complaints set out in the guidelines.

Here you can find our leaflet.

 

 

In section 7, 8 of the guideline, the complaints procedure is regulated and the respective complaints office at FAU and UKER is named. All further information on the complaints procedure can be found here.

The Office of Equality and Diversity is one of the points of contact and counselling services at FAU according to section 6 of the guidelines. It provides confidential initial and referral advice for first of all female students and academic staff affected by sexual harrassment and discrimination. Further points of contact and counselling at FAU can be found in the next section.

In the initial meeting, the points of contact and counselling services at FAU discuss the issue with the person affected by discrimination, harassment or sexual harassment, explore the extent to which support is required, and they can advise individuals how to pursue the matter further. They offer information about preventative measures and appropriate actions, explain the arbitration procedure (see Section 6 para 5 of the guidelines) and the official complaints procedure (see Section 7 of the guidelines). If necessary, they can refer those seeking advice to other suitable, specialist internal or external advisory and support services or arrange an appointment for them.

Further information initial and referral advice see (German only): Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes (2015): Leitfaden. Beratung bei Diskriminierung: erste Schritte und Weitervermittlung, Berlin.

Students

Academic or research staff

Administrative staff

You can find more information on the topic of anti-discrimination at the Office of Equality and Diversity at FAU here (German version).

Contact Person

Harriet Ziegler