Teachers in focus
Legal basis and explanations
Legal basis
The University of Graz is obliged by the Universities Act, the Federal Equal Treatment Act and the Federal Law on the Equality of People with Disabilities to protect instructors and students from harassment, unequal treatment and discrimination in relation to
- gender,
- ethnicity,
- religion or belief,
- age,
- sexual orientation and
- disability
at the university. As an employee of the University of Graz, you are therefore also legally obliged to
- create a study environment in which harassment has no place,
- intervene immediately in the event of described or observed circumstances and
- take appropriate remedial measures to effectively protect those affected.
What is harassment? What are its consequences?
According to the law, it is harassment if an act
- relates to forms of discrimination (i.e. gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religion/belief, age, disability);
- leads to or is intended to lead to a violation of the dignity of the person, whereby the behavior must be degrading when viewed objectively from the outside;
- is undesirable, inappropriate or offensive to the person concerned, whereby the undesirability does not have to be communicated and is to be assessed subjectively;
- creates or is intended to create an intimidating, hostile, degrading or humiliating study environment for the person concerned.
Harassment during studies can have legal consequences . The Federal Equal Treatment Act stipulates that discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religion or belief, age or sexual orientation constitutes a breach of official duty. Harassment is explicitly declared as discrimination and can lead to claims for damages.
The liability of harassers under the Federal Equal Treatment Act is independent of fault. This means that it does not matter whether someone explicitly intended to harass or not.