Offensive behaviour

At KEA, we have established the following principles for dealing with claims of offensive behaviour:

• It is always taken seriously if a student or employee feels offended, abused, bullied or harassed
• All inquiries are treated confidentially and KEAs employees have a duty of confidentiality. That means, that inquiries will not be shared or discussed with outsiders.
• All parties are entitled to fair treatment. KEA shows discretion both towards the one who feels offended and the one(s) accused of offending.

As a student, you can contact the head of your programme, KEA Study and Career Guidance or KEA Student Life.

Contact information

Your Head of Programme
You can find contactinformation on the Head of your programme at your programme page at MyKEA

KEA Study and Career Guidance
You can contact your Study Counsellor at studievejledning@kea.dk or find the direct contact information for your counsellor on MyKEA.

You can also contact the Head of Study and Career Guidance, Per Gad-Hansen, on 41 82 87 46 or pegh@kea.dk.

KEA Student life
Write to studieliv@kea.dk or contact the Head of KEA Student Life, Helle Guldberg, on 29 11 34 71 or heg@kea.dk

When you make your inquiry, you will be invited to an interview. You decide whether you want to join, whether it should be a physical meeting, over MS Teams, or on the phone. The interview will be subject to confidentiality and the KEA employee is bound by confidentiality.

During the conversation, you'll have the opportunity to share your experience, and you'll get an initial help to know your options and how to file a complaint if you want to go down that path.

A complaint consists of a description of what or whom you want to complain about (preferably documented). You send your complaint and documentation to KEA HR & Quality, which is KEA's entry point for complaints about offensive behaviour. KEA HR & Quality will deal with the complaint in cooperation with the relevant manager in the area concerned, ensuring a management anchoring at the level of management above that of the accused person(s).

Students must send their complaint to kvalitet@kea.dk 

In the complaint, you describe what you have experienced, when it has happened and whom it involves. Please provide documentation if possible. For example, it can be text material from social media, emails or pictures.

Once KEA has received the complaint as well as possible documentation, this will be reviewed and you will be invited in for an interview where we will talk the matter through, assess the case and clarify your wishes for a possible future course of action.

If you wish to proceed with the complaint, and the case involves one or more named persons(s), please be aware that the person(s) has the right to know who is complaining and what the charges are about, so that they have the opportunity to explain themselves. Therefore, under the Administrative Procedure Code, a complaint will not be dealt with anonymously.

In cases where a complaint involves one or more named persons and the case could trigger some form of sanction, the accused/named person(s) will be given the charges and the documentation and will be asked to comment on the charges. This can be done either in a meeting or in writing.

Once KEA has received the accused person(s)’ comments on the case, we will make a decision based on the full circumstances and documentation of the case. The decision will be communicated to the accused person(s) and executed if the case of conduct is to be sanctioned.

Due to KEA's confidentiality, it will normally not be possible to provide information on the possible penalty imposed on the accused person(s). This means that even if you have accused a person of offensive behaviour and the case has resulted in a penalty, KEA will not normally be able to tell you what the penalty is.

Offensive behaviour includes bullying, sexual harassment and other ways in which violations may occur.

Offensive behaviour is taking place when one or more persons expose other persons to an unwanted conduct which is perceived by those persons as degrading. 

These can be both active actions and non-action.

Both in terms of offensive behaviour and sexual harassment, it is irrelevant whether the acts are an expression of inconsiderateness or an outright desire to offend. What is central is whether the person experiences the behaviour as offensive or not

For example, offensive behaviour may include:

• Withholding necessary information or providing incorrect information on matters that affect one's work
• Hurtful remarks
• Slander or exclusion from the social and professional community
• Attacks on or criticism of one's privacy
• Being yelled at or ridiculed
• Physical abuse or threat thereof
• Hostility or silence in response to questions or attempts at conversation
• Downgrading of job, work performance or skills
• Abusive phone calls
• Offensive written messages, text messages, photos and videos, including on social media
• Unpleasant banter
• Devaluing, e.g. due to age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity or religious belief

In the context of sexual harassment, there are some special circumstances which are included as offensive. Sexual harassment is all forms of unwanted sexual attention and can be, for example:

• Unwanted touches
• Unwanted verbal calls for sexual relations
• Lewd jokes and comments
• Unauthorised queries on sexual topics
• Showing pornographic material.