Max Johnson, the University's new ombudsperson for discriminatory harassment, stands ready to help all those in the Notre Dame community who feel their civil rights have been violated by harassing speech or actions.

The position provides one central point of contact by which students, faculty and staff can learn their options of reporting allegations of discriminatory harassment, according to the University's policy detailed in duLac.

Johnson, also a member of the theology faculty, is responsible for investigating all complaints brought to his attention and making follow-up recommendations to the administration. He can provide community members with the resources needed to pursue their complaint to a satisfactory end.

"The best thing that could happen for this office is that my phone doesn't ring all year," Johnson said.

Johnson said his job is "to help see that [complainants] know what's available to them" in terms of reporting offenses and obtaining potential remedies.

The University broadly defines harassment as "any physical conduct intentionally inflicting injury on the person or property of another, or any intentional threat of such conduct, or any hostile, intentional, and persistent badgering, addressed directly at another, or small group of others, that is intended to intimidate its victim(s) from any University activity, or any verbal attack, intended to provoke the victim(s) to immediate physical retaliation."

Harassment takes on a discriminatory character if it is "accompanied by intentionally demeaning expressions concerning the race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or national origin of the victim(s)."

The position is appointed by University president Father Edward Malloy, under the discriminatory harassment policy as revised last year. The office was created in 1994 and has handled from zero to "four or five" complaints per year since that time.

Any student, faculty, or staff who has been a victim of discriminatory harassment is encouraged to call the office of the Ombudsperson at 631-3909.

In keeping with the University's commitment to human dignity, he added that the administration has "the resolve that any harassment is not acceptable on this campus."

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