What to do about harassing email
A message is typically defined as harassing if the recipient has asked the sender to cease contact. Sending harassing email using any university information technology resource is a violation of Indiana University policy.
If you feel that your safety or property is at risk, do not respond to
the threatening message, but instead contact your local law
enforcement agency immediately. If you are a student or faculty or
staff member at one of the IU campuses, contact your campus police. After you've contacted law enforcement, forward
the message with full headers to the University
Information Policy Office (UIPO) at
it-incident@iu.edu.
If you receive an email message from someone you do not want to
contact you but you don't feel threatened, you should first write to
that person, respectfully asking that you not be contacted again.
Save the original message as well as your reply. If the person
contacts you again, forward all messages (the first unwanted message,
your request to cease contact, and any following unwanted messages) to
UIPO at it-incident@iu.edu. Be sure to
include the full headers in everything you forward.
For instructions on displaying and sending full headers, see How do I display and send the full headers of an email message?
UIPO staff will investigate the complaint and verify the source of the message, and then pass the incident to the proper disciplinary department (e.g., Dean of Students, Human Resources, the police department), depending on the location and status of the harasser.
If you are receiving annoying email messages but you do not feel the need to involve law enforcement, UITS offers a filtering service; see At IU, what is the spam quarantine service? Alternatively, you can write your own mail filter to screen out messages with a known pattern (e.g., from a particular sender or with a particular subject line); for more, follow the appropriate instructions below:
- Using Outlook 2003 and later, how can I control junk email?
- Using rules to handle incoming mail
- Creating incoming mail filters
Other desktop-based email readers, such as Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail, also have filter functions you can use to screen out unwanted email.
You can also refer to other IU resources:
| IU Bloomington | Office of Academic Support and Diversity |
|---|---|
| IUPUI | Office of Equal Opportunity |
| IU East |
Office of
Multicultural Affairs
Office of Affirmative Action |
| IPFW |
Office of
Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Affirmative Action Office, 219-481-6106 |
| IU Kokomo | Office of Campus Climate |
| IU Northwest |
Office of Multicultural
Affairs Counseling Services |
| IU South Bend | Office of Campus Diversity |
| IU Southeast | Office of Equity and Diversity |
