Potential harassers are less likely to behave inappropriately if they know that the community is well educated and vigilant with regards to addressing harassment. We also recognize that many individuals are nervous about how addressing harassment could stifle the open, informal, and largely positive interactions in our community. Our intent is quite the opposite: we hope to encourage the community to discuss and engage in discussions of such topics in a productive manner, rather than to create anxiety about potential misunderstandings.
Here is a one-pager on how to prevent harassment at conferences. Here is some of that information in the form of slides.
Here are some resources that may help explain what behavior constitutes harassment and possible ways to help in a potentially problematic situation:
- No Means No: Respond to Harassment in the Moment. Webinar sponsored by the Association for Women in Science. (https://vimeo.com/163581972/6b1f96fb72)
- Spot and Stop It: How To End Harassment at Professional Meetings. Webinar sponsored by the Association for Women in Science. (https://vimeo.com/166410162/8dc250e79a)
- Sexual Harassment Resources from the CRA-W (https://cra.org/cra-w/sexual-harassment)
Legal Resources
- For incidents at ACM sponsored events, go to www.acm.org/about-acm/reporting-unacceptable-behavior. For complaints regarding false accusations, contact advocate@acm.org.
- For incidents at IEEE sponsored events, contact an IEEE staff member or email eventconduct@ieee.org.
- To file a complaint about someone employed by a university in the US, contact the Title IX office for that institution. (For example, uwm.edu/titleix/)
- To file a complaint about someone employed by a university in Israel, contact the Commission for Complaints on Sexual Harassment on Campus for that institution. (For example, hatrada.huji.ac.il)