Code of Conduct - Students Community
It’s super important to me that all students feel safe when engaging with the community on our Facebook group or within online events like Q&A sessions. I want our community to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible, and I believe that in order to achieve that goal, policies must be in place (and enforced!) that prioritize safety and inclusion.
By participating in the community, you agree to abide by the conduct specified in this document. While recognizing that nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes, please understand that you may be removed from the community if that mistake is severe enough, or if you make it more than once.
Report a violation
If you’ve witnessed someone violating the Code of Conduct, please let me know by sending an email to contact@becomebimcoordinator.com
Harassment
We do not tolerate harassment in this community. Examples of harassment include:
- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion.
- Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names.
- Making light of/making mocking comments about trigger warnings and content warnings.
- Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour.
- Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg., textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop.
- Threats of violence.
- Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
- Deliberate intimidation.
- Stalking or following.
- Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
- Sustained disruption of discussion.
- Unwelcome sexual attention.
- Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
- Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease, either in public or private.
- Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
- Publication of non-harassing private communication.
In this community, we prioritize marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. The following are not examples of harassment:
- Reverse-isms, including “reverse racism”, ”reverse sexism”, “cisphobia”.
- Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone”, “go away”, or “I’m not discussing this with you”.
- Criticising racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions.
The Paradox of Tolerance
This community has a zero-tolerance policy towards transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, classism, and any other forms of oppression. As mentioned above, it is considered a form of harassment, and one which will be acted upon swiftly.
Some have said that having a zero-tolerance policy towards certain beliefs or philosophies is less inclusive, and that it’s hypocritical to be talking about wanting a safe and inclusive space that excludes certain forms of expression.
Paradoxically, in order to achieve a tolerant and inclusive space, it requires being intolerant to those who are openly intolerant. Otherwise, intolerant people will force out tolerant ones, and the space will become intolerant as a whole.
You can read more about the Paradox of Tolerance on Wikipedia.
Enforcement
If you are found to have violated this Code of Conduct, you may be given a warning, or removed from the community, at my sole discretion. You’ll still have access to course materials, but you won’t be allowed into the Facebook group community, or to any events (virtual or in-person).
Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.
I will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At my discretion, I may publicly name a person about whom I’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if I believe that doing so will increase the safety of our community members or the general public. I will not name harassment victims without their explicit consent.
I reserve the right to remove any offending messages, images, contributions, etc.