LFI Course Materials/Code of Conduct

LFI Code of Conduct

Library Freedom Institute is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

This code of conduct applies to all Library Freedom Institute spaces, including our mailing list, message board, and events both online and off. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the project organizers Alison Macrina and Howard Besser. Participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.

The following behaviors are expected and requested of all community members:

 * Participate in an honest and active way.
 * Exercise consideration and respect in your speech and actions.
 * Attempt collaboration and dialog before engaging in conflict.
 * Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech.
 * Respect the privacy of your fellow LFI participants.

Harassment includes:

• Offensive comments related to gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion.
• Deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names.
• Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior in spaces where they’re not appropriate.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Library Freedom Project prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. The project organizers reserve the right not to act on complaints regarding:

• ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
• Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.”
• Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial
• Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions

Reporting

If you are being harassed by a member of Library Freedom Institute, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the project organizers at [email protected]. We will respond as promptly as we can.

This code of conduct applies to Library Freedom Institute spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of Library Freedom Institute outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by Library Freedom Institute members seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The abuse team reserves the right to exclude people from Library Freedom Institute based on their past behavior, including behavior outside Library Freedom Institute spaces and behavior towards people who are not in Library Freedom Institute.

We reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Consequences

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the project organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all Library Freedom Institute spaces and identification of the participant as a harasser to other Library Freedom Institute members or the general public.

License and attribution

This anti-harassment policy is based on the example policy from the Geek Feminism wiki, created by the Geek Feminism community.