Code of Conduct

The organizers are committed to making this meeting productive and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, religion, ability status, physical appearance or educational background. We will not tolerate harassment of participants in any form. Attendance at a CASCA meeting implies consent to abide by this code of conduct. Explicitly, please follow these guidelines:

• Behave professionally. Harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary comments or jokes are not appropriate. Harassment includes sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, sexual attention or innuendo, deliberate intimidation, stalking, and photography or recording of an individual without consent. It also includes offensive comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race or religion.
• All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate.
• Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees.

Participants asked to stop any inappropriate behaviour are expected to comply immediately. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the event or conference at the sole discretion of the organizers without a refund of any charge.

Any participant who wishes to report a violation of this policy is asked to speak, in confidence, to CASCA’s designated contact(s) who will be identified by the LOC, a member of the LOC, a member of the Diversity & Inclusivity Committee or a member of the CASCA Board.

Consequences may range from verbal warning, to ejection from the meeting without refund, to notifying appropriate authorities. Retaliation for complaints of inappropriate conduct will not be tolerated. If a participant observes inappropriate comments or actions and personal intervention seems appropriate and safe, they should be considerate of all parties before intervening.

Protocol for dealing with violations of this policy

To avoid any confusion or bias in dealing with reports of violations of the code of conduct, the following protocol will be followed:

1. The designated CASCA contact will request a written record of the complaint including time/date plus particulars;
2. The designated CASCA contact will bring the incident to the attention of the LOC and the CASCA Board;
3. The designated CASCA contact will inform the individual(s) indicated to have violated the code of conduct of the allegation and ascertain and record their version of events.

Based on the nature of the violation and the response, the LOC, in concert with representatives of the CASCA Board, will decide upon appropriate actions. Where a violation of the policy is deemed to have occurred, a record will be kept to that effect within CASCA.

This code of conduct is based on the “London Code of Conduct”, as originally designed for the conference “Accurate Astrophysics. Correct Cosmology”, held in London in July 2015. The London Code was adapted with permission by Andrew Pontzen and Hiranya Peiris from a document by Software Carpentry, which itself derives from original Creative Commons documents by PyCon and Geek Feminism. It is released under a CC-Zero license for reuse.