Code of Conduct

At Tech By Choice, we’re committed to creating a safe space that welcomes anyone from marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds, ensuring that we are always doing the work
to understand the layers of discrimination that people within the tech industry create programs that target these issues at their core.

Our code of conduct outlines the responsibilities, expectations, and rules of all members of the Tech By Choice community.

Two developers working together on the computer

Tech By Choice is committed to ensuring that all spaces provided are free from harassment for everyone, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment within our organization, including
Slack Channels, Workshops and Events, and Meetup Pages. Anyone who violates the Code of Conduct may be subject to sanctions and being removed from all Tech By Choice spaces at the discretion of our Leadership Team.
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Some Tech By Choice spaces may have additional rules set in place, which will be shared with all participants in advance.

Harassment Includes:

  • 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.
  • Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior in spaces where they’re not appropriate.
  • Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “*hug*” or “*back rub*”) 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, including stalking or following members of the community.
  • Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
  • Sustained disruption of discussion.
  • Unwelcome sexual attention. A pattern of inappropriate social contact with others, such as requesting or 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
  • Tech By Choice prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. Our leadership team reserves 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 Tech By Choice, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the leadership team at support@techbychoice.org.

‍If the person who is harassing you is on the team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. We will respond as promptly as we can.

‍This code of conduct applies to Tech By Choice spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of Tech By Choice outside our spaces, we still want to know about it.

We will take all good faith reports of harassment by Tech By Choice members, especially our leadership team, 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 Tech By Choice based on their past behavior, including behavior outside Tech By Choice spaces and behavior towards people who are not in Tech By Choice.

In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, 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. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of Tech By Choice members or the general public.

We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Adapted from Geek Feminism's Community anti-harassment/Policy template

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