The open exchange of ideas, the freedom of thought and expression, and respectful scientific debate are central to the goals of this interdisciplinary spring school; this requires a community and an environment that recognizes and respects the inherent worth of every person.
Who? All participants — attendees, organizers, lecturers, and sponsors at IK — are required to agree with this code of conduct both during the event and on official communication channels, including social media. Organizers will enforce this code, and we expect cooperation from all participants to help ensure a safe and productive environment for everybody.
Scope? The conference commits itself to providing an experience for all participants that is free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation. This includes offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), politics, or any other personal characteristics. Bullying, intimidation, personal attacks, harassment, sustained disruption of talks or other events, and inappropriate behaviour of any kind that interferes with another participant’s full participation at the event will not be tolerated. This includes sexual harassment, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, inappropriate physical contact, unwelcome sexual attention, public vulgar exchanges, and diminutive characterizations, which are all unwelcome in this community, be they in direct presence or in social media.
Outcomes? Participants asked by any member of the community to stop any such behaviour are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in such behaviour, the organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including: a formal or informal warning to the offender, expulsion from IK with no refund, barring from participation in future IKs, reporting the incident to the offender’s local institution or funding agencies, or reporting the incident to local law enforcement. A response of “just joking” will not be accepted; behaviour can be harassing without an intent to offend. If action is taken, an appeals process will be made available.
Reporting Guidelines
We know that it is painfully common for internet communication to start at or devolve into obvious and flagrant abuse. We also recognize that sometimes people may have a bad day, or be unaware of some of the guidelines in this Code of Conduct. Please keep this in mind when deciding on how to respond to a breach of this Code. For clearly intentional breaches, report those to the Diversity and Inclusion committee via conduct@interdisciplinary-college.de. For possibly unintentional breaches, you may reply to the person and point out this Code of Conduct (either in public or in private, whatever is most appropriate). If you would prefer not to do that, please feel free to ask a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for advice, in confidence. Currently, the committee consists of Jennifer Fewell, Lio Franz, Katharina Krämer, Ronald Sladky, and Terry Stewart.
If your report involves any members of the committee, or if they feel they have a conflict of interest in handling it, then they will recuse themselves from considering your report. Alternatively, if for any reason you feel uncomfortable making a report to the committee, then please contact any of the current IK chairs.
This Code of Conduct was copied (with slight modifications) from https://web.archive.org/web/20180820182407/https://nips.cc/public/CodeOfConduct