Growclass Code of Conduct

This policy is a living document, and subject to refinement and expansion in the future. Last updated August 15th, 2020.

All those participating in the Growclass sessions and community—including, but not limited to the course, bootcamps, online platform, Facebook community and Slack channel—are required to agree to the following Code of Conduct. This includes all students, guest instructors, mentors, sponsors, and staff.

Growclass is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

Anyone who violates this Code of Conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these in-person and online spaces at the discretion of Growclass staff.
Definitions
Harassment includes:

- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, 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 behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate

- 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

- Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect other Growclass community members or other vulnerable people from intentional abuse

- Publication of non-harassing private communication without consent by the involved parties


Growclass prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. Growclass 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 behaviour or assumptions
Consequences
Participants asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

If a participant engages in harassing behaviour, Growclass may take any action we deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all Growclass and Growclass spaces and identification of the participant as a harasser to other Growclass community members or the general public.
Reporting and Enforcement
If you are being harassed by a member of the growclass or Growclass community, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact us immediately via email at support@growclass.co
Sessions and Bootcamps
Please contact any member of our team. Our team is trained in how to address and report any incidents that attendees bring to their attention.
Slack
Please contact Sarah Stockdale via direct message.

If the person who is harassing you is a member of our team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. All reports will be handled in the strictest confidence. We will respond as promptly as we can.
Thanks
This policy borrows heavily from the open source policy by  XOXO Festival, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. That policy was created with resources provided by Geek Feminism, and adapted by polities authored by JSConf AU and Django.

Thank you also to Avery Swartz and Raw Signal Group for their advice and support.