Promoting Safety in EA: Practical Steps to Prevent Sexual Harassment & Code of Conduct for Your Use
EA communities tend to be a professional space and a social space, all at once. This reality can often involve complex power dynamics that require careful attention. To maintain safe spaces, it is crucial to establish guiding rules for our communities. In this post, I would like to share EA Israel’s concise code of conduct for preventing sexual harassment, which is based on Israeli law. Before diving into that, we suggest some practical steps you can take to promote the safety of your community.[1]
What can you do to prevent sexual harassment in your EA community?
As a community manager
Designate a responsible person, either a team member or volunteer, dedicated to sexual harassment prevention and community health in your community. This person should be committed to this subject, ideally with some professional experience in dealing with emotionally challenging situation. Nominate another person, preferably from a different gender, as a contact person when the main representative is unavailable / connected to the harassment case / just in case someone prefers to speak with someone else.
Ensure they receive professional training, including emotional and legal aspects, that they are able to commit to this role for a long-enough duration, and that they establish a code of conduct against sexual harassment.
As a community health and preventing sexual harassment representative
Set a code of conduct to prevent sexual harassment and publish it widely, so that every old and new community member encounters it at some point. Clearly identify yourself as the primary point of contact for addressing harassment issues, and make it super-easy to contact you.
As a community member
Ask your community manager to nominate a responsible person for sexual harassment prevention and community health. Ask for the adoption of a code of conduct, such as the one shared in this post, or encourage the development of a customized code of conduct that suits your community’s needs and fits the local law.
You, as an EA worker or a community member, can help to create an environment where everyone feels respected and protected.
EA Israel’s Code of Conduct for preventing sexual harassment
The rest of this section is EA Israel’s short version code of conduct, based on the Israeli law.
Effective Altruism Israel strives to create a sense of safety and comfort among its staff and community. Sexual harassment is strictly against the organization’s policy.
Prohibited acts according to the law
Threatening or coercing a person to engage in acts of a sexual nature.
Indecent acts / lascivious behaviour.
Repeated proposals of a sexually oriented nature, even if the person to whom the proposals are directed has shown a lack of interest in them. However, there is no need to demonstrate a “lack of interest” in a relationship of authority with an inherent power imbalance, or in a dependent, educational or therapeutic relationship with a minor, a patient, or someone defenseless in other ways.
Persistent references focused on a person’s sex or sexuality, even if the person to whom the behavior is directed has shown disinterest. There is no need to demonstrate “lack of interest” in cases mentioned in paragraph (3) above.
Derogatory or demeaning treatment towards a person regarding their sex or sexuality, including their sexual orientation, whether or not they have expressed that it bothers them.
Publishing a photograph, film, or recording that focuses on a person’s sexuality, in circumstances where the publication may degrade or demean the person, and consent for publication has not been given.
Prohibited retaliation: Harming a person as a result of sexual harassment towards them or any harm to someone who has assisted or testified on behalf of another person in a complaint about sexual harassment.
Process for Filing a Complaint
The law provides three options, any or all of which can be pursued simultaneously or one after the other:
Internal disciplinary procedure—One can file a complaint regarding the harassment with the person in charge of handling cases of sexual harassment at the organization according to the Sexual Harassment Prevention Law. The designated responsible person at “Effective Altruism Israel” is Michal Greidinger, [contact details]. Filing a complaint with the responsible person initiates internal disciplinary proceedings. If the designated responsible person is connected to the case in any way, one can file a complaint with Ezra Hausdorff, the organization’s CEO.
Criminal procedure—One can file a complaint with the police to initiate criminal proceedings.
Civil procedure—Within seven years, one can file a civil lawsuit in court (usually the Regional Labor Court). The court may rule in cases of sexual harassment or retaliation an award compensation of up to 120,000 NIS without proof of damages.
Handling the Complaint (Internal disciplinary procedure)
The responsible person will proceed to clarify the complaint, listen to those involved and to witnesses, and verify the information.
The complainant will be informed about the procedures for handling sexual harassment or retaliation according to the law.
The responsible person will not handle the complaint if they have a personal connection to the subject of the complaint or those involved, and will transfer the investigation to another responsible person, such as a designated representative, a community manager, or the CEO.
The investigation of the complaint will be conducted efficiently and without delay.
The investigation of the complaint will be carried out with utmost respect for the dignity and privacy of the complainant, the accused, and witnesses, while safeguarding the rights of those involved, and the confidentiality of the information.
Upon completion of the investigation, the designated responsible person will promptly submit a written summary of the investigation to the CEO, along with detailed recommendations for further action to prevent ongoing sexual harassment, and to address any harm caused to the complainant.
Within seven days, the CEO will decide on further action with the aim of preventing ongoing sexual harassment and addressing any harm caused to the complainant.
The CEO will protect the complainant during the investigation from any negative impact on their organizational involvement resulting from the complaint and, among other measures deemed appropriate, will take steps to distance the accused from the complainant to the extent appropriate and possible.
The CEO will provide the complainant with a detailed written notification of their decision and allow the complainant to view the responsible person’s summary and recommendations.
Actions taken by “Effective Altruism Israel” to prevent sexual harassment
Appointment of a designated individual for the prevention of sexual harassment (Michal Greidinger, [contact details]).
The “Effective Altruism Israel” team is committed to participating in training and awareness programs coordinated by the organization regarding the prevention of sexual harassment and retaliation.
The organization requires all employees, board members, volunteers and community members to refrain from engaging in sexual harassment and retaliation, both among employees and within the community.
The organization publishes and makes accessible the code of conduct for the prevention of sexual harassment to the organization’s team and the community.
In addition to the above, with mutual consent and agreement, an intimate relationship may exist between different individuals involved in the organization. In the event of the formation of an intimate relationship with mutual consent between an employee/manager and another employee, manager or community member, it is the responsibility of the employee/manager to inform the designated responsible person at the organization of their relationship, as soon as possible, in order to prevention the exploitation of power dynamics and to ensure professional conduct at the workplace.
For further information, you can contact me at michal@effective-altruism.org.il
For translation and feedback on this post, thanks to Sarah Winthrope, Edo Arad, Avital Shkolnik and Ezra Hausdorff.
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I am pleased to see that other community organizers are also focusing on community health. Here is the recent EA Germany post regarding the subject.
Thank you for sharing this! Here’s a guide that includes links to some other codes of conduct from EA groups.
Hey,
It sounds to me like you’re mainly focusing on
Nominating a representative (who gets training)
Filing a complaint
This seems to me (not that I’m an expert, at all) like there’s still something missing: having the representative be actually trustworthy. I have no idea how training could accomplish that.
I know you personally and my sense is that you deeply care about this, your heart is in it, you deeply care about listening and understanding people’s needs, and even if you won’t know how to do something—I could communicate my needs to you and nothing bad would happen because of it, you’d listen and we’d figure something out.
This is not at all the vibe I got from “representatives” throughout my career. It often seems like an “annoying extra task” that someone got and must do, like “decide who does a shift (שמירה) at what times”. I really doubt a simple training could solve this (not a training that I’d know how to run, anyway) (not a training that those representatives got).
Also, (again, not an expert) - I don’t think that a common thing people would want is to “file a complaint” or to have an “internal disciplinary procedure”. I imagine that more common desires would be “keep it secret please” or “get that person far away from me without them knowing its my fault” or maybe something simpler like “believe me”.
Also (again, not an expert) - I don’t think that relying on “prohibited acts according to the law” would make many people calm. I sometimes hear about things that are (I hope?) clearly illegal, done publicly, recorded, and the law doesn’t seem to help enough. Also—filing a complaint in the police is maybe something worth getting training about, but I hear that filing such complaints come with huge downsides (which annoys me and I won’t rant about it, but I would hope the representative won’t rely on that solution).
My guess is that much of this comes naturally to you, but if I imagine myself running an EA group or so, and reading this post, these are some things that would be missing for me, things where I’d still feel somewhat lost even with your advice. Maybe you want to write more? Run your own courses? I really have no idea
Congrats on your first post!
:)
Executive summary: The post offers practical steps for EA communities to prevent sexual harassment, including designating responsible personnel, establishing a code of conduct, and training. It shares EA Israel’s concise code of conduct based on Israeli law.
Key points:
Community managers should designate responsible personnel for harassment prevention who receive training.
Establish and publish a clear code of conduct based on local laws.
The shared code prohibits coercive acts, indecent behavior, unwanted advances, derogatory treatment, unauthorized publication of private material, and retaliation.
It outlines complaint procedures: internal, criminal, civil.
Internally, it requires prompt, respectful investigations and recommendations to leadership.
Leaders must take action to address harm and prevent further harassment.
Additional steps include training, requiring staff/volunteers to refrain from harassment, and publishing the code.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Hey Michal, thanks for sharing this code and also some thoughts on how to take preventative measures depending on your position in the community. I especially like that you included community members, and encouraged people to advocate for what they want!