It’s terrible to see how people have suffered due to harassment and abuse in the community. I think this is an important time for us to reflect as a community on what we need to be doing differently.
Some aspects of the problem are more easily tractable (clearer policies on reporting misconduct at orgs; better systems for responding to misconduct), while others stem from aspects of EA that are pretty deeply-rooted (centralization of power; blurry work/life boundaries and a high level of romantic/professional entanglements). Many people seem to be pretty bought into the more entrenched aspects I mentioned, but I feel that their downsides haven’t been sufficiently accounted for. At the very least, I think we need to more robustly account for their risks, and factor them into community norms and behaviors.
If you’re harassed by someone who controls your funding, and they’re also a beloved community member with high status, it’s going to be inherently so much harder to speak up. Yet many EA orgs have harassment policies that are poor or non-existent. Multiple people have told me that they feel such policies aren’t necessary in EA because this is a high-trust community with well-intentioned people. I’d argue that when personal and professional lives are so entangled, strong policies are more, rather than less important.
I’d be eager to hear what other actionable changes people feel would be valuable.
Yet many EA orgs have harassment policies that are poor or non-existent.
This is very alarming and should be corrected immediately.
Multiple people have told me that they feel such policies aren’t necessary in EA because this is a high-trust community with well-intentioned people.
Non-EA organizations don’t have sexual harassment policies because they suspect all their employees/members to be predators! It is so that the minority of people who engage in bad behavior don’t slip through (or in case of the incidents in this article, keep slipping through) the cracks and feel emboldened by the lack of such policies.
Many people seem to be pretty bought into the more entrenched aspects I mentioned, but I feel that their downsides haven’t been sufficiently accounted for. At the very least, I think we need to more robustly account for their risks, and factor them into community norms and behaviors.
I think the community being mostly very young, male, low EQ and most importantly inexperienced leads to biases that make EAs think they will be unaffected by (or are brilliant enough to easily overcome) issues that other organizations and communities experience and actively try to avoid.
It would be pretty absurd to people outside of EA that things as basic as having workplace dating policies, harassment policies or trainings is actually something that we need to make an elaborate case for. I feel like it comes to understanding complex interpersonal dynamics and assessing their role in the long term health of a community, EAs are disadvantaged and behind the curve and it wouldn’t be so bad to use the knowledge that other non-EA groups have gained from decades of bad experiences and subsequent hard work to reduce such experiences.
I’d argue that when personal and professional lives are so entangled, strong policies are more, rather than less important.
If organizations don’t want to adopt good policies for the right reasons, they may want to meditate on how excited employment-discrimination attorneys will get when it is explained that the defendant organization didn’t have any meaningful harassment policy or training because they were a “high-trust community with well-intentioned people.”
I hesitate to frame it that way, but it may be the only way to get some people’s attention.
It’s terrible to see how people have suffered due to harassment and abuse in the community. I think this is an important time for us to reflect as a community on what we need to be doing differently.
Some aspects of the problem are more easily tractable (clearer policies on reporting misconduct at orgs; better systems for responding to misconduct), while others stem from aspects of EA that are pretty deeply-rooted (centralization of power; blurry work/life boundaries and a high level of romantic/professional entanglements). Many people seem to be pretty bought into the more entrenched aspects I mentioned, but I feel that their downsides haven’t been sufficiently accounted for. At the very least, I think we need to more robustly account for their risks, and factor them into community norms and behaviors.
If you’re harassed by someone who controls your funding, and they’re also a beloved community member with high status, it’s going to be inherently so much harder to speak up. Yet many EA orgs have harassment policies that are poor or non-existent. Multiple people have told me that they feel such policies aren’t necessary in EA because this is a high-trust community with well-intentioned people. I’d argue that when personal and professional lives are so entangled, strong policies are more, rather than less important.
I’d be eager to hear what other actionable changes people feel would be valuable.
This is very alarming and should be corrected immediately.
Non-EA organizations don’t have sexual harassment policies because they suspect all their employees/members to be predators! It is so that the minority of people who engage in bad behavior don’t slip through (or in case of the incidents in this article, keep slipping through) the cracks and feel emboldened by the lack of such policies.
I think the community being mostly very young, male, low EQ and most importantly inexperienced leads to biases that make EAs think they will be unaffected by (or are brilliant enough to easily overcome) issues that other organizations and communities experience and actively try to avoid.
It would be pretty absurd to people outside of EA that things as basic as having workplace dating policies, harassment policies or trainings is actually something that we need to make an elaborate case for. I feel like it comes to understanding complex interpersonal dynamics and assessing their role in the long term health of a community, EAs are disadvantaged and behind the curve and it wouldn’t be so bad to use the knowledge that other non-EA groups have gained from decades of bad experiences and subsequent hard work to reduce such experiences.
Agreed.
If organizations don’t want to adopt good policies for the right reasons, they may want to meditate on how excited employment-discrimination attorneys will get when it is explained that the defendant organization didn’t have any meaningful harassment policy or training because they were a “high-trust community with well-intentioned people.”
I hesitate to frame it that way, but it may be the only way to get some people’s attention.