Faculty response protocol for code of conduct violations

When a report is submitted through the submission form, an email alert will be sent to a shared inbox that all RC faculty have access to. There is always one designated faculty member responsible for handling incoming requests.

There are cases when we do not follow this protocol to the letter. All code of conduct violations are different, and they are often complex, so we use our judgement and knowledge of past behavior when deciding how to respond. The following is the most common response timeline you can expect.

Within two business days of receiving an email alert, that faculty member will:

Read the report to determine whether there has been a code of conduct violation.

• If not, they will reply to the reporter, explain that our code of conduct was not violated, and suggest other remediation options (e.g. coming to office hours to get advice on how to resolve an interpersonal conflict).
• If yes, that faculty member will determine whether they are the best person to respond to the situation, or if it is more appropriate to hand off the report to another faculty member (for example, if someone else already has a relationship with the reporter or the accused).

Follow up with the reporter:

• We’ll email to acknowledge that we’ve received the report, and are taking action
• We’ll ask any follow-up questions we need to better understand the situation
• We’ll confirm that we can contact the accused individual

Follow up with the Recurser who violated our code of conduct:

• We will reach out to the Recurser over email, let them know that we’ve received a report of a code of conduct violation, and invite them to speak to us about the incident in person if possible, over video chat if not.
• If the report was of abusive behavior, or the second report of unwelcoming behavior:
• During our meeting we will tell the Recurser we’re removing them from the community, disable their accounts, and remove their access to RC.
• If the report was of unwelcoming behavior:
• We will explain how their behavior violates our code of conduct, and what we expect of them moving forward.
• We will warn them that a second code of conduct violation will result in them being removed from the RC community.

If someone finds a report of a code of conduct violation somewhere other than our reporting form (e.g. on Zulip, in an anonymous note, or in-person), that faculty member will fill out the reporting form with all the information we can, and then follow the same protocol detailed above.

If a report is made anonymously without an email address provided for follow-up, or if the reporter indicates that they do not give us permission to act on their report, we will unfortunately not be able to take any action.