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FWIW, O'Reilly has had a policy - http://conferences.oreillynet.com/code-of-conduct.csp - for a while now. RailsConf also has one and I saw discussion about another Ruby event's policy recently on HN too (where people were saying 'is this really needed!?'.. answer is yes).
This sucks, period - there's no two ways about it. Things like this are why I am glad PyCon (us.pycon.org) has a code of conduct in place ( https://us.pycon.org/2012/codeofconduct/ ) which is enforced by staff. There is no place for this type of behavior, anywhere. I am sorry this happened to you Julia, it should not have, and the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party fro…
So just assume guilt and throw him out, sans investigation?
That's completely unreasonable and why these are sticky situations. It isn't black and white. Even with an air-tight sexual harassment policy, you can't automatically assume that the accused is in the wrong.
Would a harassment policy spell out the appropriate ways to approach a woman? Or would flirting become some kind of Russian Roulette?
So "flirt" by all means but as soon as someone tells you to leave them alone, that's the absolute end of it. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening in most of these stories.
Would a harassment policy spell out the appropriate ways to approach a woman? Or would flirting become some kind of Russian Roulette?
In most of these stories, someone does something stupid, and the target doesn't immediately blow up.. they instead ask the other person to stop or leave them alone first . So "flirt" by all means but as soon as someone tells you to leave them alone, that's the absolute end of it. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening in most of these stories.
Another example of such laws gone wrong is maybe the sexting teenagers who are now on file as pedophiles.
Also this happened at a bar. So it would seem the problem is that the bar didn't handle it, not that the conference didn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Take a stand against what? Unproven claims?
Pretty much. This isn't a court of law or a public gathering. This is a privately organized event. It's totally okay to exclude disruptive people, and to act on stuff you're reasonably sure is true. Imagine there was some emacs guy who routinely went around harassing people who used vim. To the point where he got so offensive that the vim people felt they weren't being respected as professionals, even humiliated and…
Well, just imagine there was some emacs guy who routinely went around harassing people who used vim. He was offensive and yet they gave back words and didn't leave as he wanted. So he reported them on the next best thing that would get them baned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
After conference drinks are usually pretty close nit affairs. A group leaves the conference together and arrives at the bar as a group. It's one thing to complain to the bar management that a stranger is harassing you. It's entirely another thing to explain that someone you arrived with is a problem - here you could easily imagine getting the response "your friend, your problem", rightly or wrongly
I used to work club security for a lot of years and it happens all of the time. The people at the bar have seen it before. When the alcohol starts to flow some people can change their whole demeanor and surprise even the people that they are with. So you gently escort them out and if they become too belligerent then you have the police handle it.
Edit:grammar
Maybe I'm missing something but why not handle it with the safeguards at the venue? The conference is not in the business of protecting its attendees from unwanted advances, especially outside of the conference areas/sponsored events. Why not speak to the manager of the bar and have him escorted out? If it happens at the hotel, do the same with the hotel manager. People in the service/hospitality industry know how to…
It doesn't sound like she had any problems handling the advances at the bar. To wit, " I told him he should be ashamed of himself and walked away."
The question to me is whether the advances should have been reported to the conference organizer in addition to whatever happened at the bar.
If the harasser had been merely an attendee, then I would argue that there is little that a conference organizer would gain by knowing about it or be able to do about it. But we're talking about a speaker, someone who may have been invited, who probably had the cost of the conference waived and possibly even been reimbursed or given a stipend for airfare and hotel, and very likely appears in name and photo in conference promotional materials. To me, she was doing the conference director a big favor to let him know what happened. Since the director already had misgivings about allowing the harasser at the conference, you would think that the director would at least trust his judgement the next time and possibly spread the word to other organizers/directors. I certainly wouldn't want to appear to tacitly support this kind of behavior if I were organizing a conference.
Finally, I think it's very difficult to divorce the after hours happenings from the conference itself. Conferences often last several days, and there are often optional social events featured as part of the conference. You're probably going to see some of the same people the next day. I've never been sexually harassed, but I was bullied as a child. I know that the fear and humiliation imposed by a harasser don't go away just because the venue changes. If I were a conference director with the opportunity to gain specific knowledge that could help me prevent that kind of environment, I think I'd want it.
Silence and lack of consequences perpetuate harassing behavior. I think Ms. Elman absolutely did the right thing in speaking to the conference director.
Seriously. YouTube is worth a thousand zero tolerance policies.
Going to a bar and then being hit on is hardly the end of the world. Its one thing to respect office/professional decorum, its another to start setting rules where men can only speak when spoken to.