Debugging conference anti-harassment policies [LWN.net]

Debugging conference anti-harassment policies

Posted Feb 8, 2011 3:35 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
In reply to: Debugging conference anti-harassment policies by BrucePerens
Parent article: Debugging conference anti-harassment policies

"You don't seem to have parsed my reason. I am not refraining from submitting because I believe I would be rejected. I know how to produce speech proposals that are reliably accepted and have keynoted a conference of the organization behind the policy in question."

You're confusing the Gnome Speaker Guidelines (which I wrote the first draft of) with the Anti-Harassment Policy adopted by LCA (which I had nothing to with).

"I am refraining from submitting because I would have to be subjected to a policy that violates my rights"

Given that you don't have any right to appear at a conference in the first place, and given that conferences have the right to terminate presentations at any time for any reason and issue whatever apologies they want to, I'm struggling to see how this violates your rights in any way whatsoever.

'For you to tell me "just don't submit" is like saying "That lady should simply have stayed in the back of the bus".'

You're genuinely arguing that a private event's requirement that speakers and attendees be conscious of the effect that their behaviour may have on others is equivalent to state-backed discrimination against its own citizens in their public life on the basis of the colour of their skin? There's... rather a lot of ways in which these things aren't analogous.

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Debugging conference anti-harassment policies

Posted Feb 8, 2011 4:05 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

You are correct, I am connecting the AHP with the GSP erroneously - at least if the AHP is not in any way derivative of the GSP. They both seem to embed the same problem of not being rights-based.

Given that you don't have any right to appear at a conference in the first place, and given that conferences have the right to terminate presentations at any time for any reason and issue whatever apologies they want to, I'm struggling to see how this violates your rights in any way whatsoever.

Suppose the conference decided to handle the problem of bad things happening to women by prohibiting women from attending. By your theory, the women's rights would not be violated. Apply your statement to the women instead of me: "they don't have any rights to attend in the first place". Sounds wrong, doesn't it?

The plight of a speaker who values intellectual freedom (within clear limits designed to protect others) may be a lesser plight than the plight of women (or Blacks, in my previous example) but his rights are still worthy of protection.

Debugging conference anti-harassment policies

Posted Feb 8, 2011 14:07 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

"Suppose the conference decided to handle the problem of bad things happening to women by prohibiting women from attending. By your theory, the women's rights would not be violated. Apply your statement to the women instead of me: "they don't have any rights to attend in the first place". Sounds wrong, doesn't it?"

If a conference chose to discriminate along those lines, it's not a conference I'd choose to attend. But as a privately-run event, the organisers would be within their rights to discriminate in that manner.

"The plight of a speaker who values intellectual freedom (within clear limits designed to protect others) may be a lesser plight than the plight of women (or Blacks, in my previous example) but his rights are still worthy of protection."

And that speaker has the right to speak at a different conference, or to organise a competing conference with a different set of behavioural policies. But since that speaker never had a right to speak at this conference in the first place, putting boundaries on their behaviour within the context of the conference is not limiting their rights.