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SIGPLAN CARES Bylaws |
Bylaws of the Committee to Aid REporting on discrimination and haraSsment policy violations (CARES). Approved by the SIGPLAN Executive Committee on Jan 15, 2020.
The CARES committee was established to encourage a welcoming, harassment-free research community at professional meetings sponsored by the organizations that also sponsor CARES. CARES seeks to discourage bad behavior and offer a friendly ear for community members to discuss their experiences confidentially. A person who approaches a committee member will receive support and advice, including advice on the ACM official reporting procedures. (CARES members do not themselves report incidents to ACM.) For a full description of the purpose CARES, see the ACM approved CARES web page. See also the SIGPLAN Conference Code of Conduct Policy.
The remainder of this document outlines the policies for governance of the CARES committee, including chair rotation, membership, autonomy, and conflicts of interest on the CARES committee.
The first CARES committee was formed in 2018 by SIGARCH and very soon thereafter joined in sponsorship by SIGMICRO. In 2019, SIGPLAN formed its own CARES committee.
The SIGPLAN CARES committee is sponsored by SIGPLAN. This sponsorship is expected to continue in perpetuity, and any changes to the rules of governance must be approved by the SIGPLAN Executive Committee. However, the CARES committee operates autonomously so as to increase the trust of all community members, to which the committee will offer support only in the best interests of the people who report incidents, and not for any other reason. CARES governance seeks to strike a balance in acknowledging the need for this autonomy, while also the need for support and stewardship by SIGPLAN.
The SIGPLAN CARES committee will establish a presence at some SIGPLAN-sponsored conferences and workshops. Ultimately, the CARES goal is to have at least one but preferably two committee members present at all SIGPLAN-sponsored conferences, as well as the program committee meetings (as invited) for those conferences. To support this goal, committee members are expected to attend at least one such sponsored event per year. In unusual circumstances, travel and registration funding allowances may be available from SIGPLAN to cover the attendance of up to two CARES committee members in case no CARES committee members were otherwise planning to attend a sponsored conference.
At each conference, during the opening remarks or at another event early in the meeting, a committee member will announce the purpose of the committee, committee members present, and some of the particular events the members will attend. The announcement should be “inclusion positive.”
In steady state, two co-chairs will always serve. Each co-chair will serve for three years and appointments will overlap by 1.5 years, so that there will always be a serving co-chair with at least 1.5 years of experience. After serving as co-chair, the co-chair will normally remain on the committee for at least one more year.
Co-chairs may be drawn from the current committee or the community at large. The current co-chairs will propose the next committee co-chair and will request input from the current CARES committee members and the SIGPLAN Executive Committee. Input should be provided in a timely manner. Co-chairs will then be approved by consensus of the CARES committee members and SIGPLAN Executive Committee.
Anyone may suggest potential committee members to the co-chairs, e.g., suggest your colleague or yourself. For self-nominations, the CARES committee will ask for 2-3 references. The SIGPLAN Executive Committee may also propose members. Committee members should be well known and respected community members to encourage reporting. Because of the gravity and personal nature of this committee, ensuring committee members should be empathetic and trustworthy, and discretion is of the utmost importance.
The co-chairs and current CARES committee members will vet potential committee members by seeking input from their collaborators, others who know the nominated people well, and SIGPLAN. The SIGPLAN Chair will approve all new members. Only after this process will new members be invited by the co-chairs to serve. New members are required to take inclusion and harassment prevention training. There is no upper bound on the number of committee members. A lower bound of six members is suggested.
Committee members normally are invited to serve for a 3 year term, with a maximum of 6 years, served consecutively and a minimum of 6 years away from the committee before serving again. Committee members who serve as co-chair may serve longer to comply with the co-chair service policy of three years plus one year as prior-co-chair. After 3 years, the co-chairs will review the service of each committee member (e.g., conferences attended, etc.) and will normally invite members to renew.
Committee members serve at the discretion of the co-chairs and may be removed from the committee if they do not attend at least one conference or PC meeting per year, or other problems arise.
Committee members will be held to the highest standards of conduct and discretion. They must abide by all their institutions’ rules, Title IX, the ACM policy against harassment and any other pertinent ACM rules. They may discuss incidents, keeping the people involved anonymous, with other committee members. They may not otherwise discuss incidents unless so directed by the person reporting an incident.
If an incident is reported to the ACM, Title IX, or other institutional body against a committee member, and that body determines that the report is credible, the member will be removed from the committee. If the committee is made aware of the complaint while the investigation is ongoing, the member will not represent CARES at conferences during the investigation.
If the person accused of harassment has a conflict of interest with the committee member who initially receives a report (e.g., a close friend, a close collaborator, an advisor/advisee, same institution, etc.), the committee member will refer the reporter to another committee member immediately.
Although CARES will work autonomously, the final responsibility for its appropriate functioning rests with SIGPLAN. The CARES co-chairs will submit an annual report to SIGPLAN indicating the conferences covered and the committee members attending these meetings. Individual incident reports and conversations with committee members are unequivocally private. The CARES report will therefore summarize the nature and scale of climate and harassment concerns within the community brought to their attention, but without names or any details, confidential or otherwise. To align with other ACM reporting requirements, the report will be due July 15 and will cover the ACM fiscal year period of July 1 of the prior year to June 30th.