Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment

Discrimination and harassment are not to be tolerated within our community. All SIGCOMM events and communications (emails, online social network groups, etc.) must abide by the ACM policy against discrimination and harassment. If a violation of this policy occurs, ACM urges reporting the incident to the event chairs or the ACM President, CEO, or COO. SIGCOMM recognizes that reporting to the conference chairs or an upper-level ACM administrator can be intimidating, especially in the face of an already traumatic experience.

The SIGCOMM CARES Committee (SIGCOMM Committee to Aid REporting on discrimination and haraSsment policy violations) is intended to assist members of our community who may have experienced or witnessed behaviors that violate the ACM policy against discrimination and harassment at an event sponsored by the SIG. It was created following ACM SIGARCH initiatives and leveraging the experience with an ad hoc committee in SIGCOMM 2018. Note that despite CARES, for the matter to be reported, the person experiencing the incident must still themselves submit the complaint to ACM, where it will be handled according to ACM’s policy.

CARES committee members can help by providing advice on how to approach such a situation and ensure it is investigated by ACM. They are available to listen and help anyone who has either experienced or witnessed discrimination and harassment at an event promoted by the SIG, or needs counseling on how to handle it. However, note that CARES is not intended to replace ACM’s guidelines for reporting incidents, and such reporting remains the responsibility of the SIG member who experienced or witnessed the incident (a CARES committee member may, under exceptional circumstances, report an incident on behalf of a SIG member, but the member remains responsible for corroborating the facts with ACM).

When attending an event in their capacity as CARES members, individuals will wear a badge that clearly identifies them as such. They can also be contacted online to facilitate and schedule initial discussions. The 2019 committee members are, in alphabetical order, Sujata Banerjee, Marinho Barcellos, Craig Partridge, Jennifer Rexford, Justine Sherry, and Ellen Zegura.

At IMC 2019 in Amsterdam, CARES will be represented by Craig Partridge and Justine Sherry.

Further Reading

The integral ACM policy against discrimination and harassment can be found here.