Re: Last Call: <draft-farrresnickel-harassment-05.txt> (IETF Anti-Harassment Procedures) to Best Current Practice

[Pete Resnick <[e-mail]>]

On 3/9/15 6:20 PM, Sam Hartman wrote:
>>>>>> "Pete" == Pete Resnick<[e-mail]>  writes:
>>>>>>              
>      Pete>  The short answer is that the IESG generally thought that
>      Pete>  "crossing the streams" was a bad idea. Imagine that we do get
>      Pete>  to the particular point of horror, that someone in leadership
>      Pete>  has harassed someone in such a way that the Ombudsteam
>      Pete>  concludes the only appropriate remedy is that they are unable
>      Pete>  to attend future meetings or participate in list discussions,
>      Pete>  *and* that person refused to resign their post. Even if they
>      Pete>  keep the fact of the harassment confidential and simply said,
>      Pete>  "I will be unable to attend meetings in the future for
>      Pete>  personal reasons, nor will I be able to participate in WG list
>      Pete>  discussions, but I still wish to remain as AD", that's really
>      Pete>  plenty enough impetus for a recall committee to be formed and
>      Pete>  remove the person from their post.
>
> OK, well, that seems kind of inconsistent with the current text that
> talks about recommending someone not be in a leadership position.
>    

The current (version -06) text does not talk about recommending someone 
not be in a leadership position. That text got removed after IESG 
Evaluation before approval.

> Also, there's another concern.  Imagine sexual harassment on the part of
> ADs in in-person interactions.
> [...]
> In some ways this approach forces the ombudsteam to exclude someone from
> a meeting rather than what might be a lesser penalty  of removing them
> from a leadership position.
> Do you want to force that?
>    

First of all, a remedy as "penalty" is addressed in Section 5.1. The 
*existence* of potential remedies can act as a deterrent, but the 
*imposition* of a remedy is "to try to make sure that the incident does 
not escalate and to ensure that a similar situation is unlikely to occur 
with the same Respondent in the future" and specifically "is not to be 
imposed for the purposes of retribution." Given that, and given that 
section 5 says quite clearly that the remedies are a range, and can be 
as simple as "discuss the situation with the Respondent and come up with 
a plan such that there is no repeat of the harassment", it's not clear 
to me that removing someone from a leadership position is a useful 
remedy, likely to prevent future incidents, that other remedies (less 
drastic than exclusion from meetings) would not more readily accomplish. 
So I don't see any way in which this "forces" the Ombudsteam to exclude.

> I think that most of my concerns would be addressed by adding a
> statement indicating that the ombudsteam SHOULD maintain a procedure
> explaining  how they resolve conflicts between the desire for
> confidentiality and the disclosures necessary to do their jobs.
>
> To me that statement accomplishes two things not present in the current
> text:
>
> 1) It acknowledges that there are such conflicts; I read the current
> text and I see a bunch of stuff about absolute confidentiality, with no
> acknowledgement that it can't quite be absolute.
>
> 2) Indicates where people can look to see current thinking on resolving
> the conflict.
>    

Section 4.1 requires the Ombudsteam to document its operational 
practices. Should something like this be needed, I would expect it to be 
a part of that documentation. You will also note that 4.1 says:

       In all cases the Ombudsteam will strive to maintain
       confidentiality for all parties including the very fact of contact
       with the Ombudsteam.

"Strive to maintain" not not seem to be about "absolute 
confidentiality", as you put it, so it's not clear what else needs to be 
acknowledged in the text.

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - [phone]