The following is from Draft 2 of the ACM Policy on Complaint Process Disclosure.
If you wish to contribute to this section: Reply to this post with your suggested re-wording, justification for your proposed changes, and an indication of your support or not.
2.6 Complaints resolved with a finding more serious than a minor violation
The respondent must be informed of the decision, the penalty, and that information will be shared with others according to this policy.
The complainant and any harmed individuals should be informed of the decision and the sanction unless they have requested to not be informed or there is a justifiable expectation of unreasonable harm should any of the persons come to know of the decision.
The complainant and witnesses must be informed of the sanctions that have been applied.
Those responsible for implementing or overseeing the penalty must be informed of the penalty details.
The respondent’s supervisor or employer may be informed of the identity of the respondent, the decision, and the penalty.
When the investigation has identified harm known to some members of a particular community, the identity of the respondent, the finding, and the penalty should be made known to leaders of that community, such as CARES groups, SIG executive boards, and conference leadership teams. They should be given guidance on how that information can be shared, if at all.
The respondent’s name may be shared with other organizations when there is evidence that doing so will reduce harm and there is an agreement with the organization regarding the confidentiality of the matter.
ACM will disclose the identity of the respondent, the finding, and the sanction to particular individuals or groups of individuals when there is a credible case that the respondent may cause additional harm to any single person or group of individuals.
As for section 2.5, I think it would be helpful to say more about process and people involved in deciding (a) about the nature and severity of the sanction, and (b) who is told about the sanction.
Another way to say this - about previous section 2.5 and this section 2.6 - is that we are trusting someone to make a lot of decisions, but we don’t know who they are, and we don’t know how and to whom the decision-makers are held accountable. I think these issues should be described in greater and more specific detail.
On point 7 " shared with other organizations" should be replaced by “communicated to the legal authorities” if considered necessary, depending on the seriousness of the case.
2 and 3 are contradictory. 2 says that the complainant should be informed of the decision unless there is a justifiable expectation of unreasonable harm. 3 says that the complainant must be informed. My initial thought would be that the complainant and harmed individuals must be informed and witnesses should be informed.
You are indeed correct about trusting someone to make a lot of decisions. That is currently the case with existing policies and this policy (or some variant), should it be adopted by the ACM Council, would place a few more decisions on those people who move through various roles on ACM committees, boards, and leadership positions.
Each set of policies (Pubs, Anti-Harassment, the Code of Ethics) has people in different the roles making those decisions. Please review those policies and current rosters to know who is involved in these decisions. Names are attached when letters go out. Those people are accountable to their bosses if they work for ACM. All volunteers are accountable to the ACM Council.
The purpose of 2 is to inform the complainant of the details–we found this particular action to be a violation of this particular aspect of this particular policy and assigned this particular sanction. The purpose of 3 is merely a statement of the fact that some unnamed sanction was applied, without stating what violation was found or suggesting what the sanction was. Also, this communicates that our process is complete.
Similar to my earlier email, I suggest that people who are in crisis or under attack, may not have time or knowledge to comb through all the ACM webpages for clarification. Would it be possible indicate - for each type of concern - which other part of ACM would become involved? A link to the appropriate ACM webpage would be a big help for young people who don’t know what to do - and who fear that no one may care. We do care, and our next-generation of researchers will benefit by seeing clear and helpful and actionable evidence of our care.
how can one do 3 (inform the complainant of the sanctions) without doing 2 (informing them of the decision and the sanction)? I think that should be cleared up. How about combining 2 and 3:
2-3. The complainant, witnesses and any harmed individuals should be informed of the decision and the sanctions unless they have requested to not be informed or there is a justifiable expectation of unreasonable harm should any of the persons come to know of the decision.
What happens if the respondent then changes jobs and does not tell their new employer? Is the ACM required to follow the respondent’s career (or alternatively, what harms may come if the ACM does not follow their career)?
I’d like to express my support for more disclosure and appreciate the changes being proposed in this draft. I think it’s a step in the right direction.
That said, this draft is still some distance from the level of transparency I’d like to see in ACM regarding complaints. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not familiar with the rules of other professional societies, but I’m a bit surprised at how carefully the confidentiality of the matter is protected even after a serious violation has been determined to have occurred. It would be nice to be able to easily confirm whether someone has been sanctioned for past violations, particularly if the complainant is ok with it. Even better would be to allow that to become public knowledge. I would expect this type of wording (only sharing under the condition of confidentiality) would apply to ongoing investigations, not after a violation has been found to occur. Is there any way to avoid the risk of lawsuits or defamation without just hiding any wrongdoing that may have occurred in the community from the public? (If I’m misunderstanding the policy I’m happy to be corrected)
how can one do 3 (inform the complainant of the sanctions) without doing 2 (informing them of the decision and the sanction)?
The intention here is to make a distinction between “ACM applied sanctions” (3) and “ACM found that the respondent violated Principle 1.4 of the Code of Ethics when they did this specific action and the sanction is they cannot be considered for an ACM honor for a period of 15 years during which they must demonstrate through annual reports of how they upheld the Code of Ethics” (2).
What happens if the respondent then changes jobs and does not tell their new employer? Is the ACM required to follow the respondent’s career (or alternatively, what harms may come if the ACM does not follow their career)?
This is not a case addressed by this policy. I find this question very intriguing–especially philosophically-- and worthy of discussion by the committee, but I also see practical challenges of implementing it.
Is there any way to avoid the risk of lawsuits or defamation without just hiding any wrongdoing that may have occurred in the community from the public?
Even ACM’s current policy of not disclosing any information about cases carries a risk of lawsuits. Exploring this policy has the ACM community grapple with the question of what level of risk is appropriate for the organization and the community. Complicating features include privacy rights, rights of individuals and groups to certain information to protect themselves from harm, cultural expectations from around the world, and legal requirements and responsibilities from around the world.
If there are tangible sanctions or punishments, then the processes of investigation and adjudication must be more transparent, clearly and thoroughly described, and objectively fair than what I have read regarding how they are handled now. Another way to say it is that those processes need to look more like a typical judicial system. Perhaps we would need to go as far as I suggest only when the preliminary investigation (conducted as is now described) determines that a serious sanction or punishment is possible.
For concerns that I mentioned in “General concerns and reflections”, I suggest the following wording:
“6. When the investigation has identified harm known to some members of a particular community and there is creditable evidence that the harm will likely reoccur, the identity of the respondent, the finding, and the penalty should be made known to leaders of that community, such as CARES groups, SIG executive boards, and conference leadership teams.”
“7. The respondent’s name may be shared with other organizations when there is creditable evidence that the violation will likely repeat and there is an agreement with the organization regarding the confidentiality of the matter.”
A comment on 2.6.5: if the employer/supervisor of a professor is informed, there will likely be disciplinary actions that the university will apply to the professor (e.g., limit in student contacting or advertising) and, if the professor seeks to switch university during the sanction period, this record will likely emerge during background check, so there is probably no need for ACM to track.