NSF's NOIRLab is committed to providing a safe and respectful work environment, free of any form of harassment. All NOIRLab partner organizations take this responsibility very seriously.
NOIRLab staff are subject to the policies of its operating organization, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. Collaborating personnel are also subject to the various specific anti-harassment policies of their employing organizations. Additionally, the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences has charged AURA with establishing and publicizing policies and methods for reporting harassment. These practices and procedures will apply to NOIRLab personnel as well as to all science and business associates, and all public and other visitors to NOIRLab facilities.
As harassment can take many forms, abbreviated excerpts from AURA policy are provided below to assist in identifying and addressing unacceptable behavior.
Harassment – AURA policy prohibits illegal harassment of any employee by a manager, co-worker or visitor, because of race, religion, color, gender, age, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity expression, or any other protected class. Policy also specifically addresses sexual harassment, which creates gender-based intimidation, hostility, and an offensive working environment. Harassment can take many forms:
Verbal harassment includes innuendoes, suggestive comments, jokes of a sexual nature, requests for any type of sexual favor, epithets, slurs, teasing and negative stereotyping.
Non-verbal harassment includes distribution, display or discussion of any material that is sexual in nature and offensive, or that shows hostility, aversion or disrespect toward an individual or group.
Physical harassment includes unwelcome, unwanted physical contact, Including violating an individual’s personal space.
If at any time you feel that a member of the NOIRLab community, regardless of organizational affiliation, is violating any of these principles and standards, please speak up. As soon as safely possible, you should report issues to NOIRLab or AURA Human Resources, to your supervisor, principal investigator, department chair, ethics or legal representatives, as applicable. Specific steps for reporting within NOIRLab and AURA are described in the AURA workplace standards policy.
You may also contact the NSF’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion directly if you feel the concern warrants external review.
NOIRLab’s meetings will be open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy experiences for all participants.
All meeting attendees have the right to:
All meeting attendees shall:
Attendees are requested to not share the meeting access information and credentials with non-registered attendees and are required to ask for explicit consent from the speaker and Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC) Chair prior to publishing presentations or commentary externally (e.g in scientific publications, social media or conference websites).
Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the meeting SOC. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly. The SOC is obligated to respect the privacy and security of the reporter of any incident.
The SOC will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct: