Kieran O'Neill
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

Thanks for this post! It ties into some of the discussions we’ve been having within the International Society for Computational Biology.

ISMB (the annual conference of ISCB) has a fairly good code of conduct, at least for dealing with overt -isms, and it does have a commitment to making the space welcoming to all:

It doesn’t quite take the next step, of actively working to reduce barriers to attendance by marginalised folk, but a group of us have started an equity, diversity and inclusion task force within the society to work on those. We had some pretty informative circle-of-chairs-style open discussions at the conference, and identified a few steps which, conference committee allowing, we can take for next year. First is to provide free daycare, to help parents, especially those who are nursing, to be able to attend. The second is to offer free anti-oppression training to all session chairs as well as attendees willing to make themselves available as allies. This would go along with guidelines for doing better at calling attention to the code of conduct during conference sessions, calling out and handling both serious discrimination and micro-aggressions, and offering support to attendees who have been the target of these. (We considered offering “ally ribbons”, but decided that if we do these should only be supplied to people who’d had some training first — see Alex Bond’s experiences with that at another conference.)

I‘m not harbouring any illusions that these will completely dismantle systemic bias and discrimination, but they are at least positive steps towards reducing specific barriers people face and towards making the conference a safer and more welcoming space. Next year and moving forward we plan to continue the open discussion sessions (and other ways of listening), and continue identifying concrete steps we can take along this path.

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    Bioinformatics post-doc. Environmentalist. Bike punk.

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