Resist Together: Fighting Harassment in the Profession

Over the next two years, the WCC will be dedicating its energies to advocacy in advancing equity, diversity, and inclusiveness in the field by embarking on a campaign focused on addressing the issue of harassment in our field. Every day, members of our profession — especially women, people of color, people with disabilities, and those who are members of the LGBTQ community — experience harassment, bullying, and bias in the workplace, online, in the classroom, and in their professional activities.

As part of our mission, we will be sponsoring a series of panels, workshops, and roundtables at professional conferences around North America focused on harassment, bullying, and bias in its various forms. These panels will focus on bringing to light the experiences of harassment, fostering a support network and resources, and working to find actionable solutions that members can take back to their institutions, departments, and classrooms. Throughout the year we will also be publishing essays in our publication Cloelia devoted to this topic and collaborating with our sister organizations in Europe and Australasia in an effort to broaden the impact of this campaign.

We believe that only by creating a shared culture of respect and transparency can we hope to achieve true equality and diversity in the profession.

As part of our activities, the WCC is initiating a fundraising campaign for the WCC Equity Fund to be used to advance support for members who have experienced harassment, bias, or other impediments in their professional life. This fund can be used in many ways, including (but not limited to):

• Childcare or family caregiver support at professional conferences
  * Financial support for a legal consultation, if you think your rights have been violated
  * Assistance with obtaining accommodations at professional conferences (guides, transportation, etc.) for members with disabilities
  * Parental, family care, or medical leave support
  * Department or program climate surveys
  * Microgrants for supporting workshops or training on harassment

If you would like to contribute to our Equity Fund, please visit www.wccaucus.org. You can make a donation via the PayPal button on the right-hand side of the homepage.

The goals of the WCC’s “Resist Together” Campaign are to:

* Educate our community on and engage openly with issues of harassment, bullying, and bias in the workplace, online, in the classroom, and in professional activities in a meaningful and transparent way
* Create a network of support and resources for members of the profession who experience or witness harassment, bullying, or bias;
* Revise the WCC mentoring program to include individuals trained in Title IX and/or Title VII to provide advocacy support
* Create a Guide for Action with useful advice for addressing harassment, bullying, or bias — whether it be individuals experiencing it, or department chairs or other colleagues in a department, at an institution, or in the profession more broadly who are trying to assist in reducing it — which will include a roadmap of contacts in the SCS and other organizations, and suggestions on implementing parental leave policies or harassment policies and procedures
* Create a Guide for Conduct at Professional Conferences that will (hopefully) be adopted by the SCS and other professional conferences
* Petition the SCS and other conferences to provide a Safety Officer or Omsbudsperson at conferences to report and facilitate action on incidents of harassment and bias
* Grow the WCC Equity Fund in order to provide financial aid and support to our members in the ways listed above

For more information on the campaign or on how you can get involved, please email us at wccofscs@gmail.com.