Dignity & Respect
Communicate and work in ways that preserve professional dignity, safety, and human worth.
Workplace Conduct, Anti-Harassment & Professional Standards Policy
Treat people with dignity. Hold power to a higher standard.
The JR Institute intends to maintain a workplace free from harassment, discrimination, bullying, retaliation, intimidation, exploitation, and other conduct that undermines safety, trust, or professional integrity.
Developing Framework
This page presents a planned public standard. Final reporting channels, investigation procedures, disciplinary authority, training requirements, and confidential support systems should be established before active staffing and operations expand.
Policy Purpose
Professional excellence cannot exist where fear, humiliation, or favoritism controls the workplace.
Respectful conduct applies across offices, laboratories, field sites, travel, events, digital communication, social spaces, and relationships involving authority.
The Institute should address misconduct promptly, protect good-faith reporting, preserve fairness for all involved, and correct both individual behavior and systemic failures.
Core Principles
Respect, fairness, accountability, confidentiality, and protection from retaliation.
No Harassment
Prohibit unwelcome conduct based on protected status or conduct that creates an intimidating or abusive environment.
No Bullying
Address repeated humiliation, sabotage, threats, exclusion, or misuse of authority.
Responsible Supervision
Require leaders to act promptly, model standards, and avoid retaliation or favoritism.
Fair Process
Review reports impartially, preserve relevant evidence, and allow meaningful response.
Protection from Retaliation
Protect good-faith reporting, participation, support, accommodation, and refusal to engage in misconduct.
Scope
This policy is intended to apply to trustees, officers, employees, fellows, researchers, interns, volunteers, contractors, vendors, visitors, applicants, participants, and others interacting with the Institute.
It applies to conduct on Institute property, during travel, at events, in digital systems, through social media when connected to Institute activity, and in off-site settings related to work.
Professional Conduct Standards
People working with the Institute should communicate honestly, respect boundaries, perform assigned duties, protect confidential information, follow safety and compliance requirements, and address disagreement without intimidation.
- Avoid threats, insults, humiliation, and deliberate exclusion
- Do not sabotage work, access, credit, advancement, or resources
- Respect personal, professional, and physical boundaries
- Do not misuse confidential information or institutional authority
- Disclose conflicts and avoid favoritism
Harassment and Discriminatory Conduct
Harassment may include verbal, visual, physical, written, sexual, or digital conduct that is unwelcome and connected to a protected characteristic or that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.
Conduct may violate this policy even when it does not meet the legal threshold for unlawful harassment.
Intent does not erase impact. A person may be required to stop conduct once they know or reasonably should know it is unwelcome or harmful.
Bullying, Intimidation, and Abuse of Authority
Bullying may include repeated verbal abuse, public humiliation, unreasonable isolation, threats, deliberate obstruction, retaliatory scheduling, impossible demands, or misuse of performance processes.
Appropriate supervision, candid feedback, performance management, safety enforcement, and lawful discipline are not bullying when conducted professionally and in good faith.
Personal Relationships and Unequal Power
Romantic, sexual, familial, financial, or close personal relationships may create conflicts when one person controls another’s employment, compensation, evaluation, funding, publication, access, or advancement.
Such relationships should be disclosed so supervision, approval, or evaluation can be reassigned where necessary.
Supervisor and Leadership Responsibilities
Supervisors and leaders should act promptly when they observe misconduct or receive a report. They should not promise secrecy, conduct unauthorized private investigations, or discourage a person from using formal channels.
Leaders should preserve evidence, protect against retaliation, and refer concerns to the appropriate process.
Reporting and Support Options
Reports may concern experienced, observed, reported, or suspected misconduct. A person should not be required to confront the subject of a complaint before seeking help.
Multiple reporting routes should be available, including alternatives when the concern involves a supervisor, officer, executive, trustee, or the person normally responsible for receiving reports.
Assessment and Investigation
The Institute should assess immediate safety, conflicts, jurisdiction, preservation needs, interim measures, and the appropriate level of review.
Investigations should be timely, impartial, documented, and conducted by qualified persons without unmanaged conflicts. Findings should be based on the available evidence and the applicable standard of proof.
Confidentiality and Privacy
Information should be shared only with people who need it for safety, support, investigation, decision-making, legal compliance, or corrective action.
Confidentiality cannot always be guaranteed, particularly when action is needed to protect people or investigate serious allegations.
Interim Measures, Corrective Action, and False Statements
Interim measures may include schedule changes, separation, remote work, access restrictions, supervision changes, leave, or other steps designed to protect safety and process integrity.
Corrective action may include counseling, training, mediation where appropriate, performance action, removal of authority, suspension, termination, contract action, or referral to outside authorities.
A report that is not substantiated is not automatically false or made in bad faith. Knowingly false statements or deliberate evidence manipulation may themselves violate policy.
Framework date: July 2026
Response Cycle
Listen, protect, assess, investigate, correct, and follow up.
- Receive the concern. Listen respectfully, document the report, and identify immediate safety needs.
- Protect the process. Preserve evidence, prevent retaliation, and manage conflicts.
- Assess and investigate. Determine scope, interview relevant people, and review available records.
- Decide and correct. Apply fair findings, proportional action, and systemic improvements.
- Follow up. Review retaliation risk, workplace conditions, and whether corrective measures are effective.
Conduct or Harassment Concerns
Report harassment, bullying, discrimination, retaliation, intimidation, or misuse of authority.
Inquiries may concern workplace behavior, supervision, relationships, digital communication, retaliation, reporting, investigations, confidentiality, or corrective action.
Submit a Workplace Conduct Inquiry
Identify the conduct, date, location, people involved, immediate safety concern, and available supporting information.
Contact the Institute