Political Speech and Conference Codes of Conduct

I learned this afternoon that the O'Reilly Media conference Code of Conduct language was amended in April 2017 to add "political affiliation" to the list of issues that attendees should be respectful about:

"We invite you to help us make each O'Reilly conference a place that is welcoming and respectful to all participants, regardless of race, gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, national origin, ethnicity, political affiliation, or religion."

The intent of that statement was to make sure that conferences put on for the exchange of technical information aren't politicized. Our conference team was responding to complaints from attendees at past events about political statements being made from the stage. (During the runup to the election, I myself was one of the speakers who made what some attendees considered inappropriately political statements.) 

I learned about the change to the Code of Conduct after Sage Sharp tweeted this afternoon:

I replied:

I stand by that statement. It is important to recognize that the association of our president and members of the GOP leadership with the alt-right and other extremists does not represent the views of all Americans who identify themselves as conservative. When you come to one of our conferences, you may assume that everyone shares your political views, but the numbers say otherwise: According to Gallup:

"The percentage of U.S. adults identifying as liberal has climbed from 17% the first year Gallup used this measure in 1992 to 26% in 2017, while the percentage calling themselves moderate has fallen from 43% to 35%. Conservatives' share of the political pie was about the same in 2017 (35%) as in 1992 (36%)."

However, unlike race, gender, or sexual orientation, political affiliation is not a protected class, and should not have been added to the list as if it is. This is particularly true because we are living in a time where political speech is increasingly called for, in settings where it would not normally have been appropriate. When wrongs are being committed, it is important to speak up and to resist. But there is political speech that is designed to shine a light on the ills of society and to suggest a way forward, and there is political speech that is designed to intimidate and polarize. 

What I believe our team was seeking to express in the Code of Conduct was that people should not assume that everyone at the event shares their political views, and unintentionally make uncomfortable those who do not. However, I just learned that in the speaker agreement, we had also asked speakers to refrain from all political speech. We shouldn't have done that. We should have asked that if speakers feel the need to make political comments, they make them constructive and relevant to their presentation.

We will remove "political affiliation" from the Code of Conduct and the prohibition on political speech from the speaker agreement.

But we continue to ask attendees and speakers to respect the spirit of what was intended by both: to keep the conference a place where people feel welcome, and can focus on the technical content and social interactions that bring them to the event.