League Event Participation Agreement

In This Section

The League of American Orchestras is committed to celebrating the diversity of experiences, talents, skills, cultures, and opinions that its members bring to the League community. The League puts people first and recognizes, appreciates, and respects the lived experiences of all its participants.  

We welcome contributions from everyone who shares these goals and wants to engage in a healthy and constructive manner within our communities. We ask all participants to agree and adhere to these guidelines to help us create a respectful and helpful community experience for all. 

These guidelines aim to support a community where all people feel safe to participate, introduce new ideas, and inspire others with respect for everyone’s: 

• Background 
• Family status 
• Gender 
• Gender identity or expression 
• Marital status 
• Sex 
• Sexual orientation 
• Native language 
• Age 
• Ability 
• Race and/or ethnicity 
• Caste 
• National origin 
• Socioeconomic status 
• Religion 
• Geographic location 

(What are we missing? Please email us with suggestions at member@americanorchestras.org) 

At a League event, you agree to:

• Be inclusive, actively seeking and inviting diverse perspectives. 
• Participate in an authentic and active way, being direct but respectful and professional. 
• Be considerate, kind, constructive, and helpful in your language and actions. 
• Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and language. 
• Respect confidentiality requests by speakers and other attendees. 

The following actions and speech – whether physical, verbal, written, or visual – are not welcome at a League event and are grounds to refuse admission or require removal from the event: 

• Invasion of privacy, intimidation, or threatening behavior or language against another person. 
• Racist, homophobic, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory or derogatory behavior, language, or jokes about or directed at any individual, group, or class of people. 
• Unwelcome sexual attention. This includes sexualized comments or jokes, inappropriate physical contact, and inappropriate sexual advances. 
• Sustained disruption of community conversations, talks, and presentations. 
• Threatening or taking actions adverse to members’ interests. 
• Advocating for, or enabling, any of the above actions, behavior, language, or speech. 

Resolve Peacefully 

We believe peer-to-peer discussions, feedback, and corrections can help build a stronger, safer, and more inclusive community. While we assume good intentions, we are also attentive to impacts. If you see someone behaving inappropriately, you are encouraged to respectfully discourage them from such behavior. Expect that others in the community wish to help keep the League community respectful and welcome your input in doing so. 

Apologize for mistakes 

Should you catch yourself behaving inappropriately, or be confronted as such, own up to your words and actions, and apologize accordingly. No one is perfect, and even the most well-intentioned people make mistakes. What matters is how you handle them and that you avoid repeating them in the future. 

Contact us to report an incident 

If you experience disrespectful behavior and feel in any way unable to respond or resolve it peacefully (for any reason), please promptly bring it to the attention of League staff at member@americanorchestras.org. We want to hear from you about anything that you feel is disrespectful, threatening, or uncomfortable in any way. We will listen and work to resolve the matter. 

Consequences 

Attendees who do not meet these expectations may be denied admission or removed from the event.  Participants who are asked to stop any unacceptable or harassing actions, behavior, or speech as described above are expected to comply immediately. The League will seek to resolve conflicts swiftly, swiftly, and in a manner that is positive for the community. If, however, in the League’s sole judgment the best thing to do is to ask such an individual to leave the event without warning or refund, we reserve the right to do so. 

Thank you to every League community member for helping to foster an inclusive and respectful environment for all League events.