The American Society for Aesthetics (ASA) have released a statement regarding the renewed interest and concern surrounding last year’s sexual harassment incident and their policies on discrimination, harassment, and respectful behavior. The text of their statement is reproduced below.
The Officers and Trustees of the ASA are writing to acknowledge the recent call for us to do better and to do more to provide a supportive, safe, and respectful environment for all of our members.
In July, the ASA announced new policies on Discrimination, Harassment, and Respectful Behavior. Although we understand and appreciate the widespread desire for a more detailed public response from the ASA concerning a recent harassment complaint, the policy requires us to preserve confidentiality. This prevents us from commenting further on either the complaint or on remedies. We take such complaints very seriously and promise to do our very best to ensure a productive environment in which all ASA members can flourish.
We believe that our recently passed Discrimination, Harassment, and Respectful Behavior policies will allow the ASA to address complaints more effectively. We also acknowledge that we need to do more to actively foster an environment that both is and is seen to be supportive of all members. To that end, we invite ASA members to present their concerns to the Board of Trustees. If any members wish to make suggestions for how the policy might be modified or how we might improve the environment for the policy’s application, we encourage you to send comments to the DHRB ad hoc committee (John Gibson, Jonathan Neufeld and Anna Christina Ribeiro) at ASACommentsSuggestions@gmail.com. Members should also feel free to contact any member of the ASA leadership with questions, comments or suggestions. Please send any comments you wish to be discussed at the October 10 Trustees meeting in Toronto by October 3 to insure they can be addressed.
We wish to thank all of the members of the Society who have challenged the ASA to better express and promote what we all affirm to be our deepest values.
