My Kindergarten classroom had a poster displayed on the wall, outlining a Code of Conduct (of sorts) for the classroom. It read:

“Always keep your hands and feet to yourself.”

That was it. I’m sure there were rules about sharing and being kind and raising your hand to talk, but there was only one rule that was prominently displayed. When students broke that rule, it was easy for my teacher to point at the poster on the wall to provide reasoning on why the students shouldn’t have acted in the way they did.

It makes sense to have rules in Kindergarten. Five-year-olds don’t always know what’s expected of them. Maybe the rule at home are different than the expectations in the classroom. With twenty-odd kids and one teacher, there wasn’t any time for individualized instruction on what is and is not acceptable.

When it comes to professional workplaces, some of that rationale for behavioral rules goes away. Adults should know how to behave. It would be rather insulting if that same “hands and feet” sign was hung above my office entrance this past summer. If you aren’t sure if something is allowed, it is easy enough to ask someone.

With that being said, I think that Codes of Conduct can be useful in order to preemptively protect the organization and its members from messy debates over what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. For example, Google’s Code of Conduct allowed the company to fire the employee who published a manifesto without having to fight a political battle on twitter or an expensive battle in the courtroom. They could point to the specific portion of the Code of Conduct that was violated as the reason for his dismissal. Without the Code of Conduct, they could be accused of discrimination against certain politicized ideas.

One concern, however, is when Codes of Conduct themselves become politicized. As Shawn M points out in “Why The Open Code of Conduct Isn’t For Me”, the Open Code of Conduct includes language such as “If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen carefully and respectfully, and do our best to right the wrong.” The problem with including this line in a company wide Code of Conduct is that someone can be offended by actions that aren’t intended to be offensive, nor would they be considered offensive for the majority of people. If I show up to work wearing leather shoes, and my co-worker is offended because leather comes from animals and they’re a vegan, I don’t think I should be forced to buy new shoes or be disciplined for offending somebody.

A more realistic example of this in action is when Douglas Crockford, a programmer and speaker, was recently uninvited from delivering a keynote address at the Nodevember conference. The event organizers explained that they rescinded his invitation because, “…his presence would make some speakers uncomfortable to the point where they refused to attend or speak.” The statements at the center of this controversy were as follows:

“Instead we’re adding a second kind of object which unfortunately is known as weak map. And that’s a problem because nobody wants to put anything weak in their program, right?”

“So the old web was great because it provided promiscuity. It meant that you could go and connect to anything and you’re probably going to be okay. You might get shocked and embarrassed but your machine’s not going to get taken over, your identity is not going to get stolen. That hasn’t always been true but pretty much the web can do that and that’s good because that allows us to get introduced to things. We used to call it surfing. That you could go from one thing to another and discover stuff and start forming relationships. Unfortunately, the same thing which allows the promiscuity to work is very bad for dealing with commitment.”

The first statement was criticized for promoting misogyny, the second was criticized for attacking promiscuity. Now, I personally don’t know Crockford. I don’t know if he’s a wonderful person, a horrible person, or something in between. But examining just those two statement, I see no reason for anyone to be offended. The first statement was a joke with no reference to gender, or even to people. The second statement didn’t even interject personal opinion, rather, it was an explanation of a system. Crockford shouldn’t be punished because someone found benignly intended statements to be offensive.