Politics, Organizational Codes of Conduct, and Transparency

• From North Star SC

Over the past few years, DSA has put in place various codes of conduct that are intended to govern how members interact with each other and to create an organization in which all feel welcome. We applaud this effort and these goals.
 
At the same time, however, there is risk that some members and/or organizational governing bodies will rely on these codes of conduct to avoid open discussion and debate of political differences.  This route around political differences does DSA a disfavor. Use of codes of conduct in lieu of political discussion may intimidate a member or members from continuing to articulate a political position that might find additional support within DSA and will, if applied widely, effectively narrow the range of “acceptable” political positions.  We will become a smaller rather than a larger tent organization and we will be less democratic.  
​North Star Steering Committee