The Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival (CCBF) is dedicated to providing a safe and harassment-free environment for all of its featured authors and illustrators, vendors, sponsors, board members, and festival guests.
In partnership with The Town of New Castle, and in accordance with The American Library Association’s (ALA) “The Freedom to Read Statement”, CCBF vehemently opposes censorship of books.
CCBF has a zero-tolerance policy regarding harassment, intimidation, and discrimination, and censorship. This includes all harassment, intimidation, discrimination, and efforts to censor books made on the basis of race, age, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, disability, medical condition, religion, class, body size, veteran status, marital/domestic partnership status, citizenship or any other marginalized identity.
CCBF will NOT tolerate harassment, intimidation, discrimination, and/or censorship at CCBF or online in any form.
All participants at CCBF, including the board, featured authors and illustrators, volunteers, vendors, sponsors, and attendees, are required to comply with this Anti-Harassment Policy.
CCBF’s definition of harassment may not necessarily align with legal definitions of harassment. CCBF’s Anti-Harassment Policy prohibits harassment, including but not limited to the following behaviors that harmfully reinforce structures of oppression (related to race, age, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, disability, medical condition, religion, class, body size, veteran status, marital/domestic partnership status, citizenship or any other marginalized identity):
- Sustained disruption of talks or other events.
- Abusive verbal or written comments.
- Sharing or displaying abusive or offensive images.
- Deliberate intimidation, stalking or following.
- Body policing (including gender policing in all bathrooms)
- Unwelcome photography or recording.
- Inappropriate, unwanted, or unlawful physical contact and unwelcome sexual
attention.
Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately and will be asked to leave the event if they cannot comply.
If at any time you or someone else at the festival feels threatened, harassed, or in danger while at the festival, please immediately go to the command central table and ask to speak with Dawn Greenberg or Liz Blye to report an incident and/or request assistance.
Harassment does not include: respectful disagreement or critique in good faith.
*Anti-Harassment:
- The Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival (CCBF) has adopted the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ (SCBWI’s) Anti-Harassment Policy as the basis for their own and has modified it based on the nature of the festival.
- CCBF acknowledges SCBWI for developing this anti-harassment policy, based on the contributions of Geek Feminism, Science Fiction Writers of America, and WisCon in developing anti-harassment policies.
- https://www.scbwi.org/faq/global/scbwi-policies#
**Anti-Censorship:
- The Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival (CCBF) is proud and grateful for the Town of New Castle, NY’s statement against book bans
- https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement
