Making pathways to careers in tech more accessible to nontraditional and underrepresented groups means that the Guild tends to be a very diverse place. In fact, being part of a supportive, empowering, and inclusive community is one of the reasons many Learners choose Learners Guild as their pathway to becoming a web developer.
Choosing a diverse learning community means that Guild Members and Staff have the unique opportunity to be exposed to, and build meaningful relationships with, people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences. For some of us, learning at the Guild provides an opportunity to share our experiences in a community of peers in ways that are often unavailable in other professional settings. While for others, stepping into this community provides eye-opening perspectives on the life experiences of people whose backgrounds, beliefs, and stories differ from our own.
By joining Learners Guild, you agree to treat everyone in our community — regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or other protected characteristic — with respect, and without judgment or bias based on such characteristics.
Learners Guild firmly supports the rights of everyone in our community to engage in purely private, lawful conduct and to hold differing beliefs - some of which may contradict those of other community members. However, we must keep in mind that when speaking about those beliefs, the impact of what we say may have implications for the Guild community.
The deep and complex nature of work around diversity and inclusion means that we likely will offend or hurt other people with our lack of awareness or carelessness, despite our best intentions.
Just as we encourage one another to expose our ignorance around coding, it must be safe for us to expose our ignorance (knowingly or unknowingly) in other realms, including in conversations about our diverse identities. At the same time, it is our responsibility, as we learn, to attend to the impact that our actions may have on members of marginalized communities whose experiences are often erased or misunderstood in mainstream spaces but who should have a safe haven at Learners Guild.
While Learners Guild is not in the business of legislating individual beliefs, when it is pointed out to any member of our community that the expression of a belief has in some way caused harm to another member of the community, to protect our community values, we want community members to remain open and receptive to that feedback, and to account for and attend to the impact of our words or actions, regardless of our intent.
When we are “called in” by other members of the community, we receive such invitations as a gift, an opportunity to shine light on our own blind spots, and to work towards strengthening the safety and inclusivity of our community for all members.