The Beard Struggle is committed to maintaining an environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. If you are caught participating in any of the following malicious acts, you will be eligible for removal from the Brand Vikings Program.

• Discriminatory Harassment
• Personal Harassment
• Physical Harassment
• Psychological Harassment
• Cyberbullying/Online Harassment
• Retaliation
• Sexual Harassment
• Verbal Harassment
• Witch-Hunting
• (See examples below)

If you see any of our team members participating in the above acts, please contact us at bvsupport@thebeardstruggle.com. You will be asked for names, experience, and proof (screenshots), so please have them prepared.

Examples of Harassment:

• Discriminatory Harassment
• Racial Harassment

Victims may experience racial harassment because of their race, skin color, ancestry, origin, country, or citizenship. Even perceived attributes of a particular ethnicity (curly hair, accents, customs, beliefs, or clothing) may be the cause. Racial harassment often looks like:

• Racial slurs
• Racial insults
• Racial jokes
• Degrading comments
• Disgust
• Intolerance of differences

Gender Harassment

• A male nurse faces harassment for having what is perceived as a woman’s job
• A female banker hits a glass ceiling and is taunted for not being “leader material”
• A male colleague displays material (comics, posters) that’s degrading to women

Religious Harassment

• Intolerance toward religious holidays
• Intolerance toward religious traditions
• Intolerance toward religious customs
• Cruel religious jokes
• Degrading stereotypical comments
• Pressures to convert religions

Disability Based Harassment

This includes harmful teasing, patronizing comments, or isolation directed towards individuals who:

• Suffer from a disability themselves
• Are acquainted with a disabled person or people
• Use disability services (sick leave or workers’ comp)

Sexual-Orientation Harassment

Age-Based Harassment

Personal Harassment

Inappropriate comments Offensive jokes Personal humiliation Critical remarks Ostracizing behaviors Intimidation tactics

Physical Harassment

Direct threats of intent to inflict harm Physical attacks (hitting, shoving, kicking) Threatening behavior (shaking fists angrily) Destroying property to intimidate

Psychological Harassment

Isolating or denying the victim’s presence Belittling or trivializing the victim’s thoughts Discrediting or spreading rumors about the victim Opposing or challenging everything the victim says

Cyberbullying/Online Harassment

Sharing humiliating things about the victim by mass email or mass chat Spread lies or gossip about the victim on social media Send harassing instant messages or text messages directly to the victim

Retaliation Harassment

This type of harassment typically has three parts:

1. Employee A files a complaint about Employee B.
2. Employee B finds out about the complaint and who made it.
3. Employee B harasses Employee A to get revenge and deter them from filing further complaints.
4. Employee B, in this case, would be harassing Employee A as retaliation.

Sexual Harassment

• Sharing sexual photos (pornography)
• Posting sexual posters
• Sexual comments, jokes, questions
• Inappropriate sexual touching
• Inappropriate sexual gestures
• Invading personal space in a sexual way

Verbal Harassment

See our Hate Speech Policy

Witch-Hunting

Making someones personal or private information public and sending people or groups to intimidate, criticize, or harass them:Examples of personal or private information include, but are not limited to:

• Home Address
• Work Address
• Phone Number
• Email Address
• Family Addresses
• Family Phone Numbers

The Beard Struggle has a zero-tolerance policy in regards to hate speech. Any advocates caught promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on any of the following attributes will be terminated from our program:

• Age
• Caste
• Disability
• Ethnicity
• Gender Identity and Expression
• Nationality
• Race
• Immigration Status
• Religion
• Sex/Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Victims of a major violent event and their kin
• Veteran Status

If you encounter our advocates or ambassadors participating in the above acts, please contact bvsupport@thebeardstruggle.com and provide us with both the name of the TBS advocate and proof of the interactions observed or experienced.

Any defamation, whether it be libel or slander, will not be tolerated at The Beard Struggle. We pride ourselves on our integrity and our ability to think critically while gathering and dealing with facts. We do not condone the spread of rumors, skepticisms, or misinformation.

What about the right to free speech?

The main exceptions to free speech protection include:

1. Defamation (includes libel and slander): discussed in greater depth below.
2. Obscenity: The Supreme Court test for obscenity is as follows: (a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
3. Fighting words: As defined by the Supreme Court, fighting words are "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
4. Causing panic: The classic example of speech causing panic is someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. Speech may be suppressed where a reasonable person would know that his speech is likely to cause panic and/or harm to others.
5. Incitement to crime: Speech that spurs another to commit a crime.
6. Sedition: Speech that advocates unlawful conduct against the government or the violent overthrow of the government.

Opinions Vs. Defamation

• An opinion is a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. Defamation is a false and malicious statement disguised as a fact that damages one's reputation.
• A defamatory statement must be an assertion of fact, not an opinion. For example, if your boss says that you are not a very nice person, then that statement is likely to be an opinion. On the other hand, if your boss claims that you have been stealing from the company, that is a statement of fact, not opinion. The statement must also be reasonably understood as unfavorable by the person who hears, sees, or reads it.
• We understand that there is a fine line between opinion, libel, and slander and that all cases might not be the same.

If you see any of our team members participating in the defamation of The Beard Struggle, its ambassadors, other companies, or their ambassadors, please contact us at bvsupport@thebeardstruggle.com. You will then be asked for names, experience, and proof (screenshots), so please have them prepared.