Every modern institution, state, and country will have laws that govern bullying, harassment, and discrimination.

Most will also have laws governing workplace conduct and conditions. It is likely that some portion of the institutional abuse that you are suffering has been addressed at some point in the past, and there are procedures for dealing with it. The difficulty is often less in having policy to back you up, and more in convincing yourself that, yes, in fact, what you are experiencing violates a code of conduct.

Look at our list of policy for annotated examples of how to understand and leverage particular policies in your favour. Your institution may have different specific policies, but they will very likely have some version of what is written there. Even though it can be hard to read law, usually there is free support to help interpret it, i.e., law clinics, what is bullying seminars, policy advisors, activist orgs.

Law vs. bylaw vs. policy

Although it may seem obvious, it’s worth stating: laws are set by the governing body of the land. Usually, this is done in a legislative manner, i.e., there is some group of elected representatives who been elected to have the power to create and enforce laws. They are the ultimate deciders of whether something is part of the law, since they are both the authors of the law, and hold the monopoly of power over enforcement through the means of police and military. It’s worth thinking about: at some level, you follow the law because you know that if you don’t, someone will arrest you.

At least in Western countries, law is not adjudicated by the legislature, but instead by the court system. Judges (appointed or elected) and juries will hear a case and interpret the law. Lawyers make arguments and judges base their decisions on precedence, that is, decisions that have been made before.

Bylaws, on the other hand, are made by governing bodies of institutions. They reflect the legislature on a small scale: typically a board of directors has to vote on the laws. Depending on the law (called an “Act”) under which they have been empowered, they may also have enforcement abilities. For example, they may be able to levy fines, revoke membership, or otherwise compel you to do something as part of your agreement to engage with them. They are always superseded by the law, that is, no bylaw is enforceable beyond the Act that allowed for the creation of the institution. Bylaws have binding power, that is, an institution is legally bound to act within their bylaws and can be brought to court if they contravene them.

How, then, do institutions regularly overstep their power and sometimes contravene the law? First, a bylaw can be created with no governmental oversight. All it takes for a bylaw to be created is that the board has to vote it into existence. The bylaw then exists insofar as it is never tested, either by a higher court, or simply through negotiation and debate.

Imagine a strata corporation in an apartment building. Typically, they are empowered to levy fines against apartment owners. They could set their fines at unreasonably high levels, i.e., $10,000/day per infraction. Some people could be afraid of the court system and choose to pay $10,000/day for their fines. Then the bylaw would exist and be enforced insofar as people are willing to pay. It exists unchallenged. However, a reasonable person might decide to go to court, have the bylaw overruled, and have their money returned.

Policy, on the other hand, can just be written by any fool with a pen. Some policies are also bylaws, some policies are enforced by contracts, but it is typically just an ad-hoc agreement between empowered members of the institution to act in a particular way. Depending on the institution, it may be voted on and treated like a bylaw. But it also may not.

For example, the staff at your institution likely have a contract that specifies maximum working hours per day. This is enforceable by law. However, the working day specifically starting at 8:30am-4:30pm is likely just departmental policy. Amount of vacation may be set by contract, but doling out vacation by seniority may just be policy. Or even not policy (i.e., not a written rule), but standard practice (just commonly done).

Figuring out how real a policy is

It matters to know the difference between law, bylaw, and policy because it lets you know which bodies are capable of dealing with your complaint. Some policy may be the result of bylaws which are the result of laws. Some policy may be the result of “strategic visions” or “5-year plans” which are not the result of bylaws or laws. Some policy may have been written by a department administrator ten years ago because she was sick and tired of having students asking her to photocopy things for her. Some policy may have been written last year to make it seem like the department was “doing something” about all of the sexual harassment complaints, but nobody particularly knows or cares if it is followed.

Realistically, enforcement matters much more than existence when it comes to policy. You may have found that some policies are enforced more than others. Typically, policies that protect the institution from you will have been enforced much more often than policies that protect you from the institution. This is just a problem with practice: the more you enact a policy, the more you will know how to enact it. The most “real” policies are the policies that are used.

If you have no power within an institution, policy will be violated or ignored if it benefits the people who have power within the institution. You may be surprised, but there very well may be no punitive action associated with policy violations. Occasionally, an administrative supervisor or HR representative may have a discussion with an employee of the institution about their having contravened a policy, and, over time, this may build towards a punitive action. However, except for extreme policy violations that result in serious harm to the reputation of the institution, there are rarely punishments or even real accountability processes involved in policy violation.

When you decide to make a complaint, be sure to inspect the policy for where it comes from. If it is backed up by contract or law, then there will be methods of restitution. If not, you will have to discover which contracts or laws have been violated. You can take an institution to court for not following policy—you can take someone to court over anything, really—but policy that has been created out of law will have enforcement mechanisms in place.