Community standards are local norms bounding acceptable conduct. Sometimes these standards can be itemized in a list that states the community's values and sets guidelines for participation in the community. Alternatively, informal standards may be imprecisely described as "I'll know it when I see it."
Often, such standards are invoked in legal situations to resolve disputes, especially around pornography. Critics argue that puritanical moralists have used community standards to wrongly punish minorities such as homosexuals or those in interracial marriages.
Colleges and universities enforce their standards through conduct offices in their Student Affairs divisions.
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or standards:
“... no community where more than one-half of the adults are disfranchised and otherwise incapacitated by law and custom, can be free from great vices. Purity is inconsistent with slavery.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)
“Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)