UPDATE: As you can see in my above video from last night’s meeting, it was DART board member Raymond Noah who proposed the amendment that ultimately gutted the proposed transgender protections. However, given that no other board members questioned Noah’s amendment, it’s likely that it had been crafted and discussed behind closed doors. An attorney, Noah represents Richardson, Highland Park, Addison and University Park on the DART board.
I just spoke with Ken Upton at Lambda Legal regarding my concerns about the wording of DART’s proposed nondiscrimination policy.
And Upton agrees that the addition of the word “except,” which was inserted by the DART Board of Directors last night in a closed session, has the effect of gutting the policy as it relates to both sexual orientation and gender identity. (See my post below.)
“They just screwed you guys over royally,” Upton said. “By adding that word in there, they’ve said we can discriminate all we want. It’s exactly the opposite of what they promised they were doing.”
Upton says he believes the decision was intentional and likely made during the 30-minute closed session prior to the vote, which I’ve suggested may have been illegal.
“You’d like to think they’re just stupid, but the truth is you have to assume that the people who write these things at least have basic language skills,” Upton said. “Supposedly there’s at least one attorney involved, so I have to assume it’s intentional.
“That’s unfortunate they did that,” Upton added. “After all the work that’s gone into this, if this is what comes out of it, then we got nothing. They can say that’s not what they intended, but that’s what it says.”
Rafael McDonnell, a spokesman for Resource Center Dallas, said Wednesday afternoon he had already contacted DART officials and strongly objected to the new language.
“I’m highly disappointed and angry at this point,” McDonnell said. “If it was their intention to make us go away, they’ve underestimated the community.”
DART’s Board of Directors is scheduled to take a final vote on the new policy next week.
Any response from DART’s spokesperson Morgan Lyon’s?? This should be interesting.
@Jon: His response is in the previous post.
Oh, ok. I hope they remove the “except”
OMG! They might as well have worded it, “We will continue to discriminate so long as we stand a chance in Hell of getting away with it.”
There’s been no change in the staff recommendation to include gender identity in DART’s non-discrimination policy. The committee action to refer it to the full board for approval affirms this.
ARE YOU SERIOUS? You guys posted this? Is this gonna be in the print edition??? Was there no senior editing involved???
All of us that have read the previously -proposed- language recognize it isn’t what we all wanted, but for Christ’s sake, had the folks who fought so hard for the ‘language change’ not been there, the board would have done NOTHING! – NOTHING about the language would ever have changed!! This post does nothing but undermine MONTHS of effort by the GLBT community as a whole!
You undermine their very efforts by posting Upton’s comments in such a light to make it seem like this wasn’t a victory! Are you people insane? WE MADE THEM CHANGE THEIR LANGUAGE! WE MADE THEM FACE GLBT! No, it may not meet the standards we intially demanded but it’s far cry better than before the fight began!!
You’ve made everyone’s job ten times harder when they’re already dealing with a crafty attorney who doesn’t give a flip for ANY of our rights what-so-ever!! I am completely disgusted after reading this. That’s NOT what happened, all-in-all. What else did Rafael McDonnell have to say?? Come on!
Granted “except” sucks, but it’s more than we started with and the best we’re gonna politically get with this board, this go-around!
REMOVE THIS PIECE!
Er.. not from my view. It seems to me that they just removed all the protections for gays that were there before. Trans people got nothing, as usual.
Teddy: “Daddy. In Timmy’s kitchen, there’s a cookie jar full of cookies. He gets a cookie every day. And, and Sally’s kitchen has a cookie jar full of cookies too. And so does Tamika’s, and Juan’s and Mary Catherine’s and ….”
Teddy’s Father: “Shhhh Teddy. Look up on the 4th shelf in the kitchen. See, you have a cookie jar too! It even says: ‘Teddy’s Cookie Jar.’ I wrote the words in your favorite color.”
Teddy: “B, bb, bbb, but Daddy….it doesn’t have any cookies in it.”
Daddy: “Awww. It’ll be okay. I know there are no cookies, but at least there’s a jar up there with your name on it!”
(Definitely a gutting.)
I agree this guts it for gays too. I noticed they didn’t turn his mic on during the amendment. I was there and I couldn’t hear him well enough to understand what he was doing. I thought he removed something, and so did John Wright, but we thought different things were removed. I didn’t realize they added that. No wonder the expected “no” voters raised their hands with a smile. I wonder if all the voters understood exactly what he changed there right before the vote.
@Morgan: You and I have known each other a long time, going back several careers (for both of us). We both know words matter. In addition to Ken Upton’s comments, I asked Chuck Smith of Equality Texas to weigh in on the added word. Chuck’s direct quote: “Randall Terrell, our political director and Anne Wynne, chair of our legislative committee agree that we just got screwed.”
On Thursday, I expect to hear from an attorney for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force for her view on the new language. I’ve communicated my concerns directly to both Ben Gomez and Kriss Ann Gamez; that one word addition to the proposed policy is ethically dubious and legally fallible. It is an unprovoked slap in the face to DART’s LGBT customers and employees, and sets this transit agency’s relationship with the community and its allies back to before 1995. Is that REALLY what DART wants us to see?
Anyone who has ever been in court for any reason knows that the word “except” can be the most powerful word in our language for manipulating and confusing both juries and judges into making decisions that deny individuals of their rights. No lawyer would overlook this word. It HAD to be purposefully used, in order to decieve. It’s a crying shame they pulled this shit. I wish you all the best of luck, and congtradulate you on your determined efforts.
If this language passes next week, will that make Dallas DART only the second entity to remove protections already in place regarding sexual orientation? We all know Exon was the first, and is now the most notorious company in the world and targeted for protests by GLBT activists.
Will the 6:30 Board Meeting next week be open to the public? Who are them members? How do we contact them? Can they make further amendments before passing it?
DART, you have to do better than this. Disappointing. The inclusion of the dubious “except” makes this whole thing little more than smoke & mirrors, and lip service to the community, because it renders the revisions as nothing more than a nice suggestion of verbiage to uphold the appearance that they’re being inclusive. FAIL.
Since we were not allowed to witness the negotiations, I can’t tell if the almost unanimous vote was agreement with the added words or they absolutely had no clue what was going and rushed through the decision. This would not be the first time that DART decision passed through committee and the board seemed clueless. Last time, it was in our favor b/c they didn’t know the difference between genetic information and gender identity. Either way, the damage is done but I’m done fighting. What’s the next step?
@FoFenny, the next meeting is open to public comment. You can go to https://dart.org/about/board/boardbios/boardbios.asp to get more info on the board members.
Cece Cox just sent me the following statement on DART:
“DART must explain to us honestly how it came to this decision from saying they were aware of the need to be more inclusive to now declining to take any real action toward that.
Additionally, why has DART decided that instead of creating an environment where Transgender employees, which they have, will be left out in the cold with no enforceable protections? Why has DART decided that those employees will not be valued equally?
We have been patient and engaged collaboratively with DART toward this endeavor. That patience required trust. It required us believing DART had sincere intentions regarding fairness. It required us restraining from speculating that they were not committed to inclusion. Now, the veil has been lifted and the trust has been shattered. Without answers from DART, we are left to speculate that DART does not care about equity for LGBT people and even perhaps that this was deliberately sabotaged.
We have not seen action like this since Exxon Mobil rescinded employment protections at their merger in the most crass display of disregard for their LGBT employees in recent corporate history.
A final vote has not taken place. DART has time to do the right thing. If it does not, DART should be prepared for outrage from the LGBTA community.”
Wow, this is a step backwards for everyone, not just the LGBT community…worst of all, it implies a desire to want to discriminate which is really scary.
First I want to thank all the hard work, patience, hours of diligent listening and diversity training that Resource Center staff and GEAR members demonstrated through this fiasco.
After June 22, perhaps there will be a stirring in the community of such purpose that Dallas, Texas will raise the flag for LGBTA social justice.
This isn’t just a Transgende issue. The “except” applies to sexual orientation as well. Perhaps some sort of Townhall meeting could be in our future if the language is not corrected by June 22?
One thing is clear, compassion is not in DARTs vocabulary.
This was quite a sinister meeting. I almost expect Dr. Evil to be stroking his hairless cat (or perhaps he was behind the camera.) Bwahahahaha. Unethical doesn’t even come close to the behavior of these board members.