About 40 people turned out March 19 to protest discrimination employment practices at the Dallas Arboretum. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
City investigating after facility on city-owned land is charged with discriminatory employment practices
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
About 40 LGBTQ activists and allies protested in front of the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday, March 19, to call attention to the facility’s employment practices and treatment of minority guests. Minority Arboretum employees approached demonstrators during the demonstration and later, as protesters returned to their cars, to thank them quietly for being there.
Dallas City Councilman Adam Bazaldua said the city’s Equity and Inclusion Committee has already opened an investigation into the allegations.
Bazaldua said the protest “is not falling on deaf ears.” But while he agreed that “something’s going to have to change,” the councilman couldn’t give protesters a timeline on when that would happen. In some cases, he said, the committee’s work takes just a few months, but he added that in others it has taken years.
While not promising the new city office of inspector general will get involved, Bazaldua said this would be an excellent opportunity for Bart Bevers, who was hired just weeks earlier, to show what the office was created to do — to investigate city employee misconduct and other government scandals.
Although the Arboretum is its own private non-profit organization, it sits on city land and receives some taxpayer support.
The protest was prompted by a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal against the Arboretum on behalf of a non-binary employee who was fired for adding pronouns to their email signature. They also filed a human relations discrimination complaint with the city under its Unlawful Discriminatory Practices ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on gender identity and expression. Discrimination is also prohibited under the city charter.
While pronouns were banned from email addresses and from pins worn by staff, Bible quotes and other statements were not banned, Lambda Legal staff attorney Shelly Skeen noted.
Protest organizer Steve Atkinson and Resource Center CEO Cece Cox (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
Jay Doe, the Arboretum employee who prefers to remain anonymous, said in the few years they worked at the facility, they were promoted and given above average evaluations. They were eventually promoted into a position to create diverse programming.
“When I presented the idea of LGBTQ+ inclusion in programming, I was told by my supervisor that we could not promote or market queer representation,” Jay Doe wrote on Lambda Legal’s website.
Their supervisor told them, they said, “The Arboretum is a ‘conservative’ institution, and employees couldn’t do anything that appeared to ‘support an agenda.’” The next day, Jay Doe was fired.
After filing an EEOC complaint, Jay Doe has been cleared to sue their former employer for employment discrimination.
For the occasion of last week’s demonstration on the sidewalk near the facility’s entrance along Garland Road, the Arboretum printed up signs that read, “The Arboretum allows this area for those wishing to assemble to protest.” But protestors took offense to the idea that the facility was allowing them to protest along city sidewalks. The law allows protestors to demonstrate on any city sidewalk anywhere.
The protest included people who were at the intersection of sexual orientation or gender identity and race and religion. They said Black employees at the Arboretum have been treated poorly for years, and at least one lawsuit has been filed for racial discrimination. Other protestors said members of the Jewish community have avoided booking the facility for events for years because of poor treatment by the management.
Protest organizer Steve Atkinson said there would probably be another demonstration on April 2 unless Arboretum management releases a plan before then to improve workplace conditions and to welcome all visitors, not just those that would please their so-called conservative donors.
Resource Center CEO Cece Cox was even more blunt: “It’s the law,” she said. “The Arboretum is on city property.”
HRC Texas field organizer Preston Knight said, “We’re out here standing with the LGBT community of Dallas and standing up for what is right.”
Linnea Solbrook said she is a member of the Arboretum and wished its management would learn from its garden displays. “The Arboretum has all this diverse flora,” she said. “Why can’t they do that with humans?”
Carl Parker said he was out demonstrating because he was outraged by how strident the discrimination is.
“Often people hide their discrimination,” he said. “[The Arboretum management] is blatant.”
Former Equality Texas Board Chair Steve Rudner called the Arboretum “the last stand for old-guard bigotry.” HRC board chair Morgan Cox noted that since Texas is one of 29 states that doesn’t protect LGBTQ workers, “it’s incumbent on businesses to step up.”
And because of states like Texas, and governors like Greg Abbott who “attack the least among us,” it’s incumbent upon Congress to pass the Equality Act,” Cox added.
