From DallasVoice.com
County lags behind city in benefits, protections for LGBT employees
By John Wright - News Editor
Jun 26, 2008 - 9:25:40 PM
Gay district clerk has already implemented departmental policy banning discrimination; lesbian sheriff says similar policy is in the works for her office
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| Lupe Valdez |
Despite an openly gay sheriff, county judge and district clerk, Dallas County government remains well behind the city of Dallas on LGBT issues.
Dallas County, with some 6,500 employees, has no policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in its workforce. The city of Dallas has had such a policy since 1995.
The county, ninth-largest in the country with a population of 2.4 million, also doesn’t offer health benefits to the domestic partners of its employees. The city, which accounts for more than half the county’s population, has offered domestic partner benefits since 2005.
The three openly gay county officials blame the Republican majority on the Commissioners Court, which is the result of more conservative voters in suburban areas. But LGBT advocates are hoping to change the majority in 2010, when two Republican commissioners are up for re-election.
In the meantime, Sheriff Lupe Valdez, County Judge Jim Foster and District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons say they’re doing what they can to advance LGBT equality.
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| Gary Fitzsimmons |
Fitzsimmons, who was elected as part of the countywide Democratic sweep of November 2006, said after taking office last year, he added sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination policy covering his department’s 275 employees. Fitzsimmons also said he added sexual orientation as a protected category in the department’s ethics policy, which relates to how employees deal with the public.
Fitzsimmons said although he can set employment policies for his department, the Commissioners Court controls the budget and would have to approve domestic partner benefits.
Valdez, a Democrat elected in 2004, said she’s in the process of updating her department’s employment policies to include a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Valdez, who heads the largest department in the county with 2,500 employees, said she hopes to see the policy finalized in the next 60 days.
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who isn’t gay but who also was elected in the 2006 Democratic sweep, said sexual orientation is now listed in a nondiscrimination policy in his department’s employee handbook, and in a hiring policy that’s posted on the DA’s Web site.
While LGBT advocates agree such department-level policies are important and make a strong statement, it’s unclear to what degree they’re legally binding, especially since there’s no county- or state-level ban to back them up.
About 75 percent of the county’s employees are covered by civil service rules set by the Commissioners Court, according to Human Resources Director Mattye Taylor, and those rules currently make no mention of sexual orientation. Taylor said she’s not aware of any other county officials who’ve added sexual orientation to their departments’ policies.
Foster, a Democrat elected in 2006 who chairs the Commissioners Court, indicated during his campaign that he would push for a countywide policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. But Foster now says he believes it would be impossible to get such a policy approved by the Commissioners Court.
“You’re not going to see anything in writing until the climate changes, and the current climate is, you’ve got three Republicans and two Democrats on the court, and it takes three votes to get something done,” Foster said.
Foster said he believes a countywide policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation would have the support of Commissioner John Wiley Price, a fellow Democrat. Neither Price nor the three Republicans on the Commissioners Court, Mike Cantrell, Kenneth Mayfield and Maurine Dickey, returned phone messages left at their offices this week.
“Don’t fall on your sword if you know what’s going to happen,” Foster said. “You need one more supporter on the court before you get to that point. I haven’t asked them [the Republicans] individually, but I have talked to them indirectly about the subject, and I know that the support’s not there.”
To illustrate his point, Foster recalled the situation that arose last fall on the Parkland Hospital & Health System’s Board of Managers. Although Parkland is owned by the county, it’s operated by the seven-member Board of Managers, which is appointed by the Commissioners Court.
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| Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins says his department has a policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Asked whether the policy includes gender identity, Watkins said he didn’t know there was a difference. |
The Board of Managers had recently approved a policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation covering Parkland’s roughly 8,000 employees. But Dr. Lauren McDonald, who’s chaired the Board of Managers for the last four years, said she believes the nondiscrimination policy was approved only because it came in “under the radar.”
Then, in September 2007, a human resources committee recommended a policy that would have granted domestic partner benefits to Parkland employees.
However, a vote by the Board of Managers was called off after “ultra-right-wing, homophobic” board members expressed their opposition, McDonald said.
“We opted at the time to not even bring it up,” said McDonald, who supported the policy. “If you have a vote that’s negative, you send a message.”
McDonald, who was appointed by Price, said domestic partner benefits also had the support of board member Wendy Lopez, who was appointed by Foster. But McDonald said she believes Republican commissioners contacted their appointees and demanded that they kill the measure.
“I think they just totally freaked out, to use my kids’ language,” McDonald said.
Gender identity left out
Fitzsimmons said he’s unsure whether discrimination against LGBT employees is widespread in Dallas County government.
“Anecdotally, I don’t get the sense that there’s a problem, but I’m just this one area,” Fitzsimmons said. “I don’t know what goes on in road and bridge offices, or in a constable’s office in Grand Prairie.”
Regardless, Fitzsimmons said he believes it would make sense for the Commissioners Court to adopt a countywide policy.
“I think a nondiscrimination policy in a big urban county like Dallas is probably appropriate,” Fitzsimmons said.
But Fitzsimmons agreed that both a countywide nondiscrimination policy and domestic partner benefits are unlikely to be approved by the current Commissioners Court. He added that domestic partner benefits are especially unlikely given a $34 million budget shortfall this year.
Although Fitzsimmons added sexual orientation to his department’s policies, he said he hasn’t added gender identity, which would protect transgender workers from discrimination. The issue of including gender identity in employment policies sparked controversy in the LGBT community last year after Democratic leaders in Congress removed trans protections from a proposed version of the federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act.
“I’m willing to do it,” Fitzsimmons said when asked about adding gender identity to his policies. “I’d be happy to.”
In what may be an indication of general LGBT awareness among county officials, District Attorney Watkins said he didn’t even know the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity.
“I just thought they were all one and the same, really,” Watkins said.
Watkins said if it’s an issue, he’d also be willing to gender identity to the policies.
“We are progressive, so it doesn’t matter to us, so long as you can do the job, and that’s the message we’re sending to all our employees,” Watkins said when asked about the decision to include sexual orientation in the department’s policies.
Valdez said she plans to add sexual orientation and gender identity to her department’s General Orders, a law enforcement term for employment policies. Valdez said when she came into office, she inherited General Orders that were a decade old and completely outdated.
Valdez said she’ll include sexual orientation and gender identity in the General Orders despite the objections of the four police unions that have members in her department.
“Of course it’s going to be in there, but we haven’t finished our policies,” Valdez said. “I thought we were going to have it done by now, but a couple of things have come up, and pushed it back.”
Taylor, the county HR director, said she believes county employees may already be protected against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Although the county’s policies don’t specifically list sexual orientation, Taylor said all forms of discrimination and harassment are prohibited. She said she believes an employee who’s been discriminated against based on sexual orientation would have grounds to file a grievance under the civil service rules. But Taylor said no such grievance has come forward during her 10 years of service.
“Our position is that we don’t tolerate certain things in our work environment, period,” Taylor said.
But Ken Upton, a senior staff attorney for the LGBT civil rights group Lambda Legal, said that isn’t good enough.
“The reason you list certain categories is that they have some historical basis for being oppressed,” Upton said. “It’s like having a policy, ‘We will all be good people.’ How does that policy help guide anybody? To be useful, a policy has to be somewhat specific.”
Upton said employment policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation — including those enacted by private employers and the city of Dallas — aren’t enforceable in Texas, because there’s no state statute to back them up. But Upton said the policies are still critical because they “establish a culture” and dictate things like training and recruitment. He said they’re especially important for government, which is expected to lead the way.
“I think there are all sorts of benefits that have nothing to do with, ‘Could you sue or could you hold their feet to the fire?’” Upton said. “When the government can discriminate, it’s an invitation for the private sector to discriminate.”
Advocates eye 2010 elections
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| Ken Upton, left, senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal, says nondiscrimination policies are important even when they’re not legally binding. Jeff Strater, right, vice president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, is looking forward to the opportunity to elect new Democratic commissioners in 2010. |
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Other LGBT advocates said they’re looking forward to 2010, when Mayfield and Cantrell will be up for re-election as the county continues to trend Democratic.
Jeff Strater, president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, said it’s “an interesting paradox” that despite three openly gay officials, there’s no ban on anti-gay job bias at the countywide level.
“But at the end of the day, those big administrative decisions are made by the Commissioners Court, and we don’t have them as supporters,” Strater said. “At this point, our goal in the near future would be to elect fair-minded members of the commission.”
DGLA, a nonpartisan group, has been instrumental in convincing the Dallas City Council to pass nondiscrimination policies and domestic partner benefits. Strater said DGLA likely would partner on county issues with Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, a partisan group.
Jesse Garcia, president of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, said the group already asks candidates on endorsement surveys whether they’d support a countywide nondiscrimination policy. Garcia said candidates’ response to that question, as well as a question about domestic partner benefits, will be critical when it comes to endorsements two years from now. “Every Democrat will be running in 2010,” Garcia said. “That is what basically is going to define who’s the most progressive.”
Garcia said he believes elected officials who’ve been endorsed by Stonewall in the past, such as judges and Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes, already have advanced LGBT rights. Stonewall’s endorsement survey also includes a question about whether candidates would hire LGBT people.
“We may not have it in print at the county level, but at least we know that the Democratic officials who are endorsed by Stonewall have promised that to the community,” Garcia said. “They’re following up on their promises.”
Both Strater and Garcia said they believe people like Fitzsimmons, Valdez and Foster are paving the way for future advances.
Strater called Fitzsimmons’ decision to add sexual orientation “a great step in achieving equality at the county.”
“It’s great that we’re building up institutional knowledge,” Garcia said.
Foster said he’s made it clear in meetings with elected and appointed officials over the last 18 months that all employees should be treated equally. “I think everyone understands that the tone has been set, and that’s the way it is, and those days have come and gone,” Foster said. “We’ve made progress, and I think we’ll continue to make progress.”
Valdez said since coming into office, she’s created an LGBT liaison officer for the department and continued cultural diversity training that deals with LGBT issues. Valdez said she promoted an openly lesbian employee to sergeant, and that person now oversees the training and is working on updating the General Orders.
“If you were an officer, would you jump on a gay person knowing that the head person was gay?” Valdez said. “We’re putting it out front. We’re bringing the notice. We’re paving the way. But it’s not always been an easy road.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 27, 2008.
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