Oregon Employee Placed on Leave for Supposedly Hiring on Merit, Not Diversity
The DEI “expert” complained to the Department of Forestry that Mike Shaw admitted “he looks beyond gender and identity in hiring, seeking only candidates most qualified for the job.”
The Oregon Department of Forestry placed Mike Shaw on leave after a DEI “expert,” Megan Donecker, accused him of hiring based on merit instead of diversity.
Yes, Donecker complained to the department that Shaw admitted “he looks beyond gender and identity in hiring, seeking only candidates most qualified for the job.”
Donecker isn’t the only one, unfortunately.
She [Brenda McComb, vice chair of the Oregon Board of Forestry] said the state forester seemed to have made no progress implementing a “draft diversity plan.”
“If progress is being made, it is not apparent to me, and if it is not apparent to me then it is not apparent to other members of the public,” McComb wrote in her complaint. McComb is the retired vice provost for academic affairs at Oregon State University.
“I have two more years to serve on my term on this Board, and frankly I am exhausted from being stone-walled on this issue by the agency and their unwillingness to consider this a priority,” she wrote in an Aug. 23 email to Torrey Sims, the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging manager for the state Department of Administrative Services. “I am hoping that you or the Governor’s office will begin to hold this agency accountable in this regard.”Sims responded, thanking McComb for bringing the concern to his attention and telling her that two state diversity colleagues would “take over from here.”
Another employee complained the department’s hiring process “seems shady and leads to an old and current image by employees at ODF that it is the ‘Good Old Boys Club’ or that it is ‘Who you know not what you know.’”
The department placed Shaw, State Forester Cal Mukumoto’s second-in-command, on leave after Megan Donecker, the former DEI strategy officer, complained about him.
Donecker claimed, “About a half-dozen employees who identify as queer told her they didn’t feel ‘safe or comfortable being out at work’ or discussing their lives and partners.”
Donecker told the department, “It is bad for women” and “even worse if you’re queer.”
People supposedly “still feel really uncomfortable having conversations around pronouns.”
Donecker’s complaint named Shaw and another manager:
Her redacted complaint is among those released by the state. She filed the complaint specifically against Shaw and another agency manager.
Donecker said the managers sidelined her, undermining diversity and inclusion efforts. She was removed from the Forestry leadership team earlier this year without warning, she said.She provided The Oregonian/OregonLive with a Feb. 20 email from Shaw, saying she and two other agency employees were no longer invited to the team’s meetings. The team helps carry out the director’s priorities.
Shaw had legitimate reasons. The new system made meetings too large due to so many extra employees, “making the agency inefficient and ‘less fiscally responsible.'”
A large team impaired “the group’s ‘ability to hold correct conversations and speak in an open forum.'”
Shaw reportedly told Donecker the department needs “a more cautious approach” with DEI, using an “icy road” analogy to prove his point:
He urged a more cautious approach to carrying out diversity and inclusion goals, comparing the pace of change to speeding on “an icy road,” she recalled.
“We don’t go 60 (mph) out of the gate or we’re gonna crash the car,” she said Shaw told her during their one-on-one meeting on March 5.
Donecker said the department’s overall culture amounted to a “boy’s club,” recalling a meeting last year when Mukumoto told those gathered that one of their colleagues, a woman, “puts in a really good lunch order and then kind of chuckled, and everyone kind of chuckled.”
“No one batted an eye,” Donecker recalled.
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Comments
Getting suspended for doing the job right … the world is truly going to shit.
hey they told him
either be good little nazi or get out
How dare he consider merit above all other (meaningless) considerations?!?!
I came face to face with a diversity hire right after college when I was hired as a staff biologist for a start up environmental consultancy company. We got a thinning contract on a national forest out west. One day this black lady showed up and told me we were thinning the wrong block and pulled out a topo map to show me. After looking at it I was kinda surprised. First off, I turned the map right side up then moved us 180 degrees to point it in the right direction. I got out a compass and gave a short class on how to read one. After asking around I found out this was the 5th or 6th National Forest she was on. She kept getting transferred because she was so incompetent but the Forest Service couldn’t fire her because black female.
It’s good to be black, or queer, or really any POC or even a furry these days
When nobody can ever correct you, you might end up president someday.
coming soon to your state
Already here in Colorado state government.
Subotai Bahadur
The only way to stop this is to enact legislation that prohibits employers from inquiring about an applicant and/or employee’s religion, race, ethnicity, ‘gender’ or sexual preference. We’re probably to the point where the government should be prohibited from counting Americans using these same metrics. The only criteria that should be allowed to be asked for and captured is the citizenship or legal status of the person applying for a job.
The funny thing is, Oregon has that rule on the books. The State isn’t allowed to consider protected class status when making hiring or firing decisions. They are allowed to ask about racial and ethnic identity, and they do, but it’s for demographic analysis and candidates may decline to answer with no consequences. Hiring managers select candidates for interviews without being given any information on the applicants’ “identities”.
Enacting DEI principles violates the written rule. But they won’t let that stop them.
slightlyyy off topic but connected to a lying TREASONOUS government:
“The initial report stated there was a truck load of militia that was involved,” the sheriff’s office said. “However, after further investigation, it was determined Parsons acted alone and there were no truck loads of militia going to Lake Lure.”
so the left is trying katrina like tactics to confiscate guns as they stated that
armed militia were threatening FEMA
WHEN IN FACTTTTT:
The man suspected of making the threat was identified as William Parsons, 44, of Bostic, North Carolina.
“The initial report stated there was a truck load of militia that was involved,” the sheriff’s office said. “However, after further investigation, it was determined Parsons acted alone and there were no truck loads of militia going to Lake Lure.”
uhhh- I’m 99% sure I know this dude.
If the same Mike Shaw:
We were XC teammates/ roommates at University of Portland 30 years ago. There’s a dozen Mike Shaw’s in Oregon is my only hesitation. Face is the same, though it’s been 30 years. He’s from Oregon City and grew up hunting and milking cows. He was wicked fast in the 400/800 and mile. Like seriously no one running only 20 miles a week should have been able to post the times him and his brother did in college.
He’s as conservative as any of us. Glad to see he took a stand.
I first met he and his brother while I was competing at U of O. There was limited space to see at this “mandatory” meet and greet after a XC race. It was supposed to be catered – so they had about a 100 hungry and tired runners with no food and no place to sit down. His brother got up from one of the few seats and I took it. He told me that was taken… I told him the other guy could go eff himself- he got up. You have no idea how close we were to brawling. 2 1/2 years later I transferred schools and we were roommates/team mates over in the ghetto. I was the only person in the house that didn’t sleep with a loaded gun within arm’s distance.
When I was on a fire line in Arizona swinging a Pulaski one of my top priorities was discussing pronouns and gay sex with my colleagues.
“People supposedly “still feel really uncomfortable having conversations around pronouns.”
Hands up if you consider having conversations around pronouns an invaluable service that government employees need more of your tax money to be performing for you.
If you’re confused about how bad d i e is look no further than the regime and the incompetence they hired.
I hired a female forester to evaluate a standing crop of hardwood for sale.. She missed deadlines and screwed up. She caused a 4 month delay in selling the crop. I had to hire another forester male to do the job. That delay made me miss the the ideal selling time, it cost me$70,000.
A large team impaired “the group’s ‘ability to hold correct conversations and speak in an open forum.’”
A “right-wing dog whistle” for “there are too many DEI Karens in the meetings, who intimidate others into not speaking their minds and detracting from the work of hiring qualified candidates.”
Its also true that the larger the committee or focus group, the more irrelevancies will dominate the conversation and less work will actually be accomplished.
5 is about right, but 3 is better.
Either these wokiestas want a neutral hiring process based upon merit of the candidates or they want one which injects immutable characteristics and lifestyle choices into the process which override merit.
Make them choose, we know what they will pick. Then use it against them by excluding every nonstandard candidate. IOW if you show up fat, with facial tats, with hair dye in blue/green/other non naturally occurring shades, an entitled attitude, demand others conform to your beliefs then eff you, you didn’t make the final cut for consideration. Next time show up in shape (not pear shaped) with a humble, cooperative attitude looking like a Norman Rockwell painting aka conforming to wider societal standards and not behaving as someone who believes the world owes them anything ..then maybe you can move further along in the process this time.
The last thing they want is a system based on merit. They are defective people and they know it.
Exactly. Which is why we make them declare they want a system that prioritizes the race, sex, ‘gender’, sexual preference or other things over one which prioritizes neutral and transparent selection based on merit.
When they agree then use the categories not to increase the applicant odds but to decrease them. Make those things relevant but in the opposite direction. Only then will these wokiestas understand the dangers of using any factors other than merit. Stick it so far up their behind they get a nosebleed. Remember that accountability and responsibility for their own choices is kryptonite to wokiestas.
A DEI hire, by definition, is not the best qualified applicant.
I’m sure he knew that hiring the best applicant would get him in trouble with the racist DEI people.
“I feel uncomfortable talking about things which make me appear stupid.” Sounds like we have found the source of its problems.
There is no point in working somewhere where merit is not appreciated. You are what you are – there will never be any movement from basic DNA. Becoming more and more competent and trustworthy is your only way forward. If that’s blocked, good-bye. Let them worry about the mission. Not my problem.
Another reason I left the leftist state of Oregon.