Pink-haired DEI coach slams Oregon forestry bosses ‘for hiring based on merit, not gender or identity’

A pink-haired DEI trainer criticized the Oregon Forestry Department for hiring based on merit rather than identity.

Megan Donecker filed a lawsuit against her former boss Mike Shaw and complained that he told her he was looking for the “most qualified candidates for the position.”

DEI advocates like Donecker say recruiting should be done through an “intersectional lens” in which applications from marginalized people are given more weight.

Shaw, who earns $192,000 a year as deputy chief of the Oregon Department of Forestry, was placed on leave following Doecker’s complaint.

Doecker, who worked as the department’s chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, claimed that six queer staff members did not “feel safe or comfortable” at work because they did not couldn’t have a “pronoun conversation.”

The tattooed Salem resident describes herself as an “accomplice of marginalized communities.” His complaint is one of many from employees and others that the department amounts to an “old boys’ club.”

Since leaving her position at the forestry department, she has continued to work as a DEI consultant.

The files were released under a public records request by OregonLive. State forestry leaders say they take complaints seriously and investigate whether anyone was discriminated against.

Progressive Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek – who was hit by a corruption scandal for hiring his wife – also waded into the drama, with her office saying she supported all efforts to “advance the DEI”.

Oregon is racked by culture wars between progressives in liberal cities like Portland and conservatives, including residents of rural and forested areas in the eastern part of the state, who want to secede and join Idaho.

Donecker, who describes herself as an avid Dungeons and Dragons player and lives with her wife, Jai, a nine-year-old adopted girl and two cats, left her job at the department in March after falling out with her bosses.

“It’s bad for women in forestry,” Doecker said in an interview. “It’s even worse if you’re queer.” »

She filed her complaint against Mike Shaw and another manager earlier this year.

Shaw has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 6, but officials have not disclosed the reason for his absence.

Doecker said managers sidelined her, undermining her DEI efforts.

She says she was excluded from meetings of forestry leaders without warning. An email from February appears to confirm this.

In his complaint, Donecker said his exclusion from management meetings sent the wrong message.

“I can’t stress enough how much perspective this will give me and the work I’m trying to do,” she wrote in her complaint.

In private conversations with Shaw in March, Donecker said he discussed DEI efforts within the department, which is responsible for some 16 million acres of public and private forest lands and the largest fire department in the State.

He told her that an aggressive diversity recruiting campaign was like speeding on “an icy road,” she said.

“We don’t go 60 (mph) out of the gate or we’ll crash the car,” she told Shaw during their March 5 one-on-one meeting.

Doecker said the department’s overall culture amounts to a “boys club.”

She described a meeting last year in which State Forester Cal Mukumoto made a joke about a female colleague during a meeting, praising her by saying she “prepared a very good order to have lunch.”

Mukumoto then “laughed, and everyone laughed,” Doecker said.

“No one batted an eyelid.”

The state has received about a dozen complaints against forestry leaders this year, with some employees citing a hostile culture toward women, a lack of diversity and a fear of retaliation.

Brenda McComb, vice president of the Oregon Forestry Council, said officials have done little to increase “diversity representation” among its staff or advisory committees and are not implementing a “draft diversity plan”.

“If progress is being made, it is not obvious to me, and if it is not obvious to me, then it is not obvious to other members of the public,” wrote McComb, a retired official at Oregon State University.

“I am exhausted by the agency’s obstruction on this issue and its refusal to consider this a priority,” she wrote in an Aug. 23 email to state officials.

“I hope that you or the governor’s office will begin to hold this agency accountable in this regard.”

Another employee questioned the forest department’s tendency to hire people directly without proper vetting.

“This seems questionable and leads to a long-standing and current image of ODF employees that it is the ‘Good Old Boys’ Club’ or ‘Who You Don’t Know What You Know,'” the complaint states.

State officials redacted some names of those who filed complaints.

Mukumoto said in a statement that it “takes employee complaints and concerns seriously and, when brought to our attention, we ensure that they are handled in accordance with laws, rules, policies and best practices in terms of state human resources.

“This includes protecting employees from retaliation,” he added, saying the agency is “fully committed” to DEI.

“Providing a safe, diverse and inclusive workplace is a core value and priority shared by the ministry and the Forestry Council,” he said.

The Forestry Department is overseen by Mukumoto, who answers to the Oregon Forestry Board, a seven-member citizens’ committee appointed by the governor.

The forester chief, who earns $237,288 a year, was appointed in 2021 and manages an agency with nearly 1,400 employees and a biennial budget of about $577 million.

Shaw did not respond to interview requests.