Moving Forward to Heal Together: A Summary of What Went Wrong and Proposed Next Steps
On Friday, September 11, 2020, the William Way LGBT communities Center began to publicize an upcoming Queering the Quarantine with Rob Jordan, President of the Philadelphia Log Cabin Republicans. The Log Cabin Republicans were scheduled, along with the Liberty City Democrats, in an attempt to provide an opportunity for discussion from multiple different perspectives within our communities. We failed to fully recognize the impact this program would have on our most marginalized communities, specifically Black and Brown LGBTQ people, and trans and nonbinary people. That was a mistake. From the beginning of Queering the Quarantine, we failed to have enough people at the table working on this program. Moreover, we failed to put any vetting or approval procedures in place. We never should have launched the program without more oversight and without lenses of equity and inclusion at all stages of the process. We are sorry for the harm this has caused and we will be working to make amends to those we have harmed in a committed way. Moving forward:
We will pause Queering the Quarantine and all new public programming initiatives until we have hired the Director of the Trans Resource Center and Empowerment Programs[1], which will increase staff capacity for the necessary oversight and support.
Working with the WWCC Equity Committee and the Program Advisory Committee, the Director of Empowerment Programs will develop processes for proposing, vetting, scheduling, and advertising Queering the Quarantine and all Center programming.
We should have immediately recognized that including a group with a track record of attacking other members within our communities would be harmful and that harm would never justify any misguided belief in “hearing both sides,” “diversity of opinion,” or “healthy debate.” For that, we are truly sorry and will make amends. We understand, and fully believe, that the lives and rights of members of our communities are not, at any time, up for debate. To address this:
We will build on the diversity, equity, and inclusion training that all staff participated in during February 2020 by scheduling additional cultural competency and implicit bias training for all staff and board members to be completed by January 2021.
The WWCC Equity Committee will create a plan to ensure it is included in onboarding for all future staff and board members.
In an attempt to react quickly to people’s concerns, we know we have unintentionally caused additional harm with our messaging about “civil discourse” and “diversity of viewpoint,” that was used when canceling the event. Moreover, assigning people into random groups during the community debrief session caused further harm and caused some to feel unsafe. Both of these situations are being closely examined to understand what we could have done better.
All of these mistakes were also compounded by several contributing factors that we are outlining below:
Processes were not put into place for reviewing the Queering the Quarantine programs before they were released. This was a program started quickly in response to Covid and we didn’t fully build out the structures needed to properly support it. This issue has also highlighted that we should be reviewing our content review processes for all of our programming to ensure we have sufficient oversight and guidance. These practices will be developed by the WWCC Equity Committee and the Program Advisory Committee, with support from the rest of the staff and board.
The mechanisms for our staff to raise concerns weren't sufficient for those concerns to be heard or for everyone to feel comfortable raising them. We will be putting additional processes in place to provide a more supportive environment to raise their concerns, including creating processes where people can raise concerns anonymously.
When concerns were raised, we didn't react quickly enough to halt the damage being done. Instead, we continued to collect feedback throughout the weekend. This delay in action caused further harm and damaged communities’ trust in us. We apologize for the hurt this caused.
If community concerns are raised, the board, staff, and committees will quickly respond together to address concerns with the explicit priority of eliminating or mitigating harm.
We also unintentionally compounded people's frustrations when we canceled the Facebook event, which automatically disabled additional comments for that event. No other comments on our pages were disabled. Recognizing this will automatically happen when canceling a Facebook event, we will consider going forward if we should include additional messaging letting people know where to provide feedback when an event is canceled.
We know many people have asked who should be held accountable. That accountability lies with the Executive Director, Chris Bartlett, and the Board to run a Center that is a safer and welcoming space for the communities we serve. The Executive Director received unified feedback from the board to cancel the event. We also have a responsibility to our staff to both create an environment where they can feel safe to work and raise concerns as well as be able to explore and stretch their capabilities without fear of retribution in making a mistake. Our responsibility as a Board and Executive Director is to ensure the safeguards are in place that if someone makes a mistake, those mistakes don’t cause harm to the communities we serve. That is where we fell down. While the final outcome ultimately prevented Rob Jordan of the Log Cabin Republicans of Philadelphia from speaking, it didn’t prevent him from being invited or that invitation from being announced to the public with very short notice to respond.
Not only are we apologizing, but we are taking responsibility for, and learning from those mistakes. We recognize that this document may not address all concerns and name all next steps. We are working to understand what additional safeguards need to be put in place, at every level of the organization where decision-making happens, to ensure that this never happens again. The WWCC Equity Committee will be leading this process with input from the communities most impacted. The Equity Committee will report on their progress to Center leadership and the Board. By January 2021, the Equity Committee will develop and communicate a path forward for updating our communities of the Center’s progress on a regular and ongoing basis, and for soliciting and incorporating our communities’ feedback in the process.
We can’t reiterate enough how sorry we are, how much we understand the pain this has created, and how committed we are to making amends over whatever period of time that may take. Thank you for raising the issues with us and voicing your concerns. We hope you will continue to work with us as we come together to continue to build a better and stronger community center where everyone can truly feel welcome and valued.
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[1] The Director of the Trans Resource Center and Empowerment Programs is a senior leadership position, and we will be prioritizing candidates with deep understanding of program and services designed by and for trans and nonbinary people and Black and Brown LGBTQ people.