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| Former HRC President Cheryl Jacques said she’s ‘not
at liberty’ to talk about why she left the nation’s largest gay rights
organization after less than a year. But HRC officials said there is nothing in
Jacques’ separation agreement to prevent her from discussing her employment
at HRC. (Photo by Angela Rowlings/AP) |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.
COMMENTS |
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WASHINGTON — Staffers and directors of the
Human Rights Campaign are becoming concerned that the group’s former executive
director, Cheryl Jacques, is harming HRC’s reputation by implying that her
resignation in November was due to a dispute over plans by the group to back down
on the gay marriage issue, sources familiar with HRC said.
Last week, Jacques broke a self-imposed silence since her Nov. 30 resignation
from HRC by stating in media interviews and in a newly launched Web site that
gay rights leaders should not retreat from efforts to obtain full legalization
of same-sex marriage.
Jacques made no mention of HRC or the reason behind her sudden resignation
from the national gay civil rights group just 11 months after she gave up her
seat in the Massachusetts state Senate to take the HRC job.
But Jacques’ media interviews and an essay she published Jan. 6 on her
Web site, www.cheryljacques.org, criticized unnamed gay leaders for a possible
retreat on same-sex marriage. (For Jacques’ column, please see Page 24).
Some HRC officials now believe Jacques is waging a subtle misinformation campaign
against HRC on the marriage issue, according to two sources with inside knowledge
of the organization
When asked this week why she resigned from the HRC leadership post, Jacques
told Southern Voice, “I’m not at liberty to discuss HRC.”
HRC officials have also declined to discuss details surrounding Jacques’
resignation other than to say it came about over “a difference in management
philosophy” and had nothing to do with same-sex marriage or other policy
issues.
“This sometimes happens in organizations of all sorts, from corporations
to nonprofits,” HRC spokesperson Steven Fisher said in December. “Things
don’t work out.”
One of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Jacques’
separation agreement with HRC did not include a clause preventing her from publicly
discussing the reasons for her resignation.
“She’s saying she isn’t at liberty to discuss this, but she
is at liberty,” said the source. “There is no confidentiality clause
in her separation agreement concerning the reasons for her leaving.”
This source, and the second source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity,
said at least some HRC staff and board members are concerned that Jacques and
her allies are seeking to characterize the resignation as a result of a split
over the gay marriage issue in an effort to deflect attention away from her
management weaknesses.
The board and senior staff members concluded that Jacques, while a strong legislator
and political thinker, was weak on management and ill-equipped to manage an
organization with a $20 million budget and staff of more than 200, the two sources
said.
An outside management consultant retained by the board issued a report in early
October pointing out Jacques’ management deficiencies, a development that
led to her resignation, one of the sources said.
“One of the biggest concerns was she was disengaged,” said one
of the sources, who has knowledge of the inner workings of HRC.
According to the source, concerns about her management style surfaced shortly
after Jacques started work at HRC in January 2004, when she began to maintain
a four-day workweek that lasted throughout her tenure at HRC.
The staff and board became alarmed when she went on vacation nearly the entire
month of August, the source said, in the midst of the presidential election
campaign and the campaign for ballot measures banning same-sex marriage in 11
states. All 11 measures passed.
The other source said that while Jacques was an eloquent spokesperson for HRC’s
successful campaign against the Federal Marriage Amendment, the proposed constitutional
ban on same-sex marriage, she rarely attended HRC’s daily staff strategy
meetings on the FMA.
The HRC board and top staff hoped to avoid any public discussion of Jacques’
alleged management shortcomings, the sources said. But the flurry of media reports
beginning shortly after Jacques’ resignation that HRC may be backing down
on gay marriage prompted the sources to come forward to set the record straight,
they said.
Jacques spoke to Southern Voice about her views on same-sex marriage on Jan.
11, one day before the sources came forward to discuss their concerns.
Jacques did not respond to calls seeking her response to the claims by the
sources at press time. ...
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