Rick Garcia was let go from his post as political director of Equality Illinois last week. He is fighting back against the termination.
Equality Illinois Executive Director Bernard Cherkasov announced Dec. 17 that Garcia, a co-founder of the agency, was no longer working with the organization.
Coming on the heels of the civil-unions bill and in the midst of the holiday season, the news has caused ripples of shock as well as a great many questions on many sides. Garcia has had a long career in the arena of gay rights and has, over the years, engendered as much support as criticism due to his style of advocacy. He has not been known to mince his words, a trait that was in evidence in an initial interview he did with Windy City Times immediately following the announcement.
In the intervening few days, Windy City Times has been speaking to a number of people about the controversy in order to get a fuller sense of the events that led to the decision; the following is a compendium of initial responses. In the following weeks, we will continue to gather more responses, information and analysis on an ongoing basis.
June LaTrobe is a longtime friend and political associate of Garcia. The two have worked together on numerous campaigns. Asked what she thought might be the reasons for the ouster, she said, "I don't know. I can't imagine that whatever the executive director's motivation was, he would not have anticipated the firestorm that it would cause. I've gotten the impression that the morale among staff is not what it could have been and part of that." She said that was the impression she got from staff members, but she could not name names.
Asked how she felt about events, she said, "As angry as I may be, one of the things I'm experiencing is a lot of sadness because when I look at the Rainbow Community in Illinois, we already are a marginalized group, we already have elements outside of our community that we have to deal with and to me it's really sad to have this to deal with internally. I think it distracts and it takes away energy that could be put into other things. One of the things that I had talked to Rick about was that now Equality Illinois wanted to be at the forefront of ensuring that the civil-unions bill was being carried out equally and appropriately throughout the state because it requires the direct action of the county clerk and not every county is Cook County. So here you have some things to be done, some things to be cared for and yet the organization is having its energies sucked up on this sort of thing."
On the night of Dec. 17, Jeremy Gottschalk, president of the board of directors of Equality Illinois, sent out a joint statement signed by 17 of the 23 directors. The six who did not sign were Rocco Claps, Vernita Gray, Catherine Sikora, Tonya Wilkes Moore, Stephen S. Herseth and Art Johnston. The message, titled "Regarding the termination of Rick Garcia from Equality Illinois," simply stated: "We, as Directors of the Board of Equality Illinois, fully stand behind this decision. This is about what's best for Equality Illinois, and we are focusing on moving forward and strengthening our organization." The general impression so far has been that the decision to fire Garcia was arbitrary and quickly made.
Dalila Fridi is vice president of the board directors, and she clarified matters while addressing some specific issues. According to her, the decision was the end result of a long process that had begun a year ago, and that the board's personnel committee had raised matters with Garcia: "We discussed it with Rick and then again in summer set him down and went through his review and what we expect from him and what he needs to do to reach those goals. The request came from the board and the CEO."
Asked what the issues raised with Garcia were, she said those were personnel matters she was not free to discuss. In the summer, according to her, Garcia was given a period of 90 days to show changes: "We gave him a letter and he signed that, he agreed upon our stating our goals and our expectations of his work. The decision [ to fire him ] came out based on what we discussed … we stated that this is what we the board and Bernard expect from him as a political director and we discussed [ all ] of the personnel matters that we had concerns about, and we did mention that this is a work that we would like to see changes by the end of the year."
When November/December of this year came about, Fridi said, they did not revisit the matter because they were concentrating on the civil unions bill. She emphasized that, "we respect Rick, [ we don't deny ] anything that he's done. But like I said, this was clearly, straightforward a personnel matter, nothing to do with his work for Equality Illinois or the civil unions bill. Or the other bills that he worked hard on helping pass. But yes, we wanted to wait, we didn't want to disturb the whole civil unions bill."
With regard to the timing, many in the community have expressed concern that Garcia was effectively used for his skills in helping to bring the civil-unions bill about, with other agencies and individuals, and then let go when the organization felt it could now do without him. Responding to that concern, Fridi emphasized that she was speaking for herself, but "I don't agree with those assumptions." She added, "We appreciate everything he's done and this is clearly a personnel matter and nothing that reflects on his skills." Asked why four members had not signed, she said, "I can't speak for the board members. Some have had a relationship with Rick for over 20 years, but again this is just me assuming that. So again, if you look at the 17 on the press release, we're all behind the decision."
Jeremy Gottschalk also spoke to Windy City Times and added some more details. He would not discuss the exact reasons for the ouster and said, " [ Rick Garcia's ] been involved within this process all the way along … . He certainly knows. Everything was made very clear to him from the beginning and he's been involved in the process the entire time."
Asked about the four board members who had not signed on, Gottschalk said, "One more board member, Tonya Wilkes Moore, should be added to that list. And then there were four board members that now have expressed concerns. I did not ask them to sign that letter. They did not refuse to sign that letter. I did not ask because they now have expressed, I wouldn't say disagreement, but they … I assumed they would not be comfortable signing it so I didn't ask. Every single board member, every single board member knew of this entire process and knew of all possible outcomes. You know, I'm a little perplexed now that a few board members are second-guessing it but that's their right. That's absolutely their right. But that's why I did not ask them to sign that. They did not say no. They were not asked."
What about the timing of the decision? Gottschalk responded, "He precipitated this. He precipitated the timing and this had nothing to do with the civil unions bill or with anything else. This is purely following the process we laid out for him." Did that mean there was a whole process laid out and this was simply the inevitable result of that long process? Gottschalk responded, "Well, it was one of the possible results."
Asked about the future of the organization, he said, "the organization is stronger than ever. And there has been an overwhelming amount of support and this will not derail our work."
Bernard Cherkasov was equally emphatic that the work of Equality Illinois would carry on. Like the others, he would not describe "personnel matters," but did say, "there were no surprises for anyone here." Asked to elaborate, he added, "members of the board have known that we've been trying to avoid this situation, we've been working on these issues for a long time. It's unfortunate that this is where we ended up."
Asked about the timing, Cherkasov responded, "There is no good time for a personnel decision like this." Asked if they were looking for a new political director or had anyone in mind, he said, "We don't have anyone in mind. But in due time we're going to start the process to beef up our policy team. We do have and we've had for a long time lobbyists, both Republican and Democratic, who have been doing our advocacy work for some time."
Citing the work ahead for the organization, Cherkasov said, "We've been doing a lot of aggressive outreach work, and now we're going to focus on stronger transgender equality work, to make sure we follow up closely the implementation of civil unions, make sure the will of the legislature is implemented as [ civil unions ] are rolled out and so that we can continue to do outreach to communities of color and communities of faith and that is going to require a lot of effort, a lot of work."
Asked for a statement about Rick Garcia, he said, "Rick has been one of the most passionate advocates for equality. The immediate aftermath of a separation is always a difficult period. Wherever his next journey takes him, I wish him every success. I think my intention is for this process to be the utmost professional and we can make it work, make sure it's absolutely amicable. The politics of personal destruction has been not helpful to anyone in the organization, to anyone in our movement. But I think as passions cool down, I hope people come to realize that this is not about individuals, it's about a cause. And we have to keep working towards full equality … and not focus on destructive personalities."
There are rumors swirling that Garcia was not a paid employee of Equality Illinois. Both Fridi and Cherkasov have emphatically denied that, pointing to the organization's financial documents. WCT will continue to cover that and other aspects of the matter in the following weeks.
Rocco Claps, Vernita Gray, Katherine Siccora, and Art Johnston as well as other board members were contacted for this story but WCT did not receive responses at the time of this going to print. Given the rush of the weekend, we expect to hear more in the coming days and will continue to update this story.
