The Sierra Membership board of administrators voted unanimously to fireside its first Black and general individual of coloration government director, Benjamin (Ben) Jealous, after he was positioned on depart in July.
Membership Board Chair Patrick Murphy introduced the August 11 choice to terminate the employment of Jealous with trigger in an e-mail to workers. It comes after public disagreements between Jealous and workers members from native chapters.
The Sierra Membership has operated as one of many largest and oldest environmental justice organizations in the US since its founding in 1892. Jealous took on the position in 2023.
Representatives from the group haven’t supplied particulars about why Jealous was terminated. Nevertheless, Jealous launched an announcement pushing again. He highlighted his document in his quick tenure, together with bolstering membership and workers positions in a number of pink states the place there had been none.
“It’s disheartening, unlucky, however maybe not shocking that the board has chosen an adversarial course that the details so clearly can not help. I’ve begun the method beneath my contract to battle this choice. I’m assured that we are going to prevail,” Jealous mentioned. He has additionally retained authorized illustration within the case.
Jealous, 52, has a distinguished profession in civil rights and activism, having served as president of the NAACP from 2008 to 2013 and Folks for the American Manner from 2020 to 2022. He additionally had an unsuccessful bid within the Maryland gubernatorial race in 2018. In environmental justice, he started as a forest safety activist in highschool. There aren’t any earlier scandals of observe relating to his management.
Former Membership board members Aaron Mair and Chad Hanson launched an announcement in help of Jealous, calling the choice wrongful and discriminatory, and citing a smear marketing campaign from particular union teams.
“The place previous white government administrators adopted specific procedures and practices that have been handled as sound, acceptable, and clever, Ben has been severely criticized for following the exact same fiscally prudent {and professional} practices,” the assertion in protection of Jealous reads.
“As a substitute of recognizing and appreciating the truth that Ben is each a civil rights chief combating for racial justice and a longtime defender of untamed locations and lover of Nature, Ben’s imaginative and prescient was met with a troubling resistance from some who made the racist assumption that he would shift the group away from environmental work, just because he’s Black and was a former NAACP government.”
Mair and Hanson mentioned a “Phantom Workers Letter,” used to oust Jealous, that was allegedly signed by 117 membership workers members, to which they level out there isn’t any approach of verifying any signature, as a result of no names have been included. Additionally they known as out the Progressive Employees Union (PWU), a separate group that claims it represents round 380 nationwide and state chapter workers and volunteers, though that has not been verified by AmNews.
“The Sierra Membership’s first Black Govt Director is being handled like a fall man, unfairly blamed for Board and previous administration choices made earlier than he started his job,” the assertion reads.
A few of the problems with competition that PWU has highlighted with Jealous’s management embrace the a number of rounds of layoffs on the group, supposed mismanagement of the price range, dismantling the Fairness Division, halting the work of the Restorative Accountability Suggestions Monitoring & Implementation Workforce, and “gutting” the Wholesome Communities program, which supplied funds for a lot of the chapters’ work on the bottom.
In a letter launched on August 12, the PWU BIPOC Caucus responded to the allegations of racism towards Jealous. “BIPOC workers and allies alike have been voicing our considerations about Mr. Jealous’s management and actions, not due to his id, however due to the impacts of his decisions. We imagine the previous Board Members making these accusations are weaponizing racial justice in an try and silence these elevating considerations, together with BIPOC workers,” the assertion learn.
The caucus claims, based mostly on their unbiased evaluation, that just about half of the firings beneath Jealous concerned BIPOC workers.
Claims of racism impacting Jealous have been corroborated by others who’ve made claims of comparable remedy by the group.
Montravius King, who served as South Carolina chapter director from 2023 to 2025, informed the AmNews he skilled a number of hurdles, together with racial discrimination, in trying to steer his chapter, and that the native board of the Sierra Membership in South Carolina was by no means responsive.
Virginia Sanders, 82, who has labored with the Sierra Membership in volunteer and workers roles on and off since 1981 in South Carolina, mentioned she noticed firsthand how racism affected each Jealous and King’s tenures. She cited an occasion the place information of Jealous’s appointment in 2023 was deliberately stored silent from South Carolina members and one other the place he was not invited to a Freedom Fund Banquet.
“The welcome mat was not laid out for Ben Jealous,” Sanders informed the AmNews. In response to Sanders, she has lengthy been pro-union however that her expertise with PWU was that they have been inexperienced and centered on complaining as a substitute of utilizing assets.
Different officers, together with Dr. Angelle Bradford Rosenberg, chair and supervisor of the Delta Chapter, have expressed frustration with the choice.
“Truthfully, this course of has been cloaked in such silence and lack of transparency and communication and empty platitudes,” Bradford mentioned. “Patrick’s announcement e-mail seems to replicate little or no understanding of the gravity, influence, grief, and humiliation tied up within the vastness of this choice to fireside the Membership’s first Black ED. That is tragic. Not a ‘second of renewal.’’’
Others, together with Rev. Al Sharpton and the Nationwide Motion Community, have reacted to the firing, releasing an announcement calling for an unbiased celebration to mediate a decision between each side.
“There are severe racial implications in firing a Black man of Ben’s caliber, on this trend, at a time when variety is beneath assault,” Sharpton mentioned.
