The Sierra Membership, in a transfer reflecting stress on the influential grassroots environmental group, has sidelined its govt director, Benjamin Jealous, as controversy has ensued over his tenure there.
Nevertheless, a number of folks defending him say that he’s the sufferer of unfair therapy, untenable expectations, and racial discrimination as he has tried to steer the group out of a scandal involving its earlier chief.
“We have now labored with Ben carefully all through his tenure as govt director, and communicate from expertise. Ben is below assault by many who, by a sample of misinformation, character assassination, and discrimination, search to oust him from his place and drive him out of the Sierra Membership,” mentioned Aaron Mair, former president of the Sierra Membership’s board of administrators, and Chad Hanson, former longtime nationwide Sierra Membership board member and a analysis ecologist with the John Muir Venture, in a letter to the group. “We urge Sierra Membership leaders to lift their voices and communicate out towards this smear marketing campaign.”
Jealous, 52, served as the previous president and chief govt officer of the NAACP for 5 years earlier than stepping down in 2013. He made a run for governor of Maryland in 2018, and was named the chief director of the Sierra Membership in December 2022 after an investigation a yr earlier than that exposed a poisonous work tradition and an alleged rape incident. He’s the primary Black particular person to carry the place.
Final week, the group advised reporters of the change in his standing with them.
“Whereas we don’t touch upon any worker’s depart, we strongly reject any suggestion, implication, or declare that Ben’s depart is the results of any discriminatory motion by the Sierra Membership or the results of urging by exterior events,” mentioned Sierra Membership Chief Communications Officer Jonathon Berman mentioned in response to a question from the AmNews. “Anybody claiming in any other case doesn’t take pleasure in the details.”
Mair, a retired New York State public well being epidemiological-spatial analyst, mentioned there’s an underlying trigger behind the rupture between Jealous and the Sierra Membership.
“A board member — principally, Ben known as him out and mentioned you’re undermining our place, that is problematic, and so he instantly tried to return again, saying Ben was threatening him,” mentioned Mair. “Now, rapidly, everyone seems to be afraid of the offended Black man, which is bullcrap. It’s a type of issues the place you screwed up.”
Jealous’s depart comes after a number of rounds of layoffs have been introduced, elevating stress amongst native chapters, “dangerous religion” contract negotiations, and complaints from the Progressive Staff Union (PWU), which is an exterior entity separate from the membership. Jealous was additionally slammed in a workers letter for not articulating a concrete technique to battle again towards President Donald Trump’s anti-environmental agenda.
The PWU claims that Jealous has eradicated the environmental justice campaigns and fairness workforce, in addition to “laid off a disproportionate variety of Black, Indigenous, Folks of Colour (BIPOC)” workers. Union members overwhelmingly handed a no-confidence vote on Jealous final yr.
A letter from Robert Bullard to the group’s board of administrators additionally expressed issues about Jealous’s means to do his job.
Bullard mentioned that Jealous and the Sierra Membership had made particular commitments to Black owners within the flood-damaged Shiloh neighborhood in Espresso County, Ala., that by no means got here to fruition. “Residents have come to really feel a deep sense of betrayal and left hanging when the promise of securing an lawyer and dedication to help authorized motion towards the Alabama Division of Transportation by no means materialized,” Bullard wrote on his web site. “After which weeks of silence ensued and no updates.”
The Sierra Membership’s Board of Administrators voted in June 2025 to approve a $144 million price range for fiscal yr 2025–2026, regardless of robust opposition from volunteer leaders and the PWU. The price range decision mentioned there was no web working deficit. Mair, who was a member of the membership’s finance committee, mentioned the layoffs have been the consequence of a $40 million price range deficit that preceded Jealous’s tenure. Jealous needed to stability the price range by chopping “pointless and non-staff prices” and lowering workers, mentioned Mair, and was vilified by the PWU for doing so.
Mair mentioned the Sierra Membership has been experiencing a “tradition struggle” together with a price range disaster since 2020’s racial reckoning and the dying of George Floyd. The membership’s staunch “nature conservationists” are clashing with the rising variety of youthful and extra various membership workers who’re centered on transferring the needle on environmental and social justice initiatives, he mentioned.
“Most of our actions towards inequity must do with a authorized situation, coverage, or rule or regulatory framework. The way in which to problem is thru your elected leaders, civil society, and democracy,” mentioned Mair. “If that’s slowed down by malapportionment and sheer white racism, then Black folks find yourself with poisonous and soiled environments. They change into the dumping floor. They change into the zones to sacrifice.“Mair mentioned that he doesn’t need to see Jealous faraway from the Sierra Membership due to what that would appear like for the longer term, notably for a gaggle that pursues environmental justice.
“If he’s fired, that may be a really harmful [precedent] to cross as an individual of shade as a result of it’s completely a double normal. No white govt ever has been fired as a result of labor had organized a disinformation marketing campaign. There’s nothing there.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been up to date
