Austin Company Trolls City of Austin Workers With Its "Diversity Training"

quote:

---

A diversity training described by City of Austin employees as “hurtful” and “emotionally and professionally damaging” has prompted the city to prevent an employee assistance company from doing this type of training for staff again.

In August 2019, the Austin Transportation Department required its employees to attend the one-hour diversity and inclusion training. In all, 272 employees – more than three-fourths of the department – sat through the workshop, hosted by a trainer from Deer Oaks Employee Assistance Program.

---

quote:

---

“This was by far the worst diversity training I have been a part of,” one employee wrote on the evaluation sheet. “I found it highly offensive, irresponsible, and embarrassing. This training is unacceptable

---

quote:

---

For instance, the trainer incorrectly defined race, twice. On the first day the training was offered, he characterized race as someone’s nationality; later he defined it as “the biological characteristics that a group of people share.”

---

quote:

---

“There’s a new term I heard the other day. It’s ‘they-babies.’ Yeah, I guess parents are letting their kids decide their own gender,” employees remember the trainer saying.

---

quote:

---

At one point during his presentation, for example, the trainer encouraged employees to shout out derogatory terms to provide examples of words or phrases not to use in the workplace.

---

quote:

---

In another instance, the trainer asked employees to come up with examples of good inclusionary workplace rules. One ATD employee suggested the U.S. military's policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which prohibited gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the armed forces, was a fine example.

The trainer accepted this as a "correct answer.”

---