How Trump administration pressure to dump 4-H's LGBT policy led to Iowa leader's firing

Jason Clayworth , Courtney Crowder | The Des Moines Register

The Trump administration pushed the national 4-H youth organization to withdraw a controversial policy welcoming LGBT members — a move that helped lead to the ouster of Iowa's top 4-H leader earlier this year, a Des Moines Register investigation found.

The international youth organization, with more than 6 million members, introduced the new guidance to ensure LGBT members felt protected by their local 4-H program. The document and their attempts to broaden membership in the LGBT community was a smaller part of a larger, multi-year effort to modernize the federally authorized group.

Several states posted the national guidance on their websites, including Iowa, where it prompted fierce opposition from conservatives and some evangelical groups.

"The current focus of this campaign may be Iowa, but the values and vision of the entire Cooperative Extension are under attack," Andy Turner, director of the New York 4-H program, wrote in an email to John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, Iowa's top 4-H leader, last April.

Within days of the LGBT guidance's publication, Heidi Green, then-chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, requested that it be rescinded, Sonny Ramaswamy, then-director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the federal department that administers 4-H, told the Register.

Afterward, a NIFA communications manager sent an "urgent" email to at least two states — Iowa and New York — urging the 4-H organizations there to remove the LGBT guidance from their websites, the Register found.

The subsequent decision to take down the policy set off a firestorm this spring that engulfed 4-H programs in at least eight states — including Iowa, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and New York.

And it eventually precipitated the firing of Iowa 4-H director John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, a fierce advocate of the LGBT policy, the Register found after conducting extensive interviews and examining more than 500 pages of state and federal communications.

The 4-H policy's removal comes amid other moves by the Trump administration to roll back federal protections that the previous administration saw as also covering gender identity — or the deeply held sense of who one is that may differ from the sex organs with which one is born.

► New Tuesday: Chuck Grassley says USDA should not have pressured 4-H to rescind LGBT policy

The Trump administration previously declared it would place limits on transgender troops serving in the military, and it rescinded a 2016 Dear Colleague letter issued by Obama’s Education Department that said prohibiting transgender students from using facilities such as restrooms that matched their gender identity violates federal anti-discrimination laws.

The administration also attempted to remove questions about gender identity from the 2020 census. And, in October, the New York Times obtained a leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services that seeks to define gender as “either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with.”

The move would “essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million” transgender Americans, the Times reported.

The Trump administration to date has declined to comment on the leaked memo.

► New Monday: A national LGBTQ civil rights organization is pressing the Trump administration on its role in 4-H pulling transgender protections

Iowa director pressured to drop policy

As Iowa’s document — and the ones posted to other states’ sites — circulated the internet this spring, Christian conservative leaders and media outlets rallied their supporters to pressure 4-H leaders to remove the document, and a Christian law firm threatened legal action.

Some states relented. In Iowa, Chaisson-Cárdenas, the first statewide Latino director of 4-H in the organization’s 115-year history, resisted.

A dyslexic Guatemalan refugee who graduated from the University of Iowa, Chaisson-Cárdenas was adamant that 4-H was “for all kids.”

Emails sent to John Lawrence — vice president of Iowa State University’s Extension and Outreach, which oversees Iowa's 4-H program — reflect deeply felt opinions for and against the policy.

Some said the policy was “great” and “very positive.” One former 4-H member, who claimed to be a transgender father, offered to speak on the issue.

Others, who identified themselves as 4-H volunteers, leaders and former members, called the policy a “fascist push to redefine humanity” and characterized transgender children as “horrendous” and “sinful.”

Several threatened to pull donations, leave leadership roles in their local extension or call their state legislator. Chaisson-Cárdenas said he received threats on his life.

In emails, Chaisson-Cárdenas pushed back against his bosses' efforts to apologize or retract the document.

“I guess I am not sure why we are valuing the propaganda machine of a recognized hate group over the existing rights of LGBTQ youth?” Chaisson-Cárdenas wrote in reference to WorldNetDaily, an alt-right online publication that extensively covered the dust-up in Iowa.

“It feels wrong to me," he wrote.

The battle to modernize 4-H

In 1991, USDA and extension leaders wrote a document titled “Pathway to Diversity” that called on university extension systems to become more diverse and multicultural.

As a congressionally authorized youth program, 4-H had an obligation to follow federal civil rights statutes, according to the document, but more importantly, if 4-H wanted to survive for 100 more years, it needed to diversify.

Since first drafting official inclusion policies, leaders in extension services and their colleagues in 4-H headquarters regularly reaffirm their commitment to diversity, experts said.

Recently, 4-H committed to the campaign “4-H Grows: A Promise to America’s Kids,” which seeks by 2025 to have the organization reflect "the population demographics, vulnerable populations, diverse needs and social conditions of the country."

As part of that pledge, extension leaders partnered with 4-H headquarters to create “working groups” around vulnerable populations, including incarcerated and LGBT youth, as well as kids with disabilities.

By 2015, 4-H headquarters was receiving frequent questions about how best to include LGBT students in local programming, according to documents obtained by the Register.

“With the recent surge of communication by the press on issues impacting LGBTQ people, we are starting to see an urgent need for training and resources to help combat the negative impact of these messages on our young people,” wrote Kimberly Allen, an extension specialist and professor at North Carolina State University.

Katherine Soule, the chair of an LGBT working group in 2016 and a leader of California’s 4-H, said group leaders were asked to adapt the Obama administration’s Dear Colleague letter protecting gender-identity rights for 4-H.

Soule and a group of western 4-H leaders created a best-practices document that became the foundation of a national guidance. That guidance document went through multiple drafts before being posted to NIFA's website.

Bonita Williams, a national program leader with 4-H, emailed state 4-H leaders March 13 with a link to a web page that had resources on all vulnerable populations identified in the "4-H Grows" promise.The national LGBT guidance was posted within the sub-category on LGBT youth.

The national guidance called on 4-H to treat all students consistent with their gender identity and allow them "equal access," even when families or community members "raise objections."

"As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a practice that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of individual," the national proposal read.

The document drew angry responses from 4-H leaders across the country and threats of "additional action" from the Liberty Counsel, a Christian law firm labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Register's review of documents found.

Opponents argued that the policy violated people's First Amendment rights by forcing them to use pronouns that might appear contrary to a person’s physical appearance, according to emails to 4-H headquarters. Some said the guidance also violated federal law, which does not list gender identity as a protected class.

The policy created “an environment in which my family no longer feels welcome,” Heather Jenkins, a local leader in Frederick County, Virginia, wrote to national leaders March 26.

"Believing that God creates us in His own image as male and female is not hate speech," Jenkins wrote. “When you create an environment in which my family is discriminated against because we refuse to use and subscribe to specific terms and vocabulary that go against our religious beliefs, you are infringing on our rights.”

The LGBT guidance was removed from NIFA's site by the next day.

‘A very political situation'

Ramaswamy, NIFA’s former director, said in an interview that he had received “two, maybe three calls” about the LGBT policy when he was summoned to a meeting with Green, then the chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, a few days after the new guidance was published.

At that meeting, Green asked Ramaswamy to remove the document, which he said struck him as odd because 4-H posts "guidance about all manner of things."

When contacted by the Register, Green — who has since left the USDA — refused to answer questions about the meeting and hung up.

Ramaswamy said he agreed to remove the guidance because the document hadn't crossed his desk before it had been posted, which is a step in the organization's typical approval procedure.

After the document was removed, a March 27 email titled “Urgent message” was sent by Dianne Bell, NIFA's web communications manager, to at least two states — Iowa and New York — urging them to remove the policy from their websites.

"Regrettably, we must ask you to remove it from your website immediately,” Bell said in the three-sentence email that also asked the states to confirm that the policy had been removed. The email did not outline any reasons for the federal retraction or explain its request of the state 4-H chapters.

Ramaswamy said Bell “had no right to do that,” adding that she was only supposed to find out what states were planning to do with the policy.

Other officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to answer questions, instead sending a three-sentence statement that said the guidance didn’t officially set 4-H policy and should never have been disseminated.

Neither officials with the department nor the 4-H national headquarters would answer specific questions about how and why the policy was retracted.

Three of the four authors of the policy declined or did not respond to questions. The fourth, Soule, told the Register she didn’t have answers.

The about-face on the LGBT policy by national 4-H headquarters left some 4-H volunteers angry and program officials confused, according to the Register’s investigation.

“I feel bad for the folks at USDA,” Glenda Humiston, the vice president of the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources, told other 4-H leaders during a May training video. “I think they are in between a rock and a hard place.” “We’re out here at the land grant universities developing new knowledge, new research, ways to implement your jobs better,” she continued, “and they’re being put into a very political situation.”

What happened in Iowa

In Iowa, Chaisson-Cárdenas said he was particularly excited to have received guidance from other 4-H leaders regarding LGBT issues.

Before Williams, the national 4-H program leader, had emailed state 4-H leaders a copy of the national guidance, Chaisson-Cárdenas said he had been approached by a transgender student in Iowa who didn’t feel safe at the county office but wanted to be involved in 4-H.

“Please let your committee know that we have taken their LGBT stuff to serve as the basis of our new state policy,” Chaisson-Cárdenas wrote to Williams in response to her email. “Let them know that they are making a difference.”

Chaisson-Cárdenas said he presented hard copies of the national policy to the Iowa 4-H leadership team, including Lawrence, the ISU vice president, and the team's advice was to add Iowa State language but to stick closely to the national policy.

Chaisson-Cárdenas said he showed leaders the revised Iowa document again, on March 19, and that none of the leaders recommended any further changes.

Then, after securing what he believed to be approval, Chaisson-Cárdenas posted the LGBT guidance and opened the document for comment. A link announcing the proposed guidance was added to the 4-H Focus newsletter on or around March 21.

Lawrence said he was on medical leave when the document was presented to the leadership team. He said he does not remember providing edits to Chaisson-Cárdenas and said he did not see what was posted until after he returned to the office.

Lawrence said the process for creating policy wasn’t followed. A "guidance document" had been presented to the team, but when the document appeared online, "the word 'guidance' was taken out of the first page and 'policy' was put on," he said.

"The document itself as guidance would have been a good piece of education for our staff — of best practices, of recommendations — and, I think, could have been used in that setting," Lawrence said. "But when it comes across as policy and everybody must follow, it set a very different tone."

The Iowa LGBT document, which Lawrence kept up through the comment period, does include the word "policy" on top of the first page. But the portion suggesting ways to ensure LGBT students' safety appears under the header “Guidance for inclusion.”

Emails trickled in during the first weeks the policy was posted, but the issue remained mostly under the radar until mid-April, when Chaisson-Cárdenas defended the policy on air with conservative WHO Radio host Simon Conway.

That evening, Lawrence emailed ISU’s senior communication officials about the matter, noting that the university’s president and provost were involved and that Sen. Tom Shipley, R-Nodaway, had called him.

“Certainly, there were questions raised from many places, including (from) individual legislators,” Lawrence said.

Over the next few days, the trickle of emails became a deluge.

"It was an embarrassment to the 4-H program from the beginning and only got worse as the program wore on,” wrote a member of the Crawford County extension council, referring to the WHO interview. “… Who decided that John-Paul should speak for all the thousands of 4-H'ers and their families in this latest of his uninformed attempts at being relevant?"

“Sitting on my desk is the latest request from the 4-H Foundation for my donation," said the extension member, whose name was redacted by Iowa State. "It will sit there until you … either fire this man or at least put him in a position where he can do no further damage to our program.”

On April 12, Bob Vander Plaats, president of The Family Leader, a conservative Christian organization in Des Moines, issued a call to supporters to protest the document’s “radical” approach, which he saw as allowing “a man who claims the female gender (without any medical procedure or legal verification) to sleep in the girls' hotel rooms.”

Lawrence sent a form email to extension staff and council members later that day reminding them the guidance was a draft, not an enshrined policy.

As pressure on Iowa State continued to mount, Chaisson-Cárdenas emailed his bosses, asking them to remind extension members that federal and state civil rights laws already provide transgender students the right to use facilities in line with their gender identities.

If counties discriminate against LGBT youth, he wrote, they will be in violation of those laws — guidance or no guidance.

"This was not about the policy itself," Chaisson-Cárdenas told the Register. “As a matter of fact, … John had to admit to me, he could not find anything wrong with the actual policy."

Lawrence said that he can't remember exactly what he told Chaisson-Cárdenas.

‘A very heavy price’

On May 10, less than a month after the comment period ended and the guidance was pulled from the Iowa chapter’s website, “restated” guidelines were posted.

They affirmed that Iowa 4-H does not discriminate on the basis of 14 characteristics, including “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” But they did not address the issue at the heart of the controversy — the use of sex-segregated facilities by transgender students.

Lawrence issued a letter of discipline to Chaisson-Cárdenas that same day, expressing disappointment in how the Iowa transgender guidance was approached and posted as 4-H “policy.”

“Your lack of judgment and professionalism is deeply concerning,” Lawrence wrote.

Chaisson-Cárdenas contends he followed procedure. In multiple emails, Chaisson-Cárdenas refers to having shown the LGBT policy at least twice before it was posted to Lawrence; Chad Higgins, the senior director of extension and his direct supervisor; and the rest of the Iowa chapter's leadership team. Neither Lawrence nor Higgins countered his claim in writing, according to the documents obtained by the Register.

"What was posted on the website, I did not edit," Lawrence said, adding that he did not remember if the leadership team provided guidance as to what Iowa's policy should be.

Chaisson-Cárdenas said he was given the opportunity to resign at the May 10 discipline meeting or “next steps would be taken.” He kept working, maintaining his stance that xenophobia is pervasive within 4-H and that an updated inclusion policy with specific protections for LGBT members was needed.

He was terminated in August.

Asked for details explaining Chaisson-Cárdenas' dismissal, Iowa State issued a statement listing his "tendency to focus on individual tactical projects while neglecting the overall strategic direction of the Iowa 4-H program; concerns raised by peers, employees and partners about his management style; and a pattern of poor decision-making and judgment."

Chaisson-Cárdenas said he was never put on a performance plan — normally a necessary step to firing someone from the university — and said he was never given lower than “meets expectations” on any performance review. Even as comments on the LGBT policy were rolling in, Chaisson-Cárdenas’ said his supervisors graded him as meeting expectations in his annual performance review.

Lawrence declined to confirm if those claims were accurate.

In the wake of his firing, more than 200 people — including 4-H leaders — signed a letter to ISU President Wendy Wintersteen noting that Chaisson-Cárdenas has had a career of “intentionally reaching youth who were otherwise overlooked.”

“To remove him from his position in the midst of this great work is a disservice to youth in Iowa and throughout the nation,” the letter read.

Lawrence said his message to Extension staff across Iowa after Chaisson-Cárdenas' termination was that despite a change in leadership, “we’ve not had a change in direction.”

“Our focus on diversity needs to continue and, quite frankly, we need to strengthen it,” he said.

Iowa State Extension is working with the Office of Equal Opportunity to hire another person to work on issues of discrimination, Lawrence said. When that person is hired, diversity officer Ross Wilburn will focus on education and coaching and the new person will focus on enforcement.

Ramaswamy, whose six-year appointment ended in May, called both Chaisson-Cárdenas’ firing and the fallout at Iowa State “mind-boggling.”

“Look at the memos that come from Iowa State University and it says, down on the bottom, that they're about 'equal opportunity,' right?” Ramaswamy said. “… What this tells me is they’re about equal opportunity when it's convenient.”

In hindsight, he said he should have pushed back against the effort to remove the transgender guidance.

"I wish I had stood up and said, 'Take a hike. We will not take it down,'" he said. "'So sue me; so fire me' — I should’ve stood up."

Chaisson-Cárdenas said he believes he had an obligation to resist efforts to retract the transgender guidance and to fight xenophobia in 4-H’s ranks.

“I’m paying a very heavy price for doing it, and I don't regret it for a single second,” he continued, his voice catching.

"It was the right thing to do."

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