Yamhill County’s Board of Commissioners approved a series of diversity training classes Thursday after debating the merits earlier in the month, when two of three board members argued that the training should not include the phrases “white privilege” or “microaggressions.”

After opposition Aug. 6 and again Tuesday, the training was approved in McMinnville in a 2-1 vote. After the vote, Commissioner Mary Starrett said over email that she voted no on “a training that would have included training on ‘White Privilege,’ ” but that the other board members approved it.

During the Aug. 6 meeting when the training was first discussed, Starrett, who is vice-chair of the board, voiced opposition to any training that addressed white privilege by name.

Starrett said the training had “red flags” and included “a tsunami of political correctness.”

She took issue with the very concept of white privilege.

“If we want to talk about white privilege,” Starrett said, “I look at some statistics here that white men commit suicide at twice the rate of black men. To me, it just seems then that more whites than blacks consider life not worth living.”

“If you were to look at all the metrics for Asians,” she continued, “they have better credit scores, they have more wealth, they do better on IQ tests. We could talk about Asian privilege.”

“So I think that when we talk about equity and diversity and we start out with the premise that white privilege is inherent in this underlying racism we all have. I don’t think this is something that we want to require all of our employees to be subjected to.”

Starrett’s name may be familiar to longtime Oregonians. Before being elected to the board, Starrett spent 25 years in broadcasting, including 17 years at KATU in Portland.

On Aug. 6, Commissioner Rick Olson, chair of the board, also expressed concern over the “undertones and political aspect” of the training.

“I’m not saying that I’m against it,” he said, “but I am not saying that I am real comfortable and for it either.”

The training in question is put on by Yamhill County Health and Human Services and provided by Portland-based company SoValTi.

On Aug. 6, director of Yamhill County Health and Human Services, Silas Halloran-Steiner, told the board that SoValTi would provide equity and diversity training to the entire department of around 350 employees.

Halloran-Steiner said the program would include nine half-day training sessions focused on how to avoid microaggression and other behaviors that lead to harassment claims. Each day’s training would be identical, allowing employees and partners to attend the one that fits their schedule.

“Overall,” he said, “the goal is to strengthen the morale of our teams and improve the tools that each employee has to be introspective and self reflective of their own upbringing, status such as race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or other cultural norms and values.”

This is in line with the department’s mission, Halloran-Steiner said, adding, another goal was “to make sure that our whole community receives culturally appropriate care and responsive services.”

Olson said Aug. 6 that he was concerned that requiring the training would open up the county to lawsuits from employees who did not want to participate.

On Tuesday, Christian Boenisch, counsel for the county, assured the board that the training would do more to protect the county from risk than open it up to risk.

In the same session, Starrett reiterated her concerns: “When we see words like ‘white privilege’ to me what that says, it’s a presupposition going into a training that we have such a thing as white privilege, that we have such a thing as inherent racism.”

“I think it starts out as a negative,” she said later in the meeting, “and I think it could be shaming to Caucasians.”

When Commissioner Casey Kulla asked Starrett directly if she believed white privilege “is a real thing,” Starrett responded, “No, I don’t.”

Olson questioned the usefulness of the terms on Tuesday.

“I do believe there is a way of talking about those things without using terms such as ‘white privilege,’ ‘microaggressions,’” he said Tuesday.

“I am opposed to specifically calling out certain phrases that allow people to get in the argument about whether there is white privilege or there isn’t white privilege,” Olson said. “Whether there is microaggressions or there’s not microaggressions.”

Olson said he opposed what he called “divisive” words.

“I hear things sometimes that set me off,” Olson said. “Black pride is divisive too. Whether it’s white privilege or black pride. I don't believe white privilege exists any more than black pride."

“If white privilege exists in our own mind, than it exists in our own mind,” he continued. “I’ve never looked at myself as being white privileged.”

On Tuesday, Kulla appeared to be the only one of the all-white Board of Commissioners that saw a need for the training.

“If the phrase is of concern but the content is still important,” he told the other commissioners, “then even if you use other words to talk about it, you’re still talking about white privilege.”

“We can use other words to describe something,” Kulla added, “but if the thing still exists, we’re going to be talking about that.”

At one point in the Tuesday meeting, Kulla tried to explain to Olson and Starrett what white privilege means.

When he asked Starrett if she knew about redlining, the discriminatory practice of refusing loans and mortgages for homes in certain areas that has a long and racist history in Oregon, she said she had not heard of it.

Kulla then explained the practice and said to his colleagues, “It’s not like I’m putting white privilege on you. … It’s something that exists inherently in our society.”

On Thursday, commissioners listened to county residents give about an hour of testimony about white privilege. In total 20 people gave testimony and only two testified against the training for Health and Human Services.

Paige Matthews, who identified herself as a queer Yamhill County employee said, “It’s confusing that I have to sit here and defend my right to be seen and treated well by my fellow employees.”

“Many truths are uncomfortable to acknowledge,” said Yamhill County resident Alisa Owen, “but that doesn’t mean we should turn away from them.”

“Our country was founded on slavery and attempted genocide and Oregon has its own racist past,” she continued. “Don’t turn your back on this training.”

Several of the citizens giving testimony expressed deep discomfort with the comments of Olson and Starrett earlier in the week.

“While you really don’t show an understanding of any particular brand of identity-based privilege, your overtly race-based comments are particularly troubling to me,” McMinnville resident Sherri Yeager said. “Your objections are laser focused on how uncomfortable you are with the concept of white privilege.”

“Your profound discomfort with acquiring an informed and empathetic understanding of white privilege proves only that both of you would benefit from this diversity training proposed by HHS director Halloran-Steiner.”

After listening to the testimony, the three commissioners took turns speaking. Kulla and Starrett maintained their earlier positions but Olson’s mind was at least somewhat changed and he voted for the training.

“Some of the comments that were made made me look at some things that I assumed, which I realize were probably wrong,” he said. “I still don’t like the term ‘white privilege,’ but I think if Silas got his management group together, that’s what they wanted to do as a team … they decided that this training is good I want to go ahead.”

“I think we should do this training,” he concluded, “and I think we should also look at the possibility of offering it countywide to all the county employees.”

Kulla said Friday that planning for the training would begin in the next couple months and the trainings would be scheduled for late fall or early winter.