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A top Oregon state government official was abruptly suspended and placed on administrative leave after a former employee complained about his discriminatory hiring practices by basing selection decisions on merit and not gender identity.

Mike Shaw, who is the second-in-command under State Forester Cal Mukumoto at the Oregon Department of Forestry, was yanked from duty in early August at the height of the largest wildfire season in the state’s history following the complaint by the agency’s former DEI strategy officer Megan Donecker.

An obese tattooed Salem resident with purple hair, Donecker accused Shaw of looking “beyond gender and identity in hiring, seeking only candidates most qualified for the job,” Fox News reported, citing OregonLive.

Donecker, who headed up the department’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team, said that half a dozen queer staff members did not  “feel safe or comfortable” on the job because they couldn’t have “conversation around pronouns.”

She reportedly first became irritated with Shaw for his favoring a slow and easy approach to incorporating DEI, suggesting that rapidly making changes was akin to driving at high speed on “an icy road.” Donecker claimed that her boss used the offensive metaphor to warn, “We don’t go 60 (mph) out of the gate, or we’re gonna crash the car.”

A self-described “accomplice to marginalized communities,” Donecker’s complaint was among several from employees and others who asserted that the department amounts to an “old boys’ club,” the Daily Mail reported. Since “standing down” at the Oregon Department of Forestry she has continued to work as a DEI consultant.

The complaint was among files released in response to a public records request by OregonLive.

Oregon’s lesbian left-wing Governor Tina Kotek, who was accused of corruption over hiring her wife, has weighed in on the matter with her office saying that it is fully behind efforts to “advance DEI.”

DEI has taken root in organizations like cancer in recent years and X users weighed in on the gross injustice in Oregon.

“Donecker, who describes herself as an avid Dungeons and Dragons player who lives with her wife, Jai, an adopted nine-year-old, and two cats, quit her job at the department in March after falling out with bosses,” the Daily Mail reported. ‘It is bad for women at forestry,’ Donecker said in an interview. ‘It is even worse if you are queer.’”

Chris Donaldson
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