A former employee of Miami-Dade County in Florida is suing the county’s board of commissioners after he says he was fired over his Christian beliefs about transgender ideology and his refusal to attend punitive “diversity training.”
In the piece, Labriola expressed strong opposition to the Equality Act, a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in February 2021 that would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
The bill must first be passed by the U.S. Senate before it can reach the desk of the president to be vetoed or signed into law.
Labriola suggested the bill would “write transgenderism into law” and “require crossdressing men to be allowed to use women’s restrooms, locker rooms and shower facilities and compete in women’s sports, and force doctors to perform sexual mutilation surgeries at taxpayer expense, while simultaneously expanding taxpayer funding of abortion on demand, forcing transgender indoctrination on schoolchildren, and removing custody rights from parents who refuse to have their minor children undergo ‘gender reassignment.’”
The Backlash
On March 3, 2021, Maggie Fernandez, chief of staff for Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, forwarded an email (pdf) she received from “a concerned citizen” who came across the newsletter and found it offensive.Gonzales then urged that the county “fully investigate this matter and discipline Mr. Labriola by dismissing him from his role.”
The Discipline
In a series of documents (pdf) obtained by The Epoch Times, the path of disciplinary actions against Labriola is laid out.On March 5, 2021, a disciplinary action report was filed with a written reprimand against Labriola, in which Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, chair of the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, issued a three-day suspension without pay. Diaz also ordered Labriola to “participate in training regarding the County’s anti-discrimination policies.”
“You must contact the Human Resources Department within the next 7 days to schedule the training,” Diaz wrote. “I expect you to have completed this training within the next 30 days.”
Through a series of emails, Diaz’s chief of staff, Isidoro R. Lopez, repeatedly instructed Labriola to schedule and attend the anti-discrimination training as ordered by Diaz.
On March 24, 2021, Lopez sent an email, reiterating chronologically the list of orders Labriola had been given, specifically that he had yet to comply with the mandate to attend “sensitivity training.”
“If you do not timely contact Ms. Green [in the HR Department] in the time and in the manner mandated by this direct order, you will be violating a direct order and committing an act of insubordination among other violations which will subject you to discipline up to and including dismissal from employment,” Lopez wrote.
Lopez also sent an email to Diaz, stating that Labriola had not complied with the March 5 order to schedule the extra training.
“It is my understanding that if he complies on time, he can continue to work,” Lopez posited. “If he does not comply by 4pm tomorrow, what should I do?”
The Reminder
On March 27, 2021, Labriola confirmed to Lopez by email his receipt of the reminder.“Please know that I find all of this extremely distressing,” Labriola wrote, asking why he was “being harassed and discriminated against” for voicing his personal religious beliefs in what he believed was a violation of the county’s human rights and fair employment practices and policies.
“Why am I being singled out for disciplinary action and remedial ’sensitivity training' as punishment for exercising my right to express my views on my private time as a private citizen?” Labriola asked. “Why is the County surrendering to the unjust demands of ideological extremists seeking to crush everyone who disagrees with proposed legislation that many Americans consider severely detrimental to public health, safety, welfare and freedom of speech and religion? Other than the desire to placate outside extremist pressure groups, the County has not provided me with any other credible reason for the discipline nor identified any specific words in my online published commentary which could have triggered this action.”
On March 29, 2021, Lopez told Labriola that his “claim of distress is self-imposed,” reiterating that all he had to do was contact the human resources department to schedule and attend “a virtual training session regarding County policy.”
“That was a simple task that you were ordered to perform and yet you still have not complied,” Lopez admonished. “The order did not mention or demand that you surrender your conscience or your beliefs as you mention in your email.”
“Once again,” he concluded. “I encourage you to comply today.”
Arleene Cuellar, Miami-Dade County’s human resources (HR) director, sent a memo to New on May 4, 2021, stating that the HR department’s review “did not find any evidence to establish that Mr. Labriola engaged in any harassing or discriminatory behavior based on any protected characteristic within the workplace.”
The Rules and Policies
According to an April 28, 2021, memo (pdf) from Cuellar to her fellow department directors, “Miami-Dade County is committed to ensuring inclusive programs, policies and employment practices for all of our employees and residents.”“In order to ensure safe and welcoming work environments for all of our employees,” the county “recently refreshed their employee training workshops, which are now currently available to all County employees and supervisors.” Topics such as “unconscious bias,” “racial bias,” and “LGBTQ+ sensitivity” are among those addressed in the seven workshops listed. Religious bias is not addressed.
But according to an overview of the county’s anti-discrimination policy, “religion” and “the exercise of their constitutional or statutory rights” are included among the “protected classes,” along with “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression.”
The Laws
Title 42 states that “Every person who ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person ... the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law.”The Attorneys
According to Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the effort to “punish employees working for the government for speech used off hours on a platform unrelated to the government” is “a trend across the nation.”PJI specializes in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties.
While the rules in Miami-Dade County decree that county employees “found guilty of conduct unbecoming, whether on or off duty” is a reason for dismissal, demotion, or suspension, Dacus told The Epoch Times “that’s part of the problem.”
He cited similar cases in which his firm is currently involved. In Iowa, a government employee was fired for holding Bible study classes addressing sexuality issues from a Biblical perspective during his off hours. In Oregon, two teachers were fired for expressing concern with policies preventing them from notifying parents if their children were having gender dysphoria issues and for opposing a mandate to use pronouns that went against their convictions and beliefs.
“We sued,” Dacus said. “We got their jobs back and now we’re suing for lost wages.”
According to Dacus this growing trend of intolerance and censorship is “dangerous to the survival of a free nation and the continued relevance of our Constitution as applied to our free speech rights.”
“This case is about freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press,” Alexander Bumbu told The Epoch Times, adding that we cannot have these freedoms “if the government punishes its employees for their use of that freedom on their own time and dime, especially when those employees are low ranking and have no power to shape government policy.”
The Training
According to the training module (pdf) for the “Overview of the County’s Anti-Discrimination Policy,” the stratagem is “to ensure that all employees are able to enjoy a work environment free from all forms of discrimination, including harassment and retaliation.”Slide 8 in the training module lists disparate treatment, disparate impact, harassment, and retaliation as the four types of illegal discrimination.
Miami-Dade County Human Rights & Fair Employment Practices Division
According to Dacus, Labriola suffered each of these for expressing his opinions on his own time as a private citizen based on his religious beliefs, through his First Amendment right of free speech. In the meantime, “his performance in the workplace was beyond reproach.”
“Individuals do not shed their First Amendment rights once they begin to work for the government,” Dacus insisted.
Nor do government employees deserve to have their privacy uncomfortably violated.
Slide 13 in the training module addresses restroom policies, acknowledging that “sometimes coworkers object to going in the same bathroom with a transgender person.”
However, those objections are dismissed as “less of an issue than people think it is,” suggesting that if “management declares this policy,” subordinate employees will dutifully follow “the lead of management.”
“Also helpful is an attitude that indicates that this is ‘no big deal.’”
“The County’s policies are insensitive and intolerant to the diversity of employees who may have very reasonable objections to feeling personally violated on a daily basis when it comes to something so necessitous to using the restroom,” Dacus said. “This lack of sensitivity for all employees is very problematic for this county and contrary to basic rules of human dignity and respect.”
Slide 33 teaches government employees how to recognize “factors contributing to a hostile work environment for a transgender person,” like refusal to use preferred pronouns, “carelessness in never learning to use the correct pronoun,” or refusal to use a person’s preferred name.
“No employee should have to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs and convictions in order to work for the county,” Dacus insisted. “The county, instead, pursuant to Title 7, should try to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs of those who have objections to using pronouns they consider to be false.”
“True tolerance goes both ways and respect must exist for all employees,” Dacus concluded. “Unfortunately, this county has not provided such a work environment and has instead become an enemy for true tolerance and accommodation to all employees in the workplace.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners for comment.
