Summary
Karen Ortiz, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) administrative judge, defied Trump administration policies limiting LGBTQ+ protections by urging colleagues to resist “illegal mandates.”
After sending a mass email criticizing leadership, her email was deleted, and she faced disciplinary action.
Ortiz’s stand gained widespread online support but little public backing from colleagues, who fear retaliation. Experts say federal employees often stay silent to protect their jobs.
Ortiz, prepared for potential fallout, sees her actions as protected whistleblower activity and remains committed to civil rights advocacy, regardless of her job security.
Ortiz’s stand gained widespread online support but little public backing from colleagues, who fear retaliation. Experts say federal employees often stay silent to protect their jobs.
Welcome to doing the right thing.
Political activism is full of people that stand up to fuckery, only to get silence.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It just means it takes time. And frequency also matters. Keep up the pressure. Today is this wonderful lady. Next week it’ll be another person. Then another. Then another.
One administrative judge at Equal Employment Opportunity Commission speaks out for equal employment opportunity, as the Commission turns the other way.
This is not rogue. DOGE and the president are rogue. This person is following the law.
This smells of American patriotism.
Title should be:
Meet the federal worker who did not blindly follow rogue president: ‘I hope that it lights a fire under people’
This is what it means to be an American. You do something that you feel is right in this matter.
It never was and never should be about how much shit you can roll yourself in and taking others along with it.
I mean to an outsider- the Red, Pink Lavender, Scares, McCarthyism, slavery, war on drugs, terrorism, citizens united, world police, Vietnam, jim crow/segregation, prohibition, womens suffrage, strikebreaking, company towns… are all examples of freedoms being restricted by the government and applauded by the press and culture at large at the time, and later reflected on as a terrible thing.
Civil Disobedience has always been anti-American.
This has nothing to do with being American, it’s about being a decent human being, there’s a shit ton of Americans who disagree with her.
While you’re definitely right that this is more of a decent human being thing, I’m actually a really big fan of the “good American” narrative.
So many of our fascist peers believe they are being good Americans. Let’s distort their view back towards the
individualcollective workforce instead of the oligarchyTowards the collective you mean, the reason why the US is so shit is because of the focus on the individual and because the US is so good at exporting its culture everywhere it’s now affecting other countries and sending them down a regressive spiral in the name of individual freedom.
Yes actually you’re right. I said individual because I meant “the little man” but “the little man” is more accurately described as the collective working class than any particular individual. None of us are individually the little man. We are all strong and capable of great things, so long as we work together as a collective. The little man is the idea of those who need to be protected, and we all need to be protected. Thank you for the correction
I can see it as American thing tho. Ya all were all 'bout freedom, no? Some dumb schmuck enter yer property, ya shoot im dead . Gov decides to be a dick, ya shoot em dead. This lady seems more on pacifist side and instead did that.
Removed by mod
That’s nice, edgelord. Your mom is calling you to get your pizza rolls now.
America is flawed, so I want it to get even worse!
Buddy, if the US burns, it’s going to take a lot of developing countries with it…
It’s already happening as US aid has been cut off all over.
what we did to snowden and manning was a damn shame. there is so much on the last two decades to be ashamed of. smh.
Hey buddy, while I share your sentiment, only we’re allowed to shit on our own country. You can go fuck yourself.
thanks Ortiz for doing more than even Biden ever would have done during any of his time as a politician
maybe real Democrats do exist
He’s gone. Let it go.
Nah he can still win in 2028
