Democratic
National
Committee
Chair
Howard
Dean
says
poor
job
performance
—
not
discrimination
—
prompted
the
organization
to
fire
a
gay
man
who
is
now
suing
for
wrongful
termination.
Speaking
under
oath
during
a
deposition
in
the
case,
Dean
said
he
authorized
the
firing
of
Donald
Hitchcock
because
the
DNC’s
gay
outreach
director
did
not
effectively
rally
gays
to
support
the
Democratic
Party.
“I
don’t
know
what
Donald
was
doing,”
Dean
said.
“I
know
what
he
wasn’t
doing.
He
wasn’t
getting
us
the
support
in
the
gay
community.”
Hitchcock
became
director
of
the
DNC’s
Gay
&
Lesbian
Leadership
Council
in
June
2005.
He
was
fired
in
May
2006,
following
a
series
of
gay
press
articles
challenging
the
organization’s
handling
of
gay
issues.
“I
wasn’t
able,
we
weren’t
able,
to
break
through,”
Dean
said.
“The
relations
with
the
gay
community,
which
I
had
a
very
good
relationship
when
I
started,
had
been
deteriorating
since
Donald
came
on
board.”
Dean
said
he
didn’t
hold
Hitchcock
responsible
for
the
negative
press,
but
approved
the
firing
after
Hitchcock
failed
to
effectively
counter
it.
“The
press
is
not
the
problem,”
Dean
said.
“The
problem
was
the
community
itself
was
getting
a
bad
impression
because
Donald
wasn’t
able
to
counteract
in
the
community
what
the
press
was
writing.”
Hitchcock’s
firing
came
days
after
his
domestic
partner,
Paul
Yandura,
a
longtime
party
activist,
sent
an
open
letter
to
gay
Democrats
criticizing
Dean
and
suggesting
that
gays
should
temporarily
withhold
donations
to
the
party.
Dean
said
the
letter
“never
came
up”
when
he
discussed
with
other
DNC
officials
plans
to
fire
Hitchcock,
though,
and
he
was
“unaware
of
the
letter
until
long
after”
the
firing.
Dean
instead
cited
the
media’s
“unfair
and
unwarranted”
criticism
of
his
2005
decision
to
abolish
a
gay
outreach
desk
and
Hitchcock’s
inability
to
get
gay
donors
to
“buy”
the
DNC
response
as
the
reason
he
was
fired.
“You
are
supposed
to
have
clout,”
Dean
said.
“In
this
job
you
have
to
have
the
respect
and
the
clout
in
the
community
so
they
do
buy
it.
And
if
you
don’t
have
that
clout,
you
can’t
do
the
job.”
But
an
attorney
for
Hitchcock
said
the
former
Gay
&
Lesbian
Leadership
Council
director
“did
his
best”
to
stop
Dean’s
decision
to
abolish
the
gay
outreach
desk
“from
being
an
embarrassment
to
the
DNC.”
“Donald
did
what
he
could
do
to
defend
the
DNC,”
said
Lynne
Bernabei.
“But
the
key
policies
and
actions
of
the
DNC
that
were
criticized
in
the
press
were
things
that
Donald
had
no
control
over.”
In
his
deposition,
Dean
noted
that
DNC
officials
gave
Hitchcock
the
option
to
resign,
but
Hitchcock
declined.
“You
know,
I
personally
liked
Donald
Hitchcock
as
a
human
being
and
I
had
no
will
to
harm
him
in
any
way,”
he
said.
“And
normally
the
way
we
handle
people
who
in
our
opinion
can’t
do
their
jobs
is
leave
them
a
viable
option
for
future
employment.
And
he
refused
that
viable
option.
When
he
did,
I
realized
that
he
was
going
to
be
very
confrontational.”
Eleven
months
after
he
was
fired,
Hitchcock
filed
a
lawsuit
alleging
the
DNC
discriminated
against
him
during
his
time
on
staff.
The
lawsuit
also
alleges
Hitchcock
was
the
target
of
retaliation
and
defamation.
DNC
attorneys
have
said
the
allegations
have
no
merit.
The
lawsuit
names
as
defendants
the
DNC;
Dean;
Andy
Tobias,
the
DNC’s
treasurer;
and
Julie
Tagen,
the
DNC’s
deputy
finance
director.
Dean’s
deposition,
obtained
by
the
Blade
late
last
week,
was
triggered
by
the
lawsuit.
During
his
deposition,
Dean
also
answered
questions
about
the
DNC’s
handling
of
gay
issues,
including
efforts
to
bring
more
gays
to
the
party’s
national
conventions.
He
acknowledged
a
proposal
by
gay
DNC
member
Garry
Shay
of
California
to
add
gays
to
the
party’s
affirmative
action
guidelines
for
selecting
convention
delegates
triggered
a
contentious
internal
debate.
Dean
said
some
“influential
individuals”
within
the
DNC
Black
Caucus,
such
as
Donna
Brazile,
opposed
the
plan
because
it
was
seen
as
“an
affront
to
the
civil
rights
movement.”
Brazile,
who
chairs
the
DNC’s
Voting
Rights
Institute,
declined
to
comment
for
this
article.
Dean
said
the
dispute
grew
to
the
point
where
“we
had
two
very
important
groups
of
people
in
the
DNC
disagreeing
with
each
other”
and
several
DNC
and
caucus
officials
were
asked
to
broker
a
deal
that
would
make
peace
on
the
issue.
“I
wanted
equal
representation
for
gay
and
lesbian
Americans,”
he
said,
“and
I
wanted
to
achieve
it
in
a
way
that
wasn’t
offensive
to
the
history
of
the
civil
rights
movement.”
Other
case
documents
suggest
Leah
Daughtry,
Dean’s
chief
of
staff
and
coordinator
of
the
party’s
upcoming
convention
in
Denver,
also
opposed
Shay’s
proposal.
Dean,
however,
said
he
couldn’t
recall
her
position.
“She
definitely
didn’t
take
a
strong
position
against
this,”
he
said.
“She
was
there
to
mediate
and
to
help.”
Dean
commended
Daughtry
and
the
other
officials
who
worked
to
resolve
the
dispute
for
ultimately
reaching
“an
incredibly
successful
solution”
that
strongly
encouraged
but
did
not
require
states
to
send
more
gay
delegates.
“As
a
result
of
what
I
did,
we
now
have
three
times
as
many
states
with
inclusion
programs
for
gay
and
lesbian
delegates,”
he
said.
“Forty-seven
states,
as
opposed
to
16
when
I
got
...
