Background

In November 2022, the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM)-USA Council President replaced longtime Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee Chair and DEI Advisor Leslie Luke with a person who had never attended a single committee meeting or served in a leadership position in the group. This appointment violated IAEM-USA’s Administrative Policies and Procedures (APPs), in that the president failed to:

• Nominate a Chair who had served in a leadership position on the DEI Committee.
• Get Mr. Luke’s input on his successor or his input on the full panel of proposed candidates.
• Give special consideration to existing Vice Chairs of the DEI Committee on their availability to serve as Chair.

On February 13, 2023, the 2022 DEI Committee Vice Chairs and committee member Vincent Davis filed an Ethics Complaint with the Board based on the above violation of IAEM-USA’s APPs. The complaint demanded, among other relief, that the Board rescind the improper appointment of Mr. Luke’s successor and allow the DEI Committee as composed on November 15, 2022, to determine its Chair. The Board held a special meeting on March 15, 2023, to consider the complaint. At that time, the Board found that the President had violated the APPs but refused to do more than require the President to apologize.

This latest incident is not an isolated event. Rather it is part of a decades-long pattern of refusing to address DEI issues within IAEM. Additional examples of IAEM-USA’s refusal to see, much less work on, its lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion include:

• A Board of Directors that for the past two years is over 80 percent white.
• A membership that is approximately 77 percent white and 73 percent male.
• Failing to take any meaningful steps to redress this lack of diversity and inclusion in the organization.
• Perpetuating a system that makes if difficult, if not impossible, for Black people, Brown people, Indigenous people, and other People of Color to serve in positions of leadership in the organization.
• Blaming those who seek to change the above by asserting that these issues are “in the past” or have been “misunderstood” by those seeking change. (See IAEM-USA email to members announcing DEI consultant.)
• Hiding the impacts of IAEM’s exclusionary practices behind a wall of closed Board and Executive Committee meetings; and non-transparent, opaque policies and practices.
• Trying to prevent members in 2022 from voting on a proposed bylaw to eliminate a requirement that individuals must be citizens or legal residents to become members.
• Issuing a statement on the murder of George Floyd in 2020 that was so weak the DEI Committee Chair was compelled to issue a separate statement on the killing.

Call to Action

As a recipient of federal assistance in the form of grants and contracts, IAEM-USA is required by law to avoid discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, and disability in its programs and services. It is past time for IAEM-USA’s “leaders” to be held accountable for their refusal to actively, honestly, promptly, and openly dismantle the biased systems that perpetuate its lack of diversity and inclusion.

Join us in helping IAEM-USA begin to address its institutional bias by signing this petition.

PETITION 

IAEM-USA’s Board of Directors have failed to abide by and uphold their own governing documents. They have:

• Refused to address the President’s violations of IAEM-USA’s APPs.
• Disrespected the DEI Committee by allowing the appointment of a Chair who never served on or attended a Committee meeting. 
• Failed to respect and accept the 2022 DEI Committee Chair’s selection of his successors.
• Continued to commit microaggressions against members who contest their actions by suggesting that our issues with IAEM occurred in the past, and by implying that this current issue is a “misunderstanding” that can be remedied by further educating us.
• Attempted to intimidate members who question them or try to hold them accountable into remaining silent.

Accordingly, by signing this petition, we the undersigned members of IAEM, interested emergency management practitioners, and concerned individuals who are not IAEM members, indicate our vote of no confidence in the Board of Directors and demand their resignation.