by Abel Harding
In print: July 25, 2010
Despite the fact that some of Jacksonville’s largest employers have taken efforts to ensure all discrimination is prohibited in their workplaces, the City of Jacksonville has lagged on an ordinance that would protect all of the city’s gay and lesbian residents.
Jacksonville is the only major city in Florida that does not expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, whether in housing, lodging, dining or employment.
That’s not exactly a source of pride for many in the city’s business community.
Randy Kammer, vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy for insurance giant Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, recently told the Times-Union that the absence of a city-wide policy can hurt recruitment for the city’s businesses.
“If Jacksonville becomes a city of inclusion,” she said, “[T]hen we are going to recruit a better pool of candidates.”
The Duval County School Board, the city’s second largest employer, updated its policy two years ago to include a prohibition against discriminating against employees based on sexual orientation, whether actual or perceived.
The change hasn’t always been smooth, said Josephine Jackson, an attorney who serves as executive director of the School Board’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, but the Board felt it was the right thing to do.
The policy puts it in line with other Jacksonville employers who share the downtown skyline, including AT&T Inc., BB&T Corp, CSX Corp., Hyatt Hotels Corp., and SunTrust Banks Inc.
Many have gone further than simply banning discrimination.
The University of North Florida recently began offering health benefits to the domestic partners of its employees. The move put the school in line with what two of its large Southside neighbors, Allstate Corp., and Bank of America Corp., offer their employees.
But, unlike scores of private employers, UNF didn’t cite the need to attract the best and the brightest as the reason for the change.
Rather, said vice president of Human Resources Rachelle Gottlieb, it was simply the right thing to do.
“We feel very strongly about treating all employees fairly,” Gottlieb said.
Part of Mayor John Peyton’s plan to revitalize downtown Jacksonville is to recruit members of the “creative class,” that sector of society that Richard Florida, an American urban studies theorist, describes as “young, educated, highly mobile workers who are employed in information technology, health care, finance, science, the arts and other knowledge-based fields.”
There’s just one problem.
In his book “The Rise of the Creative Class,” Florida argued that these workers want a diverse and tolerant community. Gay and lesbian-friendly communities are part of that, Florida wrote, because they, along with other creative class members, are more willing to move into distressed neighborhoods that are in need of revitalization.
While Jacksonville is not an intolerant community—the large number of corporate citizens who embrace a diverse workforce is evidence of that—the lack of a communal step to ban discrimination presents a challenge for a city looking to make a giant leap forward in its urban core.
That lack of progress is something that’s been referenced in hundreds of e-mails that have flooded into City Council inboxes over the last few months.
“There are more pressing issues to consider with regards to budgets and crime reduction,” said City Council President Jack Webb in an interview where he argued that now was not the time for the Council to consider action.
Webb said a recent push to encourage the Council to take up an ordinance seemed to be coming from outside the community.
“I certainly hope people aren’t afraid to approach the Council about this or any other issue,” Webb said.
But, that fear may very well exist.
A 2009 study by the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission found a “recurrent thread of fear” about violence and discrimination, something that could discourage many from taking the risk of speaking out.
Much like the 1960s, when many in the business community stepped forward to forge a solution to the city’s racial problems, Jacksonville’s large employers have led the way while political leaders sit idly on the sidelines. Yet, hundreds of others, including the Times-Union, have no written policy that protects gays and lesbians.
“We have a real challenge as a community to show the world that we are open,” said the School Board’s Jackson.
If history is a guide, the city’s business community will have to once again lead the way.
