Tarrant County split as it removes employee mandate on bias, security training

Training on harassment, workplace security and unconscious bias is now optional for Tarrant County employees.

Commissioners voted 3-2 Tuesday to make the training voluntary after several Republican public officials spoke out against the program. Democratic commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roy Charles Brooks voted in opposition.

After a long discussion on the training, a county attorney told the commissioners before their vote that such a move could open up risks if the county faces litigation or Equal Employment Opportunity complaints. The first response to that litigation should be proof that the county requires anti-discrimination or anti-harassment training, the attorney said.

Another legal expert agrees.

Mandates on compliance training for Tarrant County employees and elected officials was enacted in December 2021. The county had offered voluntary training for 10, the county’s human resources director Tina Glenn told the court. Tarrant County decided to make training mandatory so it had documentation on hand if it received Equal Employment Opportunity complaints.

Training for employees included courses on harassment prevention, unconscious bias, promoting respect, workplace security, and active shooters. Supervisors received the same courses, as well as training on the Americans with Disabilities Act, lawful hiring, preventing workplace bullying and legally protected leave.

Other large counties vary in their approach to compliance training.

Collin County employees don’t have mandated training, a spokesperson said, but the county offers similar training on a voluntary basis. A spokesperson for Travis County said it offers some of the same training to employees and is working to integrate the rest into its onboarding process for new hires.

A spokesperson for Bexar County said active shooting training is mandated for employees. Mandates for other trainings depend on the person, department and position.

Representatives from human resources departments in Harris and Dallas counties did not answer phone calls for comment.

Employees in Tarrant County were subject to discipline if they did not take the training. Consequences included reprimands, a reflection of noncompliance on performance reviews, loss of computer access and a report of non-compliance being sent to the Commissioners Court.

Employee punishment for not completing the training was one of the many aspects three Republican office holders — Sheriff Bill Waybourn, District Clerk Tom Wilder and Judge Christopher Gregory — took issue with at Tuesday’s meeting.

Waybourn said he was pro-training for his employees, but argued the contents of the compliance training included items his deputies already learn in training provided by the department. He also worried deputies would need to use overtime and that the active shooter training was antithetical to what deputies are taught.

“We don’t want them running, we don’t want them hiding,” Waybourn said before asking for a lift on the training mandate. “We want them charging in with the gust of a hound dog to absolutely neutralize that.”

Wilder called the training “redundant,” and Gregory said he was “appalled” by the training and that it took a “swing” he didn’t like.

County judge Tim O’Hare told the court there were “good,” “needed” and “useful” courses in the training, but that he vehemently disagreed with others. Simmons asked which ones, and O’Hare responded that he would speak the way he chose to.

O’Hare didn’t believe the court had the authority to tell other elected officials what to do, and that employees shouldn’t be punished for not teaching courses because they don’t believe in them. He said the training created an impression that county employees didn’t get along. O’Hare then addressed Simmons’ question and said he didn’t agree with the unconscious bias training.

Simmons responded, “Of course you would.”

“If we’re hiring people in this county that don’t know how to get along with their fellow man or woman, then we have a problem with hiring,” O’Hare continued. “We have a problem with the people who are supervising and leading them.”

O’Hare, of Southlake, founded the Southlake Families PAC in 2020 as parents at Carroll schools fought back against a proposed a cultural competence plan created after a video surfaced of students using racial slurs. The plan included segments on how to promote diversity training and handle racist incidents and received community pushback. The PAC won its fight and got its own PAC-backed candidates elected to the school board.

Carroll schools are facing eight federal investigations into civil rights complaints, including three for race discrimination.

Republican commissioners were quick to hop in and speak out against the mandated training. Commissioner Gary Fickes said he received similar training through his membership in the National Association of Counties and he didn’t see the need for it. Commissioner Manny Ramirez, Fort Worth’s former police union president, was concerned with the “genesis” of the training, and later added that training he had received on implicit bias caused conflict among employees because it sparked division.

Conversation lasted nearly 40 minutes before Simmons cut the court off for taking too long to discuss the agenda item.

“Compliance training is not a new concept,” Simmons, who was Arlington’s NAACP president for more than 10 years, said. “This is not 1950. And just, I’ll say it, in case you two can’t see it, if you remove overcoming your unconscious bias from this list, this training will pass. It’s political, that’s all this is.”

Compliance training mandates help when litigation or complaints occur in workplaces, said Michael Green, director of Texas A&M School of Law’s Workplace Law Program. When the training is mandated, there’s proof employees took the training, but also proof the workplace tried to prevent the behavior from happening.

The political environment has changed nationwide after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin, and more conversations have occurred interpersonally and in the workplace about race relations and bias. Green said there may be more people making comments about unconscious bias training being a political issue, but he said such training has been around for years.

Whether that training is problematic or helps employees largely depends on how it’s applied. The common argument Green sees when training comes into play to help one protected class is another class thinking there is something being taken away from them. Training should be about making everyone in the workplace work better together regardless of group, he said.

Green suggested looking at the unfavorable parts of the training and making adjustments instead of ending training programs or making them voluntary.

“Don’t end it, mend it,” he said.