Public employees in Virginia’s Prince William County are being asked to disclose their gender identity and sexual orientation in a taxpayer-funded survey.
Yesli Vega, who represents the Coles District on the Board of County Supervisors, brought the online survey from the county’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Office to light in an email to her constituents on Feb. 26.
Within days, county DEI Director Maria Burgos deleted the survey, which local media reported has cost county taxpayers about $78,000, from the public domain; however, the “Inclusion Survey” (pdf) has since been reopened to all employees, Potomac Local News reported.
To ensure public awareness of the survey, Vega read an email she received from a county employee into the record at the March 14 Board of County Supervisors meeting.
After Vega received the email (pdf) dated March 3, she asked permission to share it publicly. Permission was granted following a revision that removed any information that might expose the whistleblower’s identity.
“It is with both great sadness and anger that I received the email from my employer leading me to a survey, which begins by asking me my gender identity, race, and sexual orientation,” the employee wrote in the March 8 revised email (pdf), adding that not only were the questions “patently offensive and extremely invasive,” but also providing answers was “mandatory” to move on to the next question.
Regarding the question of gender identity, the employee noted that an option of “prefer not to disclose” wasn’t offered.
“So while it is counter to my beliefs that anyone can have a gender other than male or female, one’s biological sex, I must put those closely held beliefs aside in order to participate,” the employee said.
The employee was most aggrieved by “Demographic question #4.”
“This is the most offensive, outrageous, and abhorrent question asked,” the employee said. “It is not my employer’s business nor place to ask me the gender of my sexual partner. Why is my employer asking me for details of what happens in the privacy of my home, particularly my bedroom? What is the likelihood that I could bring a subordinate employee into my office, sit them down and ask them this question, and not end up embroiled in both a civil lawsuit and an internal investigation for sexual harassment or worse, with the likely outcomes of termination and an award monetary damages to that employee?”
The employee also addressed the “optional” question at the end of the survey, which “specifically directs” employees to answer an “open-ended question” addressing the importance of “inclusion” in the “performance of the firm.”
“It escapes me how this survey was approved by County leadership and how they thought this line of questioning was appropriate or acceptable,” the anonymous employee concluded, adding a request that the survey be “permanently terminated” and to have any “further inappropriate DEI initiatives canceled.”
According to Vega, she and the anonymous employee aren’t the only ones distressed by this survey.
“Based on the constant reminders” that the DEI has had to send out trying to get people to complete the survey, “we assume that there was low participation,” Vega said.
“The community is clearly upset,” she added. “This is an office that, since it has been established, has done nothing but cause further division, and it is something that people here in this county oppose. They’re not for it.”
Screenshot of the inclusion survey sent to public employees by Prince William County’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Office. (Coles District Supervisor’s Office/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)Recalling the saying, “A fish rots from the head down,” Vega said that’s the case with Burgos’s approach, in that she has been “pushing the Marxist framework in education” for some time.
“And when she’s OK with spending nearly $80,000 on a Monkey Survey funded by the taxpayers, I feel a duty and an obligation to let the taxpayers know what this office is continuing to do and where their tax dollars are going. We’re still seeing record-high inflation, people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and we’re looking for another increase in taxes with this new [Biden administration] budget.
“Now, this office is OK’ing $80,000 in funding for a creepy and intrusive survey and it is completely unacceptable. Burgos OK’d the survey, she was OK with the line of questioning and she OK’d sending it out to County employees.”
Vega, who has long been a vocal critic of the county’s DEI Office, introduced a budget last year calling for its complete defunding and elimination.
A History of Equity and Inclusion Policies
Burgos is no stranger to controversy, nor to using public funds to push a controversial ideology.
In December 2020, Vega and three Republican colleagues walked out of a “Raising Awareness of Unconscious Bias to Foster Inclusivity and Equity” presentation by Burgos, shown during a joint meeting with the supervisors and School Board members. Supervisor Pete Candland said he found the lecture, which began by insinuating that board members held unconscious racial biases, to be “insulting.”
Before being hired in March 2021 to be Prince William County’s DEI Director, Burgos was supervisor of Global Learning and Culturally Responsive Instruction with Prince William County Public Schools and was appointed by the Virginia Department of Education to the “Culturally Relevant and Inclusive Education Practices Advisory Committee.”
While serving on the committee, Burgos participated in a webinar series on “Culturally Responsive Teaching,” in which she said critical race theory (CRT) was the foundational basis for the teaching.
While the video was removed from YouTube following backlash from Vega and local parent groups, an archived version of the video still exists.
Shortly after Burgos’s hire, Vega released a draft of the DEI’s office’s “Equity and Inclusion Policy” to the public. The program would have mandated “Equity Teams” in every government department, agency, and office, with no opt-out clause or protection of employment if not participating.
A FOIA request for resident feedback on the policy showed that more than 80 percent of Prince William County’s residents opposed the program’s proposed Marxist objectives and forced mandates.
In November 2021, Prince William County School Board Member Loree Williams hosted a town hall and panel discussion about “culturally responsive instruction. Burgos, who was one of the panelists, initiated discussions by explaining that “culturally responsive instruction” requires teachers to reflect upon their own biases and cultural experiences to better understand and be able to educate students from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Several speakers asked the panelists whether “culturally responsive teaching” is essentially just another term for CRT and whether CRT is being taught in county schools. However, Williams shut down those questions, saying those questions were outside of the scope of the town hall, prompting angry shouts from some attendees.
On Jan. 15, 2022, Virginia’s newly inaugurated governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed Executive Order Number One (pdf), which ended “the use of inherently divisive concepts like critical race theory” in the Commonwealth’s K-12 education system.
“This is not a town hall on critical race theory,” Williams said in response to CRT-related questions at the town hall. “We are not here to talk about critical race theory. It’s not defined in the presentation and our town hall. It’s not what we’re talking about. It’s not culturally responsive instruction.”
However, another speaker noted how the definition of “culturally responsive instruction” provided on the Virginia Department of Education website states that it has much to do with integrating lessons into the curriculum “based on race, culture, ethnicity, gender, and class.”
After the town hall meeting, a woman confronted Burgos, suggesting she was “implementing a Marxist framework,” in the schools. Burgos was then recorded saying, “Understand a Marxist framework and you’ll understand how it’s used in education, psychology, sociology today.”
