DALLAS — The Dallas Arboretum will begin a search for a new president and CEO soon as their current one has announced she will be retiring in the next year.
Mary Brinegar has served as President and CEO of the organization for the past 27 years. She will continue to remain active until her successor is named, the organization stated, and a committee will be formed to perform a national search.
The announcement of her retirement comes after allegations of LGBTQ discrimination by previous employees of the arboretum and an announcement by the board to review the organization's work culture.
Brinegar's resignation letter to the Dallas Arboretum Chairman Jim Ryan stated they first began planning for the time she would step away from the organization more than two years ago.
"This would give me time to offload more of my duties and make sure all our departmental leadership was in steady hands," Brinegar wrote. "It was so important to all of us that nothing happen to the stability of the garden."
Ryan said also in a statement that Brinegar had told him and others more than two years ago that she was planning to retire.
"She stayed through the pandemic and its financial challenges, all the while strengthening her internal team to provide outstanding support for an incoming CEO," Ryan stated. "I want to thank Mary for her dedication to the Dallas Arboretum and the City of Dallas and for all she’s done over the past 27 years to make the Arboretum the jewel of the city."
Ryan added that Brinegar gave the majority of her work life to the arboretum and that it is one of the country's top botanical gardens due to her efforts.
But at least four employees have filed equal opportunity complaints against the arboretum in the past year, including allegations of management fostering a culture of discrimination around gender identity and sexuality.
Two employees interviewed said they believe more must be done at the arboretum to create an inclusive environment -- such as holding leadership more accountable.
One former employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity because their family isn’t aware of their non-binary gender identity, filed their complaint in late November of last year, alleging that, despite strong job performance, they were fired over disputes about using gender-inclusive pronouns in their email signatures and at work.
The arboretum, the former employee said, was also the first workplace where they felt comfortable enough to come out to co-workers. But they said that, after they were promoted to a managerial role and interactions with upper management became more common, they began to experience direct discrimination relating to their gender.
"I kept getting pushback -- it felt like every step of the way -- once I started having to interact with upper-level management," they said. "And that’s when the problems started."
In fall of 2020, the former employee began putting their preferred pronouns of she/her and they/them in their email signature. Soon after, a manager sent a letter to employees saying that they all needed to use the standard Dallas Arboretum in their email signatures, and that pronouns were not allowed in that context.
The former employee said other workers, including Dallas Arboretum leadership, continued to use quotes and bible verse in signatures -- additions not in line with the standard signature, the employee said. So, in turn, they continued to use their pronouns in signatures on emails to external clients.
"I will admit that I didn’t tell them I was doing it," the former employee said. "But I was doing it for reasons that were very, very, deeply personal and important to me -- because being misgendered is so harmful. It’s like a wound that keeps getting picked at."
The former employee and other coworkers of theirs also began wearing pronouns pins -- after which they say they began to be disciplined for issues that hadn’t been brought up before. Eventually, the former employee's complaint reads, the staff was told during a meeting with managers that "the arboretum is a 'conservative institution,'" and that its staff "could not 'promote an agenda.'"
In late June, the arboretum announced a list of actions they plan to take to review work culture and change several policies, including hiring an HR consulting firm.
"The Arboretum strives to improve and to be an outstanding example of inclusiveness,” Ryan said in a letter. “The recent claims have caused the organization to take steps over the past months to examine and improve its policies, procedures, practices and culture so that the organization can undergo institutional change and ensure that all of its constituents are heard and welcome.”
During Brinegar's tenure at the organization, the garden developed 60% of its property and reworked the original garden in place. There were also numerous additions and renovations to the arboretum she oversaw, such as the addition of the Trammell Crow Visitor Education Pavilion, the Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden and the Nancy Clements Seay Magnolia Glade.