PRSA Cartel Demanded Illegal No-“White Man” CEO Litmus Test
PRSA's PR Cartel banned any "white man" hired as CEO (an EEOC violation), then broke its own ethics code to strong-arm DEI discrimination.
NOTE: All e-mails and records cited in this blog post were legally obtained via FOIA.
In late 2019, the PR trade association, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), faced a leadership crisis.
PRSA’s CEO abruptly jumped ship from PRSA in July 2019, some six months prior to the end of his contract. A few months later, 2019 PRSA Chair Elect Garland Stansell stood before PRSA’s Assembly in San Diego and claimed the new CEO Search had merely been paused because the holidays were coming up and no one looks for jobs then:
Of course, this claim was laughable false. The real problem was that PRSA was in an unexplained financial jam.
Seven months later, in April 2020, PRSA’s then-National Chair-Elect Michelle Olson circulated amongst PRSA governance board members and other third parties a document entitled,
“PRSA HR Comm Top Qualities in a CEO“
The document listed two buckets of potential PRSA CEO qualities they sought to use, for gauging new-hire vetting processes:
1) “What we want in a CEO” and
2) “What we don’t want in a CEO”
Listed under PRSA’s apparent naughty list of qualities “we don’t want,” PRSA stupidly and illegally listed “White man” as a CEO hiring no-no.
PRSA thus triggered U.S. EEOC violations for hiring discrimination on the basis of race AND gender — two federally protected classes of U.S. citizen against which it is illegal for PRSA to discriminate.
In her e-mail that distributed this no-“white man” mandate, Michelle Olson wrote about the genesis of this tainted document:
“Garland sent a document a few weeks ago, which was the culmination of last year’s board brainstorming what we think PRSA needs in a CEO. I had sent the original job description from Russell Watson for the executive search. Both are attached for easy reference. Please review before our call, or review again if you did so weeks ago. Our world has been rocked and you may need a refresher!“
The 2020 PRSA National Chair / “Christ follower” and white man from Alabama, Garland Stansell, apparently had his own eyes and hands all over this tainted no-“white man” list, too.
For years, Stansell has “protected” his tweets, so that very few people could see them. HIs tweets were on “protected” status in 2020, when this screen shot was taken, even as he then sat as Chair of the U.S.’s primary trade association for communication professionals who advocate for “transparency.“
But that’s not all.
Olson’s e-mail also documents that the entire 2019 Board not only had seen this no-white-man PRSA document but also had helped create / “brainstorm” it.
As such, clearly, PRSA’s board was so partisan / leftist and one-sided politically even back then, that no one bothered to raise their hand during the Board meeting that manifested these massive EEOC violations, to say:
“Uh…Hey, Folks. It’s illegal for us to discriminate on the basis of race or sex for personnel decisions. And Uh. Yeah… Hey, Folks… It’s also monumentally brain-dead of us to actually document our illegal discrimination in writing, in a PRSA HR working document that may be e-mailed all over the place and subject to federal subpoena later, including to PRSA Board members who we know have discoverable government e-mail servers funded by taxpayer dollars.”
But no one said that. Or, if they did, no one acted on it.
Consequently, Michelle Olson of Lambert sent the no-white-man directive all over the place — and didn’t think twice about it.
Ironically, PRSA 2020 Chair Garland Stansell also thought nothing of it, even though he himself is of the apparently feared and loathed “white man” class.
(Although, to be fair, Stansell also has been commended for other qualities — such as a “calming Southern voice”)… <cringe!>
University of Florida alumnus Joseph Abreu ultimately would be nominated up the chain of future PRSA leadership, with Stansell chairing Nominations with his “calming Southern voice.”
Stansell’s PRSA Board colleague — co-white Michelle Olson — later went to great pains in 2020, to point out in other emails tied to this CEO search process, all the racial / ethnic / gender orientation “credentials” PRSA had summoned up for her Search Committee, in charge of hiring a PRSA CEO who hopefully would not prove to be a total moron.
And just a footnote to PRSA Cartel members such as University of Florida PRSA “Gator Mafia” Past PRSA National Chairs, who received PRSA’s Gold Anvil from other PRSA Cartel members after having been placed under “investigation” by their own employers…
PRSA lost $1.46 million in member dollars in 2020.
This was no “fantastic year” in 2020, nor could it have ever been projected to be in October 2020, by any village idiot on PRSA’s 2020 CEO Search Committee.
Yet this fantastical proposition is precisely what was conjured up by PRSA Past Chair Rosanna Fiske in her Oct. 20, 2020 e-mail to the full CEO Search Committee.
Fiske was then employed at the ethically-embattled Wells Fargo, in the bank’s ethically jacked-up PR department.
Fiske suggested — in writing — an egregiously false and misleading statement about PRSA having a “fantastic year” and “financial position” with a “handsome surplus” should be interjected directly into PRSA CEO job interview questions.
No doubt, Fiske’s false framing seemed intended to help mislead unsuspecting job applicants external to PRSA into thinking PRSA’s finances were stable, when they most certainly were NOT.
For his part, white-man “Christ Follower” Garland Stansell replied to Fiske’s absurd CEO interview question posturing, without even a smidgeon of clarity that — NO! — PRSA was NOT set up for a “fantastic year” in 2020, so no one should ask such a CEO interview question with such egregiously false suppositions and framing.
Instead, shite-man Stansell replied to the full CEO Search Committee, with this perfunctory reply of implied agreement to Fiske’s own shite question-guidance:
PRSA went on to register a $1.46 million loss of member dollars for 2020, due to Garland Stansell’s and his board’s and CFO Philip Bonaventura’s ineptitude.
CEO Linda Thomas Brooks apparently wasn’t clued-in on this bloodbath of red ink, until well after she had committed to the job and already was in post.
This IRS 990 was not filed by CFO Philip Bonaventura — who applied for the CEO job, too, but was rejected — until October 2021, 10 months after Linda Thomas Brooks had long been on staff.
Since pre-pandemic, incompetent PRSA leaders / staff have lost some $2.5 million net in PRSA member dollars, even though running known deficits is a violation of PRSA’s own written financial policies.
Turns out, being PRSA’s “first Latina PRSA Chair” doesn’t equate automatically to being competent or ethical or simply a decent human.
Very shortly after Fiske sent the above February 2021 email bemoaning that she herself was “under investigation” at Wells Fargo to her fellow PRSA Cartel collusion participants with Syracuse University / University of Florida / Wells Fargo ties, Fiske was no longer employed at Wells Fargo.
Maybe that’s because Fiske’s own misconduct was too much even for the ethically rotten Wells Fargo to stomach…
Based on appearances here, that’s saying something!
Mid-way through the PRSA CEO selection process, Michelle Olson had to stop chairing the committee, because one of her own clients who also was a past PRSA Board member himself had decided to throw his hat into the ring as a job candidate (GO FIGURE!) .
He ended up getting the highest scores by the CEO Search Committee, but alas, he was a white man, too.
The future 2023 PRSA Chair Michelle Egan stepped in to finish the job, in Olson’s place.
Garland Stansell sent this secret e-mail to the CEO Search Committee on December 3, 2020, to explain why yet another white man (Bonaventura) could not be hired and that he was opting for a white lady instead.
Only weeks later, Linda Thomas Brooks was immediately implicated by PRSA leadership in a “grievance” sham which fellow PRSA Cartel members instigated in violation of New York anti-retaliation laws.
Linda Thomas Brooks had only been on the job at PRSA a matter of days on Jan. 27, 2021… and already, she was forced to serve as party to illegal antitrust violations and collusion.
Talk about being set up to fail!
This appears to have been a PRSA Cartel-contrived bait-and-switch / Catch-22, of tricking a job candidate into a “We’re financially viable!” false bill of goods, then hanging her out to dry by forcing her to take on an illegal job assignment.
My opinion: this sham has “Omnicom” written all over it. Is it any wonder that Rosanna Fiske herself is a Ketchum (Omnicom) employment alumna?
Alongside other Omnicom employee alums in the PRSA Cartel ranks, it seems these people are trained to pull these hijinks, regardless of how ethics are violated.
This case example further proves that racial and sex-based DEI “purity” tests are farcical enterprises, usually embraced by ethically compromised teams, with their fervor on display in direct proportion with their desperation to cover up their own prior misconduct.
Mary Beth West has been an activist for nearly a decade, fighting PRSA corruption, ethics violations, and violations of state and federal law.