Lambda Legal, Which Won Key Court Victories For Marriage Equality, Is In Crisis
Lambda Legal, the impact litigation group that has played a key role in nearly every Supreme Court case advancing LGBTQ rights, is mired in chaos.
The 45-year-old organization has lost about half its staff since 2016, when a new CEO, Rachel Tiven, initiated an acrimonious shakeup, deep cuts to employee benefits and a messy fight over Lambda’s tactics, priorities and limitations. The group’s caseload was roughly 150 lawsuits in mid-2016; today, it’s about half that. Lambda enlisted a law firm known for its work on “union avoidance” to negotiate with a newly formed employee union. It has not resolved long-standing issues of racial equity, and its health insurance plan does not adequately cover transition-related health care — a potential violation of the law over which Lambda frequently sues other companies.
On Aug. 3, after more than 60 employees, former employees, funders and former board members took the extraordinary step of signing a letter of no confidence, Tiven announced her resignation.
Lambda’s board named an interim CEO last week, but the conflicts Tiven presided over are still raging, with some groups of staffers barely speaking to each other. They remain split by arguments that Lambda is an inadequate ally of marginalized LGBTQ people, or catastrophically resistant to necessary change, or cavalier about the needs of its long-suffering staff.
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They better get their shit together!
