Bias training turns co-workers on each other. We won’t do that in Tarrant County | Opinion

The Tarrant County Commissioners Court recently voted to make a series of human resource trainings optional, rolling back the mandate for all county employees to take them that was instituted in December 2021.

Before becoming county judge, I was a business owner and an employer. I recognize there is valuable information in some of these trainings, but I have significant concerns with requiring so-called “unconscious bias” training of all county employees.

Do you treat people kindly and respectfully at work? Do you have a reputation of being a fair and conscientious co-worker? Do you judge people on their merits and the quality of their character and work product?

Apparently, none of that matters. According to the concept of “unconscious bias,” you are still riddled with prejudice towards others based on their gender, race, religion, age, weight and height, along with a seemingly never-ending list of social, biological and cultural differences.

And best of all, you don’t even know it. It’s “unconsciously” affecting you and your actions.

Officials at the University of California-San Francisco (which seems like a poor place

to find a definition) describe “unconscious bias” as “social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness.” They go on to argue: “Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups.”

Everyone? Really?

I wholeheartedly reject the notion of “unconscious bias.” And I believe that accusing every single person who works for Tarrant County of containing disdain for their co-workers at an unconscious level is corrosive and destructive to our workforce.

At a time when our nation is deeply divided, brow-beating our employees with accusations about their innermost feelings is both counterproductive and sows actual discord and resentment amongst them.

For too long, business owners, agency heads and government executives have allowed their organizations to be politicized through the human resources department, which has unfortunately become the entry point for divisive ideologies on race, gender and more.

It’s time to push back.

The culture of every institution is vital to its success and the success of its people. We need leaders in government and business, now more than ever, to step up and declare that what is actually going on in our H.R. departments is cultural and worldview indoctrination.

Where are the leaders with the courage to stand up to this nonsense?

I am proud that such leaders exist on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court because it took courage to set an example for executives across the private and public sectors.

While most reasonable people know that accusing your entire workforce of contempt for one another is harmful, adherents of such training utilize the spirit of fear to achieve their goals of worldview indoctrination.

For example, before our vote, we heard that removing the mandate could open the county up to litigation or Equal Employment Opportunity complaints.

The people who want to subject you to “unconscious bias” training use doomsday scenarios to apply pressure that force organizations to do the “safe” thing against their own judgment and convictions.

The threat of lawsuits and government complaints is typically enough to make decision-makers blink in the face of true leadership and action.

Well, we are not deterred or afraid in Tarrant County. We will not do the “safe” thing; we will do the right thing.

A conversation is happening across the state right now on what is occurring in the H.R. departments of our businesses, governments, colleges and more.

You’re seeing the reasonable people who have had enough finally stand up to the spirit of fear.

Let’s stop pitting our employees against one another and end the indoctrination of our workforce.

If we did it here, your organization can, too.

Tim O’Hare, a Republican, is Tarrant County judge.