It’s hard for a non-profit helping those suffering from a terrible illness to build bad will, but the MS Society has managed to pull the trick. A 90-year-old woman has been fired from her volunteer position of 60 years after being confused when a staffer from the society demanded that she acknowledge her “pronouns.”
Confused because she’s 90 and disabled, Fran Itkoff tried to get clarification, but that went too far for the sensitive staffer.
The Washington Examiner reports that Fran’s simple question had the DEI Police sicced on her.
When Itkoff was allegedly asked by an unnamed worker at the nonprofit group to use her pronouns, the 90-year-old woman said that she did not understand the request.
“I had seen it on a couple of letters that had come in after the person’s name. But I didn’t know what it meant,” she said in an interview with Libs of Tiktok’s Chaya Raichik.
“So when I finally talked to her, I asked what it meant … and she said that meant they were all-inclusive, which didn’t make sense to me,” she added. “Because it sounds like you are labeling for females, not males, if you are just putting in she/her.”
Following the conversation, she received an email a few days later explaining that she had violated the MS Society’s diversity, equity, and inclusion guidelines.
“We appreciate your dedication and contribution as a Self-Help Group Leader with our organization. As we discussed earlier during a phone conversation, after a thorough review of our guidelines and standards, it has come to our attention that there has been a failure to abide by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guidelines during your time as a volunteer,” the email to Itkoff read.
She was fired fired on the spot.
“I was completely shocked as I read that,” Itkoff said when she read the letter. “I couldn’t believe that, I had to read it a couple times to see if I’m getting what she said.”
“Itkoff’s family has won several awards for her work with the MS society including her own Volunteer Lifetime Achievement award in 2008.
Itkoff’s husband was flown out to the White House to meet President Jimmy Carter while he was still in office after he won the National MS Father of the Year,” according to The New York Post.
Fran’s daughter said, “It’s sad that they’re discriminating against her. MS doesn’t discriminate, it can happen to anybody, and yet they’re discriminating against her trying to help just because she asked a question to explain what pronouns were.”
She also expressed anger that the MS Society doesn’t appear focused on defeating the terrible illness. “I don’t know what’s worse, if the MS society is focusing on these words and these pronouns and they’ve lost their focus on finding a cure for MS and helping the patients,” Hamilton continued.
The MS Society defended its actions.
“Recently, a volunteer, Fran Itkoff, was asked to step away from her role because of statements that were viewed as not aligning with our policy of inclusion,'” the non-profit said in a statement.
“Fran has been a valued member of our volunteer team for more than 60 years. We believe that our staff acted with the best of intentions and did their best to navigate a challenging issue.
‘As an organization, we are in a continued conversation about assuring that our diversity, equity and inclusion policies evolve in service of our mission, and will reach out to Fran in service of this goal.”
NON PROFITS= WOKE
DONT DONATE
Volunteers should all quit volunteering see where the MS Corp goes for volunteers. It’s true that these organizations are more interested in their DI garbage versus helping those that really need it. If it were up to me I’d tell those MS people to lump it!
DEI is a cancer…and, society is sick!
How far do we go? Will we allow our most basic
behaviors to be altered this way? When do
WE STOP THIS?