One of the things about challenging the status quo is that the status quo never likes it very much. Sometimes the stakes are high enough, though, when the repression of ideas and people is severe, that making the challenge is worth every possible risk. I know that in my life I have at various times and in various hostile academic or work environments waited for someone to swoop in and save the situation, someone to put a check on a bully or to resolve significant workplace conflict. I have waited for someone with more authority, with more wisdom, with a different perspective, someone with more experience; someone with a calm demeanor, someone with a greater facility with speech, someone who would know the right words, someone with more influence, someone more senior….someone more than what I believed myself to be.

Now, as Vice President to the House of Deputies, I find that I am in a position where I am that person – I am the one that is in the best position to address a problem which no one feels able to do or say anything about.

I am sharing with you today that, from the fall of 2022 onwards, I’ve been asked to rescue situations and people from the impact of our current President of the House of Deputies. I was initially also expected by the President to protect her from those she perceived as threats to her.

While triangulation is a normal phenomenon, it is how we respond to it when it happens that makes the difference between healthy and unhealthy corporate environments. I know that authority can be used to either empower or manipulate people and situations. Early on in my tenure as vice president, I had a sincere desire to be supportive and felt protective of the President. However, it didn’t take long for me to recognize that I was expected to act co-dependently (framed as loyalty and gratitude) by defending/protecting her from people that she perceived as threatening or “evil”. In my view, the dynamic enabled by those closest to her (and I was one who contributed to this in the beginning) cultivates an “us v. them” mentality creating a barrier to effective communication and collaborative work.

This is not how healthy relationships are built. Leaders must talk directly with people and not just about them. After separate conversations with some of those whom the President perceived as threats, I recognized the mischaracterizations of people and situations taking place. There is no threat to the President that she has not created herself by not having the capacity for establishing and modeling healthy and mature organizational relationships.

It came as no surprise to me that I found myself on the President’s perceived threat list early on in our tenure together.  I had shared my concerns about the process used to select and hire the interim Chief Operating Officer (a very public issue that was covered by the Episcopal News Service) I shared my own concerns through my personal blog.

It is clear to me that my perceived threat to her was compounded by my several-months-long inquiries regarding the progress of appointments in establishing two committees mandated by resolutions (one from Executive Council and the other from General Convention) for research on Indigenous Boarding Schools. The President has indicated that her office has no record of my communications. However, I have all the records of my multiple communications with the President, as well as the records of her responses to my inquiries.

This is how this situation related to the boarding schools research committee developed: Beginning in September (two months after our respective elections), I had begun to encourage the development of the two Boarding School committees. Though I appreciated that the President was still settling into the role, I was concerned that there had been no apparent movement or communication regarding the committee appointments by the time that December rolled around. Several more months went by, and time seemed to be growing short for beginning any work towards any meaningful report out that was due in the fall of 2023. I asked for any update on progress throughout the months of January to April 2023. Finally, in May – having heard nothing for five months, I simply put it out on my Facebook page that the two committees had not yet been established. It was another month before the lists were published, and the President stopped all direct communication with me though I asked through email, phone messages, texts and – through her chancellor – for the opportunity for us to talk. Though we have seen one another at various meetings, there has been no direct communication from the President to me on any topic for several months.

When The Consultation and Deputies of Color both wrote letters to the executive officers and me with their concerns about the proposed rules of order. I wrote a letter in response, supporting their concerns and adding my own. The President publicly stated that I had been uninterested in serving on the special committee on House Rules of Order. As a response to her statement, I specifically indicated on the application for serving on legislative committees that I would like to serve on the Special Committee as my first choice. Not only was I not appointed to the Special Committee, I was not appointed to any legislative committee.

The Canons of the church (Title 1, Canon 1, Section 13c) state that the Vice President of both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies are assigned to serve on the Joint Standing Committee of Planning and Arrangements for General Conventions.  Deputies need to be aware that I have been excluded from the planning for this General Convention (GC81) and have not received any notifications or invitations to participate in arrangements or planning. The one meeting of which I was a part came from the General Convention Office last year and was a meeting to approve the next site of General Convention, which will be in Arizona.

I am aware that the consequences that I have incurred for speaking out on what I believe are significant organizational concerns has resulted in marginalization and vilification. Quite unhelpfully, the press has trivialized the significant issues being raised by sensationalizing the situation as an interpersonal sniping akin to, “Oooo, look! There’s a girl’s fight in the gym!” Meanwhile, the President is using the authority and resources of her office to manipulate, intimidate, silence, mistreat, and marginalize people. I say people, because I am not alone.  For a President who claims to be dedicated to safety, I can assure you that there are those who absolutely do not feel safe – to speak truths, to share concerns, to ask for information, to hold the President accountable, to question what is going on. The additional public-facing framing that casts doubt on the validity of the organizational and leadership concerns raised is complicit in creating an atmosphere of gaslighting. The real world consequences both within and beyond the church is why very few people are willing to do any truth telling or raise flags on any problems. This is especially true when the one driving the narrative is the one with the most authority while also appearing to claim the most vulnerability.

As one of the organizationally marginalized, I find that I am in very good company. Therefore, I write on behalf of those whose voices have been alienated, who have been excluded from legislative committee assignments; who are exiled from tables of privilege, who are not included in decision making, who are vilified for raising concerns no matter how our concerns are raised, and who are trying very hard to bring these and more significant organizational issues to the attention of all. We do not have a President who is able to accept responsibility for her actions and role in organizational dysfunction through an ongoing pattern of obfuscation and misdirection, blaming and shaming others who have nothing to do with the accountability of her office. Over the past two years, the President has journeyed to this General Convention on a veritable corduroy road of people that she has thrown under the bus.

Finally, to be very clear – as stated in my original announcement – being elected President is not what I am seeking. The salary that press articles keep noting again and again is not what I am seeking. I am seeking a healthy church with healthy leaders who don’t hurt people by their own insecurities, ineptitudes, and inexperience. Please give that to me and to us all. We deserve better.

The Rev. Rachel K. Taber-Hamilton, Vice President of the House of Deputies of The General Convention of The Episcopal Church

Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church, Everett WA, Episcopal Diocese of Olympia