Complaint against Texas AG unit alleges hostility toward LGBT workers, overt politicization

A letter sent last month to the Texas attorney general's head of human resources warned that LGBTQ employees were subject to a "growing hostile work environment" inside a key division of the state agency. The letter from lawyer Jason Scully-Clemmons, sent March 3 on his last day as an assistant attorney general, said the departure of two top supervisors appeared to leave employees of the Criminal Prosecutions Division vulnerable to Attorney General Ken Paxton's "personal anti-LGBTQIA+ ideology." The letter also complained that the Criminal Prosecutions Division had become overly political after the departures of Mark Penley — who was fired as deputy attorney general for criminal justice in November 2020 after joining several other high-ranking agency officials in accusing Paxton of bribery and official misconduct — and Lisa Tanner, the division chief who left the agency Aug. 31. However, the portion of Scully-Clemmons' letter detailing his allegations of political taint was redacted by the attorney general's office, which provided the letter to the American-Statesman under the state's open record laws.

"The Criminal Prosecutions Division has become increasingly politicized in ways that are deeply problematic," the letter reads, with the next eight lines or so hidden. The next available part of the letter reads: "Furthermore, there exists a growing hostile work environment within the Criminal Prosecutions Division towards LGBTQIA+ OAG employees and their allies." Scully-Clemmons, now a lawyer in private practice in Austin, declined to discuss the letter beyond acknowledging that he sent it to Henry De La Garza, head of the agency's human resources department, on his last day after six years with the agency. In the letter, Scully-Clemmons criticized Paxton for issuing a written legal opinion in February that equated gender-affirming medical care with child abuse, saying the conclusion was "contrary to the widespread consensus of medical and child welfare experts." "It seems apparent that the presence of seasoned, ethical, career prosecutors like Mr. Penley and Ms. Tanner at the executive level were all that kept the Attorney General's personal anti-LGBTQIA+ ideology from becoming the norm in both the Criminal Prosecutions Division's mission and in its work spaces," Scully-Clemmons wrote.