Academic Year 2019-20

· Fall 2019 · 

Elias

"LGBTQ+ Civil Rights: Local Government Efforts in a Volatile Era"

Nicole M. Elias, Ph.D

Friday, November 15th, 2019 • Noon to 1:15pm, 3911 Posvar Hall

Nicole M. Elias is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY and Co-Director of Women in the Public Sector at John Jay College. Dr. Elias earned her MPA and Ph.D. in Public Administration and Affairs from the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech. While at Virginia Tech, she also received the Women's and Gender Studies Graduate Certificate and served as managing editor of Administration & Society  for three years. Her research focuses on social equity in public administration and policy, with an emphasis on the ethics of administration, management of human resources in public organizations, and public policy impacts on different populations. She regularly collaborates with practitioners in government agencies and nonprofit organizations. She is a Research Fellow with the U.S. Department of Defense's Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) and Research Partner with the New York City Commission on Gender Equity. Dr. Elias held a Research Fellowship at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Office and served as the Lead Faculty Advisor to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on the 2016 Government-wide Inclusive Diversity Strategic Plan. She is the winner of the 2019 Audre Lorde Award for Social Justice and co-recipient of the 2018-19 Inaugural Presidential Student-Faculty Research Collaboration Award for her work examining gender equity in municipalities. Dr. Elias is the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters, government reports, and practitioner training modules on sexual orientation, gender identity, and means of fostering greater representation and inclusion in public service. Her recent work appears in Administrative Theory & Praxis and Teaching Public Administration. Dr. Elias is the co-editor of a special issue symposium on the future of women in public administration appearing in Administration & Society. Her current research projects include two co-edited books: Ethics for Contemporary Bureaucrats: Navigating Constitutional Crossroads, to be published in 2020 and Handbook of Gender and Public Administration, to be published in 2021.

Abstract:
LGBTQ+ issues in local governance pose some of the most pressing civil rights challenges in the current U.S. context. This analysis provides insight into what is taking place in major municipalities and how these efforts can be improved to bolster equity for LGBTQ+ populations. At a time when identity, language, and public sector values are inherently intertwined and constantly changing, the following question is ripe for analysis: how are major U.S. municipalities addressing the civil rights needs of the LGBTQ+ population? To answer this question, an analysis of government websites from the top ten U.S. cities by population is conducted, examining the policies, programs, and services municipalities offer LGBTQ+ constituents and the language used to frame these policies, programs, and services as expressions of power, representations of identity, and the website presentation, itself. The goal of this research is to produce a rich, qualitative analysis of public-facing web content to inform future research and practice.