PageOneQ, via an on-line messaging service, received a tip from a political activist who was considering applying for a job at the organization. The DCCC is the Democratic Party's ‘527’ fundraising arm for Congressional House Races. (527 groups are named after the section of the IRS code under which they are established.)

The activist, who asked not to be identified by name because of his intent to apply to groups named in this article, shared the information with PageOneQ Monday afternoon. In this graphic of the chat PageOneQ and the activist are represented by ‘m’ and ‘s’ respectively:

Bill Burton, a spokesman for the DCCC told PageOneQ that the policy included sexual orientation and that its absence on the website was an error. A return visit to the website revealed that the policy had not been corrected, but completely removed from the site.

Here is a capture of the policy made by PageOneQ before its removal yesterday:

Here is a capture of the same web page after the job listings and policy were removed:

In the call with PageOneQ, Mr. Burton read what he said was the policy: “All applications will be considered without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, sex, including marital or parental status, disability or age.” The one difference between Mr. Burton’s version of the policy and the now-removed website version was the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation.’

After verifying two additional times with Mr. Burton that the policy was exactly as he was quoted above, PageOneQ conducted an informal assessment of non-discrimination policies. A random web search of twenty companies, educational institutions and non-profit organizations revealed that if Mr. Burton’s statements are correct, the DCCC would be unique in listing ‘sexual orientation’ before ‘sex’ in its non discrimination policy. (A list of the twenty sites and the methodology used for their selection follows this article.)

Other Political Organizations

PageOneQ contacted the other national political organizations, representing both parties, requesting a copy of the group's non-discrimination policy if one existed.

Karl Frisch, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee told PageOneQ that a copy of the policy would be provided by the end of the day Tuesday. As of the publishing of this article, 11:00 am Wednesday, Mr. Frisch has not provided the policy. An email request of the DSCC for information by PageOneQ intern/researcher William Navarro went unanswered.

Spokesmen for both the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governor’s Association confirmed the inclusion of sexual orientation in their policies and provided written copies to PageOneQ. Neither organization, however, lists the policy on their website.

PageOneQ contacted the Republican National Committee (RNC) to inquire as to whether the party had a non-discrimination policy for hiring and if they did to obtain a copy. PageOneQ was requested to fax the request by and to Cathy Secor at the RNC. When contacted by PageOneQ to follow-up on the faxed request, Ms. Secor hung up the phone on the PageOneQ reporter.

Carl Forti, Director of Communications of the National Republican Congressional Committee told PageOneQ, “I will not tell you if there is a non discrimination policy here and if there is one I would not send it to you as it would be an internal policy.” When asked what good the policy was if perspective job applicants could not find it, Mr. Forti responded, “I am not going to discuss that with you.”

A message left at the National Republican Senatorial Committee went unreturned. Caitlin Miller, executive assistant to Charlie Spies, the General Counsel and Chief Financial officer of the Republican Governor's Association, told PageOneQ that an answer to PageOneQ's inquiry would come by the end of the day today. {This story will be updated upon receiving their response.)

'Is this about advertising?'

Perhaps in an effort to deflect attention from the question at hand, Mr. Burton, the spokesman for the DCCC, asked this reporter if this "is even a story or if it had more to do with the DCCC not advertising on your site?"

Mr. Burton was referring to a conversation between this reporter (and publisher of PageOneQ) with Jesse Lee (right), on-line editor for the DCCC. In that conversation, held on Tuesday, October 4, 2005, Mr. Lee was asked about DCCC advertising on a variety of websites, including PageOneQ. In that call, Mr. Lee asserted that the DCCC would not take ads on sites that, in his words, "link to outing stories." A review of DCCC web advertising shows that the group has purchased ads on numerous sites which have linked to what the DCCC calls "outing stories," including DailyKos and Atrios.

On the same call PageOneQ also inquired of the DCCC why their blog advertising program includes no LGBT blogs, when LGBT support for Democratic House candidates is as high as 85%. PageOneQ never received a response to that inquiry.

Methodology for policy analysis

For the research cited above, PageOneQ entered a Google search of "non discrimination sexual orientation" and, beginning with the top search return went to each site until twenty sites resulted in a policy that included both 'sex' and 'sexual orientation.' Of the first twenty policies found with both terms, none had 'sexual orienation' listed before 'sex.' the sites are:

http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/campusenviron/non-discrimination/REG04.25.3.php http://www.utsystem.edu/ohr/policies/EEO.pdf http://www.washington.edu/admin/eoo/hbVol-IVNon-discr.html http://hr.osu.edu/policy/policy110.pdf http://www.unc.edu/campus/policies/nondiscrim.html http://www.virginia.edu/eop/policies.html http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/s.70A/701OB?navtype=FT&navid=NONDISCRIMINATION http://www.purdue.edu/Purdue/nondiscrimination/ http://www.evergreen.edu/policies/g-nondiscr.htm http://web.mit.edu/referencepubs/nondiscrimination/ http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/mapp/section1/mapp135.pdf http://www.mnscu.edu/board/policy/1b01.html http://web.arizona.edu/~policy/nondiscrim.shtml http://www.maricopa.edu/eeo/nondispol.php http://www.law.villanova.edu/studentservices/careerstrategy/nondiscriminationpolicy.asp http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/affirmaction/non-discrim.html http://www.sandiego.edu/nondiscrimination/ http://www.ucop.edu/atyourservice/employees/policies/staffpolicies/spp12.html http://www.law.case.edu/careers/employers/content.asp?id=142 http://www.sfsu.edu/~hrwww/emprelations/hrDirectives/P001.html