MS Society, whose goal was supposedly to help those suffering from multiple sclerosis, made the odd decision to become political lately, and started pushing bizarre DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) messaging.
Now they're in a whole heap of controversy, after they fired a 90-year-old woman named Fran, who had been volunteering at MS Society since the early 1960s. What did Fran do? She said that she didn't understand people selecting their own pronouns, and that it didn't make sense to her.
In mid-January, Fran received an obnoxious email telling her to stay away in the future.
On February 8, highly viewed conservative Twitter account "Libs of Tiktok" exposed this, resulting in lots of panic on the part of MS Society leaders, and the abrupt decision by its longtime President to "retire later this year".
Here's the progression....
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1755722713069494774
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1757831067762110604
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1757947172216041735
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1758187593907519614
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1758240429353714020
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1758287651248226544
https://twitter.com/mssociety/status/1758234953865626090
A Statement from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society
February 15, 2024
For more than 75 years, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has advanced one bold vision—a world free of MS. Through thousands of volunteers, dedicated staff, and generous donors, we live that vision every day. We welcome anyone to join us to advance that mission. As an organization, we firmly believe that we best serve and support those living with MS by creating a space that welcomes all. This is especially true for self-help group leaders, who are responsible for leading meetings for people affected by MS to confide in and support one another. 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. 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.
Cliffs:
- MS Society coldly fires a 90-year-old volunteer who had helped them for over 60 years, due to not understanding personal pronuns
- MS Society gets blown up for this on Twitter by Libs of Tiktok
- MS Society President abruptly announces she is retiring later this year.
- MS Society keeps defending their actions, getting everyone on Twitter more pissed.
- MS Society puts out an ambiguous statement that they will "reach out to Fran" in service of their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals
- MS Society scrubs their board member page, in order to hide the names of everyone responsible for all of the above
How exactly does DEI work its way into a medical advocacy organization?
This is why you can't trust liberals to run anything these days. No matter how apolitical the organization, they find a way to insert their propaganda, and divert attention away from what really matters.
The MS Society should work to cure or lessen the effects of MS. That's it. No DEI or political bullshit. Why is that so tough?