"The Sierra Club’s board election has become a fight over not just the racial legacy of its founder but also the future of the club’s structure and mission."
"The intense internal conflicts that have roiled the Sierra Club for the better part of a year will come to a head April 27, when the organization’s roughly 780,000 members finish voting for five candidates to sit on its 15-person board. The election features a group of insurgent petition candidates vying against a slate the majority of the current board supports in a fight over the future of America’s most iconic environmental organization.
The four petition candidates, who had to gather signatures to get on the ballot, are running on a platform to “save the Sierra Club” from a board that they contend has engaged in “top-down,” “ideologically-driven” governance, while “censoring and silencing” the club’s grassroots volunteers.
Six board-backed candidates, running as the “Forward Sierra” slate, say that their opponents are intent on reversing or slowing “many of the critical efforts underway to make us a stronger, more unified and more inclusive organization.” Both sides describe the election as the most important in years.
The vote comes in the wake of a series of controversies over race and identity, workplace culture, organizational structure and the legacy of the organization’s founder, John Muir, a longtime symbol of the environmental movement."
Advertisement 
