Williams: What did you do after George Floyd's death? The head of the ACLU of Virginia decided to resign to make room for others -- and herself

But Claire Guthrie Gastañaga is resigning as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, effective March 31 — her announcement timed to avoid the impression that her departure was influenced by the outcome of the upcoming election.

Her decision was guided more by events in the recent past — namely, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her letter to ACLU of Virginia Board President Stephen Levinson reads more like a call to action — to herself and others — than a farewell.

She is stepping down to make room for others, and for herself.

“I have been thinking a lot about ‘retiring’ as Executive Director since last June when Alexis Ohanian announced his resignation from the board of the company he founded, Reddit, as an answer to the question his daughter might ask following George Floyd’s murder, ‘what did you do?’” Gastañaga wrote.

“Ohanian said he was resigning from the board to make room for a Black director. He said he believed ‘resignation can actually be an act of leadership from people in power right now.’”

The idea is simple — racial, ethnic, gender and generational empowerment won’t happen by inertia — but it stopped me in my tracks. We’ve been conditioned in our society to view resignation as tantamount to surrender. We are taught that power and position are to be desired, attained and clung to. More recently, in right-wing politics, you might add “at all costs.”

As our nation teeters on the brink of chaos, it clearly is time to toss outmoded ideas in the trash bin.

“I think ‘leadership by resignation’ can be an effective form of leadership when the leader is modeling responsible and caring succession planning for the organization and thoughtful transition planning for themselves and their family,” said Gill Robinson Hickman, an emerita professor of leadership studies at the University of Richmond and co-author (with Laura Knouse) of “When Leaders Face Personal Crisis: The Human Side of Leadership.”

“Second, this form of leadership can become a teaching moment for the organization and society when leaders help others to understand the ways in which the organization needs to change for the better,” Hickman said.

Gastañaga, in her letter, said the September death of Ginsburg compelled her to consider further whether it was time to step aside and make room for the next generation of leadership.

It’s a question that, frankly, needs broader consideration as we vote for one of two septuagenarians candidates for president, leaving the next generation relatively voiceless in shaping the future it will inhabit.

Every organization has internal pressures that most of us are not privy to. But the leadership of the ACLU of Virginia has been remarkably stable. Over my nearly four decades as a journalist, it has had three executive directors: Chan Kendrick, Kent Willis and Gastañaga, who has headed the organization since 2012.

Stability can be comforting. But leaders with different backgrounds and perspectives are essential to the adaptability of an organization, particularly during volatile times. The ACLU staff that Gastañaga heads is larger, more diverse, more resourced and more technologically savvy than the one she inherited. It also has a more sympathetic state legislature.

But Gastañaga longed to be untethered by an organizational brand, free to set her own agenda and to be politically active.

“I want to spend my ‘retirement’ and the time I have left helping to make sure that Virginia is a place where all of my extended family (most of whom now live here) will be safe and welcome and where all of my friends feel valued and loved for who they are,” she wrote.

She will continue to look for opportunities to push Virginia away from its racially unjust history, to assure racial justice at the ballot box and in the criminal justice system, to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, and to erase barriers to people’s access to abortion and basic reproductive health care, she said.

“In a very real respect, I will not be leaving the work, just the workplace and the position of power I am holding.”

Plenty of work remains. As we confront systems of inequality, we need to engage in a similar self-assessment, examining the extent that the desire to hold power perpetuates the relative lack of power of the people we’re trying to help.

We need to explore the possibility of leading by letting go.