Top Oregon official placed on leave for allegedly prioritizing “qualified” applicants over “gender identity.”

Megan Donecker, who formerly served as the Oregon Department of Forestry's DEI strategy officer, complained about the agency's management and criticized her boss, Mike Shaw, for “looking beyond gender and identity when hiring and only seeking candidates who are… are best qualified for the position,” OregonLive reported.

Shaw served as the agency's deputy under State Forester Cal Mukumoto until he was placed on administrative leave on Aug. 6 after Donecker filed a formal complaint against him, the Daily Mail reported.

View of Mt. Hood National Forest, a mountain and river wilderness area just an hour and a half drive from the city of Portland, taken on September 29, 2020 in Oregon. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images) ((Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images))

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Donecker reportedly first ran afoul of Shaw when he advocated for a cautious approach to DEI, comparing rapid changes to speeding on “an icy road.” She claimed that Shaw was warning with this metaphor: “We're not going out of the gate at 60 miles an hour or the car will crash.”

She also reportedly claimed that six queer employees didn't “feel safe or comfortable” at work because they couldn't “converse using pronouns” and referred to the department as a “boys' club,” the Daily Mail reported, citing the formal complaint received by OregonLive.

While the Oregon Department of Forestry did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment, it did respond to recent criticism of its agency, emphasizing that leadership “takes employee complaints and concerns seriously and, when brought to our attention, ensures that they are processed in accordance with state laws, rules, policies and HR best practices. This also includes protecting employees from retaliation.”

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Oregon State Capitol Building. (Getty Images)

State Forester Mukumoto added, “Providing a safe, diverse and inclusive workplace is a shared core value and priority of both the Department and the Board of Forestry.”

According to the Daily Mail, the pink-haired, tattooed Salem resident has left the department and is now working as a DEI consultant. She reportedly describes herself as an “accomplice of marginalized communities,” the media reported.

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OregonLive summarized that the department's leadership has a significant impact on the state.

“The Forest Department is tasked with protecting approximately 16 million acres of public and private forest lands and serves as Oregon’s largest fire department,” wrote local reporter Noelle Crombie. “It is overseen by Mukumoto, who reports to the Oregon Board of Forestry, a seven-member citizen board appointed by the governor. Mukumoto, who was appointed in 2021, leads an agency with nearly 1,400 employees and a two-year budget of about $577 million. His salary is $237,288.

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Following the political unrest in response to the killing of George Floyd in 2020, Oregon broadly implemented DEI initiatives, resulting in racial justice protests that swept across the country—and raged in nearby Portland for more than 100 consecutive nights.

But residents have slowly begun to fight back. Clackamas County in Oregon announced in January that it would eliminate its nearly $830,000-a-year Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, calling it an “unnecessary expense” that “only fuels tensions.”