Local nonprofit apparently fired longtime employee over Palestine activism

The Athens County Independent thanks the staff of the Dr. Frank Stanton First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve University School of Law for its pre-publication review of this story.

ATHENS, Ohio — Passion Works is an iconic Athens institution. The nonprofit’s colorful artworks are ubiquitous – especially its popular Passion Flowers, the official flower of the City of Athens.

The nonprofit aims to “create and support inclusive communities through individual exploration and the collaborative art process,” according to its website. It primarily focuses on providing employment opportunities “and a sense of creative purpose for people with developmental differences” while using upcycled materials, the website says.

Among the products produced by the studio are items that promote social causes. According to a former employee, such items have historically included Black Lives Matter signs, pronoun buttons, Ukraine-themed flowers that supported Athens Mayor Steve Patterson’s visit to the country, Juneteenth buttons, LGBTQ+ pride materials, and signs promoting “good trouble,” a phrase coined to emphasize peaceful civil disobedience.

Passion Works Executive Director Patty Mitchell is also personally engaged in progressive politics. The Athens County Democratic Party has made Facebook posts thanking Mitchell for at least four banners she personally created for the party, at least one of which was displayed at the party’s office on East State Street. The banners mirror the studio’s distinctive style, which multiple former Passion Works employees who spoke with the Independent described as a reflection of Mitchell’s own.

However, Mitchell has cautioned employees about their conduct in their own private lives, including their political involvement. 

“Patty feels a responsibility for our private lives and what we do out in public, because she’s concerned about how it reflects back on the studio,” Simone Villavicencio, former lead production artist at Passion Works, told the Independent. “She had said that to us in previous meetings maybe two or three times.”

The way in which the studio and its employees relate to politics created tension between staff and leadership on multiple occasions, multiple former employees told the Independent. Former longtime studio manager Nancy Epling described one incident in which employees created a banner reading “No Corporate Pride” in the Passion Works style, and management did not allow them to take it to the local pride parade.

These tensions came to a head earlier this year, when Epling was fired following accusations of religious discrimination apparently connected to her activism in support of Palestinian human rights and related statements. 

At a Dec. 10, 2024, meeting that Epling recorded and shared with the Independent, Mitchell raised two incidents she suggested might make Jewish people uncomfortable at the studio: an October 2023 conversation about Israel that Epling had with Jewish studio volunteers, and Epling’s participation in a pro-Palestinian protest at a Boeing plant in Licking County in March 2024.

“We are all very public people, and the choices we make represent ourselves and where we work,” Mitchell told Epling.

Following her termination, which was effective Jan. 3, 2025, Epling shared a public statement on social media on March 1. She said Mitchell’s stance was troubling to her in part because it felt like a double standard.

“Many conversations around world events, politics, and social justice were talked about regularly in the studio by all. Volunteers, other staff, and upper management alike,” Epling said in the statement. “Just because my politics are not the status quo shouldn’t mean that I be held to a different standard. The director makes banners for political parties and the studio has collaborated on multiple political themed products over the years. The contradictions are abundant.”

Former Passion Works production artist Charlie Touvell agreed. 

“They’re selling politics there,” Touvell told the Independent. “It’s just a matter of what politics is acceptable to sell.”

Touvell and Villavicencio resigned from the studio when they learned of Epling’s termination.

Epling’s termination letter, which she shared with the Independent, was dated Jan. 14 and came from the Passion Works chief operating officer. It states that “over the course of the last several months, The Studio has received multiple reports and concerns of instances where you questioned, challenged, and openly discussed the religious beliefs of employees and volunteers.”

“Executive members have received concerns from multiple board and community members expressing concern and not feeling comfortable working with you as the Volunteer Coordinator, due to discriminatory concerns,” the letter continues.

Epling contended in an interview with the Independent that she never engaged in discriminatory conduct. Touvell and Villavicencio said they share that perception. 

The only concerns Mitchell shared with Epling at their Dec. 2024 meeting related to Jewish identity pertained to Epling’s activism and statements at work about Israel and Palestine.

The Independent shared with Mitchell all her statements from that meeting, recorded by Epling, that are used in this story. Mitchell did not deny making any of the statements attributed to her but declined to comment on those statements.

“I’m not going to comment on being recorded without my knowledge — and it feels really uncomfortable, I have to tell you,” Mitchell told the Independent.

Under Ohio law, anyone may generally record a conversation they are a part of, regardless of whether other parties consent to being recorded.

Mitchell also declined to speak with the Independent in detail about Epling’s termination. 

“With respect to Nancy’s privacy as an HR issue, I can’t speak,” Mitchell said. “I wish her the best and I don’t know what else to say. … It’s heartbreaking.” 

Epling told the Independent that she had worked at Passion Works for over 10 years.

Discussion with volunteers

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups attacked Israel, killing almost 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others. Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, launched thereafter, has killed over 60,000 and destroyed nearly three-quarters of all the buildings in the Gaza Strip while fueling a humanitarian crisis including mass starvation and disease outbreaks.

Sometime that October, Epling overheard two Jewish studio volunteers “talking about Birthright trips, and they were talking about what was going on in the world.”

Partly funded by the Israeli government, Birthright Israel offers Jewish people expense-paid travel to Israel. Its mission, according to its website, “is to provide all young Jewish adults with opportunities for transformative and immersive shared experiences in Israel and a foundation for ongoing Jewish connection.”

Birthright Israel has been criticized as a form of Israeli state propaganda that erases the experience of Arabic Jews and Palestinians.

“I specifically remember it because it was so uncomfortable, and it was so weird to hear about people talking about their Birthright trips in the midst of seeing, literally, like, children with their heads blown off,” Epling told the Independent. “It was just such a contrast of experience.” 

At their Dec. 10 meeting, Epling told Mitchell that she said to the volunteers, “‘Well, yeah, definitely make sure you’re getting your information yourself. You’re not just, like, listening to what everybody else is saying.’”

“One of them acknowledged, ‘I know exactly what’s going on,’ and I advised them to be cautious about the sources from which they were consuming news, as I knew that much of the information surrounding the issue was being skewed,” Epling said in her March public statement.

Villavicencio said she was present when Epling spoke with the volunteers and in a February interview described a version of events that aligned with Epling’s account, adding that Epling “left it pretty neutral and open-ended.” 

The volunteers apparently felt differently — because a different perspective on the conversation made its way to the director of Ohio University Hillel, a Jewish student organization, Epling said.

Epling told the Independent that shortly after her 2023 conversation with the studio volunteers, Mitchell “pulls me into a meeting in the back room, and it’s like, ‘Well, this weekend, I had a two-hour conversation with the director of Hillel, and she said that students were talking about how, like, that you said that they shouldn’t be trusted, and that Hillel shouldn’t be trusted, and they really feel like you’re anti-Semitic.’”

“I just felt so surprised and misunderstood and just totally taken aback by it,” Epling told the Independent.

Mitchell alluded to the incident with volunteers in a discussion with the entire staff soon after it occurred, Villavicencio said.

“We had a meeting after Patty spoke with Hillel, and … Patty was just very indirect about it,” Villavicencio said. “She was like, ‘We will never make somebody feel uncomfortable to be in the space. … We need to make this a welcoming, safe environment for everyone.’”

Mitchell was raising her voice, Villvicencio said, “like she felt really upset about it. And then we kind of didn’t hear anything about it again.”

Former Passion Works production artist Charlie Touvell said he thought, at the time, that “that incident was addressed, it seemed like.”

However, Mitchell said in the Dec. 10, 2024, meeting with Epling that she’d been having continued problems as a result of the incident. 

She told Epling that she had “been getting a lot of information and feedback” from Ohio University Hillel “that there was talk at the studio to some student volunteers that discouraged interaction or participation with Hillel.”

Mitchell also said that some people affiliated with Hillel “are very anti-Passion Works now,” and that “I’ve had professors ask if Jewish students are welcome.”

“I was told that it did come from you about Hillel,” Mitchell told Epling at the meeting. 

Epling told Mitchell, “Never have I been directly like, ‘You shouldn’t go to Hillel. You shouldn’t be part of that.’” She added that she felt the nature of her conversation with volunteers had been “misconstrued.” 

“It’s like, ‘if you’re anti-Israel, if you’re anti-genocide, and [if you’re] saying critiquing anything about Israel, it makes you automatically anti-Semitic,’ which I think is disgusting, and I think it’s really unfair,” Epling told Mitchell. “I have Jewish friends; my grandpa is Jewish. I’m not anti-Semitic, and I’m not anti-Jewish. I think that … indoctrinating young people into Zionist views is really incredibly messed up.”

Mitchell told Epling, “We’re not here to debate world politics. You know, the politics that we absorb and want to shift is specific to disability rights and justice. … We’re not going to fix everybody’s problems.”

Epling contended at the meeting with Mitchell that Israel’s war on Gaza is a “mass-disabling event,” and therefore related to Passion Works’ mission.

In reply, Mitchell stressed the importance of finding “common ground.”

“It takes a lot of energy to listen and absorb and say, ‘Oh, I hope you have great trip. I hope it’s really enriching for you. I’d love to hear about what you saw when you come back.’ It does not have to spin into an opinion,” Mitchell told Epling. “And I know it’s not easy, but for a year now, I’m having conversations about that interaction.”

Mitchell told Epling that she is “pretty close with Hillel” and with Ohio University Hillel Executive Director Juli Goodman.

Hillel International has a strong relationship with Birthright Israel as part of its work “to create an enduring connection” between Jewish identity and the nation-state. 

According to Ohio University Hillel’s website, the local organization mirrors the larger organization’s commitment to Birthright and to Israel. The website says OU Hillel is dedicated in part to “Israel advocacy,” in addition to supporting “the Ohio University campus community in areas of Jewish culture, education, history, social service … and communal experiences.”

The Independent requested an interview with Goodman on April 2. Goodman initially said she would share written responses to questions concerning Epling’s conversation with Hillel-affiliated Passion Works volunteers and Hillel’s relationship with Passion Works. However, due to the nature of the issues involved, the Independent requested a phone or in-person interview. Goodman did not respond to that request, or to four subsequent emails the Independent sent between April and June requesting an interview. 

Boeing protest

Mitchell also raised the issue of Epling’s personal activism at the Dec. 10 meeting, implying that it contributed to the perception that Passion Works did not welcome Jewish students. 

Specifically, Mitchell brought up Epling’s arrest in March 2024 at a Boeing facility in Licking County, where she and others blocked roads “to protest the weapons manufacturer’s profiteering from Israel’s genocide in Palestine,” according to a Sept. 9, 2024, press release from the protestors’ legal defense team. 

The activists were arrested on multiple charges. Epling ultimately took a plea deal that reduced her charges to a single misdemeanor. She was sentenced to serve 30 days in the Licking County Justice Center. 

Epling sought work release to continue reporting to work during her stint in jail, she told the Independent, but she was denied by the court. However, she was ultimately able to split her sentence into two 15-day stints, according to records available through the Licking County Municipal Court. Epling said that was the best outcome she could achieve to minimize interruptions at the studio. 

She also said she took steps to prepare the staff and the studio for her absence.

“I had prepared for my absence meticulously, ensuring that my responsibilities were covered, and I had gone above and beyond to check in with both staff and artists prior to, during, and after my absence,” Epling said in her public statement.

Touvell said Epling’s preparation paid off.

“She’s a really incredible organizer, and so even when she had to take that time off to serve her jail sentence, she had organized it so well that everything ran very well,” Touvell told the Independent.

Epling told the Independent that when she first told Mitchell about her jail sentence, Mitchell was supportive about figuring out a way to make it work for the studio while keeping Epling in place in her position. 

But at the Dec. 10 meeting, Mitchell repeatedly criticized Epling for taking time off work to serve her sentence.

Mitchell referenced “the choices that were made and that led you to be in jail for a month, which I know must have been terrible, but those choices were made, and others had to make up the difference while you were away.”

Mitchell said, “We wouldn’t expect it from any staff person to be gone an entire month at the busiest time of our year.”

Epling’s two stints in jail began Sept. 27, 2024, and Nov. 11, 2024, according to Licking County Municipal Court records.

When she returned to work after her first 15-day service, Epling told the Independent that everything at the studio seemed “fun and fine.” But when she returned to the office after her second stint, Epling told the Independent, “[Mitchell’s] body language [was] just so aggressive and harsh that I’m like, ‘Whoa. Something is up.’”

Villavicencio told the Independent that while Epling was serving her second 15 days, Susan Dlouhy — Passion Works’ former chief financial officer, who is now a member of the board — “came to visit the studio.” 

“She starts talking to me about Nancy,” Villavicencio said. 

During that conversation, Dlouhy was “personalizing Nancy’s act of protest in the way that she took offense to it, because her wife is Jewish,” Villavicencio said. “She confused Nancy’s protest act with anti-Semitism.”

Dlouhy declined to comment on the alleged interaction but told the Independent that she had not yet joined the Passion Works board when Epling was fired. She said she had no official role at Passion Works at the time.

Regardless, Villavicencio said that Dlouhy, who maintained a close connection with the studio, was “inappropriately inserting herself in the situation.”

Epling’s termination

Shortly after the December 2024 holidays, Epling was directed to meet virtually with a human resources consultant on Monday, Jan. 6. The consultant suggested that mutual separation would be the best outcome. 

Epling refused the offered separation agreement, even though the nonprofit’s promise of separation pay increased from two weeks to four weeks to eight weeks, she said. The agreement also included a nondisparagement clause forbidding “maliciously false, defamatory, or disparaging remarks” about Passion Works. 

Epling denied the mutual separation agreement “because it was untrue — it was not mutual,” Epling wrote in her statement. “The purpose of this ‘mutual separation agreement’ was to function as [a nondisclosure agreement].”

Epling’s termination letter arrived on Jan. 14, 2025, although it was effective Jan. 3. 

In their Dec. 10, 2024, conversation, Mitchell described various other issues with Epling’s performance, productivity and professionalism, unrelated to her Palestine solidarity activism and statements to volunteers. However, only the issue of Epling’s alleged religious discrimination factored into her termination letter.

Epling said in her public statement that during her time at Passion Works, “I poured my heart into the studio’s mission.”

“I worked alongside core artists, staff, and the larger community to create meaningful art, foster relationships, and advocate for the core artists,” the statement said. “The work I did was not just a job—it was my life’s passion. The artists and the community we built together made it an honor to be a part of the organization.”

Epling and multiple other former Passion Works employees speculated that Epling was terminated in part because studio executives were concerned about donors. 

In the Dec. 10, 2024, meeting, Mitchell told Epling that she was having to talk to donors “about who we are and what we do” as a result of Epling’s actions.

“I would rather not spend my time repairing,” Mitchell said. “I would rather be proactive in talking about the future and what’s positive, but I’m spending a lot of time repairing.”

In an interview with the Independent, Epling specifically mentioned the Jewish Communal Fund, which invests in Israeli bonds and is explicitly committed to supporting Israel. 

The organization’s 990 filings show that the organization donated at least $10,000 to Passion Works annually for several years. The organization increased that amount to $12,000 in its 2022-23 fiscal year, and to $15,000 the following year. 

Passion Works brought in around $682,000 in 2023, according to its tax filing for that year.

The fallout

Mitchell did not address Epling’s separation from Passion Works with the staff until Wednesday, Jan. 8, Villavicencio said. She told the Independent that Mitchell later framed Epling’s termination as “more of a decision of the board.”

Villavicencio and Touvell said that the aftermath of Epling’s termination was difficult for them personally, and also for the studio’s core artists.

“The artists had a very deep connection – I mean, to all of us, obviously – but to Nancy in particular, because Nancy had been there for so many years, and some of the artists have been there for the whole time, and this is kind of like their second home almost,” Touvell said.

On the day Epling’s desk was cleared out, Touvell said a non-verbal artist who “is really close to Nancy … just came up to me and gave me this bear hug, and points to this picture of Nancy on the fridge, and just started bawling.”

Touvell and Villavicencio both felt that their values did not align with continuing to work at Passion Works after Epling was fired, and both quit later in January.

Villavicencio said that although she had wanted to leave Passion Works for some time, Epling’s termination was “the nail in the coffin for me.”

Despite the rapid-fire separation of three Passion Works employees, Mitchell told the Independent in a June 18 conversation that the organization is in a healthy place.

“To speak about Passion Works presently, it’s very strong,” Mitchell said. “It’s working well, and we are mission driven, and we’re looking forward to a healthy future.”

Anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism?

In an April interview with the Independent, Epling drew a direct connection between her firing and the national crackdown on Palestine solidarity activists by the Trump administration, which faced a federal trial last month over the arrest and deportation of pro-Palestine student activists. 

“The line was drawn, and [Passion Works] decided that that’s the line that they were going to stand on,” Epling said. She added that Passion Works took “the side of censorship.”

Heather Cantino, a local member of Jewish Voice for Peace — a Jewish Palestine-solidarity activist organization — made the same connection at a protest in March.

“False charges of anti-Semitism are being used to destroy careers and lives,” Cantino said at the protest.

Conflating opposition to the actions of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism is “extremely dangerous,” Cantino told the Independent. She aligns with the definition of anti-Semitism in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.

“Being Jewish does not mean particularly supporting the State of Israel,” she said. Yet accusations of anti-Semitism are “being used to attack anti-Zionists speaking out for Palestine and everybody else speaking out for Palestinian rights,” Cantino said. “It’s a way of silencing criticism of Israel … so it’s a huge force of control and repression,” she said. 

At the local level, she said, that’s what it appears Passion Works did to Epling.

“They caused harm, apparently based on a false accusation of anti-Semitism that is not anti-Semitism — it’s actually a courageous stand for justice and humanity and protecting lives,” Cantino said.