The Left’s racial DEI agenda has finally gotten the bad rap it deserves. But Michigan’s Democrats don’t seem to care.
In Lansing, the Ingham County Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has made it clear it has no intention of shutting down its divisive initiatives, which Michigan voters soundly rejected in November, and is in fact doubling down on them.
Last month, the office’s Inclusive Excellence Workgroup kicked off its “21 Days of Equity” challenge, which includes sending daily emails to county employees on how they can advance DEI policies in their workplace and personal lives. One email sent to staff on the 12th day of the challenge focused on how Michiganders can “recognize” and “dismantle” “white supremacist/dominant culture.”
“Work for racial justice in our various systems must include naming and de-centering whiteness, white privilege, and white superiority/supremacy,” the email, obtained by Michigan Enjoyer, reads. “One way to do this is to understand that there is a continuum of white superiority that is not simply about what may come to our minds as the most extreme forms.”
The email goes on to encourage Ingham County’s employees to try and be “accomplices,” since not everyone will be good enough to be considered “allies.”
An email sent on the 11th day focused on “structural racism” and asked county employees to think about ways in which their work might contribute to “multiple vectors of racism and a comprehensive barrier for people of color.”
This is hardly the first example of DEI run amok in Ingham County. Since 2020, county officials have been busy pushing the most radical elements of this agenda onto their community, funneling tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars into it. The county even proposed adding $270,000 to its annual budget in 2023 to account for “the addition of the DEI office.”
And what does Ingham County have to show for its DEI push? A resolution in 2020 declaring racism a “public health crisis”, focus groups bemoaning the “lack of political power and no centralized representation of black power” in county government, and apparently emails warning county employees that they’re always one misstep away from being smeared as racist.
This is hardly an appropriate use of Ingham County’s time or resources — not like that’s ever stopped them before. This is the same county, after all, that proposed spending $32,000 to put tampons in all public restrooms, including men’s facilities.
But at least one county official has had enough.
In a letter to her colleagues this week, Commissioner Monica Schafer reminded the Board of Commissioners that DEI initiatives are not just wasteful—they also could be illegal.
“I find these communications to be unwanted and a form of blatant harassment in the workplace, particularly regarding non-BIPOC employees, who comprise over 70% of our workforce,” Schafer wrote of the county’s “21 Days of Equity” emails.
“I would like our legal team to conduct a review to assess whether this daily communication constitutes harassment and discrimination against non-BIPOC employees, thereby creating a hostile work environment under Title VII,” she added. “I also seek clarification on the legality of Ingham County promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in a way that fails to uphold the dignity and respect of every individual, regardless of race, and the potential for litigation from employees.”
Schafer is right to see legal challenges in the county’s future. As the White House noted in one of its recent executive orders striking down DEI policies throughout the federal government, many of these initiatives and the ways in which they have been implemented “violate the text and spirit of our longstanding federal civil rights laws.”
Government officials can’t use our institutions to blatantly single out and demonize a racial group—that’s discrimination. And yet that’s exactly what Ingham County did in its email on “white supremacist culture.” Don’t believe me? Just imagine what the reaction would have been if Ingham County had instead sent out an email sounding the alarm about “black supremacist culture.”
Unfortunately, it may indeed take a lawsuit for Ingham County’s Democrats to change course. But that’s too bad. Michiganders, along with much of the rest of the country, have already woken up to the harms of DEI. And no matter how hard Democrats try to hold on to it, voters have made it clear this experiment in race-based grievance policy making is over.
There’s no point in hanging on to an agenda that’s already dead.
Kaylee McGhee White is editor-in-chief of Independent Women Features, a Steamboat Institute media fellow, and a columnist for Michigan Enjoyer. Follow her on X @KayleeDMcGhee.
