Washington state NAACP chapter leader investigated over racial identity

[June 13, 2015]  By Eric M. Johnson
 
 SEATTLE (Reuters) - A prominent leader of the African-American community in Spokane, Washington, is under investigation for identifying herself as black on a city job application, as a white couple set off a media storm by saying they are her biological parents.

Rachel Dolezal, 37, serves as chair of Spokane's independent police ombudsman commission, and identified herself as white, African-American and Native American when applying for the job, City Council President Ben Stuckart said in an interview on Friday.

Dolezal is also president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization.

The city probe was opened after local media questioned Dolezal's racial identity, Stuckart said. The questions came after Dolezal filed police complaints of racial discrimination, most recently that she received hate mail.

"We are gathering facts, looking at city code, to determine if any city policies in relation to boards or commissions were violated," Stuckart said.

Spokane's Spokesman-Review newspaper reported that Dolezal's birth certificate shows her born to a white Montana couple, who say they are of European and Native American descent.

Dolezal did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. But she told Spokane's KREM2 television on Thursday: "If I was asked I would definitely say yes, I do consider myself to be black."

"There's a lot of complexities ... and I don't know that everyone would understand that," the Spokesman-Review newspaper quoted her as saying, also on Thursday. "We're all from the African continent."

The Montana couple who identified themselves to U.S. media as Dolezal's biological parents said they have lost touch with her. They say she has over the years showed an interest in diversity and black culture, especially after the couple adopted black children.

"We are her birth parents and we do not understand why she feels it's necessary to misrepresent her ethnicity," Lawrence Dolezal told CNN.

Lawrence Dolezal did not respond to requests for comment.

The NAACP said in a statement in response to the controversy that racial identity was not a qualifying criteria for NAACP leadership and that it "stands behind Ms. Dolezal's advocacy record."

"NAACP Spokane Washington Branch President Rachel Dolezal is enduring a legal issue with her family, and we respect her privacy in this matter," the NAACP said.

Dolezal holds a master's degree from historically black Howard University and is a professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University, according to a biography on the university website.

The university said in a statement it does not publicly discuss personnel issues and would not comment on her personal life.

Debate over Dolezal's actions raged over social media, with National Football League player Benjamin Watson writing: "Bout time we answer the question. "What is black?" Or any other so called "race" for that matter."

Curator and activist DeRay Mckesson tweeted: "The elasticity and boldness of whiteness never ceases to amaze me."

And Jon Ronson, an author, tweeted: "Feeling incredibly sorry for #RachelDolezal and hope she's okay. The world knows very little about her, her motives."

(Editing by Richard Chang and Eric Beech)

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