A2Politico: County Leaders Threw DEI Under the Bus With Hire of Derrick Jackson as Racial Equity Officer

by P.D. Lesko

Washtenaw County recently hired former Sheriff’s Dept. employee Derrick Jackson as the County’s Racial Equity Officer. He began the job on Dec. 16. Jackson’s hire is proof positive that cronyism is still a very serious problem in the County. Jackson’s hire comes at the expense of equity, inclusion and equality in Washtenaw County. Derrick Jackson has no experience leading any racial equity program or office. He has no education or degree related to DEI leadership. While working in the Sheriff’s Dept., in 2019 he had a hand in the hire of a Sheriff’s Deputy the subject of not one but two investigations as an alleged serial rapist. According to a source in the Sheriff’s Dept., Jackson was apprised of the investigations and nonetheless justified the hire of D’Angelo McWilliams as a “diversity hire.” McWilliams is currently on trial and faces eight charges that include criminal sexual conduct in the first degree.

In 2024, Derrick Jackson ran for Sheriff as the heir apparent to former Sheriff Jerry L. Clayton. Clayton repeatedly endorsed Jackson and funneled thousands of dollars to Jackson through a political PAC. In total, Jackson raised almost a quarter of a million dollars and had the endorsements of every County Commissioner, multiple city and township clerks, County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum, County Prosecutor Eli Savit, and city council members in Ann Arbor, Saline and Dexter. In 2024, the A2Indy revealed during the Sheriff’s race that Jackson had lied about his professional achievements, and had impersonated a licensed social worker for a decade. As a result, a licensed social worker filed a complaint against Jackson with the Michigan AG and state licensing officials. Derrick Jackson lost to Alyshia Dyer.

With his loss, Washtenaw County dodged a bullet for a number of reasons, not the least among which is that Derrick Jackson secretly founded and controlled the felon-led Supreme Felons, Inc. In July 2022, that non-profit was awarded $1.2 million in ARPA funds by the Washtenaw County Commissioners on the recommendation of the County’s former DEI Dept. Dir. Alize Asberry Payne and County Administrator Greg Dill.

In Sept. 2024, whistleblowers came forward and alleged the CEO/President of Supreme Felons, Inc. Billy Cole, has systematically looted the non-profit, and that Cole has turned Supreme Felons, Inc. into a criminal enterprise.

The Ann Arbor Independent filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for Supreme Felons, Inc. financial records, and in Nov. 2024 sued the non-profit in the 22nd Circuit Court to compel the release of the requested public records. The newspaper’s FOIA suit is being heard by the Hon. Tracy Van den Bergh.

The University of Michigan’s DEI Dir. recently got the heave-ho for reportedly making antisemitic comments. Washtenaw County’s DEI Dir. got the heave-ho in Aug. 2024 for exercising “poor judgement.” Investigative reporting by the A2Indy revealed Alize Asberry Payne’s “poor judgement” included using her county credit card to pay for luxury hotels, extensive travel, Uber rides, Uber eats, and paying for luxury hotel accommodations for certain County Commissioners (who later expressed outrage at her profligate spending). Asberry Payne also fabricated work experience and educational achievements. Washtenaw County replaced Asberry Payne with former Sheriff’s Dept. employee Derrick Jackson. Jackson impersonated a licensed social worker for a decade, lied about his professional accomplishments in a job application to teach part-time at EMU, including claiming to have won an award from the ACLU that had actually been awarded to Alma Wheeler-Smith.

While employed by the County Sheriff, Derrick Jackson was involved in the hire of an alleged rapist as a Sheriff’s Deputy. When the Deputy was charged with a dozen sex crimes, Jackson then told the public he did not know about the man’s “crimes.” Sources within the Sheriff’s Dept. claim Jackson ignored the fact the applicant had twice been investigated as a rapist and pushed to employ the Black applicant as a “diversity hire.”

In Mar. 2024, the newspaper filed a FOIA request for a copy of D’Angelo McWilliams’s background check. In April 2024 then County Sheriff Jerry Clayton determined it was not in the public’s interest to know how a Sheriff’s Deputy who was the subject of investigations as a serial rapist had passed a background check done by the Sheriff’s “Special Investigations” Unit. In June 2024, the newspaper sued Washtenaw County to compel the release of McWilliams’s background check. In Sept. 2024, the Hon. Julia B. Owdziej ruled the County had to redact and release McWilliams’s background check to the newspaper. The County asked the Judge to reconsider her ruling and attached to the Motion was the judge’s copy of the requested records, unredacted. On Dec. 10, 2024 the A2Indy published the records. The background check contained the contents of both investigations into D’Angelo McWilliams as a serial rapist.

Derrick Jackson had been informed about the two investigations, hired McWilliams as a “diversity hire” and then when McWilliams was charged in Aug. 2020 with 12 felonies, including criminal sexual conduct, Jackson told the media and the public at a press conference (to which the Ann Arbor Independent was not invited) both he and the Sheriff had had no knowledge of McWilliams’s “crimes.”

Diversity and inclusion are critical to socio-economic equity. The County Commissioners’ hire of unqualified, dishonest and duplicitous Derrick Jackson is not only a slap in the face to county residents who support improving equity and inclusion, but also to those county residents in desperate need of improved equity and inclusion. It’s evidence that the County Commissioners care more about cronyism than improving the lives of county residents through a bona fide racial equity program with measurable diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

The newspaper submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the County for a copy of the announcement for the Racial Equity Officer job, Derrick Jackson’s employment application, and the applications of all of the candidates who applied for the job handed to Derrick Jackson.