By Ben Solis
Gongwer News Service
EAST LANSING – Attorney General Dana Nessel denounced emerging hate speech in Michigan and beyond from elected officials, expressing a worry that divisive and abusive remarks against people of different races and sexual orientation is becoming a new normal.
Speaking Tuesday in opening remarks at the MI Response To Hate conference, which was organized by the Department of Civil Rights, Nessel condemned recent remarks allegedly made by Oakland Probate Judge Kathleen Ryan. The judge was removed from her docket after Edward Hutton, a court administrator, came forward with secretly recorded phone calls where Ryan made anti-gay and racist remarks, the Associated Press reported.
Ryan’s attorneys have since said the judge will be vindicated in the proper forum, but Nessel called the remarks reprehensible and said it was a pattern of elected officials participating in – not just turning a blind eye to – prolific hate.
“Judge Ryan bragged about what she labeled to be ‘a new racist,’” Nessel said, quoting from what Ryan is alleged to have said. “Among her statements, ‘if you’re an American Black person, then you’re a fucking lazy piece of shit.’ That’s what the judge allegedly proclaimed.”
Nessel also shared other homophobic statements allegedly made by Ryan against Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter, who is openly gay, which included slurs for gay people, crass sexual comments and references to AIDS vaccinations.
The attorney general said what was most striking, aside from the graphic nature of the comments, was the fact that her colleagues on the probate bench appear to be supporting her, which Nessel said was likely more alarming.
“The chief judge of the probate court bench did not condemn her remarks. The head of the Association of Probate Court Judges did not condemn her remarks. The probate section of the State Bar Association of Michigan did not condemn her remarks,” Nessel said. “Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for an investigation into the thousands of cases that this judge has handled during the course of her over a decade on the bench? Where are the calls for her to resign? Where is our humanity?”
Nessel further stated that her own parents are residents of Oakland County, and at their old age, the smart thing for her to do now is to start looking into guardianship or conservatorship. But she worries that, even as the top law enforcement officer in the state, her parents’ case might end up in Ryan’s or one of her supportive colleagues’ dockets. The potential for injustice based on her status as an openly LGBTQ person was “so pernicious” that she might not be fairly treated by that court.
“Now if I feel that way, imagine how a being just a regular LGBTQ or Black person or family member who doesn’t benefit from my status or my position (would feel), thinking that you will get some justice in that court,” Nessel said. “Is this just business as usual now in our justice system?”
Although Nessel denounced Ryan’s alleged conduct, campaign finance records show that the attorney general, then a self-employed attorney, gave $200 to Ryan’s 2010 campaign.
Gongwer News Service asked Nessel’s office if she now regretted that donation.
Nessel spokesperson Danny Wimmer said in an email that had the attorney general “believed then that Kathleen Ryan held discriminatory or racist beliefs she would certainly not have supported her.”
“The attorney general has contributed to many judicial candidates over the years, as is typical of a practicing attorney, though she does not know the judge, nor has she practiced before her,” Wimmer added.
Nessel, in her remarks to open Tuesday’s conference, also noted recent comments by U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential race. Vance claimed people in Springfield, Ohio, were reporting that pets were being abducted by relocated Haitian immigrants, but local police have said there were no credible reports of any of that happening.
On Tuesday, Vance wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that it was his office that received the inquiries, and that it was possible that the rumors would turn out to be false. But Vance continued to rail against Haitian immigrants, blaming them for murders and rises in disease in Ohio.
Nessel likened Vance’s recent comments, and various comments made by Trump during his political tenure, to lines out of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
“When we live in a country where a presidential candidate for a major party is permitted to run on a platform that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ – which, by the way, is the exact same phrase used by Adolf Hitler before he rose to power in ‘Mein Kamp’ – and other government officials laud him for it, what more do we rightfully expect?” Nessel said. “Every day that any of us allows this vile, insidious rhetoric of hatred, bigotry and discrimination to go unchecked is a day that it further infects our public dialog and immunizes us, inoculates us from the real harm it causes to our state and to our country.”
Nessel urged state lawmakers, local leaders in government and law enforcement, and average citizens, to condemn hate and hate speech in all its forms.
“Candidly, I fear for our future. I fear for all of America right now, but it is not too late. Our nation has endured difficult times, many times before, and we can do it now again,” Nessel added. “As Nelson Mandela said, ‘no one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, then they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than does its opposite.’ In this terrifying time and place for so many, people who have been authorized by individuals, even at the very highest levels of government, we would do well to remember that message.”
Gongwer News Service
EAST LANSING – Attorney General Dana Nessel denounced emerging hate speech in Michigan and beyond from elected officials, expressing a worry that divisive and abusive remarks against people of different races and sexual orientation is becoming a new normal.
Speaking Tuesday in opening remarks at the MI Response To Hate conference, which was organized by the Department of Civil Rights, Nessel condemned recent remarks allegedly made by Oakland Probate Judge Kathleen Ryan. The judge was removed from her docket after Edward Hutton, a court administrator, came forward with secretly recorded phone calls where Ryan made anti-gay and racist remarks, the Associated Press reported.
Ryan’s attorneys have since said the judge will be vindicated in the proper forum, but Nessel called the remarks reprehensible and said it was a pattern of elected officials participating in – not just turning a blind eye to – prolific hate.
“Judge Ryan bragged about what she labeled to be ‘a new racist,’” Nessel said, quoting from what Ryan is alleged to have said. “Among her statements, ‘if you’re an American Black person, then you’re a fucking lazy piece of shit.’ That’s what the judge allegedly proclaimed.”
Nessel also shared other homophobic statements allegedly made by Ryan against Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter, who is openly gay, which included slurs for gay people, crass sexual comments and references to AIDS vaccinations.
The attorney general said what was most striking, aside from the graphic nature of the comments, was the fact that her colleagues on the probate bench appear to be supporting her, which Nessel said was likely more alarming.
“The chief judge of the probate court bench did not condemn her remarks. The head of the Association of Probate Court Judges did not condemn her remarks. The probate section of the State Bar Association of Michigan did not condemn her remarks,” Nessel said. “Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for an investigation into the thousands of cases that this judge has handled during the course of her over a decade on the bench? Where are the calls for her to resign? Where is our humanity?”
Nessel further stated that her own parents are residents of Oakland County, and at their old age, the smart thing for her to do now is to start looking into guardianship or conservatorship. But she worries that, even as the top law enforcement officer in the state, her parents’ case might end up in Ryan’s or one of her supportive colleagues’ dockets. The potential for injustice based on her status as an openly LGBTQ person was “so pernicious” that she might not be fairly treated by that court.
“Now if I feel that way, imagine how a being just a regular LGBTQ or Black person or family member who doesn’t benefit from my status or my position (would feel), thinking that you will get some justice in that court,” Nessel said. “Is this just business as usual now in our justice system?”
Although Nessel denounced Ryan’s alleged conduct, campaign finance records show that the attorney general, then a self-employed attorney, gave $200 to Ryan’s 2010 campaign.
Gongwer News Service asked Nessel’s office if she now regretted that donation.
Nessel spokesperson Danny Wimmer said in an email that had the attorney general “believed then that Kathleen Ryan held discriminatory or racist beliefs she would certainly not have supported her.”
“The attorney general has contributed to many judicial candidates over the years, as is typical of a practicing attorney, though she does not know the judge, nor has she practiced before her,” Wimmer added.
Nessel, in her remarks to open Tuesday’s conference, also noted recent comments by U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential race. Vance claimed people in Springfield, Ohio, were reporting that pets were being abducted by relocated Haitian immigrants, but local police have said there were no credible reports of any of that happening.
On Tuesday, Vance wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that it was his office that received the inquiries, and that it was possible that the rumors would turn out to be false. But Vance continued to rail against Haitian immigrants, blaming them for murders and rises in disease in Ohio.
Nessel likened Vance’s recent comments, and various comments made by Trump during his political tenure, to lines out of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
“When we live in a country where a presidential candidate for a major party is permitted to run on a platform that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ – which, by the way, is the exact same phrase used by Adolf Hitler before he rose to power in ‘Mein Kamp’ – and other government officials laud him for it, what more do we rightfully expect?” Nessel said. “Every day that any of us allows this vile, insidious rhetoric of hatred, bigotry and discrimination to go unchecked is a day that it further infects our public dialog and immunizes us, inoculates us from the real harm it causes to our state and to our country.”
Nessel urged state lawmakers, local leaders in government and law enforcement, and average citizens, to condemn hate and hate speech in all its forms.
“Candidly, I fear for our future. I fear for all of America right now, but it is not too late. Our nation has endured difficult times, many times before, and we can do it now again,” Nessel added. “As Nelson Mandela said, ‘no one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, then they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than does its opposite.’ In this terrifying time and place for so many, people who have been authorized by individuals, even at the very highest levels of government, we would do well to remember that message.”
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