Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional comments from MDOS
The chair of the Democratic Party Black Caucus is defending Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson against allegations of racial discrimination made by MDOS employees in a Wayne County court filing this week.
Four African American employees of the Michigan Department of State filed a lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court this week accusing the agency and senior officials of a race-based discrimination.
The allegations come as Benson, who is named in the suit, is gaining momentum as the front runner to be the Michigan Democratic party’s nominee for governor. Benson’s conservative rivals have already begun to circulate the allegations in an attempt to discourage Black voters from supporting her campaign.
The only Black candidate in the race, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist dropped out Monday to run for Secretary of State. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson is also running for governor as a Democrat.
The Department of State in a statement strongly denied the claims, calling the allegations, “absolutely false.”
“We will vigorously defend this case in court and continue to operate at the highest standards of transparency, ethics and professionalism,” the department wrote in statement from a spokesperson.
Attorney Leonard Mungo, of Mungo & Mungo At Law, is representing the four former employees. Plaintiffs include, David Murray, an executive office analyst; Elvine Vanbolden, a state administrative manager; Mychael Foster, a training specialist; Nirva Civilus, a director of public engagement.
The lawsuit names Benson, COO Jackie Venton, chief of staff Christina Anderson and John Strotdbeck, a division administrator as defendants.
The allegations in the lawsuit include retaliation for complaining about unfair treatment amid a racially hostile workplace that favored and gave special treatment to white employees.
“MDOS’s White managers and supervisors have adopted and regularly engage in a pattern and practice of applying said written and unwritten policies rules and guidelines as stated above subjectively and in an unlawful racially discriminatory manner towards MDOS’s African American employees and in a more favorable way toward its White employees,” the lawsuit reads.
At the crux of the suit is the use of state vehicles, the dispensing of employee discipline to and the use of performance improvement plans. The attorney representing the plaintiffs say the four Black employees received unequal discipline compared to white employees, and watched less qualified white employees be promoted ahead of them.
“I think there’s more to this story but Jocelyn’s background makes me feel better about it,” Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus Chair Keith Williams told Michigan Chronicle Thursday. “Not too many white people go down and work for Judge Damon Keith, he was a great advocate for our community.”
Benson began her law career as a clerk for the late Keith, whose decisions helped combat systemic racism in private and public life, as well as in schools.
Williams also mentioned that Benson began her career investigating hate crimes at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.
Williams, who endorsed Benson this week as the leader of Michigan’s Democratic Party Black Caucus, said he’s motivated to endorse candidates by whether or not he believes they will deliver economic opportunity and upward mobility to Black residents.
“To give my endorsement I have to feel she’s going to do right by my people,” Williams said. “She’s straight up with me — my gut feeling is that she is not a racist. We all fall short in the glory of God sometimes, but I think people need to get to know her.”
The lawsuit also includes an affidavit statement from Angela Harness, who served as the chair of the MDOS’ race task force. She alleges the lack of clear policies, “resulted in MDOS creating, nurturing maintaining and condoning a racially hostile environment against its African Americans.”
Harness herself filed a discrimination suit against the department, which resulted in a separation agreement worth $775,000.
Here is part of Harnes’ statement which details the alleged discrimination:
“I have witnessed African Americans, such as, Mychael Foster and Elvine Vanbolden, being harassed and discriminated against up to the point of my departure from MDOS in 2025. Vanbolden was pressured to hire a White applicant over a more qualified African American applicant by her White supervisor. When she refused to do so she was falsely accused of engaging in improper hiring practices based on race. This same White Supervisor gave Elvine an unjustifiable low rating on her annual performance appraisal. Vanbolden appealed this unjustifiable low job performance rating to me. I requested the White supervisor to produce documents to justify said low job performance rating and the White supervisor could not produce any objective evidence to justify the low job performance rating she gave Vanbolden. I then instructed the White supervisor to provide Vanbolden ‘s with a job performance rating in accordance with the objective evidence of Vanbolden’s actual job performance. This has happened more than once to Vanbolden. MDOS’s unfair and unlawful treatment of its African American employees occurs regularly.”
Harness claims the MDOS received a $500,000 grant to conduct diversity work and training in 2023, but only conducted one training after Anderson, the department’s chief of staff, directed against conducting the trainings. She claims the move was approved by Benson.
The department also denies Harness’ claims related to the grant she claims went unused.
“The statement about training is incorrect — it was department funded, adn all sessions of the training program were completed,” a spokesperson for the department said.
Another person who gave an affidavit statement not named as a plaintiff former Assistant Secretary of State Heaster Wheeler, who said the department’s failure to address racial discrimination was one of the reasons he left.
