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Last Tuesday, Republican New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise voted against a resolution proclaiming a National Day of Racial Healing. Critics called it grandstanding, racist, or a ‘red herring,’ while supporters decried local government’s role as ‘resolution factories’ and thanked the commissioner for ‘calling it out.’ In this column, we take a closer look at the objections to this — and other — proclamations.
The proclamation was introduced by the county’s Commission on African American History, Heritage, and Culture, which brought forward a similar, but differently worded, resolution last year, to which Scalise also objected.
This year's proclamation read:
WHEREAS, the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners recognizes the importance of fostering a community grounded in mutual respect, dignity, and understanding among all residents; and
WHEREAS, strong communities are built through open dialogue and a shared commitment to treating one another with fairness and civility; and WHEREAS, the National Day of Racial Healing, observed annually on the Tuesday following Martin Luther King Jr. Day, provides an opportunity for individuals and communities to reflect on shared values, promote understanding, and strengthen relationships across differences; and
WHEREAS, opportunities for respectful conversation and community engagement can help build trust, encourage cooperation, and support a welcoming environment for all who live and work in New Hanover County; and
WHEREAS, recognizing and promoting shared values contributes to a stronger, more connected community by encouraging respect and understanding among residents; and
WHEREAS, New Hanover County encourages residents, organizations, and community partners to observe this day in ways that promote unity, understanding, and positive community connections.
Scalise didn’t really take issue with the language of the resolution itself.
“There is plenty that's in the proclamation that I don't find objectionable,” he said.
Instead, Scalise said, he opposed it because the National Day of Racial Healing was the “brainchild” of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which he described as a “multi-billion-dollar political advocacy organization that has suggested to local governments like ours that we should adopt this proclamation.”
Scalise said he objected to Kellogg’s “radical views,” and quoted the organization’s statement that “a pre-existing harmony and unity among groups is not the case in the United States amid a deeply entrenched system of racial hierarchy and colonization.” He said that he rejected the worldview “premised on the assumption of inherent division between us.”
More broadly, Scalise objected to outside organizations shaping county policy by authoring or inspiring resolutions, and ultimately said, “I would certainly prefer for us to get out of the high-volume resolution proclamation business, because they rarely advance our statutory responsibilities as local elected officials.”
Scalise offered his own proclamation, “affirming dignity and respect for ‘we the people,’” later posting it to social media:
WHEREAS, the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners affirms that WE THE PEOPLE of the United States have inherent value, regardless of race, religion, or creed; and
WHEREAS, dignity and respect are not granted to WE THE PEOPLE by government but are the unalienable rights of every such person; and
WHEREAS, the ultimate recognition of human dignity and respect lies in honoring the unique worth and value of each individual member of WE THE PEOPLE; and
WHEREAS, WE THE PEOPLE, both as individuals and as fellow citizens, deserve dignity and respect regardless of immutable characteristics.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners, that New Hanover County supports, recognizes, and affirms the dignity and respect due to WE THE PEOPLE and encourages all of its citizens to live in harmony together, because our strength comes from a shared commitment to each other and this Great County and Country we call our home.
Scalise’s proclamation, which he noted was inspired by the Constitution and not an outside entity, failed for lack of a second. Scalise conceded he knew his motion would not prevail and said, "I respect that."
Pushback on Provenance
Democratic Commissioner Rob Zapple argued that the proclamation had “nothing to do with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation,” noting that it had been brought forward by the county’s Commission on African American History, Heritage, and Culture.
“This proclamation was brought forward by our own committee, and it reflects the values of our own citizens here in New Hanover County. Where this other thought is coming from and leading to is misleading. Now, there may have been other proclamations that may reflect some of this same wording that somehow came out of [the] W.K. Kellogg Foundation. I don't know, but that's not the case here,” he said.
After Scalise noted, correctly, that Kellogg created the National Day of Racial Healing, Zapple responded, “There's been no communication between the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the New Hanover County commission, and we're the ones that are hearing this today — and kind of dragging them into this conversation, I think is a red herring. It's simply not correct," adding that he would, at a later date, consider Scalise's substitute proclamation.
Democratic Commissioner Stephanie Walker, who previously served on the African American Commission, followed up on Zapple’s points.
“I was myself a member of this commission at one point when it was first launched. And I have no idea who the Kellogg Institute is, and I can promise you the work that is being done, when I was on the commission and continues to this day, are of local matters that are important to our community,” she said.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation
So, what is the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and what role did it play in the resolution?
Nearly a hundred years old, Kellogg is one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the world with nearly $9 billion in assets. Formerly known as the W.K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation, the organization dedicates much of its resources to issues impacting children. Kellogg’s work has largely been nonpartisan and broadly well-regarded, but the foundation has increasingly come under fire from conservatives over the last decade (in 2016, the right-wing publication Breitbart got into a public feud with Kellogg over reporting that it had donated nearly a million dollars to Black Lives Matter). Some on the right, including Scalise, have objected to Kellogg’s work to combat racism, including the “Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT)” program, which addresses the “historic and contemporary effects of racism.”
The quote Scalise read appears in the FAQ section on the TRHT website, which explains why the program distanced itself from the language of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, like the seminal model established to explore the human rights violations and violence of Apartheid in South Africa.
“While designing the framework for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation in the U.S., we moved away from the term reconciliation. Reconciling connotes restoration of friendly relations — ‘reuniting’ or ‘bringing together again after conflict.’ It also implies a preexisting harmony and unity among groups, which is not the case in the United States amid a deeply entrenched system of racial hierarchy and colonization. There is no time period in our collective, national history that we could return to and experience racial equity and wholeness,” the site explains.
I’ll note that, reading the above, it struck me as different than the “radical view” that Scalise was objecting to. He seemed offended by a worldview of "inherent differences," which sets things up for permanent struggle. TRHT seemed, at least on paper, committed to the opposite — bridging gaps and moving the conversation forward. I reached out to see if he might offer some clarity, or perhaps point to something else about Kellogg that would support his objection in a different way, but he politely declined, citing the demands of his personal and professional life outside his role as commissioner. (I admit, as a journalist, that's frustrating, especially since the issue has come up twice now, but perhaps he'll entertain the question another time.)
But, back to the question of provenance: as part of its efforts to address racism, Kellogg created the National Day of Racial Healing in 2017, and has been celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Kellogg provides toolkits for advocates and policymakers, including a sample proclamation, offering language that was used nearly verbatim in the county’s resolution last year. (Some of the changes were because Kellogg’s language specifically identifies the impact of racism on children, and I imagine the African American Commission wanted more general language applicable to everyone.)
The sample proclamation reads, in part:
WHEREAS, if we all dedicate ourselves to a process that brings individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism and transforms societal structures into ones that affirm the inherent value of all people, we can bring about the necessary changes in thinking and behavior that will propel this great country forward as a society where everyone belongs;
And the county’s 2025 resolution included a section that read:
WHEREAS, if everyone dedicates themselves to a process that brings individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism, and affirms the inherent value of all people, everyone can bring about the necessary change in thinking and behavior that will propel this great country forward as a society where everyone belongs;
Last year, African American Commission member Bernadette Correa, who had recently been appointed by commissioners, confirmed to WHQR that she was aware that Kellogg had founded the National Day of Racial Healing and that she wanted to adopt it for her own community.
All that in mind, I reached out to Zapple to see if he’d add any nuance to his claim that the proclamation had nothing to do with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, since I felt that wasn’t accurate, but he reiterated much of what he'd said on the dais.
“The proclamation that was presented to the Board of Commissioners by the New Hanover County Commission on African American History, Heritage and Culture, was not presented as anything other than what it was, a statement calling for the community to, ‘recognize the importance of fostering a community grounded in mutual respect, dignity, and understanding among all residents,” he wrote. “There was no reference to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in the proclamation or any of the supporting materials.”
A county spokesperson confirmed that “the W.K. Kellogg Foundation was not referenced in any discussions with staff about this proclamation” this year.
With no evidence to the contrary, I take the county at its word. But it’s worth noting that this year’s proclamation is significantly different than last year’s.
More “Relevant and Current”
Last year, when New Hanover County issued its inaugural National Day of Racial Healing proclamation, Scalise objected for some of the same reasons he cited this year, including the resolution’s ties to Kellogg. He took the occasion to criticize some other recent proclamations and resolutions with DEI overtones as “misguided and inappropriate.” He also said he would seek to dismantle the county’s Diversity and Equity Department, citing potential legal risks and noting that newly elected President Trump’s administration and major corporations were all shutting down (or at least significantly scaling back) DEI efforts.
The county’s DE department was later quietly renamed to the Office of Civic Engagement (although some vestiges of the former title crop up here and there, including on at least one phone line’s away message).
This year’s proclamation is largely rewritten from last year's, with a focus on “unity” and “conversation.” There is no reference to “the damage of racism,” and, in fact, the word “racism” does not appear, nor does any of the sample language provided by Kellogg.
I asked Correa, now the vice-chair of the African American Commission, about the changes.
“I don't necessarily call it a change of language,” Correa said, noting that the commission did edit the proclamation with their staff liaison, the head of the county’s Office of Civic Engagement.
“We did make some edits that we felt were appropriate, because we wanted to make it relevant and current to New Hanover County, and what the residents of New Hanover County experience,” she said.
I pointed specifically to the removal of the phrase “repairing the damage of racism,” and asked if the proclamation had been changed to mollify conservatives who objected to that kind of language.
“Personally, I do feel like that was necessary, but as a group, and as a member of the commission, I don't know that we would have said such a thing,” Correa said.
Correa said it was fair to say the proclamation language had evolved, but noted it had been unanimously approved by the commission both this year and last. And she said the spirit remained the same, to empower “all people” through storytelling.
“But again, the whole point is to unite the people of our community, people from different perspectives and from different lenses, and to do that through storytelling,” she said, emphasizing that “the National Day of Racial Healing is determined by Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision — it is a modern-day enactment.”
I also asked the county directly if the language had been changed to make it more palatable for conservatives and others who objected to last year’s proclamation.
“The Commission on African American History, Heritage and Culture voted to bring forward a National Day of Racial Healing proclamation. The resolution they approved was submitted to staff for transmittal, then reviewed and edited in agenda preparation before presentation to the Board of Commissioners. Resolutions from advisory bodies are sometimes edited, and sometimes not calendared at all – that's standard process,” was the fairly indirect answer.
Clearly, the language changed between last year and this year, but no one is quite willing to say it was for political reasons. But in any case, the result was the same, with the resolution passing four-to-one, with Scalise objecting. And even Scalise’s critique had little to do with the language of the proclamation itself.
“Resolution Factories”
On social media, people pretty quickly decided how they felt about Scalise’s objection to Kellogg. On the right, commenters decried Kellogg as “woke” or “radical,” and celebrated Scalise for calling out the situation. Conservative commentator Nick Craig wrote in a post, “this kind of left-wing activism has no place in local government.” On the left, commenters decried Scalise as ignorant of the realities of racism or, worse, as actively racist. Others noted that, since Scalise's Republican colleagues supported the resolution both this year and last, his objections amounted to "grandstanding."
But when it came to Scalise’s objection to the proliferation of resolutions, I think there is, perhaps ironically, at least a bit of agreement.
There was the expected chorus of assent from the right, including influential conservative and Endowment board member Woody White and former Wilmington City Councilman Luke Waddell, a likely pick for the GOP to replace Scalise if he wins this year’s race for North Carolina House District 20. Responding to Scalise on Facebook, Waddell wrote that local government “should get out of the business of being resolution factories.”
But there are plenty of people on the left — including elected officials — who privately roll their eyes at some proclamations, though most wouldn’t admit it publicly.
Speaking broadly, they can sometimes be, as Scalise noted on social media, crafted by city or county staff to give the impression that they are ‘doing something,’ or issued by councils and commissioners as purity tests. It’s National Puppy Day — who would vote against that? Someone who hates puppies! It’s not a place for nuanced disagreement or conversation and so, historically, many an elected official has just said, ‘ok, fine, whatever,’ voted, and moved on.
There are also plenty of journalists who, irrespective of their personal politics, have to shake their heads when they see the next non-binding resolution coming down the pike, offering a solid wall of ‘WHEREAS’ and not one policy change or funding commitment. National Recycling Day. National Travel and Tourism Week. National Bicycle Safety Month. It's hard not to become cynical and fast-forward through that part of the meeting.
The steelman argument for at least some of these resolutions is visibility and awareness, and that can truly be important. Advocates struggle constantly for airtime on local news, to show up on the radar of anyone who might donate, volunteer, or even just spread the word. And you can imagine how it might be meaningful if you were a marginalized person, or suffering from a rare or difficult-to-treat disorder, to hear your local officials say, in essence, ‘Hey, we see you, we feel your pain, you matter, and we’re here for you.’
But by the same token, proclamations — sometimes done back-to-back at the beginning of a meeting — can feel performative. I’ve heard them described as the civic version of a “strongly worded letter.
Take the county’s National Ageism Awareness Day, proclaimed on October 9 last year, with a resolution pretty much cut-and-pasted from a sample provided by the American Society on Aging, and unanimously approved without debate by commissioners. (Perhaps, to be internally consistent, Scalise should have voted against it — although the ASA’s DEI efforts are certainly lower profile than Kellogg’s. I’ll ask him if I get the chance.)
Who would vote against working to “ensure that older people are respected and portrayed as capable, competent, effective and valued in all areas of society”? No one. But is that going to stop elder abuse and neglect or the pervasive use of age as an insult and punchline? Probably not. Does it address the financial and healthcare needs of seniors? Not really. (Yes, I know, the county invests heavily in its Senior Center, which does great work, but this resolution was not paired with any additional funding or policy changes.)
Back to the issue of racism and racial healing, again, there is value in being seen and heard by your elected officials. And, certainly, the values of the proclamation — as Zapple noted to me — are things that everyone in the community should be able to celebrate. But I have to wonder, if you’ve been advocating for meaningful change, whether that's criminal justice reform, school desegregation, or reparations, and you heard a proclamation that couldn’t manage to use the word “racism,” it might ring hollow for you. And you might agree with Scalise about the proclamation business — even if you disagreed with him everywhere else.
In the end, I don’t expect to see New Hanover County get out of the resolution business anytime soon. That’s in part because some proclamations are worth making, and because the political cost of not doing even the silly ones outweighs any annoyance or disagreements. Most of the time.
[Disclosure notice: Commissioner Rob Zapple is a member of the WHQR Board of Directors, which has no say in editorial decisions, including our reporting and this newsletter.
Editor's notes
About those bias allegations: A few months ago, I wrote about a lawsuit filed by a family against the New Hanover County Schools District and the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. The short version was that their son had been barred from playing high school sports because of a criminal charge for felony assault by strangulation against a female student. As part of the case, the family’s attorney had levied allegations that the prosecutor in the case had a bias against Asians, relevant because the student athlete was of Asian descent.
At the end of last year, the situation was murky at best — and while I have some updates, I can’t promise a tidy conclusion. I won’t rehash the debate over the student’s eligibility here, but suffice to say that, this week, the family voluntarily dismissed their suit ‘without prejudice,’ meaning they could conceivably refile it in the future. I’ve heard that the family isn’t eager to discuss the case, and their attorney hasn’t responded to the emails I sent, asking about it.
The writing was seemingly on the wall since mid-December, when a Superior Court judge denied a request for a temporary injunction (which would have allowed the student to play sports while the case was litigated). The court didn’t rule on the various merits of the family’s case, but did not note that, on several fronts, they were “unlikely to succeed.”
That leaves the allegations against the prosecutor, Ashton Herring, just kind of floating out there. That includes a signed affidavit from a former assistant district attorney, describing how Herring had openly admitted to having a bias against Asians while reviewing a job candidate; the affidavit itself was sealed by the court, but not before the media, family members, and curious members of the public got hold of it.
The DA’s office was unable to comment to the press (or the public) because it was a personnel issue but, as I understand it, would have been able to clear things up by filing a response to the allegations — but only if they’d been brought into the case as a defendant, which the plaintiffs’ attorney did not do. I heard from some folks who hoped North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, whose office would have represented the DA’s office and any prosecutors, would step in, but that didn’t happen. Jackson’s office didn’t offer any real comment, telling me only that they had ‘no role in the case.’
Documents turned over by the school district in response to my public records request don’t shed much light on the original incident described in the affidavit, but they do provide a little context for text messages cited in the lawsuit as evidence of bias.
One was a text from Herring to a school administrator, saying, “I might have gone overboard,” followed by, “But that was fun.” The timestamp of the text shows it came shortly after Herring emailed a legal analysis to the school, in which she was also clear that she could not decide sports eligibility for the school. In the absence of additional context, I’d say it’s at least equally plausible that ‘overboard’ and ‘fun’ refer to legal research into a weedy issue, as opposed to showing a malicious desire to harangue the student beyond the courtroom. (Yes, most attorneys I know, including friends and family, really do love thorny legal issues.)
They also show that Herring demurred from explaining this analysis directly to the family, writing in a text to the same administrator, “I don’t think me talking to the parents is going to be helpful. I’m not their biggest fan lol.” The texts don’t elaborate on why she was not a ‘fan’ of the family. Again, while that distaste could be bias, it could also be that the family was vigorously contesting her legal understanding of the situation. Admittedly, “lol” — that is, ‘laugh out loud’ — strikes me as an odd choice for communication between a prosecutor and a top school administrator.
I’ve heard from a few defense attorneys who felt these texts represented a lack of professionalism (or a lack of awareness that those texts were a public record), but not quite a smoking gun for continued racial bias. Other people might come to a different conclusion. Certainly, the family’s attorney felt there was something there.
The documents turned over by NHCS probably won’t put to rest concerns about allegations of bias against Herring, although it’s likely to drop out of the news cycle pretty quickly. I’ve talked to some attorneys who say they trust former District Attorney Ben David and current District Attorney Jason Smith to handle any issues, noting that there are a range of ways the situation could be dealt with, and that in some cases, prosecutors were encouraged to identify their own biases and work on them. Others told me Herring was, if perhaps over-excitable and too cavalier in her communications with NHCS, a solid prosecutor.
But others have told me they’re left feeling uncomfortable, and hope defense attorneys will review their past clients. And at least one person, familiar with our local courthouse, thought it was worth calling me. They declined to talk on the record, but told me simply, “keep digging.” To a journalist, that’s about as helpful as the old “follow the money” chestnut, but just in case, I’ll keep an ear to the ground.
More from Academia: Last week, I wrote about the public university system, including concerns over the UNC System’s new policy, which makes professors’ syllabi public records and requires them to be posted in an online database. Many professors I talked to about that policy also voiced concerns about the UNC System’s plan to formally define “academic freedom” for the first time.
On Friday, The Assembly reported that a draft version of that definition had been released. On paper, it offers much of what professors would want to see, defining it as a ‘foundational principle’ that protects faculty’s rights, even when it comes to researching or teaching “controversial and unpopular ideas.”
But it also notes that academic freedom is “not absolute,” and includes “parameters,” such as withholding protection for teaching content outside of a course description or a professor’s discipline. There are also rights for students, including freedom to disagree with professors without retaliatory evaluations.
Again, on paper, those aren’t necessarily the kind of Stalinist and anti-intellectual measures some professors have told me they fear, often taking Texas and Florida as bellwethers. But I think it’s fair to say professors are being asked to trust that ‘academic freedom’ won’t be selectively enforced or weaponized. They’re also being asked not to see the academic freedom definition, along with the new syllabi rules and last year’s equality policy, as portents of future restrictions. The mood is cautious, not panic, but faculty are paying very close attention.
“Two points are a line, three points are a trend,” one professor told me.
