Charleston commission created to promote racial conciliation makes last stand amid anti-DEI pressure By Ali Rockett Dec 12, 2025 CHARLESTON — Members of the city’s Human Affairs and Racial Conciliation Commission asked City Council to disband the advisory body rather than bow to pressure from state and federal officials seeking to eliminate policies and programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
In what was likely its final meeting on Dec. 11, the 3-year-old commission voted 4-2 to repeal an ordinance that guts its fundamental purpose and removes racial conciliation from its name.
“There will be a better day,” said Carol Jackson, who made the motion to repeal the commission. She earlier served on City Council when it first voted to establish the group. “I hope I live long enough to see it.”
The commission can make recommendations to the council, but the city is not bound by their suggestions. In its last hours, its members passed a slew of resolutions supporting programs that address homelessness and youth initiatives, among other issues the commission took up over the year.
This comes a week after city officials said that if they didn’t strip its programs and policies of all DEI language by Dec. 31, more than $175 million in federal grant funding could be at risk.
On Dec. 2, City Council gave initial approval to sweeping changes that target two city initiatives. The Women and Minority Business Enterprise office is set to become Small Business Enterprise, and the Human Affairs and Racial Conciliation Commission, or HARCC (pronounced “hark”) will become the Human Affairs Commission, or HAC (pronounced “hack”).
Regardless of how the commission voted Dec. 11, the proposed changes spelled out the end of the board.
Not all were opposed the changes. Ruth Jordan, who oversees the soon-to-be renamed Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise Office, said “our mission remains the same: to help all small businesses.”
City officials defend changes At a specially-called committee meeting, held two hours before HARCC convened, Mayor William Cogswell downplayed the significance of the alterations saying they were “name changes.”
“This is a little bit of wordsmithing that isn't going to change a hell of a lot,” he said. “If, for some reason, we choose to take a hard stand on this, it's a risk that I think far outweighs the potential benefits for picking a fight with the federal government.”
Later in the meeting, he added the changes “more accurately reflects what these commissions and committees do.”
HARCC members Carroll Frye and Bob Simons agreed with the proposed changes saying they’d like to see their work continue regardless of the name.
“I think we’re better off having the venue than not having it,” Simons said.
But others scoffed at Cogswell’s characterization.
“It’s not just a name change,” Jackson said. “There is nothing left of what we had.”
“I find this insulting,” said Tom Orth, noting that the ordinance was proposed with little notice, despite ongoing discussions regarding changes to the commission that date back months. “Everything is struck out.”
The ordinance, initially detailed near the end of the council’s 431-page agenda, broadly ensures that “any city programs, plans, ordinances, regulations, policies, initiatives, directives to commissions and committees, and practices related thereto, conform to federal and state law.”
Since the Dec. 2 vote, city officials removed a reference to “executive orders” from the end of that line in proposed changes. The new ordinance won’t take effect until a second and final reading at City Council’s meeting on Dec. 16.
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Charleston’s changes first came the day before Gov. Henry McMaster told state agencies to stop favoring minority-owned businesses when awarding government contracts, calling the 40-year-old practice discriminatory. It also follows executive orders issued this year by President Donald Trump’s administration ending what he called “radical and wasteful” programs.
Several councilmembers and the mayor said that none of the targeted Charleston programs violate any laws, and while the city is not subject to Trump or McMaster’s executive orders, the bureaucrats who review the city’s grants are — and thus could withhold promised money.
Little to none of the $175 million at risk is reflected in the city’s nearly $381 million operating budget for 2026, which also passed its first reading Dec. 2. Most of that federal money is allocated to capital and special projects held in separate account, according to Chief Finance Office Amy Wharton.
Councilman Stephen Bowden, who co-chairs HARCC, said the city doesn’t have a choice.
“We can’t operate this city without $175 million in grant funding,” he said.
HARCC has no budget.
Commission’s last stand The advisory commission was established in 2022 as the latest step in an effort by city leaders to confront racism in Charleston’s past and present. It followed a 2018 apology for the city's role in slavery and the 2015 massacre at Emanuel AME Church, where a white supremacist fatally shot nine Black worshippers.
“This commission was created as a direct response to racial terror, and a history of racial terror and violence in our city,” said HARCC member Brandon Fish. “Rather than amended it to be something else, I think we should acknowledge that this commission is ending as a result of these new laws that are passing.”
While he voted to end HARCC, Fish said he would be willing to serve the new commission, which according to the proposed ordinance will consist of nine members, all appointed by the mayor.
But it’s just that: new.
Fish pointed out the irony of sitting in City Hall, where nearby, the Articles of Secession were signed and the Revolutionary War was fought, both rejecting authoritarianism of the time.
“I think it's sad that we are rewriting our ordinances based on executive orders and state laws that haven't passed yet, but surely will include grace periods,” he continued.
In its final stand, the commission passed a number of resolutions encouraging the the city to:
Study its youth curfew on King Street.
Review permit requirements for protests.
Create an action plan to help address homelessness among students and their families.
Require consent from descendant communities before any remains are removed from a former city potter’s field where the College of Charleston wants to build a dorm.
Support the passage of state hate crime legislation.
Jerry Harris, the commission’s co-chair, attended virtually and left an hour into the 90-minuting meeting. He was receiving an lifetime achievement award from Salvation and Social Justice, a New Jersey-based public policy nonprofit, for over 50 years of advocacy and public service — “work that is being undone today,” he said as he departed.
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