In Alpena County, both ACC and APS are both very large employers, and we count on them to follow the rules of government. Elections have consequences, and by a large margin, President Trump and the MAGA movement elected conservative people who believe in the rule of law. This includes the APS school board.

U of M was one of the proudest defenders of the DEI ideology in universities across this country. Very recently U of M just cancelled all DEI employees and their entire program. Why did they do that? Because they were told by the Department of Justice that this training was illegal and that they would lose federal funding.

Do ACC and APS understand the risk of losing federal funding better than U of M?

The board at ACC received a letter of guidance saying that they should stop this DEI practice, and their response was “One way of looking at it is, we’re way up here in Northeast Michigan, and nobody’s really going to follow us, you know, we do what we do,” MacMaster said.

Teachers at APS remarked that they are still doing faculty training in delivering DEI before the last election, but none will speak on the record for fear of retaliation.

At APS, there is a current board discussion about changing the restroom policy. Currently, APS allows any biological male who thinks they are female use the female bathrooms at the discretion of the administration. This is a Title IX law violation, and the administration continues to dig their heels in rather than accepting the “Fairview Policy” which states that a person’s biological sex determines which bathroom to use.

Federal funds are at stake at both. Why gamble?

BRUCE HEATH,

Ossineke