For-profit

Derute Consulting Cooperative

Location:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Type:

For-Profit

Website:

http://www.deruteconsulting.com/

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Derute Consulting Cooperative is a for-profit consulting organization aligned with critical race theory that blames poverty and hunger on capitalism and systemic racism 1 and gives presentations to public school district employees about how to confront white supremacy. 2 Derute Consulting Cooperate was formed in 2014 in Milwaukee. As of Nov. 11, 2021, it had 10 employees. 3

Derute Consulting Cooperative posted a cartoon on Twitter on Sept. 30, 2021, that it said was a sample of its work involving the “nonprofit industrial complex.” In the comic, a man talks to a generic non-profit board of directors and tells them that people living in poverty are “victims of the oppression caused by capitalism and systemic racism” and asks the board to address the “root problems.” Instead, the board of directors is more interested in getting grants 4

Decoteau Irby is a consultant with Derute Consulting Cooperate and said at a public-school superintendents’ conference that white people didn’t understand how racist and privileged they were and that “white fragility” made white people uncomfortable in dealing with the truth of a white supremacy society. 5

Forest Park School District 91

The Forest Park School District No. 91 in Illinois hired Derute Consulting Cooperative in 2019. 6 The contract stated that the district paid $15,000 for the consulting services of Decoteau Irby and his rate was up to $5,000 per day. 7

The contract paid Irby for his “unique focus on ‘transformative race talk’” that would develop the “consciousness” of the staff and “name and challenge people to confront racial anxieties.” 8

Manitowoc Public School District

The Manitowoc Public School District in Wisconsin hired Derute Consulting Cooperative in 2020. On a radio show, Manitowoc Public School board member Stacey Soeldner said that the Derute Consulting Cooperative was training the district’s staff on critical race theory concepts. 9

Soeldner quoted the Derute Consulting Cooperative’s Aug. 25, 2020, Facebook post as stating that it was working for a year with the district “facilitating racial equity work” and that the district’s leaders stated that “white supremacy” was something they wanted to know more about “and address in their district.” 10

Manitowoc Public Schools superintendent Mark Holzman said the district did hire Derute Consulting Cooperative from May 2020 through June 2021 but the intent was to help the district learn to address “learning disproportionate gaps.” 11 Holzman said the contract was not renewed.

Manitowoc County Republican Party chairperson Sulynn Moore spoke at an August 2021 board meeting and accused the school board of teaching critical race theory concepts by hiring Derute Consulting Cooperative. 12

Staff

Decoteau Irby is an associate professor at University of Illinois-Chicago. 13 MacIver News Service reported that Irby told people attending the 34th Annual State Superintendent’s Conference on Special Education and Pupil Services about the “devastating effects of living in and growing up in a white supremacy society, where you are conditioned over a lifetime to think that some people are inferior and that some people are superior.” 14 Irby also said that white people didn’t have the capacity to understand how racist and privileged they were and that “white fragility” made white people uncomfortable coming to terms with the truth of a white supremacy society. 15

Emery Petchauer is an associate professor at Michigan State University. 16 He was an assistant professor at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the first historically Black university. 17 In 2014, Salon published Petchauer’s op-ed criticizing Lincoln University president Robert Jennings for comments made regarding women and sexual assault. 18 Jennings resigned in November 2014 after he said three women on campus went to police and reported they were raped after “having done whatever they did with young men and then it didn’t turn out the way they wanted it to turn out.” 19 Petchauer also criticized Jennings for “victim blaming, slut shaming, and rape apologetics” and also chastised the president for holding a men’s only convocation at Lincoln University and not coming “close to acknowledging that all of the men in the room aren’t heterosexual.” 20

Laura Porterfield is an assistant professor at Rutgers University-Newark. She previously was an associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Race and Ethnic Studies at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. 21

Katie Elliott is an associate professor at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She stated her research and teaching “include an emphasis on the recognition and operation of systems of privilege and exclusion” and how they influence public school practices. 22

Corinne Castro is the senior director for Faculty Diversity and Institutional Transformation at Rutgers University. 23

Elizabeth Drame is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the School of Education. 24

Dominique Duval-Diop is the associate director of gender and social inclusion for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. 25

Cindy Clough is an assistant professor in the occupational therapy department at Mount Mary University. 26 Clough listed her areas of consulting expertise on her Mount Mary University profile as “disability and inclusivity, inequity in health systems and health outcomes, understanding racism through the lens of whiteness.”

Jeff Roman is the executive director of the Office on African American Affairs for Milwaukee County and was a chair of the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission. 27

Jacqueline Robinson-Hunsicker is a faculty member at Milwaukee Area Technical College in the sociology department. 28 She led an education series that looked at white privilege and racial inequalities in Milwaukee and Lake Park Lutheran Church. 29

References

  1. Derute Consulting Cooperative Twitter page. Sept. 30, 2021.  Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://twitter.com/DeruteCoop/status/1443678347305836547/photo/1
  2. Ryan Brahm. “Is The MPSD Staff Being Trained In CRT Concepts? Board Member Says Yes, Superintendent Says No”; Seehafer News. Oct. 8, 2021. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.seehafernews.com/2021/10/08/is-the-mpsd-staff-being-trained-in-crt-concepts-board-member-says-yes-superintendent-says-no/
  3. Derute Consulting Cooperative website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. http://www.deruteconsulting.com/
  4. Derute Consulting Cooperative Twitter page. Sept. 30, 2021.  Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://twitter.com/DeruteCoop/status/1443678347305836547/photo/1
  5. MacIver Staff. “Questionable Curriculum: Who Is Pushing Critical Race Theory On Our Children?” Aug. 10, 2021. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2021/08/questionable-curriculum-who-is-pushing-critical-race-theory-on-our-children/
  6. Forest Park School District No. 91 contractual agreement. Accessed Nov. 10, 2021. https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Derute-Consulting-Cooperative_Forest-Park-School-District-91_2019-08-10_Contract.pdf
  7. Forest Park School District No. 91 contractual agreement. Accessed Nov. 10, 2021. https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Derute-Consulting-Cooperative_Forest-Park-School-District-91_2019-08-10_Contract.pdf
  8. Forest Park School District No. 91 contractual agreement. Accessed Nov. 10, 2021. https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Derute-Consulting-Cooperative_Forest-Park-School-District-91_2019-08-10_Contract.pdf
  9. Ryan Brahm. “Is The MPSD Staff Being Trained In CRT Concepts? Board Member Says Yes, Superintendent Says No”; Seehafer News. Oct. 8, 2021. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.seehafernews.com/2021/10/08/is-the-mpsd-staff-being-trained-in-crt-concepts-board-member-says-yes-superintendent-says-no/
  10. Ryan Brahm. “Is The MPSD Staff Being Trained In CRT Concepts? Board Member Says Yes, Superintendent Says No”; Seehafer News. Oct. 8, 2021. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.seehafernews.com/2021/10/08/is-the-mpsd-staff-being-trained-in-crt-concepts-board-member-says-yes-superintendent-says-no/
  11. Ryan Brahm. “Is The MPSD Staff Being Trained In CRT Concepts? Board Member Says Yes, Superintendent Says No”; Seehafer News. Oct. 8, 2021. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.seehafernews.com/2021/10/08/is-the-mpsd-staff-being-trained-in-crt-concepts-board-member-says-yes-superintendent-says-no/
  12. Alisa Schafer. “Dozens Join Rally At Manitowoc Lincoln High In Support Of Diversity In Schools”; Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter. Aug. 11, 2011. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.htrnews.com/story/news/education/2021/08/11/critical-race-theory-manitowoc-rally-lincoln-high-school/5389541001/
  13. University of Chicago-Illinois website. Accessed Nov. 10, 2021. https://education.uic.edu/profiles/decoteau-irby/
  14. M.D. Kittle. “DPI Conferences Pushes ‘White Privilege’ Mantra, At Taxpayer Expense”; MacIver News Service. Oct. 25, 2018. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2018/10/dpi-conference-pushes-white-privilege-mantra-at-taxpayer-expense/
  15. MacIver Staff. “Questionable Curriculum: Who Is Pushing Critical Race Theory On Our Children?” Aug. 10, 2021. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2021/08/questionable-curriculum-who-is-pushing-critical-race-theory-on-our-children/
  16. Michigan State University Department of English website. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://english.msu.edu/faculty/emery-petchauer/
  17. [1] Lincoln University website. “Lincoln University – America’s First Historically Black University — Begins Yearlong Sesquicentennial Celebration, Thursday, April 10 TV Commentator And Educator Tony Brown To Deliver Keynote Address”;  Accessed Oct. 9, 2021. https://www.lincoln.edu/new-and-events/news/lincoln-university-%E2%80%93-americas-first-historically-black-university-begins
  18. Susan Snyder. “Under Fire For Comments, Lincoln President Resigns”;  Philadelphia Inquirer.  Nov. 24, 2014. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/education/20141125_Under_fire_for_sexual_assault_comments__Lincoln_u__president_resigns.html
  19. [1] Scott Jaschik. “A President’s Comments On Rape”; Inside Higher Ed. Nov. 10, 2014. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/10/debate-over-university-presidents-comments-rape
  20. Emery Petchauer. “’Your Comments Put Students At Risk’: An Open Letter To Lincoln University’s President”; Salon. Nov. 19, 2014. Accessed Nov. 9, 2021. https://www.salon.com/2014/11/19/your_comments_put_students_at_risk_an_open_letter_to_lincoln_universitys_president_partner/
  21. Rutgers University-Newark website. Accessed Nov. 10, 2021. https://sasn.rutgers.edu/news-events/news/sasn-welcomes-new-faculty-2021-2022-academic-year
  22. University of Wisconsin-Whitewater website. Accessed Nov. 10, 2021. https://www.uww.edu/cls/race-and-ethnic-studies/meet-our-faculty
  23. Rutgers University website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://nbdiversity.rutgers.edu/people/corrine-castro
  24. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://uwm.edu/education/people/drame-elizabeth/
  25. Dominque Duval-Diop LinkedIn page. Accessed Nov. 15, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiqueduvaldiop/
  26. Mount Mary University website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://mtmary.edu/majors-programs/schools/natural-health-sciences-education/faculty.html
  27. Milwaukee County Office on African American Affairs website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://county.milwaukee.gov/EN/OAAA/Our-Team
  28. Milwaukee Area Technical College website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. https://matc.academia.edu/JacquelineRobinsonHunsicker
  29. Derute Consulting Cooperative website. Accessed Nov. 11, 2021. http://www.deruteconsulting.com/jacqueline-robinsonhunsicker
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