Federal DEI officer says offensive Twitter comments about ‘white folkz’ were ‘private free speech’

A federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) officer apparently believes speech critics say is racist is acceptable as long as it isn’t made in an official capacity.

Kelisa Wing, chief DEI officer for the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), defended controversial Twitter remarks she made about “white folkz,” saying they were made outside her official role and were therefore “private free speech.”

Wing allegedly tweeted the now-deleted comments on the day she attended a professional development (PD) meeting in her private capacity. 

“I’m so exhausted at these white folkz in these PD sessions,” she tweeted. “This lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that black people can be racist too… I had to stop the session and give Karen the BUSINESS… [W]e are not the majority, we don’t have power.” 

Wing later argued the comments should be excused by the “context,” though she also deleted them without apologizing. 

“No, I did not make disparaging comments against White people,” she said, according to Fox News. “I would never categorize an entire group of people to disparage them. I’m speaking now as a private individual, about my private free speech from July of 2022.” 

“I was in a space where I was the only person of color,” Wing said, referring to the meeting held in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. “The purpose of that was people wanting to reconcile what was happening at the present time. 

“In the middle of that session, someone just called out, ‘Well, Black people are racist, too,’” she claimed. “It didn’t have any context to what we were talking about, and I started to explain to her that yes, everybody can be racist. But we’re talking about systemic racism and how that impacts people and their ability for housing, their ability for a lot of things.” 

Ironically, Wing then linked her controversial comments she claimed were “private” to her public job in DEI. 

“I can’t advocate for equity and access and opportunity and then not be willing to advocate for myself when an injustice is happening for myself,” she added. 

The DoDEA provides education services to over 66,000 military-connected children in the Americas, Europe and the Pacific.  

This isn’t the first time the agency has been scrutinized for liberal race and gender ideologies. As previously reported by The Lion, DoDEA school libraries were found to contain dozens of books that promote radical gender ideology and explicit pornographic imagery – books depicting 6-year-olds engaging in oral sex, children becoming drag queens, passages about masturbation and references to anal sex.  

Even elementary students had access to these books, most of which were added during the Biden administration, according to a report from Fox News.