The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced it was launching an investigation into the Baltimore City Health Department for possibly violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by holding racially segregated work training sessions. The BCHD is accused of engaging in workplace activities that discriminated “against, or limit, segregate, or classify, employees because of their race, color, and national origin,” a violation of federal law.
Information obtained by the DOJ revealed that the BCHD separated employees into groups “based on race, color, and national origin” for the department’s “racial equity training.” The two groups were a “white caucus” and a “people of color” caucus. The white caucus is described as a “group of white people who meet for the purpose of building analysis, awareness, stamina, and strategy to challenge systemic racism and internalized white supremacy.”
According to Spotlight on Maryland, the “Undoing Racism” training was led by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, an “anti-racist” organization based in New Orleans between 2022 and 2024. The group was paid $50,000 over that time for its work. Other emails, however, revealed the trainings continued until June 2025, and “BCHD paid the People’s Institute $150 for each white caucus meeting it attended and oversaw.”
Furthermore, regarding the so-called “white caucus group,” white people were supposed to “do the personal work of understanding” their complicity in systemic racism. The trainings were supposed to help white people “build the skills necessary to challenge that complicity.”
“White affinity groups allow us to examine our racial conditioning without relying on people of color for answers or subjecting them to our process,” the People’s Institute description of these trainings reportedly read
“Separating employees into training groups based on their race is discriminatory, illegal, and un-American,” said Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Such practices are divisive and foster a racially hostile work environment.”
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“Racial segregation of employees is deeply offensive to the American guarantee of equal rights under the law, and it will not be tolerated,” Dhillon said.
A representative from Baltimore Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office told the Washington Examiner “The City is aware of the DOJ’s letter and will comply with any lawful investigation.”
