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Rachel Dolezal Defiant in Face of Calls to Resign From Police Board

Rachel Dolezal said she will not resign from a Spokane, Washington, police oversight board and said she has done nothing wrong.
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The former Washington state NAACP leader who stepped down after questions were raised about her racial identity is refusing calls to resign from a volunteer police oversight commission amid allegations of improper conduct.

Rachel Dolezal, 37, was asked by Spokane’s mayor to step down along with two other commissioners of the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission after an independent report found they created an intimidating work environment and overstepped their authority.

Dolezal was also accused in the report of improperly revealing the names of people involved in police misconduct investigations during public meetings.

“I will not resign. I have done nothing wrong and neither has Adrian Dominguez or Kevin Berkompass,” Dolezal said in a statement Wednesday night, referring to the two other commissioners on the volunteer police oversight board named in the report.

Dolezal said she and the other commissioners “double-checked our actions with legal counsel,” and noted it is an unpaid position. “The work is tough, and certainly there is a degree of expected push-back from the institution, but the level of harassment and sabotage by city government is completely undeserved and inappropriate.”

Dolezal is at the center of a controversy over her race, after her parents came forward last week and said she is “Caucasian by birth” but has been falsely representing herself as black for years.

On Monday, Dolezal resigned from her position as president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP. She also lost her job as an African studies instructor at a Washington university.

Spokane Mayor David Condon on Wednesday called the alleged misconduct a "serious violation of the public trust" and said Dolezal and the other two commissioners named in the report have been asked to resign. The City Council could take action to remove them when it meets Thursday.