Michigan Judge Under Investigation For Racism, Doubles Down In Newly Released Recordings

October 18, 2024

Source: Joe Raedle / Getty

Last month, we reported that Oakland County, Michigan, Probate Judge Kathleen Ryan was removed from her docket – meaning she cannot hear cases – while being investigated for racist and homophobic remarks she made. Recordings of her bigotry were placed into evidence by the court’s administrator, Edward Hutton.

In fact, Judge Ryan, who was elected to the bench in 2010, is not only racist and homophobic, but she appears to be proud of it. She can be heard in one recording referring to herself as a “new racist,” not a person who is “systemically racist,” despite the fact that she is a judge in a court of law, meaning she’s literally employed by the system, and there doesn’t appear to be anything “new” about her racism.

Now, according to a WXYZ Detroit report that updated the story this week, the investigation into Ryan’s bigotry has uncovered more recordings that illustrate the depths of her hatred for Black people and gay people. As we previously reported, Ryan was heard using an anti-gay slur aimed at Oakland County Executive David Coulter, who is gay. She also declared that “if you’re an American Black person, then you’re a f****** lazy piece of s***.”

Beyond that, not many details regarding the exact language she used had been published. But WXYZ ended that on Tuesday.

From WXYZ:

In another recording obtained by the 7 Investigators, she allegedly said: “You f*****g Black c***. I’m so pissed off at this Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, all this bulls***, oh my God – f**k you b***h.”

“I’ve never met anybody that enjoys hurting people and brags about it the way she does — or intimidating people, or scaring people,” Hutton told 7 Investigator Heather Catallo.

He alleges Judge Ryan has been calling him both during work and after-hours for years, and Hutton says during those hours and hours of calls Judge Ryan said highly inappropriate and racist things.

In another recording, Ryan allegedly said this: “…with this whole Black Lives Matter stuff you know they’re like – everyone’s all entitled and s**t… Let’s assume they did get screwed just because of the nature of your color, and the way America is, systemic racism, all that s**t! Fine. But don’t they have an obligation to step up to the plate too? I mean think about it, all they have to do is look at their history, like the whole like baby mommas, and the dads taking off, it’s like, you guys have an obligation too. You want us to treat you equally – you got to f*****g step up and do the same job! You know, you don’t get to be a lazy a**.”

Source: ROBYN BECK / Getty

Loud, strong and wrong

If there’s a kind of person more obnoxious and insufferable than a racist, it’s a racist who *tries* to intellectualize their racism.

Oh, so Courthouse Karen has an issue with progressive movements aimed at combatting systemic racism and rape culture? Shocking. Who would have thought that a judge whose robes might as well be white and come with a nice pointy hat would hate BLM despite her (albeit reluctant) acknowledgment that systemic racism exists because, in her mind, Black people are lazy and unworthy of equality?

I don’t know why so many racist white conservatives (oh, come on, we all know who she’s voting for) have it in their heads that all Black people do is sit around blaming white people for everything and lamenting systemic racism as if we don’t also work, pay bills, have goals and ambitions and raise families. Pro-Black movements don’t exist in lieu of our collective willingness to “f*****g step up and do the same jobs” white people do — we manage to engage in both simultaneously.

Ryan, like most white conservatives of the MAGA variety, needs to believe that “baby mommas and the dads taking off” are at the heart of Black issues, not racism — ignoring the myriad of studies that show that most Black fathers who aren’t married to the mothers of their children are not only present and active in their children’s lives, but they’re more active than white fathers who do not live in their children’s homes — because that’s what allows them to hold tight to the delusion that America is a noble nation and whiteness isn’t inherently oppressive.

At the end of the day, bigots are going to be bigots, but a bigot in a position of power is a whole different beast. Kwame Ture, (formerly known as Stokely Carmichael), the revolutionary leader who came to prominence during the Civil Rights and Black Power era, once famously said, “If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.”

Ryan: It’s my world. Get over it.

Source: JEFF KOWALSKY / Getty

Ryan is a judicial hate crime waiting to happen–or perhaps she’s more than one waiting to be uncovered.

Previous recordings show that she told Coulter, the county’s highest elected official, who happens to be gay, to “put that in your f***** a** and stuff it.” She also complained that Coulter was “more concerned about the f***** AIDS vaccinations.”

Just imagine how a gay Black person would fare in her courtroom.

“Judges are at the center of representing the system of justice to the public. It’s not only important the way in which they handle their work, but the view that the public has of them,” Larry Dubin, law professor emeritus at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, told WXYZ.

Even with all of these recordings documenting Ryan’s bigotry, it’s still unclear if she will ever be permanently removed from the bench. Ryan certainly doesn’t appear to believe so. She told us that in no uncertain terms.