Chetly Zarko

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Chetly Zarko is a freelance investigative writer and political consultant whose public work on the equality issue began on May 16, 2003 when the Wall Street Journal published an investigative op-ed critique of the scientific work of University of Michigan psychology professor Patricia Gurin. His op-ed focused on archival data he had obtained through FOIA from the U-M Bentley Historical Library from Gurin's husband (a retired social scientist himself) that suggested that her 1999 expert testimony wasn't complete relating to conclusions she drew from the Michigan Student Study (MSS) (1990-1994). Compounding the University's difficulty in explaining the discrepancy between her husband's 1994 "Executive Summary" and her testimony was the fact that Zarko had requested the raw data for the MSS under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and U-M refused to produce it. It was the secrecy that lead even U-M supporters to question the action, and two years later Zarko and the Michigan Association of Scholars won a settlement in litigation with U-M to obtain the data.

In 2004, Zarko became Treasurer and Director of Media Relations and Outreach for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Committee and was deeply involved in securing the 508,202 signatures MCRI turned in to the Michigan Secretary of State on January 6, 2005. He formed his own consulting business later that year, and in 2006 took on additional clients and became a special consultant to MCRI through its completion.

Other Work

In addition to that work, Zarko published another Bentley related story in the Michigan Bar Journal at the same time (May, 2003) exposing documents suggesting that U-M had ignored evidence "socio-economic alternatives" to race preference could be very effective, and condemning the existence of "alumni" and "VIP preferences" which he documented in detail. Prior to these publications, he had maintained a personal website as early as 1997 in which he published a variety of stories, including work on university research overhead overcharging, several FOIA lawsuits against U-M, and a 2000 piece on affirmative action which was not published in mainstream media. In 1996, he had contacted Carl Cohen regarding their mutual work on FOIA matters and attended a public forum with Cohen that fall in Shelby Township that was disrupted by By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)

Blog

Zarko's blog, "Power, Politics, & Money," along with John Rosenberg's "Discriminations," and Tim Fay's "Adversity.net," are the leading resources for commentary and observations on the affirmative action and race preferences issue.