WRAL highlights AIM’s Raleigh investigation as leaders are summoned to testify
January 7, 2026
Raleigh isn’t violating new federal rules seeking to block pro-diversity efforts, Raleigh City Manager Marchell Adams-David told state lawmakers Wednesday.
She and Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell were summoned to testify by the Republican-led state legislature about allegations that the city was still engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Last year, Republican President Donald Trump signed executive orders that could endanger Raleigh’s ability to get federal funding if it promotes DEI initiatives.
Adams-David said Raleigh doesn’t engage in the type of practices that critics claim.
“The City of Raleigh doesn’t have quotas,” she told the lawmakers holding the hearing. “Never has. We don’t have preferential treatment or any of that in our mode of operations. And that even predates me, and how we operate as your capital city.”
The accusations against Raleigh first came about in an undercover video shot by a conservative activist posing as someone applying for a job with the city and asking questions about its support for diversity.
Cowell, a Democrat elected in 2024, noted Wednesday that the video didn’t seem to worry any Raleigh residents — or at least not enough for anyone to contact her and ask any questions about it. Although the video has been public for months, she said, she only recently learned about its existence when GOP lawmakers recently told her to come testify.
“We became aware of it when y’all requested us to appear,” Cowell said. “I remember the day I got this email, and we’re like, ‘I wonder what this is about.’”
Cowell then played the video for the committee and let Adams-David take over the hearing from there.
Adams-David said the video is misleading because it was filmed in early 2025, less than a month after Trump took office, while Raleigh was still working to determine which policies it needed to change or eliminate to comply with his brand-new executive orders. The city made a series of changes in January, February and March to comply with Trump’s orders, Adams-David told lawmakers. But the activists didn’t release their video until October. She said that timing gave the false impression that the city hadn’t already made the changes it did.
She also said the video at one point includes text on screen, which could be misleadingly interpreted as a quote of what a Raleigh city employee said, but which in reality was written by the activists who shot the video.
The president of Accuracy In Media, the conservative group behind the video, told WRAL on Wednesday that they gave Raleigh officials the chance to respond but received no comment. He also acknowledged that the text in question wasn’t a quote by the employee shown on screen but questioned whether people believed what Adams-David insinuated about it.
“These people are offering excuses and distractions, but Raleigh taxpayers deserve an apology and an explanation,” AIM President Adam Guillette said.