FreeState Justice executive director resigns, says board has ‘white supremacist culture’
FreeState Justice Executive Director Jeremy LaMaster on Monday announced their resignation after they said the organization’s board of directors declined their request to step down. “This morning, I requested the FreeState Justice board of directors to submit their immediate resignations due to persistent violations of our board handbook, consistent failures in their fiduciary responsibilities, and using positions of power to engage in partisan lobbying within FreeState Justice and their repeated refusal to add new members and leadership to the board,” said LaMaster in an email they sent from his FreeState Justice email account. “They declined, and it is with a heavy heart that I announce my resignation as executive director and make a public call for their resignation instead: For the resignation of Lindsey Young, board president; Riley Roshong, board vice president; Brianna January, board secretary; Lee Carpenter, Brenda Dorsch, Andrew Adelman, and Jess Landers Hopkins.” LaMaster in June 2020 succeeded Mark Procopio as executive director.
LaMaster in his email noted they “exhausted every avenue over the past two years to get our board fully staffed and running, and I made good faith efforts to work with the board to ensure that our clients and low-income LGBTQ Marylanders remained at our center.” “Instead, the board has refused to accept any new board members since 2021 and refused to staff and run core board activities as per our handbook,” wrote LaMaster. “Instead, they have worked to consolidate power and amend the board handbook in secret to lower the minimum number of board members required and ensure that our policy positions prioritize relationships with legislators, not the best interests of our clients and
