Democratic lawmakers are taking out liability insurance
It's Friday, June 13, 2025, and in this morning's edition we're covering: Democratic lawmakers are taking out liability insurance as current president increases legal threats, Online students lose thousands following the closure of South Carolina’s Limestone University, Current U.S. president ignored Newsom in putting the National Guard in L.A., Portland’s Tribal Relations Office Was Once a National Leader. What Happened?, Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less, Three women build a ‘third space’ for Green Bay residents who have felt left out.
Media outlets and others featured in this edition: NOTUS, South Carolina Daily Gazette, CalMatters, Underscore Native News, The Marshall Project, Wisconsin Watch.
Links to additional stories at the bottom
Democratic Lawmakers Are Taking Out Liability Insurance As Trump Ramps Up Legal Threats
“That’s just, unfortunately, the nature of the job right now and it’s terrible,” one House Democrat told NOTUS. “It’s a terrible way to have to do this work.”
By Oriana González and Riley Rogerson
June 12, 2025
As Donald Trump and his allies pick high-profile legal fights with prominent Democrats, lawmakers are increasingly taking out liability insurance to protect themselves.
“That’s just, unfortunately, the nature of the job right now and it’s terrible,” one House Democrat told NOTUS. “It’s a terrible way to have to do this work.”
Seeking insurance for legal help isn’t a new concept for Democratic lawmakers; NOTUS reported that at least half a dozen had taken out such insurance before the 2024 election, fearing prosecution from a vengeful Donald Trump as he entered his second term.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, an impeachment manager during Trump’s second trial in 2020, told NOTUS he took out liability insurance two years ago.
“Donald Trump is prosecuting his political enemies, and it’s better to be prepared,” he said.
Still, multiple lawmakers told NOTUS they have a renewed sense of urgency this year in response to recent high-profile targeting of Trump’s political opponents. Democrats pointed to Rep. LaMonica McIver’s federal indictment, the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention of a staffer for Rep. Jerry Nadler, the Justice Department’s investigation into Rep. Robert Garcia for saying Democrats should bring “actual weapons to this bar fight” and Trump’s recent threats to arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz told NOTUS he recently took out liability insurance, figuring “it’s $500, and it just seems like a smart decision.”
“There’s no threats against me or anything bad. It’s just, you know, hedging our bets,” he added.
Moskowitz said members have been sharing information about the insurance “among themselves” and that the organic conversations “picked up” after the charges against McIver.
“I think most of us now have liability insurance,” a second House Democrat told NOTUS.
A third House Democrat said that advice on getting insurance is not coming directly from House Democratic leadership, but the members who are recommending it are “sharing it clearly with the support of or encouragement from leadership.”
“So even if it’s not coming from them, it’s sort of done in a way that sometimes seems like this is the best practice that … many members of the caucus are engaging in,” they added.
But that lawmaker added that leadership has been involved in strategizing how to best message when a Democratic member is targeted by the administration.
In a Wednesday Democratic whip meeting, “leadership spoke about how it’s important for us to mirror [McIver’s] statements” following the recent federal grand jury indictment against her, they added.
One senior Democratic aide said that “[m]aintaining a professional liability insurance policy is a routine practice for senior government officials and employees, mostly to help pay for legal representation.”
“Given this administration’s outrageous pattern of politically motivated arrests and prosecutions of Democratic members and leaders, it isn’t difficult to see why officials and employees would want to protect themselves,” the staffer added.
Not every Democrat has sought to legally protect themselves with insurance. Across the Capitol, several senators told NOTUS they weren’t aware of any caucus-wide conversations underway. Yet, they said they understood why their colleagues moved to take out insurance policies.
“It is just sad that some even need to consider that,” Sen. Andy Kim — who has firmly backed fellow New Jerseyan McIver — told NOTUS. “We’re just trying to do our jobs.”
Going after elected officials and political opponents in general, Sen. Cory Booker said, is “deeply violative of our democratic principles in this country, and it is indicative of authoritarian states.”
“Whether it’s law firms or businesses or universities or elected leaders, this is antidemocratic and it has to be stopped,” Booker continued.
Despite Democrats taking note of the escalating legal actions from the Trump administration, one Senate Democrat explained that members — and the party itself — are boxed in as they try to message around what they see as threats from Trump.
On the one hand, they want to sound the alarm on what they see as a weaponized Justice Department. On the other hand, they fear amplifying what this senator called “a form of trolling” by Trump and his allies hands the administration the pearl-clutching reaction it’s hoping to provoke.
The White House says it is just bringing “accountability” to the government.
“Anyone crying foul over the Trump administration’s so-called weaponization while ignoring blatant allegations of malfeasance is irresponsible and undermines the legitimate need for accountability,” Harrison Fields, the White House’s principal deputy press secretary, told NOTUS in a statement. “President Trump was elected to end the weaponization of the federal government, and that’s precisely what his Department of Justice is doing.”
And yet, it’s clear that behind closed doors, Democrats are taking precautions. That senator told NOTUS they have observed “heightened security awareness” among colleagues once Trump took office. And a fourth House Democrat, who said they just got liability insurance, added that Trump’s rhetoric against Democrats has also inspired some members to get “enhanced security.”
“If I have an event that’s over 100 people now, we get security, check everyone that comes in and stuff because my death threats are insane — and they are for a lot of people,” that lawmaker said.
House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark told NOTUS she’s also worried about potential security breaches in House offices.
“We have a lot of confidential information in our offices,” she said. “And, you know, people cannot just come in. We have people’s Social Security numbers. We have medical history, and so they can be as confident as they can if people are coming in under a false pretense into our offices.”
The day after Nadler’s staffer was detained by ICE, Rep. Joe Morelle, the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, sent a letter to Democratic members and their staffers to remind them to check for warrants if law enforcement officials attempt to enter their offices and to even consider adding “door buzzers or buttons” to “maintain control of entry.”
“As the Trump Administration continues to engage in efforts to intimidate Members of Congress into silence and capitulation, it is important that you and your staff are aware of their rights when interacting with law enforcement, particularly in district offices,” Morelle wrote in the letter, obtained by NOTUS.
“The vast majority of law enforcement officers are honorable professionals; however, the Trump Administration has weaponized agencies to obstruct us from carrying out our constitutional duties,” the letter continued.
A few Democratic lawmakers have some peace of mind thanks to the preemptive pardons that President Joe Biden issued during the final days of his administration. Trump centered much of his 2024 campaign around seeking retribution against his political enemies, particularly lawmakers who sat on the Jan. 6 select committee.
Fearing they would be subject to attacks, Biden pardoned the nine members of the panel, saying they “do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified or politically motivated prosecutions.”
“I got a pardon because I know what Donald Trump is capable of doing,” one recipient, Rep. Bennie Thompson, who served as chair of the panel, told NOTUS.
“I supported the [preemptive pardon] back when it happened,” he said. “I didn’t have a problem with it because I know the person who is president, and he loves to punish people he sees as his enemies, and he saw the members of the Jan. 6 committee and the staff as people who, for whatever reason, didn’t like him. So we were his enemies.”
Trump has claimed he can undo Biden’s pardons, declaring them “VOID” on Truth Social and alleging that the former president used an “autopen” to sign them.
“This Justice Department, populated at the top by Trump’s criminal defense lawyers, are willing to go after any of the president’s enemies,” another pardon recipient, Sen. Adam Schiff, told NOTUS. “So that puts all members of Congress at risk.”
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Oriana González and Riley Rogerson are reporters at NOTUS.
Read More: NOTUS
Online students lose thousands of dollars following closure of SC’s Limestone University
By: Jessica Holdman - June 11, 2025
GAFFNEY — Limestone University required students to pre-pay for summer classes. Now that the college has closed for good, some say they’re out thousands of dollars.
The school’s initial announcement that the 179-year-old, private college in South Carolina’s Upstate needed to raise $6 million to stay open came as online students faced a deadline.
On April 13, school officials told virtual students, including Mike Thielen, to submit their payments for summer classes within five days, according to emails reviewed by the SC Daily Gazette. The April 16 announcement of potential closure said online classes would continue, suggesting online students need not worry.
But after two weeks of frantic fundraising fell short, the school’s governing board ultimately voted for total closure. Online offerings ended too.
“That blindsided everybody,” Thielen said.
It’s been six weeks since the board vote. Thielen and half a dozen others say the school has still not refunded their money.
Limestone personnel designated as a point of contact after closure have not responded to emails sent by the SC Daily Gazette.
‘Total failure of leadership’
At first, Thielen received email replies from staff saying they were working on returning the $4,000 he paid for two classes.
He followed up several times and received the same response until layoffs became official and people stopped returning messages altogether.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see my money again,” Thielen said. “Everyone is passing the buck. It’s just really shameful.”
Thielen enrolled in Limestone’s online program while working for a Spartanburg software company, which had a partnership agreement with the school. When he took a new job, he continued studying with Limestone, hoping to become the first person in his family with a master’s degree.
The online Master of Business Administration student, who lives near Fort Worth, Texas, and works as a healthcare recruiter, was just three classes away from finishing his degree. Now he’s left finding a new school — one that may not accept all of his transfer credits. And he’ll have to come up with more money to pay for it, on top of what he lost.
“It was just a total failure of leadership,” he said. “They rushed to shut it down and now they’re hiding.”
The story is similar for South Carolina Army National Guard member Thomas Martin.
The master sergeant from Charleston has worked for the Guard full time for two decades and was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business on the side. Martin said Limestone’s online program was a popular choice among his fellow guardsmen because they could use federal and state benefits offered to military members to pay for it.
When Limestone’s final spring semester ended, Martin still had about $1,000 in state aid available, which he had hoped to put toward summer classes or textbook costs. The school, which received students’ allotment directly from the state Commission on Higher Education, has yet to credit him for those unused state dollars.
“I had a great experience with Limestone up until this,” he said. “Now they’re not even acknowledging my emails. It’s disappointing.”
Financial straits
Martin said he was repeatedly referred to South Carolina’s higher education agency for help. The commission’s staff told him they would research the matter but weren’t hopeful that the aid dollars would be returned.
Commission spokesman Mark Swart said the agency has not received any official, written complaints against Limestone at this time. He said the agency referred several students to Limestone’s former chief of staff, who the school designated as a point of contact.
Martin told the Gazette he didn’t realize the complaint process existed.
When Limestone announced the final decision to close, laying off 478 people employed by the college, leadership cited enrollment declines impacting colleges nationwide and rising costs as the drivers behind the school’s financial straits.
Limestone’s enrollment fell by half over the past decade, from 3,214 students in fall 2014, according to state higher education data, to 1,600 this semester, including both online and in-person students, according to the university’s announcement.
Auditors reported the school had a $7.6 million operating loss as of June 2024. To make up for losses, the school had borrowed some $22 million from its small endowment, which had a balance of just $9.2 million last June.
The school also faced an additional $30 million in debt, largely from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development loan, which Limestone took out in 2018 to construct a new library and student center, purchase a residence hall and refinance previous debt. The school offered campus land and buildings as collateral.
So far, USDA is not calling in that loan.
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said it “takes its stewardship of taxpayer funds seriously” and “continues to actively engage with the university’s board and leadership to explore all available options to protect the federal investment and ensure the best possible outcome for the community and taxpayers.”
The school also has not filed for federal bankruptcy protections. No liens have been filed against the school in South Carolina district court. Nor are there any small claims filings from students at this time.
Other impacts
Not only does Limestone’s closure impact the college’s students, it also affected college employees and 13 K-12 public charter schools that relied on the college’s associated charter school management operations: Limestone Charter Association.
A former employee has filed suit in federal court alleging the school violated national labor laws when it only gave two weeks’ notice to workers. Federal law requires companies with 100 or more employees to give at least 60 days’ notice for layoffs, though there are some exceptions.
In its notice letter filed with the state employment agency, Limestone claimed the exemption allowed for employers actively seeking funding that an earlier notice could have jeopardized. The school has yet to respond in court filings.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Education is allowing the Limestone Charter Association, which operates as a separate nonprofit with its own staff, to continue operations through the coming school year as the charter schools it serves search for a new authorizer.
According to staff at the K-12 agency, the charter association will continue to receive state funding and act as an authorizer until July 1, 2026. It cannot accept any new schools starting July 1, 2025, and the state Education Department is recommending charter schools apply to a new authorizer by December.
The Limestone Charter Association schools:
South Carolina Preparatory Academy, Anderson
South Carolina Preparatory Leadership School, Anderson
East Link Academy, Greenville
Global Academy of South Carolina, Spartanburg
Mountain View Preparatory, Spartanburg
Goucher Charter Academy, Gaffney
Legion Collegiate Academy, Rock Hill
Horse Creek Academy, Aiken
OCSD High School for Health Professions, Orangeburg
Summerville Prep, Summerville
Oceanside Collegiate Academy, Mount Pleasant
Atlantic Collegiate Academy, Myrtle Beach
Coastal High School, Myrtle Beach
Read More: South Carolina Daily Gazette
Trump ignored Newsom in putting the National Guard in LA. That’s rare in US history
by Mikhail Zinshteyn June 8, 2025
In summary
It’s exceedingly rare for presidents to call up the National Guard in opposition to a governor’s wishes, as President Trump did in deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles.
Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for WhatMatters to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State.
President Donald Trump’s call-up of 2,000 citizen soldiers from the California National Guard against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom has few precedents in U.S. history.
Trump insists the federalized troops are necessary to protect immigration enforcement.
But Newsom, who traveled to Los Angeles Sunday to oversee the state’s response, has formally asked Trump to return control of the Guard to the state.
“We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved. This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a social media post Sunday, after formally asking the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to the state.
In his request, Newsom wrote that local “law enforcement resources are sufficient to maintain order.” He added that there “is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation.”Trump’s federalization of the National Guard may still face court challenges, legal experts say, but his Saturday night order is rare. Trump went further on Monday, ordering the deployment of 700 active-duty Marines to LA.
Trump’s executive order calling up the National Guard marks the first time a president sidestepped local and state officials in deploying state troops since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sought to protect civil rights protesters in Alabama.
In 1957, the governor of Arkansas activated the National Guard to block nine Black students from entering Central High School in the state’s capital, Little Rock, in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that segregation was illegal. President Dwight D. Eisenhower took over the Guard and brought in U.S. Army troops to ensure the Black students could attend school.And in 1962, President John F. Kennedy federalized the National Guard in Mississippi and brought in U.S. Army troops to quell a riot of segregationists who opposed the enrollment of a Black student at The University of Mississippi.
Trump’s order through a presidential memo Saturday night came after media reports and social media footage of protesters throwing rocks at a Border Patrol vehicle in Paramount, a city with a large Latino population in Los Angeles County. Immigration enforcement officials were there and in other parts of the Los Angeles area making arrests of individuals they say are in the country without authorization. Trump cited “incidents of violence and disorder” in his message. The soldiers will “temporarily protect” the immigration enforcement officers, Trump wrote.
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement told CalMatters in an email that “[i]rresponsible politicians continue to push dangerous and misleading rhetoric that puts communities and law enforcement at risk. Even the Los Angeles Police Departments referred to violent riots yesterday as ‘peaceful protests.’ Americans can look at the videos and images and see with their own eyes that they are dangerous not ‘peaceful.’”
The spokesperson added: “We have arrested a domestic abuser who assaulted someone with a firearm and a child rapist. In defense of these heinous criminals, masked rioters have made it their mission to injure and maim federal law enforcement officials. Make no mistake, rioters committing crimes will be arrested and held accountable.”
Legality of Trump’s LA deployment
Federalizing the National Guard is a “significant” and “unnecessary” move, especially given that “no local or state authorities have requested such federal assistance,” according to Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at Georgetown University.
In a blog post Saturday night, Vladeck also cautioned that Trump’s move is not an invocation of the Insurrection Act, a seldom-used set of statutes that’s a major escalation of presidential powers that can give the National Guard special enforcement powers.
Given the actual powers Trump cited in his memo, soldiers will just “provide a form of force protection and other logistical support for ICE personnel,” Vladeck wrote.
But, he wonders if this is a strategic move by Trump to eventually invoke the Insurrection Act, which was last used by a president in 1992 — also in Los Angeles to quell the unrest following the Rodney King trial. Even then, the state’s governor wanted the extra help.
“It’s possible that this step is meant to both be and look modest so that, if and when it “fails,” the government can invoke its failure as a basis for a more aggressive domestic deployment of troops,” Vladeck wrote.
Kyle Longley, a professor of history, war and diplomacy at Chapman University in Orange County, said he too believes Trump’s deployment of the National Guard is meant to score political points with his base. “This is trying to provoke a response. This is trying to play to Fox News, play to the base of Trump, who have tried to portray cities as cesspools of discontent,” he said.Read More: CalMatters
Portland’s Tribal Relations Office Was Once a National Leader. What Happened?
A pattern of neglect has sowed distrust in the city program.
by Alex Zielinski, OPB and Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore Native News + ICT
June 9, 2025
When the City of Portland established its Tribal Relations Program in 2017, it turned heads. In a city with one of the nation’s largest populations of Native residents, creating a program to bridge the long-neglected relationships between Tribal and city governments seemed obvious – and overdue.
The trailblazing program became a quick model for how other U.S. cities and counties could reimagine their relationships with Tribal leaders and Native residents.
But a cycle of tumultuous firings, staffing cuts and political neglect has reduced the office to a shadow of its former self. The office has sat empty for more than seven months, putting programs and projects on pause.
Now, as Portland ushers in a new form of government, city managers are poised to hire yet another new employee to lead the troubled office. Indigenous community leaders and Tribal officials see an opportunity to get the program back on track – if city leaders are willing to listen.
“I think that the city could be doing more, at least in partnership or engagement with the Native community around this,” said William Miller, Blackfeet and Cherokee, who is the executive director of the NAYA Action Fund, a political advocacy group lobbying for Native communities across Oregon and Washington. “It feels very ‘us versus them.’”
Their tolerance for allowing the city to further impede the office’s progress is growing thin. If the city continues to struggle to staff and support the program, it could lead to legal troubles over treaty rights – among other damages.
“If they fail, it will be another example of the city not following through on saying that they have a commitment to Native people,” said Laura John, a descendant of the Blackfeet and Seneca Nations who led the city’s Tribal Relations office for five years. “It will tarnish the reputation of the city and create harm.”
Origins of Portland’s relationship with Native nations
The land where the Willamette and the Columbia rivers meet has been home to dozens of different Native nations since time immemorial.
Since settlers first forcefully occupied this land in the mid-1800s, the city of Portland has failed to build trust with sovereign Tribal leaders and Indigenous residents.
In 1866, just over a decade after the city was incorporated, the head of the city’s police department wrote a letter to then-mayor Henry Failing, warning him of a potential smallpox outbreak in a group of “Indians” who had set up camp outside of town. In the letter, which OPB/UNN obtained through the city’s archives, he assured Failing that the group would be surveilled and prevented from entering city limits, but did not suggest offering any medical help. The city archives have no further details about what became of this group.
Read More: Underscore Native News
What History Tells Us to Expect From Trump’s Escalation in Los Angeles Protests
Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less.
Roughly 2,000 National Guard troops continued patrolling Los Angeles on Monday under an order from President Donald Trump following weekend protests in response to federal immigration sweeps. It was the first time the federal government had activated the guard over the objections of local officials in 60 years. Without providing any evidence, Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that the protesters are “paid insurrectionists.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the deployment, describing it as federal overreach and a dangerous provocation. Early Monday, Newsom announced plans to file a lawsuit challenging the deployment. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Newsom said in a statement.
There’s a substantial amount of social science backing up Newsom’s suggestion. A large body of research, spanning more than 50 years, shows that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses to civil unrest tend to make protests more volatile — not less.
One of the earliest such findings came from the 1967 Kerner Commission, which investigated the causes of urban riots across the country. The commission found that in half the riots studied, aggressive police action, such as mass arrests or tear gas, had served as the catalyst for violence. The commission suggested that “abrasive policing tactics” should be abandoned in favor of de-escalation and engagement.
Experts say extensive research in the following decades has turned up similar findings. Escalating force by police tends to create feedback loops, where protesters escalate against police, police escalate even further, and both sides become increasingly angry and afraid.
During the protests against the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, law enforcement agencies across the U.S. mostly failed to adopt those lessons, repeatedly adopting a “force first” posture and showing up in riot gear, deploying chemical agents, and making mass arrests.
“There’s this failed mindset of ‘If we show force, immediately we will deter criminal activity or unruly activity,’ and show me where that has worked,” Scott Thomson, the former chief of police in Camden, New Jersey, told The Marshall Project during those protests.
He continued: “That's the primal response. The adrenaline starts to pump, the temperature in the room is rising, and you want to go one step higher. But what we need to know as professionals is that there are times, if we go one step higher, we are forcing them to go one step higher.”
In the wake of the summer of 2020, the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank that advises law enforcement agencies nationwide, arrived at similar conclusions. Its 2022 report on policing protests recommended avoiding mass arrests, limiting the use of less-lethal munitions, and focusing instead on building trust and maintaining communication with protest organizers. The report concluded that when police establish those lines of communication, protests are far more likely to remain peaceful.
Just last year, many of those recommendations were ignored again during college campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Police across the country routinely deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and riot teams to clear student encampments, resulting in nearly 3,000 arrests nationwide.
These recommendations only have value if the government’s goal is actually to minimize violence, however. Demonstrators in Los Angeles on Saturday blocked freeways and gathered at federal detention centers, demanding an end to mass deportations. By Saturday night, tensions between protesters and law enforcement were already rising, with reports that some protesters had set fires, thrown projectiles and launched fireworks at police. Los Angeles Police officers and federal agents deployed tear gas, rubber bullets, and made dozens of arrests.
But local and state officials in California, as well as some journalists who have covered Los Angeles for decades, said that the situation did not warrant the presence of the National Guard. The Atlantic columnist David Frum observed Sunday that the point of the National Guard deployment may not be to calm tensions, but instead, to provoke confrontation for political gain. He noted that the image of fires and protesters waving foreign flags clashing with soldiers may serve Trump’s broader political narrative around law and order better than orderly, well-negotiated protests.
Three women build a ‘third space’ for Green Bay residents who have felt left out
The nonprofit Third Space Green Bay aspires to create community for LGBTQ+ residents and people of color — making all feel welcome.
by Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch June 10th, 2025
This story is part of Public Square, an occasional photography series highlighting how Wisconsin residents connect with their communities.To suggest someone in your community for us to feature, email Joe Timmerman at jtimmerman@wisconsinwatch.org.
Snowflakes fell last February as bundled-up women walked into a downtown Green Bay coffee shop. Inside, Third Space Green Bay was celebrating its one-year anniversary as a group that creates a gathering space for local queer, Black and Indigenous residents and other people of color.
Soft rhythm and blues — from SZA to Solange — filled the room as the group’s three co-founders led a Sunday morning clothes-mending and craft event that promised “healing through creativity.”
In launching Third Space, Jasmine Gordon, Ivy McGee and Sarah Titus aim to help people with a range of backgrounds feel at home in a city that’s 70% white and in a state where less than 4% of people identify as LGBTQ+.
The women met at St. Norbert College, a Catholic liberal arts institution in De Pere, just outside of Green Bay. McGee grew up in De Pere, and Titus, a native Minnesotan, moved to Green Bay in 2008. They had worked together for years as librarians at the college when Gordon, a St. Norbert alum, became the library’s community engagement coordinator in 2021. Seeing a gap to fill on campus, the women rolled out library programming that engaged LGBTQ+ students and people of color.
Events like “The Transperience,” an art installation in partnership with the Bay Area Council on Gender Diversity and the Trans Artist Collaborative, and a farmers market featuring more than 40 Black-owned businesses prompted feedback from residents who said they had never felt so seen, loved or cared for.
“We would have people come up to us afterwards expressing, ‘Oh my gosh, I never knew I needed this,’” Titus said.
But St. Norbert’s climate of inclusion changed over the years, the women said. In fall 2024, for instance, the college changed its gender policy, aligning with Catholic church guidelines recognizing only two genders: male and female. While leaders said the college remained committed to supporting people of diverse backgrounds, many students and staff said the change sent a different message.
At the same time, Gordon, McGee and Titus envisioned a larger, independent project to promote inclusion across Green Bay — beyond the confines of campus.
Leaving their jobs at a college that faced financial turmoil, they launched Third Space to realize that vision.
“We saw an opportunity and a responsibility to separate ourselves from the institution and develop something that felt more aligned with our core values, and that was including folks from all different walks of life regardless of who they love or what color their skin is or how they identify,” McGee said.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third space” in 1989, with home being someone’s “first place” and work as a “second place.” Third spaces are where people publicly gather informally, such as coffee shops, restaurants, coworking spaces and libraries. Third Space Green Bay seeks to create places for people to “just be,” its founders said.
Its programs are free and “open and welcoming to folks that are on the margins,” McGee said.
Third Space isn’t the only local group serving LGBTQ+ populations. The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Pride Center provides resources and holds events. But Third Space is rare in that it also intentionally serves Black and Indigenous residents, alongside other people of color.
“When we were thinking of how we wanted this organization to exist, we were really thinking about it as a coalition,” Titus said, adding that the group is “building and intertwining” multiple communities that are often marginalized locally.
Third Space, which filed to become a nonprofit in April 2024, has hosted more than 10 hours of community programming and raised more than $11,000 in grants and $6,700 in donations.
Earlier this year, Third Space hosted an International Women’s Day pop-up shop that included a poetry writing workshop and a live performance from a local poet.
McGee said joining other women in that space made her feel her organization was “absolutely on the right track” and helped her imagine what it could do with a permanent location.
The trio of founders said they are building the scaffolding for Third Space’s future. Until they secure a permanent location in downtown Green Bay, they’ll continue borrowing spaces from like-minded people in the community.
At the February anniversary event, Essence Wilks, a Milwaukee native who recently moved to Green Bay, and Taiyana Plummer, a Green Bay native, learned about Third Space after walking into the coffee shop in search of matcha tea. Plummer said she and Wilks had just been discussing a shortage of inclusive gathering spaces in Green Bay.
“Growing up here, especially when I was younger, it was harder to find people similar to me or spaces where I felt welcomed or heard and seen,” Plummer said. “So seeing this was very nice and made me feel very comfortable and just really excited for what’s moving forward with Third Space.”
Read More: Wisconsin Watch
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