A black Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) director who was fired by her California community college filed a lawsuit last week accusing the school of “illegally targeting White people.”

Tabia Lee, a tenured faculty member, was fired in March by De Anza College, a public community college in the San Jose area, after she said she questioned antiracist “orthodoxy” in her position as DEI director.

“I was told that [I] was supposed to only advance what at that time I was calling a third-wave antiracism ideology,” Lee said in March.

On July 10, Lee filed a lawsuit against the college, alleging a hostile DEI department “illegally targeting White people on the basis of race.”

The complaint says Lee, who is black, was accused of “whitesplaining” and not being the “right kind of Black person.”

“She happens to be Black, but first and foremost, Dr. Lee is a teacher dedicated to humanism and civil rights,” the complaint reads. “She teaches that people should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. De Anza is hostile to this concept.”

The community college district reportedly informed Lee in a letter that the official reasons for her firing was a “persistent inability to demonstrate cooperation in working with colleagues and staff,” her “unwillingness to accept constructive criticism” and “no expectation on the part of the Tenure Review Committee … that improvements in these two critical areas can ever be achieved.”

“These are people who should definitely know better,” Lee told Newsweek. “And the way that they behaved was what they claim other people do to marginalized people. They literally marginalized me as an individual, and they shunned me and they worked really hard to push me out.”

Lee previously said her termination came after she questioned and objected to some of the DEI department’s initiatives, Inside Higher Ed reported.

She objected to the college’s land acknowledgments for a Native American tribe, she tried to spearhead a “Jewish inclusion” event on campus, she refused to join a “socialist network,” she declined to use the gender-neutral term “Latinx,” and she asked why “Black” was capitalized but not “white.”

Lee said she was called a “b****” and dictatorial” for suggesting a pause on the college’s land acknowledgements, when what she actually wanted to do was add changes that the Native American tribes themselves suggested.

Lee also said the same person who invited her to join the “socialist network” accused her of disrespecting a Black Lives Matter founder.

At one point, a college employee even accused her of supporting white supremacy, Lee said.

She also said, “I no longer participate in gender pronouns because I find that the same toxic ideologies around race ideologies are now being advanced under gender ideologies.”

Lee currently wants her old faculty position back along with restitution for financial damages.

The community college district said in a statement that it “has an obligation to protect privacy in personnel matters.”

“Without commenting on any specific matter, we can share that faculty members have comprehensive due process and appeal rights both under the law and negotiated through their bargaining unit,” Foothill-De Anza Community College District said.

San Francisco stores have geared up with unprecedented security measures to try to deter shoplifters in the crime-ridden city.

Grocery stores, pharmacies, and other stores have installed extreme security devices and paid for private security guards to combat the rise in rampant theft over the last few years.

Supermarket chain Safeway installed exit gates at self-checkout lines in some of its Bay Area grocery stores, which require customers to scan their receipts before walking out the door. The exit gates are similar to those in mass transit systems.

“Recent changes were made at select Safeway stores in the Bay Area to maintain a safe and welcoming shopping experience for our customers and associates given the increasing amount of theft,” a Safeway spokesperson said in a statement Monday.

“Those updates include operational changes to the front end of the stores to deter shoplifting. Like other local businesses, we are working on ways to curtail escalating theft so we can ensure the wellbeing of our employees and foster a welcoming environment for our customers. These long-planned security improvements were implemented with those goals in mind,” the Safeway spokesperson said.

A Walgreens in northern San Francisco locked its freezers with chains in response to shoplifters hitting the store 15 to 20 times a day, according to an employee.

A local ABC7 reporter witnessed multiple shoplifters at the Walgreens in just an hour.

“It’s San Francisco, bro,” one of the shoplifters told the outlet about why he did not pay.

A police sergeant in the area told the reporter the shoplifting is “getting worse” at that particular Walgreens.

Part of the reason for the shoplifting increase is Proposition 47, a 2014 voter-approved law that made the theft of merchandise under $950 in value a misdemeanor that is often not investigated.

Most Californians support changing Prop 47 to reinstate penalties for certain thefts, according to a 2022 poll.

In 2021, businesses in San Francisco’ Union Square hired private security to combat the “smash and grab” robberies that plagued the area.

Gump’s, a luxury home decor retailer, hired private security and capped how many shoppers could be in the downtown store at one time around Christmas, 2021.

“It is a cost that is not sustainable long-term for our business or for any business,” Marc Capalbo, Gump’s vice president of operations, said at the time. “The lack of leadership, the lack of accountability for those that are committing these crimes have got us to this situation.”

Electronics store B8ta closed for seven months in 2021 after a man took two laptops at gunpoint.

When B8ta reopened, the store spent $30,000 a month on around-the-clock security guards with bulletproof vests, more money than its entire payroll or rent.

Shoplifting spiked 20% in San Francisco between 2019 before the pandemic and 2022, according to the California Department of Justice.

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A string of major retailers have recently fled their downtown San Francisco locations, where foot traffic has thinned. Mall company Westfield, AT&T, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and two hotels have all shuttered locations in the city recently.

While overall crime in San Francisco is slightly down this year, certain types of violent crime are up, according to police data.

Murder is up 10% to 22 murders so far. Robberies are up 15% to 1,150 robberies so far. Car thefts are up 5% to 2,889 thefts.

Crime often accompanies the city’s stubborn homelessness and drug problems.

The drug crisis is still raging in San Francisco, although overdose deaths have dropped from their all-time high in 2020 during the thick of the pandemic. Homelessness has only gotten worse since before the pandemic. About 38,000 people are homeless in the Bay Area on a given night.