Editorial: Michigan diversity council must clean house after Piston Group maliciously targeted

There is some measure of justice in Piston Group winning a permanent injunction against the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council, which has tried for three years to strip the auto supplier of its certification as a Minority Business Enterprise. But there needs to be more.

The case had seemed obvious from the start, since Piston Group is owned by Vinnie Johnson, who is Black. Johnson's previous career was playing basketball for the Detroit Pistons, winning two NBA championships with the "Bad Boys."

Over the course of a couple of decades, he built Piston Group into a $3 billion company with 12,000 employees, about half of whom are minorities. Most of his direct reports were white men — often brought on when he bought the companies they owned or managed.

Based on the leadership group's composition, the council said the company wasn't minority-run.

Dismissing that flimsy argument was important, but there's more to the case. The judge found that the council tried to shake down Piston Group, and when that failed, it tried to "destroy" and "steal" the company.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Annette Berry found that the council's CEO, Michelle Robinson, solicited Piston Group for a $300,000 "donation." When Johnson declined, she went after his company.

While the council was fighting to strip Piston Group of its minority certification, Robinson's husband joined a blank-check company looking to invest in the "future of mobility" — to wit, a bargain-basement takeover of Johnson's company.

"Plaintiffs have successfully established that Robinson's goal was to diminish the value of Johnson's companies by decertifying them," Berry wrote.

The judge called the scheme "chilling," but perhaps more disturbing is the council's unwillingness to grasp the ruling. The council remains defiant and defensive, when it ought to be looking into its oversight of Robinson's operations.

It's unknown if the U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating the matter for possible racketeering. Such cases are hard to prosecute. In the absence of a criminal prosecution, the automakers that count on the council and its national umbrella group to help it identify appropriate business partners in pursuit of diversity goals should demand that it clean house.

There's no excuse for such a scandal to be exposed and then ignored.