Michigan House votes to repeal Cesar Chavez Day after abuse allegations

The Michigan House voted Tuesday to repeal the state's designation of Cesar Chavez Day. The bill cites credible and extensively documented allegations of sexual abuse against Chavez as the reason for ending the state holiday in his honor.

Michigan Republican Rep. Josh Schriver said the evidence against Chavez includes detailed accounts from multiple women, including some who say they were abused as minors.

"The evidence against Chavez cannot be ignored," Schriver said. "We have detailed accounts from multiple women, including women who say they were abused as minors. As lawmakers, we owe it to victims to make sure that we are not using the state government to officially honor Chavez. Continuing to do so would be hypocritical to our standards of accountability, and it would be an insult to his victims."

Schriver also emphasized that repealing the holiday does not diminish the recognition of the farmworker movement.

"We are not here to erase the history of American farmworkers," Schriver said. "This is about separating the dignity of farmworkers from the legacy of Chavez that has been permanently disgraced. We owe it to both victims and laborers to ensure that Chavez no longer receives recognition at the state level."

The move comes after recent reporting of abuse allegations against Chavez, a prominent labor and civil rights leader who died in 1993. The allegations were first reported by the New York Times and corroborated by labor leader Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Chavez in the 1960s.

Huerta, now 95, wrote in a public statement that she experienced two non-consensual sexual encounters with Chavez that resulted in pregnancies. She said she kept the assaults secret for decades out of concern for the farmworker movement. Chavez's family responded to the allegations by saying they were "devastated" and wished "peace and healing to the survivors."

The Michigan House bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration.

A number of other local governments have passed similar repeals removing designations of Cesar Chavez Day.