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Chetly Zarko is a former investigative writer turned political consultant. His major work includes operational management of the record-setting signature-drive for Proposal 2 (2006) in Michigan to end race preferences (race-based types of "affirmative action"), helping candidates win elections, and investigative work including an appearance in the Wall Street Journal. He has made dozens of TV and radio appearances, appeared on numerous academic and political panels, and written for a number of print sources.

Extended Biography

His investigative writing career began while at the University of Michigan, where he wrote for the bi-weekly independent news journal The Michigan Review, and published investigative pieces on technology, computer, and research overhead issues. Shortly before graduating, in early 1993, he published his first freelance story on federal indirect cost overhead rate regulations in Business Today. He has since expanded his work to include research, data collection, and political consulting.

Zarko's most significant freelance pieces include a May 16, 2003 expose in The Wall Street Journal, and other opinion editorials appearing in The Michigan Bar Journal, The Ann Arbor News, and The Kalamazoo Gazette.  Zarko's work has been cited in syndicated columns by Nat Hentoff, Thomas Bray, and Linda Chavez. His work has been supported in press releases by the Center for Equal Opportunity and the Center for Individual Rights; supported in an editorial by the Detroit News; indirectly cited by John J. Miller in the National Review; and mentioned by a variety of other individuals and organizations across the nation. The day after the June 23, 2003 landmark decision on so-called "affirmative action" by the United States Supreme Court, Zarko's archival research on U-M's scientific claims about the "educational benefits" of "diversity" was debated on Hannity and Colmes (FoxTV).

Following the Supreme Court decision, Zarko began assisting the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative's (MCRI) effort to end preferences in Michigan through a ballot proposal that would amend the state Constitution. Zarko built the MCRI transitional website in the summer of 2003 and co-developed the written content of the 2004 petition-drive site.  In 2004, he became Director of Media Relations for MCRI, and also became Treasurer, responsible for the campaign finance compliance and accounting for over $1 million and roughly 1400 donations. He remains active as an MCRI Steering Committee member. Zarko's latest success in this area, in conjunction with MCRI Executive Director, Jennifer Gratz, was completion of the signature-gathering phase of the campaign on January 6 2005. MCRI turned-in a new Michigan record-number of signatures, with 508,202 submitted to the Secretary of State. Currently, the Court of Appeals is reviewing those signatures, and MCRI is confident that they will be certified for the 2006 ballot. Following completion of the signature-phase of the drive, and a successful defense of the signatures through the longest challenge period in Michigan's history, Zarko took on several other political clients. In mid-2005, zarko also successfully defended a campaign finance complaint filed by the group "By Any Means Necessary," (BAMN), and successfully identified and prosecuted a complaint against BAMN with the Secretary of State identifying at least $80,000 in under-reporting by that group. In early 2006, he withdrew from his position as Treasurer to diversify his consulting business, but maintains an active role in the process. In November 2006, MCRI went on to a landslide 58% - 42% victory, despite being outspent 3 to 1.

In 2006, he also was Campaign Manager to a State Representative candidate, helping win the "4th most contested primary" (MIRS) in Michigan, and lead consultant helping that candidate become one of the only Republicans in Michigan to garner more votes (58% - 42%) in the general election than his predecessor did in 2004, despite the Democratic wave.

After graduating from U-M in 1993, he pursued sources he developed while at U-M leading him to evidence that the U-M Board of Regents was operating a computer conference (similar to a bulletin board or Lotus Notes group) in secret. In December 2003, after being denied access under the Michigan FOIA to that conference, he filed his first Freedom of Information Act suit against U-M.  In the spring of 1994, with attorneys from the Detroit Free Press and Ann Arbor News threatening publicly to join his suit, U-M released the contents of the conference - first to the newspapers and later to Zarko.

When Zarko moved to Washington D.C. in mid-1994 to do consulting work, Zarko hired former City Attorney of Ann Arbor Bruce Laidlaw to finalize that case (U-M refused to pay even the filing fees, which a “prevailing party” in a FOIA action is entitled to by law). Also during the spring of 1994, Zarko filed his second FOIA litigation against U-M. It had refused to produce unedited copies of the same documents it was forced to disclose to the newspapers related to its 1988 presidential search.  U-M argued that the newspapers were entitled to a “spoils of victory” for winning the previous FOIA/Open Meetings Act case and that further release to the public would endanger privacy. Zarko argued that it was patently absurd and unfair to treat the newspapers differently than the general public. Laidlaw accepted that case as well. By early 1995, court orders in both cases declared U-M in violation of FOIA, ordered payment of filing costs as well as attorneys’ fees to Laidlaw amounting to nearly $30,000 (for only $80 in 1994, U-M could have avoided these costs). In 2005, Zarko recently settled a joint FOIA lawsuit with the Michigan Association of Scholars against the University of Michigan, where U-M paid costs and produced the records related to Zarko's 2003 Wall Street Journal expose.

In late 1994 and early 1995, Zarko wrote and published a report in The Cook Report on the Internet (a trade journal based in Ewing, NJ) on U-M’s questionable role in building the NSFNET, the precursor to the modern Internet. A sidebar to that story also analyzed U-M’s repayment of $3.1 million to the federal government in a computer research rate overcharging and fraud case. This story used interviews with U-M officials, leaked transcripts of other secret computer conferences, and primary archival documentation that a source pointed Zarko to in the Bentley Historical Library. Questions of conflict of interest, bidding favoritism, and excessive charging for network routers were all raised.

From 1996 to 2002, Zarko accumulated a variety of research on different topics, and continued to pursue other interests as well.

In early 2003, Zarko began publishing some of his research findings on racial preferences in admissions at the University of Michigan. In late March, just days before oral arguments were scheduled in the University of Michigan admissions cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, Zarko made a startling discovery. The U-M FOIA office had just cleared release of certain "restricted" documents at the Bentley Historical Library (U-M archives), and one of those documents implicated U-M researchers and policymakers in withholding "contrary" findings from the public and the court.

Zarko’s clients have included a State Representative, U.S. Senate candidate, attorneys, real-estate agents, entertainers, a motivational speaker, and various other professionals. He has experience in web and graphic design, marketing, research, and political campaign consulting.  He has worked directly with non-profits, government agencies, research firms, media outlets, and private corporations.

Zarko's academic interests include decision theory, game theory, international relations, economics, and political theory.  He obtained honors certification at U-M by submitting and defending a thesis on the non-linear mathematical effects of military expenditure on third world economies. His research indicates that military expenditure has both positive and negative impacts, depending on the type of economy and expenditures. In order to receive his honors certification he was allowed to take graduate-level courses in Political Science at the University of Michigan, also completed advanced courses in Economics and Statistics, and won the right to represent U-M at academic conferences at the West Point Military Academy and Princeton University's Business Today conference, then held in Atlanta, GA.