ACSBlog

by Jeremy Leaming

The Rooney Rule, which has helped promote diversity in the NFL coaching and managerial ranks, should also be expanded in corporate America, says Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television.

The Washington Post reports that Johnson and other African-American and Latino corporate leaders are calling on more companies to “voluntarily embrace a plan to interview at least two qualified black or Hispanic candidates for every job at the vice president level or higher.”

The plan is based, The Post reports, on the NFL’s Rooney Rule that requires football teams to interview one or more minority candidates for head coaching and general manager openings. Cyrus Mehri, a founding partner of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, and the late Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. were instrumental in the NFL’s implementation of the Rooney Rule.

Johnson told The Post that the business leaders have tried to get the Obama administration to help push more companies to adopt the rule and are now taking more aggressive actions on their own to influence more corporations. Johnson (pictured) said the group of business leaders would urge the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable to get behind the push for an expanded use of a Rooney-type rule in corporate America.

Luis Ramirez, president and chief executive of Global Power, told The Post, “We need people who have diverse backgrounds and experiences to add to the populations of executives and corporate board members.”

by Jeremy Leaming

Like his predecessor President Obama has embraced an aggressive, mostly secret and, at times, constitutionally suspect approach to waging a never-ending war on terror.

Unlike its predecessor, the Obama administration has obsessively investigated leaks of information surrounding some of its counterterrorism efforts. The administration has launched at least six cases of alleged leaks, including one involving a foiled terrorist plot in Yemen that The Associated Press reported on last spring. As part of that investigation the Department of Justice secretly gathered and culled through phone records of AP reporters.

Going on the information we have now it appears that the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech including press from government interference, was too easily shunted aside in an over-the-top investigation of a leak. The AP was given no chance to challenge a government search of its phone records and have a judge decide whether national security interests trumped freedom of speech in this instance. Yes, Attorney General Eric Holder claims the leak was one of the most egregious he has seen in a long, long time. But he doesn’t explain how it was so terribly egregious, nor do the facts as we know them now support his sweeping assertion.

And today, during a press conference, President Obama hardly appeared fazed by the criticism of the DOJ’s tactics, decrying leaks of counterterrorism efforts. “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk, they can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk,” he said.

But the May 7, 2012 reporting by the AP, had, according to its president, Gary Pruitt, been held until the White House assured the AP that “national security concerns" were no longer an issue. Pruitt added, “Indeed the White House was preparing to publicly announce that the bomb plot had been foiled.”  

Earlier this week The New York Times Editorial Board hammered the administration for its “zeal” for going after persons accused of leaking national security information. In the AP matter, The Times Editorial Board said the administration had offered no “credible justification for secretly combing through the phone records of reporters and editors at The Associated Press in what looks like a fishing expedition for sources and an effort to frighten off whistle-blowers.”

It’s rather lame to argue that just because Republicans howled loudly over the AP coverage of the foiled terrorist plot in Yemen that the DOJ’s obnoxious action of spying on the AP was somewhat mitigated. Moreover, it’s not like this administration has needed prodding to aggressively and obsessively go after alleged leakers.