Private: The Civil Rights Division in the Obama Administration

by Jonathan Arogeti

Efforts by members of the Obama administration are restitching the fabric of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, largely frayed under the George W. Bush administration, according to a new article in the ABA Human Rights magazine by William Yeomans. And Yeomans should know the history of the Division. He served in multiple capacities there, from trial lawyer to acting assistant attorney general between 1981 and 2005, and until he left the Department of Justice in that year, had spent his entire career in the Department.

The “bipartisan consensus in support of enforcement of core civil rights protections” enjoyed by the Division since its inception ensured equal voting rights, defeated employment discrimination, and integrated public schools. That consensus “proved inadequate during the Presidency of George W. Bush, as enforcement activity diminished sharply and partisan considerations affected law enforcement and personnel decision,” Yeomans writes.

Yeomans maintains that while enjoying the benefits of a Republican Congress, the Bush administration filed zero cases pertaining to voter discrimination of African-Americans. With the prospect of a Democratic Congress following the landslide 2006 midterm election, the administration finally exercised this particular section of the Voting Rights Act. Instead of protecting this country’s minorities, however, the Division alleged African-American discrimination against white voters.

The legacy of politicized hiring practices during Bush’s tenure,and an environment inhospitable to career attorneys, will leave deep scars in the Division as it seeks to recover, Yeomans adds.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez (pictured) echoes similar sentiments to those he expressed during a 2009 gathering at the National Press Club hosted by ACS in the magazine article, citing the need for “restoration and transformation” of the Division. Yeomans elaborates on Perez’s prescription, noting, “[T]he Division will face substantial obstacles, including a depleted workforce, a hostile political environment, a diminished and conservative judiciary, and a legal landscape changed by a conservative Supreme Court in core areas.”

Yeomans says Perez faces three challenges:

The Division suffered a brain drain that left it short of expertise in key areas, such as the ability to put together a complex pattern or practice case against a large public employer, or the experience to take on the complexities of a major investigation into lending discrimination. Fortunately, the Division has lured back some experienced attorneys and has recruited others from public interest groups and private practice.

Perez also faces a hostile political environment, with “[o]pponents of the Obama administration in the media, Congress, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights…eager to discredit the Division,” Yeomans says.

Third, the simple statistics of a depleted judiciary leave those who remember the Division’s heyday worried. “The Senate has confirmed only nineteen court of appeals judges and sixty-five district court judges nominated by President Obama, leaving ninety current judicial vacancies,” Yeomans notes. Thirty-three of them have been declared judicial emergencies. Of the total number of federal judges, the percentage of those appointed by a Republican remained fifty-nine percent, both at Obama’s inauguration and also at the twenty-month mark.

For more information on judicial vacancies, see JudicialNominations.org.

Civil rights, Equality and Liberty, Executive Power, Importance of the Courts, Judicial independence, Judicial Selection, Separation of Powers and Federalism