The Boston Globe takes a big look today at what is happening in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division:
The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe.
The documents show that only 42 percent of the lawyers hired since 2003, after the administration changed the rules to give political appointees more influence in the hiring process, have civil rights experience. In the two years before the change, 77 percent of those who were hired had civil rights backgrounds.
In an acknowledgment of the department’s special need to be politically neutral, hiring for career jobs in the Civil Rights Division under all recent administrations, Democratic and Republican, had been handled by civil servants — not political appointees.
But in the fall of 2002, then-attorney general John Ashcroft changed the procedures. The Civil Rights Division disbanded the hiring committees made up of veteran career lawyers.
So what has this done to the actual experience level of civil rights law?
Hires with traditional civil rights backgrounds — either civil rights litigators or members of civil rights groups — have plunged. Only 19 of the 45 lawyers hired since 2003 in those three sections were experienced in civil rights law, and of those, nine gained their experience either by defending employers against discrimination lawsuits or by fighting against race-conscious policies.
Meanwhile, conservative credentials have risen sharply. Since 2003 the three sections have hired 11 lawyers who said they were members of the conservative Federalist Society. Seven hires in the three sections are listed as members of the Republican National Lawyers Association, including two who volunteered for Bush-Cheney campaigns.
But wait! The Republicans always claim they do more for civil rights and are not the racists that people claim they are. So this can’t be all that bad – can it?
At the same time, the kinds of cases the Civil Rights Division is bringing have undergone a shift. The division is bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic discrimination against African-Americans, and more alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians.
“There has been a sea change in the types of cases brought by the division, and that is not likely to change in a new administration because they are hiring people who don’t have an expressed interest in traditional civil rights enforcement,” said Richard Ugelow, a 29-year career veteran who left the division in 2002.
Yeah screw voter rights and screw discrimination against African-Americans. Bush and his cronies has to protect the white Christians in this country, because we know they are the ones truly kept down by the man.
Remember the outrage when Howard Dean said that the Republican Party is predominately a white Christian party? Well here is further proof that Dr. Dean was in fact speaking the truth.
The Bush administration and the neo-cons are shoving things like religion down our throats. They are going against the true meaning of America and democracy. Remember why the pilgrims came here?
So there you do have it. bush does hate black people. Consider the way he flaunts Condi around. She is nothing more than his token. This article proves that.