Oversight of the Civil Rights Division
Testimony of Wade Henderson, President & CEO
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
June 21, 2007
Senate Judiciary Committee
Categories: Civil Rights Enforcement Agencies
Good afternoon. My name is Wade Henderson and I’m the President of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The Leadership Conference is the nation’s leading civil and human rights coalition, working to build an America as good as its ideals. It’s a privilege to represent the civil rights community in addressing the Committee today.
Today’s article in the Washington Post about politically motivated hiring and firing of career civil servants in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice is just the latest in a string of news report that have revealed that the Division has abandoned its long tradition of fair and vigorous enforcement of our nation’s civil rights laws. Partisanship, it seems, has been driving both substantive and personnel decision-making. In its 50 year history, never before has the Civil Rights Division faced such a challenge. In those 50 years, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, the integrity of the Division has never been questioned to this degree …. Not even close.
Members of the committee, we must turn this ship. We expect a Civil Rights Division that enforces the nation’s civil rights laws, without fear or favor. We must demand accountability and a return to vigorous enforcement.
Over the last six years, we have seen career civil rights division employees – section chiefs, deputy chiefs, and line lawyers -- forced out of their jobs to make room for what one political official described as “good Americans.” We have seen retaliation against career civil servants for disagreeing with their political bosses. We have seen whole categories of cases not being brought, and the bar made unreachably high for bringing suit in other cases. We have seen some outright overruling of career prosecutors for political reasons, and also many cases being “slow walked,” to death.
In the Housing Section alone, the total number of cases filed has fallen 42 percent since 2001, while the number of cases involving allegations of race discrimination has gone down by 60 percent. The Voting Section did not file any cases on behalf of African American voters during a five-year period between 2001 and 2006; and no cases have been brought on behalf of Native American voters for the entire administration.
Furthermore, the Department has gone out of its way to take legal positions to roll back civil rights. For example, last year the Department filed amicus curiae briefs in support of the dismantling of voluntary school integration programs in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky. These cases, which challenge one of the few ways left for local school districts to battle de facto segregation in public schools, are currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Division’s record on every score has undermined effective enforcement of our nation’s civil rights laws, but it is the personnel changes to career staff that are, in many ways, most disturbing. For it is the staff that builds trust with communities, develops the cases, and negotiates effective remedies. Career staff has always been the soul of the Division, and it is now under attack.
The Blueprint for this attack appeared in an article in National Review in 2002. The article, entitled “Fort Liberalism: Can Justice’s Civil Rights Division be Bushified,” argued that previous Republican administrations were not successful in stopping the civil rights division from engaging in aggressive civil rights enforcement because of the “entrenched” career staff. The article proposed that “the administration should permanently replace those [section chiefs] it believes it can't trust,” and further, that “Republican political appointees should seize control of the hiring process,” rather than leave it to career civil servants – a radical change in policy. It seems that those running the Division got the message. To date, 4 career section chiefs and 2 deputy chiefs have been forced out of their jobs.
Fifty years ago, the attempt to integrate Little Rock High School demonstrated the need for the federal government to finally say “enough.” Enough of allowing the states to defy the U.S. Constitution and the courts. Enough of Congress and the Executive Branch sitting idly by while millions of Americans were denied their basic rights of citizenship. The 1957 Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Civil Rights Division were first steps in responding to a growing need.
For years, we in the civil rights community have looked to the Department of Justice as a leader in the fight for civil rights. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the Civil Rights Division that played a significant role in desegregating schools in the old South. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was the Civil Rights Division that required police and fire departments across the country to open their ranks to racial and ethnic minorities and women. It was the Civil Rights Division that forced counties to give up election systems that locked out minority voters. And it was the Civil Rights Division that prosecuted hate crimes when no local authority had the will.
Members of the Committee, we must continue to work to understand the extent of the damage that has been done to the Civil Rights Division, and – hopefully – develop a roadmap for our way back to vigorous enforcement, integrity, and justice. And to a Civil Rights Division the nation can again be proud of.
Thank you.
