DOJ’s Troubling Trend of Political Uniformity in Hiring
Lachlan Markay /
Since Eric Holder took the reins as Attorney General, the Justice Department has hired 15 career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division’s Employment Litigation Section. Every one of them boasts stellar left-wing ideological credentials. All have either associated themselves with prominent Democrats, worked for left-wing legal organizations, or staked out left-wing positions on controversial issues.
The complete political uniformity of this section aligns with DOJ’s hiring in four other sections of the Civil Rights Division. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky has been documenting the left-wing dominance of the division in a flurry of posts at Pajamas Media. Not a single attorney hired during President Obama’s tenure in the five sections von Spakovsky has examined has deviated from the division’s left-wing ideology.
Von Spakovsky details the Employment Litigation Section’s role thusly:
The Employment Section is primarily responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provisions applicable to state and local governments under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez has a downright disturbing agenda for the Section. Speaking to the liberal American Constitution Society, he promised that his Division would pursue “disparate impact” litigation — where no proof of actual discrimination is required but mere disproportionate workforce representation — with vigor rarely before seen. He wasn’t kidding. Indeed, the Division’s aggressive efforts to defend and expand the use of racial preferences in public sector hiring, promotions, and contracting ought to offend all Americans who believe in the promise of a just and colorblind society. Although politically correct terms like goals” and “timetables” are de rigueur, there is no hiding what is really being advocated here: racial quotas.
Meanwhile, the Section’s enforcement of the laws against religious discrimination seems focused almost obsessively on the protection of Muslims to the exclusion of almost every other group. Some of the enforcement actions undertaken are so far outside the requirements of federal law that one might be excused for thinking that the Koran is as much a part of the Section’s statutory toolbox as the U.S. Code. With the new crop of attorneys that have come on board, however, it is not difficult to see how this radicalized atmosphere has so thoroughly enveloped the Section.
Indeed, among Holder’s 15 hires, professional experience includes pro bono work for Guantanamo Bay detainees. “Outside the mainstream” would hardly seem to capture the radicalism inherent in such work.
“Social justice,” “gender identity,” “human rights,” “diversity,” and other such politically correct buzzwords pepper the summary of these hires’ professional backgrounds and educations. Attorneys have worked to give convicted felons voting rights, and asylum to illegal immigrants. Conspicuously absent is any hire who has devoted his or her career to constitutional scholarship or – heaven forbid – criminal prosecution or civil defense.
And of course, a number of the attorneys have histories of support for the Democratic Party. Some have held positions in Dem offices, while others have donated to candidates – von Spakovsky tallied $7,500 in Democratic contributions, mostly to Obama.
The background of any individual attorney, though, is of less importance than the complete ideological uniformity of the entire section. Clearly there has been no meaningful effort made to staff the Civil Rights Division with attorneys who represent the views of the American people. In fact, there may very well have been a conscious effort to fill the division with leftist ideologues who share the same radical legal and political views, in possible violation of civil service rules.