[Mb-civic] Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff At Justice - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff At Justice
Veterans Exit Division as Traditional Cases Decline

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page A01

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the 
nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the 
midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and 
has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and 
current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part 
because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at 
pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative 
views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political 
appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, 
including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in 
Mississippi and Texas.

At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender 
discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have 
declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department 
statistics. Dozens of lawyers find themselves handling appeals of 
deportation orders and other immigration matters instead of civil rights 
cases.

The division has also come under criticism from the courts and some 
Democratsfor its decision in August to approve a Georgia program 
requiring voters to present government-issued identification cards at 
the polls. The program was halted by an appellate court panel and a 
district court judge, who likened it to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era.

"Most everyone in the Civil Rights Division realized that with the 
change of administration, there would be some cutting back of some 
cases," said Richard Ugelow, who left the division in 2004 and now 
teaches law at American University. "But I don't think people 
anticipated that it would go this far, that enforcement would be cut 
back to the point that people felt like they were spinning their wheels."

The Justice Department and its supporters strongly dispute the 
complaints. Justice spokesman Eric Holland noted that the overall 
attrition rate during the Bush administration, about 13 percent, is not 
significantly higher than the 11 percent average during the last five 
years under President Bill Clinton.

Holland also said that the division filed a record number of criminal 
prosecutions in 2004. A quarter of those cases were related 
tohuman-trafficking crimes, which were made easier to prosecute under 
legislation passed at the end of the Clinton administration and which 
account for a growing proportion of the division's caseload.

In addition, Holland defended the department's decision to approve the 
Georgia voter law, saying that "career and political attorneys together 
concluded" that the measure would have no negative effect on minorities.

"This administration has continued the robust and vigorous enforcement 
of civil rights laws," Holland wrote in an e-mail statement, adding 
later: "These accomplishments could not have been achieved without 
teamwork between career attorneys and political appointees."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the first Hispanic to hold the 
job, named civil rights enforcement as one of his priorities after 
taking office earlier this year and supports reauthorization of the 
Voting Rights Act.

Although relations between the career and political ranks have been 
strained throughout the Justice Department over the past five years, the 
level of conflict has been particularly high in civil rights, according 
to current and former staffers. The debate over civil rights flared in 
the Senate in recent weeks after the nomination of Wan J. Kim, who was 
confirmed on Nov. 4 as the assistant attorney general for the division 
and is the third person to hold that job during the Bush administration. 
Kim has been the civil rights deputy for the past two years.

There were no serious objections to Kim's nomination, but Democrats 
including Sens. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) 
said they were concerned about serious problems with morale and 
enforcement within the division.

(continued)...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/12/AR2005111201200.html?referrer=email
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