The resignation of conservative activist J. Christian Adams from the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department has offered the conservative noise machine an opportunity to resurrect charges that the Obama administration has politicized the Department of Justice. But to understand this story, you have to understand that there are, in fact, two different [[THREADS HERE stories going on here]] — [[ONE ABOUT HOW CIVIL-RIGHTS LAWS WERE ENFORCED one about politicized enforcement of civil-rights laws]] and [[ANOTHER one]] about the ongoing battle between veterans of the pre-Bush Civil Rights Division and the ideologues who [[TOOK OVER ran the division]] during the Bush administration. Indeed, Adams’ accusation — that the the new leadership of the Civil Rights Division is racist against whites — echoes almost verbatim those being made by a member of the former leadership over at National Review.
Background
Adams, touted on the right as a “whistleblower,” was hired during an [[ERA OF UNPRECEDENTED POLITICIZATION unprecedented time of politicization]] at the Justice Department. Then-head of the Civil Rights Division Bradley Schlozman, alongside Hans von Spakovsky and Voting Rights Section Chief John Tanner, ended the tradition of giving career attorneys discretion in hiring so that they could stack the Civil Rights Division with conservative loyalists. Under their tenure, the Civil Rights Division, created by President Dwight Eisenhower to secure the rights of historically disfavored minorities, became the type of place where the Schlozman, the head of the division, would refer to a black attorney as an “affirmative action hire” who “spoke ebonics.” He also spoke of potential hires whom he thought were as liberal as “commies.” As Tanner put it, prior to their tenure, you had to be a “civil rights person” to get hired in the Civil Rights Division. Afterwards, as Schlozman put it according to a joint Inspector General/Office of Professional Responsibility report, “adherents of Mao’s little red book need not apply.”
The atmosphere in the Voting Rights Section in particular became one of fear and racial hostility. According to a lawsuit filed by Joi Hyatte, an analyst in the Voting Rights Section who alleged she was passed over for promotion because she is black (the DoJ ultimately settled, and Hyatte was promoted) described an instance in which women were referred to by male employees as “lesbians” and “carpet munchers” but never disciplined. A supervisor in the section told a black employee she should take care of her children instead of “spending all her money on clothes.” Tanner once joked that he liked his coffee “black and bitter” like civil-rights leader Mary Frances Berry. Unsurprisingly, by 2007 all but two of the black lawyers in the entire Civil Rights Division had left. This wasn’t merely [[A RACIAL EXODUS racial]]. Once the disinterest in enforcing civil rights protections for minorities was clear, there was a larger exodus of career veterans from the Department, and some of them started talking to the press. Ultimately, the above report confirmed their complaints about the disgraceful practices of the Bush administration’s political appointees.
This [[WORKPLACE?]] environment had serious effects on civil-rights enforcement, not merely employee morale. A recent Government Accountability Office report put numbers to what veterans of the Civil Rights Division already knew — enforcement of civil rights protections, voting rights laws in particular, languished while the conservative activists running the show devoted their resources to pursuing quixotic allegations of voter fraud.
At any rate, the chickens ultimately came home to roost. The IG/OPR report concluded Schlozman had violated civil service laws. Von Spakovsky was blocked from an appointment to the FCC by then-Senator Barack Obama, on the advice of von Spakovsky’s former colleagues at the DoJ, [[WHO HIGHLIGHTED? over]] his participation in the politicized hiring and enforcement in the Civil Rights Division. Tanner resigned in 2007 after [[ADMITTING TO MAKING?]] racially charged remarks. Of these three men, von Spakovsky has devoted his time since leaving the Justice Department to getting revenge — both on the president who prevented him from getting a job and on the civil-rights veterans he blames for the scandal that ultimately ensued. In their minds, hiring conservatives wasn’t politicizing the Civil Rights Divison — it was making the Civil Rights Division fair and balanced.
The Black Panther Case
After Tanner stepped down in 2007, folks in the Voting Rights Section tell me that the hostile atmosphere largely dissipated. Christopher Coates, a longtime voting rights attorney, took over as chief.
Conservatives like to paint Coates as apolitical, but that isn’t accurate. Coates, unlike Adams, was not hired during the era of politicization. But his stock certainly rose as the other veterans, disgusted with how the section was being run, departed. In the joint IG/OPR report, Schlozman refers to Coates as a “a true member of the team.” Coates, a former ACLU voting rights attorney, seems to have had a political conversion when passed over for a promotion that instead went to a black attorney in the section. The event that seems to have made him preoccupied with “reverse-racism,” which may explain his subsequent decision to pursue the New Black Panther Party case.
During the 2008 election, several members of the New Black Panther Party were filmed by Fox News standing outside of a Philadelphia polling station. Coates wanted to pursue a voter intimidation case against the men based on Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, a provision that prior to the Bush administration had only been used to prevent a statewide voter caging effort in South Carolina. When the Obama administration took over, Coates was overruled and the government dropped the case.
It’s important to understand that this isn’t, as conservatives argue, a dispute over whether or not the Civil Rights Division also protects white people. It was a decision about whether or not to use unprecedented amount of federal resources — and a section of the law that was meant to guard against large scale voter suppression efforts — against a few hooligans. Similar cases against white plaintiffs at that time were also not ultimately pursued. Coates ultimately left, and conservatives again tried to paint this as an example of politicization in the division. But in truth, they were mostly concerned about another devoted “team member” leaving.
Payback
The folks who were hired during the Bush administration — and those who left in disgrace like von Spakovsky — have been using this case to allege politicization of the Justice Department by the Obama administration. This is their revenge against the veterans of the division who spoke out against their stewardship of their department — some of whom began to trickle back in when Attorney General Eric Holder vowed to restore the Civil Rights Division to its former glory. In particular, it’s an attempt to discredit Thomas Perez, the new head of the division, who has publicly disparaged the Bush administration’s politicization of civil-rights enforcement.
Von Spakovsky, who has a long career devoted to making access to the ballot box more difficult for minorities, worked strenuously to prevent suits filed on behalf of black voters during his tenure at the DoJ, and has been using his pulpit at National Review to accuse the Obama Justice Department of selectively enforcing voting rights laws based on race. Adams’ resignation has offered a news hook for the ongoing battle over what is essentially, the soul of the Divison, and whether it should continue to remain the kind of place that safeguards the civil rights of historically disfavored minorities or whether it ignores them because they are likely to vote for Democrats.
But let’s be clear: The Black Panther case was not improperly handled. But even if it had been, one case doesn’t begin to compare to an era in which getting a job in the Civil Rights Division, or having your civil rights protected, was essentially dependent on whether the bosses thought a (D) or an (R) went next to your name.
