The Bush Administration & Civil Rights

This Boston Globe article is long, but it is an absolutely damning look at how the Bush administration has turned the Justice Department's Civil Rights division into a complete joke:

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...

The profile of the lawyers being hired has since changed dramatically, according to the resumes of successful applicants to the voting rights, employment litigation, and appellate sections... 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 [details follow]...

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.

Sometimes you just have to be astounded by how callously nepotistic this administration really is.

You know, I don't like attributing malice where stupidity can be more easily attributed to an action or a policy. But this isn't stupid. It's evil, and I mean that in a very direct way. It is evil to take a bureau designed to protect the rights of those Americans who most need protecting from infringements of those rights and handing it over to one's hack friends and supporters. I would say that I'm kind of bowled over by how transparent the Bush Admin is in their disdain for the rights and well-being of minorities, but then again, why should I be at this point?

PS. Unfortunately, you can only read the first three pages before you have to register. But those first three pages lay things out pretty well.