Civil Rights Division is the Conscience of the Justice Department
From NPR news:
When community leaders wanted justice for the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, they went knocking on the door of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. And that’s been happening a lot lately.
Over the past three years, the unit has brought record numbers of hate crimes cases, uncovered abuses in local police departments and challenged voting laws in Texas and South Carolina.
“I wish discrimination were a thing of the past,” says Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. “I wish we were living in a post-racial America. I wish my phone were not ringing, but regrettably it’s ringing off the hook in the voting context; it’s ringing off the hook in the hate crimes context and in so many other contexts.” . . .
“The Civil Rights Division I think is the conscience of the Justice Department,” Holder says.
But for political conservatives, this unusually active Civil Rights Division represents something else.
“It’s a very liberal Civil Rights Division. I think by far the most liberal I’ve seen,” says Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank that follows issues of race and ethnicity.
According to Clegg, this Justice Department is pushing the boundaries of the law when it comes to voting rights and fair lending, and it’s not doing enough to prevent racial quotas in school admissions.
Read or listen to the rest of the story here.