Legal Commentary

Vilsack Reconsidering Shirley Sherrod Firing; Sherrod May Not Accept Reinstatement

By Big Tent Democrat

AP:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he would reconsider the department's decision to oust Sherrod over her comments that she didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago. [. . .] Vilsack's statement came after the NAACP posted the full video of Sherrod's comments Tuesday night.

"I am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the American people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner," Vilsack said. The Obama administration's move to reconsider her employment was an absolute reversal from hours earlier, when a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Barack Obama had been briefed on Sherrod's resignation after the fact and stood by the Agriculture Department's handling of it.

But Sherrod may have no interest in coming back:

The woman at the center of a racially tinged firestorm involving the Obama administration and the NAACP said Wednesday she doesn't know if she'd return to her job at the Agriculture Department, even if asked. "I am just not sure how I would be treated there," Shirley Sherrod said in a nationally broadcast interview.

Good for her.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 21, 2010 (boomark / email).