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The Obama Justice Dept.: Civil Rights For Some, Not All

Jennifer Rubin has a very disturbing report arguing that the Obama Justice Department has, from the Attorney General on down through the career lawyers working in civil rights, rejected the view that civil rights laws protect everyone equally.

The notion that civil rights laws apply to all citizens, and are not on the books merely to protect minority groups or to pursue white racists, is an anathema to the liberal civil rights establishment and their sympathetic partners in the Justice Department.

[An] attorney familiar with the inner workings of the Civil Rights Division agrees with this take. He observes that Department staff ?openly and proudly advocate for a different standard? depending on the race of the alleged civil rights violator. He contends that this view extends now up to the attorney general and to staff attorneys who ?say it openly at the Justice Department when the topic of ?reverse? discrimination comes up.?

Regarding the Department?s highly controversial dropping of the case against the New Black Panther Party members who intimidated (black) voters at the polls in Philadelphia, Rubin notes that

some speculate that there was an effort to conceal more widespread voter intimidation or fraud which inured to the benefit of the Obama campaign. But there is perhaps something more basic and more far-reaching than that at work....

The dismissal of the New Black Panther case can then be seen in a larger and more ominous context. It was quite likely a message to the liberal civil rights establishment: there is a new Justice Department and the days of enforcing civil rights laws against any defendant ? regardless of his race ? are over. One can imagine then that there might be those in Justice surprised by the firestorm created by the New Black Panther case?s dismisal who may now regret having opened the Department and its civil rights perspective up to further scrutiny. The Holder Justice Department may be chagrined to learn that most Americans take exception, strongly so, to the idea that the civil rights laws are there only to protect historically discriminated minorities. But we are certainly going to have that national conversation about race which Holder has been pining for.

More evidence of Obama, the non-post-racial president.

Full post as published by Discriminations on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).