Over the last four years, President Trump used the U.S. Department of Justice to push an anti-civil rights agenda that rolled back progress on LGBTQ equality, voting rights and racial justice while enlisting the Attorney General as the President’s personal attorney. As a result, repairing the Justice Department and refocusing it on its core mission must be among President-Elect Biden’s highest priorities. His recently announced nominees for top leadership positions at the Department, which includes a striking roster of civil rights advocates who Public Justice believes will help champion a future that promises liberty and justice for all is a welcome first step in that process.
Instead of enforcing federal law, the Trump DOJ worked against the American people, creating barriers to civil rights and rolling back any progress on racial justice. We believe in the necessity of a government that works for and not against its people when it comes to advancing civil rights, equality and racial justice. We support Biden’s nominees for DOJ’s senior leadership, including Attorney General-Designate Merrick Garland, Civil Rights Division Head Kristen Clarke, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, as they all represent a positive and meaningful shift toward an agency committed to addressing and advancing issues that impact the people and communities we work with. We are particularly excited that these nominees hold a strong record of civil rights enforcement and justice reform, and we believe much important work can be finally be done under their leadership when it comes to ending systemic discrimination within law enforcement, holding white supremacists and perpetrators of hate violence accountable, advancing racial, gender and LGBTQ justice, and so much more.
Attorney General-Designate Merrick Garland has committed to restoring the DOJ’s mission in upholding the rule of law, rather than serving as personal attorney to the President. We expect Garland to make good on his promise to continue his record in strongly adhering to the rule of law by moving forward on the essential task of addressing today’s most critical civil rights issues such as criminal justice reform and voter suppression, while working to eradicate white supremacy and the violent policing that has deeply entrenched itself within our justice system.
We also believe Garland must focus on tackling the civil rights and racial justice issues that have long plagued the DOJ, following the disastrous legacies of AGs Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. For far too long, Attorney General Barr led the DOJ in a way that allowed President Trump to use the agency as his own personal weapon, undercutting the very principle of the DOJ’s mission in acting independently to uphold the rule of law and furthering civil rights protection. From lifting prohibitions on investigating election fraud just weeks before the presidential election to rushing investigations of his enemies and dropping cases against people who Trump saw as loyal to his corrupt agenda, the DOJ became a political tool in the president’s pocket.
Under the Trump Administration, the DOJ forged a destructive path of injustice, failing to defend federal laws and policies, while refusing to advance civil rights and environmental laws. Many of the harmful DOJ actions included rescinding Title IX guidance clarifying protections under the law for transgender students, arguing in favor of businesses that discriminated against LGBTQ customers, enforcing Alabama’s absentee ballot requirements that put Black voters and voters with disabilities at risk during the COVID pandemic, rolling back regulations that would require environmental assessments on major infrastructure projects, and ending an initiative aimed to help build trust between law enforcement and local communities. This past summer on June 1, police officers and the National Guard were sent to disperse peaceful protesters outside the White House, unleashing teargas and flash-bang explosions in order for Trump to obtain a photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. This extreme abuse of the protestors' rights contrasts sharply with the passivity toward the violent and racist behavior of last week’s Capitol rioters. Under Garland’s tenure, the DOJ can no longer enable these glaringly egregious and evil actions in furthering Trump’s culture of impunity, and we expect to see a refocusing of DOJ priorities, as it works to restore and address many of the damaging positions it took while under the Trump Administration.
Associate Attorney General nominee Vanita Gupta brings with her a laudable career in advancing and protecting people’s human and civil rights. As President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—a coalition that Public Justice is proud to work and ally with—Gupta expertly led an organization whose founders included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., tackling issues such as immigration rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and criminal justice reform. Previously, she served various leadership roles with both the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and ACLU, while also serving as a leader of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division under the Obama Administration, where she most notably championed efforts in police reform, leading investigations within the Ferguson, Baltimore, and Chicago police departments. A strong advocate for communities of color and our nation’s most vulnerable, Gupta’s incoming leadership signals a future justice system that will no longer fail its own people, and we are confident that she will provide both essential guidance and a critical eye to Garland’s agency agenda in the coming months. From Gupta to emerging political figures like Rev. Raphael Warnock, who pastored at the same church as Dr. King, we are seeing the exciting rise of a new generation of powerful civil rights leaders taking on positions of power, as they push and advocate for a better future for all.
Similarly, as past President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Civil Rights Division Head nominee Kristen Clarke promises a future DOJ that will reject hate and discrimination, and instead embrace the “true meaning of equal justice under law,” a powerful message during such a critical moment in our nation’s history. In addition to serving as the head of the Civil Rights Bureau for the New York State Attorney General’s Office where she led critical efforts to address discrimination in housing and the school-to-prison pipeline, Clarke previously served in the same division she has been nominated for, where she started her career handling cases of police misconduct, hate crimes, human trafficking, and voting rights. Clarke also served at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, advocating for Americans’ voting rights and election law. Under Clarke’s leadership, we are confident the DOJ will move forward in upholding systemic equity and championing the democratic rights of all its people.
Under these leaders, we believe the DOJ will once again be a strong force in protecting and advancing the civil rights of everyone in America, and we look forward to carrying out our work alongside DOJ’s new leadership. While the road to recovery won’t be easy, we are confident the right leaders will get the job done, and we will once again have a DOJ that will put forth a new legacy of advancing equitable justice for all, while remaining free from politicization. At Public Justice, we support the nominees that President-Elect Biden has brought forth as agents of change when it comes to serving the American people with integrity, and dismantling and repairing the last four years that have allowed for violent policing and systemic racism to take root within our justice system. We will make good on our end to hold these leaders accountable in addressing today’s human and civil rights violations by continuing our own important work, as we move forward together into a new and more just era of change.