Tag Archives: Kristen Clarke

Newswire:  U.S. Senate’s only Black Republican blocks Tom Farr from becoming a Federal judge

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 By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

Senator Tim Scott

On November 29, the U.S. Senate’s only African American Republican Senator, Tim Scott, announced he would oppose the nomination of Thomas Farr to a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Scott’s blockbuster decision ended the chance of Farr’s nomination being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Scott cited, “lingering concerns” on “issues that could affect [Farr’s] decision-making process as a federal judge.” “This week, a Department of Justice memo written under President George H.W. Bush was released that shed new light on Mr. Farr’s activities. This, in turn, created more concerns. Weighing these important factors, this afternoon I concluded that I could not support Mr. Farr’s nomination,” said Scott. The decision marked the second time Scott has blocked a Trump nominee to the federal bench. “Thomas Farr was the most polarizing, dangerous and biased nominee that we have seen put forth by President Trump. We applaud Senator Tim Scott for exercising independence in the examination of Farr’s disturbing record; a record influenced by the modern white supremacist machine that former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms pioneered, and one that demonstrated bias and a commitment to defending voter suppression efforts at every turn,” stated Kristen Clarke, President of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Farr was the primary coordinator of the 1984 ‘ballot security’ program conducted by the 1984 Helms for Senate Committee. He coordinated several ‘ballot security’ activities in 1984, including a postcard mailing to voters in predominantly black precincts which was designed to serve as a basis to challenge voters on election day. Footnote 7, DOJ Memo, June 19, 1991. This revelation is singularly disqualifying,” wrote NAACP President Derrick Johnson. Sen. Scott’s decision was a dramatic one. A day before on November 28, he was nowhere to be found shortly before a vote to continue debate on the Farr nomination. Other Senators, as well as reporters, searched for Scott near the Senate floor before that procedural vote. Many assumed his support of moving the debate to a final vote meant he would support Farr’s nomination. That assumption was incorrect. Sen. Scott was joined by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in wondering out loud about whether Farr should be on the federal bench. But Sen. Scott was the only one to announce he would vote against Farr on the floor.

Newswire : Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law condemns latest Justice Department action to investigate discrimination against whites by college affirmative action admission programs

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Clark
Kristen Clarke

Washington, D.C. — Today, Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, released the following statement in response to the release of new information signaling efforts to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division toward investigating and suing universities that maintain race-conscious admissions policies.
“We wholly condemn this latest attempt by the Justice Department to attack the use of race-conscious admissions policies in the higher education context. By assembling a team of attorneys in the front office of the Civil Rights Division to focus on so-called ‘intentional race-based discrimination’, this Justice Department is laying the groundwork to attack policies that help promote racial diversity at colleges and universities.
Throughout his career, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has pushed efforts to end affirmative action programs and he has a clear record of hostility to racial diversity. We will not stand by idly as this administration continues to hijack and obstruct this Division’s core civil rights mission. Americans deserve a Justice Department that will focus on preserving racial diversity and addressing racial discrimination faced by African Americans, Latinos and other minority communities.”
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has been focused on this administration’s efforts to obstruct civil rights enforcement, and has condemned repeated actions taken to reverse or delay action in active matters handled by the Civil Rights Division.

Civil rights groups alarmed at Justice Department’s review of local police settlements

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AG Jeff SessionsAttorney General Jeff Sessions

By Del Quentin Wilber and Kevin Rector Contact Reporter
Los Angeles Times

Civil rights groups and experts on police reform expressed alarm Tuesday at Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions’ order for a review of more than a dozen federal agreements with police forces that address problems of racial profiling, discrimination and use of excessive force.
The broad review reflects the Trump administration’s emphasis on bolstering law and order over investigating allegations of police misconduct, and it could lead to changing or scaling back consent agreements or negotiations underway in several cities, including Baltimore and Chicago.
Proposed consent decrees could be scrapped or overhauled in both cities, officials said, despite Justice Department investigations that uncovered systemic problems in their police departments.
The review also could affect an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California into police patterns and practices in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
The administration can’t unilaterally unwind consent decrees without court approval, so it’s unclear whether Sessions’ directive could affect the negotiated settlement that led to federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department, which was the result of a 2003 lawsuit.
The Justice Department has recommended 272 changes to help improve the scandal-ridden San Francisco Police Department, but the six-month investigation last year did not lead to a consent decree or a federal takeover.
The Justice Department “is signaling it no longer intends to fully support police reform even in consent decrees they are already active in,” said Christy Lopez, who led the Justice Department’s police investigation efforts under the Obama administration and now is a Georgetown University law professor. “I think it’s incredibly cynical.”
Lopez said Sessions is signaling that the Justice Department has intruded too far into oversight of local policing, even as the administration threatens to withhold federal grants from cities and other jurisdictions that do not help federal agencies locate and arrest immigrants in the country illegally.
Sessions, a critic of federal investigations of local police, wrote in a two-page memo released Monday that the “misdeeds of individual bad actors should not impugn or undermine the legitimate and honorable work that law enforcement officers and agencies perform.”
Sessions said he had ordered his two top deputies to review “collaborative investigations and prosecutions, grant making, technical assistance and training, compliance reviews, existing or contemplated consent decrees and task force participation.”
The Justice Department has 14 such agreements with local police departments, including a high-profile accord reached with the city of Ferguson, Mo. It was hammered out in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of an unarmed young black man in 2014, which was followed by weeks of street protests.
Such decrees are reached in court, overseen by a federal judge and stipulate changes that local law enforcement agencies must make in response to a Justice Department investigation.
During the Obama administration, the Justice Department launched more than two dozen investigations into local law enforcement agencies accused of misconduct. The goal was to improve both policing and their community relations.
Justice Department officials sought to downplay the review Sessions has ordered, saying it was normal for a new administration to examine policies and procedures inherited from a previous president.
Sessions and his team are “actively developing strategies to support the thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country that seek to prevent crime and protect the public,” Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said in a statement.
“The department is working to ensure that those initiatives effectively dovetail with robust enforcement of federal laws designed to preserve and protect civil rights,” Prior said. “While this memo includes the review of any pending consent decrees, the attorney general also recognizes the department’s important role helping communities and police departments achieve these goals.”
On Monday, the Justice Department took its first step under Sessions’ order by asking a federal judge to pause court proceedings for 90 days involving a proposed consent decree affecting Baltimore’s police force.
Baltimore officials and the Justice Department reached the wide-ranging agreement in the waning days of the Obama administration to address a pattern of discrimination and unconstitutional policing. That investigation was sparked by the 2015 death of another black man, 25-year-old Freddie Gray, from injuries suffered while he was in police custody.
In its court filing, the Justice Department asked for the three-month pause so its new leadership could review the proposed agreement to assess whether the court-ordered initiatives “will help ensure that the best result is achieved” for Baltimore’s residents.
A hearing is set for Thursday to allow U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, who is overseeing the negotiations, to gather public comments on the proposed agreement. Baltimore’s leaders, including its mayor and police commissioner, announced opposition to the proposed pause.
“Any interruption in moving forward may have the effect of eroding the trust that we are working hard to establish,” Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said.
The Justice Department is also certain to review its determination that the Chicago police force was systematically abusive, following a series of police shootings of minorities.
In January, the department issued a scathing report that found that Chicago officers were poorly trained and quick to use excessive force. The report also found the Police Department tolerated racial discrimination. Negotiations on a potential agreement between Chicago and the Justice Department have been in the works. In a joint statement Monday night, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Sessions’ review would not alter their plans to reform police practices.
Sessions said last month that he had read a summary of the Justice Department report on Chicago and that he worried police officers on the streets were pulling back because they feared getting in trouble if they made a mistake.
“We need to help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness, and I’m afraid we have done some of that,” Sessions told a gathering of state attorneys general. “So we’re going to pull back” on federal investigations of police departments.
Civil rights advocates said they are concerned about how the Trump administration will respond to police abuses.
“This directive makes clear that the attorney general sees little to no role for the federal government to play in promoting policing reform, even in those communities where the problems are greatest,” said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit group that has sought greater federal oversight of troubled police departments.