SUBSTRATED

On June 24, the Department of Justice released a report confirming allegations of politicized hirings in two Justice Department internship programs. The 115-page report from the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility outlines the denial of sought-after positions in the department’s Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program based on illegal practices that privileged political leanings over merit. The report comes over a year after the Washington Post reported that political appointees would be removed from the selection process of the programs after complaints to Congress from within the Justice Department, and vindicates years of speculation during the tenure of former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft. The report concludes that applicants were denied interviews based on affiliation with individuals and organizations considered Democratic or left-leaning.

Amongst the organizations blacklisted are three Austin-based groups, the Save our Springs Alliance, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Political Asylum Project of Austin. It’s another chapter in the tainted story of the Bush administration’s Justice Department, and one that not only hurts the promising lawyers and law students of our community, but doesn’t reflect well on the Texan who was at the helm. After the row over politicized firings of US Attorneys, its a crime the department can hardly brush off. Perhaps the current Attorney General, Micheal Mukasey, can reform his charge before the end of the president’s term. Wish him luck, but don’t expect miracles.
If it weren’t for such scandalous pettiness in the past, this mess might take us by surprise. The surprise now would be a tidal shift in the way talent is recruited at DOJ. And this isn’t a narrative unique to the Justice Department. In his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Rajiv Chandrasekaran relates a similarly depressing process in the selection of officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, where State Department officials were bumped from important positions based on political leanings and bureaucratic turf wars that extended all the way up to Vice President Cheney. Let’s hope the AG who takes the reins with the next president on January 20, whoever it is, will be able to make a systematic shift back to the fairness and balance we should expect.
Allow me to ward off any YCT Firing Lines by noting that what makes the whole affair so unpallatable is not who is being precluded, but rather how they are being precluded – based on politics. It’s also illegal. Read the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. Laws like that are in place to protect a more fundemental piece of our national character, invidual opportunity. The American system is based on fairness, personal resposibility and individual merit, traits that are important to all Americans and all Texans. It’s a repsect for opportunity reflected everywhere, from our capitalist society to our democratic government. We take for granted that these values are ingrained in our government. Sometimes they’re not, it seems, and it’s a particular outrage when this kind of bush-league politics dictates our next generation of leaders and hits so close to home. The department notes on its website that the selection for their internship program is “based on many elements of a candidate’s background including academic achievement, law review or moot court experience, legal aid and clinical experience, and summer or part-time legal employment”. If this report serves its purpose, we’ll see that process returned, and more broadly, we’ll see individual opportunity re-enshrined in our government.

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/dojsummerlaw20080624.pdf
http://www.usdoj.gov/oarm/arm/sp/sp.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702190.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-justice25-2008jun25,0,1683417.story
http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeo/overview_laws.html
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv (2007). Imperial Life