Bush's long history of politicizing justice

Then, much the way some companies go green, DOJ under Ashcroft went Pentecostal. In correspondence, use of the word "pride" was forbidden because the Bible calls pride a sin; employees were also asked to never use the phrase "no higher calling than public service." Ashcroft instituted prayer meetings, leading a Bible study at 8 a.m. sharp each day, some days even in his office, on others in a conference room at Main Justice. All department employees, regardless of their religious affiliation, were invited to attend, but in reality few did.

Against this backdrop, in the fall of 2001, the first real showdown between the Front Office and the division as a whole took place, over a little-known lawsuit against the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which runs metropolitan Philadelphia's mass transit system. For four years the division's Employment Litigation Section had been pursuing charges that SEPTA's hiring practices discriminated again women applicants by requiring results on a physical performance test that the division argued had little relevance to what was required by the job. Without talking to anyone involved with the case, the Front Office jettisoned it, citing a need to divert resources to the war on terrorism.

Though the Employment Section voiced objections, it carried out orders and withdrew from the case. But in what came to be seen as retaliation for voicing that dissent, the Front Office stripped the section chief, her deputy and the lead counsel of their duties and exiled them to a newly created task force in the Civil Division with no real responsibilities. The retaliation was so unprecedented that the other section chiefs, out of fear, stopped their informal monthly meetings, which they had long used to keep the components of the far-flung division connected.

In the past, disagreement between career attorneys and the Front Office, whether under a Democratic or Republican administration, was not unexpected. Dialogue between the permanent staff and the political appointees served as a check and balance between the political goals of any one administration and a goal that was not regarded as political -- the enforcement of federal civil rights laws. By the end of 2001, it was clear that the old give-and-take between the staffers and their politically appointed bosses was now viewed as unforgivable insubordination.

Career staffers began to leave. As their ranks thinned, and as the survivors were effectively neutralized, the Bush administration, in its effort to minimize any resistance to its agenda for the DOJ, sought to replenish the division with loyal hires.

Hiring decisions had always been subject to political staff's approval, but the judgment of the career core of the division had historically been trusted. The Front Office stopped consulting the careerists. Résumés had once flowed up from the sections to the Front Office; now the flow was reversed. The divisions, starting under Ashcroft and continuing under Alberto Gonzales, were told whom they could hire and whom they could promote.

The numbers show what has happened to the division's staff since 2001. A Freedom of Information Act request in the summer of 2006 by the Boston Globe for the résumés of successful applicants since 2003 also showed that among the new hires were people who had worked for prominent conservatives, belonged to the Republican National Lawyers Association, had volunteered for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, and had limited civil rights experience. The résumés showed that only 42 percent of lawyers hired since 2003 have civil rights experience, compared to 77 percent in the two years prior, when career attorneys were primarily responsible for hiring. Almost half of those new hires with "civil rights experience" had gained it by either defending employers against discrimination suits or by fighting against affirmative action policies.

Career lawyers say the new hires are increasingly white males with Federalist Society or Christian Legal Society credentials, even though many of them are shocked to find themselves in the Civil Rights Division. Richard Ugelow, a former employment deputy chief who now teaches at American University, says his students who ranked other divisions in the Department of Justice as their preferred choices for placement found themselves called to interview in the Civil Rights Division. One thing about those students' résumés stood out: They were members of the Federalist Society.

What was this newly conservative incarnation of the Civil Rights Division being asked to do? From the beginning, part of the Bush administration's purpose was advancing the Christian right's agenda, and one element of that agenda was the erosion of the wall between church and state. At the same time, in a five-year period beginning in 2001, the division brought no voting cases on behalf of African-Americans and only one employment case on behalf of African-Americans.

John Ashcroft, devout son of a Pentecostal minister, became infamous for demanding modesty of a statue in the Main Justice building. The attorney general spent $8,000 in taxpayers' money on a dark velvet curtain to completely hide the naked marble breasts of the "Spirit of Justice." (After 9/11, the DOJ staff also received copies of the lyrics to a jingoistic song that Ashcroft had penned himself, "Let the Eagle Soar." He asked staff to sing it at the beginning of the work day at his prayer meetings.)

But less overtly, the administration was harnessing the power of the division's Appellate Section on behalf of certain religious groups, under a doctrine developed by the Front Office called "Viewpoint Discrimination." One career attorney in the section, speaking anonymously, describes the doctrine as intended to "defend the rights of Christian Evangelicals to proselytize in public forums, like school."

A former deputy section chief, also speaking on condition of anonymity, says that the administration has a very specific litigation strategy, and that is to "try to lower the wall of separation between church and state." The former deputy section chief says, "These aren't discrimination cases. These are free speech cases, at the end of day. They want to be able to wear T-shirts with religious messages and hand out fliers about church meetings at schools." Under the Bush administration, the DOJ was suddenly suggesting a moral equivalence between protecting minorities from discrimination and enabling nonminorities to proselytize in public forums.

Next page: In the Voting Rights Section the Bush administration clearly saw a valuable tool for partisan gain