An accusation alone does not prove wrongdoing. And so recent claims by former U.S. Justice Department officials that their superiors encouraged voting-rights enforcement that discriminated against white voters are not automatic proof that discrimination took place. But the claims should be investigated fully.
Former Voting Chief Christopher Coates told the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that the Obama administration preferred to focus prosecution on whites accused of racial discrimination rather than on minorities accused of the same thing.
“The election of President Obama brought to positions of influence and power within the [Civil Rights Division] many of the very people who had demonstrated hostility to the concept of equal enforcement of the [Voting Rights Act],” he testified, according to Tribune Newspapers.
He said, for instance, that he was told to stop asking job applicants if they were comfortable prosecuting minorities accused of discrimination.
And a Justice Department attorney – Christian Adams – “told the civil rights commission that … some of his colleagues were interested in protecting only minorities,” The Washington Post reported recently. Adams resigned from the department to protest unequal enforcement.
The Justice Department says it does not discriminate, but a case in Philadelphia raises doubts.
Two members of the radical New Black Panther Party – both in military gear and one carrying a nightstick – stood menacingly outside a polling place on Election Day in 2008. Common sense says that would intimidate voters. But the Obama Justice Department has mostly dropped the case against the men and the New Black Panther Party.
The administration’s backers downplayed Coates’ testimony. But he is not just a conservative activist attacking the administration. He was hired under President Bill Clinton and has worked for the liberal American Civil Liberties Union.
It is troubling indeed if race had anything to do with why this case was mostly dismissed.