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S. HRG. 110–746 

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS 

ACT OF 1957 AND ITS CONTINUING IMPORTANCE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 5, 2007 

Serial No. J–110–53 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

MICHAEL O’NEILL, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., a U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland ............. 14 

Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin ............. 12 

Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of California ................. 5 

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ... 3 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 103 

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont .................... 1 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 109 

Schumer, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of New York, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 123 

Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama .......................... 4 

Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania ................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Driscoll, Robert N., Partner, Alston & Bird, Washington, D.C. ........................... 26 

Henderson, Wade, President and Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C. ......................................................... 16 

Heriot, Gail, Commissioner, Commission on Civil Rights, and Professor of 

Law, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California ................. 22 

Lewis, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia ...... 6 

Moses, Robert P., President, The Algebra Project, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts ....................................................................................................................... 24

Shaw, Theodore M., Director-Counsel and President, NAACP Legal Defense 

and Education Fund, Inc., Washington, D.C. .................................................... 18 

Zamora, Peter, Washington, D.C., Regional Counsel, Mexican American Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund [MALDEF], Washington, D.C. ....................... 20 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Responses of Wade Henderson to written questions were not available at 

the time of printing. 

Responses of Robert P. Moses to questions submitted by Senator Leahy .......... 35 

Responses of Theodore M. Shaw to questions submitted by Senator Leahy ...... 46 

Responses of Peter Zamora to questions submitted by Senator Leahy ............... 49 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Driscoll, Robert N., Partner, Alston & Bird, Washington, D.C., statement ....... 53 

Henderson, Wade, President and Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., statement ...................................... 56 

Heriot, Gail, Commissioner, Commission on Civil Rights, and Professor of 

Law, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California, statement ...................................................................................................................... 97 

Lewis, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, 

statement .............................................................................................................. 111 

Moses, Robert P., President, The Algebra Project, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, statement .................................................................................................... 115 

Shaw, Theodore M., Director-Counsel and President, NAACP Legal Defense 

and Education Fund, Inc., Washington, D.C., statement ................................. 125 

Zamora, Peter, Washington, D.C., Regional Counsel, Mexican American Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund [MALDEF], Washington, D.C., statement .... 139 

(1) 

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CIVIL 

RIGHTS ACT OF 1957 AND ITS CONTINUING 

IMPORTANCE 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2007 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Leahy, Kennedy, Feinstein, Feingold, Cardin, 

Specter, and Sessions. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Chairman LEAHY. Good morning. This Sunday our Nation is 

going to mark the golden anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 

1957. It was the first major civil rights law passed since Reconstruction. I remember it well. It was my first year in college when 

it passed and I remember the excitement I heard on a small college 

campus in Vermont. It remains one of the most important pieces 

of legislation this Committee and the Congress ever considered. Its 

story has been retold in the award-winning books ‘‘Master of the 

Senate’’ by Robert Caro and ‘‘Parting the Waters’’ by Taylor 

Branch. 

With this hearing, we examine whether Federal civil rights enforcement has remained faithful to our goal of achieving equal justice for all. We meet with the Nation at a crossroads. Two years 

after the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath 

and the failure of Government to protect our citizens in the Gulf 

Coast and to help those displaced from the Lower Ninth Ward of 

New Orleans and elsewhere, many Americans are beginning to 

doubt this country’s commitment to civil rights. 

We have a Justice Department without effective leadership. The 

Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, 

and many others have resigned in the wake of the scandals. And 

we have witnessed what appears to be the abandonment of the 

founding priorities of the Civil Rights Division. That Division, 

which has so often served as the guardian of the rights of minorities, has been subjected to partisan hiring practices and partisan 

litigation practices. 

2 

The flood of recent departures from the Justice Department, culminating in last month’s resignation of the Attorney General and 

the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, underscores the Civil Rights Division’s loss of direction and the shaken morale of dedicated career staff. We cannot allow the absence 

of meaningful enforcement to render our civil rights laws obsolete. 

America has traveled a great distance on the path toward fulfilling the promise of equal justice under law, but we still have 

miles to go. Just last year, this Committee received extensive testimony during the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of continuing racial discrimination affecting voting. During last fall’s 

election, we received reports about several efforts to intimidate 

Latino voters. These civil rights abuses ranged from false campaign 

mailings in Orange County, California, to intimidation at the polls 

in Tucson, Arizona. An important legislative initiative is on our 

Committee agenda this week to try to stem deceptive voting practices and abuses still being practiced against minority voters. As 

long as the stain of discrimination remains on the fabric of our democracy, the march toward equal justice must continue. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created an Assistant Attorney General dedicated solely to civil rights enforcement which led to the 

formation of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. It also 

provided the Justice Department with a new set of tools to prosecute racial inequality in voting. Although the Department had 

prosecuted some criminal cases since 1939, this law allowed the 

Department to bring civil actions on behalf of African-American 

voters. And with this new authority, the Division worked to correct 

civil rights violations and helped set the stage for Congress to pass 

stronger legislation with respect to voting, housing, employment, 

and other key areas in the decade of the 1960’s. 

America must remain steadfast in our commitment that every 

person—every person, regardless of race, or color, or religion, or national origin—should enjoy the American dream free from discrimination. That is something we owe to all Americans, we owe to our 

children, we owe to our grandchildren. We should continue to expand that dream to fight discrimination based on gender or sexual 

orientation as well. We should reaffirm our commitment to the 

promise of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. I hope that today’s hearing 

is a step in doing so, and we are going to have a most distinguished 

panel of civil rights leaders, and I thank them for being here today. 

But I will yield first, of course, to the distinguished Senator from 

Pennsylvania. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

commend you on convening this important hearing to commemorate 50 years from the enactment of the 1957 legislation on civil 

rights. And I welcome Congressman John Lewis, who has such an 

extraordinary record in civil rights, having been on the front lines 

of the battleground for decades, and the other distinguished witnesses who will appear here today. 

3 

We have come a considerable distance. I do not know that I 

would go so far as to say we have come a long way, but I do believe 

we have a long way to go. But there has been noteworthy progress. 

In 1957, there were four African-Americans serving in the House 

of Representatives. Since 1957, there have been 85 new House 

Members and an additional 5 non-voting House Members. Since 

1957, there have been three African-American Senators—candidly, 

not enough, but some progress. 

We have seen the advance of women. In 1980, when my group 

was elected, only Senator Nancy Kassebaum was in the Senate, 

representing the only woman in the U.S. Senate. Paula Hawkins 

was elected that year. Now we have a total of 16 women Senators, 

adding a great deal in diversity and a different point of view to the 

U.S. Senate. We have seen legislation on protecting women against 

violence. We have seen two of the leading contenders for the Presidency of the United States now coming from what had been a minority group—one woman and one African American. Odd that 

women have been classified as a minority since they are really a 

majority and in most households are the dominant voice. 

But there has been considerable progress. We have made 

progress on fighting discrimination on sexual orientation. The Bowers case was overruled by Lawrence v. Texas. There has been considerable progress made on hate crimes legislation, although, candidly, not enough. Senator Kennedy and I introduced that legislation a decade ago or more. It has had a rough road, but it is not 

a matter of if but a matter of when that will be enacted. 

But we still have substantial discrimination present in America. 

You find incidents which have an overtone of homosexuality or gay 

conduct being treated in a manner very, very differently than if it 

had been heterosexual. It still remains in our country and still a 

lot of discrimination against African-Americans and the glass ceiling on women and sexual orientation and remaining discrimination 

against many other minority groups, still discrimination against 

Catholics and Jews and Italians and the Poles and immigrants, lots 

of discrimination remaining in this country. 

So we can note with some pride the 50 years since we have had 

the legislation, but we have to focus at the same time on the great 

deal of work which is yet to be done. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Normally we would go right to the first witness, but, Congressman Lewis, if you do not mind, the person who has been on this 

Committee the longest of any of us in either party and has been 

as strong a voice in civil rights as any Senator of either party I 

have ever served with, as something that also was very similar to 

his two brothers, is Senator Kennedy. And if you do not mind, I 

would like to yield to him. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS 

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I join with Senator Specter and the others in congratulating you in having this hearing. I think it is an enormously important hearing, and it is good to see our colleagues who are here 

4 

who have joined to listen to some of the really profound and 

thoughtful and concerned voices that we are going to hear on our 

witness list, a very distinguished group led by John Lewis. 

This hearing is enormously important, I think, and I hope the 

resonance of what we are going to hear during the course of the 

morning will be listened to by Americans, and particularly during 

this time of national discussion about the future direction of our 

country, because what I see as someone that observed the passage 

of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and paving the way for the actions 

that we had in 1962, 1964, 1968, on through the 1970’s and overturning Supreme Court decisions and the rest, I see forces in this 

country that are using the path and pattern that were brilliantly 

led by some of those who are concerned about the lack of progress 

in civil rights during the late 1950’s and the early 1960’s and using 

those kinds of pathways in order to reverse the progress that we 

have made. 

I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but I am enormously distressed 

by the more recent Supreme Court judgments and statements that 

are made by the courts, the Seattle case, and by the failure of the 

Department to follow the age-old traditions of professionalism and 

the law at a very, very crucial and critical period in terms of our 

country. And I hope that those who are here today can sort of put 

all of this, where we have been, where we are going, awaken this 

country to ensure that we are not going to make a misstep or a 

step backward in what has been this extraordinary march to 

progress, and has, I think, been invaluable in helping America be 

America. 

I thank the Chair. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, could I welcome our guest for 

1 second? 

Chairman LEAHY. Please. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF ALABAMA 

Senator SESSIONS. Congressman Lewis is, of course, one of the 

most respected Members of the House and one of, I think, America’s greatest citizens. He represents Georgia, but he is a native of 

Alabama, grew up a sharecropper’s son near Troy, Alabama. And 

I know you were back there recently at Troy University speaking. 

I admire you greatly, and I think it is sort of emblematic of what 

has happened that Troy University in Montgomery has created the 

Rosa Parks Museum. It has an interactive museum with a school 

bus just like the bus she refused to move to the back of, and I 

think maybe that is emblematic of some of the progress we have 

made. 

Congressman Lewis, thank you for your service to America. 

Thank you for being one of Alabama’s finest sons. And thank you 

for helping to make this a better country. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you, and I apologize. I realize you are 

both Alabamans, and you should have had the ability to say something, too. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you. 

5 

Chairman LEAHY. John Lewis is a good and dear friend—oh, yes, 

Senator Specter? Sorry. The short-term memory is falling apart 

here. Go ahead. 

Senator SPECTER. Just a word, Mr. Chairman. The Subcommittee 

on Labor Appropriations where I am Ranking has a hearing at 

10:30 on the Utah mine disaster, and I am going to have to excuse 

myself to go there. But I will follow closely the testimony here 

today, and without my saying it, you know you have my total support. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. And I would note that the Senator 

from Pennsylvania always has been in the forefront in this, and— 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, if I might just say— 

Chairman LEAHY. Of course. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much. 

Chairman LEAHY. I am the most easygoing Chairman in the Senate, as the former Attorney General used to say. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thank you. I do not think there is a leader 

in the civil rights movement that is as respected for his leadership 

as you, Congressman Lewis. I want you to know that. I think your 

dignity, your constancy, your consistent advocacy has really been 

important in these decades, and I want you to know that. 

I was not going to come to this hearing because I thought, you 

know, we are really on the march with civil rights, things are really going to be fine. And then last night I heard on the news where 

the KKK has now gotten active in Virginia, particularly with respect to the immigration issue. And I began to think that, you 

know, no matter what the progress we make, there are always people that want to turn back the clock for one reason or another. And 

it really does cause us, I think, to have a kind of warning that 

these values we cannot take for granted, that we have to continue 

the advocacy. And I can think of no one to be in that front row better than yourself. 

So I just want to say thank you for the many decades of leadership, and I look forward to your comments. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Now, as I started to say, Congressman Lewis is one of my dearest friends in the Congress. We have worked together and talked 

together and plotted together on legislation. He represents Georgia’s 5th District, is a nationally recognized civil rights leader. He 

was an architect and keynote speaker at the March on Washington 

in 1963. Incidentally, I do remember that speech. He served as 

Chairman of the pivotal Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He recently addressed the graduating class at the University of Vermont, and he instructed those graduates that they have 

an obligation, a mission, and a mandate from all of those men and 

women who sacrificed before their time. 

You are right, and I agree with you. We have to do our part for 

this great democracy, and so I welcome you back to the Senate Judiciary Committee. You honor us with your presence. Please, Congressman, go ahead. 

6 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN LEWIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Representative LEWIS. Thank you, Chairman Leahy and Senator 

Specter and other members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. I 

thank each and every one of you for those unbelievable remarks. 

I really appreciate it. 

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 

1957, I appreciate having this opportunity to share my thoughts 

and experiences with you. In particular, I would like to discuss the 

importance of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and how we can renew and strengthen the Division in the future. 

In the late 1950’s, there was a tremendous amount of fear in the 

American South. People were afraid to talk about civil rights. I 

would ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, and my greatgrandparents, ‘‘Why segregation? Why racial discrimination? ’’ And 

they would say, ‘‘That’s the way it is. Don’t get in the way. Don’t 

get in trouble.’’ 

People of color couldn’t vote; they couldn’t register to vote. They 

paid a poll tax. Black people could not sit on a jury. Segregation 

was the order of the day. It was so real. The signs were so visible. 

People were told to stay in their place. 

People were beaten; people came up missing. Emmett Till, a 14- 

year-old boy, a boy 1 year younger than I, was lynched in 1955, 

and it shook me to the core. It could have happened to me or any 

other African-American boy in the Deep South. It was a different 

climate and environment. In some instances it amounted to policeand state-sanctioned violence against people of color. I remember 

reading about a man being stopped on the highway, castrated and 

left bleeding to death. In 1956, in Birmingham, Alabama, Nat King 

Cole was attacked while performing, and he never returned to perform in the American South. Black people were afraid, and white 

people were afraid to speak out. It truly was terror. 

In September of 1957, I was 17 years old—a child, really. I was 

just arriving in Nashville, Tennessee, to begin my studies at the 

American Baptist Theological Seminary. I had not met Dr. Martin 

Luther King, Jr. I had met Rosa Parks. I had not become involved 

in Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. I had not taken 

part in the freedom rides or the sit-ins, and I had not walked over 

the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. But the ‘‘Spirit of 

History,’’ as I like to call it—Fate, if you will—was beginning to 

move in important ways in 1957, both for me and for our Nation. 

That September, the Congress had passed and President Eisenhower was signing the Civil Rights Act of 1957—the first piece of 

civil rights legislation since reconstruction. Some would look back 

and think that this legislation was mostly ineffective, but it was 

significant because it created an Assistant Attorney General for 

Civil Rights, and so began the Civil Rights Division of the Justice 

Department. It also created the Civil Rights Commissions, which 

did important and at times dangerous work, hold hearings all 

across the South, gathering data and information on voter registration and discrimination. The 1957 Act was also significant because, 

for the first time, it made it a crime to interfere with a person’s 

7 

right to vote in Federal elections, setting the stage for future legislation. 

In the coming years, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting 

Rights Act of 1965 would give substance to the promise of equal 

rights and formed the basis for the work of the Civil Rights Division. 

In 1958, at the age of 18, I met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for 

the first time—a meeting that would change the course of my life. 

That year, you could feel the urgency in the air, the need for 

change and the sense that things were about to change. 

Progress would begin slowly. The Supreme Court decision in 

Brown v. Board of Education and the successful Montgomery bus 

boycott, those threats to the Southern establishment created a 

backlash, more violence and more fear. But at the same time, 

young people, white and black, were joining the movement. We 

were inspired to get in the way, to get in trouble; but it was good 

trouble, it was necessary trouble. 

My involvement in the movement was growing at the same time 

as the Civil Rights Division was becoming an important tool for 

protecting the rights of Americans who faced discrimination. 

During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, we knew that 

the individuals in the Department of Justice were people we could 

call any time of day or night. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was a Federal referee in the struggle for civil 

rights and civil justice. 

John Doar, beginning in the Eisenhower administration, for instance, was a Republican from Wisconsin. He was someone that we 

trusted, we believed in. And he remained during the Kennedy and 

Johnson years. And we felt during those years that the Civil Rights 

Division of the Department of Justice was more than a sympathetic 

referee. It was on the side of justice, on the side of fairness. During 

the movement, people looked to Washington for justice, for fairness. 

But today, Mr. Chairman, I am not so sure that the great majority 

of individuals in the civil rights community can look to the Division 

for that fairness. The public has lost confidence in our Government, 

in the Department of Justice, and in the Civil Rights Division. We 

can and must do better. 

The Civil Rights Division was special. It attracted the best and 

the brightest, and those attorneys stayed with the Civil Rights Division for decades. The civil rights laws were enforced no matter 

which party was in the White House, and these attorneys were 

able to do their jobs without political interference. It is not so 

today. 

In the last few years, we have lost more career civil rights lawyers than ever before. The new lawyers are being hired for the first 

time in the Division’s history by political appointees rather than 

career attorneys. It is not surprising that the Division is hiring 

fewer lawyers with civil rights or voting rights backgrounds. 

There is also a clear shift in the types of cases being brought by 

the Division. The Division is neglecting the tradition of civil rights 

cases, and it appears to have given up on enforcing the Voting 

Rights Act altogether. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I must tell you 

that I am particularly disturbed by the way the Civil Rights DiviVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
8 

sion handled the Georgia voter ID law in 2005. It takes special people to enforce Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. There is always 

the potential for political interference. However, the Voting Rights 

Section has always been above partisanship, and it has resisted attempts by administrations to influence the outcomes of cases. 

However, this was not this case with the Georgia law. The Georgia voter ID law would have required voters to show a photo ID 

at the polls and would have disproportionately prevented minorities from voting in Georgia. 

The career attorneys found that the law violated the Voting 

Rights Act and recommended that it should be denied pre-clearance. But the career attorneys were overruled by the political appointees. This type of political influence preventing the enforcement of our civil rights laws is shameful and unacceptable. Thankfully, a Federal court saw the law for what it was—a poll tax—and 

struck it down. 

It is clear that the Civil Rights Division of the Department of 

Justice has lost its way. The Civil Rights Division, once guardians 

of civil rights, has been so weakened that I do not recognize it. 

Congressional oversight could have prevented some of this. Freedom and equality are rights that are not simply achieved; they 

must be preserved each and every day. But we have not been focused on protecting our rights, and therefore, we are watching 

them slip away. 

The Civil Rights Division is still important, and it has important 

work to do today, just as it did during the civil rights movement. 

Yes, Mr. Chairman, we have come a long way, but there is still discrimination in voting, in employment, and housing that must be 

addressed. 

Congress must restore the Civil Rights Division as the champion 

of civil rights. Congress has a duty to perform strong oversight and 

to investigate whether our civil rights laws are being enforced. We 

must reverse the political hiring process and put the decisions back 

in the hands of the career professionals, who know what it takes 

to enforce our civil rights laws. 

In addition to strengthening the Department of Justice, I also believe that we need to give our citizens a private right of action to 

challenge federally funded programs that unfairly disadvantage a 

particular group, whether or not there is discriminatory intent. I 

am working with Senator Kennedy on legislation that would ensure 

this private right of action. 

We in Congress must do all we can to inspire a new generation 

to fulfill the mission of equal justice, which is the enduring legacy 

of the civil rights movement and the Civil Rights Division. I still 

believe, as Martin Luther King, Jr., believed, that we can create a 

beloved community, an interracial democracy, based on simple justice that values the dignity and the worth of every human being. 

We need to let the spirit of history move within us on this 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. We must rededicate our 

international Government to justice, to service, to equality. And we 

must begin by strengthening the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

9 

Chairman LEAHY. Well, thank you, Congressman. You mentioned 

John Doar. I recall first meeting him when I was a law student and 

then talking with him in later years when I was a prosecutor. A 

very, very impressive man. 

You know, I am going to save your testimony, and sometime 

when my grandchildren, all of them, are old enough to read it, I 

am going to have them read it, and I am going to say, ‘‘Listen to 

what Congressman Lewis said about what life was like,’’ so that 

they understand what their grandfather and others have done to 

make sure we do not go back to those days. I think that if we are 

not always vigilant, we could go back there. 

You and I will never be blocked from voting. You and I will never 

be blocked from going to a restaurant or being on a bus or going 

to any public event. We will not. But there are others who might, 

others who still are. 

In 1957, when this Act was passed, a member of this Committee 

filibustered it for 20-some-odd hours. We would not see that today. 

But it is a different form of filibustering that the Act is not being 

enforced, it is not being handled right, and I thank you for what 

you said about the Civil Rights Division. 

The next Attorney General, indeed, the next President, should 

have a mandate to make sure they put the Civil Rights Division 

back to what it was, to put in good Republicans and Democrats, 

put in people without thought of what their politics are, and then 

tell them not to be political. The Civil Rights Division cannot be 

political. It has to be colorblind. It has to enforce the law. I agree 

with you it is not doing that. Let us hope we get back to it, because 

I never want to go back to the days you talked about with your 

grandparents. 

Thank you. 

Senator Sessions. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Congressman Lewis, you came of age during a time not too long 

ago that we had an unfair system in America, particularly in the 

South, where we had a system that discriminated against a substantial number of our citizens, and it was just maintained by 

power. We can say whatever we want to, but those who know what 

happened know it was a powerful force determined to maintain 

white supremacy, maintain inequality and unfairness and injustice 

in that system. And it was not right, and you had the courage, one 

of the very earliest ones. You have suffered personally and physically for the courage you showed, and I want to thank you for it 

because Alabama and the whole South and the Nation is better for 

what you did. 

Sometimes people tell me, ‘‘Well, you know, we have made so 

much progress and things are better,’’ and indeed they are, as we 

certainly know. You hear some, I guess, white constituents say, 

‘‘Well, you know, I am just tired of hearing about that. People are 

too worried about that. Nobody is going to deny somebody the right 

to vote.’’ But I have gained an appreciation as I have thought about 

it that this was not that many years ago. It was not that many 

years ago that you were acting against a system that was established law and power. 

10 

I was a teenager during those years, and I remember those 

years. We had bathrooms for the separate races—colored bathrooms and white bathrooms. Schools were segregated resolutely. 

Would you share with us your thought, to the non-African Americans, how it feels to have such a recent change in historical times 

and why it is that you feel a special obligation to be vigilant to see 

that things do not slide back in any form or fashion? 

Representative LEWIS. Senator, thank you very much for your 

comments and for your question. You know, growing up outside of 

Troy in southeast Alabama and visiting places like Montgomery 

and Tuskegee as a young child, I saw those signs that said, ‘‘White 

Waiting,’’ ‘‘Colored Waiting,’’ ‘‘White Men,’’ ‘‘Colored Men,’’ ‘‘White 

Women,’’ and ‘‘Colored Women.’’ 

I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, some of my brothers and sisters, we were deeply inspired by Dr. King and Rosa 

Parks and others. We went down to the public library in the little 

town of Troy trying to get library cards, trying to check out some 

books, and we were told by the librarian that the library was for 

whites only and not for coloreds. I never went back to that library 

until July 5, 1998, for a book signing of my book, ‘‘Walking with 

the Wind.’’ And hundreds of blacks and white citizens showed up, 

and they gave me a library card. 

So I think that says something about the distance we have come 

and the progress that we have made, but a lot of people, a lot of 

young people of color, were denied an opportunity to go in that library and read, to check out a book. 

And I remember in 1957, again, 17 years old when I finished 

high school, I applied to go to Troy State, now known as Troy University. I submitted my application, my high school transcript. I 

never heard a word from the school. It was only 10 miles from my 

home. So I wrote a letter to Martin Luther King, Jr., and told him 

I needed his help. He wrote me back and invited me to come to 

Montgomery to talk with him about it. 

My folks were so afraid. They did not want to have anything to 

do with me going to Troy State. They thought our house would be 

burned or bombed; they thought it was too dangerous. So I continued to study in Nashville. 

Years later, after I got elected to Congress, the little school in 

Brundidge—you know where Brundidge is? About 12 miles from 

Troy—where I attended high school, had a class reunion and John 

Lewis Day, and Troy University then led the parade through the 

town, and the late Senator Heflin came down, and the chancellor 

said, ‘‘We understand you could not go to Troy State. Next year 

why don’t you come and get an honorary degree from Troy State? ’’ 

And at the next graduation, they granted me an honorary degree, 

and Senator Heflin was the commencement speaker. 

I think it says something about the distance we have come and 

the progress we have made in laying down the burden of race. But 

we still have so far to go. I hear young people say sometimes, 

‘‘Nothing has changed.’’ And I feel like saying, ‘‘Come and walk in 

my shoes. Things have changed.’’ But there are still those invisible 

signs of discrimination. You still have, in a State like the State of 

Georgia, an attempt to take us back. To tell people in 2006 you 

need a photo ID—you must understand that hundreds and thouVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
11 

sands of people, African Americans, low-income whites, and others 

that were not born in a hospital, they do not have a birth certificate. They do not even know what a passport is. So they do not 

have a State ID, so these people will be denied the right to participate in the democratic process. That is why many of us took the 

position to say that a photo ID amounts to a poll tax where you 

have to pay for it. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Congressman Lewis. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much. 

Senator Feinstein, then Senator Feingold, then Senator Cardin. 

And I might note that both Senator Feinstein and Senator Feingold 

have to leave shortly for an Intelligence Committee meeting. Am 

I correct? 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Yes. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. Senator Feinstein. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thanks, Jeff. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I really thank Senator Sessions for asking 

those questions of you, Congressman Lewis, because I think it 

gives people an understanding of the deeply personal and personally hurtful part of discrimination, which is a very complex reaction. But when I came down earlier and said hello to you, you mentioned two pieces of legislation, and one of them was the Hate 

Crimes Act and the other is the D.C. Voting Rights Act. And I 

wanted to give you an opportunity to speak about those two pieces 

of legislation and the importance of them at this particular point 

in time. 

Representative LEWIS. Senator, thank you so much. I have taken 

a very strong position in support of the hate crimes legislation, and 

I say to people all the time in my district and around the country 

that I fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on 

race and color not to stand up and fight against discrimination 

based on sexual orientation or whatever. There is not any room in 

our society, it should not be allowed by the Federal Government or 

local government for people to engage in violent acts against other 

people because of their religion or their color or sexual orientation. 

I think it is a shame and a disgrace that we live in one of the 

greatest democracies and that people died and fought for the right 

to vote. 

Later you are going to hear from Bob Moses, who was Director 

of the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964, and three young men 

that I knew and Bob knew very well went out as part of an effort 

to get people registered to vote. These three young men died in 

Mississippi during the summer of 1964. And I tell young people all 

the time, they did not die in Vietnam or the Middle East or Eastern Europe, in Africa or Central or South America. They died right 

here in our own country. People died. And then we are going to say 

to the District of Columbia, where people leave this district, leave 

this city, they go and fight in our wars, and then they cannot participate in the democratic process. That is wrong, and I think we 

have a constitutional right to give the District full voting rights. It 

must be done. It must be done on our watch. 

12 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Just a quick followup, if I may. You mentioned in your opening comments about the importance of Congressional oversight of the Civil Rights unit of the Department of Justice and the feeling that it had deteriorated. Can you be more specific on that, exactly what you mean? 

Representative LEWIS. Well, I will tell you one thing, Senator. I 

do not want to be flip about it, but if you ask most of us in the 

House today who had been the head of the Civil Rights Division, 

we would not know the person. It is like they do not exist. They 

are not engaged. And that is a problem. There are problems in 

America today. It is not just affecting one segment of this society 

where people are being discriminated against. And I think the Congress, whether we be in the Senate or the House, we have an obligation to hold oversight hearings, to follow through, and say, 

‘‘What are you doing? ’’ 

Young people have been thrown in jail and sentenced to large 

and long sentences in many parts of the South, and part of it is 

race, nothing but race. And the Department of Justice is not saying 

anything. It is just silent. Complete silence. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I actually think the position is vacant now, 

is it not? 

Chairman LEAHY. We just had a resignation, but there are about 

a dozen resignations ranging from the Attorney General straight 

down to the head of the Civil Rights unit. We presently have the 

most dysfunctional Department of Justice in my whole career. 

Representative LEWIS. We knew John Doar. We knew Burke 

Marshall. 

Chairman LEAHY. And you could call them. 

Representative LEWIS. We could call them any time of day, any 

time of night. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. And there was a discussion that took place. 

Representative LEWIS. And they just did not remain in Washington. They came South. They put themselves on the front line. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Hopefully we can change that. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Congressman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Incidentally, is there anyone here from the Department of Justice? 

[No response.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Anyone here from the White House? 

[No response.] 

Chairman LEAHY. That is interesting because when I have other 

hearings, they send scores of people up. I hope they will take the 

time to watch the tape of this hearing and read the transcript. 

Maybe they could learn something by doing that. 

Senator Feingold? 

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF WISCONSIN 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always an 

honor to be in the presence of Congressman Lewis, but particularly 

on an occasion like this, and to hear your accounts of the reality 

that you faced. It is a privilege to be a Member of Congress and 

to hear that. 

13 

Every so often, it is important to look back and celebrate important historic events that still have relevance to the problems we 

seek to address today in the Senate. The enactment of the Civil 

Rights Act of 1957 is one such event. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 

certainly does not have the fame of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or 

the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it was an extremely important 

milestone for our country. It was the first civil rights bill passed 

into law since 1870, finally breaking through the seemingly impenetrable roadblock built by segregationists in the Senate against legislation to protect the rights of African Americans. Lions such as 

Hubert Humphrey and Paul Douglas, working with the extraordinary then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, passed a bill 

that the public and the pundits certainly thought would die, just 

as every other civil rights bill in nearly a century had died. The 

law’s substantive achievements were modest compared with the 

landmark legislation that followed, but the creation of the Civil 

Rights Division of the Department of Justice has gained significance over time and is that law’s greatest legacy today. 

And the symbolic value of the legislative accomplishment was 

enormous. As Lyndon Johnson biographer Robert Caro writes in 

‘‘Master of the Senate,’’ which tells the story of Johnson’s struggle 

to pass the bill, ‘‘The Civil Rights Act of 1957 made only a meager 

advance toward social justice, and it is all but forgotten today. But 

it paved the way. Its passage was necessary for all that was to 

come.’’ 

Because the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was only a beginning, it is 

fitting that this hearing look ahead as well as back. Obviously, we 

have come a long way in the past 50 years in the fight for racial 

equality, but there is much more to be done. Continuing our oversight of the Civil Rights Division is crucial, especially in light of 

what we have learned in recent months about the improper hiring 

practices and political interferences in decisions in the Voting 

Rights Section. The next Attorney General must make putting the 

Civil Rights Division back on track a very top priority. 

We also have to do more legislatively, as you have already been 

talking about. This week the Committee will take up a bill to prohibit deceptive practices and voter intimidation—the 21st century 

version, if you will, of poll taxes and registration tests that are 

used to prevent minority citizens from exercising the right to vote. 

Later in this Congress, I hope the Senate will consider the Fair 

Pay Restoration Act to reverse the Supreme Court’s cramped interpretation of Title VII’s pay discrimination prohibition. We must end 

racial profiling and do much more to bring the promise of equality 

to other racial minorities, the disabled, and gays and lesbians. And, 

yes, we must get D.C. voting rights, something which I have supported from the very beginning of my time in the Senate. 

This is all noble work, Mr. Chairman, which builds on the foundation laid by the Civil Rights Act of 1957. I am proud to stand 

with those who believe that guaranteeing civil rights for all Americans is one of Congress’ most important duties, and I am honored 

to again be with Representative Lewis and, of course, Dr. Bob 

Moses, two giants of the civil rights movement, and the other witnesses today. We have much to learn from them, and I appreciate 

very much the opportunity to speak. 

14 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Senator Feingold. 

Senator Cardin? 

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND 

Senator CARDIN. Well, Mr. Chairman, first, thank you for convening this hearing and commemorating the 50th anniversary of 

the Civil Rights Act of 1957. I must tell you this is a personal 

pleasure for me to have John Lewis as our witness. Twenty-1 years 

ago, I was elected to the House of Representatives, which was the 

single honor in my life, but to be elected with John Lewis in the 

same class—and the two of us became very good friends and almost 

soul mates during some very difficult times. And, Congressman 

Lewis, I just really want to thank you for what you have done not 

only in the civil rights movement, but what you have done in the 

Congress of the United States. You have always had that passion. 

You and I served on the Ways and Means Committee I guess for 

many, many years. I sort of miss the Ways and Means Committee, 

but it is really nice to be in the U.S. Senate. 

I want you to know that you have always been an inspiration to 

all of us as far as your passion for these issues and your faith in 

our country. This is a great country. And we have made progress, 

as you have pointed out, but we still have much that needs to be 

done. 

You know how to connect with people. You know how to really 

relate to the problems that we have in our community, and you are 

effective in getting things accomplished. So I just really want to followup on some of my colleagues and just point out that we have 

an agenda. The 50th anniversary should not be just a celebration, 

but it should be to establish where we need to go from here in 

order to complete the journey, as you so often talk about. And that 

means as Members of the U.S. Congress, there are some things 

that we can do. We do have an important role in looking at what 

is happening in the executive branch of Government, and as our 

Chairman pointed out, the Civil Rights Division, which was one of 

the crowning accomplishments of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, where 

we would have a focus within the Department of Justice on civil 

rights, has lost that focus. 

We had a hearing not too long ago in this Committee that I had 

the opportunity to chair in which it became pretty obvious that the 

traditional role of the Civil Rights Division and standing up and 

fighting for racial discrimination cases has been missing and that 

the hiring within the Civil Rights Division of career attorneys has 

been compromised. 

So I think we have a responsibility to restore that, and we have 

a chance to do that in that there now will be new leadership within 

the Department of Justice, and I think it is very important for this 

Committee and the Judiciary Committee in the House and each 

one of us to make sure during this process that we refocus the Department of Justice back on that Civil Rights Division and what it 

should do within the Civil Rights Division. 

My colleagues have pointed out legislation we should be passing. 

The hate crimes statute should be passed. Tomorrow we are going 

15 

to have an opportunity in this Committee to do what you have already done in the House and pass the Voter Intimidation Act, to 

say once and for all that it is wrong, it is illegal, and we are not 

going to tolerate campaign strategies that try to win by suppressing the minority vote. That should be off the table. And I 

agree with my colleague Senator Feingold about the D.C. voting 

rights. That is something that needs to be done. That is a civil 

rights issue that needs to be accomplished. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would also point out I think it is right for 

us in the confirmation process of judges to make sure judges have 

a passion for protecting the civil liberties of the people of this Nation, and that is part, I think, of our responsibility to make sure 

we complete the journey. 

So to my friend John Lewis, thank you for coming over and 

gracing our Committee and for inspiring us to do more, and I just 

look forward to many more years of working with you in the U.S. 

Congress so that we can continue to make progress so that every 

American can truly enjoy the liberties of this great country. It is 

a great country. We have made a lot of progress. That is why it 

is so painful when we see the types of detours that have been 

taken recently. And I think we have the opportunity now to correct 

that and to move forward so that everyone in this country can 

enjoy this great Nation. 

So congratulations on the work that you have done, and it is 

good to see you here, and please say hello to my friends in the 

House of Representatives. 

Representative LEWIS. Well, Senator, thank you very much. I am 

very pleased and delighted to see you. We have been friends and 

we will remain friends, and it is good to be able to call you ‘‘Senator Cardin.’’ Thank you. 

I agree with you. We must give up. We must continue to push 

on. We can legislate, but we can also speak up and speak out. I 

think there is a great need for leadership, and I think the American people are prepared to make that leap. We just need to get 

out there. And what I said in the earlier statement, find a way to 

get in the way. And under the leadership of the Chairman and the 

members of this Committee, I know you will do the right thing. 

And I appreciate the opportunity to be here and especially to see 

the Chairman and to see you, sir. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I might point out, John Lewis was truly reluctant 

in advising me to run for the U.S. Senate because of our friendship. 

But then he realized that I had more seniority in the Ways and 

Means Committee than he did; then he encouraged me to run. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman LEAHY. I might say, I am glad you ran. I enjoy having 

that extra seat. And I am delighted that you were willing in a very 

weak moment to allow me to convince you to come on the Senate 

Judiciary Committee. You have been a very, very valuable member. 

Senator CARDIN. It has been very rewarding. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. We will stand in recess for about 4 minutes 

while they set up for the next panel. And, Congressman Lewis, that 

16 

was some of the most powerful testimony I have heard in all my 

years here, and I appreciate you doing this. 

Representative LEWIS. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Representative Lewis appears as a 

submission for the record.] 

[Recess 10:54 a.m. to 10:58 a.m.] 

Chairman LEAHY. If we might come back. we are going to have 

a distinguished panel: Wade Henderson, the President and CEO of 

the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; Theodore Shaw—I have 

always called him ‘‘Ted’’—Director-Counsel and President of the 

NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Peter Zamora, the 

Washington, D.C., Regional Counsel of the Mexican American 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF; Gail Heriot, 

Commissioner, United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Professor of Law, University of California at San Diego; Robert P. 

Moses, who is the President, as we know, of the Algebra Project in 

Cambridge; and Robert Driscoll is a partner at Alston & Bird in 

Washington, D.C. 

Following the procedure for non-Congressional members who are 

testifying, would you please all stand and raise your right hand? 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

before this Committee shall be the truth, the whole truth, and 

nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Mr. HENDERSON. I do. 

Mr. SHAW. I do. 

Mr. ZAMORA. I do. 

Ms. HERIOT. I do. 

Mr. MOSES. I do. 

Mr. DRISCOLL. I do. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

The first witness will be Wade Henderson, as I said, the President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights that 

works on issues involving voting rights and election reform, Federal judicial appointments, economic justice, educational equity, 

hate crimes, criminal justice reform, issues of immigration and refugee policy, human rights. 

Mr. Henderson, welcome. You are no stranger to this Committee. 

On both sides of the aisle, we have found your testimony to be extremely important. Please proceed, and what I am going to do is 

go down through each of you before we go to questions. 

STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL 

RIGHTS, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. HENDERSON. Well, good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. It is an honor to be with you 

today. Indeed, I am Wade Henderson, President of the Leadership 

Conference on Civil Rights, the Nation’s oldest, largest, and most 

diverse civil and human rights coalition. I am also honored to serve 

as the Joseph L. Rauh, Jr, Professor of Public Interest Law at the 

University of the District of Columbia, and it is a special pleasure 

to represent the civil rights community before the Committee today 

and to discuss the important topics at hand. 

17 

Fifty years ago, the attempt to integrate Little Rock High School 

demonstrated the need for the Federal Government to finally say, 

‘‘Enough.’’ Enough of allowing the States to defy the U.S. Constitution and the courts; enough of Congress and the executive branch 

sitting idly by while millions of Americans were denied their basic 

rights of citizenship. The 1957 Act and the creation of the Civil 

Rights Division were first steps in responding to this growing need. 

For years, we in the civil rights community have looked to the 

Department of Justice as a leader in the fight for civil rights. Yet, 

recently, many civil rights advocates have been concerned about 

the direction of the Division’s enforcement. In order for the Division to once again play a significant role in the struggle to achieve 

equal opportunity for all Americans, it must rid itself of the 

missteps of the recent past, but also work to forge a new path. It 

must respond to contemporary problems of race and inequality 

with contemporary solutions. It must continue to use the old tools 

that work. But when they don’t, it must develop new tools. It must 

be creative and nimble in the face of an ever-moving target. 

Today, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education 

Fund is releasing a new report, ‘‘Long Road to Justice: The Civil 

Rights Division at 50,’’ which outlines the critical role the Civil 

Rights Division has played over the last 50 years in helping our 

Nation achieve its ideals. In the report, we also assess the current 

state of the Division’s enforcement efforts and outline some recommendations for a way forward. The following are a few highlights of those recommendations: 

First, the Civil Rights Division must restore its reputation as the 

place for the very best and brightest lawyers who are committed 

to equal opportunity and equal justice. It is not a question of finding lawyers of a particular ideology; rather, it is a rededication to 

hiring staff who share the Division’s commitment to the enforcement of Federal civil rights law. That is not politics. It is civil 

rights enforcement. 

In the area of voting rights, rather than promoting schemes that 

deny equal opportunity to citizens to vote, the Civil Rights Division 

should be focused on ways to increase voter access, such as combating voter ID laws—which John Lewis so eloquently spoke 

about—that have a disproportionate negative impact on racial, ethnic, or language minorities. 

Fresh attention must also be paid to racial and ethnic segregation in housing. Discrimination in real estate sales and racial steering and discrimination in lending that destroys neighborhoods cannot continue to go unchecked. And as long as discrimination based 

on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or disability remains a sad, 

harsh reality in this country, the battle against it must remain a 

central priority of the Civil Rights Division. 

And in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Seattle 

and Louisville cases, the Division must develop new tools that fight 

to create and maintain integrated and high-quality schools. 

The complete text of ‘‘Long Road to Justice’’ can be found on our 

new website, www.reclaimcivilrights.org, which is being launched 

today as an important tool in our public education campaign on the 

issue of civil rights enforcement. 

18 

The 50th anniversary of the 1957 Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Civil Rights Division is a time to take a stock of where 

we have been, where we are, and where we need to go in the struggle for equal rights and equal justice in America. And we have 

come a long way, as has been noted—a very long way from legally 

segregated lunch counters, poll taxes, and whites-only job advertisements. But we are not finished. Today, we face predatory lending practices directed at racial minorities and older Americans, 

voter ID requirements that often have discriminatory impact on 

minority voters, and English-only policies in the workplace. So our 

work continues. 

As our report outlines, one of the critical tools to our collective 

progress in civil rights has been the Civil Rights Division at the 

Department of Justice, and the heart and soul of the Division has 

always been its career staff. For 50 years, and regardless of which 

political party was in power, the staff has worked to help make our 

country what it ought to be: a place where talent trumps color and 

opportunity knocks on all doors; where you cannot predict the quality of the local school system by the race or ethnicity of the school’s 

population, where access is a right not a privilege, and where difference is not just tolerated but valued. 

We have concerns with the direction of the Civil Rights Division 

in recent years. The hope is that we can meet those concerns with 

positive action for our future. This report attempts to begin to map 

out the way forward, and we look forward to continuing the conversation. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Henderson appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Henderson. 

Mr. Shaw is, as I said, the Director-Counsel and President of the 

NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. I would also mention 

he participates in briefing and oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme 

Court and litigation of civil rights cases—again, no stranger to this 

Committee. 

Happy to have you here, Mr. Shaw. 

STATEMENT OF THEODORE M. SHAW, DIRECTOR-COUNSEL 

AND PRESIDENT, NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION 

FUND, INC., WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join in what Wade Henderson has said about the career attorneys at Justice, and I would 

like the Committee’s indulgence as I talk personally about my experience. 

I started out my legal career at the Justice Department in the 

Civil Rights Division. It was one of two jobs I longed for as a law 

student. The other one was to be an attorney for the Legal Defense 

Fund, and I have been blessed to work in both places. 

When I joined the Justice Department, I was part of a cadre of 

lawyers, many who had been there since the halcyon days of the 

civil rights movement, who were committed to civil rights enforcement. They were apolitical. Their deepest commitment was to enforcing the civil rights statutes and laws of our Nation. 

19 

I think in understanding where we are now, we must recognize 

that the changes at the Justice Department that many of us lament today did not begin with this administration, although they 

certainly have been accelerated. In fact, these changes began in 

1981, at least that far back, when appointees to the Civil Rights 

Division leadership began a course of intentionally shifting the direction of the Division, stepping away from school desegregation, 

stepping away from the class action employment discrimination 

cases that had been brought on behalf of African-American and 

Latino men and women and other people of color, and those who 

suffered both racial and gender discrimination. 

The Department, as I understood it when I worked there, had a 

special role to play, and I think that it has lost its focus on that 

role. Not only was it the enforcer on behalf of the Federal Government of the Nation’s civil rights laws, but it also was the leading 

entity within the Federal Government in coordinating civil rights. 

And so, for example, the Civil Rights Division was deeply involved 

in working with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil 

Rights or Housing and Urban Development with respect to its enforcement of housing policies. 

My view today, of course, is that there is a vacuum with respect 

to those functions, or if there is not a vacuum, there is a complete 

reversal with respect to the Department’s focus and its role. A couple of quick examples. 

In the aftermath of the Michigan cases in which the Supreme 

Court upheld the constitutionality of the consideration of race as a 

limited factor in college admissions, the Department of Education 

put out a set of guidelines with respect to interpreting those decisions and applying them that focused on undercutting what the Supreme Court had said was allowable as opposed to taking the basis 

the Supreme Court had given. 

Another more recent example. The two cases that the Supreme 

Court decided—actually, one case involving two school district, Seattle and Louisville, in June, those two cases were the first time 

that the Supreme Judicial Court, to my knowledge, has argued 

against school desegregation or integration of public schools since 

the Department weighed in on the side of the plaintiffs in Brown 

v. Board of Education in the 1950’s. That is a reversal of historic 

proportions. The Department of Justice, through the Solicitor General, argued a position in support of those who were opposed to voluntary school integration—a deeply disturbing development, made 

even more disturbing by the absence of the voice of African-American students and their parents at oral argument because the 

Court did not allow them to have a voice at oral argument. 

So where was the Department of Justice? Where was its voice? 

What did it say? What did it do? I believe that it was a betrayal 

of the promise of Brown v. Board of Education. 

Many years ago, in the civil rights movement, there was a saying 

out of Mississippi: ‘‘There’s a town in Mississippi called ‘Liberty.’ 

There’s a Department in Washington called ‘Justice.’’’ It was aspirational, at best. 

Finally, I would like to pick up on something that Senator 

Cardin mentioned. It is so important to the Nation that this Committee continue to exercise even more vigilance with respect to juVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
20 

dicial appointments, because while the Department of Justice 

needs to recommit itself to civil rights, it is ultimately the judges 

and the Justices who are confirmed by the Senate who interpret 

the law. And we look forward to continuing to work with this Committee to ensure not only enforcement of civil rights with respect 

to the Department of Justice, but to make sure that the judges and 

Justices confirmed by the Senate are those who are open to the enforcement of civil rights. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shaw appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Shaw. 

Mr. Zamora is the Washington, D.C., Regional Counsel for the 

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 

MALDEF, as I mentioned, that works on Federal policy matters— 

immigration, education, voting rights. 

We are glad to have you here. Please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF PETER ZAMORA, WASHINGTON, D.C., REGIONAL COUNSEL, MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE 

AND EDUCATIONAL FUND [MALDEF], WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. ZAMORA. Thank you very much, Chairman Leahy, Senator 

Cardin. It is a real pleasure to be here today to testify in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The 

Act really remains as important today as it was 50 years ago because it codified the intent of Congress that the Federal Government should play a central role in protecting the civil rights of all 

Americans. 

The Act intended to ensure that all qualified citizens be allowed 

to vote without distinctions based on race or color, and it specifically prohibited interference with voting rights in the election of 

any Federal officers. To enforce of these provisions, the Act authorized an additional Assistant Attorney General to initiate Federal 

civil rights enforcement actions. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 ensured that voting rights were no 

longer dependent upon actions brought by private individuals, 

often at great personal risk and expense. In creating the Civil 

Rights Division of the Department of Justice, in addition to the 

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Congress provided key investigative and enforcement mechanisms that continue to play a central 

role in protecting our civil rights. 

We currently live in a critical period for the U.S. Latino community, one in which our hard-won civil rights are particularly at risk. 

Congress’ failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform has 

exacerbated an ongoing civil rights crisis that affects all Americans 

but falls especially hard upon Latinos. 

States and localities have increasingly taken it upon themselves 

to enact laws that aim to intimidate, destabilize, and displace undocumented immigrants. Prince William County, in fact, right 

down the road here in Virginia, recently approved such an ordinance. 

These laws, which often violate Federal law, may target undocumented immigrants, but they undermine the civil rights of all of 

those who live in these communities, especially those who allegedly 

21 

look or sound ‘‘foreign.’’ To an extent unprecedented in recent 

years, America’s Latino population has become a focus of hateful 

and racist rhetoric and violence. 

The growing presence of Latinos in local communities across the 

Nation, including communities that have not historically had a 

strong Latino presence, will give rise to pressing civil rights issues 

in the 21st century. In voting, minority communities are often subject to discrimination as they gain political influence. While 

MALDEF frequently brings legal actions on behalf of Latino voters, 

private individuals and organizations lack sufficient resources to 

guarantee free and fair elections nationwide. The growing Latino 

electorate must be able to depend upon the Voting Section of the 

Civil Rights Division to enforce Section 2, Section 5, and Section 

203 of the Voting Rights Act to ensure that no voter is wrongly 

disfranchised. 

In education, many children in America suffer in schools that are 

so unequal and inadequate that the programs and conditions violate the students’ Federal civil rights. Latino students, who comprise one in five U.S. public school students, often continue to face 

significant barriers to fair and equal educational opportunities, including increasingly segregated school sites. 

As Federal, State, and local governments respond to the recent 

Supreme Court decision regarding voluntary school integration 

plans in Seattle and Louisville, the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division must protect against school resegregation. The section must also enforce the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, which requires schools to take actions to overcome 

language barriers that impede English-language-learner students 

from participating equally in school programs. 

In employment, the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices protects against employment 

discrimination based upon national origin and citizenship status. 

Nearly 50 percent of OSC’s settlements during fiscal year 2005 involved Hispanic workers. 

Finally, the Criminal Section of the Division must prioritize the 

prosecution of hate crimes. The past several years have seen a 

growing number of violent assaults and attacks by white supremacists against Latinos, with crimes ranging from vandalism to brutal 

assaults and murders. In most cases, the perpetrators did not know 

the victims but targeted them solely based upon their appearance. 

In 2004, law enforcement agencies reported 7,649 incidences of 

hate crimes in the United States. 

In conclusion, the most lasting effect of the Civil Rights Act of 

1957 may be that it fostered a tradition of strong Federal civil 

rights enforcement in America. Congress has since passed more 

comprehensive civil rights legislation, but the 1957 Act was a critical catalyst that engaged the Federal Government as the key 

guardian of Americans’ civil rights. We must use the tools provided 

under the Civil Rights Act and subsequent legislation to respond 

to civil rights trends in a Nation that has changed much since 

1957, where discrimination may assume different forms now than 

it did then. And as minority populations increase in size and in 

proportion of the U.S. population, the proposition that every individual shall receive fair and equal treatment under the law must 

22 

continue to be the principle under which we live. If the Federal 

Government does not meet its obligation to protect 21st century 

civil rights, our Nation will be much impoverished on the 100th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zamora appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much. 

Professor Heriot is, as I said, Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, also Professor of Law at the University of 

California at San Diego. 

Professor, thank you very much for being here today. Please go 

ahead. 

STATEMENT OF GAIL HERIOT, COMMISSIONER, UNITED 

STATES COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, AND PROFESSOR 

OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO, SAN 

DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 

Ms. HERIOT. Well, thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity to participate in the commemoration of the Civil Rights 

Act of 1957. 

Many civil rights scholars like to characterize the Civil Rights 

Act of 1957 as a ‘‘weak act,’’ and in some respects they are correct. 

Compared to the ambitious bill that Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois earlier envisioned, the 1957 Act was puny indeed. Senator 

Douglas hoped that the first civil rights bill passed by Congress 

since Reconstruction would be a sweeping one—outlawing race discrimination in public accommodations across the country. But it 

was not to be—not in 1957, anyway. 

I prefer to think of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 not as a weak 

legislative effort but, rather, as a vital building block. Without it, 

it is not at all clear that the Civil Rights Acts of 1960, 1964, 1965, 

1968, and 1972 would indeed have passed. And seen in this light, 

the 1957 Act is not puny at all but, rather, the beginning of a long 

overdue journey. It is, therefore, fitting that this Committee should 

commemorate its passage today. 

You will often hear the 1957 Act referred to as a ‘‘voting rights 

act,’’ and, of course, that is accurate. But the most significant step 

taken in that Act was probably the creation of these two new arms 

of the Federal Government that have already been referred to 

today that are assigned the task of looking after civil rights law, 

and that is the Civil Rights Division, indirectly created by creating 

an extra Assistant Attorney General’s position, and the Commission on Civil Rights, which is what I am most familiar with. So 

that is what I will talk about. 

If the value of a Federal agency could be calculated on a per dollar basis, it would not surprise me to find that the Commission on 

Civil Rights would be among the best investments that Congress 

has ever made. My back-of-the-envelope calculations show that the 

Commission now accounts for less than 1/2000th of 1 percent of the 

Federal budget; back in the late 1950’s, it would have been similar 

in size. But, nevertheless, it has packed quite a punch, particularly 

in its early years. 

23 

Soon after the passage of the 1957 Act, the then-six-member bipartisan Commission, consisting of John Hannah, President of 

Michigan State University; Robert Storey, Dean of the Southern 

Methodist University Law School; Father Theodore Hesburgh, 

President of Notre Dame University; John Battle, former Governor 

of Virginia; Ernest Wilkins, a Department of Labor attorney; and 

Doyle Carleton, former Governor of Florida—they set about to assemble a record. 

Their first project was to look for evidence of racial discrimination in voting rights down in Montgomery. But they immediately 

ran into resistance in the form of then-Circuit Judge George Wallace, who ordered that voter registration records be impounded. 

Quoting Judge Wallace, ‘‘They are not going to get the records,’’ he 

declared. ‘‘And if any agent of the Civil Rights Commission comes 

down to get them, they will be locked up. . . .I repeat, I will jail 

any Civil Rights Commission agent who attempts to get the 

records.’’ Again, that is quoting Judge Wallace. 

The hearing, nevertheless, went forward with no shortage of evidence. Witness after witness testified to inappropriate interference 

with his or her right to vote. And the facts gathered by the Commission went into the Civil Rights Acts of 1960, 1964, the Voting 

Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act. 

What is important was the revolution in public opinion that occurred during that period, and although the Commission on Civil 

Rights was certainly not the only institution that helped bring 

about that change, it was a very significant factor. 

In 1956, just before the Act, less than half of white Americans 

agreed with the statement, ‘‘White students and Negro students 

should go to the same schools.’’ By 1963, the year before the 1964 

Act, that figure had jumped to 62 percent. Similar jumps on other 

civil rights issues also occurred during that period. 

Given the amount of time I have, the one thing I wanted to be 

sure to talk about is some of the people who were important for 

passing the 1957 Act. We all know about President Eisenhower’s 

importance in that. He called for it in his State of the Union Address. Attorney General Brownell, and especially then-Majority 

Leader Lyndon Johnson. 

However, there is an unsung hero that I would like to point out 

who I first learned about when reading through Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, ‘‘Master of the Senate,’’ and this person, 

unlike Johnson, Eisenhower, and Brownell, is still very much alive, 

is 92 years old, and is still an active part of the teaching faculty 

at the university at which he works. 

It seems that the bill was hopelessly hung up over the issue of 

remedies law, and as a remedies professor, that is a very dear issue 

to my heart, and a law professor then at the University of Wisconsin proposed a solution. There was some controversy over jury 

trial issues for contempt of court since the Act authorized the Department of Justice to seek injunctions for violations of voting 

rights. And some supporters of the bill wanted to have no right to 

a jury for criminal contempt proceedings. Others were not willing 

to vote for the bill if it had that in it. And this law professor suggested a compromise: Don’t eliminate the right to a jury trial in 

those criminal contempt proceedings but, rather, rely on civil sancVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
24 

tions for contempt. Lyndon Johnson latched onto that idea, and he 

persuaded his colleagues, and as a result, according to Caro, the 

bill passed. 

That law professor was Carl Auerbach, then of the University of 

Wisconsin, later Dean at the University of Minnesota, and now for 

over 20 years, my colleague at the University of San Diego. So I 

would like to honor him today. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Heriot appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Mr. Moses is President of the Algebra Project, as I mentioned, an 

organization dedicated to achieving quality for students in innercity and rural areas through mathematics literacy. When I read 

‘‘Parting the Waters,’’ Mr. Moses, you were there, of course, in 

some detail. You were field secretary for the Student Nonviolent 

Coordinating Committee and then the Director of the Mississippi 

Project, and you and John Lewis have testified here, somewhat 

younger at the time, but equally dedicated. I thank you for being 

here. Go ahead, sir. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT P. MOSES, PRESIDENT, THE 

ALGEBRA PROJECT, INC., CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 

Mr. MOSES. Thank you, Senator Leahy. 

After our Constitutional Convention of 1787, freedom and slavery 

struggled for the soul of our National workable Government. African slaves became constitutional property, and if they stole themselves as insurgent runaways, the Feds were permitted through Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 3 to capture and return them as 

property, across the lines of sovereign States to their slave owners. 

This way of working worked for about three-quarters of a century. 

After our civil wars from 1860 to 1875, slavery was replaced by 

caste and Jim Crow, constitutional property by constitutional exiles. C. Vann Woodward says that Jim Crow laws were ‘‘constantly 

pushing the Negro farther down.’’ 

The last battles of the Civil War were fought by the White 

Leagues of Mississippi in the fall elections of 1875, and the following summer, a Senate Select Committee, led by Senator George 

Boutwell of Massachusetts, took testimony all across the State and 

issued the Boutwell Report. Senator Boutwell concluded that the 

election of the 1875 Mississippi State Legislature was carried by 

Democrats by a preconceived plan of riots and assassinations. Mississippi winked and the Nation blinked. Federalism and Federal 

rights, the Civil War amendments establishing citizenship and the 

right to vote, were recognized by non-recognition. This way of 

working worked for another three-quarters of a century. 

In the early darkness of a winter evening in February 1963, 

Jimmy Travis slipped behind the wheel and Randolph Blackwell 

crowded me beside him in a SNCC Chevy in front of the Voter Registration Office in Greenwood, Mississippi, to take off for Greenville 

on U.S. 82 straight across the Delta. Jimmy zigzagged out of town 

to escape an unmarked car, but as we headed west on 82, it trailed 

us and swept past near the turn-off for Valley State University, firing automatic weapons, pitting the Chevy with bullets. Jimmy 

cried out and slumped; I reached over to grab the wheel and fumVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
25 

bled for the brakes as we glided off 82 into the ditch, our windows 

blown away, a bullet caught in Jimmy’s neck. 

After Jimmy caught that bullet in his neck, SNCC regrouped to 

converge on Greenwood, and black sharecroppers lined up at the 

courthouse to demand their right to vote. When SNCC field secretaries were arrested, Mississippi was not looking and the FBI could 

not find the White Leaguers who gunned us down. Burke Marshall, 

the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Robert Kennedy, removed our cases to the Federal District Court in Greenville 

and sent John Doar to be our lawyer. From the witness stand, I 

looked past John at a courtroom packed with black sharecroppers 

from Greenwood, hushed along its walls, squeezed onto its benches, 

and attended to the question put by Federal District Judge Clayton: ‘‘Why are you taking illiterates down to register to vote? ’’ A 

good question. 

After the Civil War, as the Nation drove west, built railroads and 

industrialized, it established an education system to drive its caste 

system, or as James Bryant Conant discovered to his astonishment, 

the clearest manifestation of our caste system is our education system. 

In Mississippi, the deal went down on that legislature of 1875. 

Alexander Percy of Greenville entered politics for one legislative 

session for the express purpose of ensuring that one of the Articles 

of Impeachment against the Republican-elected Governor, Adelbert 

Ames, shifted the money and resources Republicans had allocated 

for the education of the freed slaves to the building of railroads to 

crisscross the Delta, to support cotton plantations and 

sharecropping. Sharecropper education has long been the subtext of 

the struggle in Mississippi in this country for the right to vote. 

Sharecroppers, constitutional exiles, were pushing against the 

constitutional gate, seeking status as constitutional people, using 

their 15th Amendment rights in an effort to establish their 14th 

Amendment rights. Three-quarters of a century after our civil 

wars, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education acknowledged that our education system had left a whole people behind, 

and this past June, a half-century later, the New York Times 

spread pictures of all nine Supreme Court Justices on its front 

page to alert the Nation of its ongoing struggle about the 14th 

Amendment and what it means to be a constitutional person. In 

the words of Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, ‘‘There is a 

historic clash between two dramatically different visions not only 

of Brown, but also the meaning of the Constitution.’’ 

It was Amzey Moore, the head of the local branch of the NAACP 

in Cleveland, Mississippi, who saw that the energy of the student 

sit-in movement could bring down Jim Crow in Mississippi. The 

SNCC-led movement for the right to vote in Mississippi called on 

the whole country to do that, but we have yet to accomplish what 

Amzie wanted for all the people of the country: first-class citizenship. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moses appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Moses. 

Robert Driscoll is a partner at the Washington office of the law 

firm Alston & Bird, but from 2001 through 2003, he served as DepVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
26 

uty Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff to the Civil 

Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Mr. Driscoll, thank you for taking time to come by. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT N. DRISCOLL, PARTNER, ALSTON & 

BIRD, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. DRISCOLL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am reluctant to follow the testimony of Mr. Moses. It seems clear in retrospect that 

he probably should have been the clean-up hitter on this panel 

with what he had to say, but I will go forth, anyway. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and Senator Cardin, for having 

this hearing. I am Bob Driscoll and I am a partner with Alston & 

Bird here in Washington. From 2001 to 2003, I was Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division, which, of course, 

was created by the 1957 Act. And during that time I worked on 

some of the issues that were discussed by previous panelists, including racial profiling guidance to Federal law enforcement, some 

school desegregation issues, and police misconduct. 

Today’s panel is distinguished, and I have enjoyed hearing 

everybody’s perspectives on this topic. I believe that every other 

panelist has, in some way, dedicated their career to the advancement of civil rights, and for that I am grateful, and I would like 

to thank all of them. My own perspective is that of a working lawyer who has spent several years in leadership of the Division—an 

institution for which I have great respect. It is my experience doing 

my best for those 2 years helping manage the Division that provides the basis for my comments. 

Essentially, as I reflected on the 50th anniversary of the passage 

of the Act, I have been struck by several points: first is the 

progress we have made in this country in the 50 years since the 

Act was passed; second, how the Act has served as a framework— 

and I think other panelists have talked about this—for the advances in civil rights legislation that followed; and, finally, how the 

Act can serve, I think, as inspiration for those of you on the Committee crafting legislation today and how legislation can, in fact, 

change the Nation. 

I think that the Act—and professor Heriot mentioned this—will 

be remembered for protecting voting rights, but I also think it is 

important to recognize it as a building block for the 1964 Act and 

the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which were much broader substantively. And the institutions created by the Act—the Civil 

Rights Division and the Commission on Civil Rights—really served 

as the tools through which lots of facts were gathered to pass future civil rights legislation. 

When one looks at what going on at the time and listens to the 

testimony of Representative Lewis and Robert Moses, it is hard not 

to be struck by the progress that has been made in the 50 years 

since the passage of the Act. 

I am reluctant to speak of progress sometimes for fear of being 

misinterpreted as someone who thinks that racial discrimination 

no longer exists—and I can see that it does—or that it is not in 

many areas in society where we are falling down on our ideals of 

equality among men and women, because I think certainly we 

have. Nor do I mean to suggest that the gains that have been made 

27 

were not hard fought, or that progress was not resisted by certain 

circuit court judges and certain other people that were discussed 

today all the way. But I think there is no escaping that the moral 

imperative of equal opportunity that has animated legislation such 

as the 1957 Act has largely taken hold and been internalized by 

most Americans, and we need to recognize that. 

To take an obvious example that was discussed today, to compare 

the wake of the Brown decision and the massive resistance of certain school districts to integrate schools, compare that to today, 

and I know it is a controversial decision, which Ted Shaw mentioned and I think which members of the Committee have mentioned, being litigated in the Supreme Court in the Louisville and 

Seattle cases is that there is clearly a disagreement among members of the Court and among people that filed briefs in that case— 

I filed one on the opposite side of Mr. Shaw—as to what the right 

answer was. But when you look at what was being litigated, I 

think there is no question it is a sign of progress. The question 

being litigated was: Was the school board of Louisville, Kentucky, 

being so aggressive in its efforts to integrate its school system that 

it violated the Constitution? And I think we can all disagree in 

good faith or people can disagree in good faith about whether or 

not the Court reached the right result in that case. But I think the 

people that originally were litigating on behalf of the Civil Rights 

Division, enforcing early desegregation orders, would be very surprised to hear that one of the main points of contention in the Supreme Court would be whether or not the school district had gone 

too far, and I think that is quite a change from school districts that 

were massively resisting any attempt at integration in prior years. 

Finally, given the time constraints, I would just like to say that 

I think the 1957 Act—it is interesting to look at as an inspiration 

for possible future legislation. I think other people have talked on 

the panel and on the Committee about certain advances they would 

like to see in the civil rights of the country. And I think when you 

look back at the 1957 Act, you can say it was a compromise. People 

have noted it was not an incredibly strong substantive Act, and I 

think that we can all learn from that and look at that and say that 

sometimes progress is incremental and sometimes what you view 

as a first step today ends up being something that in retrospect 

was a very important building block. And I think when people look 

at different issues, you know, such as the Committee discussed 

hate crimes legislation or rights of gays and lesbians, things like 

that, I think that looking at the 1957 Act, I think sometimes you 

look at the compromise that it was, and you look at what it did not 

have—you know, it did not have national prohibitions on public accommodation discrimination; it did not have a particularly strong 

voting rights provision to it in retrospect when you compare it to 

the 1965 Act. And so I think that, you know, we look at our controversial and divisive political issues today, and nothing could be 

as controversial and divisive as this was back in 1957. And so 

maybe in that regard it can serve as an inspiration to the Committee and to the folks drafting legislation. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Driscoll appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

28 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. 

I also should have noted that Mr. Driscoll served as a law clerk 

to a classmate of mine from Georgetown and a very, very good 

friend, an extremely good friend, the late Fred Parker, who served 

both as chief district judge in Vermont and then as Vermont’s representative on the Second Circuit. 

Now, I look at the 2004 report by the Harvard Civil Rights 

Project, ‘‘Brown at 50: King’s Dream or Plessy’s Nightmare? ’’ 

Which shows a major increase in segregation, and the concern the 

Civil Rights Division has paid insufficient attention to ending housing segregation, which brings about segregation in our schools. 

There are also reports on the ADA—whether the Americans with 

Disabilities Act is being enforced. I see such things, again, when 

a local school board in Louisville sought to integrate public schools, 

the Justice Department sued the school board, and we seem to be 

turning things on their head. 

I see very few cases being brought about racial discrimination 

against African-American voters, which makes you think that that 

does not exist anymore. 

MALDEF attorneys found anti-immigrant activists aggressively 

intimidating Latino voters in Tucson, Arizona. In fact, the Arizona 

Republic reported that Russell Dove, a local anti-immigrant activist, proudly acknowledged his effort to intimidate Latino voters. 

Mr. Zamora knows of what I speak. When I hear Mr. Moses talk 

about John Doar—and I know your work in Mississippi forged a 

close personal relationship with him. I had the privilege of meeting 

him the first time when I was a law student at Georgetown. And 

I think of what you said about his active participation—what many 

of you have said. But then I see the Urban Institute says 50 percent of African-American 9th graders, 49 percent of Native Americans, 47 percent of Latino Americans do not graduate from high 

school in 4 years. And in some of the poorest urban and rural 

areas—and I come from a rural State—dropout rates approach almost 80 percent. Mr. Moses, you are aware of that with the Algebra Project. 

So I am going to ask one question. There are a whole lot of questions I could ask, but I know most of you, and you have no hesitation in letting me or my office know your thoughts. Someday— 

someday—we are going to have a new—I would hope the administration will send up a name of a new head of the Civil Rights Division. He or she is going to have to come before this Committee for 

confirmation. Now, assume you were sitting where I am as Chairman of the Committee. What would you ask as the first question 

of a new head of the Civil Rights Division? That may be unfair. 

Anybody want to start? 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman LEAHY. I mean, talking about things you want to do 

when you are in school. I only had two dreams when I was in law 

school. I hoped someday I might be a prosecutor, and I hoped I 

might be a U.S. Senator. I thought being a Democrat from 

Vermont, that would never happen, and I ended up being both. So, 

Mr. Shaw, do you want to take a stab at it? 

Mr. SHAW. Dreams do come true sometimes. 

Chairman LEAHY. Sometimes. 

29 

Mr. SHAW. Mr. Chairman, I would ask any nominee to head the 

Civil Rights Division what that nominee’s plans were to restore the 

Division to its full strength and integrity with respect to its carrying out of its mission. I would want to know, for example, in the 

aftermath of the Seattle and Louisville decision, whether that 

nominee would consider re-establishing the General Litigation Section, the section I joined when I was at the Division years ago. It 

was dismantled, but the section existed pursuant to a theory that 

there was a relationship between school and housing segregation. 

And in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision, I think the 

Department and the Division should revisit the issue of trying to 

get at segregation in schools and in housing through that housing 

focus. 

In general, I think the task is to re-establish a core of committed, 

apolitical line attorneys who will not be subjected to political interference in spite of the recognition that administrations get to set 

policy. How would that nominee go about re-establishing the integrity of the Division? 

Chairman LEAHY. Mr. Zamora? And then we will go to Mr. Henderson. Mr. Zamora? 

Mr. ZAMORA. Thank you. MALDEF has very specific criteria by 

which we evaluate and issue recommendations for nominees. And, 

you know, we have had experiences recently before this very Committee where we have had nominees to courts who have made representations about their future intentions with respect to enforcing 

the laws or— 

Chairman LEAHY. I recall that. 

Mr. ZAMORA. Yes, I am sure that you do. 

Chairman LEAHY. With some chagrin. Go ahead. 

Mr. ZAMORA. Exactly. And so what we really look at is the life 

history, the record of the individual, and what that life history 

shows in terms of the perspective upon civil rights and a real commitment. And I think we have heard from many witnesses today 

who have demonstrated through their professional experiences, 

through their careers, that there is that commitment. 

Also for MALDEF, certainly diversity is a consideration. It is not 

the sole consideration, but we do feel that it is important generally 

that the Federal Government reflect the diversity of the population, 

and particularly, obviously, for the Assistant Attorney General for 

Civil Rights, we would appreciate a nominee who has walked in the 

shoes of individuals who have suffered civil rights violations. 

Chairman LEAHY. Mr. Henderson? 

Mr. HENDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I had hoped that my colleagues 

going before me would do as they have done and focus on the importance of career attorneys and the importance of restoring integrity and commitment to the Department. 

I wanted to take a slightly deeper dive, though, in an issue that 

has gotten little attention, but in the wake of the Louisville and Seattle cases deserves a closer review, and that is the topic that Mr. 

Shaw touched upon—the link between school integration and quality education and housing discrimination. 

You know, next year is the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing 

Act, first enacted in 1968, and yet housing discrimination remains 

one of the last frontiers of civil rights enforcement. The link beVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:05 Mar 09, 2009 Jkt 047679 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\47679.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
30 

tween barriers of school integration and housing discrimination 

have been well documented, and the Supreme Court itself has spoken on numerous occasions about that link. The Department of 

Justice has extraordinary power in this area, the power to use pattern and practice litigation techniques to really look at this question of housing discrimination. And yet, in reviewing the number 

of cases that have been brought with that extraordinary power, the 

Department has largely been silent on the sidelines in addressing 

this important area of our work. 

If this country is ever going to get to the point where quality 

education becomes a universal right, recognized for all students as 

a part of their citizenship in the United States as a whole, we are 

going to have to get beyond the point where States have the ability 

under the guise of federalism to exercise control over the schools 

within their boundaries in ways that work against extending quality education to all students. And fair housing enforcement in a 

very aggressive and effective way can be an important tool. 

I am hopeful that the next Attorney General and the next head 

of the Civil Rights Division will make a commitment to using the 

Nation’s fair housing laws to look at cases of real disparate treatment. Unlike other areas that we have talked about, you still see 

intentional discrimination in the area of housing sales and rental 

housing that have not been addressed. And so I am hoping that the 

next Attorney General and head of the Division will make a real 

commitment to making a deeper dive in that area. 

Chairman LEAHY. Mr. Driscoll, you were there. If you were sitting up here, what would you ask? 

Mr. DRISCOLL. I think, Mr. Chairman, I would ask the nominee 

to explain where he or she saw their position in the Civil Rights 

Division in the Department of Justice, where they saw that position fitting in with the general executive and legislative scheme of 

civil rights enforcement. And I think what you would want is someone who would pledge to enforce the laws that the Congress passes 

and that are signed by the President without fear or favor and apolitically, as has been said by other witnesses, that would call balls 

and strikes on enforcement of the civil rights laws and that would 

not take upon themselves an ability to set policy, because I think 

that is very dangerous for a law enforcement position to do, and 

that if there are going to be extensions of certain statutes or certain legal principles and to argue for them before this Committee 

and to pledge not to just go do what they want as head of the Division, that the position, while it has policy implications, when you 

are in the offices over a 950 Pennsylvania, you realize it is pretty 

circumscribed by the statutes that are passed by Congress and that 

there are a lot of—sometimes there are some gaps in those statutes, and you look at the options you have. And I think that getting a real sense of where the nominee would draw that line to say 

what are the limitations on what I can do and what can I do with 

vigor and pride, and you would want to ask those questions. And 

I also think it would be entirely appropriate to address some of the 

other issues that the panel has raised about dealing with some of 

the recent controversies in the Department and how they would 

work to restore confidence in the career attorneys. 

31 

Chairman LEAHY. Professor Heriot, you get the penultimate 

question on this, and then we will go to Mr. Moses. 

Ms. HERIOT. Actually, all the questions that my fellow panelists 

have suggested are excellent questions, and that if I were asked 

what question to ask after those questions, I might be inclined to 

just wish the nominee good luck and hope that they remember that 

no matter what they do, someone will criticize them for it. 

Chairman LEAHY. Not me. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Mr. Moses? 

Mr. MOSES. I guess the simple question is why does that person 

want that job. 

Chairman LEAHY. Yes, I know. You want somebody who wants 

it because they can do good—or do right, I should say. 

Mr. MOSES. Yes, and I guess the question is how do we understand their response to that and how do we gauge their response 

against their record, against their life. 

Chairman LEAHY. I know what you are saying, and I know what 

I would listen to. I would listen to a lot more than just the words 

in somebody answering that question. 

Senator Cardin? And I apologize. I have impinged on your time. 

Senator Cardin, as I said before, is one I rely on very much in this 

office and in this area. Coming from a State with the racial makeup of Vermont, I have to rely very much on somebody like Senator 

Cardin, who has experienced in his work even before he was in the 

Congress, has experienced very much in these areas. Senator 

Cardin? 

Senator CARDIN. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I do 

come from a State that has a rich diversity, but it presents challenges. And I appreciate very much your leadership on this hearing. I think this hearing is extremely important, and I thank each 

of you for your commitment in your careers to civil liberties and 

civil rights and for being here to help establish a record for this 

Committee, because we have important decisions to make, whether 

it is the confirmation process of the next Attorney General or the 

person who will head up the Civil Rights Division, some important 

decisions on laws and, as I said earlier, in our confirmation of 

judges. And I think the record that you all have helped us establish 

in this Committee points out that we have a lot of work to do. 

Mr. Shaw, I listened very carefully about your assessment of historically some of the changes that have been made in the Civil 

Rights Division and its priorities, and each administration has the 

right to appoint its political appointees in these positions, subject 

to confirmation. But this administration has gone beyond just shifting priorities. I think that we have to be very careful that they 

have not created permanent damage in our ability to deal with the 

civil rights of the people of this country. And I say that, recognizing 

that their policy, for example, on dealing with voter fraud for people voting who should not, which has never been documented, is to 

try to disenfranchise a large number of minority voters. That is 

just a practice that cannot be tolerated in this country. 

And you look at the last decade, with school desegregation becoming more intense, and their answer is to challenge those who 

32 

want to have plans to try to have schools more integrated. It turns 

the traditional role of the Civil Rights Division on its head. 

And as we had at our last hearing testimony about the hiring 

practices—yes, you have the right to make political appointments 

to the Department of Justice, but you do not have the right to try 

to interfere in a partisan way with the career attorneys. And this 

administration, of course, changed the hiring procedures, using political appointees to select the career attorneys. All of that has had 

incredible damage in the Civil Rights Division. 

So I think we have our work cut out for us. I do not want to minimize that. I think we have a tremendous burden in dealing with 

the Civil Rights Division. 

I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, the first question I am going to ask 

the nominee for Attorney General is his commitment to the Civil 

Rights Division because I think that is an issue that needs to be 

addressed by the Attorney General and the President of the United 

States, and not just the person who heads the Civil Rights Division. 

Let me ask one question, if I might. Tomorrow we are going to 

have a chance, I hope, to improve the tools available to the Department of Justice dealing with voter intimidation and trying to intimidate minority voters in this country by misleading and wrong 

information. 

I don’t know whether that bill will ultimately be signed by the 

President and enacted into law. I hope it is. But my question to you 

is: Knowing what is happening today, the types of efforts made to 

disenfranchise minority voters, what should the Department of 

Justice be doing in order to ensure that every person in this country has the right and opportunity to participate in our political system through the right of voting? What should the Federal Government be doing in order to assist us in helping those who have been 

disenfranchised? 

Mr. ZAMORA. I would jump in and, first of all, thank you for your 

sponsorship of the voter intimidation and deceptive practices bill, 

which MALDEF has supported. I think it does become another important set of tools that the Division can use to protect against this 

kind of disenfranchisement—of course, against the backdrop that it 

has to be used properly, like any Federal civil rights statute. We 

have some great laws on the books that have not been properly enforced over the last several years, so this will add to the number 

of laws that need to be appropriately enforced. 

But we have seen an increase of voter intimidation directed 

against Latinos, and my written testimony cites several very striking examples. But there is still an opportunity in this administration, in this Civil Rights Division, to undertake vigorous outreach, 

to train local election officials to be prepared to recognize and report incidences of voter intimidation. Then we need for the Civil 

Rights Division, through the election and beyond, to actually prosecute these individuals. We have reported the incident in Tucson 

to Voting Section officials who are going to refer it to the Criminal 

Division. We have not heard the results of that investigation as of 

yet. 

In California, I cited in my testimony to an incident where an actual candidate for the House of Representatives mailed a letter to 

33 

14,000 Latino voters that had wrong information. It was trying to 

drive people away from the polls. The State investigation has concluded, but to my knowledge, the Federal investigation is ongoing, 

and we have not seen a priority made of the prosecution of these 

sorts of incidents. 

So I think the combination of outreach and training of local election officials along with the vigorous prosecution of the law. 

Senator CARDIN. Does the Department of Justice have those tools 

today, they could use those? 

Mr. ZAMORA. Yes, certainly, there are statutes on the books that 

do protect against certain types of voter intimidation. I think your 

bill actually expands that which classifies as voter intimidation, I 

think in very positive ways. But, yes, there are laws on the books 

that we have not seen vigorous, prioritized enforcement of. 

Senator CARDIN. Mr. Shaw? Mr. Henderson? 

Mr. HENDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Cardin. I would like to respond 

going beyond the consideration of the new bill, which I think Mr. 

Zamora addressed, you know, very effectively. I think enforcing existing law in a meaningful way would make a huge difference. For 

example, I think John Lewis spoke quite eloquently about the need 

for the Division and the Department of Justice to look more closely 

at voter ID laws that do have a disproportionate impact on racial 

minorities who should be protected by the Constitution, as with all 

citizens. 

Second, the National Voter Registration Act, which has been on 

the books for now over a decade, does have the ability to make a 

real difference in registering voters and providing meaningful access through social service agencies, and those provisions have 

been underenforced and largely ignored by the Department. 

And then, thirdly, I think there has in the past existed a real 

firewall between the Criminal Division in the Department and the 

Civil Rights Division. And the idea of voter fraud cases being handled in the Criminal Division that bleeds into the responsibilities 

of the Voting Section it seems to me is problematic and it invites 

the kind of politicization that you have seen in the way in which 

some of these cases have been handled. 

So I think emphasizing the enforcement of existing laws is also 

an important part of any serious enforcement scheme. 

Mr. SHAW. Senator Cardin, if I may address the question at a little bit more length, Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act states 

that, ‘‘No person shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt 

to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person from voting or attempting to vote.’’ 

Since the Act’s inception, to our knowledge, 11(b) has been used 

only three times by the Department of Justice. Clearly, that is a 

statutory provision that has been underutilized given the ubiquity 

of reports with respect to voter intimidation of various types every 

election cycle. And so in addition to the legislation you are proposing, which we commend you on, we also think that 11(b) should 

be enforced vigorously by the Justice Department. 

I might add that Mr. Henderson and I and others were at a 

meeting I remember very clearly with the former Attorney General, 

John Ashcroft, a few years back in which he made clear the Department’s priorities with respect to voter fraud, a problem—or, 

34 

rather, a solution in search of a problem. And we made it very 

clear that that priority was misplaced, and we understood it in the 

context that I believe you described that focus, even though you 

were not specifically referring to Attorney General Ashcroft. 

So we believe that the Department’s priorities ought to be reset 

to protect minority voters who are subjected to intimidation as opposed to this attempt to focus on fraud, which we interpret as an 

attempt to dissuade minority voters from going to the polls. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you. Thank you all very much again for 

your careers and for your testimony. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. And we will, as we always do, 

keep the record open. You will certainly have a chance to go 

through your own testimony. If there is something that you 

thought you left out or wanted to add or change, feel free to do so. 

I thank you. It has been a long morning for all of you, but this is 

a record we wanted to make. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions for the record follow.] 

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