Source: https://protectdemocracy.org/update/dojhiring/
Timestamp: 2019-11-14 11:19:42
Document Index: 86639124

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2301', '§ 42', '§ 2301', '§ 2301', '§ 2302', '§ 42']

Protect Democracy | Letter to AG Sessions on Illegal Hiring Practices - Protect Democracy
We write to you about ensuring that hiring and other personnel decisions in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division are based on merit, rather than improper considerations such as actual or perceived political affiliation, as required by law. On March 28, you received an open letter from 25 signatories, suggesting certain “internal reforms” of the Civil Rights Division. Although we disagree with many aspects of that letter, we write now to address a specific concern with the recommendation that “[t]he Assistant Attorney Generals in each component Division must preserve or reacquire hiring authority and not leave the decisions in the hands of career bureaucrats who are reliably opposed to President Trump’s agenda.”[1]
This recommendation appears to call for a return to the improper and illegal hiring practices undertaken at the Department of Justice in the mid-2000s, including in the Civil Rights Division, where actual or perceived political affiliation was used to make hiring and other personnel decisions. We remind you that making hiring decisions or taking – or failing to take – other personnel actions (such as the assignment of cases) based on actual or perceived political affiliation is a violation of the merits system protections contained in the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and other federal law.[2] For example, the CSRA provides that “[a]ll employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to political affiliation,”[3] and that “[e]mployees should be . . . protected against arbitrary action, personal favoritism, or coercion for partisan political purposes.”[4] The CSRA also prohibits discrimination based on political affiliation.[5] The Justice Department’s own regulations similarly prohibit such discrimination.[6] These civil service laws were enacted to strengthen and preserve the accountability of our democratic government by replacing a system of political patronage with one where government officials were selected based on merit to serve all Americans.
Recent history illustrates the importance of guarding against illegal and politically motivated personnel decisions by communicating from the top of the Justice Department that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. A 2008 report issued by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that, between 2003 and 2006, a high ranking political appointee in the Civil Rights Division – who led the Division as Acting Assistant Attorney General for some portion of the relevant time period – “considered political and ideological affiliations in hiring career attorneys and in other personnel actions affecting career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division,” and thereby “violated federal law . . . and Department policy that prohibit discrimination in federal employment based on political and ideological affiliations, and committed misconduct.”[7] This individual was referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia for possible criminal prosecution, although the U.S. Attorney’s Office ultimately declined to prosecute.[8] The report also concluded that other Civil Rights Division managers failed to exercise proper oversight to ensure appropriate hiring practices.[9]
We urge you to affirm your commitment to existing laws and equal employment opportunity (EEO) and hiring policies – including specific direction and training of incoming political appointees on the Department’s EEO policies and civil service protections – that ensure that personnel decisions in the Civil Rights Division, and throughout the Department, are made based on merit, without regard to actual or perceived political affiliation, and are consistent with federal law.[10] Where necessary or appropriate, we ask that you reissue such policies.
House of Representative Committee on the Judiciary
[1] https://www.scribd.com/document/343306400/Letter-to-AG-Sessions-on-Civil-Rights-Division
[2] See 5 U.S.C. §§ 2301-2302; 28 C.F.R. § 42.1(a).
[3] 5 U.S.C. § 2301(b)(2).
[4] Id. § 2301(b)(8).
[5] See id. § 2302(b)(1)(E).
[6] See 28 C.F.R. § 42.1(a).
[7] U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of the Inspector General & U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring and Other Improper Personnel Actions in the Civil Rights Division at 64 (July 2, 2008), https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0901/final.pdf.
[8] See id. at 1, 63.
[9] See id. at 64.
[10] See, e.g., Civil Rights Div., Equal Employment Opportunity, Anti-Harassment & Whistleblower Protection Policy, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2013/07/22/eeopolicy2013.pdf; U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, https://www.justice.gov/jmd/file/790081/download; Civil Rights Div., Equal Employment Opportunity, Anti-Harassment & Whistleblower Protection Policy, Experienced Attorney & Attorney Manager Hiring Policy, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2014/05/13/attyhire.pdf.