In a perfect world (or even less than perfect) the civil rights division of the Department of Justice is supposed to fight racial strife where it shows its ugly head wherever and whenever within our country. Unfortunately under the Bush Administration, the trouble of race and discrimination is under it's very own roof.
From The Tri-State Defender:
Joi Hyatte, who works in the voting rights section, states in the lawsuit that her boss subjected her and other African American employees to “numerous forms of discrimination and harassment.”
The suit, filed May 29 in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleges that supervisors used special hiring programs to circumvent regular procedures and avoid giving African Americans on staff an opportunity to apply for analyst jobs.
Hyatte, a 13-year veteran of the department who received outstanding evaluations, says in the suit that she was “repeatedly denied the opportunity to apply and compete” for promotions because she is African American.
A few weeks after her suit was filed, the Justice Department’s inspector general issued its own report stating that applicant screeners for the department had illegally used political or ideological factors in a recruitment program, preferring law school graduates with conservative credentials to those with more liberal political ties.
Race may very well be a part of this but it seems to me that the corrupt and crony ways of the Administration trump everything that the Executive Branch stands for these days. Making sure the "right people" get well-paid means more than upholding the law when it comes to minority treatment, respecting the Hatch Act and anything else that may be written in the legal code to protect the government from itself. Ms. Hyatte deserves everything she wants and then some....as the rest of us deserve a Justice Department that serves the country and not the cronies within it.
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