Our Rights, Our Future

Bush Nominates Mukasey for Attorney General

President Bush has announced his pick to step in as head of the Justice Department: Michael B. Mukasey.  With eighteen years experience as a federal judge in the US District Court for the Southern District, and more in private practice, Mukasey is said to be a conservative judge with 'an independent streak.' There seems to be some optimism for his successful confirmation across party lines, given that he's not a 'Washington insider.'  The media has also described him as 'tough on terrorism;' he supports the Patriot Act's incursions on personal privacy in the name of national security.  While progressives know that the President's other top choices may have been far worse, there remains much concern about whether or not Mukasey will continue to erode the delicate balance upon which our democracy is built.

DMI has stressed the importance of the role of the Attorney General as "the head of the world’s largest law office, the chief enforcer of federal laws, and the primary guardian of our Constitutional rights."  Given his past rulings such as that concerning Osama Awadallah, will Mukasey be able safeguard fairness and equal access in our justice system?  He has recently said that he supports maintaining the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay as well as the use of 'enhanced' interrogation methods for political detainees.

What is clear is that Mukasey would be stepping into a mess, as the investigation of the Justice Department's shady past is nowhere near over.  According to the Washington Post, Democratic Senators are thinking of capitalizing on Mukasey's confirmation in order to leverage access to sensitive administration documents pertaining to their investigation of controversial departmental happenings under Gonzales, from attorney firings to treatment of federal detainees.

"Replacing an attorney general is part but not all of what needs to be done to restore trust in the Justice Department," [Senator] Leahy said after his half-hour meeting with Mukasey. "The confirmation process can be a catalyst for resolving outstanding issues between the Senate and the administration. I hope that will happen now."

Similarly, the ACLU has encouraged Congress to demand a "Four Part Pledge Before Confirming Bush Attorney General Nominee."  The ACLU seeks access to documentation related to unauthorized wiretapping and detention practices, the appointment of an independent counsel for investigation of torture and abuse of detainees, and, our favorite: The creation of a "blue-ribbon committee of civil rights advisors to focus on restoring the Civil Rights Division to its historic role as the nation's premier and nonpartisan civil rights enforcement agency."

Rollback Will Affect the 'Jena Six'

Back in September 2006, a group of African-American students chose to sit under the 'white tree' at their Louisiana high school. The following day, three nooses were found hanging from the bows of the same tree. In response, school officials suspended the three white students who were found responsible.  The local prosecutor 'declined to charge' the white students.

The six black students then allegedly beat up a white student to the point of unconsciousness, although he was released from the hospital and was well enough to attend a school function that same evening. The same prosecutor then saw that these six young men were each charged with attempted murder in the second degree, which was later reduced to second degree aggravated battery and conspiracy.   

Mychal Bell was only 16 years old at the time of the schoolyard fight, yet he was convicted by an all-white jury and faced up to 22 years of imprisonment. Given that he was wrongfully tried as an adult, the charges against him have been vacated, but he remains in an adult prison. The charges against the remaining five men are still pending.

Today, thousands of people descended upon the town of Jena, LA to rally in support the young men known as the 'Jena Six.' The protesters in Jena and those who have organized corresponding events around the country hope to highlight the unjust treatment received by these young men who were victims of malicious and selective prosecution. The Jena Six have become symbolic of the racism that still pervades our criminal justice system, as well as our media.

Despite months of public outcry among the black blogosphere and defenders of civil rights, mainstream media have been very slow to report on the Jena Six. The New York Times only picked up the story yesterday, and CNN has managed to report on it in a way that normalizes the unfair racial dynamics at issue.

Because of the rollback of civil rights in the area of prosecutorial misconduct, the students in this case may never be able to seek justice against this prosecutor for unfair prosecution.  More to come on two critical Supreme Court cases that rolled back the rights of people victimized by overzealous prosecutors.

Upcoming Conference: "Why We Can't Wait: Reversing the Retreat on Civil Rights"

Registration is now open for the upcoming conference entitled “Why We Can't Wait: Reversing the Retreat on Civil Rights,” on October 19-20, 2007, in Durham, North Carolina. The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights is pleased to co-convene this conference in an effort to educate, raise awareness and build alliances to protect and preserve equal justice, fairness, and opportunity.  We hope to see you there!

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Period. (Thoughts on Patriotism, Pt II)

By Kia Franklin (Cross-posted from TortDeform.Com)

I was a bit overwhelmed by all the 9/11 related blogs and news stories so  I took a day and a step back to think about the “big picture.” After much reflection I would like to propose the following amendment to JFK's famous "ask not" charge: Ask not what your country can do for you. Period. Unless you are ready to be disappointed.

9/11 is also called “Patriot Day." So, I am (once again) thinking about the notion of patriotism and how it has been exploited in the context of national disasters to quell public outrage and foster complacency. Cloaked behind the call for patriotism is the message: silence your protests, forget about the government’s indifference toward the safety of the public, don’t worry about its prioritization of the needs of big economic interests over the needs of the general citizenry. And if you don’t heed this advice, well, you’re not a “good American.”

According to this message you either have to be Condi or Kanye, and there’s no in-between (although I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being Kanye. If I saw him on the street today I’d thank him for his honest post-Katrina commentary). Rightly so, this doesn’t quite sit well for most of us, especially in light of the government’s own relative lack of patriotism, displayed in its continued sluggishness in addressing the health needs of deserving Ground Zero heroes and 9/11 victims, and in its shamefully inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, among other instances.

The post-9/11 plight of the rescue workers is yet another reminder that we should have no or little confidence that our country will protect us, even after we take care of our country. If this is how our heroes are treated, then look at what happened with Katrina and ask yourself if you are genuinely surprised. (You shouldn't be.)

Katrina was a worse-case scenario. There, you had a pre-disaster group that had little political and economic power, lacks racial privilege, and has little so-called "cultural capital" to persuade the government to give a good damn, or a good levee, about their welfare. Two years later, Katrina survivors rely heavily on fellow citizens to do what the government should prioritize doing, and meanwhile "W" heads out there to tell them "I hope people understand that we [the Federal Government] do [care]... we're still paying attention. We understand." Do you, now? Two years later, we've got around 40% of New Orleanians still displaced. Many of the homeless population, now doubled due to Katrina, have been camping out at the park across from City Hall as a constant visible reminder of the government's unmet obligations to its people.

9/11 was the warning bell for Katrina. Look at it: SIX YEARS LATER, and people who literally sacrificed their lives and their health in order to help in emergency relief efforts, are still clinging to the hope that the hollow “tributes” accorded them will be matched by substantive compensation and health care. Kudos to representatives Maloney, Nadler, and Fossella for the bi-partisan 9/11 Health and Compensation Act they're pushing to address this continued need. Nadler says:

“It is simply not enough to honor the courage and humanity of the heroes of 9/11 with words. We must also offer them concrete support in their time of need… For the thousands who are sick due to exposure to World Trade Center toxins, including our heroic first responders and area residents, workers, and school children, the federal government must provide appropriate monitoring, treatment and compensation [and] help those still suffering the consequences of this lingering national tragedy.”

It's about time, that's for sure.

As we wait on the proverbial rooftop to be rescued, my general Kanye-ness is at least a little bit comforted (only a little, mind you) by the fact that our judiciary offers a civil court system that keeps public record of, and provides an avenue of redress for some of these grievances. Through this mechanism many Ground Zero Heroes are fighting what looks like a gross misuse of Congress’ $1 billion set-aside which, according to Senator Schumer was supposed “to pay appropriate claims [for compensation], not fight claims." Advocates in the Gulf Coast are using the system to hold FEMA accountable for both its shoddy, life-endangering relief work, and also for obstructing people's access to legal aid out of fear that people would want to sue them.

What does it mean about our government’s values and the real end effects of the tort deformers that a concern over saving money is keeping the government from helping HEROS and INNOCENT displaced citizens in their time of need? It isn’t very American, and it definitely doesn’t show any patriotism.

More on the Southwick nomination

"Few presidential decisions are more important than lifetime appointments to the federal bench. . . . Indeed, these judicial appointments often represent a president's most enduring legacy."

We've talked about Alberto Gonzales a good deal lately, and find ourselves generally in disagreement with his ideas. On the above-quoted opinion, however, we think he is dead-on. Judicial nominations matter, a lot. They influence the course of our nation's history in far-reaching ways, both in time span and impact.

As discussed earlier, federal judge Leslie Southwick was nominated by President Bush much earlier this year to a lifetime seat on the Fifth Circuit, in January, to be exact. Due to intense controversy surrounding his nomination, he was only approved for a Senate vote last month. The matter has yet to hit the Senate floor, though right-wing groups are calling for an immediate decision in support of Southwick, who has received the rating 'unanimously well-qualified' from the American Bar Association. These groups also insist that Southwick's opposition has yet to make a good case against him. Well, here are some statistics that bother us, from our partners at Alliance for Justice:

Why are so many unions opposed to Southwick? Because Southwick voted against the interests of injured workers and consumers in divided decisions 89 percent of the time. Why are civil rights groups opposed? Because he also voted overwhelmingly -- 54 of 59 times -- against defendants alleging juror discrimination. That prompted his own colleagues on the Mississippi Court of Appeals  to accuse him of "establishing one level of obligation for the State, and a higher one for defendants on an identical issue." Southwick, they charged in a dissent, placed his "stamp of approval on the arbitrary and capricious selection of jurors."

Southwick got a chance to explain these decisions. Sen. Richard Durbin  asked Southwick whether he could think of one example of an unpopular decision he had made in favor of the powerless, the poor, minorities or the dispossessed. The judge said he could not.

And then there are the two most-publicized objections to his past legal opinions, the case involving taking custody away from a bisexual mother because of her "homosexual lifestyle" and his refusal to allow termination of someone for using the phrase "good ole nigger" in the workplace.  This is 2007 - such displays of contempt for others are really just unacceptable.

Never mind that the Fifth Circuit only has one African-American judge (out of 15) for a district that is 30-40% black - though really, that's no small thing. How could we live with ourselves as a nation, placing New Orleans Katrina survivors at his mercy, given his previously-displayed commitment to racism?  If he is appointed, Southwick will make it his personal agenda to spend the next thirty years axing away at equality, individual rights and access to justice in America.

We hope that the Senate takes these concerns to heart when considering Southwick's appointment to the bench.

Jody Leung, Campaign Contest Winner, on Huffington Post

Jody Leung, the winner of our national essay contest, has just been featured on the Huffington Post. In her posting, A Future of Uncertainty for Our Nation's Youth, Jody addresses the ramifications of the recent Supreme Court school integration cases, and explains that she joined the Campaign to “to ensure that our courts protect and preserve equal justice, fairness, and opportunity.” Congrats Jody!!

Posted September 4, 2007 | 03:27 PM (EST)
Read More: Breaking Politics News

A Future of Uncertainty for Our Nation's Youth

Recently, my classmates and I were enjoying our Monday morning at the Concierge Lounge while eating breakfast and reading The Albuquerque Journal, when all of a sudden a man rudely interrupted us. "Are you guys even allowed to be in here?" he asked, after glaring at us for several minutes. His snap judgment, tone of voice, and questions made us feel uncomfortable. We already realized that we were an incredibly diverse group of students compared to the other guests at the hotel, but that did not give him the right to treat us with disrespect. I was reminded of the recent Supreme Court rulings that struck down the school integration plans in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky because by not allowing local school districts to take voluntary steps to overcome racial inequality, painful experiences like the one at the breakfast table will occur again. My bowl of mixed fruits tasted especially sour that morning.

Unfortunately, the perception of an equal justice society is not a reality because our country continues to face many dilemmas that deal with racism, prejudice, and discrimination. The Supreme Court took a major step backward with its disappointing 5-4 decision. It rolled back the victories from the Civil Rights struggles of the past and it also created a future of uncertainty for all of America's children. What is it going to take to step forward again?

The history of race relations in the United States marked its turning point in the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Separate is unequal, yet schools in America are more racially segregated now than they were in 1970. More than 50 years ago, a promise was made to our nation's youth. It is a shame that the promise was never really kept.

The dream of achieving social justice inspired me to join the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights, a movement working to ensure that our courts protect and preserve equal justice, fairness, and opportunity. I strongly believe that when people learn to respect others at a young age, they will grow into individuals that will value people of different races. In addition, when students at school are able to work together despite their differences, it will eventually show in society as well. But, the society in which we live in must first start at the school level. The day when my diverse group of classmates and I can travel anywhere without people staring at us with disdain, is the day we reached the dream.