Context of '2006: Civil Rights Division Supports Attempt by Christian Group to Hold Worship Services in Public Library'

Bradley Schlozman, a deputy in the Justice Department’s Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division (CRD), receives an email from his supervisor, John Tanner, asking him to bring coffee for both of them to a meeting they are both scheduled to attend. Schlozman asks how Tanner likes his coffee and Tanner replies that he likes it “Mary Frances Berry style—black and bitter.” Berry, an African-American, chaired the US Commission on Civil Rights from 1993 to 2004. Schlozman forwards the email exchange to several CRD officials with the comment, “Y’all will appreciate Tanner’s response.” Shortly thereafter, he is forced to write a written apology for his action. [Washington Post, 1/13/2009]

A Christian group sues a public library for preventing religious organizations from using its facilities to hold worship services. The library says it is following the constitutional separation of church and state. The Justice Department’s civil rights division (CRD) files a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of the Christian group, claiming that the library violated its civil rights. The brief is written by a 2004 political hire to the CRD, a former clerk for conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (see October 31, 2005 - February 1, 2006) while he was an appeals court judge and a member of two groups that advocate integrating Catholic religious practices into law and society (see Fall 2002 and After). [Savage, 2007, pp. 298]

Bradley Schlozman. [Source: US Department of Justice]Congress’s new Democratic leadership decides to investigate the Bush administration’s politicization of the Justice Department’s civil rights division (CRD—see Fall 2002 and After). The investigation is part of a parallel investigation into the firing of nine US attorneys for allegedly political reasons. One of the first replacement US attorneys, Bradley Schlozman, had spent three years as one of the CRD’s political hires most responsible for hiring conservative ideologues to replace CRD career lawyers. The complaints also dovetail with a report that another key figure in the US attorney firing, the Justice Department’s White House liaison Monica Goodling, was being investigated for using partisan political affiliations as part of her decisions to hire career assistant prosecutors, a practice forbidden by federal law. Goodling will later admit to having “crossed the line” by using political litmus tests in her career hiring decisions. Scholzman will admit to having bragged about hiring only Republicans at the Justice Department, but will deny asking any job applicants about their political views or partisan affiliations. [Savage, 2007, pp. 299]