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Another Action By White House Against Civil Rights Protections
Earlier in June, we posted about the White House taking aggressive steps towards reducing the role of the federal government in fighting discrimination and protecting minorities. In that post linked here many examples were noted. Another way the Department of Justice is lessening justice for citizens has come to light since then.
For decades, the Department of Justice has used court-enforced agreements to protect civil rights, successfully desegregating school systems, reforming police departments, ensuring access for the disabled and defending the religious.
Now, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the DOJ appears to be turning away from this storied tool, called consent decrees. Top officials in the DOJ civil rights division have issued verbal instructions through the ranks to seek settlements without consent decrees — which would result in no continuing court oversight.
What are consent decrees and why do they matter?
Consent decrees can be a powerful tool, and spell out specific steps that must be taken to remedy the harm. These are agreed to by both parties and signed off on by a judge, whom the parties can appear before again if the terms are not being met. Though critics say the DOJ sometimes does not enforce consent decrees well enough, they are more powerful than settlements that aren’t overseen by a judge and have no built-in enforcement mechanism.
Without consent decrees, many localities or government departments would simply never make such comprehensive changes, said William Yeomans, who spent 26 years at the DOJ, mostly in the civil rights division. “They are key to civil rights enforcement,” he said. “That’s why Sessions and his ilk don’t like them.”
This is yet another move by the Trump administration to limit federal civil rights enforcement. A Justice Department not interested in ensuring justice.
“At best, this administration believes that civil rights enforcement is superfluous and can be easily cut. At worst, it really is part of a systematic agenda to roll back civil rights,” said Vanita Gupta, the former head of the DOJ’s civil rights division.