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Trump’s Justice Department is Investigating Significantly Less Civil Rights Cases
The headline of this post surprises no one. Most of you likely nodded your head and thought "of course." That doesn't make it any less infuriating. Civil rights enforcement exists to protect the most vulnerable among us. Trump and Republicans could not care less.
The Civil Rights Division has been crucial in historic efforts to protect Americans’ rights. The Trump administration is pursuing far fewer civil rights cases — including hate crimes, police bias, and disability rights cases....
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division — which has enforced nearly every pivotal moment of rights reform since its creation in 1957 — has started 60 percent fewer cases against potential violations during the first two years of the Trump administration than during the Obama years and 50 percent fewer than under George W. Bush.
The decreased caseload marks a dramatic change in approach for the primary DOJ division devoted to investigating accusations of racial, ethnic, and other forms of bias.
Trump and his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have been clear about their opposition to some of the division’s work, including investigations of police departments and the enforcement of disabled people’s rights, two areas where the division’s work has slowed to a near standstill.
Republicans are filling the Justice, yes Justice, Department with their minions who are acting against its very mission not unlike many other departments now led and staffed by people who hate the existence of theirs.
Former division heads say significant staffing cuts to the department over the past two years, poor morale, attrition, and a lack of emphasis on civil rights under the Trump administration are behind the drop-off in cases.
Budget documents show that the Trump administration has cut about 17 percent of the Civil Rights Division’s staff positions, including 14 attorneys. The 2019 budget request seeks a further 4.6 percent reduction in staff. Currently, there are 593 staff and 369 attorneys in the division; in 2016, there were 714 staff and 383 attorneys.
“[Trump] certainly has no inclination for defending the civil rights of individuals. It’s like he left a sign out on the door saying ‘We’re going to lunch,’” said John Dunne, who was appointed head of the Civil Rights Division by President George H.W. Bush and served from 1990-1993.
Each of the five sections but one (Education) reported fewer new and finished cases, but the decline was more significant in some areas than in others. The section with the largest drop-off in new cases was Special Litigation, which is responsible for enforcing laws against systemic police misconduct, civil rights violations in jails and prisons, and other matters.
There hasn’t been a single new complaint filed by the division against a police department in the two years since Trump’s inauguration.
Of the disability rights cases that have been filed, most have remedied violations in individual businesses or facilities, helping patrons of those businesses but not necessarily spurring widespread change. There hasn’t been a single new case under the Olmstead decision, which enables larger-scale remedies for disabled people across entire institutions, cities, or states.