Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Disability Rights Section
PJMedia’s ongoing series investigating the politicized hiring practices within the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has exposed a liberal litmus test that applies for all new hires. Since Attorney General Eric Holder assumed control of the Department in January 2009, he has created a monoculture composed almost exclusively of left-liberal activists. It’s clear that aspiring attorneys with moderate or mainstream legal backgrounds face a “Do Not Apply” sign at the Department — a public department which is supposed to represent all Americans.
PJMedia needed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to extract the resumes identifying the new attorneys, and it is easy to see why the “Most Transparent Administration in History” fought so hard against their release. Indeed, their effort to populate every nook and cranny of the Division with agenda-driven activist attorneys is unprecedented.
Today’s installment of our series focuses on the Disability Rights Section, whose primary responsibility is to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The jurisdictional reach of the Section is vast; it monitors not only businesses but non-profits, local and state government, and even the practices of the federal government itself. The Section’s own website boasts that its work “affect[s] six million businesses and non-profit agencies, 80,000 units of state and local government, 49 million people with disabilities, and over 100 Federal agencies and commissions in the Executive Branch.”
The ADA is a signature achievement, and there is no doubt that it has helped to positively transform the lives of millions of Americans. I know, as I run a workshop each month for the mentally handicapped at a non-profit center outside Washington, D.C. The obligation of private sector employers and public sector municipalities to accommodate the needs of the disabled, however, must be balanced against what is financially reasonable and pragmatically appropriate. That need for balance is why an influx of partisan advocates can result in setbacks for an entire society.
The transformation within the Disability Rights Section explains why we see patently ridiculous enforcement dictates, such as threatening several prestigious universities with legal action because they took part in an experimental program to allow students to use the Amazon Kindle for textbooks.
Nine new career attorneys have been hired into the Disability Rights Section during the Obama administration. Just as is the case with each of the other sections that have been highlighted so far in this PJMedia series — the Voting Section, the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, the Special Litigation Section, the Education Section, the Employment Litigation Section, the Coordination and Compliance and Section, and the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section — every single one of the new Disability Rights Section lawyers easily satisfies a liberal litmus test.
Anne Langford: Ms. Langford, a $500 contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, joins the Section following internships with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the liberal Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Although she spent a number of years at a private law firm, she proudly notes on her resume that she was the firm’s representative to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (WLCCR), co-chaired multiple “Associate to Associate Campaigns” to support the WLCCR, and served as an associate trustee of the organization.
Earlier in her career, she was teaching fellow and protégé of the militant Professor Lani Guinier at Harvard, whose views were so radical that President Clinton pulled her nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights. Although it does not touch on legal issues, she also was a senior fellow at an advocacy organization called Humanity in Action, which states that it “educates, inspires and connects a global network of students, young professionals and established leaders committed to promoting human rights, diversity and active citizenship — in their own communities and around the world.”
Jennifer McDannell: Ms. McDannell comes to the Section after working at a large law firm that recently imploded. If she was typical of other attorneys at her firm, the extraordinary amount of time that she spent on pro bono matters there may help explain the firm’s demise. She represented both individuals and classes in lawsuits against state and federal agencies involving employment matters, police misconduct allegations, disability disputes, housing controversies, and purported unequal credit quarrels. One has to wonder if she actually had any time for paying clients.
Almost immediately after arriving at DOJ, she helped lead a lawsuit against the financially strapped city of Milton, Washington (population: 6,900). The lawsuit would force the small town to spend ten percent of its annual budget for a single bathroom in a park. The Department ignored pleas from the city that its economic plight was grounds for a reexamination of the lawsuit. Instead, the Department mandated that the municipality spend more than $350,000 to build a bathroom in the city’s main park. The per capita income for the impoverished town is $22,400.
An article in the Tacoma News Tribune described the city’s plight as follows:
An attorney for Milton pleaded with the Department of Justice in March to allow the city to tear down the shuttered restroom building and not replace it. Attorney Scott Snyder contended the city should not be forced to replace the men’s and women’s restrooms because of Milton’s “dire” economic situation. The restroom cost could reach 10 percent of Milton’s total annual budget, Snyder said. Milton has laid off workers, cut its budget and outsourced some city services in the past year to cope with declining revenues. The city projects a deficit of nearly $5 million by 2015. But the Department of Justice said the ADA requires that the city’s programs, services and activities must be accessible to people with disabilities.
One has to wonder if someone at the Justice Department has heard there is a recession underway. It appears there is no room for compromise under Eric Holder’s governance.
This people should have the same rights like other people. It’s very important for their normal life.
Thank you. I am autistic and a Tea Party Patriot. I have notice that most autistic people are Liberals and have brought the lies that the liberals sell. Democrats have the WORST civil rights record. After all it was the Republicans that brought about American with Disabilities Act and reassured us that the check was in the mail. The left is full of Fabian Socialist which believe that the disabled should be killed off. I was chewed out the other day by an autistic author who writes books about living with autism. All a person with disabilities wants is the same rights and privileges normal people have. After all the Declaration of Independence didn’t state that the man had to be of sound mind and body to have the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Again, as in other places and sites, msamericanpatriot makes statements that she refuses to and in fact can’t substantiate. She uses the phrase, “the check is in the mail.” So is she indicating that the rest of society owes her a living simply because she claims to have autism?
Msamericanpatriot should study her law and history a bit more before running off at the mouth. She claims that all individuals with disabilities want are the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. We, I am a member of the community of individuals with disabilities, already have the same rights as anyone else. I rather suspect that msamericantpatriot wants an increase in her SSI check rather than to have to go out and get a job.
I think you and she are on the same page. “The check is in the mail,” might be understood very literally by someone with autism, that’s just my guess, since autistic folks are not really given to sarcasm. I think that was supposed to be a compliment to the Republican Party. Anyway, I’d tend to interpret her post more charitably given the condition she has.
Just my two cents.
Dana, you need to google other posts of hers from other sites. No charity should be given to a woman (41) who spews hatred the way she does. If she actually has autism, which is a stretch, she does great harm to other individuals with autism and the greater cause of individuals with disabilities in general. Her “literal” interpretations of comments from others is not the issue. What is at issue is the vitriol and poor logic with which she attempts to dispatch those who take issue with her posts.
Yes, that may be true. Didn’t mean to offend.
That decision regarding the Kindle was amazing in its willingness to penalize sighted people for daring to try new technology that blind people couldn’t have. We’re all Harrison Bergeron now.
Soon, high schools and colleges will have to abandon football and other sports in their traditional form, and make them accesible to parplegics, the blind, and the bed ridden. Maybe, in the future with these incompetents running the country, there will be nothing left except a virtual reality that is totally out of touch with reality if we allow these delusional meddlers to continue to destroy this nation. The rest of the world is laughing at the USA as we allow a bunch of incompetent fools to run this country with the number one fool and incompetent being our sitting POTUS, Barack Obama and his Legion of Parasites, Idiots, Criminals, Subversives, Traitors and Perverts.
I know of one high school here in my state that had a Down Syndrome player. He had to be downgrade to manager when he became too old.
So is msamericanpatriot implying that individuals with disabilities should be held to lower standards than others?
Again, bodey, don’t try to read between the lines with missamericanpatriot because there’s no double meaning. She says what she says and that is what she means. I don’t mean to speak for her, but double meanings, innuendos and sarcasm are just not part of the autistic world, whereas it is definitely part of ours.
Of course, if I am wrong missamericanpatriot, please tell me so.
I have seen it before where people with certain language difficulties don’t come across well online. While I’m not a psychiatrist or neurologist, I am a physician. Anyway, I’m just asking for your understanding. Thanks.
Yes, I remember reading about that. He had more of an honorary position (never played, but was a very enthusiastic bench-warmer) and the issue was that he could no longer suit up when he turned 19. The media made a big deal out of it, but the school had to follow the law. I think they were right. They did find another position for him, which was nice.
This is what happens when get a government run by Entitlment Minded Leeches who have never had a real job or have had to balance a checkbook in their entire lives, and this goes from Obama on down throughout his administration. This Entitlement-Minded, Victim-Minded group of leeches is a very clear look at the Federal Bureaucracy which is mostly made up of incompetent government workers who have never had a real job in their lives. This administration clearly points out why we need to abolish about 85 to 90 percent of the federal bureaucracy whose groups of parasistic leeches who work for the federal government have created every single problem this country now faces. There is not one single problem in the USA that the Federal Government’s Out of Control Bureaucracies and the Federal Government’s Outrageous Legislations and Regulations have not created. The Federal Government is not the answer to our problems, our Federal Government is our problem and it is steadily creating new problems every day one of these bureaucrats and legislators goes to work.
I hope these articles will be pulled together into a BOOK and await the new conservative administration and support them. Of course just like Bush, the new conservative President will be attacked for sacking the federal attorneys general. Bush did not sack all of them like Clinton did. Nor did he attempt to “salt the earth” of the justice department for generations to come with a bunch of liberal wack jobs like Obama and HOlder have done.
I will bet that the model of the justice department behavior is also being followed at the State department and throughout this administration. Obama is one of the most devious presidents in history.
This story deserves MUCH broader coverage but will likely not get it.
Good Job
You are focusing on DOJ hires but the same has been going on in all government departments. Pity the new president and administration in 2012 who after fumigating the White House will have the Herculean job to also clean house in so many departments to be able to get the country on its feet again.
Hope the “new hires” won’t get too comfortable in their jobs, as they will all be ushered out next year when the Obama administration gets shown the door.
Andy is right. Just thinking of all the committees and departments that have been infested with socialistic minded staff boggles the mind. It’s going to be like cleaning out the Augean Stables – so we must work at getting a true Herculean hero into the White House.
All seemingly radical, women’s rights, activists as well.
Where is the balance of male hirees?
Exactly. Eric Holder hates white males. I guess he couldn’t find any black males otherwise he would’ve.
Lib’s like Holder feel the need for a more masculine presence surrounding them which is why they hire women. Perfect example here – also Reno, Napolitano, et. al.
Does anyone else see the elephant in the room here? ALL 9 OF THESE NEW HIRES ARE FEMALE. So much for Eric Holder and his anti-discrimination, fairness and diversity mantra huh.. WHAT A FREAKIN’ A-HOLE ERIC HOLDER IS.
Just keep pushing the white man, Eric. Just keep pushing..
The Section Chief who would be involved in the hiring process is Allison Nichol. Pajamas Media previously covered her background here.
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/06/01/how-do-you-get-a-175000-a-year-job-with-eric-holder/
The article quotes her internal hiring announcement:
“She is serving as the representative of the DOJ with the White House on the development and implementation of the President’s National Strategy on HIV/AIDS . . . has been a member of the Honors Attorney Hiring Committee for the past four years, and is an active participant in the Division’s GLBT Working Group as well as a former board member of DOJ Pride. . . .Outside her life in the Department, Allison is an accomplished writer. He short stories and poetry have been published in numerous journals and adapted for the stage, and she recently published her first novel. She lives in Washington D.C. with her partner of 20 years.”
You can read about her novel and more about her here:
http://www.intagliopub.com/Authors/Nichol.htm
It’s bad enough we have o’blah blah till 2012. Holder’s a f’n POS. Everything exactly the opposite of what the democratic party is supposed to stand for. BS>…
After 2012, there must be a clean sweep. There are some hangers on from Clinton. Geo. Bush did not replace many of Clinton’s office holders and administration staff.