I just don’t understand this adminstration. They commission a study to find out whether there are diversity issues in their own department, and instead of coming forward with an honest and introspective report, they instead just decide to edit out the parts of the report they don’t like. I don’t understand how the Department of Justice can be so ridiculous. How can we expect the DOJ to enforce civil rights violations when they aren’t even being honest with their own department and appear to have as many civil rights violations as the companies they go after?
Don’t we deserve better than this? Don’t we deserve a DOJ that actually believes in honesty and justice?
I find it incredible that the US government could be so utterly incompetent when it comes to obscuring stuff they put out. They basically released it as a document with two layers': one contained the un censored text, and the other contained black boxes over the bits they didn't want anyone to see. So this information archeologist’ just had to remove the black-boxes layer, and there’s the text. This is about the level of security as is offered by the SMDB spoiler boxes…
The thing that frightens me about this government more than any other thing is its secretivness. It seems to creep into every aspect of the government. How many times have the people been denied access to the full truth? Does the report on diversity fall under a breech of national security if we know the full truth of it?
I remember a time when Nixon wouldn’t surrender the tapes made in the Oval Office for “national security” reasons. Before the decade was out, we were able to listen to some of those tapes in the National Archives. We had to make a reservation, get tickets and stand in line! But we heard them!
I know that there is secretivnesss in every Presidential Administration. But the suckatechtonics factor in this one is beginning to set off alarms.
Yes, it is outrageous. So, given that we are currently saddled with a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, what do we do about it? Make it a campaign issue? The next elections are a year away – how can we keep it alive that long? There’s two issues here, really:
The DOJ has a crappy record on hiring minority lawyers. But do the people really care about that very much? Affirmative action isn’t exactly a popular issue these days, at least not among white people.
The DOJ censored the report of its own self-investigation of same. But were they under any legal or regulatory obligation to do otherwise? It’s nasty, but is it improper? There’s a federal Freedom of Information Act, but there is no “government in the sunshine” law at the federal level. LOTS of federal agencies are secretive about their internal workings, and are allowed to be secretive. The only people they HAVE to answer to are the administration and Congress – and sometimes, not even Congress.
This administration has a creepy tendency to want to control information, media and what minor members say. This is less than healthy… I don’t remember other republican government being necessarily like this.
The DOJ has an obligation only to hire the best lawyers for the money.
On face I think this was a wrong and poor decision. But I am wondering: Would we all be upset if the DOJ had chosen not to release any part of an internal report?
??? Is this true? Don’t federal minority-hiring policies come into it? I know they wouldn’t if we were talking about congressional staffers – Congress has always exempted itself from its labor legislation – but doesn’t the executive branch have certain obligations in this regard? I don’t really know, I’m just asking.
From what I’ve seen, Federal affirmative action policies seem to apply very weakly to the Federal government. I guess it’s like Congress, which exempts itself from all the labor protection laws that it passes.
Fang: So you’re saying DOJ has a “moral obligation” only to hire the best lawyers for the money? When part of the DOJ’s job is to enforce affirmative-action laws? Please defend that position.