Civil Rights Nominee Says Job Offers Bully Pulpit
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President Clinton’s nominee to be the nation’s top civil rights law enforcer told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that he would use the position as a “bully pulpit” to speak out against bigotry and hate crimes. The nominee, Deval L. Patrick, who rose from a poor Chicago neighborhood to work for a prominent Boston law firm, has built a reputation as an advocate for the needy and disenfranchised. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1983 after graduating from Harvard Law School, and spent three years working on capital punishment and voting rights cases in the South. “I feel very strongly that as a nation we will rise or fall together,” Mr. Patrick, who was nominated last month as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, testified at his confirmation hearing. He described himself as a “pragmatist with very high ideals” who believes the civil rights division should be “proactive.” ‘An Inclusive Democracy’ “The civil rights division must move firmly, fearlessly and unambiguously to enforce the anti-discrimination laws,” he said, adding that it should take “the lead in shaping policies and lawsuits that promote the notion of an inclusive democracy.” Mr. Clinton withdrew the nomination of his original choice for the civil rights post, Lani Guinier, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, after conservative critics contended that election law changes and other measures she advocated to bolster the political power of minorities were undemocratic. John Payton, the corporation counsel for the District of Columbia whose name had been floated by the Administration, withdrew last December after the Congressional Black Caucus contended that he had not voted in recent elections and was lukewarm on using the Voting Rights Act to create black-dominated election districts. More : query.nytimes.com |