U.S. Attorney General
One of my highest priorities upon returning to the Justice Department has been to ensure that the Civil Rights Division continues its critical role of ensuring that our nation lives up to the ideal of Equal Protection enshrined so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence and the Fourteenth Amendment. Over the last four months, with help from Congress and the White House, we have provided the Civil Rights Division with the
attention, the resources, and the leadership support that its dedicated professionals deserve.
The Civil Rights Division has made important progress on several fronts since President Obama took office in January. The Civil Rights Division has reinvigorated its amicus practice, filing nine amicus briefs and seeking leave to file two more. It has continued its work enforcing our nation’s fair housing laws, filing 16 cases – including 7 pattern and practice cases – and obtaining 8 consent decrees. In recent months, the Civil Rights Division has won or settled enforcement actions in virtually every substantive area of civil rights law.
The reconstruction and progress we seek will take years to achieve, not weeks or months. And experience has taught us that the road to equality is long and sometimes treacherous, marked by detours and occasionally by setbacks.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a case that challenges the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. No matter how the Court resolves this issue, I pledge that the Justice Department will continue working to enforce our nation’s voting rights laws. And we will fight efforts to discriminate in the voting booth just as earnestly as we fight efforts to discriminate in the job or housing markets.
And yet, even as the Department of Justice fulfills its traditional enforcement
responsibilities, it must respond to new challenges and resurgent threats. Over the last several weeks, we have witnessed brazen acts of violence, committed in places that many would have considered unthinkable – a sacred memorial in the nation’s capital, a recruiting station for the nation’s armed forces, and a church in the nation’s heartland.
The violence in Washington, Little Rock and Wichita reminds us of the potential threat posed by violent extremists and the tragedy that ensues when reasoned discourse is replaced by armed confrontation.
Neither our respect for the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, nor our earnest hope for common ground, can justify the violence we saw in Kansas. We will not tolerate murder, or the threat of violence, masquerading as political activism. The Justice Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect the rights ensured under our constitution. And we will do all that we can to deter violence against reproductive health care providers and to prosecute those who commit such violence to the fullest extent of the law.
Likewise, the Justice Department will do all that it can to bring the perpetrators of bias-motivated crimes to justice. That includes working with Congress to strengthen existing federal hate crimes laws. The House of Representatives has already passed legislation that would accomplish this goal and the Department of Justice is working with the Senate as it begins consideration of a similar hate crimes statute.
The time has come for Congress to finish its work on this critically important
legislation and we look forward to working with members on both sides of the aisle to achieve that goal.
Let us commit ourselves – regardless of party affiliation or political viewpoint – to the difficult work ahead: building an America in which the kind of violence we have seen these last few weeks is but a distant memory. And building an America in which all of our nation’s citizens, in equal measure, enjoy the fruits of our founding documents.
Edited from remarks made June 16 to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.