US set to tackle ‘reverse racism’ policies at colleges

IN THE latest sign that US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions is steering the US Justice Department towards a more conservative agenda, The New York Times has obtained a document laying out plans for the department’s civil rights division to address “affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants” at colleges.

The move to address “reverse racism” comes on the heels of other Department of Justice (DOJ) policy changes relating to police reforms, LGBTQ rights and voting rights that have been panned as “regressive” by social rights campaigners.

The internal document notes the DOJ’s need for lawyers who would be assigned to work on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions”.

The project would be run from the division’s front office – a stronghold for Trump administration political appointees – rather than from the Educational Opportunities section, the traditional domain of public service professionals who normally deal with issues relating to schools.

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law president Kristen Clarke criticised the project as an inversion of the civil rights division’s original purpose and “longstanding priorities,” noting that the division’s creation and inception was aimed at addressing “the unique problem of discrimination faced by our nation’s most oppressed minority groups”. teleSUR