Consent decrees ushered in civil rights
When the U.S. Senate was considering whether then-Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama should lead the Justice Department, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was one of the most vocal members to stand in opposition to him. Booker’s chief concern: Sessions’ abysmal record concerning basic civil rights, and in particular where those rights concern minorities.
Turns out Booker, and scores of other civil rights advocates, were right to be skeptical. Earlier this week Sessions, in a twopage memo, announced that Justice Department officials would begin reviewing so-called consent decrees with local law enforcement entities across the country. The development represents a troubling turn, and perhaps a setback concerning civil rights in this country.
Many of these agreements were part of reform efforts crafted in places where there have been problematic shootings in recent years involving police officers and unarmed black men. The consent decrees were a legacy of the Obama administration, and came about as a response to high-profile fatal police-related shootings like that of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., and other locales where some police practices in regard to minorities have come under scrutiny.
“This is terrifying,” Jonathan Smith, a civil rights advocate and former litigator in the Justice Department, told The Washington Post. “This raises the question of whether, under the current attorney general the Department of Justice is going to walk away from its obligation to ensure that law enforcement across the country is following the Constitution.”
Booker, a former mayor of Newark, saw firsthand the effects of such consent decrees. He said that he had come to see their usefulness in making justice equal for everyone, and making the city Police Department more effective in fighting crime. Booker said he was “deeply concerned” about the Justice Department reviews.
“I fear that this announcement paves the way for a retreat from accountability and oversight of allegations of systemic civil rights abuses,” Booker said in a statement. “We need a Justice Department that takes seriously its charge to faithfully and vigorously enforce the nation’s civil rights laws and ensure that no one is above the law.”
Evidence of Sessions’ efforts to scale back Obama-era attempts to establish a more equal justice came this week when the Justice Department sought to delay a sweeping reform effort aimed at the Baltimore Police Department. The Baltimore agreement, put together by federal officials and the city, had come about after the death of a young black man, Freddie Gray, in police custody in 2015.
Gray’s unexplained death brought on several days of riots, looting and protest. And a Justice Department report found that some Baltimore police had engaged in racially discriminatory practices.
Now, given Sessions’ Justice Department memo, the Baltimore decree, as well as perhaps a dozen others across the land, may be delayed, or perhaps dissolved altogether, even before needed reforms are fully implemented.
Indeed, it is unclear just how many of those consent decrees already finalized could be affected by the Sessions-ordered reviews.
In the end, we should remember why these decrees were sought in the first place: to help foster a greater understanding between police departments and the communities they serve, to help take down the temperature where passions were running high.
Sadly, those priorities seem all but gone in the new Justice Department.
We would urge Booker and other public officials to continue pushing for reforms, and placing pressure on the new attorney general to help him recognize the enormous and grave importance of ensuring basic civil rights for all. efore this country can join the rest of the world’s industrialized, wealthy, capitalistic nations and offer comprehensive health care to all its citizens, we have to debate and resolve this moral question: “In the world’s richest country, is health care a human right or is it a privilege reserved for the well-to-do?”
I once knew a woman in her early 40s who confided to me that she had some “lady health issues.” When I encouraged her to see a doctor, she said, “I don’t have insurance. It costs too much money.” She did not see a doctor until her cancer had spread throughout her body. She died within two years. Her daughter went to live with a relative.
Had she received medical treatment when the symptoms first appeared, it’s likely she would be alive today enjoying her grandchildren.
At least 22,000 Americans die prematurely each year because they lack access to medical treatment.
Wealthy, dedicated capitalistic democracies around the globe have demonstrated that universal, affordable health care for all citizens is possible. We can learn from their success stories. But we have to settle the moral question first.
Well-funded interest groups in our country argue for the primacy of other values.
Republican House Majority Leader Paul Ryan advances a “free market” solution to the health care challenge. In his view, sick people are “customers.” He believes that somehow during times of illness or mishap, Americans will be best served by a system that rewards health providers financially when claims are denied.
The “Freedom Caucus” of the Republican Party found President Trump’s proposed American Health Care Act too restrictive to individual liberty. That concern was of more importance to them than the fact that 24 million Americans would lose their health care in the next decade. R. REX HUSSMANN Jim Powell of Young Harris