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N.C. Senate apologizes for slavery, Jim Crow laws
By: Donnie Allison
Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: News
Last update: 4/11/07 at 11:55 AM EST
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Harry Watson
The North Carolina Senate unanimously passed a joint resolution last week apologizing for the state's past support of slavery and Jim Crow laws.
The resolution expressed "profound regret" for laws that "perpetuated the denial of basic human rights and dignity," and called upon citizens "to eliminate racial prejudices, injustices and discrimination."
Virginia offered the first formal apology of this kind in February and may soon be followed by Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York and Vermont, in addition to North Carolina.
During the floor debate, many senators said they see such apologies as a good start in the battle to eliminate racial injustices.
"An apology, particularly of the form that includes not only slavery but the nearly century-long practices of Jim Crow, can only be a positive step," William Darity, a professor of public policy studies, African and African American studies and economics, wrote in an e-mail.
Harry Watson, director of the Center for the Study of the American South and a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it is important for the state to take responsibility for its own role.
"Slavery was an institution by state law... North Carolina is definitely the agent here," Watson said. "Therefore I think it's entirely appropriate that the state take this first step."
Timothy Tyson, a senior research scholar of documentary studies and a visiting professor of American Christianity and Southern culture at the Divinity School, compared the apology to a city allowing free parking at night.
"It's nice and doesn't cost much, and the community benefits from it in small ways," Tyson wrote in an e-mail. "But we should not kid ourselves into thinking this is something that will change everything."
Regardless of the resolution's practical impact, professors said the substance of the policy remains relevant.
"It's never too late to acknowledge that our society has made crucial mistakes," Tyson said. "Especially since we're still making them."
He added that there are currently more than 30 million slaves in the world-a number that dwarfs the 4 million freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
Darity said that the tertiary effects of slavery are also a serious problem.
"The long-term effects of slavery are still with us, particularly because the nation embraced legal segregation after the Civil War," Darity said. "Desegregation did not become a significant reality throughout the South until the early 1970s."
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Thursday, April 12, 2007
North Texas
Human trafficking called a concern for N. Texas
SMU: Speakers at event urge more attention to troubling issue
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, April 11, 2007
By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News
trobberson@dallasnews.com
The issues of human trafficking and slavery might seem like problems of faraway lands or a bygone era, but they are real, they are happening now, and the Dallas area is an ongoing focus of concern, according to federal law enforcement officials, prosecutors and groups dedicated to fighting it.
Speaking at an SMU symposium Tuesday, representatives of the Justice Department joined human rights leaders, a New York Times columnist and a local victim in an appeal for the public to become more involved in fighting human trafficking and modern slavery.
"For want of a general awareness, you would think this is not much of a problem here in the metroplex," said Rick Halperin, an SMU history professor and a former chairman of the human rights group Amnesty International. "Human trafficking is a huge problem throughout the world, throughout this country and throughout this metroplex."
With a large immigrant community representing vast segments of Latin America as well as Africa and Asia, North Texas has developed an ability to absorb and hide humans held against their will and forced into work with little or no pay and no prospect of buying their own freedom, various speakers said.
Language barriers, torture, beatings and threats of retaliation against family members back home are sufficient to prevent these victims from escaping or seeking help.
Estimates of the numbers vary widely because the business of human trafficking is so well hidden from the world. One CIA estimate suggested up to 50,000 humans are smuggled into the United States each year for forced labor or prostitution. The State Department puts the number closer to 17,000, out of about 800,000 humans being trafficked worldwide.
"These statistics ... really are based on guesswork because there's really no source" for accurate numbers, said Bill Bernstein, assistant director of Mosaic Family Services, a Dallas nonprofit organization that helps at-risk migrant groups.
Because the victims typically arrive from their home countries with no language training, they cannot communicate with anyone but their captors or other enslaved workers. They are constantly told by their captors that the police are the enemy and that they will be deported immediately if they are caught, said Sarah Saldana, assistant U.S. attorney for North Texas.
In several Dallas-area cases, people from South Korea, Honduras and Zambia have been held against their will, performing forced labor, while their local neighbors had no idea what was happening.
"Even today, people think it's a crime that's not happening in their community," Mr. Bernstein said. "But it's everywhere around us."
Given Kachepa, 20, of Zambia said he was lured out of his country nine years ago by a Sherman-based Christian group that promised him a better life in the United States. When he and 10 other boys got here, they were organized into a choir that toured the nation, earning large fees for the ministry.
Regardless of sickness or fatigue, they were required to perform up to seven concerts a day, with no payment.
"If we did not sing, the choir manager would say, 'No singing, no food,' and he would turn off the gas for the stove so we couldn't cook," Mr. Kachepa said. "Sometimes we went for three days without having anything to eat."
Ms. Saldana, the assistant U.S. attorney, said her office has been active in breaking up various North Texas brothels in which foreign women and girls had been locked up and enslaved after being smuggled into the country.
"Sometimes I quibble about the use of the word 'trafficking' " in reference to the problem "because it tends to imply that there is transportation required" for a crime to be committed, Ms. Saldana said. In fact, "you are going to find victims of modern-day slavery in totally domestic situations. They're used as domestic servants without pay, or with poor pay, and with restricted movement."
Enforcement is problematic because federal, state and local officers tend first to look at laws being broken – such as prostitution – and arrest slavery victims as law-breakers, she said. It is only after further investigation that they determine that a far more serious crime is being committed, but by that time, the arrested victims are so deeply traumatized that they are reluctant to cooperate with prosecutors.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist who has reported extensively on international forced-prostitution rings, described the problem as a worldwide, growing epidemic. The best cure, he said, is for the West to press for improved education of girls in poorer nations and to embarrass governments that fail to crack down, particularly on child prostitution.
He made headlines a few years ago by "purchasing" two young Cambodian women to win their freedom from a brothel owner.
"It was terribly unjournalistic and unprofessional," Mr. Kristof said, adding that he paid $353 for their freedom. More shocking, though, was the fact that the brothel owner saw no problem giving him a receipt for the deal.
"It's an astonishing world," he said, "where you can get a receipt for buying another human being."
SMU: Speakers at event urge more attention to troubling issue
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, April 11, 2007
By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News
trobberson@dallasnews.com
The issues of human trafficking and slavery might seem like problems of faraway lands or a bygone era, but they are real, they are happening now, and the Dallas area is an ongoing focus of concern, according to federal law enforcement officials, prosecutors and groups dedicated to fighting it.
Speaking at an SMU symposium Tuesday, representatives of the Justice Department joined human rights leaders, a New York Times columnist and a local victim in an appeal for the public to become more involved in fighting human trafficking and modern slavery.
"For want of a general awareness, you would think this is not much of a problem here in the metroplex," said Rick Halperin, an SMU history professor and a former chairman of the human rights group Amnesty International. "Human trafficking is a huge problem throughout the world, throughout this country and throughout this metroplex."
With a large immigrant community representing vast segments of Latin America as well as Africa and Asia, North Texas has developed an ability to absorb and hide humans held against their will and forced into work with little or no pay and no prospect of buying their own freedom, various speakers said.
Language barriers, torture, beatings and threats of retaliation against family members back home are sufficient to prevent these victims from escaping or seeking help.
Estimates of the numbers vary widely because the business of human trafficking is so well hidden from the world. One CIA estimate suggested up to 50,000 humans are smuggled into the United States each year for forced labor or prostitution. The State Department puts the number closer to 17,000, out of about 800,000 humans being trafficked worldwide.
"These statistics ... really are based on guesswork because there's really no source" for accurate numbers, said Bill Bernstein, assistant director of Mosaic Family Services, a Dallas nonprofit organization that helps at-risk migrant groups.
Because the victims typically arrive from their home countries with no language training, they cannot communicate with anyone but their captors or other enslaved workers. They are constantly told by their captors that the police are the enemy and that they will be deported immediately if they are caught, said Sarah Saldana, assistant U.S. attorney for North Texas.
In several Dallas-area cases, people from South Korea, Honduras and Zambia have been held against their will, performing forced labor, while their local neighbors had no idea what was happening.
"Even today, people think it's a crime that's not happening in their community," Mr. Bernstein said. "But it's everywhere around us."
Given Kachepa, 20, of Zambia said he was lured out of his country nine years ago by a Sherman-based Christian group that promised him a better life in the United States. When he and 10 other boys got here, they were organized into a choir that toured the nation, earning large fees for the ministry.
Regardless of sickness or fatigue, they were required to perform up to seven concerts a day, with no payment.
"If we did not sing, the choir manager would say, 'No singing, no food,' and he would turn off the gas for the stove so we couldn't cook," Mr. Kachepa said. "Sometimes we went for three days without having anything to eat."
Ms. Saldana, the assistant U.S. attorney, said her office has been active in breaking up various North Texas brothels in which foreign women and girls had been locked up and enslaved after being smuggled into the country.
"Sometimes I quibble about the use of the word 'trafficking' " in reference to the problem "because it tends to imply that there is transportation required" for a crime to be committed, Ms. Saldana said. In fact, "you are going to find victims of modern-day slavery in totally domestic situations. They're used as domestic servants without pay, or with poor pay, and with restricted movement."
Enforcement is problematic because federal, state and local officers tend first to look at laws being broken – such as prostitution – and arrest slavery victims as law-breakers, she said. It is only after further investigation that they determine that a far more serious crime is being committed, but by that time, the arrested victims are so deeply traumatized that they are reluctant to cooperate with prosecutors.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist who has reported extensively on international forced-prostitution rings, described the problem as a worldwide, growing epidemic. The best cure, he said, is for the West to press for improved education of girls in poorer nations and to embarrass governments that fail to crack down, particularly on child prostitution.
He made headlines a few years ago by "purchasing" two young Cambodian women to win their freedom from a brothel owner.
"It was terribly unjournalistic and unprofessional," Mr. Kristof said, adding that he paid $353 for their freedom. More shocking, though, was the fact that the brothel owner saw no problem giving him a receipt for the deal.
"It's an astonishing world," he said, "where you can get a receipt for buying another human being."
Angela Y.
Famous ‘Panther’ enlightens UT campus
Staff Writer -
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 issue
Click here to print
At a lecture on campus Monday night, former Black Panther Angela Davis explored the correlation between the university’s low black student and faculty population and slavery’s lingering effects.
Davis, a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, discussed her life as an activist as well as issues affecting the University of Tennessee.
“If we look at the situation on this campus and the relatively small number of black students and the infinitesimal number of black faculty, we can argue that that’s a holdover from slavery,” she said.
Davis also said she doubts a constitutional amendment — that did not define slavery and what it meant to end it — could put an end to the practice’s effects, emphasizing how extensive it was and how it had infiltrated the lives of so many individuals.
“Coerced labor is just one aspect of it,” Davis said.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t mention social death or civil death, she said.
“If slavery had been abolished, there would not have been a need for a Civil Rights Movement,” Davis said.
The amendment does not address the ideological issue of racism, which was the underpinning of the slave system, and the U.S. Constitution does not deal with racism either, Davis said.
“Still, in the 21st century, we are living with the consequences and the vestiges of slavery,” said Davis, who added that many people do not understand how that is possible.
Davis said her childhood was full of stories of people whose lives were claimed by the prison systems or capital punishment. During the late 60s, she worked on numerous cases that attempted to free political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela, Huey Newton and the Soledad Brothers.
“In connection with the case of the Soledad Brothers, I actually woke up one morning and found that I was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list,” Davis said.
That, she said, led her to make punitive issues a theme of her life, although it had not been an initial focus of her activism. Prison had become a form of political subjugation, she said.
The Soledad Brothers were three black prisoners charged with murdering a prison guard during a riot in 1970. The prisoners, George Jackson, John Clutchette and Fleeta Drumgo, were well-known, outspoken activists for prisoners’ rights and spoke out against racism.
“There were three people singled out and charged with murder,” Davis said. “When I read about that case, I immediately sought to contribute whatever I could.”
By then she was starting a teaching job at the philosophy department at the University of California-Los Angeles. She had joined the Communist Party two years earlier, and one student wrote an article about her being a party member.
She didn’t attempt to conceal her political affiliations because, she argued, she “had the right to join any political party that she wanted to.” She was also hired to teach Marxism but was fired by the Board of Regents and had to get a court injunction in order to continue teaching at UCLA.
Through that experience, she saw the connection between herself and the Soledad Brothers.
“But, they were going to lose their lives if they were not successful,” she said, noting that she would only lose her job.
She then began to make the connection between the prison system’s political suppression and similar suppression by the educational system.
Davis received death threats so frequently that she had to have a security detail wherever she went on and off campus.
She said one of the members of her security detail happened to be George Jackson’s younger brother, and he took one of the guns registered in her name to a courtroom where a shoot-out occurred. Four people, including a federal judge and Jackson’s younger brother, were killed.
Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy.
“As soon as I discovered what happened, I basically had to go underground,” she said.
Davis said she did this because there were numerous cases of people surrendering to the police being killed.
Eventually, Davis was acquitted of all charges due to a large campaign in her support.
“There were people organizing a campaign to free me,” she said. “This campaign was the most amazing collective effort of people from all racial backgrounds.”
She said there were more than 200 committees attempting to free her and that she was fortunate to have such strong support.
“It appeared to be insurmountable, and people didn’t accept that (and) they fought back,” Davis said.
For one audience member, having Davis speak on campus was an honor.
“I thought she was really amazing. I thought she said a lot of good things,” Ruba Nuwayhid, a junior in sociology, said. “I think she’s done a lot of cool things with her life. It was just an honor to hear her speak.”
All site content © The University of Tennessee 2005
Website design © Jeremy Tunnell
Staff Writer -
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 issue
Click here to print
At a lecture on campus Monday night, former Black Panther Angela Davis explored the correlation between the university’s low black student and faculty population and slavery’s lingering effects.
Davis, a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, discussed her life as an activist as well as issues affecting the University of Tennessee.
“If we look at the situation on this campus and the relatively small number of black students and the infinitesimal number of black faculty, we can argue that that’s a holdover from slavery,” she said.
Davis also said she doubts a constitutional amendment — that did not define slavery and what it meant to end it — could put an end to the practice’s effects, emphasizing how extensive it was and how it had infiltrated the lives of so many individuals.
“Coerced labor is just one aspect of it,” Davis said.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t mention social death or civil death, she said.
“If slavery had been abolished, there would not have been a need for a Civil Rights Movement,” Davis said.
The amendment does not address the ideological issue of racism, which was the underpinning of the slave system, and the U.S. Constitution does not deal with racism either, Davis said.
“Still, in the 21st century, we are living with the consequences and the vestiges of slavery,” said Davis, who added that many people do not understand how that is possible.
Davis said her childhood was full of stories of people whose lives were claimed by the prison systems or capital punishment. During the late 60s, she worked on numerous cases that attempted to free political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela, Huey Newton and the Soledad Brothers.
“In connection with the case of the Soledad Brothers, I actually woke up one morning and found that I was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list,” Davis said.
That, she said, led her to make punitive issues a theme of her life, although it had not been an initial focus of her activism. Prison had become a form of political subjugation, she said.
The Soledad Brothers were three black prisoners charged with murdering a prison guard during a riot in 1970. The prisoners, George Jackson, John Clutchette and Fleeta Drumgo, were well-known, outspoken activists for prisoners’ rights and spoke out against racism.
“There were three people singled out and charged with murder,” Davis said. “When I read about that case, I immediately sought to contribute whatever I could.”
By then she was starting a teaching job at the philosophy department at the University of California-Los Angeles. She had joined the Communist Party two years earlier, and one student wrote an article about her being a party member.
She didn’t attempt to conceal her political affiliations because, she argued, she “had the right to join any political party that she wanted to.” She was also hired to teach Marxism but was fired by the Board of Regents and had to get a court injunction in order to continue teaching at UCLA.
Through that experience, she saw the connection between herself and the Soledad Brothers.
“But, they were going to lose their lives if they were not successful,” she said, noting that she would only lose her job.
She then began to make the connection between the prison system’s political suppression and similar suppression by the educational system.
Davis received death threats so frequently that she had to have a security detail wherever she went on and off campus.
She said one of the members of her security detail happened to be George Jackson’s younger brother, and he took one of the guns registered in her name to a courtroom where a shoot-out occurred. Four people, including a federal judge and Jackson’s younger brother, were killed.
Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy.
“As soon as I discovered what happened, I basically had to go underground,” she said.
Davis said she did this because there were numerous cases of people surrendering to the police being killed.
Eventually, Davis was acquitted of all charges due to a large campaign in her support.
“There were people organizing a campaign to free me,” she said. “This campaign was the most amazing collective effort of people from all racial backgrounds.”
She said there were more than 200 committees attempting to free her and that she was fortunate to have such strong support.
“It appeared to be insurmountable, and people didn’t accept that (and) they fought back,” Davis said.
For one audience member, having Davis speak on campus was an honor.
“I thought she was really amazing. I thought she said a lot of good things,” Ruba Nuwayhid, a junior in sociology, said. “I think she’s done a lot of cool things with her life. It was just an honor to hear her speak.”
All site content © The University of Tennessee 2005
Website design © Jeremy Tunnell
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Heroes
It's been several days since the 15 British sailors were released by Iran, and I find it strange that the parade of ex US Military Generals and Admirals crossing NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN news rooms have not been shouting jubilation's of joy because these young sailors were not killed. Quite the contrary, these so-called experts have been pissin and moanin about the fact that the sailors gave up, they didn't resist, and they were not killed outright by Iranian gun boats that intercepted them in Iranian waters.
This outright disdain for their survival, and against the fact that they did not die provokes me to question, Were they supposed to die? Were they intentionally sent out to invade Iranian waters so that they would be killed? And, further, would the sabers have rattled loudly in support of invading Iran? Was this a set-up to get these young sailors murdered by tossing them into the fire by their own British government, or probably at the command of the US government?
The only problem with this planned attack was a split second decision made by one young British sailor to yield in the face of far superior fire power. He saw the odds and realized everyone would die if he did not yield, and in the process he probably saved the world from nuclear war. I want to thank you young sailor for your bravery in saving the world from fascism. Believe me, you have given Mothers and Fathers across the world new hope. You deserve the highest honor. Salute.
Lee
This outright disdain for their survival, and against the fact that they did not die provokes me to question, Were they supposed to die? Were they intentionally sent out to invade Iranian waters so that they would be killed? And, further, would the sabers have rattled loudly in support of invading Iran? Was this a set-up to get these young sailors murdered by tossing them into the fire by their own British government, or probably at the command of the US government?
The only problem with this planned attack was a split second decision made by one young British sailor to yield in the face of far superior fire power. He saw the odds and realized everyone would die if he did not yield, and in the process he probably saved the world from nuclear war. I want to thank you young sailor for your bravery in saving the world from fascism. Believe me, you have given Mothers and Fathers across the world new hope. You deserve the highest honor. Salute.
Lee
THAT’S WHO BUSH LOOKS LIKE!
Six years have come and gone and I’ve subliminally questioned, “Who does George Bush’s look like”? I laughed at the comic Mad Magazine, Alfred E. Newman portrayals. Then I thought of Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, with Dale Evans Queen of the Cowgirls, horse Trigger and dog Bullet, and let’s not forget that Jeep Nellybelle. However, it didn’t quite jell, so I stood strong and refused to demonize RR down to the level of a George W. Bush comparison.
Recently however, mine eyes have been opened, and I have seen the glory of God's gracious bounty on high in the holey image of Reverend Pat Robertson. That’s who Bush looks and acts like – same hair cut, same mannerisms, same speech delivery patterns, similar content, and that holier-than-thou attitude. (His walk and swagger, however, clearly remain Mark Foley imitations.)
That’s right, Pat Robertson, the mortal man who God speaks directly to above and beyond all other mortal men. The same Pat Robertson who openly advocated the assignation of Venezuela’s President Chavez. The Pat Robertson who keeps company with the virtuous man who calls for the abortion of all black women to reduce crime in America.
Robertson’s Regent University Law School, even with one of the then lowest academic law school ratings, managed to get 150 graduates and administrators gainfully employed into and with the George W. Bush administration, and Department of Justice where they have been known to work their magic and incantations. Clearly, this will become the crowning jewel in the Bush presidential legacy which somehow seems riddled with Gangster-for-God like bullet holes.
Now, that the Department of Justice has a scandal of firing 8 competent and hard working US Attorneys, now that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales must testify before Congress concerning “potential political corruption” allegations so as not to implicate Karl, Dick, or George; and now that MONICA Goodling, Gonzalez’s’ top assistant and Regent University Law School graduate has refused to give Congressional testimony, invoked the 5th Amendment, resigned her esteemed position as Gonzales’ right hand main squeeze – some of the truth that hidden proof from public view concerning how political manipulations have been well hidden – now it is starting to come into view. Halleylou!
At the top of regent University’s web site it states in banner headlines “
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP TO CHANGE THE WORLD
Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school
Grads influential in Justice Dept.
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff April 8, 2007
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The title of the course was Constitutional Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with "amens," about the need to preserve their Christian values.
"Sin is so appealing because it's easy and because it's fun," the law student warned.
Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn't pass the bar exam and leading up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student competitions.
But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.
One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become the face of Regent overnight -- and drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration's hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.
Documents show that Goodling, who has asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before Congress, was one of a handful of officials overseeing the firings. She helped install Timothy Griffin , the Karl Rove aide and her former boss at the Republican National Committee, as a replacement US attorney in Arkansas.
Because Goodling graduated from Regent in 1999 and has scant prosecutorial experience, her qualifications to evaluate the performance of US attorneys have come under fire. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, asked at a hearing: "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?"
And across the political blogosphere, critics have held up Goodling, who declined to be interviewed, as a prime example of the Bush administration subordinating ability to politics in hiring decisions.
"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website . ". . . That a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."
The Regent law school was founded in 1986, when Oral Roberts University shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Robertson's Bible-based college in Virginia. It was initially called "CBN University School of Law" after the televangelist's Christian Broadcasting Network, whose studios share the campus and which provided much of the funding for the law school. (The Coors Foundation is also a donor to the university.) The American Bar Association accredited Regent 's law school in 1996.Continued...
Not long ago, it was rare for Regent graduates to join the federal government. But in 2001, the Bush administration picked the dean of Regent's government school, Kay Coles James , to be the director of the Office of Personnel Management -- essentially the head of human resources for the executive branch. The doors of opportunity for government jobs were thrown open to Regent alumni.
"We've had great placement," said Jay Sekulow , who heads a non profit law firm based at Regent that files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers between church and state. "We've had a lot of people in key positions."
Many of those who have Regent law degrees, including Goodling, joined the Department of Justice. Their path to employment was further eased in late 2002, when John Ashcroft , then attorney general, changed longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks.
Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.
In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people's civil rights.
"When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the question," wrote the Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division's housing section -- the only employment offer he received after graduation, he said.
The graduate from Regent -- which is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place -- was not the only lawyer with modest credentials to be hired by the Civil Rights Division after the administration imposed greater political control over career hiring.
The changes resulted in a sometimes dramatic alteration to the profile of new hires beginning in 2003, as the Globe reported last year after obtaining resumes from 2001-2006 to three sections in the civil rights division. Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicant dropped.
As the dean of a lower-ranked law school that benefited from the Bush administration's hiring practices, Jeffrey Brauch of Regent made no apologies in a recent interview for training students to understand what the law is today, and also to understand how legal rules should be changed to better reflect "eternal principles of justice," from divorce laws to abortion rights.
"We anticipate that many of our graduates are going to go and be change agents in society," Brauch said.
Still, Brauch said, the recent criticism of the law school triggered by Goodling's involvement in the US attorney firings has missed the mark in one respect: the quality of the lawyers now being turned out by the school, he argued, is far better than its image.
Seven years ago, 60 percent of the class of 1999 -- Goodling's class -- failed the bar exam on the first attempt. (Goodling's performance was not available, though she is admitted to the bar in Virginia.) The dismal numbers prompted the school to overhaul its curriculum and tighten admissions standards.
It has also spent more heavily to recruit better-qualified law students. This year, it will spend $2.8 million on scholarships, a million more than what it was spending four years ago.
The makeover is working. The bar exam passage rate of Regent alumni , according to the Princeton Review, rose to 67 percent last year. Brauch said it is now up to 71 percent, and that half of the students admitted in the late 1990s would not be accepted today. The school has also recently won moot-court and negotiation competitions, beating out teams from top-ranked law schools.
Adding to Regent's prominence, its course on "Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security" is co taught by one of its newest professors: Ashcroft.
Even a prominent critic of the school's mission of integrating the Bible with public policy vouches for Regent's improvements. Barry Lynn , the head of the liberal Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said Regent is churning out an increasingly well-trained legal army for the conservative Christian movement.
"You can't underestimate the quality of a lot of the people that are there," said Lynn, who has guest-lectured at Regent and debated professors on its campus.
In light of Regent's rapid evolution, some current law students say it is frustrating to be judged in light of Regent alumni from the school's more troubled era -- including Goodling.
One third-year student, Chamie Riley , said she rejected the idea that any government official who invokes her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination could be a good representative of Regent.
As Christians, she said, Regent students know "you should be morally upright. You should not be in a situation where you have to plead the Fifth."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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Recently however, mine eyes have been opened, and I have seen the glory of God's gracious bounty on high in the holey image of Reverend Pat Robertson. That’s who Bush looks and acts like – same hair cut, same mannerisms, same speech delivery patterns, similar content, and that holier-than-thou attitude. (His walk and swagger, however, clearly remain Mark Foley imitations.)
That’s right, Pat Robertson, the mortal man who God speaks directly to above and beyond all other mortal men. The same Pat Robertson who openly advocated the assignation of Venezuela’s President Chavez. The Pat Robertson who keeps company with the virtuous man who calls for the abortion of all black women to reduce crime in America.
Robertson’s Regent University Law School, even with one of the then lowest academic law school ratings, managed to get 150 graduates and administrators gainfully employed into and with the George W. Bush administration, and Department of Justice where they have been known to work their magic and incantations. Clearly, this will become the crowning jewel in the Bush presidential legacy which somehow seems riddled with Gangster-for-God like bullet holes.
Now, that the Department of Justice has a scandal of firing 8 competent and hard working US Attorneys, now that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales must testify before Congress concerning “potential political corruption” allegations so as not to implicate Karl, Dick, or George; and now that MONICA Goodling, Gonzalez’s’ top assistant and Regent University Law School graduate has refused to give Congressional testimony, invoked the 5th Amendment, resigned her esteemed position as Gonzales’ right hand main squeeze – some of the truth that hidden proof from public view concerning how political manipulations have been well hidden – now it is starting to come into view. Halleylou!
At the top of regent University’s web site it states in banner headlines “
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP TO CHANGE THE WORLD
Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school
Grads influential in Justice Dept.
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff April 8, 2007
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The title of the course was Constitutional Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with "amens," about the need to preserve their Christian values.
"Sin is so appealing because it's easy and because it's fun," the law student warned.
Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn't pass the bar exam and leading up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student competitions.
But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.
One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become the face of Regent overnight -- and drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration's hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.
Documents show that Goodling, who has asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before Congress, was one of a handful of officials overseeing the firings. She helped install Timothy Griffin , the Karl Rove aide and her former boss at the Republican National Committee, as a replacement US attorney in Arkansas.
Because Goodling graduated from Regent in 1999 and has scant prosecutorial experience, her qualifications to evaluate the performance of US attorneys have come under fire. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, asked at a hearing: "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?"
And across the political blogosphere, critics have held up Goodling, who declined to be interviewed, as a prime example of the Bush administration subordinating ability to politics in hiring decisions.
"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website . ". . . That a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."
The Regent law school was founded in 1986, when Oral Roberts University shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Robertson's Bible-based college in Virginia. It was initially called "CBN University School of Law" after the televangelist's Christian Broadcasting Network, whose studios share the campus and which provided much of the funding for the law school. (The Coors Foundation is also a donor to the university.) The American Bar Association accredited Regent 's law school in 1996.Continued...
Not long ago, it was rare for Regent graduates to join the federal government. But in 2001, the Bush administration picked the dean of Regent's government school, Kay Coles James , to be the director of the Office of Personnel Management -- essentially the head of human resources for the executive branch. The doors of opportunity for government jobs were thrown open to Regent alumni.
"We've had great placement," said Jay Sekulow , who heads a non profit law firm based at Regent that files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers between church and state. "We've had a lot of people in key positions."
Many of those who have Regent law degrees, including Goodling, joined the Department of Justice. Their path to employment was further eased in late 2002, when John Ashcroft , then attorney general, changed longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks.
Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.
In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people's civil rights.
"When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the question," wrote the Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division's housing section -- the only employment offer he received after graduation, he said.
The graduate from Regent -- which is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place -- was not the only lawyer with modest credentials to be hired by the Civil Rights Division after the administration imposed greater political control over career hiring.
The changes resulted in a sometimes dramatic alteration to the profile of new hires beginning in 2003, as the Globe reported last year after obtaining resumes from 2001-2006 to three sections in the civil rights division. Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicant dropped.
As the dean of a lower-ranked law school that benefited from the Bush administration's hiring practices, Jeffrey Brauch of Regent made no apologies in a recent interview for training students to understand what the law is today, and also to understand how legal rules should be changed to better reflect "eternal principles of justice," from divorce laws to abortion rights.
"We anticipate that many of our graduates are going to go and be change agents in society," Brauch said.
Still, Brauch said, the recent criticism of the law school triggered by Goodling's involvement in the US attorney firings has missed the mark in one respect: the quality of the lawyers now being turned out by the school, he argued, is far better than its image.
Seven years ago, 60 percent of the class of 1999 -- Goodling's class -- failed the bar exam on the first attempt. (Goodling's performance was not available, though she is admitted to the bar in Virginia.) The dismal numbers prompted the school to overhaul its curriculum and tighten admissions standards.
It has also spent more heavily to recruit better-qualified law students. This year, it will spend $2.8 million on scholarships, a million more than what it was spending four years ago.
The makeover is working. The bar exam passage rate of Regent alumni , according to the Princeton Review, rose to 67 percent last year. Brauch said it is now up to 71 percent, and that half of the students admitted in the late 1990s would not be accepted today. The school has also recently won moot-court and negotiation competitions, beating out teams from top-ranked law schools.
Adding to Regent's prominence, its course on "Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security" is co taught by one of its newest professors: Ashcroft.
Even a prominent critic of the school's mission of integrating the Bible with public policy vouches for Regent's improvements. Barry Lynn , the head of the liberal Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said Regent is churning out an increasingly well-trained legal army for the conservative Christian movement.
"You can't underestimate the quality of a lot of the people that are there," said Lynn, who has guest-lectured at Regent and debated professors on its campus.
In light of Regent's rapid evolution, some current law students say it is frustrating to be judged in light of Regent alumni from the school's more troubled era -- including Goodling.
One third-year student, Chamie Riley , said she rejected the idea that any government official who invokes her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination could be a good representative of Regent.
As Christians, she said, Regent students know "you should be morally upright. You should not be in a situation where you have to plead the Fifth."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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