No surprise

As time goes on and we learn more and more about the atrocious administration we barely survived (maybe - jury is still out as to if we really will survive the damage done).
Here is yet another story about how all aspects of our government were literally "white-washed"
Bush's Justice Dept. blacklisted LGBT groups
Affiliation with Immigration Equality, GMHC may have doomed intern candidates

By CHRIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade
Jul 15 2009, 2:41 PM | | |

Applicants for Justice Department internships and honors programs may have been rejected based on their membership in LGBT groups during the Bush administration, the Blade has learned.

Numerous applicants were denied entry to the department’s Honors Program and the summer intern program starting in 2006 because of their previous work in what were deemed to be liberal organizations, according to an internal Justice Department report issued last year. The practice occurred while Attorney General Alberto Gonzales led the department.

The Blade recently learned that among the blacklisted groups was Immigration Equality, which focuses on LGBT-related immigration issues.

Also blacklisted was the immigration project for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

“The findings of this Department of Justice investigation are disturbing,” said Sean Cahill, a Gay Men’s Health Crisis director. “If anything, the opportunities for interns to work on immigration law at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and provide legal services to immigrants living with HIV, makes one more qualified, not less, to serve in the Department of Justice.”

Matthew Faiella, who once applied to the department’s Honors Program and was a legal intern for Immigration Equality’s New York office, was among the applicants who were rejected apparently because of his liberal affiliations.

A letter to him dated Sept. 10, 2008, and obtained by the Blade, invited him to interview for the position again “based strictly on merit system principles.”

Rachel Tiven, Immigration Equality’s executive director, said in a statement that her organization was “proud to be the only national LGBT organization included in the Bush Justice Department’s list of dangerous organizations” and that “opponents of equality and justice are right to fear us.”

Tiven said she was nonetheless “aghast” at how easily the Justice Department — the department charged with protecting civil rights and civil liberties — was compromised in the selection process for its special programs.

“While few gay rights groups are included on the DOJ’s blacklist, immigrant advocacy groups make up 25 percent of the list,” she said. “The rights of non-citizens are the canary in our constitutional coal mine, and LGBT people, both immigrants and non-immigrants, know that immigrant rights must be zealously defended for everyone’s sake.”

Tiven said at least two Immigration Equality alums were blocked entry into the Justice Department’s program. She added that she doubted the applicants would take action because their rejection happened years ago and they’ve moved on by taking other jobs.

According to the Justice Department’s 2008 internal report, candidates to the Honors Program whose applications indicated liberal affiliations were rejected at a high rate, around 55 percent, as opposed to candidates who had conservative affiliations, who were rejected at a rate of about 18 percent.

Similarly, the report found that for the summer intern program, 82 percent of applicants who had liberal affiliations were rejected, while 13 percent of applicants with conservative backgrounds were rejected.

“We found that in 2006 the screening committee inappropriately used political and ideological considerations to deselect many candidates,” according to the report. “We determined that a disproportionate number of the deselected [or rejected] Honors Program and [summer intern program] candidates had liberal affiliations as compared to the candidates with conservative affiliations.”

The practice began in 2006, but was apparently discontinued in April 2007 as a result of widespread complaints from career employees, the report states.

The Justice Department has a policy of non-discrimination for political affiliation.

The practices occurred at the same time that Monica Goodling, senior counsel to Gonzales and the department’s liaison to the White House, was later found to have violated federal non-discrimination laws by denying job opportunities to gay people at the Justice Department.

Goodling apparently had some involvement with Michael Elston, who led the screening committee for applicants for the Justice Department’s special programs. Goodling asked Elston to lead the committee in 2006, according to the report.

Chris Hook, president of DOJ Pride, the LGBT affinity group for the Justice Department, said in a statement that his organization doesn’t think “similar practices as described in the report would be [possible] in today’s current environment.”

“Both the [current Attorney General Eric Holder] and the [Deputy Attorney General David Ogden] have reiterated their support for a less politicized and merit-based hiring process that encourages diversity and selects the top talent,” he said. “As such, given the review of the past practices and the attention it received by department leadership and the media, I think it would be hard to have similar experiences in the future.”