February 9, 2010
Exclusive: Justice Is Blind but it is now Deaf, Crazy and Retarded, Too
Robert Weissberg
It is said that war is hell but until recently it was a simple hell – declare war, arm and dispatch the military and kill everyone until the enemy surrenders. Today, alas, war, especially the war on terror, has grown immensely more complicated. There may not even be a firm line between friend and foe let alone a clear definition of an “attack.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has historically played a minor role in America’s wars. But, as the bungled interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab sadly illustrated, matters have changed. Indeed, insofar as DOJ must advise the President on his legal authority to conduct the war, the limits of domestic surveillance, and how to handle alleged enemy combatants, among other war-related responsibilities, the DOJ is a full-fledged member of the President’s “war cabinet.” In a nutshell, today’s wars are fought by Department of Defense generals and Department of Justice lawyers.
Given that thousands, perhaps millions, of lives are now at stake, one might anticipate that the PC infatuation with diversity and inclusion would be suspended. In matters of life and death, this is hardly a revolutionary idea – not even über PC liberals rely on class, race and gender when choosing brain surgeons.
Have President Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, sensibly abandoned political correctness? Apparently not. Consider a recent DOJ solicitation for ten attorney positions in its Civil Rights Division to deal with federal voting rights statutes. Salaries range between $105,211 and $155,500. A JD degree plus three years of post-JD experience is required. The advertisement is boilerplate until one arrives at the now ubiquitous “we strongly encourage ….to apply” section. This is usually the perfunctory outreach to women and minorities, and for private firms the first line of defense against discrimination litigation.
Attorney General Holder’s staff goes far, far beyond customary inclusiveness. Specifically:
The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine. Applicants who meet the qualification requirements and are able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation are encouraged to identify targeted disabilities in response to the questions in the Avue application system seeking that information. For additional information for applicants with targeted disabilities, please contact the Civil Rights Division's Disability Program Manager, Diane Petrie, at (202) 514-3934.
You read correctly: The DOJ is encouraging job applications from the mentally ill, those with convulsive disorders, the mentally retarded (hear that, Rahm Emmanuel!), the blind, the deaf and the immobile to work as government lawyers. Perhaps we should be thankful that the list did not include the transgendered, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, transvestites and those still uncertain of their socially constructed gender.
To be sure, much – perhaps all – of this is gratuitous feel-good nonsense. Even mighty Washington will be hard pressed to recruit a bona fide mentally retarded (again, DOJ’s terminology) lawyer, though we are less sure of hiring a spineless one (“severe distortion of limbs and/or spine” so as not to offend the cowardly). Nor can we anticipate a blind DOJ lawyer interrogating Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called blind Sheikh responsible for the first Twin Towers attack, and thus give a whole new meaning to the expression, the blind leading the blind.
The significance of this Kafkaesque self-defeating inclusion is how it offers a peephole into Department of Justice thinking. No one obscure paper-pusher could have single- handedly sneaked this twaddle into the job announcement. This is the federal government so it must have passed muster with countless unindicted co-conspirators, including lawyers finely attuned to charges of discrimination. Worse, and here we can only speculate, no DOJ Pooh-Bah recognized the attention-getting oddity of soliciting job applications from the mentally retarded, the psychologically infirm (or, crazy as the politically incorrect Mr. Emanuel might say) etc. etc. Keep in mind that this specificity was not legally required – a sentence about honoring all federal employment laws would have sufficed. Going one step further, did the job-writing flacks consider what could happen if a mentally challenged, or blind, or deaf, or an epileptic lawyer argued the government’s case in a voting rights dispute? Imagine the reaction of African-Americans denied ballot access when their top gun DOJ advocate is led into court by his dog and demands the proceedings in Braille? The aim here, obviously, is being “good” though at the client’s expense. Put it this way: given a choice of hyper- inclusion or sending in the legal A-team, inclusion easily triumphs.
And can we be sure that only voting rights enforcement is being sacrificed on the PC altar? Will DOJ create water tight compartments depending on threats to national security so, for example, the lame and the halt will enforce credit card fraud while the best and the brightest ponder Miranda rights for apprehended terrorists? Perhaps, but don’t be too optimistic – recall the affirmative action progression in the private sector where AA hires in can’t-do-much-harm marketing eventually sued to gain access to better paying and more consequential positions in corporate finance.
Nor can we take comfort in the formal JD and experience requirement. Today’s universities go out of their way to “accommodate” anybody with a claimed disability, even if invisible. Ask any professor and they will recount these accommodations: extra hours given to complete an exam, in-class university supplied note-takers, access to the professor’s own lecture notes and various support services unavailable to ordinary able-bodied students. I personally recall one perfectly normal appearing student who shamelessly exploited every opportunity since he had a “mental disability” about which I could not ask and the university would not tell. This is not to argue against accommodation; rather, many of these special need students cannot perform regular work unless given support staffs and helpful exemptions, and these are seldom available in “real life” situations. Judges will not delay court proceedings since an attorney suffers from attention deficit disorder.
The issue here is not the possibility of a few one-armed manic-depressive DOJ lawyers botching a case. The real issue is corporate/ bureaucratic culture, the unstated values guiding workplace decisions, and here this mean an infatuation with inclusion at the expense of merit. The Department of Justice’s culture is horribly out-of-sync with today’s harsh reality and one can only imagine the damage done where thousands of personal choices escape public scrutiny. How many slow-witted agents are assigned to horrifically complicated cases so as to avoid future litigation about them not being allowed to handle high profile cases that ensure promotion? How many supervisors assemble legal teams as Noah filled the Ark? Obviously, we can’t answer these questions, but if this advertisement is any clue, Americans have much to fear.
Let’s end on a helpful note with a terrorist age-appropriate DOJ job announcement though the required skills are applicable everywhere. Wanted: super-smart lawyers with sufficient physical stamina necessary to work grueling hours while mastering arcane details to connect almost imperceptible dots. Successful applicants must be able to ask tough questions and use strong interrogation techniques. Preference will be given to those with talents for learning multiple languages, skill with computer technology and navigating foreign cultures on short notice. If you fear offending anybody’s politics, sexual identities, personal appearances or religion, please do not apply. Applicants are also advised that this is not the first step on a long bureaucratic apple-polishing career where advancement requires honoring reigning political orthodoxies; this is a chance to help defend America or otherwise enforce the law, and you will be judged only by that standard. If you are mentally impaired or crazy and don’t like this job description, just run for Congress and change the law.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Robert Weissberg is emeritus professor of political science, University of Illinois-Urbana and currently an adjunct instructor at New York University Department of Politics (graduate). He has written many books, the most recent include The Limits of Civic Activism, Pernicious Tolerance: How teaching to "accept differences" undermines civil society and the forthcoming, Bad Students, Not Bad Schools: How both the Right and the Left have American education wrong (early 2010). Besides writing for professional journals, he has also written for magazines like the Weekly Standard and currently contributes to various blogs.
Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (9)
This entire disablist screed is based on the idea that people who are differently abled are getting special treatment. The world was and in fact continues to be designed to privilege certain bodies and therefore these supposed special accommodations allow the differently abled to participate. From this screed it is clear that the author would much prefer it if the differently abled would closet themselves. Heaven forbid they be given access to opportunities that have traditionally been reserved for the able bodied.
What is particularly damning is the the authors vitriol aimed at those with invisible disabilities. Not every disability is going to manifest itself with a wheelchair and that does not make it any less valid. In fact they often face even more discrimination because they must prove to people that they are indeed disabled. The point that this author fails to realize is that the differently abled can compete if we stop gearing the rules to suit the able bodied. This entire article was nothing more than a shameless display of disableism.
posted by : Renee
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 08:46 AM
This "targeting of disabilities" by the DOJ (and the connected Obama administration) is insane! The responsibility of the DOJ is to administer justice according to the Constitution in a timely and efficient manner. This would be a no-brainer: hire experienced, trained and talented individuals to do the job. This PC effort is a make-work fiasco! It will take two people (provided over-all pair is not disabled to the point that the team is non-functional)to accomplish any task. Heaven forbid that anyone really expects efficient justice to spring from this abomination!
posted by : Dan P
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 10:10 AM
Renee:
As the mother of a child with "special needs" (she is hearing impaired, has ADD and, we suspect, may have Apsberger's syndrome), I had no problem with this article. What's more, I don't agree with the notion that a disability shouldn't hold someone back, depending upon the situation.
Sure, a paraplegic can be a lawyer. That's a no-brainer. But will it get to the point where a blind man must be hired as a bus driver in order to "prove" that all handicaps (oops, sorry, disabilities) can be overcome if we just "stop gearing the rules to suit the able bodied?"
My daughter struggles in school daily, despite her normal IQ, because of her issues. I realize that she will probably never be a doctor. And I'm OK with that. I accept her for who she is, and will do my best to help her fulfill her potential as best she can. She does get some accommodations in school, but she also has to do her part. And I'm not going to teach her to sit around and expect society to change all the rules just for her. It's not realistic and, in the end, helps no one but special interest groups who make a living by pushing their agenda.
posted by : Jean
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 10:34 AM
The disabled have organized themselves into something resembling the familiar grievance group with a list of demands. And like blacks, gays and various feminists, it never stops, so one accommodation just leads to more demands. Hofstra now has a program in "disability studies" and people view the entire world through this lens. I know this first-hand since a friend's daughter was in the program and explained it all over dinner.
They even have their own ideology - there really is no difference between the able and disabled. It's all in your head and thus can be cured by educating the bigots. Sound familiar? There is even a certain pride in one's limitations, a far cry from the days when people covered them up or quietly tried to surmount them.
General Patton was dyslexic but survived West Point by hiring tutors, not getting special treatment. FDR was confined to a wheelchair for much of his presidency but this was kept from the public. Today this is a featured part of his public image. That he smoked in public is now hidden.
Those outside of accommodating universities seldom know the degree of this accommodation or just how disabled are the disabled. The U of Illinois was a world center in treating the disabled and I know this from first-hand experience. Many of these students did not belong in the classroom but federal money was available and this money supported lots of helpers. Follow the money, as they say.
For some - not all - disability has become a racket. This came up a few years ago when the disabled pushed for more time on the SAT. When this was permitted, the number of disabled skyrocketed. Ditto for attention deficit disorder - it has become a way of life for mothers anxious over their less-than-brilliant children.
posted by : Robert Weissberg
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 10:58 AM
We long ago ceased to live according to "Majority Rule", instead, choosing to try to make everyone kowtow to everyone elses minority bent.
I believe that no person, no group should be treated with any less respect than they exude. Long ago, we were considerate enough of "crippled people" to gladly help load them into a car, to help get their wheel chairs up steps, and were also glad to see that accessibility was improved in government buildings. As for private buildings, I believe that they would make themselves accessible to any wallets that they wanted to see. People with handicaps of whatever sort are not "owed" these considerations, but rather earn them.
This same thinking extends to political correctness. Just today, I put up a design saying: "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
A CLEAR AND PRESENT
DANGER."
http://www.cafepress.com/frankopinions/7061517
We can be respectful of eachother without letting PC run our lives.
PC has done no good whatsoever for anyone, anywhere.
posted by : FranklyOpinionated
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 01:23 PM
Did not read the article. Couldn't get past the 'retarded' comment. you see, I have a handicapped son so i am sensitive to the use of this word in the perjorative.
posted by : David rasch
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 05:43 PM
Sounds like David rasch's "Haddicapped son" has a retarded father. No disrespect intended but he admits his aversion to a "word" will not even allow him to "READ" all of the other words in the writing.
Having admitted that, how is it he can even submit a comment. Sounds to me like pappa would be a good candidate for the subject program...he seems imminently qualified.
posted by : Bob Pruitt
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 08:51 PM
Considering that many practitioners of the legal profession seem to be mentally challenged, what is surprising is that the DoJ would actually admit to this in public and specify it as a qualification. (reference: Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History - Charles M. Sevilla, 1999)
posted by : Stumpwhistle
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 07:15 AM
A True courtroom transcript:
Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."
posted by : Stumpwhistle
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 07:21 AM
