Affirmative Action Critic Nominated for Top Civil Rights Post

President Bush today nominated William Lucas, a black Republican critic of affirmative action, as the Justice Department’s civil rights chief, setting up a potentially bruising Senate confirmation fight.

The previously announced opposition to Lucas by the NAACP, the nation’s largest civil rights group, could energize liberal opposition to the nominee.

NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks said in a statement Monday that Lucas is not qualified to be the government’s chief enforcer of civil rights laws.

The White House formally announced Lucas’ selection as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division in a one-sentence statement issued in San Jose, where Bush had spent the night.

Pushed by Thornburgh

Lucas had been pushed for the job by Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh.

In a statement, Thornburgh called Lucas “a talented, decent and compassionate person whom I have known for a number of years.”

“Bill Lucas is fully committed to the vigorous and fair enforcement of our country’s civil rights laws and to removing barriers to equal opportunity for all our citizens,” Thornburgh said.

People for the American Way, a well-financed liberal lobbying group, joined Hooks in expressing reservations about Lucas.

Lucas “is someone with no track record and a lot of question marks,” said the group’s president, Arthur J. Kropp.

“The questions will have to be resolved before the civil rights community can support him,” said Kropp, who heads a 270,000-member organization that helped defeat Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987.

Justice Department spokeswoman Deborah Burstion-Wade said opposition by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People “doesn’t change a thing for us.”

Lucas has been criticized by several civil rights leaders since Thornburgh revealed in February that he had urged Bush to nominate him for the position.

The 61-year-old Lucas, a former sheriff and executive of Wayne County, ran unsuccessfully as the GOP’s nominee for Michigan governor in 1986. A former Democrat, Lucas has been considered for other federal positions in the Bush Administration.

Civil rights leaders have cited Lucas’ record as sheriff to demonstrate their view that he is not qualified to run a Justice Department division responsible for prosecuting local police for brutality.

In 1976, Lucas was held legally responsible by a federal appeals court for failure to investigate allegations that a prisoner was beaten while in the custody of sheriff’s deputies. Lucas said he was unaware of the allegations at the time, but the court found he had failed to institute training procedures to prevent brutality by his deputies.

That same year, Lucas was cited for contempt of court for failing to reduce overcrowding and improve conditions at the county jail.

Lucas’ claim on an old resume that he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Justice Department’s civil rights division during the early 1960s has also sparked controversy.

Lucas actually worked as a legal assistant and resigned after he failed the District of Columbia Bar examination.