Ex-N.Y. Legislator Selected by Bush for Civil Rights Post
President Bush announced Thursday that he will nominate former New York state legislator John R. Dunne to the top civil rights job in the Justice Department, a post that has been vacant for more than a year.
Bush’s first choice for the job, William Lucas, failed to win Senate confirmation last year.
The job has been vacant since December, 1988, when William Bradford Reynolds stepped down as assistant attorney general for civil rights. Reynolds provoked controversy by opposing affirmative-action programs that involved racial preferences.
Dunne, who will turn 60 on Sunday, has a sparse background on civil rights. He is a former chairman of the New York State Senate Judiciary Committee and a graduate of Georgetown University and Yale Law School.
Colleen O’Connor, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the New York chapter had for years studied Dunne’s record on civil rights and found it lacking.
“I think it’s fair to say these questions are going to come up,” she said. t Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said he did not know enough about Dunne to have formed an opinion.
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