Bill Lee Is a Pawn in the GOP’s Race Game

By all standards of professional accomplishment, Bill Lann Lee ought to be the next assistant attorney general for civil rights. But the nomination of this highly qualified fighter for civil rights has been blocked by a handful of Republican senators with an agenda designed to score a political point.

Lee, the son of Chinese immigrants, has devoted his entire career to advancing our nation along the path of equality. Then why has he become a pawn in a political game waged by Republicans? The reason is simple: The GOP seeks to make affirmative action the demonic source of our nation’s ills. Extremists in the party are pushing its leaders to divide Americans along racial lines for their electoral goals.

The president is being forced to make one of three tough choices: He can choose another nominee, resubmit Lee’s nomination and fight the same battle, or appoint Lee on an interim basis during the congressional recess. Given the principle that divides Lee’s opponents and supporters, the president should stand behind his nominee and appoint him during the recess.

As a matter of principle, Lee should be confirmed because there is unanimity in the Senate Judiciary Committee on his qualifications and because the president is entitled to have his nominees confirmed. Yet the debate at two confirmation hearings of the committee rekindled a remembrance of my own confrontation with those who stood in the pathway toward equality.

When I was a young man, I joined the civil rights movement. We sat-in. We marched. We were jailed. We were beaten. Some were killed. We fought to free every American from the tyranny of segregation. Many victories for the cause of civil rights have been won since then. The movement of the 1950s and ‘60s changed the nation for everyone, not just for African Americans.

But the clock is being turned back. Some now say that affirmative action policies to redress past inequalities are unfair and unnecessary, that the playing field is level and that our nation is free of the scars and stains of racism. This false understanding is being used to block Lee’s nomination.

Lee is one of our nation’s finest legal advocates for civil rights. His record with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, his dedication to constitutional principles and his commitment to civil rights are ample evidence that the country would be well-served by him.

The forces opposed to affirmative action have resorted to a campaign of misinformation on the Lee nomination. Affirmative action is nothing less and nothing more than an equitable policy to remedy past discrimination and exclusion based on race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age or disability. Affirmative action is permissible under the Constitution. It is, indeed, the law of the land.

The struggle for equality continues, while the nature of the struggle has changed. We no longer face Bull Connor’s attack dogs as we did in the 1960s, but we face two subtle foes of equality: economic inequality and inadequate educational opportunity. A third foe has emerged: the Republican attack on affirmative action.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson spoke about the promise of equality: “You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of the race, and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.” The Republicans talk about fairness but conveniently forget our nation’s history in the struggle for civil rights. Equality requires not just the removal of chains but an awareness that those not hobbled by chains have had a running start.

Our nation’s civil rights laws are designed to level the playing field. As the chief enforcer of those laws, Bill Lann Lee would bring his experience in defending those whose civil rights have been denied. He would use the law to serve the ends of a nation that desires and must be a land of equal opportunity.