Lack of shakeup at DOJ's Civil Rights Division jeopardizes policing in Minneapolis

In this post, I wrote about how the Trump administration has failed so far to shake up a major bastion of wokeism and DEI ideology — the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The administration did not have a team ready to take control of the Division on Day One, and still has not installed one. Thus, leadership has fallen to a career employee with no desire to implement the Trump agenda.

In commenting on my post, one reader said it seemed a little early for me to be so concerned about this. I understand his point and it may be a fair one.

Yet, the administration has moved quite swiftly on other fronts. And its failure, virtually, to move at all on the Civil Rights Division may have serious real world consequences.

Consider the Consent Decree that the Justice Department agreed to in waning days of the Biden administration. I wrote about it here, in a post called “Joe Biden's parting gift to Minneapolis, ineffective policing guaranteed.”

The Decree, I noted, will “limit the use of force” by police officers — a victory for thugs and a defeat for officers trying to protect the public and themselves from them. The Decree also requires that the city regularly to assess police programs to ensure they do not cause racial disparities — quintessential DEI.

Policing high-crime areas will, in a sense, cause racial disparities because high-crime areas are disproportionately black. But high-crime areas are exactly the ones that should receive most of the police’s attention.

Team Biden’s Decree is sitting on the desk of a federal judge in Minnesota awaiting approval. Unless the Trump administration likes the Decree — and surely it doesn’t — the DOJ needs to inform the court that the United States no longer supports it. In short, the DOJ needs to file a motion.

I’m told that concerned conservatives warned the administration of the need to advise the court immediately of the change in the government’s position. Instead, Chad Mizelle, the new chief of staff at Justice, issued an internal memorandum ordering DOJ attorneys not to file any new complaints, amicus briefs or other certain court papers “until further notice.”

A separate memo directed attorneys to notify leadership of any settlements or consent decrees that were finalized by the Biden administration within the last 90 days. It stated that the new administration “may wish to reconsider” such agreements.

These memos reflect the DOJ’s skepticism about the Minneapolis Decree. But skepticism isn’t enough. The Department should already have “reconsidered” the Decree and taken action to try to prevent its approval.

Because it failed to act, the DOJ is on record as being fully behind the Decree. The court could enter it tomorrow. In that case, the Trump administration will share the blame for “gifting” ineffective policing to Minneapolis.

If the administration had installed a competent, conservative team at the Civil Rights Division, it would have determined immediately that the Minneapolis Consent Decree is unacceptable and would already have so informed the court.

Instead, it installed only the seemingly incompetent Leo Terrell. Thus, a Decree that Trump’s team surely hates is sitting on the desk of a federal judge waiting to be entered, without one word from the DOJ, other than pre-January 20 filings by the Biden team that plead for entry of the Decree.

To me, this reflects an alarming lack of seriousness.