WASHINGTON — Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has reversed a pattern of systematically hiring conservative lawyers with little experience in civil rights, the practice that caused a scandal over politicization during the George W. Bush administration.
Instead, newly disclosed documents show, the lawyers hired over the past two years at the division have been far more likely to have civil- rights backgrounds — and to have ties to traditional civil- rights groups with liberal reputations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union or the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
The release of the documents came as a House Judiciary subcommittee prepared to hold its first oversight hearing today on the Civil Rights Division since Republicans regained the House.
