Let’s Look at the Issues
“A child born to a black mother in a state like Mississippi has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States,” Thurgood Marshall, a former Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once said. But then he added, “Of course, it’s not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth fighting for.”
Debo P. Adegbile thought that equality was a goal worth working for and he has spent almost his entire adult life doing exactly that. But his dedication to the principle of equality just prevented him from becoming the lead attorney for the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. It is a very interesting story.
Debo P. Adegbile is a child of New York City born of a Nigerian father and an Irish mother. He was raised in a single parent household, at times experiencing extreme poverty and even homelessness, but he persevered and eventually earned his way through college and law school. For his first seven years as a lawyer he worked for a private law firm. But in in 2001, he joined the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the same department that Thurgood Marshall once headed. Adegbile distinguished himself at the NAACP and was involved in a number of important litigations there, including defense of the Voting Rights Act.
Last year, Adegbile joined the staff of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary as a senior counsel with a focus on legislative matters. But in November President Obama nominated him to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to succeed Thomas Perez, who, as we reported in Hotel Voice, had left that post to become the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
The U.S. Senate, in a floor vote, rejected the nomination of Adegbile to head the Civil Rights Division. And while all Republican Senators voted against it, because they seemingly oppose anything and everything proposed by President Obama, we are sorry to say that seven Democratic Senators joined the GOP in sinking Adegbile’s nomination. What a disgrace.
The reason for the rejection by Democrats is this: While Adegbile was serving on the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund it represented an alleged cop killer on an appeal of his death sentence. The alleged cop killer, Wesley Cook, also known as Mumia Abu-Jamal, was convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and was sentenced to death. Many well-known people from the entertainment, literary and legal professions have subsequently questioned this verdict, but the NAACP’s appeal was based not on the guilt or innocence of Abu-Jamal but rather the legitimate constitutional questions of whether it is legal to exclude people from serving on a jury because of their race and whether instructions to the jury were correct according to the guidelines of the law.
The NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund won this appeal and Jamal’s sentence was changed to life imprisonment. This greatly angered many people in the law enforcement community, including the slain officer’s widow, and they rallied against Adegbile’s nomination. This provided a group of Senators with an excuse to keep a skilled, highly qualified defender of justice, Debo P. Adegbile, from heading the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. All Republicans in the Senate said “no” to Debo P. Adegbile’s nomination and seven Democrats joined them.
We deplore the killing of any police officer and we have nothing but the highest respect for law enforcement. But it seems that after an accomplished career in the legal profession Debo P. Adegbile is himself being penalized for believing in law enforcement. In his case, he defended the Constitution and enforced the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. He was not directly involved in any way in the Mumia Abu-Jamal trial and appeal, and yet the Senate rejected him because of the NAACP’s involvement in that specific case when his nomination should have been confirmed based on his outstanding track record of enforcing our nation’s laws. We expect this kind of nasty, politically-motivated behavior from Republicans in the Senate. But the Democrats who voted against him, especially those who did so because they are up for election this year, have shown a surprising lack of courage. Debo P. Adegbile should have been judged by the Senate based on his career fighting for minorities, not on the fact that he had done his job at the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. Can you imagine if the Senate rejected Thurgood Marshall’s nomination to the Supreme Court because he headed the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund?
Debo P. Adegbile was penalized for fighting for equality. But it’s very likely that he still agrees with the sound words of Thurgood Marshall: Equality is a goal worth fighting for.
