In a surprising but inspired decision, President Obama announced Wednesday that he was nominating Vanita Gupta, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, to be the chief of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
The division, perhaps the highest-profile in the department, litigates in some of the most politicized areas of American life, from voting rights to fair housing to employment
discrimination to investigations and prosecutions of civil-rights violations by government officials. As a result it is often mired in political controversy. This has kept it leaderless for more than a year, even
as the department faces mounting battles on voting rights and other civil-rights abuses around the country.
There’s no question that Ms. Gupta is ready for the job: For more than a decade she has been involved in significant civil-rights lawsuits nationwide. In 2003, a year
out of law school, she successfully fought to free dozens of African-American men in Tulia, Tex., who had been thrown in jail on groundless drug
charges. She now directs the ACLU’s Campaign to End Mass Incarceration.
Perhaps the better question is whether the job is ready for Ms. Gupta.
In less polarized times, the answer should and likely would be an unequivocal yes. What argument could there be against naming a highly-experienced civil-rights lawyer to the top civil-rights post in the country? Ms. Gupta would, if confirmed, also represent a groundbreaking trifecta for the position: the first woman, the first South Asian, and, at 39, the youngest in the department’s history.
But nothing is unequivocal these days, particularly in light of the Senate’s spectacular failure to confirm Mr. Obama’s previous nominee, Debo Adegbile.
Mr. Adegbile was also very qualified to lead the division, but he was voted down 52-47 last March, after a concerted push by law-enforcement groups furious at what they considered to be the cardinal sin of doing his job. As a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Mr. Adegbile was involved in appeals on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, then on death row for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer.
By these low standards, Ms. Gupta’s nomination might seem even riskier. She has spoken bluntly and often on issues that were once considered untouchable on both sides of the aisle. In a 2013 New York Times op-ed, Gupta wrote of the vast racial disparities in America’s “prison-industrial complex” and called for, among other things, the elimination of mandatory-minimum sentences and the decriminalization of marijuana possession.
But that’s where things get interesting. As has been noted in virtually every story about her nomination, Ms. Gupta has a remarkable record of working with, and earning the respect of, many conservatives, who have lately come to care deeply about many of these previously off-limits issues.
Grover Norquist told The Washington Post, “She’s been good to work with and a serious person. She’s been open to working with conservatives on good policy. She has played a strong role in the left-right cooperation in criminal justice issues.”
David Keene, former president of the National Rifle Associaton, said, “Vanita is a very good person. I’ve worked with her on criminal justice reform issues. Most of the Obama administration people have been so ideologically driven that they won’t talk to people who disagree with them. Vanita is someone who works with everyone.”
With friends like these, confirmation by the Senate — even one under Republican control — seems within reach.
Mr. Obama has named Ms. Gupta acting chief, and has indicated he plans to put her nomination before the Senate. He should hold to that, even if the Democrats lose in November. A vote is always a risk, particularly since the fight to replace Attorney General Eric Holder may not be pretty. But as Mr. Holder prepares to leave after six transformative and tumultuous years, Ms. Gupta is primed to expand on the most important parts of his legacy. She also has the potential to exploit a rare point of bipartisanship in a splintered era. If Mr. Obama can’t fight for someone like her, whom can he fight for?
The original photo caption was incorrect. Molly Kaplan took the photo for the American Civil Liberties Union.