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WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This week, the nation will celebrate the birthday of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As we reflect on the life and legacy of Dr. King, the Civil Rights Division remembers the cases it has brought to safeguard the civil rights of all Americans in the last year.
Some examples of the Civil Rights Division's recent accomplishments include:
Ensuring the Right to Fair Housing:
* Operation Home Sweet Home: Two years ago, the Civil Rights Division
began a concentrated initiative to expose and eliminate housing
discrimination in America. As a result of its undercover housing
investigations, on January 18, 2007, the Civil Rights Division filed a
lawsuit against apartment owners in Michigan, alleging they engaged in a
pattern or practice of discrimination against African-American home-
seekers in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.
* Operation Home Sweet Home improved the Civil Rights Division's Fair
Housing testing program. The program is conducted primarily through
paired tests, an event in which two individuals -- one acting as the
"control group" (e.g., white male) and the other as the "test group"
(e.g., black male) -- pose as prospective buyers or renters of real
estate for the purpose of determining whether a housing provider is
complying with the fair housing laws.
* The Division's Fair Housing testing program conducted more fair housing
tests in fiscal year 2007 than it has ever conducted in a single year.
The Housing and Civil Enforcement Section filed 30 cases to enforce the
Fair Housing Act, including four based on evidence generated by the
testing program.
* This past year, the Division obtained a $725,000 settlement against the
owners and operators of another Michigan apartment complex who
discriminated against African Americans seeking to rent apartments at
the complex.
The Prosecution of Criminal Civil Rights Violations:
* In fiscal year 2007, the Civil Rights Division's Criminal Section set a
record for the highest number of defendants ever convicted in one year
in the history of the Section (189), surpassing last year's record
number of 181 defendants convicted.
* Last month, the Civil Rights Division's Criminal Section obtained a 3
year prison sentence for a defendant who burned a cross with the intent
to drive African-American victims from their home. In the last seven
years, the Civil Rights Division has brought 41 cross-burning
prosecutions and convicted 60 defendants for these heinous crimes.
* Last summer, former Ku Klux Klan member James Seale was sentenced to
three life sentences for his involvement in the 1964 abduction and
murder of two young African-American men in Mississippi. The FBI has a
cold case initiative to identify additional unresolved civil rights era
murders.
* From fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2007, the Department of Justice
convicted over 50 percent more defendants with official misconduct, or
color of law, violations than were convicted from fiscal year 1994
through fiscal year 2000 (391 vs. 256). In a recent case, the Section
obtained a life sentence against a corrections officer who brutally beat
an African-American inmate to death in a Mississippi county jail.
Ensuring the Right to Equal Employment:
* The Civil Rights Division ensures equal employment opportunities through
its enforcement of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fiscal
year 2006, the Employment Litigation Section filed as many lawsuits
challenging a pattern or practice of discrimination as during the last
three years of the previous Administration combined.
* In May 2007, the Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against the
largest fire department in the United States, the Fire Department of New
York. This suit alleges that since 1999, the City of New York has
engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African
American and Hispanic applicants for the position of entry-level
firefighter. This is the fourth pattern or practice lawsuit filed under
Title VII on behalf of African Americans during this Administration.
Safeguarding Voting Rights:
* The Civil Rights Division ensures equal access to the polls through its
enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Last year, the Division filed a
lawsuit against Euclid, Ohio, under the Voting Rights Act. The
Department prevailed following trial; the judge ruled that the city's
method of electing its city council violated the Voting Rights Act.
Although African-Americans comprise nearly 30 percent of the city's
electorate, and there had been eight recent African-American candidates
for Euclid City Council, not a single African-American candidate had
ever been elected to the nine-member city council or to any other city
office.
* During the last six years, the Civil Rights Division has filed
approximately 60 percent of all cases filed in its entire history under
the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and the first
cases in its history on behalf of Filipino, Vietnamese and Korean
voters.
* During calendar year 2006, the Division's Voting Section filed 18 new
lawsuits -- which is more than twice the average number of lawsuits
filed by the Division annually over the preceding 30 years.
Protecting Religious Liberties:
* The Civil Rights Division works to protect citizens from discrimination
based on religion, and has substantially increased its enforcement of
federal laws protecting religious liberties in recent years in all its
areas of its jurisdiction, including education, housing, employment, and
criminal prosecutions of attacks on persons and houses of worship
because of religion.
* Since 2001, the Civil Rights Division has reviewed more than 140 cases
involving the land-use protection of the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) and has opened 35 full
investigations. These have included investigations involving Christian,
Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist houses of worship and religious
schools. Many of these have been resolved out of court through voluntary
modification of potentially discriminatory zoning regulations. The
Division also has filed four RLUIPA lawsuits.
* On February 20, 2007, the Department of Justice announced a new
initiative, The First Freedom Project, to educate community, religious,
and civil rights leaders, attorneys and the general public about these
rights and how to file complaints with the Department of Justice. The
initiative includes a series of regional training seminars around the
country, distribution of informational literature, and a new website,
www.FirstFreedom.gov.
The Division's enforcement records in these areas are just some of many important ways we honor Dr. King's vision for America. For more information about the Division and the laws it enforces, go to http://www.usdoj.gov/crt.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
sdoj.gov/
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt
http://www.firstfreedom.gov/
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