Sunday, April 08, 2007
There is a long article today in the Boston Globe about Monica Goodling and all of the graduates of Pat Robertson's law school who are members of the Bush administration. Regent University is considered not very academically serious, but they had an in of course. The head of Regent's government school was picked as the head of the Office of Personnel Management for the executive branch, meaning that they were in charge of hiring decisions for the Bush administration in the thousands of executive branch jobs that needed to be filled. Here is a little highlight.
Many of those who have Regent law degrees, including Goodling, joined the Department of Justice. Their path to employment was further eased in late 2002, when John Ashcroft , then attorney general, changed longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks.
Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.
In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people's civil rights.
"When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the question," wrote the Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division's housing section -- the only employment offer he received after graduation, he said.
Now, you get a better idea of why things happened the way they have over the past six years. It is pretty damned sad that somebody can only get a job with the executive branch when all private firms reject you on the basis that you hate homosexuals. I think it's time to look at the Civil Right's Division. If this person is an indication, they probably have their own screw ups that haven't been brought to the light of day.
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