An investigation by the WJLA-TV I-Team uncovered the deep-seated diversity problems within the department. The Washington, D.C., ABC affiliate aired the report on Friday.
Roberta Baskin, a veteran award-winning journalist, led the reporting effort. Baskin recently joined the station's news staff after serving as executive director of the Center for Public Integrity since January 2005.
"One of the top priorities of the Justice Department is to prosecute violations of our civil rights," Baskin told WJLA viewers. "However, the team of prosecutors the Justice Department has put together looks nothing like the America it's supposed to protect."
"They need someone to investigate them," Conyers told Baskin.
"They don't have the diversity that we're saying is required in the country in businesses -- and, of course, in the Department of Justice itself." Conyers termed the lack of diversity in the civil rights division "totally unacceptable."
The Justice Department declined the I-Team's request for an interview. Instead, it issued a statement that listed the actions it has purportedly taken to improve diversity, including mentoring, diversity training and conducting exit interviews to improve retention of minorities.
Through interviews and reviews of dozens of pages of internal documents, the I-Team found that of the 50 lawyers in the division's criminal section, only two are black.
That is the same number the criminal section had in 1978 -- even though the size of the staff has more than doubled.
If we are back to 1978, that can only mean one thing: we are ready for the Second Coming of Reagan!
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