Uncivil Times At "Justless"

By Michael S. Serrill

Ever since he took office as the Justice Department's civil rights chief in July 1981, William Bradford Reynolds has frequently and passionately declared his dedication to the principle of a "color-blind" society. In pursuit of this high ideal, he has tirelessly engaged in debates and given speeches defending the Reagan Administration's determination "to root out and do away with discrimination." On one occasion, the normally aloof and patrician Reynolds even clasped the hand of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and joined him in a chorus of We Shall Overcome. On another, he went so far as to compare the Reagan Administration's views on civil rights with those of Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil rights activists reply that with friends like Reynolds, Martin Luther King would have got out of the segregated back of the bus--but not much farther. "For 25 years," says Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, "the Department of Justice has been viewed as a champion of civil rights. Today it is viewed as an adversary." Attorney Ted Shaw, who used to work there, derides it as the "Justless" Department. The critics charge that under Reynolds the civil rights division has gone badly wrong. "All it has done in the voting area is fight black voters," says Armand Derfner of the Joint Center for Political Studies. The division has cut back on enforcement of housing-discrimination laws, challenged even voluntary school- busing desegregation programs, and is now making an all-out assault on the affirmative action employment agreements that it actively helped fashion in previous Administrations.

Last week the Justice Department sued to upset two court decrees it had helped negotiate during the Carter Administration, which created numerical goals for the hiring and promotion of blacks and women in the Indianapolis police and fire departments. The decree is one of 50 the Justice Department now says must be modified in light of a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects white workers with seniority from being laid off before more junior blacks hired under affirmative action plans. Despite several lower federal court rulings to the contrary, the Justice Department has insisted that the high court decision makes all affirmative action quotas illegal.

Justice's Indianapolis suit was brought over the protests of local officials. "We are happy with the agreement," says Indianapolis Republican Mayor William Hudnut. "It is useful for the city, and we shall continue to work under it." Indeed, no job applicant has sued to overturn the plan. Officials in half a dozen other jurisdictions also condemned Reynolds' course of action. And the N.A.A.C.P. filed its own suit last week to block department interference with the 50 affirmative action programs. It has scheduled a demonstration at Justice this Tuesday to protest Administration civil rights policies. Reynolds "is a right-wing, ideological nut in my judgment," says N.A.A.C.P. Executive Director Benjamin Hooks.

Less secure men might cringe in the face of such a withering indictment; amiable, combative Brad Reynolds has served as an unflinching lightning rod for attacks on Reagan policies. He vigorously defends his approach as an attempt to foster a society that is "race and sex neutral." A scion of the wealthy Du Pont family, Reynolds, 42, argues that efforts to remedy historical discrimination through quota-based affirmative action plans are attempts "to cure discrimination with discrimination," thereby violating both the Constitution and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Reynolds insists that he is as dedicated to battling bias as any of his predecessors, but only in cases where individuals can show that they personally were discriminated against.

While critics who know Reynolds concede that he is sincere in his beliefs, they add that his dream of a color-blind society ignores the real-life hardships of blacks, Hispanics and women who are unable to find jobs and housing. "I just can't have much respect for people who have these theoretical views without very much sensitivity to the reality," says Yale Law Professor Drew Days, who did Reynolds' job for the Carter Administration. He negotiated a number of busing and affirmative action programs that Reynolds is now trying to undo.

Droves of the Carter-era lawyers have resigned from Justice, including half of the civil rights division's black attorneys. Many of the 175 career lawyers now working for Reynolds are bored and idle, insiders say, because all the important cases are handled by political appointees close to Reynolds. "In the past, career attorneys did everything," says Philadelphia Lawyer Timothy Cook, who when he resigned in 1983 wrote Reynolds a blistering 30-page memo. Now, he says, "only a little squad of special assistants writes briefs." Those briefs strike the more liberal attorneys as bizarre. "It's like Through the Looking Glass," says Muriel Spence, who left to join the American Civil Liberties Union in 1983. "Everything is exactly the opposite of the way it's supposed to be."

Top Reagan officials consider the civil rights policies a success, both on their merits and with the public. Attorney General Edwin Meese has announced that Reynolds will be his Associate Attorney General, the third- ranking official of the Justice Department. While tough questioning awaits Reynolds at his imminent confirmation hearings, he is expected to carry the day. As for his replacement, a leading contender is Charles Cooper, 33, the division's top deputy, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. Many in the unhappy civil rights community consider Cooper more ideologically zealous than even Reynolds has been.

With reporting by Anne Constable/Washington and Jack E. White/Chicago