a.

Name/Period: Morgan Meneide/ 3​rd​-Blue

b. Topic: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

c. Title: Trump’s Justice Department Redefines Whose Civil Rights to Protect

d. Author: Katie Benner

e. Date of article: January 25, 2019

f. Source: The New York Times

Summary:

In the article author, Katie Benner, talks about the current civil rights struggles that the Justice

Department is currently facing. The department is receiving backlash about not covering or not

protecting some topics that people today are struggling with. The current Justice Department has

shifted its focus from issues with identity to more prominent issues in today's society like people

of faith and police officers. And all of these changes are happening under Attorney General Jeff

Sessions. Now with the focus on equality for all, not just African Americans and the LGBTQ

community, some officials disagree with this change. They believe that they need to stick with

protecting the people with specified rights stated in the Constitution. Critics of this ideology are

upset that the justice system seems to be picking and chooses which cases they want to hear. “​In

offering civil rights protections to a new set of groups, the department has lifted protections for

others, especially gay, lesbian and transgender people and African-Americans” (Benner). When

you shift the focus from one group to the next people are always going to be upset, and some

people question why the focus needs to be shifted in the first place. The Asian-American suit

against Harvard, basically stating that the admissions for the school is highly discriminatory,
could honestly put the history of civil rights in the US to shame. This suit takes the spotlight off

of something that took Americans decades to fix with the problem of civil rights and segregation.

Analysis:

With the back and forth of deciding what groups to support, according to the ​establishment

clause ​the government cannot support one faith over another. In the article, Benner quoted Jeff

Sessions and stated that he believes in some cases Christians “have not been protected forcefully

enough”. Also according to the ​Nonpreferentialist Test​, the Constitution prohibits favoritism

towards any one religion. So technically all of these cases brought to the Justice Department that

are favored for one religion over another are not allowed by the Constitution.

Evaluation

This article is extremely important because it shows the current divide in the Justice Department.

The differentiating opinions on what minority groups to protect causes friction between the

people in their justice system which in the end will cause our nation to be divided as ever. If the

people feel like they can’t be protected by their own justice system they will start to get mad and

ultimately rebel against it thinking it’s already corrupt.

Opinion

I think as a citizen we need to know what’s going on in our country even if it may not be the best

system. This article was important to me because sometimes when other groups are feeling

discriminated against you can maybe be apart of the issue and decide how to fix it if the

government can’t.