President Bush has renominated Claude Allen, an African American deputy secretary of HHS who used to work for Jesse Helms, to the Fourth Circuit. An academic expert on Helms once told me that unlike every other southern Senator, Helms never actually renounced his segregationist past, and indeed never publicly supported any civil rights legislation, regardless of whether it applied to the public or private sector. I haven’t investigated this personally, and would be happy to be corrected. But if Helms’s views on civil rights were indeed so extreme that he never could bring himself to support legislation banning discrimination by state and local governments, I would very much hesitate before supporting one of his former aides, African American or not, for a federal judgeship.
Update (elaboration): In response to criticism in the blogosphere, (1) If Helms never accepted that government should not be allowed to blatantly discriminate, Helms should have been, but was never quite, considered beyond the pale. Those who worked for him should be tainted somewhat by their willing association with, and support for, him. The U.S. has been notoriously unwilling to honestly face its recent segregationist past; the Trent Lott incident was a nice change, and hopefully not the last example of such change; (2) the fact that Allen is black does not exempt him from criticism for working for a segregationist. Allen may have thought that Helms’s leadership on other issues was more important than Helms’s contempt for the Fourteenth Amendment. However, (a) beyond his hostility to blacks (Helms came to public attention as a media celebrity who opposed integration) Holmes was most known for his opposition to abortion and his hostility to homosexuals; and (b) a judicial candidate, at least, should be judged for his respect for the Fourteenth Amendment above any purely political stances he may have. Neither (a) nor (b) leads me to have much confidence in Allen as a judicial candidate, though it he may be a perfectly appropriate nominee to HHS; (c) I said I would be hesitant to support Allen, not that he absolutely couldn’t win my support. He could start by explaining why he would choose to work for an unrepentant segregationist. I hold him to the same standard in this regard as I’d hold a white candidate. He has no special reason to respond to this criticism, but neither should his race give him immunity from it. And again the caveat: if Helms did indeed repent regarding segregation, my criticism is moot. But merely the fact that he hired a black man who shared all or large parts of his agenda doesn’t mean he did so.
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