Unconfirmed After 11 Months, EEOC Nominee Says No Thanks

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Unconfirmed After 11 Months, EEOC Nominee Says No Thanks

By Michael A. Fletcher
Monday, August 6, 2007; Page A15


David Palmer, whose nomination to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had languished for nearly a year, withdrew his name over the weekend, bitterly complaining that partisanship in the confirmation process has gotten out of control.

President Bush nominated the 19-year Justice Department employee last September to head the EEOC, tasked with policing employment discrimination. But Palmer's confirmation stalled amid allegations that he has been ineffective in his current job, as chief of the Employee Litigation Section of the department's Civil Rights Division.

That agency enforces federal discrimination laws in state and local government jobs. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said in a letter that under Palmer, the litigation section has filed almost as many cases alleging discrimination against whites as it has against blacks and Latinos combined, even while Palmer acknowledges that minorities tend to be the targets of more discrimination.

The charge echoes others leveled at the Bush administration's broader civil rights enforcement efforts, which have been criticized as deemphasizing enforcement of bias charges made by racial minorities and focusing more on other matters, including religious discrimination.

Beyond Obama's complaint, a group of Palmer's Justice Department colleagues alleged in a letter that he treats co-workers with "disdain and contempt" and was "at least once" the subject of a discrimination complaint.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/05/AR2007080501512.html