From Within

AFTER voters approved the California Civil Rights Initiative last November, the local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union quickly sued for an injunction against its enforcement. Federal judge Thelton Henderson Jr., a former board member of the ACLU of Northern California, granted it. When Henderson’s ruling was appealed, the Clinton Justice Department weighed in with a 28-page brief defending the injunction, signed by another former ACLU official, acting civil-rights chief Isabelle Katz Pinzler.

Mrs. Pinzler’s emergence as the Administration’s honcho on civil-rights law is emblematic of a consistent Clinton personnel policy that can be traced back as far as the failed nomination of Lani Guinier as assistant attorney general for civil rights. When the exposure of Mrs. Guinier’s writing record compelled the White House to withdraw her nomination, it quickly named instead her colleague at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Deval Patrick. Though suaver in tone, Mr. Patrick soon proved to be merely Mrs. Guinier without the paper trail. And when he stepped down in January from the hot seat in the civil-rights office, it was the turn of Mrs. Pinzler, a deputy assistant attorney general since 1994, and before that longtime executive director of the ACLU’s women’s-rights project.

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About the Author

Walter Olson

Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of several books.

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AFTER voters approved the California Civil Rights Initiative last November, the local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union quickly sued for an injunction against its enforcement. Federal judge Thelton Henderson Jr., a former board member of the ACLU of Northern California, granted it. When Henderson’s ruling was appealed, the Clinton Justice Department weighed in with a 28-page brief defending the injunction, signed by another former ACLU official, acting civil-rights chief Isabelle Katz Pinzler.

Mrs. Pinzler’s emergence as the Administration’s honcho on civil-rights law is emblematic of a consistent Clinton personnel policy that can be traced back as far as the failed nomination of Lani Guinier as assistant attorney general for civil rights. When the exposure of Mrs. Guinier’s writing record compelled the White House to withdraw her nomination, it quickly named instead her colleague at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Deval Patrick. Though suaver in tone, Mr. Patrick soon proved to be merely Mrs. Guinier without the paper trail. And when he stepped down in January from the hot seat in the civil-rights office, it was the turn of Mrs. Pinzler, a deputy assistant attorney general since 1994, and before that longtime executive director of the ACLU’s women’s-rights project.