Pay no attention to what the media says about how undermined Jeff Sessions is. POTUS may bait him publicly via tweet, but in private, at the DOJ, Sessions is a man on a mission to roll back civil rights, and that’s just what he’s doing.

Take what he did this July 3, quietly rescinding two dozen documents intended to make American institutions less racist.

The guidelines the AG scrapped included Obama-era guides on affirmative action that urged colleges to promote diversity for the benefit of the campus and the public good. Others reminded employers that asylum seekers have every right to work, and still others sought to head off another mortgage meltdown by warning brokers not to give predatory home loans to people without going through the fine print.

And Obama-era guidelines weren’t the only ones Sessions withdrew. He also rescinded George W. Bush-era documents that reminded all Americans after 9-11 that discrimination on the basis of national origin is wrong.

The AG reached even further and nixed a Gerald Ford-era guide intended to keep kids out of adult prisons—and out of prison entirely for age-related offenses like truancy and drinking.

Rescinding these documents didn’t make any new laws or repeal any old ones; the guides just sought to make existing law better understood. However, earlier this summer, the AG didwade into the law itself when he raised the bar for asylum seekers—mostly women—and took immigration decisions into his own hands and out of the courts.

In early June, Sessions ruled that domestic violence was, like gang crime, a “private crime,” meaning its survivors are not considered members of any particular, at-risk social group. In an already decided case, he called on asylum seeker Aminta Cifuentes to prove that the Guatemalan government actively condoned what he called “private violence” when state police and law enforcement refused to intervene, even after her rapist husband doused her in turpentine and tried to set her alight.

In so-doing Sessions reversed a prior ruling on her case by an immigration appeal board.

On July 3, Sessions called the guidelines he rescinded outdated. So what date does he think this is? The eve of a pro-white, pro-male, anti-immigrant, anti-democratic, slave-owning nation? Just how far does AG Sessions want to set back the clock?


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.

Donate
Donate

Laura Flanders is the host of  "RadioNation" heard on Air America Radio and syndicated to non-commercial affiliates nationwide. She is the author most recently, of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians (The Penguin Press, 2007) and also BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004), an investigation into the women in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Publisher's Weekly called Flanders' New York Times best-seller, "fierce, funny and intelligent."The W Effect: Sexual Politics in the Age of Bush, an essay collection compiled by Flanders, appeared in June, 2004 from the Feminist Press.Before joining Air America when it launched in March 2004, Laura hosted the award-winning " Your Call," Monday-Friday, on public radio, KALW, 91.7 fm in San Francisco.Flanders' TV appearances include "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and "Paula Zahn Now"  as well as "The O'Reilly Factor," and "Hannity and Colmes," "Washington Journal," "Donahue," "Good Morning America" and the CBC news discussion program, "CounterSpin."Her writing appears in The Nation, Alternet, Ms. Magazine,  and elsewhere and her op-ed pieces have appeared in papers including The San Francisco Chronicle.Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch group, FAIR and for more than ten years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR's nationally-syndicated radio program. Shie is also the author of Real Majority, Media Minority; the Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting (Common Courage Press, 1997) about which Susan Faludi wrote, "If only there were a hundred of her." Katha Pollitt called it "Funny, angry, factfilled and brilliant."

Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

This is your article this month.

We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.

Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:

Number of donors682
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Independent media is not disappearing because the ideas are weak.

It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.

More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.

Number of donors682
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version