'Could be the last one standing': Trump aims to 'illegally remove' head of bipartisan board

11 April 2025

President Donald Trump at a White House press briefing on January 30, 2025 (Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock.com)

The bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) came into existence when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law.

CCR is presently chaired by Democratic civil rights lawyer Rochelle Mercedes Garza, appointed by then-President Joe Biden in 2023. But according to Politico's Hassan Ali Kanu, Trump is hoping to replace Garza and install a "hand-picked Republican."

The person Trump has in mind, Kanu reports in an article published on April 11, is Peter Kirsanow — described by Kano as "an employment lawyer and conservative commentator."

"Kirsanow is an outspoken critic of affirmative action and so-called DEI measures, and he has championed a range of other conservative culture war issues," Kanu observes. "In March, commission officials received a two-sentence e-mail saying the White House was 'de-designating'” the current chair, Rochelle Garza, from her post, and elevating Kirsanow instead. But Garza says Trump's move is illegal."

Replacing Garza with Kirsanow as CCR chair would, Kanu notes, be a "dramatic shift." And it's one Garza is determined to fight.

Garza says she is "prepared to challenge any attempt to illegally remove me as chairwoman.”

Garza told Politico, "This is a way of trying to circumvent our authorizing statute, it's very clear. They've been relentlessly dismantling every single civil rights agency in the federal government, and this could be the last one standing.'

Read Politico's full article at this link.

From Your Site Articles