Too Few Minorities in DOJ's Civil Rights Division?

May 4, 2007— -- Some of the most notorious crimes committed in America -- police brutality, cross burnings, violence at abortion clinics, modern day slavery, all of which are federal crimes -- are prosecuted by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

But the team of prosecutors the department has put together does not entirely reflect the country it's supposed to protect.

An investigation conducted by ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington, D.C., has found that the Justice Department is missing a key component in its mission to protect civil rights -- diversity in the attorney ranks.

"They need someone to investigate them," says Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

WJLA has learned that since 2003, the criminal section within the Civil Rights Division has not hired a single black attorney to replace those who have left.

As a result, the current face of civil rights prosecutions looks like this: Out of 50 attorneys in the criminal section, only two are African-American, the same number who were in the criminal section in 1978, even though the size of the staff has more than doubled.

Conyers said he was amazed to learn the Civil Rights Division had so few black attorneys trying criminal cases.

"They don't have the diversity that we're saying is required in the country in businesses … and of course, in the Department of Justice itself."

WJLA obtained internal Justice Department records showing that very few black or Hispanic attorneys have been hired in the last few years.

"Zero, zero, zero point 7 percent. They're incredibly low," said Conyers, who examined the hiring statistics.

For more than a decade, Richard Ugelow was a supervisor in the civil rights section that sues government employers for discrimination in hiring and promotion.

"You can't operate like that. It's -- we're hypocrites," he said.

Ugelow now teaches law at American University in Washington, D.C. WJLA showed him the Justice Department's statistics on minority hiring.

"We would sue employers for having numbers like that," he remarked.