US civil rights groups sue to block closure of race-relations office

by Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Civil rights advocacy groups asked a federal judge on Friday to block the U.S. Justice Department from closing a 1960s-era office tasked with quelling racial and ethnic tensions in communities across America.

The lawsuit targets Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent decision to formally shut down the Community Relations Service (CRS), an agency created under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as part of a sweeping restructuring that represents the largest restructuring at the Department of Justice in two decades.

Known as “America’s Peacemaker,” the Community Relations Service worked to prevent violence and reduce conflict.

The Ministry of Justice declined to comment.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department told Reuters that closing CRS, along with several other offices, would save $11 million and make the U.S. government more efficient.

In Friday’s lawsuit, attorneys for the groups said the Justice Department “has expressed hostility toward the existence of CRS.”

“But instead of meeting with Congress to change the law, the defendants decided to unilaterally disband the CRS,” they said. “But the Constitution gives Congress the power to make laws and to establish or abolish institutions.”

The lawsuit alleges that the department’s decision to shut down CRS violated the 1964 civil rights act, the separation of powers and the Administrative Procedure Act, and states that the decision was made without any input from affected stakeholders.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Edmund Klamann)