Posted on 12/06/2004 9:25:45 AM PST by xsysmgr
Mary Frances Berry's term as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights ended at midnight Sunday, but as of this writing she maintains that her term doesn't end until January 21, 2005, and imperiously refuses to step down.
Her claim is nonsense. Her primary commission documents, signed by President Bill Clinton when he appointed her to her now-expired term, show that her term ended on December 5, 2004. If that alone wasn't enough, the Congressional Research Service issued an opinion to the House Oversight Committee to the same effect. Finally, the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals in U.S. ex rel. Kirsanow v. Wilson involving the specific issue of commissioner terms, uncontrovertibly instructs that her term ended Sunday.
Unimpressed, Berry clings to the seat she's held for almost 25 years, the last 12 as chairman. She's summarily cancelled this coming Friday's commission meeting in violation of federal regulations and over the strenuous objections of Republican commissioners. The action deflects a face-to-face confrontation between Berry and the newly appointed commissioners — at least momentarily.
None of this is particularly surprising to anyone who's followed the commission over the last dozen years. A culture of unaccountability has become an entrenched feature of the commission's administrative character. Numerous governmental reviews of the commission have concluded that the agency is wholly dysfunctional.
In 1997, a Government Accountability Office report noted that management is in disarray, projects are poorly managed and take years to complete, spending data isn't maintained by office, program, or function and the agency's policies and procedures are unclear. GAO couldn't even verify project spending because of the commission's indecipherable record keeping.
The Office of Personnel Management conducted two reviews of the commission in the 1990s. Yet despite evidence of pervasive management problems, the civil-rights commission failed to implement five of six substantive OPM recommendations.
The GAO's 2003 review of the commission showed that the commission had also failed to comply with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. The civil-rights commission has not updated its strategic plan since 1997.
Moreover, the commission has not had a full independent audit in at least 12 years. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution is currently investigating the commission's finances, management, and contracting practices. Good luck. Many commissioners have found the agency to be financially inscrutable.
The commission that was once known as "the conscience of the nation" has become a theater of the absurd. Anyone reading a transcript of a commission meeting might well believe it was authored by Lewis G. Carroll. Berry habitually releases to the public statements, reports, and press releases (usually critical of Republicans or at least consistent with her positions) that have been voted down previously by the commission as a whole.
Just last week she released a deeply flawed and biased report critical of the Bush administration's civil-rights record, despite the fact that such report had been rejected by the commission at its November 12 meeting (the report was originally scheduled for release just days before the presidential election but Republican commissioners succeeded in tabling it, noting that the report on the Clinton civil-rights record wasn't released until after his second term, expressly to avoid politicization). Why even vote on reports if the chairman will simply issue them as she sees fit?
The commission's mounting problems have caused the chorus of those who contend that the agency has outlived its usefulness to become larger and louder. I don't agree with them. While it becomes increasingly difficult to defend the commission's usefulness, it could function as the nation's conscience if its deliberative processes were rational, open, and fair; its findings objective, unbiased, and unimpeachable; and its membership fully engaged in framing, shaping, and drafting its reports. As the Washington Post recently editorialized, "a serious, rigorous commission could create breathing space for creative civil rights dialogue unbeholden to the orthodoxies of either the left or the right."
By engaging an independent audit, implementing structural forms, and adopting sound GAO recommendations, the commission would be taking the first steps toward becoming the kind of agency described by the Washington Post. But not before Ms. Berry observes the rule of law and steps down.
— Peter Kirsanow is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Yeah Mary is Hillarie's good buddy. The illegal January date was intended to allow her to hang on till Kerry came to the rescue and could re-appoint her somehow. Now she has to hang on until Hilliary in 2008.
She is in the wonderland of job for life mode. I am certain she thinks no one should be allowed to try to do her job. or that she would surely go to jail if the records are ever seen by a successor.
End it, don't mend it.
Mary Berry, quite contrary,
How did your office grow?
With help from Bill's and Jackson's shills
But now it's time for you to go.
Actually, seeing her hauled away in handcuffs is EXACTLY what we need to see, and it would be worth thousands of new votes.
Ping xena...knew this would get you excited! LOL
MARY FRANCES BERRY
Chairperson
Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought
Professor of History and Adjunct Professor of Law
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
POLITICAL AFFILIATION: INDEPENDENT
Mary Frances Berry became Chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on November 19, 1993. An Independent, she was reappointed to the Commission by the President in January 1999.
Dr. Berry is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was a Vice Chair of the Civil Rights Commission in 1980-82, and has been a Commissioner since that time.
Dr. Berry was the 1990-91 president of the Organization of American Historians. She served as the Assistant Secretary for Education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) from April 1977 until January 1980. For a period she also served as Acting U.S. Commissioner on Education.
As Assistant Secretary for Education, Dr. Berry headed the Education Division of HEW and administered an annual budget of nearly $13 billion. In this role, she coordinated and gave general supervision to the National Institute of Education, the Office of Education, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, the Institute of Museum Services, and the National Center for Education Statistics.
Prior to her service at HEW, Dr. Berry was Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder where she was also professor of History and Law. She was Provost of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park, prior to her selection as Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has held faculty appointments at Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Michigan, and Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Berry was born in Nashville, Tennessee, where she attended public schools. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Howard University, a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan, and the juris doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School. She is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.
Dr. Berry has received 32 honorary doctoral degrees and numerous awards for her public service and scholarly activities, including the NAACP's Roy Wilkins Award, the Rosa Parks Award of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Ebony Magazine Black Achievement Award. She is one of 75 women featured in I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America. Sienna College Research Institute and the Women's Hall of Fame designated her one of "America's Women of the Century."
Dr. Berry is the author of a number of articles and essays as well as seven books including The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present; Long Memory: The Black Experience in America (with co-author John W. Blassingame); Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women's Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution; and The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women's Rights and the Myth of the Good Mother.
She was there for 25 years and no one cared. Now y'all are getting all riled up over another month? Let it pass. She will be gone before most throw the Xmas tree away.
And here we have, in a nutshell, an illustration of the complete affirmative action, peter principle, failure cycle. This bitch has been afforded every opportunity and courtesy, deserved or not, and still she has the social graces of a crack ho. When are we going to wise up?
Translation: Berry is robbing the taxpayers blind.
I was trying to remember what she did before too. Here it is:
December 11, 2001
Mary Frances Berry: Civil rights bully
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/lindachavez/lc20011211.shtml
It has now become a matter of principle. She should be forcibly removed if necessary. She wants to ignore the rules, but the rules must be enforced.
I seen her in another interview. I have to agree. She is extremely bitter, extremely hateful and a completely intolerant leftist. She is evil. Like I state before, give people like her the power of Stalin and mass numbers of people would be murdered. She has a totalitarian mindset and luckily she has no real power. To say she is hateful is an understatement. Just think, all this time she has been paid with our tax dollars. That's a sin.
She'll leave next week, as soon as the federal government stops her pay checks.
Post guards at the door and don't let this heinous lesbo enter the offices and hearing rooms. Clean out her office stuff and put it in storage where she has to pay for all moving expenses to get hold of it.
Voila! Problem solved
Thanks, Recall:
The Kirshanow appointment was Berry at her worst. She didn't recognize his appointment. Said he could sit in on mettings, but not speak until her "official" date of appointment in January.
Personally, I'd love to see Berry fired and disgraced.
Jack.
Ah, now it is a matter of principle! After 25 years of abuse it suddenly is a "matter of principle"!
I was actually making a rather shallow observation about her appearance. She looks nearly identical to the former California gubernatorial candidate Gary Coleman I didn't post the photo as I didn't want to steal the bandwidth and find the photo replaced with an X-rated alternative.
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