Richard Epstein to Attorney General Eric Holder: Investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Attorney General Eric Holder recently declared his intent to beef up the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Writing in Forbes, University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein suggests the perfect target:
The key choice is whether to investigate alleged abuses by private or public bodies. Choose the latter. Perhaps the great mistake with the 1964 Civil Rights Act was to legislate as if public and private discrimination posed equal social threats. That approach made sense when Jim Crow forced private businesses to segregate on racial lines, but today's affirmative action, when voluntary, can aid the cause of racial integration without government coercion….
So just what is left for the revitalized Civil Rights Division to do? The division should target state and local governments that, free of any competitive market pressures, pose genuine risks of unchecked discrimination. A quick read of William Finnegan's "Profile: Sheriff Joe [Arpaio]" in The New Yorker certainly counts in my book as probable cause for a DOJ investigation. Remember, on race relations the libertarian insight still holds true. Race discrimination does not survive in competitive markets. But it does flourish when public officials exercise monopoly power without external supervision.
