During Congress' Easter recess, President George W. Bush opted to bypass the Senate confirmation process and appoint Gerald A. Reynolds, a young, black lawyer and vocal opponent of affirmative action policies, to head the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education.
Since September, the 38-year-old Reynolds has been acting as a consultant for the Department of Education. Prior to that, he worked as the senior regulatory council for Kansas City Power & Light, where he oversaw federal contracts and sought permits from regulatory agencies.
As former president of the Center for New Black Leadership, a group that speaks out against affirmative action and other minority preference policies, Reynolds has drawn fire from several civil rights groups and Democrats who question his credentials.
"It's disturbing to have someone enforcing the civil rights laws who is also an opponent of civil rights laws," said Julian Bond, national chairman of the NAACP and a University lecturer.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. and chairman of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, expressed his own disapproval of Reynolds' candidacy following a Feb. 26 confirmation hearing.
Kennedy and other Democrats felt Reynolds lacked education policy experience and was overly hostile to civil rights laws.
According to the New York Times, Reynolds testified during the hearing that he would uphold "affirmative action programs that are consistent with the Constitution," indicating his preference to work toward narrowing the performance gap between black and white students so as to end the need for preferential treatment of minorities in applicant pools.
As one of five recess appointments Bush made from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Reynolds will be allowed to fill the position without Senate approval until the end of this year's Congressional session.
However, in spite of the controversy surrounding Reynolds, his appointment did not surprise political analysts.
"This has been a pattern for the Bush administration and other administrations. They want to appoint African-Americans because they will be heavily criticized if they do not," Politics Prof. Larry J. Sabato said. "They then tend to appoint people who are conservative."
The committee is expected to vote soon on whether to recommend Reynold's confirmation. Senate observers anticipate an even partisan split between the panel's 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, which would leave the deciding vote in the hands of Sen. James M. Jeffords, an independent from Vermont.
Jeffords has not yet said if he supports or opposes the nomination.
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