NAACP, civil rights teams strain Biden to nominate extra Black officers to senior Cupboard posts
The NAACP urges Biden to appoint more black officials to high-level cabinet posts.
December 4, 2020, 6:43 p.m.
6 min read
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The NAACP, along with prominent civil rights organizations and members of Congress, is putting pressure on President-elect Joe Biden to appoint more black officials to high-level cabinet positions.
President-elect Biden has appointed several black people to key positions in the administration, including two African-American women in positions that are not considered permanent cabinet positions.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield was selected for the post of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations – a position that came and went from cabinet and returned to non-cabinet position after Ambassador Nikki Haley left the Trump administration in 2018.
President-elect Biden also appointed Princeton University economist Cecilia Rouse to chair the White House Council of Economic Advisers, another role that President Trump removed from his current cabinet structure when he first took office.
Given President-elect Biden’s promise to increase the priorities of minority communities in the campaign, civil rights groups clearly want to see more minorities in the subordinate cabinet roles overseeing agencies with thousands of federal employees.
Among the African-American candidates for other top cabinet seats are former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Attorney General, and former Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, who heads the Pentagon.
“We definitely hope to see African Americans in secretarial positions. Minister of Defense, Agriculture and Transport,” said Black Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Karen Bass in an interview on CNN. “You should know that we were in touch with the administration every week.”
However, Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, said he was amazed that the Biden transition team had not invited the civil rights organization to participate in the cabinet appointment selection process.
“If you look at the transition team, there isn’t a single civil rights organization on any of the review committees,” said Johnson. “There was no involvement of the civil rights community or the advocates of racial justice to be part of the table that sets out how this government will prioritize the four pillars it has announced.”
The Biden transition states that the new government is in regular contact with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss planning, including recommendations for potential candidates, and has partnered with the National Urban League and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund.
“The legal protection fund is not part of an off-call conversation,” Johnson said. “So I don’t want you to analyze the reality of what happened.”
The NAACP is now expecting a meeting with President-elect Biden, Vice-President-elect Harris and members of their transition team on Tuesday.
The Hispanic Caucus of Congress, which met with senior officials from the Biden transition team on Thursday to discuss the cabinet appointment, praised the appointment of Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorka to head the Department of Homeland Security as a “fantastic choice” after the “cruelty and Devastation from “the Trump Administration. “
“I’m encouraged by what I see in the cabinet election,” said Chuck Rocha, a prominent Latino Democrat who worked on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ main campaign. “It sends a strong signal starting with the highest Latino on Homeland Security who is literally an immigrant.”
There is a clear sense of frustration among some members of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress at the treatment of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She was reportedly offered the position of Home Secretary but was turned down.
“Your job is to push me,” President-elect Biden said in an interview with CNN. “My job is to keep my commitment. To make the decisions. And when it’s all over, people will take a look and say, I promise you, you will see the most diverse cabinet, representatives of all people, Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ, down the line. And I think they’ll all be out in the next month or so. “
ABC News’s Ben Siegel contributed to coverage of this article.
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