Note to Alabama AG ‘Big Luther’: Stop Acting So Small
At 6-foot-9, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange would have towered over the diminutive George Wallace, the state’s segregationist governor during the violent days of the civil rights movement.
But lately, the attorney general has been looking equally small.
When Wallace stood in the “schoolhouse door” to stop African-American students from enrolling in the University of Alabama, it was all for show. In a carefully choreographed scene, Wallace stepped aside when confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney Nicholas Katzenbach and the National Guard.
Wallace’s infamous obstructionism that day in 1963 was nothing more than a symbolic gesture to satisfy the state’s segregationist voters. With Strange, we can only hope that his position is similar political posturing.
The issue today is Strange’s reaction to a request by the U.S. Justice Department for data on school absences and withdrawals in the wake of Alabama’s harsh new immigration law. Among its many anti-immigrant provisions, HB 56 requires schools to ask children about their immigration status and that of their parents. The Department’s request came in response to widespread civil rights complaints that Latino children are now scared to go to school.
Strange responded by questioning the Justice Department’s “legal authority” to make such a request, thus inviting the type of comparison to Wallace’s schoolhouse stand made by The New York Times in a Nov. 5 editorial.
We have known Strange for many years. And we know without question that he recognizes that the Justice Department has all the legal authority it needs.
We also know, without question, that the Justice Department has good reason to investigate the ongoing crisis in Alabama.