Jennifer A. Serafyn is a lawyer in Boston and the former chief of the Civil Rights Unit at the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
After nearly 10 years, the civil rights unit at the US Attorney’s Office in Boston was recently dismantled. I had the privilege and honor to serve as the first and only chief of that unit. Massachusetts has always been a leader in civil rights, from the abolition movement to marriage equality. That history makes the elimination of federal civil rights enforcement here especially troubling, and it leaves a void that community organizations and advocates will struggle to fill.
Our job was to enforce federal civil rights laws in Massachusetts, to ensure that no one was discriminated against because of their race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin. We didn’t have a political agenda. Rather, our guiding principle was simple: Protect all the rights, for all the people, all the time. This is not controversial or “woke.” It’s what the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution mandates: that all laws are applied equally. We did our work regardless of which political event occupied the White House.
Under US attorneys appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, we handled cases as varied as they were vital. We secured the first federal finding of sexual misconduct by police officers, against the Worcester Police Department. We broke new ground on disability rights, reaching the first settlement in US history involving discrimination based on medication for opioid use disorder — critical work as Massachusetts grappled with the opioid epidemic. We investigated allegations of race discrimination and harassment at Boston Latin School. And as we handled scores of other cases, the unit became one of the most robust and productive units among the 94 US attorney’s offices across the country.
After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, Trump-appointed US Attorney Andrew Lelling approved virtually every civil rights investigation we proposed. Under his leadership, we conducted the only police misconduct investigation during the first Trump administration. Lelling understood that law enforcement should be apolitical. And for nearly a decade it was.
But the unit was disbanded this year — a move that came as the Trump administration has radically reshaped the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, with about 70 percent of its lawyers departing, according to an NPR report. The US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey also disbanded its civil rights division.
Of course, every administration has priorities, and US attorneys, who serve at the pleasure of the president, typically pursue those set forth by the US attorney general. You may see more drug prosecutions in Republican administrations, for example, and more white-collar prosecutions in Democratic administrations. Yet that doesn’t mean laws should be disregarded wholesale. It is hard to imagine a US attorney disbanding a drug unit or public corruption unit.
And our unit’s work wasn’t expendable. While Massachusetts has excellent advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law, and our state attorney general’s office has a strong civil rights division, none of these entities wields the unique power of the federal government. Some laws have no private right of action, so only the federal government can investigate or bring lawsuits under them. While there are some state analogs to federal statutes, they are not exact matches, so even the state attorney general’s office cannot fill the gap left by the dismantling of the civil rights unit.
Only the Department of Justice can investigate police departments for patterns or practices of misconduct. Individual officers can be sued for specific incidents, but only the DOJ can examine systematic problems and mandate department-wide reforms through policies and training. When we investigated Springfield’s police department, we weren’t just addressing isolated incidents, we were working to transform an entire institution.
Similarly, the DOJ has exclusive authority to investigate school desegregation. When we found evidence of racial harassment and discrimination at Boston Latin School, the US Attorney’s Office could do something no private organization could: compel systemic change through federal enforcement power.
During my tenure, I saw firsthand how much was gained when the federal government made civil rights a priority. It sent a message: The US Attorney’s Office values equality and will devote resources to protecting the rights of all. Our work reassured the community, particularly those who are most vulnerable and least heard, that someone was watching and listening and that civil rights violations would no longer be ignored. That trust took years to build, and its loss may be irreparable.
Being an assistant US attorney was my dream job, and it breaks my heart to leave. My colleagues in the Civil Rights Unit either left or were reassigned. My last official day was Sept. 30. There were many cases we were investigating that will likely fade away. Sadly, if your civil rights are violated, there may be no one at the federal level left to call.
That does not mean the work of civil rights enforcement is over. The fight for equality has never rested on one office alone. It has always been carried forward by people and institutions willing to insist that our laws live up to their promise. Until the federal government recommits to that responsibility, it falls to us as community members, lawyers, advocates, and educators to keep pushing for the fairness and justice that all people deserve.
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