Caroline Brehman, Brandon Bell/Getty Images
- Merrick Garland emphatically stated Monday that the US does not have equal justice under the law.
- Sen. Cory Booker asked Garland if systemic racism influences outcomes in criminal justice.
- “Senator, there is no question to me that there is disparate treatment in our justice system.”
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Judge Merrick Garland acknowledged systemic racism as a reality and said the United States is not living up to its standard of equal justice under the law during his attorney general confirmation hearing on Monday.
Garland, who was tapped by President Joe Biden to serve as attorney general after his Supreme Court nomination was derailed by Senate Republicans in the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency, made a sharp departure from his potential predecessor with the comments.
“Sadly, it’s plain to me that it does not,” Garland told Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey when asked if the US truly has equal justice under the law. “Senator, there is no question to me that there is disparate treatment in our justice system.”
—CBS News (@CBSNews) February 22, 2021
Garland made a similar point during his opening remarks.
“We do not yet have equal justice,” Garland said. “Communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, in education, in employment and in the criminal justice system. And they bear the brunt of the harm caused by a pandemic, pollution and climate change.”
During his time running the DOJ under the Trump administration former Attorney General Bill Barr said the opposite, describing how the US had moved on from its "explicitly racist" past during a CBS interview back in June 2020.
"I think there's racism in the United States still but I don't think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist," Barr said.
In his opening remarks on Monday, Garland said that the DOJ's civil rights mission "remains urgent because we do not yet have equal justice."