This evening, Attorney General Eric Holder joined President Obama and other government officials at the “Together We Thrive: Tucson and America”  – a memorial event in remembrance of the victims of Saturday’s mass shooting in Arizona.

As part of the remembrance, the Attorney General read the following passage from the New Testament:

A Reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (4:13-5:1)

 Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we too believe, and so we speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.

 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 

 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

 This is the word of the Lord.

All of those who were killed or injured and their families continue to remain in our thoughts and prayers.

The following post appears courtesy of Laurie O. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs.

Today’s announcement that the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has partnered with Facebook to distribute AMBER Alerts to its members will expand the reach of these important, live-saving alerts.

The AMBER Alert system began 15 years ago in Arlington, Texas, when local broadcasters joined with law enforcement in the aftermath of Amber Hagerman’s abduction and murder, and it has evolved to include law enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, the wireless industry, and others who have joined with us to expand the reach of AMBER Alerts.

Since then the AMBER Alert program has helped find and safely recover 525 abducted children. Real people – terrified children, frightened parents, dedicated law enforcement offices and vigilant community members – are behind these numbers. Last October in California, a gang member grabbed an eight-year-old girl while she playing in front of her house. Her horrified mother ran after the truck, but it was too late. A statewide AMBER Alert was issued. Luckily, a member of the community was watching the local news and saw the AMBER Alert message. When he later spotted the suspect’s car, he followed it and, ultimately, helped to stop the kidnapper from fleeing and to rescue the child.

The new Facebook pages will include one main page as well as 53 local pages, one for each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. By signing up to become a “fan” of the appropriate page, Facebook users can receive AMBER Alerts issued in their regions. Today’s press conference will be streamed live and archived on the Washington, D.C., Facebook page Livestream player at http://on.fb.me/FBDClive. It also can be viewed at http://www.livestream.com/facebookdclive.

As the National AMBER Alert Coordinator, I am pleased to see the growth of the program’s national network. I would like to thank the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Facebook for working together to develop another way the public can join with us to bring home missing and abducted children. We can all play our part by being aware and responsive to AMBER Alert postings that we will now see on Facebook.

The Justice Department recently submitted a mandatory report to Congress summarizing the unprecedented efforts undertaken to protect the voting rights of military and overseas voters for the November 2, 2010, Federal general election through its enforcement of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE Act), which amended the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens and Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).

Through the aggressive enforcement of the MOVE Act, the Attorney General initiated litigation or out-of-court agreements in 11 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia. As a result of the Department’s actions, thousands of military and overseas voters had a reasonable opportunity to cast their vote this year despite the failure of some election officials to timely send their ballots.

The Department’s actions included:

Enforcement actions in States that were denied and granted waivers:

The MOVE Act requires states to transmit validly-requested absentee ballots to UOCAVA voters no later than 45 days before a Federal election when the request has been received by that date, except where the state has been granted an undue-hardship waiver for the election pursuant to the Act. The Department of Defense (DoD) is responsible for approving or denying requests for waivers. This year, DoD issued the following determinations on 11 waiver applications:

Denied Waivers: Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Wisconsin.

Approved Waivers: Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Washington.

Immediately following the waiver determinations, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division advised the six jurisdictions that were denied waivers of plans to take court action, if necessary, to enforce compliance with the 45-day mailing requirement. The Department filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin, which was resolved by a consent decree filed with the complaint, and reached agreements with the remaining five jurisdictions (Alaska, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands) to ensure that military and overseas voters had enough time to submit ballots for the upcoming election.

New York was granted a waiver by DoD, and failed to issue ballots in numerous counties across the state by the October 1, 2010, deadline allowed by the waiver. In order to ensure that military and overseas voters had the opportunity to participate in the November 2010 election, the Department filed a lawsuit against New York and reached an agreement in the form of a consent decree to provide additional time, until November 24, 2010, for receipt of ballots.

Enforcement actions in States that did not seek waivers:

In advance of the 45-day deadline, the Department contacted each of the remaining states and territories that did not seek waivers to remind them of the MOVE Act’s ballot transmission deadline, to inquire whether any ballot delays were anticipated, and to request that they confirm to the Voting Section that their localities had timely transmitted their UOCAVA ballots. The Department subsequently filed and resolved lawsuits or obtained out of court memorandum or letter agreements to enforce the 45-day requirement with Guam, Illinois, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, Nevada and North Dakota.

Other litigation:

The Department concluded its 2008 litigation against the Commonwealth of Virginia upon the Federal district court’s recent entry of a Consent Decree requiring remedial measures for future Federal elections.

The brave men and women who serve our nation in the military deserve to know that they will have access to the ballot and that their votes will be counted, regardless of where they are stationed. The Department is committed to assessing the causes of the states’ failures to timely mail ballots to military and overseas voters last year, and requiring states to take the steps needed to ensure compliance with UOCAVA for future Federal elections.

Read the 2010 United States Department of Justice Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act Annual Report to Congress

The following post appears courtesy of Susan B. Carbon, Director of the Office on Violence Against Women

January’s observance as national stalking awareness month gives me an opportunity to join with our federal, national, local and individual partners to once again focus on a crime that affects over one million adults in America every year.

The statistics reflect, but often do not measure, the toll that this crime takes on the emotional, professional, academic and personal lives of its victims. In fact, stalking is not limited to those over 18 and is experienced by many adolescents and teens.

Friends, families and communities are affected by this complex and often dangerous crime, sometimes mischaracterized as harmless or misinterpreted as expressions of concern and even love. Stalking is often hard to recognize. Sometimes, considered as bothersome and intrusive, it is ignored. Technological advances are an added tool used by stalkers to intimidate and control their victims. Many do not report their experiences to law enforcement because it is not immediately recognized as a crime. Some are unaware that it is defined as such in every state.

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) believes that the motto to “KNOW IT, NAME IT, AND STOP IT” captures the focus of January’s awareness campaign. Emotional responses to stalking include feeling afraid, vulnerable, anxious, depressed, stressed, unsafe and confused. The Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime —launched in 2000 in partnership with OVW —provides resources to victims and those who respond and support them. The awareness campaigns are a call to action to speak out about the crime, report it and engage others in an ongoing dialogue. Educating ourselves and each other is an important step to encouraging and supporting victims to report the crime and stop the abuse.

As President Obama said in his Stalking Awareness Month Proclamation, “Stalking affects too many Americans to remain a hidden crime, and a strong stand is required in order to both support victims and hold perpetrators accountable.”

We join with the President and the Attorney General in getting out the word about this serious crime and continuing our commitment throughout this month and the coming year.

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Tom Perez today joined students at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, Md., to talk about bullying and harassment in schools. He focused on the Department’s work to address harassment and protect the civil rights of all students.

Blake High School has 1,800 students, and today’s event was presented with the support of Blake High School’s administration and the Blake Alliance for Equality, which is the school’s gay-straight alliance.

The event featured remarks from Assistant Attorney General Perez in which he discussed how bullying takes all shapes and forms and encouraged students to take an active role in combating bullying. He noted that in addition to bringing cases, we also need to address the attitudes and behavior that lead to bullying. AAG Perez also took questions from students and showed a video recently produced by Civil Rights Division staff as a submission to the “It Gets Better” Project. The project, started in the wake of a string of suicides of LGBT students who had been targeted with severe harassment, is an effort to let all students who are subjected to bullying and harassment, and particularly LGBT students, know that life will get better.

At the conclusion of the event, students had the opportunity to sign the “It Gets Better” pledge, which focuses on speaking up against hate and intolerance wherever it occurs and providing hope for all bullied teens by letting them know it gets better.

For its part, the Justice Department is committed to using its authority to combat harassment in schools, and has worked over the last year to do so.

In December, for example, the Division announced a settlement agreement with the Philadelphia School District addressing complaints of race, color and national origin-based harassment of Asian students at South Philadelphia High School, and allegations that the District was deliberately indifferent to the severe and pervasive harassment endured by these students. The complaints alleged persistent harassment, including an incident in December 2009, in which approximately 30 Asian students were attacked and approximately 13 were sent to the hospital emergency room. Under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, school districts are required to protect students from harassment based on race, color, sex, national origin or religion.

The settlement requires the District to take systemic action to reform its policies to address harassment and to curb future harassment of students. The agreement should serve as a model for other districts as they work to address and combat harassment in their schools.

In another recent case, the Civil Rights Division last year intervened in the case of an openly gay teenager from Mohawk County, New York. For two and a half years, the student was a victim of severe and pervasive student-on-student harassment because he failed to conform to gender stereotypes. From 2007 until 2009, the harassment escalated from derogatory name-calling to physical threats and violence. The student’s grades suffered. He had multiple absences because he did not feel safe at school, and he dropped one of his favorite courses to avoid one of his harassers. The complaint alleged that the district was deliberately indifferent in its failure to take action – neither fully investigating the allegations, nor following its anti-harassment policies and procedures. The failure to address and prevent this kind of bullying not only violated the student’s right to be free of harassment in school, but also reinforced intolerant and hateful behavior by allowing it to go unpunished. A settlement reached in the case requires the school district to, among other things, retain an expert consultant to review policies related to harassment, and train faculty and staff annually on discrimination and harassment.

These are just a few examples of how the Justice Department can use its authority to combat harassment in schools. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division works to ensure that all students are provided equal educational opportunities. Through its enforcement of federal civil rights laws, the Division protects students from harassment based on race, national origin, sex, disability, and religion. Sex discrimination includes sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination and harassment, including discrimination or harassment based on non-conformity with gender stereotypes. If you or a student you know is being harassed or discriminated against, please contact the Division’s Educational Opportunities Section. Visit http://www.justice.gov/crt/edo/ or call us at (877) 292-3804.

The following post is authored by the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder

As the son of an immigrant, I grew up in New York City with a deep appreciation for the ideals that, since America’s earliest days, have defined our nation.  Like so many who have set out for America’s shores, my father and both of my mother’s parents arrived here from Barbados in search of a better life and greater opportunity – for themselves and their children.

Looking back, I can see that their dream was the American Dream.  But looking around, I can see that, today, this dream is fading for too many deserving young people who, through no fault of their own, lack documentation – and, therefore, are being denied opportunity.

That is why the DREAM Act must be passed. 

This critical legislation would provide new pathways for service and learning.  And it would bring extraordinary individuals out of the shadows, where – despite their efforts to contribute and their determination to succeed – they have been relegated for far too long.

Like my father – who served as a Master Sergeant in the United States Army – many young and courageous Americans want nothing more than to strengthen their nation and to improve their own futures.  Why should we say no?  Why should someone who grew up in America, speaks English, holds degrees from one or more of our schools, and shows – time and again – a commitment to citizenship have to forgo a productive future?

There is no good reason.

The DREAM Act would do more than expand opportunities for learning and public service for young people across the country.  It would also benefit every American by helping establish a new generation of young people grounded in our nation’s finest traditions and and its founding principles.

One of those principles is equal opportunity.  Today, for so many, that opportunity now rests in the hands of Congress.  And so I urge our elected representatives to act.  I urge them to do the right thing.  Put simply, I urge Congress to allow us to continue to tell a story about our country that makes us all proud – as my father was – to be American.