The Justice Department’s civil rights division, which is charged with enforcing federal antidiscrimination laws, has been sued by an African-American employee who says it created a hostile work environment and violated the rights of its own employees.

Joi Hyatte, who works in the voting rights section, states in the lawsuit that her boss subjected her and other African American employees to “numerous forms of discrimination and harassment.”

The suit, filed May 29 in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleges that supervisors used special hiring programs to circumvent regular procedures and avoid giving African Americans on staff an opportunity to apply for analyst jobs.

Hyatte, a 13-year veteran of the department who received outstanding evaluations, says in the suit that she was “repeatedly denied the opportunity to apply and compete” for promotions because she is African American.  

A few weeks after her suit was filed, the Justice Department’s inspector general issued its own report stating that applicant screeners for the department had illegally used political or ideological factors in a recruitment program, preferring law school graduates with conservative credentials to those with more liberal political ties.

The impact of these unlawful hiring preferences on workforce demographics, and minority hiring, was not made clear in that report. The inspector general launched an investigation after the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees received an anonymous letter from a group of DOJ employees stating that the hiring process for the honors program had been politicized.

Hyatte seeks no less than $1 million in compensatory damages, as well as a promotion, attorney fees, and other relief the court may deem just and proper. Officials for DOJ referred calls for comment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. However, the office did not return phone calls by deadline.

“As part of these practices, DOJ actively recruited and hired only Caucasian and Latino candidates from outside the government for analyst positions in Section 5, despite the availability of qualified and trained African American employees, like Ms. Hyatte, who had repeatedly expressed interest in the positions,” the suit states, adding that some of those workers were unqualified.

Furthermore, the suit states that the voting division failed to adequately address complaints of mistreatment by minority workers, and that it created a hostile work environment. The suit raises specific questions about the abilities of John Tanner, the voting section chief, and Yvette Rivera, Hyatte’s direct supervisor, to manage a multicultural workforce. Tanner was openly hostile to African-American employees, the suit says. While “Ms. Rivera made clear to all of the voting section employees that she did not trust African American employees to act honestly and diligently,” the suit states.

Last year Tanner made a number of remarks that sparked an outcry from employees as well as minority leaders. While speaking before the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles, for instance, Tanner downplayed the impact of voter identification requirements on minorities by saying, “Our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do; they die first.”

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and other elected officials called for Tanner to be fired. He resigned from the voting rights post in December.

According to the suit, the racially hostile work environment at DOJ also contributed significantly to Hyatte’s emotional and mental suffering, which the suit says included, but was not limited to, anxiety, embarrassment, humiliation, despair, anger and loss of faith in her employer.

“Ms. Hyatte was diagnosed with high blood pressure in 2006 and diabetes in 2007. These conditions were caused partially by work-related stress,” the suit says.