Reagan-Appointed Judge On Race: ‘Eleanor Roosevelt Said Staffs Of One Color Always Work Better’

By Ian Millhiser

A Texas civil rights group filed a complaint against Judge Lynn N. Hughes, a Ronald Reagan-appointee to a federal district court in Texas, criticizing his “outlandish racial comments” in a case brought by a South Asian man alleging employment discrimination:

At one point, during a hearing in a racial discrimination case, Hughes reportedly said, “Eleanor Roosevelt said staffs of one color always work better.”

During the same hearing, Hughes also reportedly questioned the role of diversity programs.

“Why don’t they just hire people and let diversity take care of itself?” Hughes asked, according to the group’s complaint. “And what does the diversity director do? Go around and painting (sic) students different colors so that they would think they were mixed?”

Judge Hughes also claimed in the hearing that South Asians are “Causcausian” and that this explains “why Adolph Hitler used the swastika.”

This is the second time in just the past month that Hughes has come under attack for his questionable views on race. Last month, the severely conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit criticized Hughes for concluding that the statement “(i)f President Obama’s elected, they’re going to have to take the Statute of Liberty and put a piece of fried chicken in his (sic) hand” had nothing to do with race. According to Hughes, “no black individually and no blacks collectively owns [sic] the sensitivity rights to fried chicken or anything else.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/07/1554141/reagan-appointed-judge-on-race-eleanor-roosevelt-said-staffs-of-one-color-always-work-better/