US civil rights groups sue to block closure of race-relations office

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Civil rights advocacy groups on Friday asked a federal judge to block the U.S. Justice Department from shuttering a 1960s-era office that was tasked with quelling racial and ethnic tensions in communities across America.

The lawsuit takes aim at Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent decision to formally shut down the Community Relations Service (CRS), an institution created under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as part of a sweeping reorganization that represents the largest reshuffling at the Justice Department in two decades.

Known as “America’s Peacemaker,” the Community Relations Service worked to prevent violence and reduce conflicts.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department told Reuters that the closure of CRS, along with several other offices, would save $11 million and make the U.S. government more efficient.

In the lawsuit on Friday, lawyers for the groups said the Justice Department “has expressed hostility to CRS’s very existence.”

“Rather than engage with Congress to amend the law, however, defendants have decided to unilaterally dismantle CRS,” they said. “But the Constitution assigns to Congress the power to make laws and establish or eliminate agencies.”

The lawsuit alleges that the department’s decision to close CRS violates the 1964 civil rights law, the separation of powers and the Administrative Procedure Act, noting that the decision was made without any input from affected stakeholders.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Edmund Klamann)