The Justice Department just shattered a 44-year barrier to merit-based hiring in federal jobs.
Breitbart reported that on Monday, the Civil Rights Division ended a consent decree from a 1979 lawsuit, allowing civil service exams to return after decades of flawed diversity-driven policies.
Back in 1979, during the Carter administration, Angel Luevano sued the Office of Personnel Management, claiming the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE) discriminated against Black and Hispanic applicants.
The lawsuit, Luevano v. Director, Office of Personnel Management, led to a 1981 consent decree that banned PACE, halting civil service exams for federal hiring.
Luevano, who scored 80 on PACE, was denied job referrals because only perfect scores of 100 were considered, a system critics later called overly rigid.
For 44 years, the decree forced federal hiring to rely on alternatives like the Outstanding Scholar Program, which skewed heavily—70% of its beneficiaries were White.
In March 2025, the Trump administration moved to terminate the decree, arguing it stifled talent acquisition in favor of outdated equity theories.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon cheered the decision, stating, “This decree has hampered the federal government from hiring the top talent of our nation.”
Dhillon’s claim holds water—decades of hiring without exams prioritized identity over ability, leaving federal agencies stuck with subpar recruitment methods. “It’s simple, competence and merit are the standards by which we should all be judged,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, echoing a call to focus on character, not race.
Pirro’s nod to MLK’s timeless principle stings when you consider how diversity policies often sideline raw talent for checkbox quotas.
Last week, attorneys hashed it out with a U.S. District Court judge in D.C., paving the way for the decree’s end on August 4. Angel Luevano, the original plaintiff, defended the decree’s impact: “The Decree has had its usefulness and a tremendous effect on the country.”
“Millions of minorities and women hold jobs because of that class action lawsuit,” Luevano added, insisting it wasn’t just DEI but broadly beneficial.
Yet, Luevano’s pride in opening doors ignores how the Outstanding Scholar Program disproportionately favored White applicants, undermining her argument.
Luevano also said, “I’m extremely proud of the effect that it has had on federal hires,” crediting the lawsuit for her own Labor Department career. Her sentiment is heartfelt, but clinging to a system that sidelined exams for decades reeks of nostalgia over progress.
The Justice Department called the old hiring practices “flawed and outdated,” a polite way of saying DEI dogma choked out competence.
Ending the decree signals a return to judging candidates by their skills, not their identity—a win for fairness in a bureaucracy long tangled in progressive red tape. The move doesn’t erase the past but corrects a system that, while well-intentioned, often rewarded optics over ability.
Federal hiring now has a chance to prioritize the best and brightest, unshackled from a 44-year experiment that lost its way.
“Today, the Justice Department removed that barrier and reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit—not race,” Dhillon declared. Her words cut through the haze of identity politics, offering a clear path forward: hire the qualified, not the quota.
