The Nation - News from Nov. 10, 1988

Justice Department official William Bradford Reynolds, who championed the Reagan Administration’s controversial civil rights policies for more than seven years, announced that he is resigning effective Dec. 9. Reynolds said he probably will remain in the Washington area to practice law and is discussing job possibilities with a number of private firms. In a letter to Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, Reynolds said that “our uncompromising adherence to the principle of nondiscrimination has brought us noticeably closer” to judging people by “the content of their character, not the color of their skin.” The latter quote came from the 1963 “I have a dream” speech by slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but it was not attributed to King in the letter. Reynolds spearheaded the Reagan Administration’s opposition to affirmative action hiring and promotion programs and other anti-discrimination tools that had been at the heart of federal civil rights policies since the 1960s.