Remembering Former Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division

Former Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger of the Civil Rights Division died on Nov. 27th in Princeton, New Jersey. He was 84 years old.

Mr. Pottinger’s career was extraordinarily varied, marked by success as a banker, attorney and best-selling novelist. Before leading the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, he oversaw civil rights at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. In that role, his dedication to his work was exceptional. He concluded reviewing reports would not afford him sufficient understanding of the efforts to educate children in migrant labor camps, so he and his family went to live in one for weeks.

He led the Civil Rights Division from 1973 to 1977, during the Ford and Carter Administrations. Notably, during that time he worked to ensure equal employment opportunities for people of color and women. He fought as well for school desegregation in the South. 

Mr. Pottinger’s efforts to safeguard voting rights were notable. In 1974, Mr. Pottinger raised a Section 5 objection to a redistricting map for New York City. He found that a proposed Congressional district encompassing the Bedford‐Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn would “overly concentrate[e] black neighborhoods . . . while simultaneously fragmenting adjoining black and Puerto Rican concentrations into the surrounding majority white districts.” That district was represented by Shirley Chisolm. In 1975, Mr. Pottinger testified before Congress in favor of reauthorizing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Urging a five‐year extension of the Act, he applauded the increased access by Black people to electoral opportunity, but he urged strongly that “more needs to be done.”

Mr. Pottinger played a critical role in addressing many of the searing crises of his time. He served as the chief negotiator during the American Indian Movement standoff at the Pine Ridge Reservation town of Wounded Knee. He re-opened an investigation into the 1970 student protests and resulting fatalities at Kent State University and Jackson State University. And he investigated the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program.

During dark times for the country, he understood “there was so much at stake that everything you did had impact.”

Mr. Pottinger was tenacious in all his pursuits, a quality exemplified by key piece of advice he dispensed throughout his career: “Until you exhaust your ability to ask questions, have you really done the job?” Just two years ago, on Dec. 6, 2022, Mr. Pottinger, alongside other former division leaders, joined in the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Civil Rights Division to reflect on his time at the department.

Benjamin Disraeli said that the legacy of heroes is “the inheritance of a great example.” We have inherited a great example from Mr. Pottinger. We should draw strength and inspiration from it, from his commitment to the division’s work, and from his dedication to the principles of justice and equality under the law.