By reader acclaim: great moments in “targeted disabilities”

The federal government is seeking applicants who are mentally ill, mentally retarded or both to work as lawyers in the Justice Department. Specifically, a job announcement for “up to 10 experienced attorneys for the position of Trial Attorney in the Voting Section in Washington, D.C.” contains the following language:

The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine. Applicants who meet the qualification requirements and are able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation are encouraged to identify targeted disabilities in response to the questions in the Avue application system seeking that information.

[via Eugene Volokh and many others]

9 Comments

  • Maybe this is what Rahm Emanuel had in mind! 🙂

  • Let the jokes about retarded government lawyers begin now!

  • I’m pitching this to David E. Kelly –

    It’s a show about a group of young, eager, deaf, blind, lawyers, missing extremities, suffering partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, and severe distortion of limbs and/or spine.

    It’ll have plenty of snappy dialogue, romantic sparks, inter-office power struggles, and some of the most interesting office sex ever shown on television.

    But I need a good title…

  • This is evidently just a continuation of the Bush administration policy that resulted in those opinions saying that torture is legal.

  • Um, Bill Poser…what does your post have to do with the price of rice in China? (In other words: How does your post apply to the thread you wrote it to?)

  • anyone who has followed me at this blog knows that i am pretty hardcore on the ADA, but yeah, that is pretty ridiculous. i would be extremely skeptical that anyone who counts as retarded would be able to be a lawyer. volokh suspects this is just affirmative action boilerplate inserted without thought and i think he is probably right.

  • Jay, I’ve got the title for your show…
    ADA DA

  • good one D!

  • […] Department of Justice seeks retarded lawyers. From a job announcement, now deleted from the DOJ Web site: The Civil Rights Division encourages […]