Mar 19, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

When news surfaced last month that Scott Bloch, the head of the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel, had become the first Bush administration appointee to attempt to roll back longstanding anti-discrimination protections for gay federal workers, gay activists began to ask, “Who is Scott Bloch?”

Bloch drew criticism from gay rights groups and several Republican and Democratic members of Congress in February when he removed from the OSC Web site and the office’s printed documents all notices stating that sexual orientation discrimination in the federal workforce is illegal. OSC, among other things, is responsible for protecting federal employees from job discrimination.

To the dismay of gay rights attorneys, Bloch told members of Congress he was uncertain whether the OSC had legal authority to ban sexual orientation discrimination and was conducting a review of the issue. Gay activists, noting that government officials under five presidents since 1975 determined that anti-gay discrimination against federal employees was, in fact, illegal, charged that Bloch appeared to be injecting his own anti-gay bias into his role as OSC director.

Bloch, who was nominated to the OSC post by President Bush, took office in January, replacing lesbian attorney Elaine Kaplan, who had been appointed by President Clinton.

The official OSC biography of Bloch describes him as an attorney from Lawrence, Kan.; a former part-time law school professor at the University of Kansas; and the former deputy director of the Justice Department’s Task Force for Faith-Based & Community Initiatives.

Background information that Bloch submitted to a Senate committee during his confirmation hearing for his current job, and news reports about him from a Kansas newspaper, present a picture of a devout Catholic and staunch social conservative.

At his confirmation hearing, Bloch introduced his wife and noted he has seven children. His oldest child, a son, had recently returned from Iraq, where he served in the Marines, Bloch said. His youngest child, a daughter, had just celebrated her first birthday, he said.

On a Senate disclosure form required for his confirmation, Bloch lists the Claremont Institute, an ultra-conservative think tank in California, which boasts of “fighting the gay rights movement” as one of its mottos, as one of the organizations with which he has been affiliated as a research fellow.

Bloch has not returned several calls from the Blade seeking an interview.

Hollywood ties
Bloch has already hired at least two religious conservative advocates to his staff and offered the No. 2 post at the OSC to a college professor from Wyoming who helped form an anti-gay campus group. The professor, Robert Carlson of Casper College, turned down the job, saying he preferred not to move to Washington. Bloch listed membership in other groups, including a staunchly conservative Catholic organization, and noted that he helped organize the opening of a Catholic monastery in Oklahoma.

Yet part of Bloch’s family background touches on the world of early 20th Century expressionist painters as well as Broadway theater and TV screenwriting in Hollywood, prompting some observers to wonder how Bloch’s conservative and possible anti-gay leanings were shaped.

According to an April 2002 feature story about Bloch in the Lawrence, Kan., newspaper the Journal-World, Bloch’s grandfather was a noted abstract expressionist painter who studied in Munich, Germany, between 1910 and 1921 as part of the internationally acclaimed der Blaue Reiter or “Blue Rider” school of expressionists.

The grandfather, Albert Bloch, was born and raised in St. Louis, Mo., from German-Jewish immigrant parents, according to a 1997 article on Albert Bloch in American Art Review by University of Kansas Art Professor David Cateforis.

The Journal-World article reported that Bloch, 45, was born in New York City, where his father, Walter Bloch, worked as a writer for Broadway plays and New York-based television shows. At the age of 3, Scott Bloch moved with his family to Los Angeles, where his father began work as a writer for TV programs such as “Gilligan’s Island,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “Bonanza,” and “The Flintstones.”

Former Special Counsel Elaine Kaplan has issued a statement saying federal workers are protected from discrimination based on sexual orientation. Her replacement, Scott Bloch, has said he is not sure and is reviewing the matter. (Photo by Clint Steib)

The Journal-Word article says Walter Bloch at some point changed his name to Walter Black “for professional reasons.” Young Scott grew up as Scott Black, the article said.

In his disclosure form submitted to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, in connection with his confirmation as special counsel, Scott Bloch stated ...