Washington ? After weathering a confirmation furor in 2001 focused largely on racial issues, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft chose a management staff so diverse that a third of the Justice Department’s most senior positions were occupied by minorities.

“Never before in history has there been a more diverse and qualified leadership team here at the Department of Justice,” Ashcroft told employees in February 2002 at an African American History Month gathering. “I look forward to the day when the length and breadth of the Department of Justice, from line attorneys to investigators to staff assistants, reflects the same diversity and professional excellence.”

But after a wave of departures during the last year from the top ranks at the Justice Department, the number of minorities at senior levels is noticeably smaller. At one point in Ashcroft’s tenure, the deputy attorney general and one of every three assistant attorneys general were nonwhite. Now, just one of the 12 most senior officials who have been appointed or nominated at main Justice — civil rights division chief R. Alexander Acosta, who is Hispanic — is a member of a racial minority.

Some civil rights and liberal groups, who strenuously opposed Ashcroft’s appointment, say the current dearth of minorities reflects a lack of commitment to racial diversity. Many of these critics, along with some Democratic lawmakers, have accused Ashcroft of weak enforcement of civil rights laws as attorney general.

“I’m not surprised that this current crop of appointments does not reflect the same commitment to diversity principles as the initial crop of appointments,” said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which opposed Ashcroft’s narrowly won confirmation in 2001. “The absence of public focus on these issues has given the attorney general the view that he is no longer being held to the same standards…. They don’t think anyone is paying attention anymore.”

Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the current snapshot at the top missed the presence of minorities in leadership roles at other Justice programs and agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and the Community Relations Service. In addition, Corallo noted, two assistant attorneys general are women, and Ashcroft recently named the first female director of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“At the leadership level, I know the attorney general has always been interested in having a diverse set of attorneys,” said Larry Thompson, who is black and resigned as Ashcroft’s deputy attorney general in August to take a post at the Brookings Institution. “But number one has always been whether someone is qualified and getting the best person.”

In addition to Thompson, Ashcroft named two blacks as assistant attorneys general: Ralph Boyd Jr., who headed the civil rights division, and Charles James, who led antitrust. Ashcroft also picked as his legal policy adviser Viet Dinh, who is widely credited as the architect of the Justice Department’s aggressive anti-terrorism policies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

All four have since left the department independently.