In 1990, U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush appointed Williams to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights (the Office for Civil Rights) at the United States Department of Education,[REF] a post previously held by Clarence Thomas, whom Bush named in 1991 to the United States Supreme Court.
He also served as Special Assistant to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh at the United States Department of Justice from January 1988 to June 1989.