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In yet another highly publicized clash between the White
House and the US Commission on Civil Rights, Chairman Mary
Frances Berry refused to seat a new commissioner appointed by
President Bush on the grounds that there was no legitimate
vacancy for the president to fill.
Victoria Wilson was appointed to the commission by Bill
Clinton in January 2024 to fill a vacancy created by the death
of Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., who died in office in 1998.
Higginbotham’s term expired November 29 and the Clinton
administration’s paperwork regarding Wilson’s appointment
lists this date as the conclusion of her term as well. President
Bush appointed Cleveland labor attorney Peter Kirsanow to fill
this vacancy, but Berry maintains the law requires every
commissioner to be appointed to a full six-year term. This means
that Wilson, who like Berry is a nominal independent who
consistently votes with the commission’s Democrats and adopts
liberal positions, would not leave the commission until 2024,
five years after the statutory end of Higginbotham’s term and
eight years after his death.
White House counsel Alberto Gonzales vehemently disagrees
with this interpretation of the law and points out that such a
policy would prevent staggered terms and circumvent a president’s
ability to place anyone on the commission. (Bush appointee
Jennifer Cabranes Braceras was tapped to succeed Democratic
commissioner Yvonne Lee and she was seated without incident.).
Liberal Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
have weighed in with the argument that the law as amended in
1994 supports Berry’s position. The end result was an
embarrassing spectacle at which the three Republican appointees
(only Braceras was named by Bush, the other two are
congressional appointees) tried in vein to obtain recognition
for Kirsanow as a civil rights commissioner while Berry and her
Democratic-leaning backers referred to him as "some member
of the audience" and voted to exclude him.
Without commenting on which side has better mastered the
intricacies of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1983, the
statutory basis for the commission’s existence, the whole
event underscores some very unfortunate realities. Once
synonymous with the struggle of American minorities for economic
advancement and equal rights under the law, "civil
rights" today is a term used as a weapon in partisan
struggles to promote liberal causes. The difficult but necessary
pursuit of a color-blind America has been replaced with identity
politics.
Berry herself has said, "Civil rights laws were not
passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to
them." There is so much wrong with that thinking. First, it
assumes that the problem with such discriminatory systems as Jim
Crow were not the fact that they denied individual merit or
subjected citizens to different treatment by the law, but the
actual outcomes they generated. The principle of
non-discrimination is objective and compatible with the concept
of the individual as a being with dignity and inherent rights.
Departures from this principle are not justified by the fact
they produce an outcome to Berry’s liking anymore than
segregation is justified by David Duke’s preference for whites
enjoying a preferred legal position in society. And of course,
some would argue the Constitution was not written to protect the
rights of blacks, women and others who were not property-owning
white men, but consistent adherence to both its principles and
those of the Declaration of Independence require that it apply
to them.
If determining winners and losers on the basis of criteria
such as skin color is an acceptable practice to meet certain
social objectives, it will inevitably be a practice that can be
used in the service of twisted racist ideologies. Yet Berry and
her ilk persist in calling those who do not wish to see people
who are not considered "protected classes"
discriminated against by their own government "the
opponents of civil rights."
Clarence Thomas has one of the most impressive records of
cultivating color-blind policies and race-neutral application of
the law, ranging from his tenure at the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission to the Supreme Court. For this he has
been vilified as an Uncle Tom. Linda Chavez’s criticism of
racial preferences galvanized opposition to her becoming
secretary of labor. Clarence Pendleton, who became the first
black chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights upon his
appointment by President Reagan, was a dogged proponent of
racial equality who often locked horns with self-described black
leaders (he often asked, "Where are the white
leaders?"). Michael Williams bravely, and ultimately
unsuccessfully, worked to end race-based scholarships while
heading the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
None of them were angry white males and all of them
understood the importance of addressing the problems impacting
minority communities. Peter Kirsanow would do an excellent job
of following in their footsteps. He is active in the Center for
New Black Leadership, an innovative organization that challenges
the traditional civil rights leadership’s orthodoxy by
attempting to address the crisis in the black family, promote
educational excellence and encourage economic advancement
through free-market policies. Rather than repeating the
approaches that have produced broken families, failing schools
and hopeless neighborhoods, Kirsanow has actively worked for
progress instead of political posturing.
In other words, Kirsanow would use his position as a civil
rights commissioner for actual civil rights work and addressing
the problems minorities face. The panel’s left guard would
rather use it as a forum to racialize political disputes, such
as the 2024 presidential election, and shout down commissioners
like Abigail Thernstrom who question their conclusions.
Here we realize the main problem with Kirsanow’s
appointment. It would jeopardize Berry’s power by reducing the
left-wingers’ presence on the panel from a 5 to 3 majority to
a 4 to 4 deadlock. This fact, not alleged concerns about the
commission’s independence, is what motivates this
grandstanding. Yet Berry is only keeping the commission
independent of the Constitution and common sense.
A real body dedicated to the preservation of civil rights
would have a vision of America as a place that lives up to the
promise of the Declaration of Independence, not a body for
bureaucratic bean-counting and racial politics. It remains to be
seen whether the commission Congress set up for this purpose
will be allowed to fulfill it.
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