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The Bush Record on Civil Rights
New York Times Editorial
November 12, 2004
In a rare gesture of transparency, a majority of the eight
commissioners on the United States Commission on Civil
Rights voted in 2002 to put the agency's staff reports on
the Internet as soon as they are completed. That way, the
public can read them before the commissioners hold public
hearings to discuss the staff's findings.
The latest report - an assessment of President Bush's civil
rights record - was put on the agency's Web site in
September. But at their October meeting, less than a month
before the election, the commissioners declined to discuss
it. Objecting to the report's timing, the four
commissioners appointed by President Bush and the
Congressional Republican leadership managed to put off any
discussion until the postelection meeting, scheduled for
today.
The commission owes the public a spirited debate,
especially if, as the report indicates, the apparent aim of
the Bush administration is to break with long-established
civil rights tactics and priorities. This question takes on
a new urgency with the appointment of the White House
counsel, Alberto Gonzales, as the next attorney general
because he was deeply involved in the formulation of
administration policy on these issues in the first term.
The report, which is still available online, is a scathing
166-page assessment of an administration that has, at best,
neglected core civil rights issues. It cites numerous
examples of administration attempts to replace affirmative
action with "race neutral" alternatives, to focus on voter
fraud rather than the more insidious problem of voter
disenfranchisement and to recast taxpayers' support for
religious institutions as a civil right for people of
faith, rather than as a constitutional issue involving the
separation of church and state.
In the most telling research into the way that Mr. Bush
uses talk of civil rights to promote his own agenda, the
report says that of Mr. Bush's public statements on civil
rights, only 17 percent have outlined plans of action. Of
those, it says, more than half pertained to "faith-based
initiatives." It criticizes the president for using the
language of civil rights - terms like "remove barriers" and
"equal access" - to frame his case.
Earlier this year, the conservative commissioners simply
voted down, without explanation, a staff report on language
barriers in federal programs. Such disdain - for the very
issues the commissioners are supposed to examine - deprives
Americans of the dialogue they need and deserve. It is our
hope that the conservative commissioners will engage with
the issues and their fellow commissioners at today's
meeting. In any case, Americans can judge the civil rights
report for themselves by going to www.usccr.gov.
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