7. “ Special Interests Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement” Affirmative Action and Bilingual Education on the Ballot, 1996 - 2000

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-242
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Special Interests

A Changing Workforce

2020 ◽  
pp. 210-236
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Delton
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
National Association ◽  
Historically White ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
Workplace Rights ◽  
National Association Of Manufacturers

This chapter examines the overlap between African Americans' demands for jobs and conservatives' push for “right to work” laws. While compulsory union dues were very different from unions' exclusion of blacks, both movements targeted historically white unions and shared a language of workplace “rights.” Conservative “right to work” activists adopted the tactics of the civil rights movement and aligned themselves with blacks against exclusionary unions. Although this strategy failed to attract African Americans, it called attention to unions' historic and ongoing racism in a way that eventually divided the labor–liberal coalition. This dynamic is key to understanding the National Association of Manufacturers' complicated support for civil rights, equal opportunity, and affirmative action.

“This backdrop of entrenched inequality”

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Rogers M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Employment Policy ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Sort It ◽  
American Life ◽  
Racial Policy

This chapter illustrates the conflicting approaches advanced by today's racial alliances on issues of race equality in the workplace, as on so many other topics—conflicts that include disagreements not only over formal affirmative action programs but also over the legitimacy of race-conscious policymaking of any sort. It is no accident when these issues emerge with particular intensity in employment policy. No area of American life is more central to the quest to eradicate unjust material racial inequalities. This is why, as the chapter shows, previous struggles on racial equality focused so strongly on equality in the workplace. While such actions were hailed by many veterans of the civil rights movement as necessary, color-blind proponents came to assail these as new forms of unjust racial discrimination. Contestation over these policies became the central “battleground” around which modern racial policy coalitions formed.

Civil Wrongs and Religious Liberty

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-86
Author(s):  
Steven Yates ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
American Founding ◽  
The Past ◽  
Civil Rights Movements

The civil rights movement has broken away from its religious roots which once provided it firm support and, indeed, it has become a threat to those roots. In fact, the past thirty years evidence two civil rights movements. The original civil rights movement promoted equal opportunity and presupposed a constrained vision of human possibilities compatible with Christianity, The revised civil rights agenda, which had replaced it by 1971, promoted preferential policies dubbed "affirmative action" based on an unconstrained vision incompatible with both Christianity and the American founding. The most visible threat to religious liberty is the expansion of civil rights protections to include homosexuals despite the overwhelming rejection of homosexuality as a lifestyle by the majority of Americans, including Christians.

The Suppression of Diversity

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Adrian J. Lottie ◽  
Phyllis A. Clemens Noda
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
National Unity ◽  
English Only ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Civil Rights Movements ◽  
The Rich

Is it a systematic strategy or a mutation of millennial ferver that drives the escalating challenges to the civil rights of this nation's racial, linguistic, and national origin minorities? Increasing juridical, legislative, and popular assaults on affirmative action policies coupled with the sometimes less heralded emergence of a de facto U.S. language policy are sweeping through the states. These activities draw on a consistent repertoire of approaches from the invocation of the very language and concepts of the civil rights movement to the isolationist “buzz-words” of early twentieth century advocates of “Americanization.” In an effort to legitimize their efforts this new breed of assailants has lifted the terms “equality of opportunity,” “color blind,” and “merit” directly from the lips of civil rights heroes of the past, retrofitting concepts that resonate from the very core of the civil rights movement into an arsenal of weapons that threaten the extinction of that movement. In that same vein opponents of bilingual education have reached further back into our history dredging up de-contextualized quotations from icons of American history to evoke nostalgia and patriotism and to resuscitate the fear of the dissolution of national unity in the wake of the infusion of diverse languages and cultures. The introductory portion of this article treats the failure of anti-civil rights movements to acknowledge either the rich cultural legacy of people of color or the deeply engrained cultural and political limitations that this nation has imposed on their civil rights. We discuss the re-packaged language of equality and equity used by these movements and their success and attempts at success in reversing the progress of civil rights at the polls and in legislatures across the nation. We next examine the anti-affirmative action and anti-bilingual movements sweeping the U.S. today, analyzing qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources including data from the the 2000 U.S. Census to track current anti-affirmative action and anti-bilingual/English only developments among the states to demonstrate the coexistence of these developments in those areas where people of color are concentrated.

Affirmative Action, Cultural Diversity, and Disability Policy Reform: Foundations to the Civil Rights of Persons with Disability

1998 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée A. Middleton ◽  
Debra A. Harley ◽  
Carolyn W. Rollins ◽  
Tamala Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Disability Services ◽  
Rehabilitation Act Of 1973 ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
The 1960S

The authors discuss how the impetus for rehabilitation reform historically received momentum from civil rights activities in the 1960s. The origins of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the American with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, are discussed from the political context at the time of passage. Thus, the reader comes to understand how persons with disabilities, through the independent living movement; a civil rights movement within a movement for equality, were empowered to become a major force in prompting the signing of the ADA. The paper is based on the belief that current disability legislation must be inclusive of all persons with disabilities. To that end, connections are made between affirmative action, a major vanguard of equality, cultural diversity and multiculturalism. A rational is provided for the assertion that elimination of affirmative action will have serious repercussions for the long-term effectiveness and survival of other civil rights legislation. Finally, recommendations for achieving multiculturalism are made and concluding remarks predict the outlook for the future with respect to disability services, policy and practice.

Who is Fighting the Fight?

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-114
Author(s):  
J. Scott Carter ◽  
Cameron D. Lippard
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Special Interest Groups ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Organizations ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The U.S

The purpose of this chapter is to assess who are the actors leading the charge for and against affirmative action in the most recent U.S. Supreme Court cases on affirmative action in the 21st century. We are interested in the primary “lobbyist” of the Court during cases dealing with higher education and affirmative action (Gratz/Grutter and Fisher I and II) who make use of amicus briefs to make their cases for and against the policy. Amicus briefs are often described as “friends of the court” because they provide unique information to the court as well as elucidate broader social and political implications of the case's potential decision. However, scholars also argue that such briefs act to lobby the court for a specific resolution. While we look at all variation in authorship (e.g., individuals, civic organizations; universities, etc.), we pay particular attention to advocacy groups who have joined the fight for and against affirmative action in the public arena. Concerning opponents of affirmative action, scholars have stated that the backlash in the U.S. over policies and initiatives associated with the Civil Rights Movement has been led by elite-backed advocacy organizations, including special interest groups and think tanks.

The Counterfactual in the Age of Trump

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-96
Author(s):  
Rachel Ablow
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Potential Consequence ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Historical Justice ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
History Of

“If Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election …” Wouldn't it be nice to climb down into that imaginative rabbit hole and stay there for a while? The possibilities are so reassuringly normal—as opposed to the strange nightmare in which we find ourselves today. For the purposes of this roundtable, however, I wish to consider only one small potential consequence of a Hillary win: and that is what it would have been like to read Catherine Gallagher's new book if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election. I would probably have experienced Telling It Like It Wasn't as a fascinating intellectual history of a mode or a discourse that has enormous political purchase today, largely as a result of its “affiliation with legal and political historical justice projects.” Although thinkers of all political persuasions use this mode, Gallagher explains, the political counterfactual has played a particularly prominent role in “the pressure exerted by the civil rights movement in favor of a Second Reconstruction, affirmative action programs, and claims for reparations” (124–25). It has served as a way to right the wrongs of history, in other words, and as such has served us extremely well. Or, at least, that is how I would have felt if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election. But she did not. As a result, rather than simple intellectual pleasure and political hopefulness, reading Telling It Like It Wasn't filled me with a strong sense of dread.

scholarly journals Affirmative Action: From Before Bakke to After Grutter

NASPA Journal ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lehmuller ◽  
Dennis E. Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Student Affairs Professionals ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
Higher Education Admissions ◽  
History Of

Affirmative action as a policy to solve past racism has existed since the civil rights movement in the mid-twentieth century. Since its inception there has been controversy as to whether affirmative action can stand legal scrutiny. If it can, then under what circumstances and for what programs may it be used? Since the Bakke case in 1978, a variety of lower federal courts have sought to determine whether diversity is a compelling state interest in higher education admissions and other related programs, or whether race may even be used as a factor in admissions. The recent Grutter and Gratz cases have helped to clarify those issues, but they have left many questions to be answered by policy makers and the courts. Since the Grutter and Gratz decisions, new challenges have been raised to affirmative action. This article describes the history of affirmative action, describes the controversies and current status of the law with regard to public postsecondary institutions admissions policies, and raises several issues about which admissions and student affairs professionals in general should be concerned.

scholarly journals Affirmative Action in College Admissions: A Compelling Need and a Compelling Warning

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
Scott Finnie
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
College Admissions ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Intense Debate

Higher education has been historically recognized as the very door to opportunity and success for our nation's youths and future leaders. Following the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the cry and pressure for access to America's college campuses have intensified, especially along the lines of racial and gender discrimination. The long record of oppression has translated into an intense debate over the feasibility of affirmative action as a viable policy to rectify the past and the present This article will afford a brief overview of the necessity of affirmative action in college admissions as well as an analysis and assessment of this policy from the perspective of Critical Race Theory.

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