Speech concerning the Reagan Administration and Civil Rights, 1983 (2 of 2)

Copyright, 1983 Julian Bond

As I begin, let me state for the record that a great deal of what follows will be dry discussions of law, and how that law has been perverted, twisted, abused, discarded and ignored by the Reagan administration.

I am grateful to the thoughtful reports isssued by the leadership conference on civil rights, the citizens commission on civil rights, and the washington council of lawyers.⁽¹⁾

These independent and nonpartisan groups have examined the Reagan record in some detail.

Their reports are disturbing. They list official lawlessness, a retreat from bipartisan policies of the past, and an ignorance

(1) Without Justice, A Report on the Conduct of the Justice Department in Civil Rights, The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, D. C., February, 1982. Reagan Civil Rights: The First Twenty Months, The Washington Council of Lawyers, Washington, D. C., August, 1982. "There Is No Liberty", The Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, D. C. October, 1982.

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of the law that would be frightening in a private practitioner; when, however, the wrongdoers are the Attorney General of the United States and his assistant for civil rights, the Reagan civil rights record issues an invitation to anarchy and a appeal to the lowest and basest instincts of the American people..

For twenty-five years, the United States Departmnet of Justice has held responsibility for administration and enforcing the laws which protect our civil rights.

During this quarter of a century, with the exception of the tenure of John Mitchell as Richard Nixon's Attorney General, the Justice Department has adhered to its responsibility to enforce the laws as enacted by Congress and interpreted by the courts.

But since Ronald Regan became President, and appointed William French Smith as Attorney General and William Bradford Reynolds as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, a radical change has occurred.

In their first year in office, the Justice Department has become the violator of civil rights, instead of their defender; the assailant of the judiciary, instead of it protector; segregation's producer instead of segregation's destroyer; the politician's s water-boy instead of an independent enforcer of the law.

The Regan Justice Department has: - "Repudiated the Supreme Court's definitive interpretation of the consitution and laws and announced that it would refuse to enforce the laws of the land; -Abruptly switched sides in cases pending before the Supreme Court and announce it would seek to overturn Supreme Court decisions it does not like;

3- Launched strident and sweeping attacks on the judiciary for protecting the rights of women and minorities; - Cooperated in the corruption of the legal process by allowing its decisions to be shaped by appeals from politicians not based on law; and - Become the center of anti-civil rights activity in the federal government, reaching into other agencies to stop and slow policies thought to be overly protective of civil rights."⁽²⁾

The predominate theme in all these actions - and in their expansion in 1982 - is the desire to narrow and limit the remedies available to racial minorities, women, the handicapped and others when their rights have been denied.

What has been at issue in these radical departures from past practice under democratic and Republican administrations alike is no simple conflict of philosophy between conservative and liberal theories of government's proper role; even when a civil rights remedy is one that the government says it favors, like the voluntary affirmative action plans agreed to by business and labor - the Justice Department has loudly proclaimed its opposition.

The effect of these actions is greater than the set-backs recorded on any particular issue; the sum of these reversals places the Regan administration squarely in opposition to granting and insuring civil rights as the laws require and the constitution demands.

(2) Without Justice, pp. 3, 4.

-4When an individual violates the constitution, the wrong done may be quickly set right. But when the wrong-doer is the highest law enforcement official in the land, the rule of law itself is in peril.

Imagine an Attorney General openly operating a speakeasy in the Justice Department's offices during prohibition; in today's terms, imagine the government of the United States saying to the victims of racial prejudice "We will no longer defend your rights in court; instead, we intend to do all we can to deny you the relief that Congress. the courts and the Constitution say is yours by right."

The Regan Justice Department has taken its boldest steps against the rights of minorities in the attempts to hinder the integration of public schools.

Since 1954, it has been the department's duty to enforce the Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. The Board of Education. Since 1964 and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it has has authority to sue in Federal Court and intervene in pending suits to enforce desegregation orders.

The Civil Rights Division, in this period, helped to establish that school boards must act affirmively to end segregated schools. and that bussing may be a permissible and sometime necessary remedy to school segregation.

When the Supreme Court ruled against segregation schools 28 years ago, its most memorable phrase was that "in the field of education, 'separate but equal' has not place."

-5Yet the Regan Administration's Justice Department has tried to breathe new life into this ancient excuse for racial exclusion, now illegal in America for over a generation.

Assistant Attorney General Reynolds has announced that his department's resources will be directed not toward ending segregation by all legal means, but at eliminating "disparities in the tangible componets of education" between white and non-white students.

Their focus then, is to make segregated schools equal, no matter how separate they may be.

This return to a discredited doctrine is coupled with a reinterpretation of what illegal discrimination actually is.

Mr. Reynolds intends to act only against De Jure segregation as if today's discriminatory school boards will publically admit their intentions to deny minority students an equal education.

The result of redefining what constitutes segregation is to deny that it exists; small wonder, then, that no new school desegration cases were filed by the civil rights division in its first 20 months in office.

Futhermore, the division has abandoned cases that were developed and ready for prosecution.

In St. Louis the department refused to pursue a suit against 20 suburban school districts prepared by former Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti.

In Alabama, the department has announce it will not pursue a suit against the state, despite Alabama's consistent refusal to equalize higher educational opportunities for Blacks.