The problem isn't civil rights

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views April 8, 2002]

Following are excerpts from an address delivered by Peter Kirsanow to the Heritage Foundation in January:

The argument has been credibly made that we are in a post-civil rights era. After all, virtually all of the civil rights legislation that can be passed has been passed. This does not mean, as Francis Fukuyama might say, an end of history. To be sure, there are various and disparate issues which will arise from time to time--racial profiling, school choice, military tribunals, and the like. But most of these issues can readily be addressed by existing legislation, regulations, or judicial decisions.

Nonetheless, discussions concerning civil rights still largely revolve around a grievance-legislative model. And one is effectively excluded from such discussion unless you continue to address it in those terms. The same three-prong test is always applied to gauge whether one is truly committed to the cause of civil rights.

That test is: A commitment to what has euphemistically been called affirmative action; a view of civil rights as group rights, not individual rights; and entitlement and reparations as global remedies for past wrongs. Failure to pass at least one prong of this test is cause for banishment from the discussion.

The recent dustup at Harvard, at least as it has been reported, is just one example of the mindset that views commitment to affirmative action as a barometer for commitment to civil rights and minority advancement. If you are not sufficiently committed to one of the three prongs, you are necessarily unqualified to even engage in the civil rights discussion--and this is the primary reason why civil rights discussion has not advanced in a meaningful way in two generations and has, in effect, become stale and moribund.

Many who would otherwise be expected to be engaged in the civil rights debate and could bring substance to it are marginalized or feel the need to bow to political correctness because of their heretical views. . . .

Preferences accorded to certain minorities result in some minorities being admitted to schools for which they are poorly prepared. The result is high dropout rates.

The fallout from Proposition 209 is a stark example of this phenomenon. Immediately after its passage, the numbers of blacks and Hispanics at elite California schools plummeted and racialists were in a tizzy, pronouncing this an educational holocaust. But then a funny thing happened: the number of blacks at less prestigious schools climbed prodigiously. What was happening was quite obvious to all but the experts. Students were self-selecting. People inherently know at what level they can compete. This makes students more likely to graduate. Some like to celebrate the number of minorities being admitted, regardless of whether they emerge with a degree. A better measure is how many graduate and become productive members of society. It is a cruel hoax to place a poorly prepared student in an academic environment in which he cannot compete and call it affirmative action. It does nothing but insure failure, promote resentment, and enforce stereotypes. . . .

The fact is that the continued advancement of the condition of minorities in this country no longer has much to do with traditional civil rights. While the condition of the black community is related to slavery, the residual effects of past discrimination, and current discrimination, and while we must always be vigilant to vigorously enforce existing civil rights laws, improving the condition of minorities in this country is dependent on improving the economic condition of minorities, which, in turn, is largely dependent on education; which, in turn, is dependent on community standards and culture; which, in turn, is dependent on the family.

The reality in 2002 is that traditional civil rights issues are only a fringe player compared to a strong and vibrant family in promoting minority success. As Robert Rector and others indicated six or seven years ago, if you take two children who are in all respects similarly situated--same age, same income, same education--the one that comes from a two-parent family (and these figures are rounded approximations and an amalgam of different studies) is 50 percent less likely to be unemployed; 40 percent less likely to commit a crime; 50 percent less likely to use drugs; 60 percent less likely to drop out of school; 40 percent less likely to father a child out of wedlock; 80 percent less likely to be on welfare; 70 percent less likely to be poor.

A strong family may not be a civil right, but it is clearly a civil need. I defy anyone to show me a racial preference program with a similar record of success.

--Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland lawyer, was recently appointed to be a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A writer of numerous articles on social issues, he is also author of the book The Health Care Ghetto.

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