Cato Policy Report, March/April 1996
Books
Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision?
The American civil rights vision has been shattered by proponents of divisive racial preferences, resulting in disastrous human consequences, according to a new book published by the Cato Institute. In The Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision? Clint Bolick argues for a positive civil rights agenda of individual empowerment. Only by returning to the classical liberal roots of the American civil rights vision--the notion that all individuals are equal before the law--can we begin to reduce the racial division brought about by affirmative action.
Bolick notes that civil rights advocates from Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King Jr. adhered to the principle of equality of opportunity. The transformation of that powerful liberal idea into race-based preferences has dramatically widened the racial divide in the United States.
"Anyone studying the civil rights movement from its genesis in our nation's infancy through the 1960s will be struck by the clarity and consistency of the moral vision adhered to by the movement's leaders through nearly two centuries--and struck by the sudden and complete abandonment of that vision since the '60s," writes Bolick. "In place of the vision that fueled the movement's great triumphs is a revised agenda that substitutes individual rights with group entitlements, color-blindness with race-consciousness, freedom with coercion. The concept of civil rights has been transformed from those basic rights we share as Americans into special privileges for some and burdens for others. As a consequence, Americans are as racially divided as ever, with not nearly enough tangible progress."
The Affirmative Action Fraud places contemporary civil rights challenges in their historical context by tracing the evolution, principles, and accomplishments of the civil rights movement and examining both the underpinnings and the consequences of the revised agenda that supplanted the original civil rights vision.
Bolick uses poignant examples to highlight the absurdities of the system of imposed quotas. He reviews the record of the Clinton administration (the most "quota driven in history") and calls on members of the Democratic Party to return to the principles of individual liberty they once cherished. He also chides Republicans for failing to articulate clearly a vision of civil rights that would offer an alternative to the group-entitlement mentality of the left and for ignoring chances to expand opportunity for the disadvantaged.
The Affirmative Action Fraud outlines a positive civil rights vision based on "empowerment": the systematic removal of barriers to opportunity that prevent individuals from controlling their destinies. Abolishing slavery and securing equality for all under the law were the first two parts of the civil rights agenda, and Bolick argues that individual empowerment is its culmination. Freedom, not dependence, will truly make the American civil rights vision a reality.
While outlining strategies to reduce crime and welfare dependency, and advocating programs to make home ownership a reality for more Americans, Bolick identifies two pillars of an empowerment agenda: economic liberty and school choice. He writes that with the rollback of economic regulations and the availability of quality education for low-income citizens, the dream of two centuries of civil rights advocates will become a reality.
This article originally appeared in the March/April 1996 edition of Cato Policy Report.