It seems that the Commission on Civil Rights (Mission Statement begins: "To investigate complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or by reason of fraudulent practices) has issued a SCATHING report on the Bush Administration less than a month before Election Day:
2004 NEWS RELEASES, PRESS ADVISORIES AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS
U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS ASSAILS BUSH ADMINISTRATION RECORD ON CIVIL RIGHTS
Washington, DC - In an assessment of the civil rights record of the Bush administration, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a draft report that concludes the administration has failed to exhibit leadership or define a clear focus, relegating civil rights to a low priority.
The report, Redefining Rights in America-The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2004, analyzes scores of policy reports, scholarly papers, briefs and executive orders to chart the administration's responses to a broad spectrum of civil rights issues. Similar criteria have guided evaluations of previous administrations, including the civil rights review on former President Clinton released in 2000.
Some highlights of the report include:
Voting Rights: The Bush administration did not provide leadership to ensure timely passage and swift implementation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. As a result, Congress did not appropriate funds for election reform until almost two years into the administration.
Equal Educational Opportunity: The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) does not sufficiently address unequal education, a major barrier to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students.
Affirmative Action: Instead of promoting affirmative action in federal contracting and education, the administration promotes "race neutral alternatives," in many instances not applicable and in others not overly effective at maintaining diversity.
Environmental Justice: EPA has taken few actions to ensure disparate impact of minority communities to environmental contamination.
Racial Profiling: The administration responded to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by instituting regulations that facilitate profiling rather than prevent it. Immigrants and visitors from Arab and Middle Eastern countries were subjected to increased scrutiny, including interviews, registration, and in some cases removal.
For a full draft of the report titled Redefining Rights in America - The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2004, visit www.usccr.gov.
CONTACT: LAURA HART 202.833.9771
10/05/04
The report itself is 166 pages long, and I could only find it in PDF form, so beware before clicking. Part of the Executive Summary reads as follows:
This report finds that President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words. The report reaches this conclusion after analyzing and summarizing numerous documents, including historical literature, reports, scholarly articles, presidential and administration statements, executive orders, policy briefs, documents of Cabinet-level agencies, federal budgets and other data
In other words, they read through it ALL and Bush came up lacking.
BIG TIME. Big surprise.
Turns out that while the RESULTS are no surprise to Democrats, the actual RELEASE of this report did come as a surprise to Republican members of the committee itself:
'Among the four Republican appointees to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, naive hope springs eternal. We knew that at some point the commission staff would come out with a draft report on the Bush administration's civil rights record. We didn't realize just how bad it would be. Or rather, we imagined the worst, but it was worse than the worst we imagined.'
begins an
Opinion Journal Article submitted by Abigail Thernstrom, Republican Committee member. Funny thing is, to read her pitiful complaints in this article, she never disputes the facts of the report - she is only upset with the "partisan" timing of its release:
"The release of "Redefining Rights" a month before the election was surely no coincidence."
"The 166-page draft on the president's civil rights record was delivered to commissioners only nine days before our monthly meeting on Oct. 8. With a week's notice, we learned that the report would be discussed at the meeting itself. At our request, Ms. Berry postponed that discussion. She didn't mind waiting, she told a reporter, "since they [the Republican appointees] felt so strongly" that its release appeared election-driven."
"If the Republicans objected to the timing of the report's release, they could have spoken up earlier, Ms. Berry has said. Funny lady. We didn't know it was coming, since the calendar for the release of projects is totally unreliable. But, more important, protest lodged earlier would not have made a whit of difference.
The story has already appeared in The New York Times, but my hope is that this whingey Republican's article will only serve to bring MORE focus on the failings of the Bush Administration.