The U.S. Civil Rights Commission: Out of Commission

By Raynard Jackson, BV Views columnist

The political infighting among members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has rendered the organization impotent. Unfortunately, the group developed to study, analyze and report on civil rights issues in the United States has run its course and should finally be abandoned. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is an independent, bipartisan agency established by Congress in 1957, reconstituted in 1983, and reauthorized in 1994. The group's most recent former chairperson, Mary Frances Berry, has been the most single destructive force within the commission. She proved to be a grossly incompetent member and a management disaster as chairperson. From 1980 to 2004, she was a member of the commission, and from 1993 to 2004 served as chairperson. Between 1977 and 1980, Berry served as the assistant secretary of education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). She has also served as provost of the University of Maryland and chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the early '80s, the commission became a "political dumping ground" for political patronage. President Carter appointed her to the commission 1980. She had a well-documented reputation for alienating everyone she worked with. So to get her out of the newly created Department of Education, he appointed her to the commission. Salon magazine reported that when Berry was assistant secretary of education under President Carter, officials there cut her out of policy decisions because "she'd shatter consensus and jeopardize initiatives... she distrusted people [so] as to not be trustworthy herself...""Oh, I remember Mary," a former Carter aide told Salon News. "She was a real loose cannon. We spent a lot of time smoothing over things after she'd opened her big mouth.” President Reagan subsequently fired her when he took office. But, the Democratic Congress rewrote the law giving them authority to appoint half the commission's members. She was reappointed and elevated to chairperson under President Clinton. In 1997, the General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, found the Civil Rights Commission to be "an agency in disarray, with limited awareness how its resources are used... the Commission could not provide key cost information for individual aspects of its operations... significant agency records documenting Commission decision-making were reported lost, misplaced or nonexistent..."The report went on to questioned why only 10 percent of the CRC's money went to the anti-discrimination investigations and reports that are the agency's mission. It found that CRC reports took so long to complete that in many cases they were outdated and irrelevant by the time they were issued. For example, hearings on the Los Angeles riots of 1992 weren't held until 1993 and the report wasn't issued until May 1999. We don’t need more civil rights or anti-discrimination laws on the books; we need more and better enforcement. The CRC has proven its irrelevance and should not be continued just because of a symbolic or emotional attachment. We, as blacks, must stop being seduced into holding onto relics of the civil rights movement and become more thoughtful in determining whether these programs and institutions are functional. We don't have the luxury of being nostalgic at the expense of growth and progress. Getting rid of Mary Frances Berry is a step in the right direction. But if President Bush would get rid of the entire commission, it would be even better. Published Feb. 16, 2005

This is what is said back: Sir, who made you god of all blacks in the U.S. of A? Moreover, when did you get to Speak for me? I am the son of a black man (Frank D Reeves) who knows that the political infighting among members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has not rendered the organization impotent. In fact in help it do it Job. When I hear you say that former chairperson, Mary Frances Berry rendered the organization impotent you forget what it was like before she got to the Commission, what it was like when President Reagan tried to stop her from telling the Truth about life in this County. How my Father: Frank D Reeves work for Truth about life in this County and way to HELP his People. If you think that we have come so far that, YOU LIVE IN A PART OF THIS COUNTY THAT BLACKS (as you say) HAve NOT SEEN. We are not as far as you and the so-called Black right seem to think. You need to go back to your People and look around at the lives they led. If thing are all right to you, then God help us. Thank you for your time.

And this is what he said back: I am amazed that people like u who have no intellectual arguments, resort to emotional vitriol. U being the son of a famous person is of no relevance to you mail! I have no problem with people expressing their opinions about my columns (I even welcome them), but I will not have Blacks approach me with foolishness...I am amazed that you chose to ignore the GAO report I referenced in my piece or how even Democrats disliked how she handled the commission. So, please have the respect to deal with the facts and not emotional rhetoric!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!