The audience's energies had waned. The Commissioners excused themselves and the conference never again had an opportunity to address them. A rump group formed, called a press conference, talked to the White House and OMB, and went through all of the motions that they felt they should have done two months previously, before the issue was resolved and while their advice still could have held sway. At this writing, their efforts were salutory but not successful, and the State Advisory Committees have succumbed to Carter's reorganization pledge. Reorganization should have been a healthy thing for the Commission. Altshuler tells us, "Reorganization has been touted as a means of improving bureaucratic responsibility. It is motivated both by the spirit of rationality an the norm of responsibility." 99 23 In this same spirit, the Commission should have responded to the reduction proposals with a firm negative. They should have emphasized the importance of public and citizen involvement in the process of government, and cited President Carter's positive stand on human rights as public policy that could in part be carried out by the Commission and its state advisory Committees. When called before the Senate and House committees to justify their continuation, the Commission could have proudly displayed its fervor over maintaining its integrity and continuing its 20 year mandate as the people's advocate for civil rights. The Commission, and especially Chairman Flemming, may well be congratulating themselves on a job well done and a battle won The transition period has, so far, been fairly smooth. They have, presumably, pleased the President, pleased OMB, and maybe even pleased Congress. On the surface, the regional office directors appear satisfied (they have been operating under a regional concept all the while, so the change isn't as drastic for them, though their role in the future activities of the Commission is unclear). The "deadwood" on the SACS can be eliminated and the RAC's are a way of retaining the "loyal" ones. There had been pressure to appoint people with more divergent viewpoints, and this is the Commissions chance to do this without dismissing others. Some members feel that the Commission will have more credibility and get more action (and get renewed) if RAC members represent the business community, Mormon church, and other factions which aren't so zealous for civil rights but have more political influence.* Probably the greatest result, or "success", that the Commission sees (outweighing the loss of the state advisory committees by far) is that this transition is a way to wrap up controversial, ongoing projects by the SACS and pave the way for a quiet, calm sea for next year's efforts at renewal of the Commission itself.24 The question of survival at the cost of integrity arises. Dvorin and Simmons remind us that, "It is doubtful that agency survival, so assiduously studied in the classroom and practiced in the bureau, can ever become the ultimate value of any democratic administrative system." Off and on for 20 years, the Commission has addressed the survival question (it has, in fact, become its forte). Originally it was given 2 years (1957-1959) to wrap up its work. In 1959, it added 2 more years. In 1961, its life was extended to 1963. In 1963, they received a 1-year extension, and in 1964 they breathed a sigh of relief upon receiving 4 additional years, to 1968. Appearing regularly thereafter before Congress, they received 2 5-year extensions respectively, leading them up to the 1978 date that they now face.26 The question remains, especially for many SAC members and civil rights leaders around the country: Is it time for a new method of carrying out governmental civil rights policy? Is the general advisory committee concept fine for new concepts and investigations but not relevant any longer in an area where action and partisanship is needed. (A 1960 court decision, Hannah v. Larche, La, reaffirmed the Commissions passive role: "the Function of the Commission 23 Altshuler, Alan A., and Thomas, Norman C., The Politics of the Federal Bureaucracy, (Harper & Row, N.Y., 1977) page 276. *When criticized for this "watering down", attitude, Commissioner Stephen Horn, answered, "After all, we are the U.S. Commission ON Civil Rights, not FOR Civil Rights." 24. 24 Horne, Stephen, comments at the USCCR conference on Advisory Committee Transition, W.D.C., September 18, 1977. 25 Dvorin, Eugene P., and Simmons, Robert H., "From Amoral to Humane Bureaucracy". in Altshuler and Thomas, "The Politics of The Federal Bureaucracy," page 362. 26 USCCR, "Statute, Rules, and Regulations." page 4. 27 is purely investigative and fact-finding, and it does not adjudicate, and it cannot take any affirmative action which will affect any individual's legal rights, and the only purpose of its existence is to find facts which may subsequently be used as basis for legislative or executive action.") Has the Commission relaxed its guard to the point where its integrity should be questioned? Selznick discusses, "The integrity of an institution-the persistence of an organization's distinctive values, competence, and role-may be threatened, regardless of its own inner strength, if sufficiently great force is applied to it . . . or when its values are tenuous or insecure." 28 The pressure was there for the Commission, from Carter and OMB. On its own, without actively consulting the advisory committees or regional staff, the Commission made the decision to reorganize. Acting Director of the Commission, Louis Nunez, on the occasion of his visit to the Rocky Mountain Regional Office of the Commission, pointed out that, "It is a mistake to assume that the Commission was duped into this decision. They went into their meetings with Carter and OMB fully knowledgeable and comfortable with the proceedings." Nunez outlined the fact that regional advisory committees would meet only once a year, and would act as extensions of the Commission, rather than as independent agencies. He was proud of the fact that the Commission's extension was included in the White House budget and plans for 1978, and felt confident that its life would be renewed and extended. 20 The Commission appears to be comfortable and secure in the lap of the administration, but as to their ability to act as an independent agency, carrying out public policy in the area of civil rights and in the name of the citizens around the nation, the answer is probably not. Redford reminds us that, "policy is made for and applied to us by minorities composed of men occupying strategic positions in specialized organizations, operating only in part under directives from organizations directly representative of the people . . ." * It is my contention that the United States Commission on Civil Rights, by abandoning its commitment to State Advisory Committees, has lost one of its vital communications links and will be seriously hampered and perhaps unqualified to speak and act as an implementation tool of policy that directly affects the people of this nation who every day face discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. SCIENTISTS FOR LIFE, Fredericksburg, Va., March 17, 1978. SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, I request this testimony be included as part of the public record, along with the material in the enclosures to the testimony. Please add my name to the distribution list for a copy of the hearings when they are published. Respectfully submitted, EDWARD C. FREILING, Ph. D., President. SCIENTISTS FOR LIFE, Fredericksburg, Va., March 17, 1978. SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, HONORABLE MEMBERS: The following is my written testimony in reference to the hearings on the Civil Rights Commission. My sole acquaintance with the work of this Commission concerns their publication "Constitutional Aspects of the Right to Limit Childbearing," a report presented to the President and both houses of Congress in April 1975. On behalf of my organization, Scientists for Life, I submit that this is grossly incompetent and highly misleading material 27 Ibid. 28 Selznick, Philip, "Institutional Integrity, Precarious Values, and Elite Autonomy," in Altshuler and Thomas, The Politics of the Federal Bureaucracy, page 278. 29 Personal Interview with Louis Nunez, Acting Director of the USCCR, October 18, 1877. 30 Reedford, Emmette, S., "Workable Democracy," in Altshuler and Thomas, "The Politics of the Federal Bureaucracy," page 357. 23-288 - 78 - 39 which manifests an unacceptable degree of irresponsibility on the part of the Commission. I am a professional scientist who has been studying, writing, speaking and publishing on the abortion issue for over a decade. I hold a doctoral degree in physical chemistry and am President of Scientists for Life. A substantial amount of the report, both in terms of space and impact, is based upon the error that the question of when life begins is unanswerable except in terms of religion. Enclosure (1) documents 15 quotations from the report on this subject, quotations that are spread throughout the entire body of the report. For about a century biological scientists have known that life does not begin; life is continuous. A living human cell can only come from one or more other living human cells. Therefore, there is no time before birth when the human offspring is anything but alive, anything but human. Human beings, like all other organisms, begin life as a single cell. What happens at fertilization is therefore not the beginning of life, but the beginning of the life of a new individual human being. This is readily admitted by scientists on both sides of the abortion issue. Our publication "The Position of Modern Science on the Beginning of Human Life", submitted as enclosure (2), provides abundant documentation for these statements. The Civil Rights Commission confuses the Executive and the Legislature by drawing theological red herrings across clear track to the scientific facts. Respectfully submitted, [1] Enclosure (1). EDWARD C. FREILING, Ph. D., President. Quotations from "Constitutional Aspects of the Right to Limit Childbearing” on the question of the beginning of life The Court did not decide when life begins.. The Supreme Court in Roe and Doe did not put the governmental stamp of If, indeed, opponents of reproductive choice can show why, based on a If, indeed, a belief in life at conception is a particular religious belief, the If the people should decide to adopt an amendment prohibiting abortion, Shall an entity for which the question of life is not settled take precedence Page 1 A copy of this report may be found in the files of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. There is just as much disagreement among physicians, philosophers, and The law has with good cause avoided the endorsement of a theory that life, "If there is human life, proved by the subsequent birth, then the human The proposed constitutional amendments are inconsistent with the history and law of the first amendment in that they would give governmental sanction to one set of moral and religious views and inhibit the free exercise of any other moral and religious views on the issue of when life begins---. 66 85 85 91 99 PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDREW PENN, STAFF ATTORNEY NATIONAL CENTER FOR LAW AND THE DEAF IN SUPPORT OF S. 2300 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: My name is Andrew Penn, and I am an attorney with the National Center for Law and the Deaf. Our Law Center is a project of Gallaudette College. We represent the legal interests of over 13.4 million deaf and hearing-impaired Americans. On behalf of the Law Center I strongly urge you to support to authorize the United States Commission on Civil Rights to study discrimination against handicapped persons. DISCRIMINATION AGAINST DEAF PEOPLE IS WIDESPREAD Hearing-impaired persons are discriminated against in every facet of their lives-in schools, in the workplace, in the courts, in areas ranging from insurance to television programming to enjoyment of government benefits and social services. While enormous progress has been made since the days when a person who was born deaf was considered, in the eyes of the law and society, to be a mental incompetent, deaf Americans are still denied the equal rights, equal protection of the law and equal opportunity promised to all of our citizens. Passage of S. 2300 would be a vital step toward securing their equality. There are many areas and types of discrimination against hearing-impaired people which need to be investigated by the Commission on Civil Rights and reported to the public. Hearing-impaired persons confront job discrimination in hiring, promotion and training opportunities because of employers' misconceptions that they are impossible to communicate with, inefficient and accident prone. Many employers think deaf persons are only qualified to work in print shops because of their immunity to noise pollution. Discrimination is also widespread in the field of higher education, Restrictive college entrance examinations fail to account for the language deprivation suffered by deaf persons and other minorities whose primary language is not traditional English. Even if a deaf person does pass the entrance examination, most colleges lack interpreters, note-takers and other support services to make their courses accessible. Thus deaf persons aspiring toward a higher education are forced to turn to the few existing colleges for the deaf in America. Our criminal justice systems denies hearing-impaired persons many of the Constitutional rights guaranteed to all citizens. While several states have enacted laws for the appointment of interpreters, most of these laws are inadequate. Many states provide for an interpreter at trial for a deaf criminal defendant. Yet very few states provide for an interpreter from the time of arrest, even though some of the most blatant Constitutional rights violations occur at pre-trial proceedings. The Supreme Court in Miranda v Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), recognized that since custodial interrogations by police are inherently coercive and undermine the privilege against self-incrimination, the police must effectively inform the accused of his or her Constitutional rights prior to any questioning. Without a qualified interpreter, a hearing-impaired person would not be able to fully comprehend what is written on the Miranda rights card. Thus, any waiver would not meet the Supreme requirement of a voluntary, knowing, and intelligent waiver of Constitutional rights. Failure to provide a hearing-impaired person with an interpreter upon arrest also severely curtails any possibility of free and unfettered communication and consultation between the accused and his/her attorney. This constitutes a denial of the accused's Sixth Amendment right to effective representation. Hearing-impaired consumers also suffer abuse and discrimination. Many life, health, accident and automobile insurance companies charge higher premiums or restrict coverage to deaf people despite actuarial tables which indicate that deaf people are not greater risks than hearing people. Loan sharks, real estate agents and salesmen often take advantage of deaf consumers' limited understanding of written English. The results are the same kinds of unconscionable contracts imposed on many poor people. Another area in which deaf persons have long been treated as second-class citizens is the provision of government benefits and social services. Because of the lack of any significant efforts by government agencies to bridge the communication gap, deaf people do not get their fair share of government services and benefits. Police and fire departments, social security, welfare, unemployment and housing officers and regulatory agencies must have TTYS or interpreters to make their services accessible to the deaf community. In the world of telecommunication, a pitifully small amount of television programming is captioned for deaf viewers, despite the fact that broadcasters are legally required to provide adequate programming for significant minorities. THE COMMISSION IS NEEDED TO PROTECT AND PROMOTE THE RIGHTS OF DEAF PEOPLE Deaf people suffer discrimination in many facets of their lives, yet only a few federal laws protect their civil rights. The need for the Civil Rights Commission to investigate and inform the public of discrimination against deaf and other handicapped persons is obvious and urgent. The Commission's reports can help educate the hearing world as to the realities of deafness. Ignorance of those realities is perhaps the greatest source of discrimination. The Commission's studies will provide an invaluable basis for Congress to decide on the many bills dealing with handicapped discrimination now under consideration. With the issuance of Regulations to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, more and more law suits are being instituted to enforce the rights of handicapped persons. Proper decisions in these cases also require reliance on comprehensive studies of the type the Commission has undertaken with respect to discrimination against other minorities. The Commission is also needed to monitor the enforcement of federal laws protecting the civil rights of the handicapped. Because legislation in this field is relatively new, its effectiveness is unknown. And because many of the federal agencies responsible for enforcing those laws have rarely dealt with the problems of the handicapped before, their ability to enforce the laws is unknown. The Commission can be of great service as an independent watchdog, evaluating the effectiveness of existing legislation and agency efforts to enforce it. S. 2300 SHOULD EXTEND TO ALL HANDICAPPED DISCRIMINATION, NOT JUST UNCONSTITUTIONAL OR UNLAWFUL DISCRIMINATION As presently drafted, S. 2300 authorizes the Commission to study only unlawful discrimination, i.e., only that discrimination which the courts have held to be unlawful. We urge that the bill be redrafted to include all forms of discrimination, not merely that which has been declared unlawful. Failure to redraft S. 2300 could have drastic consequences. The Commission might be forced to ignore actions which it believes constitutes discrimination simply because courts and legislatures have not yet ruled on their legality. Because society has long ignored the rights of the handicapped, there are many discriminatory actions which the courts and legislature have never confronted. |