July 19, 1971
Page 25918
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, we have saddled a small but important agency, the Commission on Civil Rights, with a budget far too tiny to meet its important duties. For fiscal year 1971 the Commission has an authorization of $3.4 million and an appropriation of $3.397 million. It needs a budget of $3.96 million to function fully in fiscal 1972. The appropriation voted by the House last month – because of increased costs and mandated salary increases – would severely damage the Commission's operation. Its plans to expand its programs into important new civil rights areas would be set back drastically. This would include an Indian rights project and studies on the administration of justice in prisons, discrimination in health services, and equal employment and labor unions. A new field office in the North-Central States to serve the Indian program would not be opened and the Commission's Puerto Rican project and Mexican American education study could not expand beyond their present levels.
Since the establishment of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1957, it has been doing invaluable work in bringing to national attention discrimination against all minority groups, in all its forms and locations. It has been outspoken in pointing out to the Nation that our most pressing domestic problem is denial of equal rights to large segments of our population. Its criticisms have been factual and constructive. Its recommendations and contributions to the problem areas of voting, housing, employment, education, and suburban access had a visible effect and impact on the policies of the Government.
The Commission since its creation in 1957 has documented the denial of equal protection of the laws which has done deep harm to our fundamental concepts of equal justice and equal opportunity.
The denial of the right to vote was a common practice in many parts of the Nation in the late 1950's. Governmentally enforced school segregation, which the U.S. Supreme Court had held to be unconstitutional 3 years before the Commission was established, was not being eliminated.
Housing discrimination against members of minority groups was practiced widely by builders, brokers, and lending institutions in all parts of the country. Hotels, restaurants, and other places of public accommodation commonly denied service to travelers for no reason other than their race. And federally assisted programs and activities were often administered on a racially discriminatory basis with no substantial effort on the part of the Federal Government to assure that Federal benefits reached all citizens.
Although many of these problems have persisted, much has changed over the last 12 years.
Voting is a striking example. In many communities where few if any blacks were ever permitted to exercise the franchise, they now are voting in large numbers. Hotels, restaurants, and theaters which once refused to serve black citizens now are serving all customers. Many facilities provided under federally assisted programs, such as hospitals aided by the Hill-Burton and Medicare Acts, have changed their practices so that they now are serving all without discrimination.
These changes came about primarily through the enactment of Federal laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the numerous executive and administrative actions which were promulgated to implement and enforce these two historic acts.
It was the findings of the Commission on Civil Rights which paved the way for these pieces of legislation and administrative decisions.
The Commission's hearings, reports, and recommendations have played an important and valuable role in bringing about change. The Commission has helped to awaken the Nation to the existence of problems which previously were largely unrecognized. Its reports have provided the factual base for much of the legislative and executive action taken in the area of civil rights in recent years. Many of the Commission's recommendations, considered controversial at the time they were made, have been adopted in the form of legislation or executive action. For example, in 1959, the Commission recommended the enactment of legislation providing for Federal registrars to assure to blacks and other minority group citizens the right to vote. This recommendation provided the basis for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A series of Commission recommendations aimed at assuring nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs was enacted into law as title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In its recent report on "Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort," the Commission evaluated civil rights enforcement mechanisms within the Federal bureaucracy and found them to be suffering from lack of staff, coordination, and commitment. Its followup report found some encouraging developments, but this does not mean that strong civil rights enforcement is now assured or even that we have turned the corner in eliminating the many weaknesses that were found to exist.
The Commission's report on the "Ethnic Isolation of Mexican Americans in the Public Schools of the Southwest" was the Federal Government's first comprehensive look at Mexican Americans in the Nation's schools. Its report on "Home Ownership for Lower Income Families" found that the traditional pattern of racially segregated residence is being perpetuated and current programs are failing to fulfill their enormous promise of providing new housing opportunities to minority families who previously had little housing choice.
With this record of past service, I believe the Senate should approve for the Committee on Civil Rights the full appropriation recommended by the White House.
While the number of dollars is small, the principle is large indeed. The question is whether this body chooses to affirm today – July 19, 1971 – that we are committed to continuing and expanding the struggle for racial equality in this Nation.
The Commission on Civil Rights, both in symbol and in reality, is at the center of this Government's commitment to the solution of the problems of our oppressed minorities.
How difficult it would be to place a dollar value on what this Commission has done, on what it now represents to the blacks and the browns of this country. But given the problems of domestic strife and racial injustice we face, can it be anything but ludicrous to say that this Nation does not have the additional $560,000 needed to enable this Commission to function effectively. What can such economizing say of our sense of national priorities?
We must not weaken the Civil Rights Commission. It must be strengthened. That is why I shall today vote for the amendment to increase the appropriations for the Commission.