From CUNY Web Server
August 29, 1998
BY TREVOR W. COLEMAN
Question: What do William Shockley, Arthur
Jensen, Michael Levin and Linda Gottfredson,
academics who have espoused theories of
race-based inferiority, have in common with the
Center for Individual Rights, the conservative
Washington, D.C., law firm that is suing to
dismantle the University of Michigan's
affirmative-action policies?
Answer: The Pioneer Fund, a notoriously racist
and blatantly white-supremacist organization that
over the course of its 61-year history has been a
leading underwriter of research that purports to
show the genetic inferiority of African-Americans.
CIR has accepted two grants from the fund,
totaling $35,000, although CIR executive director
Michael Greve said Friday: "I do not agree with
their views nor does anyone else at CIR. Our
acceptance of their funds does not by any stretch
of the imagination constitute an endorsement of
their views."
In accepting the Pioneer money, CIR joins the
likes of Shockley and Jensen, whose books
published in the 1960s and 1970s raised questions
about the inherent intelligence of black Americans.
Their intellectual heirs are Pioneer beneficiaries
Levin, a professor of philosophy at the City
University of New York, and Gottfredson, a
professor of educational studies at the University
of Delaware. They have received hundreds of
thousands of dollars from the Pioneer Fund to
support their research into the intellectual
inferiority of black Americans. Both also are
clients of the CIR.
The Pioneer Fund and CIR have both been
monitored for years by Dr. Barry Mehler, an
associate professor of history and director of the
Institute for the Study of Academic Racism at
Ferris State University in Big Rapids.
Mehler said that a close look at CIR and the type
of "civil rights" cases it pursues, and, most
important, its link to the Pioneer Fund, reveals a
disturbing agenda.
"It's very clear from the kind of cases they choose
and issues they address, that this is not an
organization that is interested in fighting for
individual rights," he said. "The Center for
Individual Rights is fighting for the rights of certain
individuals, i.e. whites. The result of their civil
rights work is that minorities are denied
opportunities."
One of CIR's earliest legal battles was on behalf
of Gottfredson, a University of Delaware
researcher who said that blacks were intellectually
inferior to whites and have diminished capabilities
in work and educational settings. The university
rejected a $174,000 Pioneer grant toward her
work, citing the fund's racist history. Gottfredson
sued, claiming she was a victim of political
correctness, and the schfool eventually backed
down to avoid a protracted legal battle.
CIR also has represented Levin, the New York
professor with a $120,000 Pioneer grant who has
called for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and all subsequent civil rights and
anti-discrimination laws, and a separate subway
system for black males.
In a 1993 case, CIR successfully argued that civil
rights groups lacked standing to use testers posing
as job applicants to ferret out reported
discrimination at an employment firm. Later, the
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of testers.
The CIR presents itself as a civil liberties or civil
rights group with this declaration of civil rights
objectives: "CIR advocates a limited application of
civil rights laws that would preserve private
citizens'right to deal or not to deal with other
private citizens."
To many legal scholars, this position is a
throwback to 19th Century law, when "separate
but equal" was considered legal in this country.
The CIR's most prominent case to date was a
successful 1996 challenge to affirmative-action
admissions at the University of Texas Law School,
which resulted in a 50-percent drop in black and
Hispanic enrollment at the school.
Following that victory, the CIR went on to litigate
successfully the challenge to California's
anti-affirmative-action Proposition 209, then sued
the University of Washington Law School over
affirmative action before taking on the University
of Michigan.
"Our cases cut across ideological lines," said CIR
senior counsel Terry Pell. "I don't think you can
read a pattern into our free speech cases. It's very
difficult to connect our free speech cases with our
affirmative-action cases."
To be sure, CIR has a right to take on any clients
or causes it sees fit, and to accept money from
whatever wallet is offering it. It is also fair,
however, to point out that the money comes from
an organization that openly avows racist policies
and promotes Nazi ideology.
Even the most cursory review of CIR's "civil
rights" cases indicate a sophisticated strategy to
oppose the enforcement of civil rights regulations
and oversight accountability.
What they are doing is not challenging the laws so
much as the enforcement of those laws.
CIR's support of free speech for eugenicists,
opposition to strong anti-discrimination laws, suits
against universities and acceptance of money from
an organization so racist that the Anti-Defamation
League has put out a warning on it, is fully
consistent with its role as the legal arm of a radical
conservative effort to gut the civil rights
movement.
Getting rid of affirmative-action policies at the
University of Michigan and elsewhere is only a
first step in what promises to be a long and bitter
campaign -- with CIR at the forefront -- to turn
back the clock on decades of progress.
Trevor W. Coleman is a Free Press editorial
writer. You can write him at the Detroit Free
Press, 600 W. Fort St., Detroit, Mich. 48226,
or via E-mail at: coleman@det-freepress.com
CIR'S VICTORY CLAIMS
The CIR website lists these among the
organization's "notable victories in the area of civil
rights and affirmative action."
Lamprecht vs. Federal Communications
Commission (1992): Successfully represented a
male applicant for a radio broadcast license in a
challenge to the FCC's gender-preference
program.
Fair Employment Council vs. BMC Marketing
Corp. (1993): Successfully defended a small
employment agency against a discrimination suit
filed by a civil rights group that used testers posing
as job applicants to support its claims of bias.
Hurley vs. Irish-American Gay and Lesbian and
Bi-Sexual Group of Boston (1995): Successfully
argued that the First Amendment prohibits the
application of state anti-discrimination laws to a
privately sponsored parade.
Smith vs. Virginia Commonwealth University
(1996): Successfully represented five male faculty
members who challenged the university's
across-the-board pay raise to female faculty
members.
Hopwood vs. State of Texas (1996): First
successful legal challenge to racial preferences in
student admissions since the U.S. Supreme
Court's 1978 Bakke decision
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