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July
25, 2002, 11:30 a.m.
Commission
Inquisition
Sore quota protectors
try lies.
By Matt Continetti
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hen President
Bush first appointed Peter N. Kirsanow, a lawyer and former director of
the Center for New Black
Leadership, to a position on the United States Commission on Civil
Rights last year, Commission Chair Mary Frances Berry did everything in
her power — legally and illegally — to prevent it. Berry ultimately
failed and Kirsanow got his seat, but now the commissioner is under attack
again: Tuesday's New York Times reports
that a motley crew of civil-rights groups and Arab-American activists
have sent a letter to President Bush that calls for the removal of Peter
N. Kirsanow from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The
letter, coauthored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, says that Kirsanow suggested
during a commission meeting last week that he would tolerate the interning
of Arab Americans along the lines of Japanese internment during World
War II.
But a look at the
transcript shows that Kirsanow never said anything that could be construed
as supportive of internment camps. Kirsanow's comments came in response
to remarks made by Noel John Saleh, an attorney and member of the Detroit
chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Saleh said:
[The current situation]
does lead and could well lead to situations as embarrassing as the Japanese
internment camps in the Second World War. We're not unaware and we're
not unmindful of the fact that it was 18 months after the bombing at
Pearl Harbor that the internment camps were initiated. We aren't 18
months away from September 11th and if there is, in fact another terrorist
attack on the United States, then such things can be revisited.
Indicative of the
current level of discourse on race in the U.S. — and on the Commission
on Civil Rights specifically — Saleh continued:
This is —
while we hope it's a new America, it's not the same America. The history
of racism in this country, it didn't stop being racist when the fourteenth
and fifteenth amendment were enacted as we're all painfully aware. It
hasn't changed substantially or certainly sufficiently since 1964.
The commissioners'
only criticism of Saleh's statement that the United States is a racist
country that has not changed since 1964 was Kirsanow's response:
I agree with Mr.
Saleh that we need always to be vigilant to protect civil rights in
the context of, even in this context, in the context of being at war.
I would suggest that Homeland Security may be one of the best ways of
protecting civil rights because as you alluded to, I believe no matter
how many laws we have, how many agencies we have, how many police officers
we have monitoring civil rights, that if there's another terrorist attack
and if it's from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that
the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights in this country.
I think we will have a return to Karamatsu [the Supreme Court Decision
that said it was constitutional to intern Japanese-Americans] and I
think the best way we can thwart that is to make sure that there is
a balance between protecting civil rights, but also protecting safety
at the same time.
Saleh, who thinks
all Americans are racist, wasn't taken to task for his intemperate comments.
Instead, activist groups targeted Kirsanow. Imad Hamad, the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee's Midwest regional director, told the New
York Times that "For someone in [Kirsanow's] position to even
entertain the idea of detention camps … is like he is making it an
acceptable debate."
But Kirsanow did
not endorse the idea of detention camps any more than Saleh did. As their
statements indicate, both men wished to avoid a situation where there
are calls for the reinstatement of the Karamatsu decision. But Saleh and
Kirsanow had differing views of how to avoid this undesired outcome. For
Saleh, America is already on the road to detention camps for Arab Americans,
and security measures like those at the nation's airports are just another
sign of that trend. In contrast, Kirsanow argued that security measures,
by preventing another major terrorist attack on American soil, are the
best way to avoid the calls for more drastic measures like internment.
In other words, Kirsanow disagreed with Saleh's position that America
was a racist country where detention for Arab Americans is all but inevitable
— and that's why the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
wants to see him booted off the commission.
This isn't the first
time that the United States Commission on Civil Rights has allowed activists
and identity politics to forestall any hope of a reasoned, impassioned
discussion on civil rights. Last summer, when liberals controlled the
commission 6-2, Mary Frances Berry was able to push through a report on
Florida "disenfranchisement" of black voters that amounted to
a brief for the Gore campaign — eight months late. As John J. Miller
reported last year (NR, Sept. 17, 2001), the left-leaning commissioners
were also able to silence the Republican commissioners' dissent.
Since then, President
Bush has appointed Kirsanow and Jennifer Braceras, a lawyer associated
with the conservative Independent Women's Forum. Their presence (along
with fellow Republican appointee Abigail Thernstrom) on the commission
ensures that Berry has a difficult time enacting her anti-Bush agenda.
And while the administration was once reluctant to go to bat for their
civil-rights appointees, administration spokesman Scott Stanzel told the
Detroit Free Press that the president fully supports Kirsanow.
Liberals fought hard,
and illegally, to keep Kirsanow off the commission last year — and
now that he's on the commission, Kirsanow's critics are making things
up about him. To his credit, Kirsanow is taking the criticism and lies
in stride. "If people want to engage in a political battle, fine,"
says Kirsanow. "But do so on the basis of what I say."
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