Vol. 16 No. 10 (October, 2006) pp.854-859

 

AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM: CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER SIEGE AND THE NEW STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL JUSTICE, by Denise C. Morgan, Rachel D. Godsil, and Joy Moses (eds).  Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2006.  482pp.  Paper. $45.00.  ISBN: 1594600740.

 

Reviewed by Richard A. Glenn, Department of Government and Political Affairs, Millersville University, Pennsylvania.  Email: richard.glenn [at] millersville.edu.

           

AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM: CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER SIEGE AND THE NEW STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL JUSTICE is a criticism of the Rehnquist Court’s civil rights jurisprudence and a call to action.  Its message is consistent: Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his fellow conservatives have dismantled federal laws that promote inclusion, equality, political participation, and economic mobility.  From the subtitle (“Civil Rights Under Siege”), to the opening sentence of the Foreword (“These are bleak times for civil rights”), to the Introduction (“federal courts have abdicated their responsibility to promote equal justice”), to the title of the final essay (“Legal Strategies to Pursue Social Justice”), the frustration of the authors is evident.  A sampling of oft-used words and phrases informs—sword of oppression, retreat, rollback, struggle for justice, hostility, ideological backlash, reneging, abuse, double-talk, and hypocrisy.  And these are just from the titles and subtitles of chapters.

 

Edited by Denise C. Morgan (former professor at New York Law School), Rachel D. Godsil (civil rights professor at Seton Hall University School of Law), and Joy Moses (staff attorney for the Education Project at the National Law Center for Homelessness & Poverty), AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM is a collection of essays written by activists, law professors, public interest lawyers, and law students.  The essays are written for general readers and students.  The language is not technical; the prose easily understandable.  

 

A helpful foreword, written by Erwin Chemerinsky, lays out the purpose and direction of the book.  What follows is what is promised – a collection of essays, the purpose of which is two-fold – to inform of the conservative assault on civil rights and to inspire the masses to do something about it (to “awaken from the dream”).  As such, the essays do not come from a variety of perspectives.  Of the twenty-six essays, eighteen assess where the nation is today with respect to protecting civil rights; the final seven offer suggestions for how to restore civil rights.  Endnotes accompany each essay.

 

The book, which came out of a Columbia Law School conference celebrating the birth of the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights (NCRCR), is divided into four parts.  Part I provides a framework for understanding the relationship between federalism and civil rights.  Part II explores the impact of the Rehnquist Court’s “Federalism Revolution” on the lives of various groups of Americans.  The editors use the term “Federalism Revolution” to mean “the current appeal [*855] to states’ rights that has been used to justify decisions undercutting Congress’ ability to create and enforce civil rights” (p.xvii).  Part III examines the impact of the federalism revolution on the provision of government services.  Part IV attempts to point out that the federalism revolution is “a rhetorical veil for a political agenda.”  And Part V provides strategies for reversing the assault on civil rights.  The book also includes in Appendix A, a glossary of terms; in Appendix B, a list of websites with information about federal judicial nominations (although the list is far from balanced); and in Appendix C, the Constitution of the United States.  A complete list of essays and authors (with affiliations) is provided at the conclusion of this review. 

 

In Part I, Paul Finkleman’s essay sets the stage by succinctly exploring the relationship between federalism and civil rights from the founding of the Republic until the mid-1950s.  Wade Henderson then discusses the most recent half-century, with an emphasis on judicial developments of the 1990s and 2000s, in a reprint of his opening remarks to the NCRCR Conference in 2002.  Finkleman’s essay is an informative albeit brief history lesson.  Henderson’s contribution is more a litany of “bad” decisions rendered by the High Court.  He jumps from issue to issue and case to case.  “In this case, the justices held . . . .  In that case, the majority determined . . . .”  Henderson’s piece is clearly better suited for a keynote address at a convention for political activists than a book.

 

The crux of this book comes in Parts II and III.  Part II tells how various groups have been directly harmed by the “right-wing” federal judiciary.  Essays in this section discuss the civil rights of blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, women, the elderly, the disabled, sexual minorities, language minorities, and immigrants.  Part III describes the rollbacks in the areas of education, health care, the environment, the criminal justice system, the domestic “war on terror,” and immigration.  Unfortunately, Barbara J. Olshansky’s essay on civil liberties and terrorism does not consider much of what has transpired recently.  Within the past few years, the Supreme Court has ruled on a number of challenges to the administration of President George W. Bush’s claim that it has the power to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens held as “enemy combatants,” and to detain indefinitely and try by military tribunal, without appeal, foreign nationals who had been seized on battlefields and held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  It is worth noting that many of Olshansky’s arguments in opposition to this assertion of unilateral executive authority found a voice on the High Court.  Additionally, the chapter on immigration was obviously written before immigration (reform) emerged as a major political issue.

 

All of the essays in these two parts follow a similar pattern.  They open with a vignette of some American who has been deprived of “justice” by the civil rights rollback.  They then show how state and federal statutes, executive actions, and judicial decisions of a previous era promoted inclusion, equality, political participation, and [*856] economic mobility.  The lion’s share of each essay is dedicated to demonstrating how the Rehnquist Court has dismantled the civil rights agenda.  Finally, the essays end with a plea for like-minded persons to take up the cause of revitalizing civil rights.  Most of the conclusions are standard and trite: “[T]he Rehnquist Court has abandoned the true promise of equality under the Constitution,” is indicative (p.50).

 

Part IV contends that the decisions of the Rehnquist Court have been based entirely on politics and not principle.  In an essay entitled “It’s Not About States’ Rights,” Herbert Semmel demonstrates some inconsistencies of the Court’s right-wing voting block.  Using examples in cases involving abortion, business practices, campaign contributions, environmental protection, family law, gay rights, health insurance, land use, medicinal marijuana, state tort law, and tobacco products, Semmel shows that the Court’s oft-stated commitment to states’ rights is unsupported by some of its jurisprudence.  Time and time again, the justices have ignored the principle of federalism when overriding state laws that favor civil rights interests.  In none of the cases, however, does Semmel provide anything more than a summary paragraph of what was decided. 

 

 Some of the essays in Part V inform as to how the conservatives have rolled back civil rights.  Lee Cokorinos and Alfred F. Ross, for example, outline the history and structure of the conservative movement, including synopses of the more influential think tanks and legal and advocacy organizations.  And Susan Lerner explains how the political right, beginning with President Ronald Reagan, has been much more effective at remaking the federal judiciary to further its political agenda.  As a result, she alleges, we now have a judiciary dominated by right-wing ideologues who are directly responsible for the dismantling of protections for civil rights.  The final five essays in Part V look to the future by offering readers some approaches to stemming the anti-antidiscrimination tide.  While each chapter emphasizes a specific topic – encouraging new and more specific civil rights legislation, promoting community and student activism, and pursuing litigation – all offer a myriad of suggestions for revitalizing civil rights.

 

I often find collections of essays difficult to read (and awkward to review).  Far too often, they are repetitive and disconnected.  The essays in AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM are not disconnected; but they are repetitive.  For example, the chapters on “Older Americans” and “Americans with Disabilities” cover much of the same information.  Similarly, the essays on “Latinos,” “Language Minorities,” Immigrant Workers,” and “Immigration” address many of the same laws, cases, and issues.  And chapter after chapter after chapter discuss the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Standing alone, each of the essays is informative; together, however, they are too repetitive.  Careful editing would have improved this book.

 

AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM has two other shortcomings – perspective and analysis.  First, far too often, authors equate our present state of [*857] civil rights with those of a bygone and disgraced era.  Not every limitation on civil rights is comparable to slavery, forced racial segregation, or second-class citizenship.  Not every civil rights decision of the Rehnquist Court that adversely impacts minorities deserves to be equated with DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD (1857), THE CIVIL RIGHTS CASES (1883), or PLESSY v. FERGUSON (1896).  Second, the essays rarely discuss in any detail why the Court said what it said.  Complicated judicial decisions are not made understandable by reciting their holdings alone.  Of paramount concern are the rationale, the disagreements among the justices, the balancing of competing constitutional claims, and the significance of the case.  Readers interested in this information will have to look elsewhere.     

 

Shortcomings aside, it is worth remembering that the book was never intended to be a dispassionate analysis of modern civil rights jurisprudence.  It was intended to inspire the (probably already predisposed) civil rights activists and others nominally interested in the subject to AWAKEN[] FROM THE DREAM.  No doubt it will do that for many.

 

ESSAYS INCLUDED:

Paul Finkelman (Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tulsa College of Law): “What is Federalism and What Does it Have to do with Civil Rights?”

 

Wade Henderson (Executive Director, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights) and Janell Byrd-Chichester (civil rights attorney, The Cochran Firm, Washington, D.C.): “The NCRCR Conference Introduction.”

 

Lia B. Epperson (Director of Education, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.): “The Rehnquist Court, the Resurrection of Plessy, and the Ever-Expanding Definition of “Social Discrimination.”

 

Sandra Del Valle (civil rights lawyer): “Un Pasito Pa’lante, Un Pasito Pa’tras: Latinos and the Rollback of Civil Rights.”

 

Vincent A. Eng (Deputy Director, National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium) and Julianne Lee (student, University of Michigan Law School): “Asian Americans under the Rehnquist Court: A Protracted and Ongoing Struggle for Justice and Recognition.”

 

Emily J. Martin (Staff Attorney, Women’s Rights Project, ACLU): “Making a Federal Case out of Women’s Concerns: The Supreme Court’s Hostility to Civil Rights for Battered Women.”

 

Simon Lazarus (Senior Counsel, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood): “‘Narrowing the Nation’s Power’: The Impact of Older Americans.”

 

Caroline Palmer (Pro Bono Development Director, Minnesota State Bar Association): “Judicial Revision of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: Mere Fine-Tuning?  Or Ideological Backlash?” [*858]

 

Arthur S. Leonard (professor, New York Law School): “The Federalism Revolution and the Sexual Minority Federal Legislative Agenda.”

 

Rose Cuison Villazor (Human Rights Fellow, Columbia Law School): “Language Rights and Loss of Judicial Remedy: The Impact of Alexander v. Sandoval on Language Minorities.”

 

Marielena Hincapiè (Program Director, National Immigration Law Center) and Ana Avendaño-Denier (Assistant    General Counsel and Director of the Immigrant Worker Program, AFL-CIO): The Rollback of Immigrant Workers’ Civil Rights.”

 

Denise Morgan (professor, New York Law School): “Reneging on the Promise of Brown: The Rehnquist Court and Education Rights.”

 

Jane Perkins (Legal Director, National Health Law Program): “The Civil Rights Rollback: It’s Bad for Your Health.”

 

Olga Pomar (attorney, South Jersey Legal Services) and Rachel D. Godsil (civil rights professor, Seton Hall           University School of Law): “Permitted to Pollute: The Rollback of Environmental Justice.”

 

Michelle Alexander (Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Civil Rights Clinics, Stanford Law School): “Federalism, Race, and Criminal Justice.”

 

Barbara J. Olshansky (Director Counsel, Global Justice Initiative of the Center for Constitutional Rights): “Who’s Watching the Home Front?”

 

Lori A. Nessel (Associate Professor and Director of the Immigration & Human Rights Clinic, Seton Hall University             School of Law) and Anjum Gupta (Clinical Fellow, Center for Social Justice, Seton Hall University School of             Law): “Abuse of (Plenary) Power? Judicial Deference and the Post-9/11 War on Immigrants.”

 

Herbert Semmel (former Director, Federal Rights Project of the National Senior Citizens Law Center): “Double-Talk by the Activist Supreme Court Majority.”

 

Nathan Newman (Director, Agenda for Justice): “Federalist Hypocrisy and the Preemption of State Labor Laws.”

 

Lee Cokorinos (Executive Director, Capacity Development Group) and Alfred F. Ross (Founder and President, Institute for Democracy Studies): “Fighting the Civil Rights Rollback: Lessons from the Right.”

 

Susan Lerner (Founder and Chair, Committee for Judicial Independence): “Saving the Courts.”

 

Joy Moses (Staff Attorney, Education Project at the National Law Center for Homelessness & Poverty): “Protecting Ideals of Equality and Justice for All: Progressive Legislation in the Conservative Era.”

 

Dennis D. Parker (Bureau Chief, Civil Rights Bureau of the Office of New York State Attorney General): “State Strategies to Reverse the Civil Rights Rollback.” [*859]

 

Andrew Friedman (Co-founder, Make the Road by Walking), Robert Garcia (Executive Director, Center for Law in the Public Interest, Los Angeles, CA  ), Erica Flores Baltodano (Asistant Director, Center for Law in the Public    Interest, Los Angeles, CA), Julie Hyman (Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Indepedence of the Disabled in New York), Brad Williams (Executive Director, New York State Independent Living Council), and Tracie Crandell (Policy Analyst, Center for Disability Rights): “We Shall Be Moved: Community Activism as a Tool for Reversing the Rollback.”

 

Lisa Zeidner (student, Columbia Law School) and Luke Blocher (student, Columbia Law School): “Building a Student Movement: Lessons Learned and Suggestions for the Future.”

 

Marianne Engleman Lado (General Counsel, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest): “Lawyering and Litigation during the Rollback: Legal Strategies to Pursue Social Justice.”

 

CASE REFERENCES:

BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

 

THE CIVIL RIGHTS CASES, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).

 

DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).

 

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, 126 S.CT. 2749 (2006).

 

HAMDI v. RUMSFELD, 542 U.S. 507 (2004).

 

PLESSY v. FERGUSON, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

 

RASUL v. BUSH, 542 U.S. 455 (2004).

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© Copyright 2006 by the author, Richard A. Glenn.