Civil Rights Issue Research Articles

Education of Gifted Students

There are many students with high native abilities that remain uncrystallized because of a lack of opportunity, practice, and motivation. It is the responsibility of families, schools, and society to create a more favorable atmosphere for the full development of all students -- including those with outstanding talents. THE TOPIC of civil rights has shaped many educational discussions and decisions during the past three decades. In the context of education, civil rights means the guarantee of equal opportunity and justice for all and the actions taken against those barriers that stand in the way of such equality. How does the issue of civil rights bear on an area of special education such as the education of gifted students? There have been various suggestions that programs for gifted students may serve as a haven for upper-middle-class white students and thus may qualify as a new and more subtle form of racial and ethnic discrimination. Such concerns emerge from one indisputable fact: the differential representation of the sexes and of racial and ethnic groups in classes for gifted students.(1) In advanced mathematics classes, we find more boys than girls.(2) In programs for gifted students at the elementary and middle school levels, there is a relative shortage of black and Hispanic students (less than half their proportion in the general population) and a relative surplus of Asian students (more than twice their proportion in the general population).(3) Some critics have advanced these findings as indicators that there must be unfair practices abroad that are intentionally reducing the opportunities for certain groups of students to participate in programs for gifted children. But, we must ask, what model of child development -- or of justice -- are these programs following that would allow us to cry foul at the above figures? Why should the figures for student participation in programs for gifted students (or in athletics or in the school orchestra) match the proportions of gender, race, or ethnic origin in the society at large? The Role of Genetics One reason to expect proportional representation of various groups in these special programs for gifted students would be the belief that intellectual ability is determined at birth, that it unfolds in a regular maturational sequence, and that it is resistant to outside influences, so that environment and experience play no role in its development. Since few people can be found who accept the concept of an inherent difference between races, sexes, or ethnic groups in the ability to learn,(4) this would mean that there should be an equal distribution of these subgroups in programs for the gifted. A deviation from that equality would be interpreted as arising from some unfair practice, such as discriminatory tests for eligibility. Therefore, following this line of reasoning, someone's civil rights are being violated. There is considerable evidence to suggest that genetics does play a significant role in the development of various intelligences. Studies of twins and adoptive children clearly indicate that some children are born with more potential for learning rapidly than others. These differences apply within various racial and ethnic groups, not between them.(5) But that is only part of the picture. The rest of the story is that environment and sequential experiences play a significant role in the crystallization of native abilities. If a particular environment allows a child to have more experiences and to obtain more encouragement from adults and peers he or she considers important, then the child's abilities will flourish. Thus boys who are encouraged to work with mathematics and are told (implicitly or explicitly) that excelling in math is a masculine trait will develop their native abilities beyond girls who are told that they are not supposed to be good in this subject and that math ability is gender-specific to males. …

Reaping the Bloody Harvest: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the US Imperial Project

On July 22, 2011, President Barack Obama certified the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. The fight for the repeal of the homophobic policy has become a defining issue for the national LGBT civil rights movement. The repeal of the policy has been widely heralded as a civil rights victory, but it also raises questions about the complex meanings of justice, fairness, and equality under neoliberalism. Thus, the fight for the repeal of DADT provides a vital site of critique for rhetoricians as a location where neoliberal discourses of equality mask an imperialist US agenda. The article uses fantasy-theme criticism, as popularized by Ernest G. Bormann, to analyze reaction to the repeal as it chained out on social-media sites in order to locate the strategies that enable a progressive movement—that is, LGBT civil rights—to become entwined with US imperialism. This analysis illustrates how popular discursive crafting of DADT as a US civil rights issue masks the many ways that the construction “gays in the military” shores up homonormativity and sexual exceptionalism that assist in the deployment of US imperialism.

Employment Discrimination, Local School Boards, and LGBT Civil Rights: Reviewing 25 Years of Public Opinion Data

Over the past few decades, scholars from a variety of disciplines have devoted considerable attention toward studying evolving public attitudes toward a whole range of LGBT civil rights issues including support for open service in the military, same-sex parent adoption, employment non-discrimination, civil unions, and marriage equality. In the last 10 years in particular, the emphasis has shifted toward studying the various factors that best explain variation in support for same-sex marriage including demographic considerations, religious and ideological predispositions, attitudes toward marriage and family, and social contact (Baunach, 2011, 2012; Becker, 2012a, 2012b; Becker & Scheufele, 2009, 2011; Becker & Todd, 2013; Brewer, 2008; Brewer & Wilcox, 2005; Lewis, 2005, 2011; Lewis & Gossett, 2008; Lewis & Oh, 2008). Interest in documenting what some have deemed ‘‘a sea change in public opinion’’ toward same-sex marriage has prevailed, leaving concerns about employment discrimination, military service, and other civil rights issues behind as vestiges of a bygone era. A corresponding, almost exclusive focus on efforts to legalize same-sex marriage at both the federal and state levels has dominated the activities of issue advocacy, legal, and grassroots organizations. In truth, these other LGBT civil rights issues that have been eclipsed by the singular focus on same-sex marriage remain important legal ‘‘matters.’’ For example, employment discrimination has actually long been a relevant LGBT civil rights concern, first attracting considerable attention in the 1970s and 1980s given efforts by Anita Bryant and others to strike down anti-discrimination laws at the state-level through grassroots activism campaigns (Brewer, 2008). At present writing, 29 US states still allow individuals to be fired because of their sexual orientation (Dowd, 2013). While the U.S. Senate recently voted in November of 2013 to support extending the Employment Nondiscrimination Act to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and

Privacy as Identity Territoriality: Re-Conceptualising Behaviour in Cyberspace

Recent exposes of global surveillance have heightened already-heated debates about privacy in a technological society. In this paper, we explore the context and probable effects of this crisis, the character of privacy concerns, re-interpret what is meant by 'privacy', provide some solutions to the crisis. Fundamentally, we explore privacy not as a forensic or civil rights issue, but instead as a secondary psychological drive, the combination of two more profound drives – territoriality and identity. As such, the problem lies in the fact that cyberspace generally, is a wholly interconnected and networked environment which makes the demarcation of individual spaces problematic. However, by viewing privacy as identity territoriality, and by examining the psychology of those concepts, we can chart solutions to this crisis more easily. For example, we should interpret lower privacy concerns among youth as reflective of normal identity development processes in adolescence and young adulthood. Similarly, aspects of gender and temporality can be fruitfully incorporated to the discourse on privacy. On this basis, possible solutions and research directions are outlined to overcome the privacy crisis.

Normalising police militarisation, living in denial

The militarisation of policing in the USA continues to be a critical area of enquiry for both the police and the society. Recent events in Boston speak to the centrality of this area of research for understanding state responses to an array of social problems, including violence, terrorism and civil unrest. The police capacity to organise and distribute state-sponsored violence as well as the ability to shape institutional appearances while doing so, impacts issues of civil rights, domestic order and the quality of political life in a democracy. The importance of the topic, coupled with the fact that we have made a modest contribution to the literature on this phenomenon, led us to read Garth den Heyer's essay with keen interest.

The EU's strategy on economic and social rights in Russia: a missed opportunity?

In recent years, the EU's policy on human rights in Russia has been the focus of considerable internal and external attention, much of it being critical. Despite long-standing programmes for funding human rights projects in Russia and the launch of biannual EU–Russia human rights consultations in 2005, the subject of human rights remains contentious within EU–Russia relations. One striking aspect of the EU's policy towards Russia is its focus on issues such as prison reform, freedom of speech and prevention of torture which can broadly be characterised as civil and political rights issues. The purpose of this article is to examine the EU's approach to another aspect of human rights policy which tends to receive very little attention, namely economic and social rights issues such as housing, health, access to social security and workers' rights. Using data gathered from elite interviews with EU officials and representatives of Russian human rights and social non-governmental organisations (NGOs) during fieldwork in Brussels and Russia in 2011, the article will argue that the EU's lack of internal consensus on the importance of economic and social rights issues hinders its ability to raise these issues in its interactions with Russia on human rights. Yet the fact that economic and social rights have traditionally enjoyed a relatively high degree of visibility and importance in Russia has the potential to make this an area where more fruitful engagement on human rights could take place.

Presidential Rhetoric and Bureaucratic Enforcement

Do presidents exercise leadership through their public rhetoric and bureaucratic appointees? To address this question, we investigate fair housing policy and enforcement during the Clinton administration. President Clinton is often thought of as a civil rights advocate, and we expected to find that he provided leadership against housing discrimination, an important civil rights issue. To test this expectation, we examine two quantitative indicators of presidential leadership in fair housing: Clinton’s presidential statements and the degree of aggressive enforcement by HUD and DOJ under Clinton’s appointees. Our analysis, however, reveals few indications of leadership in Clinton’s public rhetoric and limited evidence of aggressive enforcement of fair housing policy by his appointees at HUD and DOJ. Our conclusions suggest possible explanations for these findings and our likely direction in the next stage of this research.

Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform

Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform situates case law in the broader education world by including edited versions of federal policy guidance, seminal law review articles, social science studies, and policy reports. It offers comprehensive coverage of education law while also focusing specifically on equality and civil rights issues. It includes individual chapters on each major area of inequality: race, poverty, gender, disability, homelessness, and language status. Those chapters are followed by a structured approach to the complex first amendment questions, dividing the first amendment into three different chapters and addressing, in order, freedom of expression and thought, religion in schools, and the intersection of religion and freedom of expression with school curriculum. Two chapters relating to current educational reform — No Child Left Behind, Standardized Testing, Charter Schools, and Vouchers — close out the book. Narrative introductions to every chapter, major section, and case synthesize and foreshadow the material to improve student comprehension and retention. Efficient presentation of carefully-edited cases and secondary sources permit comprehensive inclusion of case law and secondary issues. Student-friendly questions and notes follow each case. Hypothetical problems follow each subsection and draw on multiple skills: synthesis of law, factual application, fact gathering, professional judgment, and practical problem-solving skills. These problems can be modified for group exercises, class discussion, or writing assignments.

An Archbishop’s View on Immigration and Social Justice

An Archbishop’s View on Immigration and Social Justice Rubén Franco (bio) A high authority in the Catholic Church in Los Angeles, where he is a well-known outspoken activist on immigration, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, visited DePaul University for a day during Fall term 2012. He had been invited for activities in commemoration of Hispanic Heritage Month. He delivered the fourth annual Archbishop Oscar Romero Latino Breakfast Speech, organized by the Center for Intercultural Programs in the Student Center, and then spent the day traveling between the University’s two campuses in the Loop and Lincoln Park, to participate in conversation groups and panels. Now retired from the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Mahony has stated that his new vocation will be to advocate full-time for the cause of undocumented immigrants, and to initiatives toward their legal residency status. The DePaul Breakfast was attended by more than a hundred faculty, staff and students. Mahony’s words tiptoed between poetry and politics, as he peppered his talk with immigration figures, citations from Oscar Romero’s historic sermons (with pauses to add his own social commentary), and his views on the Catholic Church’s urgent need to help marginalized immigrant groups. He encouraged the group to understand that, “we cannot do everything, but it (the Church) compels us to do something.” As he recited the eloquent words of the martyred Salvadoran archbishop, the clinking silverware remained silent and inspired eyes clung to his every word. Linking the struggle for social justice in 1980s El Salvador to that of the extensive population in the U.S. called “illegal,” Mahony drew from observations during his many years of social service in Los Angeles. The Archbishop Emeritus made it clear that the Church, its educational institutions, and everyone in this country, stand to gain from comprehensive immigration reform. He proclaimed the issue of immigrant rights “the Civil Rights issue” of this generation. After the breakfast, he attended a brief Catholic mass in the St. Louise de Marillac campus chapel. In the afternoon, he commuted to the Loop campus to address a group from the DePaul Law School. In his talk titled, For I was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me, he applied Biblical foundations, Catholic Church and Catholic higher education principles to the need for immigration reform, supplementing these with a historical review of immigrant arrivals to the U.S. He then concluded with five key elements to arrive at a solution for legalizing those in residence. First, facts must be separated from myths by understanding the history of immigrants in the U.S.; second, there needs to be a personal connection with immigrant families to understand their stories; third, immigrants and their children must be humanized; fourth, the immigrant activist community must shift the emphasis toward the future, to work toward the fifth and final element: working for, and urging, immigration policy reform at the federal level. As Mahony put it, “people want to stay home,” thus efforts by home countries must become part of the larger solution. He stated that people often have and should be able to migrate to provide a better life for their families, echoing the stance taken by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “that migration should be driven by choice not necessity.”1 The Cardinal conceded that “nations have the right to protect their borders,” but that it should be done in a measured and succinct manner with greater concentration on actual threats to national security. He stressed the need for a practice of providing asylum for refugees, reiterating the importance of recognizing the human rights and dignity of populations: to bring focus to “reuniting families, not separating them.” His address met some skepticism in the room of future litigators. One unconvinced student expressed a lack of faith in the ability of politicians to solve this issue, stating that, “politicians nowadays only care about getting reelected. They never listen to the people.” Mahony responded with various examples in which social justice advocacy brought changes to government policy. As the event concluded, the question-and-answer portion quickly turned into a heated debate among audience members, which was made up of current and past DePaul Law School...

Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left by Jill K. Gill (review)

Reviewed by: Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left by Jill K. Gill Curtis J. Evans Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left. By Jill K. Gill. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2011. Jill Gill’s critical yet sympathetic analysis of the National Council of Churches’ (NCC) response to and critique of the Vietnam War provides a model of engaged history. Gill argues that the Vietnam War and other events of this divisive period challenged, splintered, and exposed the weaknesses of the NCC’s efforts against the war, and thus her narrative is “instructive for religious institutions that bring their faith into politics” (3). The book is not simply a narrative unfolding of the NCC’s antiwar stance, but a rich analysis of the theological foundations of an enduring ecumenical strand of Christian faith, adding to our understanding of such varied topics as the decline of the mainline Protestant denominations, the clergy-laity divide that became such a topic of debate during this period, the rise of the Christian Right, and the challenge posed to institutions and bureaucratic religious authorities such as the NCC by secular youth and Christian laity. Unlike so many other works that either discount or ignore the historical precedents of the NCC’s activism in the 1960s (for example, James Findlay’s Church People in the Struggle and Mark Newman’s Divine Agitators, which are otherwise compelling accounts of the NCC’s engagement with race and civil rights issues), Gill gives appropriate attention to the historical antecedents of the NCC’s antiwar activities by providing a brief account of the Federal Council of Churches’ international and domestic social activism and its ecumenical vision. She argues that Robert Bilheimer, who was a major figure in the NCC’s campaign against the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1973, sought to ground the actual strategies and proposals of the NCC in its emphasis on unity in the body of Christ and a common theological vision within a broader Christian community beyond the United States. But as Gill states so aptly, “Its belief that it is part of a worldwide body of Christ was tested during a time when Christian nationalism and American exceptionalism spiked amid a unilateral hot war that the [End Page 80] government saw as embedded in a global Cold War against atheistic communists” (390). Gill calls for the integration of discussions of ecumenism, especially the NCC, into analyses of American religious history, post-World War II U.S. history, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. This emphasis on the role and influence of the NCC is convincing, but its insistent demand to speak with President Richard Nixon, who vengefully excluded the NCC from the White House, and its history of intimate involvement with government might be read as an unseemly quest for power that is an inherent tension for such a religious group that sought to “speak truth to power” and offer a “prophetic witness.” Gill’s work is an essential and enlightening starting point for future discussions about whether successors or detractors might learn from the NCC’s experience. Curtis J. Evans University of Chicago Divinity School Copyright © 2013 Mid-America American Studies Association

Remediation as a Civil Rights Issue in the California State University system

From the foreward by Gary Orfield: As we face the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, college opportunity has been negatively impacted by drastic cuts and the rising cost of education. In California specifically, higher education opportunity seems to be nearly out of reach for low-income students, academically unprepared students, and students of color. Historically, higher education has been considered a mechanism of upward mobility. Considered part of the “American Dream,” parents encourage their children to strive for this goal, even if parents themselves never attended college.Academically underprepared students, or this lacking the basic skills of math ad/or English to be at college-level, represent over half of entering freshmen at the CSU. What these startling numbers really represent is a growing number of underprepared students graduating California high schools, often with excellent grades, yet being denied admission of the state’s public institutions. Despite California’s commitment to universal access to all who can benefit and tuition-free education, what we are seeing is an inability to uphold this social contract at the cost of student’s futures.The negative impact of budget cuts has been felt beyond the students and their families. Recent pay cuts, furloughs, and other declines in financial support have also impacted faculty and staff at the CSU campuses. Increasingly, faculty and staff have feelings of unfairness, as they struggle to provide services and quality education to students, yet experience enormous cut after cut. Morale continues to plummet as faculty and staff are expected to perform the duties of educating the stat’s youth, ye the value of education seems practically non-existent within the state’s budget priorities. Also available at: http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu

Don't Ask, Don't Tell and Other LGB Civil Rights Issues: Effects of Terminology on Public Opinion

“Don't Ask, Don't Tell” was devised to combat the perceived costs associated with gays and lesbians openly serving in the military, including low unit cohesion, damage to the military's reputation, and the general population's lack of acceptance for homosexuals serving (Belkin, 2008). However, recent polls and policy reversal have shown growing public support for homosexuals being allowed to serve openly. Interestingly, the amount of support has varied as a function of question wording. Two polls conducted by CBS News found support for homosexuals serving in the military varied with greater support for “gays and lesbians” compared to “homosexuals.” Two studies were conducted to further examine the effect of terminology on reported support. Two samples reported opinions for homosexual civil rights issues. Sexual orientation was described using the terms gay men and lesbians, homosexuals, gay men, or lesbians. Percentage differences were found to be greater than those reported in the CBS polls, as wording choice had an effect on reported openness regarding homosexual civil rights. These differences indicate that it is important to consider precise terminology usage when measuring opinions. Levels of support, stereotypes activated, and the relationship between support for civil rights and general levels of prejudice were examined.

Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights, and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Final Hours (review)

Reviewed by: Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights, and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Final Hours Elizabeth Bush Bausum, Ann . Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights, and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Final Hours. National Geographic, 2012. 104p. illus. with photographs Library ed. ISBN 978-1-4263-0940-3 $28.90 Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4263-0939-7 $19.95 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4263-0945-8 $19.99 R* Gr. 6-9. In this riveting account of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike, Bausum adroitly handles both the labor action itself—born of institutionalized racial injustice within the public works system and the tragic deaths of two African-American workers in a faulty compactor—and what would be the final civil rights action of Dr. King's storied career. Bausum brings readers onboard with a gagworthy introduction to garbage in the 1960s, before plastic trash-can liners, before curbside pickup, before ready-to-eat scrap-free meals. She then turns to the African-American workers who accepted these lowest-rung, lowest-paid, dangerous sanitation jobs, and to the ploys to cut back their already minimal pay. With the stage set for the strike itself and the initially reluctant support of the union, the focus shifts to follow King's involvement, as he hoped the national focus on labor injustice would draw attention to his broader plans for an attack on poverty itself as the next great civil rights issue. Bausum discusses with objectivity and compassion the way grassroots action in Memphis surged ahead of King's organization, and how younger activist groups such as the Invaders, impatient with the nonviolent approach of the old guard, condoned (or at least empathized with) the rioting and looting into which [End Page 339] peaceful marches devolved. Although the Sanitation Workers' story would have a relatively happy ending, with union recognition, pay raises, and institutional reforms, the Memphis Campaign would end tragically with King's assassination and the splintering of his organization among leaders with divergent strategies and agendas. Clearly organized and densely illustrated, this title includes features such as an introductory "cast of characters," an annotated timeline of the strike, and a list of King's campaigns from 1955 through 1968 to help untangle a complex set of intertwined events. A resource guide, bibliography, citations list, and index are also included. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Silence of Our Friends (review)

Reviewed by: The Silence of Our Friends Elizabeth Bush Long, Mark . The Silence of Our Friends; written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos; illus. by Nate Powell. First Second/Roaring Brook, 2012. 200p. ISBN 978-1-59643-618-3 $16.99 R* Gr. 8-12. This powerful graphic novel, based on the experience of Long's father, a television news reporter, follows the unlikely friendship between James Long, who covers civil rights issues for a Houston station, and Larry Thomas, an African-American professor at Texas Southern University. In a fictionalized reconstruction of the events of 1967, Long is assigned to the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's frustrated efforts to organize on campus; when students attempt to force the camera-wielding white man to leave the area, Thomas comes to his aid. As the two men begin to know each other better, they agree that if they truly believe in the tolerance they espouse, they should really visit each other's homes. Thus begins a hesitant friendship between the two families, whose halting overtures are met with skepticism among the members of their own communities. Their newly established amity is sorely tested, though, when five African-American students are arrested in connection with the death of a police officer at a campus riot, and Long, who witnessed but did nothing to intervene in the melee, is called to give testimony. Powell's black-and-white artwork moves nimbly between restraint and explosion, with scenes that patiently, and often silently, explore the miasma of prejudice in the late 1960s South, and then erupt into gutter-shattering bursts of violence and grainy images of rioting shrunken and corralled on television screens. A concluding note addresses the actual 1967 TSU episode and ensuing trial. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Poets and Prophets in a Machine Age: Reinhold Niebuhr on Technology

It may initially seem odd that individual featured on cover of Time Magazine's 25 anniversary edition in 1948 was, of all things, a theologian. But then again, Reinhold Niebuhr was no ordinary public figure. People as diverse as Martin Luther King, Jr., Alan Paton, Saul Alinsky, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama regard him as a major influence on their thought.2 Hans Morgenthau, preeminent political theorist and proponent of twentieth century political realism, considered Niebuhr the greatest living political philosopher of America.3 Nor was Niebuhr' s influence restricted to cultural elite: he is widely regarded as author of Serenity Prayer used by recovery programs worldwide.How did this pastor-turned-ethics professor manage to have such broad cultural influence? For one Niebuhr had a remarkable synthetic mind, enabling him to bring theological concepts to bear on pressing social, political, and economic issues of twentieth century in cogent, profound, and surprising ways. But just as important, he was keenly attuned to events, movements, and trends of his day. From his activism on behalf of Ford's auto workers in Detroit in 1920s, to his involvement in Socialist Party and attentiveness to civil rights issues in 1930s, to his vocal leadership throughout World War II and height of Cold War, Niebuhr persistently subjected contemporary scene to incisive analysis.This article focuses on a particular aspect of Niebuhr' s analysis: namely, his thoughts on promise and peril of technology. Niebuhr' s career spanned a time of dizzying social transformation brought about through technological innovation. Niebuhr was bora in 1892 - a mere 15 years after invention of telephone.4 By his death in 1971, Niebuhr had seen emergence of automobile and airline industries, launching of first satellite, first human steps taken on lunar surface - not to mention carnage of two world wars, invention of atom bomb, specter of nuclear proliferation, and with it, capacity to destroy planet many times over. Niebuhr was well acquainted with promise and peril that accompany technological change, and theme of technology and its implications surfaces repeatedly throughout his writings.5 More specifically, I examine what Niebuhr understood to be spiritual repercussions of technological change, as well as his suggestions for how modern society can relate to technology in a way that fosters conditions necessary to spiritual health in a technologically advanced age. It is my contention that Niebuhr offers us insight into how to promote and maintain spiritual health amid technological transformations of our day.RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY IN NIEBUHR'S THOUGHTNiebuhr's frequent references to technology are typically embedded in his analyses of political, ethical, social, or economic issues. As a consequence, Niebuhr's analysis of technology shifts to accommodate major changes in society. Niebuhr's early writings were informed by his experience of advocating for Henry Ford's assembly line workers during his pastorate in Detroit from 1916-1928. Repeated failures to obtain concessions from Ford on their behalf prompted Niebuhr's grim appraisal of industrial revolution's effect on urban poor and on American society in general. Though he sharply disagreed with Marx's appraisal of religion, Niebuhr saw Marx as industrial society's most insightful and perceptive critic. He drew heavily on Marx in often scathing critiques of industrialism in his first major writings following his acceptance of a faculty position in ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1929.6 From mid-1930s onward, Niebuhr's attention shifted from American society to mounting political tensions in Europe which would eventually give way to World War II. Renouncing both fascism and communism, he nonetheless remained critical of dangerously naive individualism he perceived at core of American democratic and economic theory and retained socialist political leanings throughout his life. …

Mexico Reading the United States (review)

Reviewed by: Mexico Reading the United States Gloria Gálvez-Carlisle Egan, Linda, and Mary K. Long, eds. Mexico Reading the United States. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2009. Pp. 316. ISBN 978-0-8265-1639-8. Thirteen essays in this thought-provoking volume explore aspects of Mexican perceptions of the United States, spanning from 1920 to the present. The multiplicity of voices in this comprehensive and thoughtfully arranged assemblage covers a broad range of topics in a variety of artistic expressions—novels, essays, film, political cartoons, and Mexican sociocultural movements—all from a Mexican point of view. Addressing intersections of bicultural and binational ways of life over almost a century, Mexico Reading the United States is arranged chronologically into three parts: first, "Separate and Unequal: Mexico Struggles for Autonomy, 1920-1960"; second, "Inseparable Differences: Mexico Adapts U.S. Models, 1960-1990s"; and third, "At Home with the Other: Mexico Deals with Virtual Nationhood into Twenty-first Century". These essays provide contrasting insights into a wide range of current issues including immigration, Mexican identity, transculturation, consumerism, neoliberalism, globalization, and the virtual realities of cyberspace. Although each essay is worth reading for its own content and merits, some invite particular attention. In part 1, coeditor Mary K. Long's article, "Writing Home. The United States through the Eyes of Traveling Mexican Artists and Writers, 1929-1940," traces visions of the United States presented by well-known Mexican artists and writers including José Clemente Orozco, Salvador Novo, Xavier Villaurrutia, and José Juan Tablada. Critical analysis illustrates how repeated impressions of order and technological efficiency are mixed with a common denominator of overwhelming materialism, and, in the Mexican view, "bland, boring and familiar uniformity" (26). Yet, there appears a willingness among most cited authors to adopt new techniques benefiting from information, experiences, and modernization without threatening their own cultural identity. Salvador A. Oropesa's study, "Salvador Novo. The American Friend, the American Critic," diligently explores the importance and influence of the poet-essayist and delves deeply into Novo's social, cultural, and political insights based on travel in Mexico and the United States. Novo enjoyed many aspects of American culture, especially the impeccable technical and artistic aspects of Broadway's plays, recognizing that "very professional work can be done by Mexicans and Americans when they work together" (65). However, he criticizes the discrimination and exploitation of Mexican "braceros" and the immigration policies of both the United States and Mexico. Two remaining essays in this part involve filmmaking and attest further to the conflicting nature of perspectives throughout this volume. Robert Conn focuses on the creation of a political and cultural consciousness in Vasconcelos's screenplays, while Fernando Fabio Sánchez explores cultural clashes between the United States and Mexico, and dual implications of Steinbeck's story The Pearl and the film La perla. In the leading essay of part 2, "Carlos Monsiváis 'Translates' Tom Wolf," Linda Egan confronts the angst developed around issues of civil rights. Examining shifted priorities between US and Mexican culture, Monsiváis continues to emphasize "the capacity for autonomous self-criticism, willingness to confront power and insist on government's obligations to serve" (107, 109), traits of the United States so admired by himself and other Mexican intellectuals. Maarten Van Delden's superb monograph, "La pura gringuez," demonstrates keen scholarship and insightful cultural commentary. He delineates meticulously the essence of the asserted cultural differences and clash of identities between the United States and Mexico, as reflected [End Page 540] in the critical views of three well known Mexican writers: José Agustín, Carlos Fuentes, and Ricardo Aguilar Melanzón. Van Delden raises fascinating questions about the validity and sources of the "continuing tradition of denigrating the United States while longing for Mexico" (170). Completing part 2 in unrelated critical veins, Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba provocatively documents political adaptations and cultural translations in development of US and Mexican gay movements, and Danny J. Anderson invokes stereotypes of misguided idealism and US "do-gooders". In part 3, Emily Hind, in her article "'Mexican' Novels on the Lesser United States," examines some of the complexities introduced by NAFTA, as portrayed in novels by Andrés Acosta, Juvenal Acosta, Boullosa, Puga, Servín...

White Collar Radicals: TVA's Knoxville Fifteen, The New Deal, and the McCarthy Era (review)

Reviewed by: White Collar Radicals: TVA's Knoxville Fifteen, The New Deal, and the McCarthy Era Jason Scott Smith (bio) White Collar Radicals: TVA's Knoxville Fifteen, The New Deal, and the McCarthy Era. By Aaron D. Purcell. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009. Pp. xviii, 258. $39.95 cloth) This elegant study tells the story of the second Red Scare from the bottom up. Relying on rarely used sources, including diaries, Federal Bureau of Investigation files, and a wide range of archival and manuscript collections, Aaron Purcell uses the lives of fifteen entry-level Tennessee Valley Authority employees to open a broader discussion of the fate of domestic radicalism during the Cold War. [End Page 134] "This small group of largely harmless 'New Dealers,'" Purcell argues, "attracted the attention of anti-Communist investigators even before World War II, and the relentless campaign to connect Reds in the TVA's mailroom with Reds in the TVA's boardroom continued into the mid 1950s" (p. xxv). With this work, Purcell captures the national security state at its creation, tracing the impact that government-run loyalty investigations had on the lives of his subjects through the 1940s and 1950s. In part one of his study, "Visions," Purcell provides brief portraits of his cast of characters. Drawn by the promise of economic and social transformation that the TVA held for the Tennessee Valley region, Purcell's fifteen employees shared a desire "to organize workers into unions, end segregation, and expand educational opportunities for all laborers" (p. 11). Purcell overreaches somewhat when he states that "Young idealistic Americans found the promises of the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and the New Deal irresistible," but he is correct in observing that the TVA (along with other New Deal agencies) "attracted fresh talent with similar minds, hoping to create a better economic and social system" (pp. 36-37). Purcell's cohort, which he terms the "Knoxville Fifteen," had backgrounds in union-organizing (several of them had training at the Highlander Folk School), but before joining the TVA only one had formally become a member of the Communist Party. Although the Knoxville Fifteen held only "minor positions of short duration" in the TVA, their sympathy for Communist Party positions on labor and civil rights issues became the justification for federal investigations of their loyalties (p. 73). In part two, "Realities," Purcell explores these investigations, carried out by the FBI, House Un-American Activities Committee, and other federal bodies during World War II and the early Cold War. Conservative anticommunists in Congress, such as Senator Kenneth McKellar, unsuccessfully sought to use the issue of communists in the TVA to thwart the appointment of former TVA head David Lilienthal to run the Atomic Energy Commission. The federal government loyalty program initiated by President Harry Truman proved [End Page 135] particularly problematic for some members of the Knoxville Fifteen. In 1953, economist William Remington was convicted of perjury for lying about membership in the Communist Party and found guilty of lying about transmitting secret documents. Sentenced to three years in federal prison, Remington was murdered by three other inmates. Throughout his study, Purcell carefully balances the larger political stakes that the Cold War raised for radical Americans with attention to the lived experience of the fifteen TVA employees. Scholars interested in the domestic politics of anticommunism and the history of American radicals will profit from reading this serious and engaged monograph. Jason Scott Smith Jason Scott Smith is associate professor of history at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is the author of Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956 (2006), and is presently finishing a brief narrative history of the New Deal and Great Depression. Copyright © 2011 Kentucky Historical Society

Social dimensions of judgments of integrity in public figures

The notion of 'integrity' remains relatively unexplored in the social psychological literature, despite it being central to some important theoretical perspectives (notably, self-affirmation theory). It is an eminently positive - and well-used - epithet in descriptions of public figures. The two studies reported here addressed laypeople's conceptions of integrity. The findings indicate that in relation to eight public figures, the best general predictor of judgments of integrity was perceptions of 'sincerity' (characterized by attributes such as genuine and honest). For three of the public figures strongly linked to civil rights issues, judgments of integrity were also predicted by perceptions of 'standing for something'. The findings suggest that the social character of integrity merits further psychological research attention.

Cyberbullying: A Review of the Legal Issues Facing Educators

School districts are often given the challenging task of addressing problematic online behaviors committed by students while simultaneously protecting themselves from civil liability by not overstepping their authority. This is difficult, because the law concerning these behaviors is ambiguous and continuously evolving, and little consensus has yet been reached regarding key constitutional and civil rights issues. In the present article, the authors aim to shed light on some of the critical legal questions faced by school administrators by first reviewing several legislative actions and court cases involving problematic offline and online student speech or expressions. Next, the authors analyze the dispositions and extract principles that can inform and direct prevention and response efforts by educators. They conclude by underscoring the challenges of balancing legal guidance with humane consideration of the context and consequences of cyberbullying victimization among youth.

AIDS in the Workplace: Doctors, Lawyers, and Bosses

This is an examination of the potential liabilities for employers and unions in contexts where workers are diagnosed with AIDS. This illness has evolved from a rare and atypical disease into an enormous public health and employment law concern. AIDS and its consequences have wreaked legal and social havoc in certain industries. In other workplaces, it has raised, inter alia, issues of civil rights, welfare plan insolvency, discrimination, and employee privacy.