Abstract

Civil Rights on the Move

You won't find an overt attack on civil rights in the Republicans' Contract With the U.S. And the U.S. House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich has not targeted civil rights policy as an early priority. Yet Washington is buzzing with speculation that the newly energized civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department will be pummeled when the realigned 104th U.S. Congress steps into the ring. With incoming U.S. Senate Judiciary chairman Orrin Hatch calling the division's recent decisions "outrageous" and "almost unethical" in a Court TV interview, and right-wing guerrilla Clinton Bolick, formerly of the Reagan Justice Department, now litigation director of the Institute for Justice, declaring that "civil rights policy is being implemented by ideological zealots; it's clear that the Republicans are coming.