Administrative Implementation of Civil Rights

The civil rights problem of the mid-twentieth century was one of the greatest challenges to the American social fabric since the Civil War. Riots in scores of cities, and serious intergroup tensions and conflicts in thousands more, underlined the seriousness of the problem. Administrative Implementation of Civil Rights examines the role, operation, and contribution of the device most often relied on by local and state governments for dealing with intergroup problems-the human- relations commission. First used in the early 1940s to deal with discrimination against blacks, this commission was later often charged with implementing the civil rights of other minority groups and of women, the elderly, the handicapped, and the poor. It is Joseph Parker Witherspoon's thesis that the human-relations commission was not used effectively, that an agency of this type has great strengths that most local and state governments did not utilize, and that its weaknesses are susceptible of remedy and must be eliminated. He explains these weaknesses and develops proposals for correcting them. Witherspoon examines the roles of the local, state, and federal governments in solving this country's complicated and serious civil rights problem and demonstrates that a program that carefully coordinates action by the federal government with action by local and state governments could be made to work effectively. As a part of this demonstration he proposes the enactment of a new form of comprehensive civil rights legislation at local, state, and national levels, and presents a series of four model statutes-the Alpha Model Acts-for effectuating his proposals. The approach emphasized in these statutes greatly strengthens the role of the human-relations commission as a law-enforcement agency and, in particular, focuses the operation of federal and state action upon life in the individual community. The book concludes with a group of appendices listing all state and many local commissions and agencies handling human-relations problems at that time, and summarizing the type of authority, the jurisdiction, the operating budget, and the legislative basis for each. This list will be of interest to those studying the history of civil rights and public policy in the United States.

Table of Contents:
Part I 1. The Challenge of Federal Civil-Rights Policy to Our Federal System 2. The Civil-Rights Problem from the Legislator’s Point of View 3. The Emergence of Modern Civil-Rights Legislation 4. Commission Experience in Processing Complaints of Discrimination 5. The Need for Effective Law and Law Enforcement 6. Dealing Effectively with Intergroup Relations at the Local Level 7. Allocation of Optimum Roles for Implementation of Civil Rights in Our Federal System Part II 8. The Alpha Model State Civil-Rights Act, with Comments The Act Comments 9. The Alpha Model State Act on Local Human-Relations Commissions, with Comments The Act Comments 10. The Alpha Model Federal Civil-Rights Act, with Comments The Act Comments 11. The Alpha Model Local Civil-Rights Ordinance, with Comments The Act Comments Appendices A. State Human-Relations Commissions or Agencies Operating under Statutes Giving Them Authority to Enforce Civil-Rights Law B. State Human-Relations Commissions or Similar Agencies Operating under Statutes or Executive Orders without Authority to Enforce Civil-Rights Law through Issuance of Orders Enforceable in the Courts C. A Selected List of Local Human-Relations Commissions Operating under Ordinances or Laws Giving Them Authority to Enforce Prohibitions against Discrimination, as Well as Other Authority D. A Selected List of Local Human-Relations Agencies Which Have Principally Operated without Enforcement Authority E. A Timetable of Passage of Civil-Rights Laws Enforced by Human-Relations Commissions or Divisions of Agencies F. States with Civil-Rights Laws Enforced Only by the Courts Index

About the Author :
Joseph Parker Witherspoon (1916–1995) was a longtime member of the faculty of the University of Texas School of Law.