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2-10-2002

Resolutions Passed at the Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement

February 8-10, 2002, University of Michigan Ann Arbor

Consolidating and Advancing the New Civil Rights Movement

Resolution of the Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement

8-10 February 2002
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Passed 10 February 2002 (79 For, 0 Against, 0 Abstaining)

The new civil rights movement is fighting, learning, and growing. The First National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement, called in the tense context of the federal District Court defeat in the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case and convened, two months later in June 2001, following the historic victory of reversing the ban on affirmative action in the University of California, declared the existence of a new, independent, integrated, mass, militant civil rights movement. Since that first conference the movement has achieved a great deal.

With the defense of affirmative action as its point of departure, it has spread around the country and has begun to awaken a whole generation.

The movement carried out the basic perspective of the resolutions passed by the majority vote of that conference. We organized the mass civil rights marches on October 23, 2001 and December 6, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio in connection with the appeal of the two University of Michigan affirmative action cases. These marches were historical markers. The feeling of determination and pride for those who marched in Cincinnati was life-altering. Hundreds of thousands of supporters across the country perceived those events vicariously through the media coverage. In the six months between the first conference and the December 6 hearing, our movement collected over 50,000 petition signatures in support of affirmative action in the two University of Michigan cases. We have begun to change the consciousness of broad layers of this society.

Over the next period of time we must consolidate and build this new movement; its continued develop will be decisive not only to the defense of affirmative action, but to the whole direction and character of American society. The fate of every step our society has made toward integration and equality, every progressive acquisition of the mass struggles of the 1960s hangs on our ability to defend affirmative action successfully right now.

The practical perspective that can unite, consolidate and advance the new civil rights movement is focused on the defense of affirmative action and integration in higher education with the two University of Michigan affirmative action cases at the center of this national fight. Our organizing should center around this decisive fight. We must not fear the controversy involved in spreading our ideas. We must engage with and try to convince a broader layer of people.

We resolve to consolidate and advance the new civil rights movement by:

  1. Building the March on Washington DC for the US Supreme Court hearing of the University of Michigan affirmative action cases.
  2. Fighting for a National March on Washington to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Fight for Equality prior to the date that the US Supreme Court will hear the University of Michigan affirmative action cases. The new civil rights movement will attempt to convince the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the NAACP, and labor organizations to join the call for this march and to build it with all their available resources.
  3. Circulating the "Petition to Support Affirmative Action Before the US Supreme Court" far and wide.
  4. Organizing other schools and organizations to participate in the campaign. Winning the active support of any and every student, labor and community organization that supports the defense of affirmative action and integration for our campaign to the US Supreme Court. Forming a fighting alliance with any person or organization that shows in action their determination to build mass struggle in defense of affirmative action. Making presentations to organizations, classes and other meetings of people to win them to this cause. Contacting organizations and individual leaders and persuading them to be involved in this historic effort.
  5. Organizing educational events to deepen and develop the understanding and the arguments of the movement. Hold training events and circulate educational material for this purpose.
  6. Building the new civil rights movement between now and the next conference and between now and the US Supreme Court hearing, whenever that is.
     

Defend K-12 Education - Fight for Integration and Equality

Resolution of the Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement

8-10 February 2002
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Passed 10 February 2002 (72 For, 0 Against, 0 Abstaining)

K-12 education in America is, simultaneously, the cornerstone of citizenship and the cornerstone of racist segregation and inequality. The national, independent, integrated, militant, mass movement that this conference represents, must take up the fight to transform K-12 education from what it is into what it must become.

More resources, more teachers, more books, more equipment and facilities are needed in K-12 education, not fewer. Yet across the country, politicians are now attempting to impose budget cuts that will reduce resources and harm all schools, devastating the most vulnerable, poorest majority black and Latino schools.

From its inception, the new civil rights movement has had as its aim rectifying both the dreadful racist segregation and inequality of K-12 education and the general degradation of K-12 education, particularly in poorer inner-city and in rural districts. Now we are confronted with the challenge and the opportunity to make a fight to transform K-12 education in the process of defending against this series of budgetary attacks. In the fight to defend K-12 education we will move from a campaign that begins on the defensive - stopping layoffs and budget cuts - and passes over to the offensive - fighting for the transformative improvement of K-12 education that ultimately can come only with achieving full integration of our schools.

The new civil rights movement that began as a defense against attacks on affirmative action in higher education must also take up the fight for integration, equality, and general improvement in K-12 education. The order of the day is defense of public education from a series of on-going attacks. In fighting to defeat these attacks on the futures of public school students, we will be forming alliances with high school and middle school student organizations, teachers unions, unions of other school workers and community organizations.

Toward that end, we resolve to take the following steps:

  1. Actively support campaigns being fought right now in Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; and Oakland, California against budget cuts and imposed, unelected school boards.
  2. Support the "No Cuts, No Layoffs" campaign in Detroit. Mobilize for the National Civil Rights March in Detroit on Saturday, April 13, 2002. Help circulate the "No Cuts, No Layoffs, Quality Schools for Detroit" petition.
  3. Seek out and support other local and state-wide education campaigns against budget cuts, layoffs, high-stakes tests, unelected take-over school boards, privitization, vouchers and charter schools, etc.
     

Eliminate the Use of the SAT in College Admissions

Resolution of the Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement

8-10 February 2002
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Passed 10 February 2002 (71 For, 1 Against, 1 Abstaining) [*]

Higher education must set an example of openness and equality of opportunity. The continued use of the SAT and other, similar high-stakes standardized tests in higher education admissions unfairly excludes disproportionate numbers of black, Latina/o, Native American, new Asian immigrant, and poor high school students of all races from enrolling in the flagship universities of this country.

Our institutions of higher learning have suffered as a result of the use of the SAT in college and admissions. The intellectual achievements and capacity of whole layers of our society are undervalued or dismissed as a direct result of the reliance on the SAT and other, similar high-stakes standardized tests.

The use of the SAT in admissions poses a broader question of integrity to all of America's great universities. No university in America can claim to hold the honored position of enlightener, of beacon of knowledge while capitulating in deeds to the ugly racist tradition of marginalizing black, Latina/o and Native American people. By relying on these biased and academically unsound tests, our universities are, as a matter of policy, tainted by the segregation and racial inequality that have too long poisoned our national life. A stamp of hypocrisy is placed on the entire project of higher education by the use of the SAT and similar tests. Our institutions of higher learning, public and private, must be committed to maintaining desegregation programs in higher education, committed explicitly to the defense of affirmative action and the fight for integration as matters of basic educational policy. Our leading institutions must never return to segregated and separate and unequal opportunities in higher education.

The effort to eliminate the SAT in college admissions is also a fight over the true meaning of education in our society. The SAT and similar high-stakes standardized tests deform the teaching process by pressuring teachers to teach to the test and by dictating and constricting curriculum. It is not a coincidence that the fight to reestablish the true basis of education and the fight for integration and equality of opportunity find the same target in the SAT. The purpose of education must be the acquisition of knowledge, not the harmful stratification of students into a false unilinear hierarchy of supposed intellectual ability.

  1. To further the aim of eliminating the SAT in college admissions, we resolve to:
  2. 1. Support the campaign to eliminate the SAT in the University of California system.
  3. 2. Organize mass education on the SAT and other, similar high-stakes standardized tests.
  4. 3. Oppose the use of the SAT in college and university admissions nationally.
     

Also passed unanimously (72-0-0) was a decision to have another conference in June 2002.

[*] Conference attendees agreed that the SAT Resolution language was to be refined pending further discussion.