A Declaration of Independence

Conservatives change the course of a federal panel

For a brief moment last week it seemed that the members of the new Commission on Civil Rights might banish whatever bitterness they harbored from last year's skirmishes and stand together. The commissioners answered Democrat Walter Mondale and others who criticized them as puppets of the Reagan Administration with a blunt statement: "The commission belongs to no one . . . and will serve no political ideology or special interest. That is the meaning of our independence. It is uncompromisable."

That promising display of solidarity, however, was soon overshadowed by a blitz of controversial decisions and internal struggles. At a two-day session in Hunt Valley, Md., the new commission's conservative majority dominated the liberal members. By a 5-to-3 vote, the group decided to cancel an investigation of how cutbacks in student financial aid affected colleges where most students were black or Hispanic, and by a 6-to-2 vote, it came out against the Detroit police department's use of numerical quotas for the promotion of blacks to lieutenant.

The controversy over the commission first erupted last May, when President Reagan replaced three members with appointees who shared his opposition to racial quotas and busing. "We wanted our own people," said White House Counsellor Edwin Meese. Two of the sacked members, Mary Frances Berry and Blandina Cardenas Ramirez, sued in federal court for an injunction forbidding their removal, arguing that the action violated the commission's legal status as an independent body. More than 30 Senators and 19 Representatives lined up to sponsor a bipartisan resolution to have commission members appointed by Congress rather than by the President. After much negotiating, a compromise was reached: the new Civil Rights Commission would have eight members, four to be appointed by the President and four by Congress. Berry and Ramirez retained their positions, but the lineup resulted in a conservative majority.

Berry and Ramirez were the dissenters in the 6-to-2 vote that opposed the affirmative-action plan of the Detroit police department. The commission's statement deplored the use of quotas, saying that they create "a new class of victims" by denying equal rights to majority groups.

Said Reagan Appointee Morris Abram, a prominent Democratic lawyer: "Nothing will ultimately divide a society more than this kind of reverse discrimination."

In a lively news conference at the end of the Hunt Valley meeting, Berry confronted Abram and Chairman Clarence Pendleton Jr., an earlier Reagan appointee who had been in a conservative minority on the old commission. Said Pendleton: "I sat at this commission for 18 months and got beat up all kinds of ways . .. Now [the new members] are here, and we are going to do the best job we can for the American citizens." Berry, who could hardly conceal her disdain for the chairman, said that the commission "is no longer the conscience of America on civil rights" and added, "I despair for women and minorities in this country."

The commission, established under President Eisenhower in 1957, has no enforcement powers. Its members and staff can only investigate discrimination and make public recommendations on how to eliminate injustices. Although the Supreme Court declined to review the Detroit case, there are two other similar suits pending. One concerns the New Orleans police department and the other the Memphis fire department; both involve hiring policies for minorities. The commissioners will no doubt continue their ideological battles when deciding what to recommend in these cases. Each side will fight to preserve its own notion of an independent commission.