Fascist-like attacks target affirmative action

By Scott Marshall

As we all know, there is a nasty political environment surrounding the Senate impeachment trial. It casts a pall far beyond the proceedings in the Congress.

The fanatical "slash-and-burn" tactics of the House managers are desperate and dangerous. The more the American people reject the ultra right, the more extreme their attacks.

Ken Starr continues to use the threat of prison time to try and force witnesses to lie for him. Ultra-right Republicans now use the kind of language around the Senate that, just a few years ago, was confined to Rush Limbaugh and a few other "hate radio" talk shows. And it is clear that the desperate aggressiveness of these zealots incites much of the extremist right wing.

What is happening in Congress cannot be separated from the shooting of abortion doctors, or the bombing of clinics, the brutal racist murder in Texas and the anti-gay murder in Wyoming.

Some want to view all these as isolated incidents and unrelated movements. But taken as a whole, and given the spectacle in Washington that arrogantly disregards the democratic common sense of the American people, the dangers are real and serious.

Attacks on affirmative action and on the labor movement played a key role in getting us to this place.

The vast right-wing conspiracy includes a vicious zoo of lawyers and think-tanks who lead the charge. They brought us the long history of anti-affirmative action propositions in California and now in Washington State.

Here they come again. But this time, it has a new ugly twist. This time the attack is designed to turn young college students into anti-affirmative action storm troopers against their schools.

According to the New York Times, the Center for Individual Rights held a press conference with William J. Bennett and Nat Hentoff to announce such a campaign. The Center for Individual Rights is described as "a conservative, public policy law firm in Washington DC."

They bragged that they had placed full - page ads in over 15 college newspapers nationwide headlined, "Guilty by Admission. Nearly Every Elite College in America Violates the Law. Does Yours?"

The ad tells students how to get a free handbook "to find out how to tell whether your college is breaking the law on race and admissions" The ad decries what it calls the "lingering presence of unlawful racial preferences."

The handbook also tells students how to investigate using Freedom of Information laws, what kind of data to request from the university and how to find a lawyer to bring a suit against the school.

The Center for Individual Rights brags that they were behind successful lawsuits in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi that bar any consideration based on race, ignoring past and present discrimination.

The Center has already initiated the first of these new student inspired cases against law schools at the University of Washington and the University of Michigan.

If you haven't already heard alarm bells at the increasing fascist-like assault on democracy, this should put you over the top. Not only is this a vicious attack on Black, Latino and other minority youth, but it is an attack on all youth.

It seeks to enlist young people into an army of snitches with stool pigeon like behavior. It is reminiscent of the kind of programs developed for the Hitler Youth spy on your teachers and parents and report any "subversive" or "politically suspect" matters.

Writer Upton Sinclair, and many others since, noted that a fascist-like thrust would come here, not in hobnailed boots, but wrapped in the American flag with demagogy about democracy.

It is very interesting to note the network of so-called conservative foundations and lawyers involved in what Hillary Clinton called the "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Now, even the New York Times admits that she was right, there is a behind-the-scenes cabal of lawyers pushing the assault on Clinton.

And we can be sure that there is a pattern of connections between these anti-affirmative action lawyers and the rest of the ultra-right agenda.

The overwhelming majority of the American people reject the ultra-right thrust. Building the broadest possible front against these kind of programs and attacks on youth is a must. And it's time to take the offensive.

Universal free education with open admissions should be the law of the land in the 21st century. We can afford it.

It could be paid for with cuts in the military budget, a slight increase in corporate taxes, or even a tiny national stock transaction tax.

Scott Marshall is the head of the Illinois District of the Communist Party USA.