Editorials
Contents Volume CVI, Number 14 commonweal Correspondence ...
...The decision may have only limited power to compel such action...
...Contents Volume CVI, Number 14 commonweal Correspondence 418 .•U•IS I...
...confounded not only some predictions (see my article, "Death ISIDORE SILVER of Affirmative Action...
...Or consider the• Culture: Joseph H. Fiehter 445 series of conferences that then commenced at Camp David...
...What are Weber's guidelines for both voluntarily adopted affirmative action programs and future court orders attempting A.D.A...
...Yes, there are purely technical and economic aspects to this crisis...
...convention to remedy discrimination...
...10016...
...In spite of the seemingly endless reports guidelines for judging the validity of other voluntary affirma- of its death, liberalism must still be considered one of the most tive action plans and even fuzzier ones for determining how far important forces in American politics, particularly Democratic federal courts could go in mandating such action...
...The critical difference between the two cases lay in national liberal attitudes...
...In some ways Carter Public Nuisances: Robert K. Landers 446 gained the nation's attention by an act of purposeful presidential silence far beyond what any number of speeches could have achieved...
...When he Milton Mankoff 436 does reenter our atmosphere we hope it is with due fireworks but no further The Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...The New York Times comment that "Bakke . . . turned on the Court's analysis of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amend- A DEBATE HAS started on the popularity of American merit" while Weber "did not involve the Constitution at all" is liberalism...
...foreign, $39...
...We do Editorial Assistant...
...Although Brennan did not address the question of just how Affirmative action fara court could go in remedying "past proven violations" of Title VII (an issue of some significance as I pointed out in these pages last March), he may have been humbled by Rehnquist's blistering dissent which, at times, seemed to be directed toB1~KKE TO WEBER TO...
...foreign, $22...
...Commonweal, March 30, 1979) but (Isidore Silver is Professor of Constitutional Law and Hisalso engendered some confusion in early news accounts...
...A report from the Boston publication the facts, first, that two pro-Bakke Justices, Stevens and Pow- Working Papers for a New Society argues that liberalism is on ell, did not participate in Weber and, second, a third pro-Bakke the ascent...
...Commonweal: 420...
...Single copy, $l...
...Special two-year rate: $35...
...Parallel the force of Justice Rehnquist's dissent (though not, one statistics can be found in areas as different as school integrahopes, by its mean-tempered tone), provided only fuzzy tion and sexual mores...
...First, Lucky to be a Octobrist: the nation so badly needs effective leadership...
...b) proreturning from Camp David, "I told him that he has got to tective of white interests (contrary to the Boston Globe's persuade the public that he has a clear, understandable plan comment that Weber was "shut out," his promotion was only and the staff to follow through on it...
...Said corporate leader David J. Mahoney on patterns of racial segregation" in crafts occupations...
...economic analysis presents its uncertainties-and none can be translated into Poetry: John Fandel practice without political mobilization...
...Telephone: Hawkins full employment policy, national health insurance, the original energy (212) MU 3-2042...
...Take the flap over cancelling his original energy address...
...Was it really Canada, $20...
...ing that government should limit corporate profits increased Justice Brennan's majority opinion, perhaps discomfited by from 25 percent in 1966 to 55 percent last year...
...Columnist Garry Wills recently wrote that both misleading and irrelevant, for four of the pro-Bakke the reasons behind Teddy Kennedy's success in the Justices did not mention the Fourteenth Amendment in that polls may not be charism but, instead, a genuine rise in case at all...
...Employers Aluminum's affirmative action plan "designed to elimi- should voluntarily and flexibly remedy past discrimination nate conspicuous racial imbalances in [the company's] rather than take solace in Rehnquist's warning (and Brennan's then almost exclusively white craft work forces" did not reluctance to contest it) that courts and other federal agencies violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act...
...Second, Carter's virtues as a president are but a hair's breadth from his weaknesses...
...James O'Gara expectations and economic "laws," OPEC has exercised to make those decisions Executive Editor: Peter Steinfels stick...
...Or was all this conferring-so the suspicion grew as the Camp David interim stretched on-a substitute for tough decisions...
...Was at last some genius for Rivers of Darkness: Phillip Corwin 447 leadership showing itself...
...and (c) temporary, since the promotion plan was to industry will support it...
...The administration has given biweekly schedule will resume...
...If he does, private delayed...
...monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and Au- The indecisiveness that has crippled this administration is not its wavering on this gust, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madi- or that specific proposal-whether tax rebates, welfare reform, the Humphreyson Ave., New York, N.Y...
...ward this-next-issue rather than the one at hand...
...Bakke cannot readily be reconciled with Weber...
...But was the whole business Image and Pilgrimage in Christian another example of administration inepitude and indecisiveness...
...can, Weber be reconciled with last year's Bakke decision...
...Tht President's responsibility is not to serve Staff: Linda F. Kayler, Harriette Balsky as executive of a problem-solving task force that will select some "best" plan which Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor will be self-propelling and self-operating once issued from the White House, butt Publisher...
...438 fragmentation of his leadership...
...Anne Robertson appear to be exhausting oil reserves and running up against severe problems of cost Columnists: John Garvey, Frank Getlein, Abigail McCarthy, Thomas Powers and pollution no matter which way we turn...
...Brennan FUNNY THING ON THE WAY TO COURT stressed that Kaiser's "voluntary" compliance with the overall purpose of the Civil Rights Act should be encouraged...
...Staff The energy problem is apolitical problem...
...Edward S. Skillin rather to serve as apolitical leader who will enunciate the basic values to which any technical program must conform and who will engage in a continuing effort of Commonweal, A Review of Public Affairs, Literature and the Arts, is published biweekly, except negotiation, explanation and mobilization a la Camp David...
...going to insist on equity in bearing the burdens of combating inflation, on a steady movement toward greater equality and decent conditions for the poor, on accounta3 August 1979: 419 bility of bureaucracies, whether government or corporate-or were these standards themselves up for grabs in the search for Commonweal is currently operating on its summer schedule...
...Editorials 419 Bakke to Weber to-?: Isidore Silver 420 In Kennedy they trust: Peter Kovler 420 The Basque problem: Benjamin Martin 422 The forest & the trees: Thomas Powers 423 Draft no, assassins yes: John Garvey 425 CARTER REENTERS Limits of the juperpowers: Richard J. Krickus 427 THE ATMOSPHERE Liturgical silence: J. Patrick Dobel 430 I McCarthyism West German-style: AT THIS WRITING, Skylab has crashed but the President is still in orbit...
...Public confidence in big business leadership Justice, Stewart, silently switched his vote to provide the plummeted in the last decade...
...The latter is behind his energy program, will the nation support it...
...The next issue will be dated August 31, after which the normal the "best" technical solutions...
...the percentage of citizens believWeber majority...
...and package-but a deeper indecisiveness about its fundamental values...
...How tory at John Jay College of Criminal Justice...
...Justice Brennan's majority opinion (a) relegated Bakke to an inconclusive footnote and (b) was premised solely upon his sophisti- IN KENNEDY THEY TRUST cated reading of Title VII (Bakke, it should be remembered, LIBERALISM IN SEARCH OF A CANDIDATE arose under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act...
...Despite all the disappointments, it is hard not to wish President Carter well...
...The Camp David conferences do give a certain clue to what the President needs...
...It has its origins in the political decisions of the OPEC producer states and in the political will that, contrary to Western Editor...
...The public seems caught in a Stephen Darst 439 whirlpool of anger, cynicism, apathy, each response leading to the next in a cycle, that makes it more and more difficult to break loose and steer some constructive course in regard to the major economic problems of inflation, unemployment and Books energy...
...Presidential The Vicar of Christ: John Deedy 442 policy should not be ruled by media scheduling, and it was a healthy relief to The Last Half-Century: contemplate the President simply saying, I'm not ready yet, you can just wait until Irving Louis Horowitz 443 something as important as this is pieced together solidly...
...Thus, the nature and context of affirmative action will con0 N JUNE 27, five Supreme Court Justices found that Kaiser tinue to be critical . factors in future litigation...
...And only if Carter persuades the terminate when the proportion of blacks in skilled occupations public he has a clear, understandable set of political principles reached their proportion in the local population...
...yet without them, it cannot muster the political resources to implement any program, no matter how effi- passed muster because it was (a) directed against "traditional cient on paper...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S...
...But every technical solution and Movies: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...important because Brennan explicitly disclaimed any intention to "maintain" racial balance once it had been "achieved" by the Kaiser plan...
...no clear signals...
...Kaiser's plan party politics...
Vol. 106 • August 1979 • No. 14
