Culture Wars X

Culture
Wars
Volume 1
Culture
Wars An Encyclopedia of
Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
Volume 1
Roger Chapman, Editor
M.E.Sharpe
Armonk, New York
London, England
M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
80 Business Park Drive
Armonk, NY 10504
© 2010 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Culture wars : an encyclopedia of issues, viewpoints, and voices / Roger Chapman, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7656-1761-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Culture conflict—Encyclopedias. 2. Politics and culture—Encyclopedias. 3. Social problems—
Encyclopedias. 4. Social conflict—Encyclopedias. 5. Ethnic conflict—Encyclopedias.
I. Chapman, Roger.
HM1121.C85 2010
306.0973’03—dc22 2009011925
Printed and bound in the United States
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z 39.48.1984.
CW (c) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Publisher: Myron E. Sharpe

Vice President and Director of New Product Development: Donna Sanzone
Vice President and Production Director: Carmen Chetti
Executive Development Editor: Jeff Hacker
Project Manager: Angela Piliouras
Program Coordinator: Cathleen Prisco
Assistant Editor: Alison Morretta
Text Design and Cover Design: Jesse Sanchez
Typesetter: Nancy Connick
This encyclopedia is dedicated to my wife and daughters,
Deborah, Christine, and Liz

Contents
Topic Finder......................................................... xv Barbie Doll.........................................................36

Contributors......................................................xxiii Battle of Seattle..................................................37
Introduction: Culture Wars— Beauty Pageants.................................................38
Rhetoric and Reality...................................... xxvii Behe, Michael J..................................................39
Bell Curve, The....................................................40
Volume 1
Bennett, William J.............................................41
Abortion...............................................................1 Biafra, Jello........................................................41
Abu Ghraib and Gitmo........................................3 Biotech Revolution.............................................42
Academic Bill of Rights.......................................5 Birth Control......................................................43
Academic Freedom...............................................5 Black Panther Party............................................44
Adler, Mortimer J.................................................7 Black Radical Congress.......................................45
Affirmative Action................................................8 Blackface............................................................46
Afrocentrism......................................................10 Bob Jones University..........................................47
Age Discrimination............................................11 Bono...................................................................48
Agnew, Spiro T...................................................12 Book Banning....................................................49
AIDS..................................................................13 Boy Scouts of America........................................49
Alexander, Jane..................................................14 Bradley, Bill.......................................................50
Ali, Muhammad.................................................15 Brock, David......................................................51
American Century..............................................16 Brokaw, Tom......................................................52
American Civil Liberties Union..........................17 Brown, Helen Gurley.........................................52
American Civil Religion.....................................20 Brown v. Board of Education (1954).......................53
American Exceptionalism...................................21 Bryant, Anita.....................................................55
American Indian Movement...............................22 Buchanan, Pat....................................................56
Americans with Disabilities Act.........................24 Buckley, William F., Jr.......................................57
Androgyny.........................................................24 Budenz, Louis F..................................................58
Angelou, Maya...................................................25 Bullard, Robert D..............................................59
Animal Rights...................................................26 Bunche, Ralph....................................................60
Anti-Intellectualism...........................................27 Bush Family.......................................................60
Anti-Semitism....................................................28 Busing, School....................................................64
Arnold, Ron.......................................................29 Byrd, Robert C...................................................65
Arrow, Tre..........................................................30 Campaign Finance Reform.................................67
Aryan Nations....................................................31 Campolo, Anthony “Tony”.................................68
Atwater, Lee.......................................................31 Canada...............................................................69
Automobile Safety..............................................32 Capital Punishment............................................69
Baez, Joan...........................................................34 Carson, Rachel....................................................71
Bankruptcy Reform............................................34 Carter, Jimmy.....................................................72
vii
viii Contents
Catholic Church.................................................74 Culture Jamming.............................................127

Censorship..........................................................76 Dean, Howard..................................................129
Central Intelligence Agency...............................77 Dean, James.....................................................130
Chambers, Whittaker.........................................79 Dean, John.......................................................130
Charter Schools...................................................79 Deconstructionism...........................................131
Chávez, César.....................................................80 DeLay, Tom......................................................132
Cheney Family....................................................81 Deloria, Vine, Jr...............................................133
Chicago Seven....................................................83 Demjanjuk, John..............................................134
Chick, Jack.........................................................84 Democratic Party..............................................135
China.................................................................85 Diversity Training............................................137
Chisholm, Shirley...............................................86 Dobson, James..................................................138
Chomsky, Noam.................................................86 Donahue, Phil..................................................139
Christian Coalition.............................................88 Douglas, William O.........................................140
Christian Radio..................................................89 Dr. Phil............................................................140
Christian Reconstructionism..............................90 Drudge Report....................................................141
Christmas...........................................................91 Drug Testing....................................................142
Church and State................................................92 D’Souza, Dinesh...............................................143
Churchill, Ward.................................................92 Du Bois, W.E.B................................................144
Civil Rights Movement......................................93 Dukakis, Michael.............................................145
Clinton, Bill.......................................................96 Duke, David.....................................................145
Clinton, Hillary..................................................97 Dworkin, Andrea..............................................146
Clinton Impeachment.........................................99 Dylan, Bob.......................................................147
Cold War..........................................................100 Earth Day.........................................................148
Colson, Chuck..................................................104 Ecoterrorism.....................................................148
Columbus Day..................................................105 Education Reform............................................150
Comic Books....................................................106 Ehrenreich, Barbara..........................................152
Comic Strips.....................................................107 Eisenhower, Dwight D.....................................153
Commager, Henry Steele..................................108 Election of 2000...............................................153
Common Cause................................................109 Election of 2008...............................................156
Commoner, Barry.............................................109 Endangered Species Act....................................159
Communists and Communism.........................110 English as the Official Language.......................160
Comparable Worth...........................................113 Enola Gay Exhibit.............................................161
Compassionate Conservatism............................113 Environmental Movement................................162
Confederate Flag...............................................114 Equal Rights Amendment................................164
Conspiracy Theories..........................................115 Evangelicalism.................................................165
Contemporary Christian Music.........................117 Executive Compensation...................................167
Contract with America.....................................118 Factory Farms...................................................168
Corporate Welfare............................................119 Faith-Based Programs.......................................169
Coulter, Ann.....................................................119 Falwell, Jerry....................................................170
Counterculture.................................................120 Family Values...................................................171
Country Music..................................................122 Farrakhan, Louis...............................................172
Creationism and Intelligent Design..................123 Federal Budget Deficit......................................173
Cronkite, Walter..............................................126 Federal Communications Commission..............174
Cuba.................................................................126 Felt, W. Mark...................................................176
Contents ix
Feminism, Second-Wave...................................177 Great Books......................................................228

Feminism, Third-Wave....................................178 Great Society....................................................230
Ferraro, Geraldine.............................................179 Guardian Angels..............................................231
Flag Desecration...............................................180 Gun Control.....................................................231
Fleiss, Heidi.....................................................181 Guthrie, Woody, and Arlo Guthrie...................233
Flynt, Larry......................................................182 Haley, Alex.......................................................235
Focus on the Family..........................................183 Hall, Gus.........................................................235
Fonda, Jane.......................................................184 Hargis, Billy.....................................................236
Food and Drug Administration........................185 Harrington, Michael.........................................237
Ford, Gerald.....................................................187 Hart, Gary........................................................237
Foreman, Dave.................................................188 Harvey, Paul.....................................................238
Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness.......189 Hate Crimes.....................................................239
Foucault, Michel...............................................191 Hauerwas, Stanley............................................240
Founding Fathers..............................................192 Hay, Harry.......................................................241
France...............................................................194 Hayden, Tom....................................................242
Frank, Barney...................................................195 Health Care......................................................242
Franken, Al......................................................195 Heavy Metal.....................................................245
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial................196 Hefner, Hugh...................................................246
Freedom of Information Act.............................197 Heller, Joseph...................................................247
Friedan, Betty...................................................198 Helms, Jesse.....................................................248
Friedman, Milton.............................................199 Heritage Foundation........................................249
Fundamentalism, Religious..............................200 Hightower, Jim................................................250
Fur...................................................................202 Hill, Anita.......................................................251
Galbraith, John Kenneth..................................203 Hill, Julia “Butterfly”.......................................252
Gangs...............................................................203 Hillsdale College..............................................253
Gay Capital......................................................204 Hiroshima and Nagasaki..................................253
Gay Rights Movement.....................................205 Hispanic Americans.........................................255
Gays in Popular Culture...................................207 Hiss, Alger.......................................................256
Gays in the Military.........................................208 Hoffman, Abbie...............................................257
Gender-Inclusive Language...............................210 Hollywood Ten.................................................257
Generations and Generational Conflict..............211 Holocaust.........................................................258
Genetically Modified Foods..............................213 Homeschooling................................................260
Gibson, Mel.....................................................214 hooks, bell........................................................261
Gilmore, Gary..................................................215 Hoover, J. Edgar...............................................262
Gingrich, Newt................................................216 Horowitz, David...............................................264
Ginsberg, Allen................................................217 Horton, Willie.................................................264
Global Warming..............................................218 Human Rights.................................................265
Globalization....................................................220 Humphrey, Hubert H.......................................266
Goetz, Bernhard...............................................222 Hunter, James Davison.....................................268
Goldwater, Barry..............................................223 Huntington, Samuel P......................................269
González, Elián................................................224 Hurricane Katrina............................................269
Gore, Al...........................................................225 Hutchins, Robert M.........................................271
Graffiti.............................................................226 Illegal Immigrants............................................272
Graham, Billy...................................................227 Immigration Policy..........................................273
x Contents
Indian Casinos..................................................274 Lesbians............................................................320

Indian Sport Mascots........................................276 Lewis, Bernard..................................................321
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.....276 Liddy, G. Gordon.............................................321
Internet............................................................277 Limbaugh, Rush...............................................322
Iran-Contra Affair.............................................278 Literature, Film, and Drama.............................324
Irvine, Reed......................................................279 Lott, Trent........................................................326
Israel................................................................280 Love Canal........................................................328
Jackson, Jesse...................................................282 Loving, Richard, and Mildred Loving...............328
Jackson, Michael...............................................283 Lynching..........................................................329
Japan................................................................284
Jehovah’s Witnesses..........................................284 Volume 2
Jesus People Movement....................................285
John Birch Society............................................286 MacKinnon, Catharine.....................................332
Johnson, Lyndon B...........................................287 Madonna..........................................................332
Jorgensen, Christine.........................................288 Mailer, Norman................................................334
Judicial Wars....................................................288 Malcolm X.......................................................335
Kennedy Family...............................................292 Manson, Marilyn..............................................336
Kerouac, Jack...................................................294 Mapplethorpe, Robert......................................336
Kerry, John.......................................................295 Marriage Names...............................................337
Kevorkian, Jack................................................297 Marxism...........................................................338
Keyes, Alan......................................................298 McCain, John...................................................339
King, Billie Jean..............................................299 McCarthy, Eugene............................................340
King, Martin Luther, Jr....................................299 McCarthy, Joseph.............................................341
King, Rodney...................................................301 McCarthyism....................................................342
Kinsey, Alfred..................................................302 McCloskey, Deirdre..........................................345
Klein, Naomi...................................................303 McGovern, George...........................................345
Koop, C. Everett...............................................304 McIntire, Carl...................................................347
Kristol, Irving, and Bill Kristol........................305 McLuhan, Marshall...........................................348
Krugman, Paul.................................................306 McVeigh, Timothy...........................................349
Kubrick, Stanley...............................................307 Mead, Margaret................................................350
Kushner, Tony..................................................307 Media Bias........................................................350
Kwanzaa...........................................................308 Medical Malpractice.........................................352
Kyoto Protocol.................................................308 Medical Marijuana............................................353
La Follette, Robert, Jr.......................................310 Medved, Michael..............................................354
La Raza Unida..................................................310 Men’s Movement..............................................354
Labor Unions....................................................311 Mexico.............................................................356
LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye....................312 Microsoft..........................................................357
Lapin, Daniel....................................................314 Migrant Labor..................................................358
LaRouche, Lyndon H., Jr..................................315 Militia Movement............................................359
Lear, Norman...................................................315 Milk, Harvey....................................................360
Leary, Timothy.................................................316 Millett, Kate....................................................361
Lee, Spike.........................................................317 Million Man March..........................................362
LeMay, Curtis...................................................318 Miranda Rights................................................363
Leopold, Aldo...................................................319 Mondale, Walter...............................................364
Contents xi
Montana Freemen.............................................365 O’Connor, Sandra Day......................................415

Moore, Michael.................................................365 O’Hair, Madalyn Murray..................................416
Moore, Roy S....................................................366 O.J. Simpson Trial............................................417
Moral Majority.................................................367 Operation Rescue.............................................418
Morgan, Robin.................................................368 Oppenheimer, J. Robert...................................419
Morrison, Toni..................................................369 O’Reilly, Bill....................................................420
Mothers Against Drunk Driving......................369 Outing.............................................................421
Motion Picture Association of America.............370 Packwood, Bob.................................................422
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick.................................371 Paglia, Camille.................................................422
Ms....................................................................372 Palin, Sarah......................................................423
Multicultural Conservatism..............................373 Parks, Rosa.......................................................424
Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies................373 Penn, Sean........................................................425
Mumford, Lewis...............................................374 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.....426
Murdoch, Rupert..............................................375 Perot, H. Ross..................................................427
Murrow, Edward R...........................................376 Phelps, Fred.....................................................429
Muslim Americans...........................................377 Philadelphia, Mississippi..................................429
My Lai Massacre...............................................378 Pipes, Richard, and Daniel Pipes......................430
Nader, Ralph....................................................380 Planned Parenthood..........................................431
Nation, The.......................................................381 Podhoretz, Norman..........................................432
Nation of Islam................................................382 Police Abuse.....................................................433
National Association for the Advancement of Political Correctness.........................................434
Colored People.............................................383 Pornography.....................................................436
National Endowment for the Arts.....................384 Postmodernism.................................................438
National Endowment for the Humanities.........387 Premillennial Dispensationalism......................439
National Organization for Women...................388 Presidential Pardons.........................................440
National Public Radio......................................389 Prison Reform..................................................441
National Review.................................................390 Privacy Rights..................................................443
National Rifle Association................................391 Privatization.....................................................444
Nelson, Willie..................................................392 Progressive Christians Uniting.........................445
Neoconservatism..............................................393 Promise Keepers...............................................446
New Age Movement.........................................395 Public Broadcasting Service..............................447
New Deal.........................................................397 Punk Rock.......................................................449
New Journalism...............................................398 Quayle, Dan.....................................................451
New Left..........................................................398 Race.................................................................452
New York Times, The..........................................399 Racial Profiling................................................453
Niebuhr, Reinhold...........................................402 Rand, Ayn........................................................454
Nixon, Richard.................................................403 Rap Music........................................................455
Norquist, Grover..............................................405 Rather, Dan......................................................456
North, Oliver...................................................406 Reagan, Ronald................................................458
Not Dead Yet...................................................407 Record Warning Labels....................................459
Nuclear Age.....................................................408 Red and Blue States..........................................460
Obama, Barack.................................................411 Redford, Robert...............................................461
Obesity Epidemic.............................................413 Redneck...........................................................462
Occupational Safety..........................................414 Reed, Ralph.....................................................463
xii Contents
Rehnquist, William H.....................................464 Sharpton, Al.....................................................513

Relativism, Moral.............................................465 Sheen, Fulton J.................................................515
Religious Right................................................466 Shelley, Martha.................................................515
Reparations, Japanese Internment.....................467 Shepard, Matthew.............................................516
Republican Party..............................................468 Shock Jocks......................................................517
Revisionist History...........................................470 Sider, Ron.........................................................518
Right to Counsel..............................................471 Silent Majority.................................................518
Right to Die.....................................................472 Simpsons, The.....................................................519
Robertson, Pat..................................................474 Smoking in Public............................................520
Rock and Roll..................................................475 Socarides, Charles.............................................521
Rockwell, George Lincoln................................477 Social Security..................................................521
Rockwell, Norman...........................................477 Sodomy Laws....................................................523
Rodman, Dennis...............................................478 Sokal Affair......................................................524
Roe v. Wade (1973)............................................479 Soros, George...................................................525
Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosenberg...........480 Southern Baptist Convention............................525
Rove, Karl........................................................480 Soviet Union and Russia...................................526
Ruby Ridge Incident........................................482 Sowell, Thomas................................................529
Rudolph, Eric...................................................483 Speech Codes....................................................530
Rusher, William A...........................................483 Spock, Benjamin...............................................531
Ryan, George....................................................484 Springsteen, Bruce............................................532
Said, Edward....................................................486 Starr, Kenneth..................................................533
Same-Sex Marriage...........................................486 Stay-at-Home Mothers.....................................534
Sanders, Bernie.................................................488 Steinbeck, John................................................535
Saudi Arabia.....................................................488 Steinem, Gloria................................................535
Schaeffer, Francis..............................................490 Stem-Cell Research...........................................536
Schiavo, Terri....................................................490 Stern, Howard..................................................538
Schlafly, Phyllis................................................492 Stewart, Jon......................................................538
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.................................492 Stone, Oliver....................................................539
School of the Americas......................................493 Stonewall Rebellion..........................................540
School Prayer....................................................494 Strategic Defense Initiative...............................540
School Shootings..............................................496 Strauss, Leo.......................................................541
School Vouchers................................................497 Structuralism and Post-Structuralism...............542
Schwarzenegger, Arnold...................................498 Student Conservatives.......................................543
Science Wars....................................................499 Students for a Democratic Society.....................544
Secular Humanism...........................................501 Summers, Lawrence..........................................546
Seeger, Pete......................................................502 Supply-Side Economics.....................................546
September 11...................................................502 Symbionese Liberation Army............................547
September 11 Memorial...................................505 Taft, Robert A..................................................549
Serrano, Andres................................................506 Talk Radio........................................................549
Sex Education...................................................507 Tax Reform.......................................................550
Sex Offenders....................................................509 Televangelism...................................................552
Sexual Assault..................................................510 Teller, Edward..................................................553
Sexual Harassment............................................511 Ten Commandments.........................................554
Sexual Revolution.............................................512 Terkel, Studs....................................................555
Contents xiii
Thanksgiving Day............................................556 Warren, Earl.....................................................599

Think Tanks.....................................................557 Warren, Rick....................................................601
Third Parties....................................................559 Washington Times, The........................................601
Thomas, Clarence.............................................561 Watergate.........................................................602
Thompson, Hunter S........................................562 Watt, James.....................................................603
Three Mile Island Accident..............................563 Watts and Los Angeles Riots,
Thurmond, Strom.............................................563 1965 and 1992.............................................604
Till, Emmett....................................................564 Wayne, John.....................................................605
Tobacco Settlements.........................................565 Wealth Gap......................................................606
Tort Reform.....................................................566 Weekly Standard, The.........................................607
Transgender Movement....................................567 Welfare Reform................................................608
Truman, Harry S..............................................568 Wellstone, Paul................................................609
Turner, Ted.......................................................569 West, Cornel....................................................610
Twenty-Second Amendment.............................570 Weyrich, Paul M..............................................611
Unabomber......................................................572 Whistleblowers................................................612
United Nations................................................572 White, Reggie..................................................613
USA PATRIOT Act.........................................574 White Supremacists..........................................614
Ventura, Jesse...................................................576 Wildmon, Donald............................................616
Victimhood......................................................576 Will, George....................................................617
Vidal, Gore.......................................................577 Williams, William Appleman..........................618
Vietnam Veterans Against the War...................578 Wilson, Edmund..............................................618
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.............................579 Winfrey, Oprah................................................619
Vietnam War....................................................580 Wolf, Naomi....................................................620
Vigilantism......................................................582 Wolfe, Tom......................................................621
Voegelin, Eric...................................................583 Women in the Military.....................................622
Voting Rights Act............................................584 Women’s Studies..............................................623
Waco Siege.......................................................586 Woodward, Bob...............................................624
Wall Street Journal, The......................................587 World................................................................625
Wallace, George...............................................588 World Council of Churches..............................625
Wallis, Jim.......................................................589 World War II Memorial...................................626
Wal-Mart.........................................................589 Wounded Knee Incident...................................627
Walt Disney Company.....................................591 Young, Neil......................................................628
War on Drugs...................................................592 Zappa, Frank....................................................629
War on Poverty................................................593 Zero Tolerance..................................................629
War Powers Act...............................................594 Zinn, Howard...................................................630
War Protesters..................................................595
War Toys..........................................................597 Bibliography......................................................633
Warhol, Andy...................................................598 Index..................................................................I-1
Topic Finder
Activists and Advocates Loving, Richard, and Mildred Kubrick, Stanley
Alexander, Jane Loving Kushner, Tony
Ali, Muhammad MacKinnon, Catharine Lear, Norman
Arnold, Ron Malcolm X Lee, Spike
Arrow, Tre Milk, Harvey Madonna
Baez, Joan Millett, Kate Manson, Marilyn
Behe, Michael J. Morgan, Robin Mapplethorpe, Robert
Bono Nader, Ralph Moore, Michael
Bryant, Anita O’Hair, Madalyn Murray Nelson, Willie
Budenz, Louis F. Parks, Rosa Norquist, Grover
Bullard, Robert D. Rockwell, George Lincoln Penn, Sean
Carson, Rachel Schlafly, Phyllis Redford, Robert
Chávez, César Sharpton, Al Rockwell, Norman
Chicago Seven Shelley, Martha Rodman, Dennis
Churchill, Ward Soros, George Schwarzenegger, Arnold
Commoner, Barry Steinem, Gloria Seeger, Pete
Deloria, Vine, Jr. War Protesters Serrano, Andres
Dworkin, Andrea Weyrich, Paul M. Springsteen, Bruce
Farrakhan, Louis Wildmon, Donald Stone, Oliver
Fonda, Jane Wolf, Naomi Ventura, Jesse
Foreman, Dave Warhol, Andy
Founding Fathers Wayne, John
Friedan, Betty Artists, Musicians, Athletes, White, Reggie
Hay, Harry and Entertainers Winfrey, Oprah
Hayden, Tom Alexander, Jane Young, Neil
Hill, Julia “Butterfly” Ali, Muhammad Zappa, Frank
Hoffman, Abbie Biafra, Jello
Hollywood Ten Bono
hooks, bell Bryant, Anita Arts, Music, and Culture
Jackson, Jesse Dean, James Barbie Doll
Jorgensen, Christine Dylan, Bob Beauty Pageants
Kerry, John Fonda, Jane Blackface
Kevorkian, Jack Franken, Al Comic Strips
King, Billie Jean Gibson, Mel Contemporary Christian
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Guthrie, Woody, and Arlo Music
LaRouche, Lyndon H., Jr. Guthrie Counterculture
Leary, Timothy Jackson, Michael Country Music
Leopold, Aldo King, Billie Jean Culture Jamming
xv
xvi Topic Finder
Gays in Popular Culture González, Elián MacKinnon, Catharine

Graffiti Hill, Anita McCloskey, Deirdre
Great Books Hiss, Alger McLuhan, Marshall
Heavy Metal Horton, Willie Mead, Margaret
Hispanic Americans Kevorkian, Jack Millett, Kate
Hollywood Ten King, Rodney Moynihan, Daniel Patrick
Indian Sport Mascots McVeigh, Timothy Mumford, Lewis
Literature, Film, and Drama Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel Niebuhr, Reinhold
Media Bias Rosenberg Norquist, Grover
Multicultural Conservatism Rudolph, Eric Paglia, Camille
Multiculturalism and Ethnic Schiavo, Terri Pipes, Richard, and Daniel
Studies Shepard, Matthew Pipes
New Journalism Till, Emmett Podhoretz, Norman
Pornography Unabomber Said, Edward
Postmodernism Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.
Punk Rock Socarides, Charles
Rap Music Culture Critics, Social Sowell, Thomas
Record Warning Labels Commentators, and Academics Spock, Benjamin
Red and Blue States Adler, Mortimer J. Strauss, Leo
Redneck Behe, Michael J. Summers, Lawrence
Rock and Roll Bennett, William J. Voegelin, Eric
War Toys Buchanan, Pat West, Cornel
Buckley, William F., Jr. Weyrich, Paul M.
Bullard, Robert D. Wildmon, Donald
Countries and Locations Chomsky, Noam Will, George
Canada Churchill, Ward Williams, William Appleman
China Commager, Henry Steele Wilson, Edmund
Cuba Commoner, Barry Wolf, Naomi
France D’Souza, Dinesh Zinn, Howard
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Du Bois, W.E.B.
Israel Dworkin, Andrea
Japan Foucault, Michel Education and Educational
Love Canal Friedan, Betty Issues
Mexico Friedman, Milton Academic Bill of Rights
Philadelphia, Mississippi Galbraith, John Kenneth Academic Freedom
Red and Blue States Harrington, Michael Anti-Intellectualism
Saudi Arabia Hart, Gary Charter Schools
Soviet Union and Russia Hauerwas, Stanley Diversity Training
Horowitz, David Education Reform
Hunter, James Davison Gender-Inclusive Language
Criminals, Accusers, and Huntington, Samuel P. Great Books
Victims Hutchins, Robert M. Homeschooling
Chambers, Whittaker Irvine, Reed Multiculturalism and Ethnic
Demjanjuk, John Kinsey, Alfred Studies
Fleiss, Heidi Klein, Naomi Political Correctness
Gilmore, Gary Kristol, Irving, and Bill Kristol Revisionist History
Goetz, Bernhard Krugman, Paul School Prayer
Topic Finder xvii
School Shootings Busing, School Anti-Intellectualism

School Vouchers Campaign Finance Reform Anti-Semitism
Sex Education Capital Punishment Christian Reconstructionism
Speech Codes Censorship Civil Rights Movement
Student Conservatives Compassionate Conservatism Communists and Communism
English as the Official Language Compassionate Conservatism
Faith-Based Programs Conspiracy Theories
Events, Periods, and Incidents Federal Budget Deficit Creationism and Intelligent
Abu Ghraib and Gitmo Forests, Parklands, and Federal Design
Battle of Seattle Wilderness Deconstructionism
Christmas Globalization Ecoterrorism
Civil Rights Movement Great Society Environmental Movement
Clinton Impeachment Gun Control Evangelicalism
Cold War Health Care Fundamentalism, Religious
Columbus Day Human Rights Globalization
Earth Day Immigration Policy Homeschooling
Election of 2000 Kyoto Protocol Jesus People Movement
Election of 2008 New Deal Marxism
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupational Safety McCarthyism
Holocaust Presidential Pardons Militia Movement
Hurricane Katrina Prison Reform Multicultural Conservatism
Iran-Contra Affair Record Warning Labels Multiculturalism and Ethnic
Kwanzaa Reparations, Japanese Internment Studies
Love Canal School Prayer Neoconservatism
Million Man March School Vouchers New Left
My Lai Massacre Social Security Political Correctness
New Deal Strategic Defense Initiative Postmodernism
Nuclear Age Supply-Side Economics Premillennial
O.J. Simpson Trial Tax Reform Dispensationalism
Ruby Ridge Incident Tobacco Settlements Privatization
September 11 War on Drugs Red and Blue States
Sokal Affair War on Poverty Relativism, Moral
Stonewall Rebellion Welfare Reform Religious Right
Thanksgiving Day Revisionist History
Three Mile Island Accident Secular Humanism
Vietnam War Holidays and Observances Silent Majority
Waco Siege Christmas Structuralism and Post-
Watergate Earth Day Structuralism
Watts and Los Angeles Riots, Columbus Day Transgender Movement
1965 and 1992 Thanksgiving Day Victimhood
Wounded Knee Incident Kwanzaa

Journalists, Writers, and
Government Programs and Ideologies and Movements Media Figures
Policies Afrocentrism Adler, Mortimer J.
Affirmative Action American Century Angelou, Maya
Bankruptcy Reform American Civil Religion Bennett, William J.
Book Banning American Exceptionalism Brock, David
xviii Topic Finder
Brokaw, Tom Shelley, Martha Media and Publishing

Brown, Helen Gurley Steinbeck, John Book Banning
Buchanan, Pat Steinem, Gloria Censorship
Buckley, William F., Jr. Stern, Howard Comic Books
Chick, Jack Stewart, Jon Comic Strips
Coulter, Ann Stone, Oliver Culture Jamming
Cronkite, Walter Terkel, Studs Drudge Report
Donahue, Phil Thompson, Hunter S. Great Books
Dr. Phil Turner, Ted Hollywood Ten
Ehrenreich, Barbara Vidal, Gore Internet
Falwell, Jerry Wallis, Jim Literature, Film, and Drama
Flynt, Larry Warren, Rick Media Bias
Ginsberg, Allen Wildmon, Donald Ms.
Haley, Alex Will, George Nation, The
Harvey, Paul Winfrey, Oprah National Review
Hefner, Hugh Wolfe, Tom New Journalism
Heller, Joseph Woodward, Bob New York Times, The
Hightower, Jim Pornography
hooks, bell Record Warning Labels
Horowitz, David Laws, Legal Issues, and Shock Jocks
Irvine, Reed Court Rulings Simpsons, The
Kerouac, Jack Americans with Disabilities Talk Radio
Klein, Naomi Act Televangelism
Kristol, Irving, and Bill Brown v. Board of Education Wall Street Journal, The
Kristol (1954) Washington Times, The
LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly Contract with America Weekly Standard, The
LaHaye Endangered Species Act World
Lapin, Daniel Equal Rights Amendment
Lee, Spike Freedom of Information Act
Lewis, Bernard Individuals with Disabilities Memorials and Exhibits
Liddy, G. Gordon Education Act Enola Gay Exhibit
Limbaugh, Rush Judicial Wars Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Mailer, Norman Miranda Rights Memorial
McIntire, Carl Presidential Pardons September 11 Memorial
Medved, Michael Privacy Rights Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Moore, Michael Right to Counsel World War II Memorial
Morgan, Robin Right to Die
Morrison, Toni Roe v. Wade (1973)
Murdoch, Rupert Sodomy Laws Organizations and Institutions
Murrow, Edward R. Tax Reform American Civil Liberties Union
O’Reilly, Bill Tobacco Settlements American Indian Movement
Podhoretz, Norman Tort Reform Aryan Nations
Rand, Ayn Twenty-Second Amendment Black Panther Party
Rather, Dan USA PATRIOT Act Black Radical Congress
Robertson, Pat Voting Rights Act Bob Jones University
Rusher, William A. War Powers Act Boy Scouts of America
Sheen, Fulton J. Zero Tolerance Catholic Church
Topic Finder xix
Central Intelligence Agency Southern Baptist Convention Politicians, Government

Christian Coalition Students for a Democratic Officials, and Legal Figures
Common Cause Society Agnew, Spiro T.
Democratic Party Symbionese Liberation Army Atwater, Lee
Federal Communications Think Tanks Bradley, Bill
Commission United Nations Bunche, Ralph
Focus on the Family Vietnam Veterans Against Byrd, Robert C.
Food and Drug Administration the War Carter, Jimmy
Guardian Angels Walt Disney Company Cheney Family
Heritage Foundation World Council of Churches Chisholm, Shirley
Hillsdale College Clinton, Bill
Jehovah’s Witnesses Clinton, Hillary
Jesus People Movement Political and Economic Issues Colson, Chuck
John Birch Society Bankruptcy Reform Dean, Howard
La Raza Unida Campaign Finance Reform Dean, John
Labor Unions Church and State DeLay, Tom
Microsoft Communists and Communism Douglas, William O.
Montana Freemen Compassionate Conservatism Dukakis, Michael
Moral Majority Corporate Welfare Duke, David
Mothers Against Drunk Executive Compensation Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Driving Factory Farms Felt, W. Mark
Motion Picture Association Globalization Ferraro, Geraldine
of America Health Care Ford, Gerald
Nation of Islam Hispanic Americans Founding Fathers
National Association for the Immigration Policy Frank, Barney
Advancement of Colored Marxism Franken, Al
People McCarthyism Gingrich, Newt
National Endowment for Migrant Labor Goldwater, Barry
the Arts Militia Movement Gore, Al
National Endowment for the Neoconservatism Hall, Gus
Humanities New Left Hart, Gary
National Organization for Occupational Safety Hayden, Tom
Women Political Correctness Helms, Jesse
National Public Radio Presidential Pardons Hoover, J. Edgar
National Rifle Association Privatization Humphrey, Hubert H.
Not Dead Yet Silent Majority Jackson, Jesse
Operation Rescue Social Security Johnson, Lyndon B.
People for the Ethical Student Conservatives Kennedy Family
Treatment of Animals Supply-Side Economics Kerry, John
Planned Parenthood Tax Reform Keyes, Alan
Progressive Christians Think Tanks Koop, C. Everett
Uniting Third Parties La Follete, Robert, Jr.
Promise Keepers Wal-Mart LaRouche, Lyndon H., Jr.
Public Broadcasting System War on Poverty LeMay, Curtis
(PBS) Wealth Gap Liddy, G. Gordon
Republican Party Welfare Reform Lott, Trent
School of the Americas Whistleblowers McCain, John
xx Topic Finder
McCarthy, Eugene Christian Radio Malcolm X

McCarthy, Joseph Christian Reconstructionism McIntire, Carl
McGovern, George Christmas Niebuhr, Reinhold
Milk, Harvey Church and State Phelps, Fred
Mondale, Walter Contemporary Christian Reed, Ralph
Moore, Roy S. Music Robertson, Pat
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick Creationism and Intelligent Sharpton, Al
Nader, Ralph Design Sheen, Fulton J.
Nixon, Richard Evangelicalism Sider, Ron
North, Oliver Faith-Based Programs Wallis, Jim
Obama, Barack Family Values Warren, Rick
O’Connor, Sandra Day Focus on the Family White, Reggie
Oppenheimer, J. Robert Fundamentalism, Religious
Packwood, Bob Jehovah’s Witnesses
Palin, Sarah Jesus People Movement Science, Medicine, and
Perot, H. Ross Kwanzaa the Environment
Quayle, Dan Moral Majority Abortion
Reagan, Ronald Muslim Americans AIDS
Rehnquist, William H. Nation of Islam Biotech Revolution
Rockwell, George Lincoln New Age Movement Birth Control
Rove, Karl Premillennial Earth Day
Ryan, George Dispensationalism Environmental Movement
Sanders, Bernie Progressive Christians Uniting Genetically Modified Foods
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Promise Keepers Global Warming
Schwarzenegger, Arnold Religious Right Health Care
Starr, Kenneth School Prayer Kyoto Protocol
Summers, Lawrence Sex Education Medical Malpractice
Taft, Robert A. Southern Baptist Convention Medical Marijuana
Teller, Edward Televangelism Nuclear Age
Thomas, Clarence Ten Commandments Obesity Epidemic
Thurmond, Strom World Council of Churches Science Wars
Truman, Harry S. Stem-Cell Research
Ventura, Jesse Strategic Defense Initiative
Wallace, George Religious Figures Tobacco Settlements
Warren, Earl Campolo, Anthony “Tony” War Toys
Watt, James Chick, Jack
Wellstone, Paul Colson, Chuck
Dobson, James Social and Moral Issues
Falwell, Jerry Abortion
Religion and Religious Issues Farrakhan, Louis Afrocentrism
Abortion Graham, Billy Age Discrimination
American Civil Religion Hargis, Billy AIDS
Anti-Semitism Hauerwas, Stanley Androgyny
Birth Control King, Martin Luther, Jr. Animal Rights
Bob Jones University LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly Automobile Safety
Catholic Church LaHaye Bell Curve, The
Christian Coalition Lapin, Daniel Birth Control
Topic Finder xxi
Busing, School Hate Crimes Secular Humanism

Capital Punishment Health Care Sex Education
Church and State Illegal Immigrants Sex Offenders
Comparable Worth Immigration Policy Sexual Assault
Confederate Flag Indian Casinos Sexual Harassment
Drug Testing Lesbians Sexual Revolution
English as the Official Language Marriage Names Silent Majority
Feminism, Second-Wave Men’s Movement Smoking in Public
Feminism, Third-Wave Migrant Labor Social Security
Flag Desecration New Age Movement Sodomy Laws
Fur Not Dead Yet Stay-at-Home Mothers
Gangs Outing Transgender Movement
Gay Capital Police Abuse Victimhood
Gay Rights Movement Prison Reform Vigilantism
Gays in Popular Culture Privacy Rights War on Drugs
Gays in the Military Race War on Poverty
Gender-Inclusive Language Racial Profiling Welfare Reform
Generations and Generational Relativism, Moral White Supremacists
Conflict Right to Die Women in the Military
Gun Control Same-Sex Marriage Women’s Studies
Editor
Roger Chapman
Palm Beach Atlantic University
Advisory Board
Paul M. Buhle Barbara B. Hines David Roediger
Brown University Howard University University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign
Larry Eskridge Donald McQuarie
Wheaton College Bowling Green State University John Kenneth White
Catholic University of America
Lauren Rabinovitz
University of Iowa
Contributors
Robert R. Agne Diane Benedic Brian Calfano
Auburn University Denis Diderot University University of North Texas
Holly Alloway Chip Berlet John Calhoun

University of Texas, Austin Political Research Associates Palm Beach Atlantic University
Mahesh Ananth Bradley Best Daniel Callcut

Indiana University, South Bend Buena Vista University University of North Florida
Robin Andersen R. Matthew Beverlin Charles Carter

Fordham University University of Kansas University of Georgia
Rebecca Bach Michael Ian Borer Stephanie Chaban

Duke University University of Nevada, Las Vegas San Diego State University
Gary L. Bailey Sarah Boslaugh Evan Charney

Indiana University of Pennsylvania Washington University School of Duke University
Medicine
Maria T. Baldwin Karma R. Chávez
Bowling Green State University Durrell Bowman University of New Mexico
University of Guelph
John Balz David N. Cherney
University of Chicago Timothy Paul Bowman University of Colorado, Boulder
Southern Methodist University
Kathleen Barr David J. Childs
Texas A&M University Cyndi Boyce Miami University
Lincoln Trail College
Margaret Barrett Justin P. Coffey
Independent Scholar Jana Brubaker Bradley University
Northern Illinois University
Robert Bauman Douglas Craig
Washington State University, William E. Burns Australian National University
Tri-Cities George Washington University
Benjamin W. Cramer
Daniel Béland Charlotte Cahill Pennsylvania State University
University of Calgary Northwestern University
xxiii
xxiv Contributors
Solomon Davidoff William J. Emerson, III Heather Hendershot

Wentworth Institute of Technology Bowling Green State University Queens College, City University of
New York
Sue Davis Corey Fields
University of Delaware Northwestern University Tony L. Hill
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alexandra DeMonte Linford D. Fisher
Loyola University, Chicago Brown University Steve G. Hoffman
State University of New York, Buffalo
James I. Deutsch Patrick Fisher
Smithsonian Institution Seton Hall University Richard Gibbons Holtzman
Bryant University
Larry W. DeWitt Joshua Fogel
U.S. Social Security Administration Brooklyn College, City University of Richard L. Hughes
New York Illinois State University
Michele Dillon
University of New Hampshire Gill Frank T.R.C. Hutton
Brown University Vanderbilt University
Rachel Donaldson
Vanderbilt University Anthony C. Gabrielli Sara Hyde
High Point University University of Mississippi
Sven Dubie
John Carroll University Carolyn Gallaher Patrick Jackson
American University Vanderbilt University
Mark L. Dubois
Duke University Michelle Garvey Jordon Johnson
University of Minnesota New Mexico Highlands University
Robert H. Duke
Western Michigan University Joseph Gelfer Michael Johnson, Jr.
Victoria University of Wellington, Washington State University
Merrit Dukehart New Zealand
University of Colorado, Boulder J.D. Jordan
Ryan Gibb University of Georgia
Quentin Hedges Duroy University of Kansas
Denison University Elliot L. Judd
Philippe R. Girard University of Illinois, Chicago
Tanya Hedges Duroy McNeese State University
Wright State University Mary E. Kelly
Richard C. Goode University of Central Missouri
Margaret Dykes Lipscomb University
University of Georgia Stephanie L. Kent
Darren E. Grem University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Darius V. Echeverría University of Georgia
Rutgers University Stephen Kershnar
Candace Griffith State University of New York,
Mark Edwards University of Nevada, Las Vegas Fredonia
Ouachita Baptist University
Laura Hague C. Richard King
Thomas C. Ellington Austin Community College Washington State University
Wesleyan College, Macon
Craig Hanson Melanie Kirkland
Blake Ellis Palm Beach Atlantic University Texas Christian University
Rice University
A.W.R. Hawkins Peter N. Kirstein
Gehrett Ellis Wayland Baptist University Saint Xavier University
Harvard University
Contributors xxv
Gal Kober Angie Maxwell Holona LeAnne Ochs

Boston University University of Texas, Austin University of Kansas
Christine Hoff Kraemer Gary W. McDonogh Jacob W. Olmstead

Boston University Bryn Mawr College Texas Christian University
Tim Lacy Cindy Mediavilla Seth Ovadia

University of Illinois, Chicago University of California, Los Angeles Bowdoin College
Selina S.L. Lai Daniel Melendrez Valerie Palmer-Mehta

University of Heidelberg, Germany University of Texas, El Paso Oakland University
Gwendolyn Laird Jason Mellard Serena Parekh

Austin Community College University of Texas, Austin University of Connecticut
Gary Land Keri Leigh Merritt Manon Parry

Andrews University University of Georgia University of Maryland, College Park
Tom Lansburg Tom Mertes Sean Parson

Kansas Wesleyan University University of California, Los Angeles University of Oregon
Rob Latham Cynthia J. Miller Susan Pearce

University of Iowa Emerson College East Carolina University
Abraham D. Lavender Nicolaas Mink Mark Pedelty

Florida International University University of Wisconsin, Madison University of Minnesota
Damon Lindler Lazzara Kelly L. Mitchell Joshua E. Perry

York University University of Western Ontario Indiana University
David J. Leonard Eric J. Morgan Kurt W. Peterson

Washington State University University of Colorado, Boulder North Park University
Daniel Liechty Marilyn Morgan Martin J. Plax

Illinois State University Harvard University Cleveland State University
Christopher J. Lyons Kevin C. Motl Lee S. Polansky

University of New Mexico Ouachita Baptist University Independent Scholar
Mike Males Gary Mucciaroni Jonah Raskin

Independent Scholar Temple University Sonoma State University
Nick Malinowski Andrew R. Murphy Claire E. Rasmussen

Independent Scholar Rutgers University University of Delaware
Jeffrey T. Manuel J. Robert Myers Kirk Richardson

University of Minnesota Loyola University, Chicago Virginia Commonwealth University
Andy Markowitz Joane Nagel Robert L. Richardson

Independent Scholar University of Kansas University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill
Leah Martin Traci L. Nelson
Independent Scholar University of Pittsburgh George Rising
University of Arizona
Elizabeth M. Matelski Rebecca Nicholson-Weir
Loyola University, Chicago Purdue University Christopher D. Rodkey
Lebanon Valley College
xxvi Contributors
Joseph A. Rodriguez Aidan Smith Phil Tiemeyer

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Cornell University University of Texas, Austin
Deborah D. Rogers Courtney Smith Mike Timonin

University of Maine University of Oregon James Madison University
Sergio Romero Robert S. Smith John Day Tully

Boise State University University of North Carolina, Central Connecticut State University
Charlotte
Joseph Rosenblum Glenn H. Utter
University of Colorado, Boulder Min Song Lamar University
University of Georgia
Martha J. Ross-Rodgers Liam van Beek
Independent Scholar Daniel Spillman University of Western Ontario
Emory University
Aaron Safane Jon VanWieren
University of Georgia Arlene Stein Western Michigan University
Rutgers University
Sue Salinger David W. Veenstra
European Graduate School Karen Sternheimer University of Illinois, Chicago
University of Southern California
C. Heike Schotten Michael A. Vieira
University of Massachusetts, Boston Bruce E. Stewart Bishop Connolly High School
Appalachian State University
Todd Scribner Danielle R. Vitale
Catholic University of America James W. Stoutenborough Oakland University
University of Kansas
Erika Seeler Bryan E. Vizzini
Duke University Drew A. Swanson West Texas A&M University
University of Georgia
Jeff Shantz William T. Walker
Kwantlen University College Aaron Swartz Chestnut Hill College
Independent Scholar
Greg M. Shaw Andrew J. Waskey
Illinois Wesleyan University Omar Swartz Dalton State College
University of Colorado, Denver
Gregory P. Shealy Robert Weisbrot
University of Wisconsin, Madison Molly Swiger Colby College
Baldwin-Wallace College
Neil Shepard Daniel K. Williams
Bowling Green State University Jessie Swigger University of West Georgia
University of Texas, Austin
Matthew C. Sherman Jed Woodworth
Saint Louis University Keith Swigger University of Wisconsin, Madison
Texas Woman’s University
Francis Shor E. Michael Young
Wayne State University Peter Swirski Trinity Valley Community College
University of Hong Kong
William F. Shughart, II Steve Young
University of Mississippi Steven L. Taylor McHenry County College
Troy University
Jennifer Lyn Simpson Anna Zuschlag
University of Colorado, Boulder Robert Teigrob University of Western Ontario
Ryerson University
Introduction
Culture Wars: Rhetoric and Reality
From the end of World War II to the present, many some, were those pertaining to the relationship between
contend, American society has been wracked by social church and state. The comparison greatly appealed to
and political polarization—a conflict of values and ideas leaders of the Religious Right and social conservatives in
widely referred to as the “culture wars.” The term is general, as it was in harmony with their view that tradi-
metaphorical, as the divisions have not involved literal tional values were under assault. Whatever the extent of
war, seldom bloodshed, and certainly nothing close to similarity between the tensions in American society dur-
the calamity of the Civil War or other major national ing the 1980s and those in Germany during the 1870s,
conflagrations. Rather, the skirmishes of the culture the descriptor “culture wars” has stuck.
wars generally have been contained within a democratic One defining feature of the culture wars is a label-
framework, involving public debate, election cam- ing and classification of issues that suggests a moralistic
paigns, legislative politics, lobbying, legal proceedings either/or sensibility. Such binary constructs have a Man-
and court cases, agenda setting by interest groups and ichaean aspect, lending legitimacy to the view that the
think tanks, religious movements, protests and dem- struggle is religious in nature. In most cases, issues and
onstrations, media events, partisan media commentary, players in the culture wars are presented as pairs of polar
politicized popular culture, and academic discourse. opposites and irreconcilable differences. Consequently,
The provenance of the term “culture wars” is Euro- the battles are characterized as liberals versus conserva-
pean, specifically the German Reich’s Kulturkampf (liter- tives, red states versus blue states, the left versus the
ally, “culture struggle”) of the 1870s. The Kulturkampf right, theists versus secularists, fundamentalists and
was a political and ideological confrontation between evangelicals versus religious progressives, radicals versus
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, a modernist reformer, moderates, constrained versus unconstrained, relativism
and the Roman Catholic Church. As Bismarck sought versus absolute truth, traditionalists versus modernists,
to unite his newly formed empire, comprised primarily secular-progressives versus traditionalists, urban versus
of Protestants, he saw the Catholic Church as hindering rural, suburban versus urban, metro versus retro, the
his political aims. Indeed, the Kulturkampf was precipi- masses versus the elitists, libertarian individualists versus
tated by the formation of a Catholic political party called liberal collectivists, “strict father morality” versus “nur-
the Center. With the cooperation of the Reichstag, or turant parent morality,” textual theists versus nontextual
national legislature, Bismarck sought to diminish the theists, modern values versus Victorian virtues, morality
societal influence of the Catholic Church by placing pa- versus permissiveness, loose constructionists versus strict
rochial schools under state control, expelling the Jesuits, constructionists, postmodernism versus objective reality,
forbidding clerics from expressing political views from patriarchy versus women’s liberation, prochoice versus
the pulpit, and mandating civil marriage ceremonies. prolife, neoconservatives versus isolationists, multicul-
Such repressive efforts at bringing about cultural unity turalists versus universalists, the nuclear family versus
ultimately backfired, however, as they triggered strong the extended family, and so on.
conservative and popular opposition. Finally, after the While such framing serves as convenient shorthand,
death of Pope Pius IX in 1878, Bismarck ended his perhaps useful to some degree, it tends to oversimplify
Kulturkampf and enlisted the Center Party to help him issues and individuals by failing to acknowledge their nu-
oppose the growing menace of socialism. ances and complexities. Indeed, a majority of Americans
find themself positioned somewhere in the middle of
A World of Binary Constructs the political spectrum. Take away the binary constructs,
By the late 1980s, some in the United States were relat- however, and it is difficult to find a handle on the culture
ing the political and cultural divisiveness of their society wars. Moreover, since binary constructs are part of the
to what had occurred in Bismarck’s Germany. Among the spoken language of culture warriors, any serious analysis
controversies that seemed especially analogous, at least to must grapple with such terms and concepts.
xxvii
xxviii Introduction
Context and Background African American rights triggered Southern white resent-
Numerous events preceded the onset of the culture wars. ment over federal usurpation of states’ rights.
While designating any single starting point is arbitrary, Cultural changes in postwar America, including a
one could justifiably point to the presidency of Franklin vibrant economy and the baby boom, led to a growing
D. Roosevelt and the New Deal of the 1930s. Republi- youth culture backed by television, popular music (in-
cans were shut out of the White House for two decades cluding rock and roll), and automobiles. The introduc-
(1933–1953), the power of the federal government tion of the birth-control pill, an effective and convenient
increased dramatically, and a host of new entitlement oral contraceptive, spurred the sexual revolution. Young
programs were created. Democrat presidents following people in greater numbers began “shacking up,” and the
FDR attempted to build on the New Deal, most notably trend toward no-fault divorce led to the dissolution of
Lyndon B. Johnson with his Great Society. Bill Clinton’s more marriages. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
failed attempt to introduce universal health care in the in Griswold v. Connecticut that state laws prohibiting the
1990s likewise was part of the Democratic drive to add sale of birth-control devices violated individual privacy
to the legacy of the New Deal. rights, a decision deplored by strict constructionists as
In reaction against the progressive trends, conser- not being based on any direct reading of the Constitution.
vatives campaigned against big government, arguing Later, in Roe v. Wade (1973), the high court ruled that
that it diminishes individual freedom and incentive, state laws banning abortion also were unconstitutional,
constrains free enterprise, and puts the United States at again based on the right to privacy. In 1979, the Christian
risk of becoming a socialist nation. After President Harry Right became manifest with the formation of the Moral
Truman’s upset victory over Thomas Dewey in 1948, Majority, a pressure group that opposed abortion and
the Republican Party made the threat of communism other trends seen as threatening family values and the
its main concern, using the issue of national security as a Judeo-Christian tradition.
cudgel against Democrats (who were in power when the The Vietnam War, part of the ongoing U.S. effort to
Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb and China fell contain the spread of communism, led to domestic un-
to communism) and going so far as to equate the grow- rest, with massive student antiwar protests in the 1960s
ing federal power in Washington with communist-style and early 1970s. One side viewed the war as immoral;
centralization. Concerns related to the Cold War, with the other side viewed opposition to the war as equally
excesses leading to the Red Scare of the 1950s (called immoral. Saigon finally fell to the communists in April
McCarthyism by its critics), took on a moral tone as con- 1975, less than a year after Richard Nixon had resigned
servatives contrasted the Soviet regime’s official atheistic as president over the Watergate scandal, and the United
stance with America’s Judeo-Christian tradition. It was States was plagued for the rest of the decade by ongoing
in this context that the phrase “under God” was inserted economic problems, an energy crisis, and the Iran hostage
in the American flag pledge and “In God We Trust” crisis. During this period, many New Deal Democrats
inscribed on the nation’s currency. At the same time, switched party affiliation and voted for conservative
however, a number of Supreme Court rulings interpreted Republican Ronald Reagan, whose election in 1980
the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause as requir- signaled a sweeping political realignment. According
ing a high wall of separation between church and state to some commentators, the economic crisis of the 1970s
(in the process ruling official prayer in public schools as provided the New Right with an opening to advance its
unconstitutional), which outraged many conservatives. agenda much in the way the Great Depression had given
The Cold War placed a new emphasis on human momentum to liberals and progressives. Republicans
rights. In communist countries, individual freedom was courted the Religious Right, inserted an anti-abortion
greatly restricted, which most Americans considered plank in their party platform, and gained the enduring
repugnant. The United Nations, itself the brainchild allegiance of conservative Christian voters.
of FDR, proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Hu- The election of Bill Clinton in 1992, however,
man Rights in 1948, just three years after the institu- shattered Republican illusions of a permanent reign
tion’s founding. In the United States, succeeding years and prompted some in the party to view their struggle
brought increasing concern about the rights of blacks as a culture war. Clinton’s election during an economic
in the Southern states, where segregation was the law of downturn, after he worked a campaign strategy based
the land. Critics noted that the United States was a less on the premise “It’s the economy, stupid,” put a wrinkle
than perfect model to the rest of the world when blacks in the culture wars thesis that voters place more impor-
were treated as second-class citizens. The civil rights tance on cultural issues (values) than on their economic
movement, eventually backed by federal courts and new interests.
federal laws, became a model for other causes, including In 1999, in response to the Republican failure to
feminism, gay rights, environmentalism, and even the remove Clinton from office over the Monica Lewinsky sex
Religious Right. At the same time, the expansion of scandal, Paul Weyrich, a leading Republican conservative
Introduction xxix
and strategist of the Religious Right, lamented, “I do an “impulse” to lean toward either the orthodox or the
not believe that a majority of Americans actually share progressive. The mass media, Hunter further argues, no
our values. . . . I believe that we have probably lost the longer mediate political differences, but instead exac-
culture war. That doesn’t mean the war is not going to erbate the divisions—in other words, even though the
continue, and that it isn’t going to be fought on other private thoughts of Americans are generally moderate,
fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. public discourse is polarizing and results in “the eclipse
This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories of the middle.”
fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are Continuing his thesis, Hunter argues that America’s
important.” cultural cleavage is ultimately about “how we are to order
our lives together.” In other words, as reflected in the
Hunter’s Culture War subtitle of his book, the crux of the conflict is about the
The culture wars became a major topic of debate fol- future of the nation. In his broad outline of the culture
lowing the publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle to wars, Hunter identifies five “fronts” on which the future
Define America (1991), a book by longtime University of will be played out: the family, education, the media, law,
Virginia sociology professor James Davison Hunter. Ac- and politics. Ultimately, he predicts, the culture wars
cording to Hunter, American society is divided between will decide such contentious family issues as reproduction
the “orthodox” and the “progressive,” characterized by rights (including abortion), the boundaries of legitimate
“political and social hostility rooted in different systems sexuality, childrearing, feminism, sexual orientation,
of understanding.” Accordingly, whereas Americans once and even the structure and definition of the family.
shared “a larger biblical culture”—one equated with In the realm of education, the outcome of the culture
“moral authority” based on belief in a transcendental wars will decide what children are taught and resolve
supreme being (God) who has handed down revelation a broad range of related issues, from history standards
(Scripture) that must be followed for all times—the years and multiculturalism to sex education and whether or
since World War II have seen a growing segment of the not the science curriculum should incorporate theistic
American populace operating on a different worldview, perspectives concerning the origins of human life. The
one based on cultural progressivism. The latter group, battle over the media will decide what content is ac-
which includes the nonreligious as well as theistic pro- ceptable in popular culture, from television and film to
gressives, has an affinity for Enlightenment ideals, secu- novels, song lyrics, public art, and computer games. In
larism, and modernity, and tends to think rationally as regard to law, the broad issue of rights—human rights,
well as subjectively. Consequently, according to Hunter, worker rights, consumer rights, civil rights, voter rights,
a division developed between the holdovers of the old women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights, the rights
culture, comprising conservative Judeo-Christian values, of the unborn, parental rights, the rights of the handi-
and those who approach the challenges of the day from a capped, patient rights, the right to die, animal rights,
more contextual, “spirit of the time” perspective. the rights of the accused, gun rights, property rights,
In the context of historical religious communi- speech rights, artist rights, and the like—has taken on
ties, members are divided between the orthodox and paramount importance. Finally, Hunter maintains, the
progressives—a situation in which denominational doc- political struggle is ultimately about power and how
trine and religious rituals are no longer glue that binds. many issues of the culture wars will be resolved, thereby
In other words, the culture wars are seen as taking place placing great importance on elections, the voting process,
within faith communities, between faith communities, party platforms, campaign financing, lobbying, judicial
and between faith communities and the larger society. appointments, and the like.
It can be noted, for example, that the Religious Right
is comprised of conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Buchanan’s Culture War
Jews. In addition, secularists themselves remain divided, Whereas Hunter presented his thesis primarily to aca-
with some leaning toward the orthodox rather than the demics (although the book was offered as an alternate
progressive, embracing natural law in the same way that Book-of-the-Month Club selection), Patrick Buchanan,
theists subscribe to religious tradition. a Roman Catholic political conservative and media com-
While acknowledging that political elites are the mentator, is credited with popularizing the concept of
ones who have been orchestrating the culture wars, the culture wars. On August 17, 1992, at the Republi-
Hunter maintains that the general public is nonethe- can National Convention in Houston, Texas, Buchanan
less caught up in the struggle, which he calls “a war of gave an address in which he famously (or infamously)
moral visions.” Even though “most Americans occupy declared, “There is a religious war going on in our coun-
a vast middle ground between the polarizing impulses try for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical
of American culture,” he insists that they, too, are par- to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold
ticipants in the culture wars because each individual has War itself.”
xxx Introduction
The role of Buchanan in the culture wars goes back Carter, Buchanan spoke glowingly of President Ronald
to Richard Nixon during the mid-1960s, when the lat- Reagan and the revival of the economy and collapse of
ter was strategizing a political comeback after losing the the Soviet Union under Republican leadership. Indeed,
1960 presidential race to John F. Kennedy and the 1962 according to Buchanan, Reagan was responsible for win-
California governor’s race to Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. ning the Cold War (even though the Soviet Union ended
Buchanan, a former Nixon aide and speechwriter, recalled during Bush’s presidency). The clear implication was that
years after Nixon’s death that the two men during the if Republicans were able to win the Cold War, they would
early 1970s envisioned the creation of a new Republican also be able to win the culture wars as well.
majority: “What we talked about, basically, was shearing After holding up Bush as “a defender of right-to-life,
off a huge segment of FDR’s New Deal coalition, which and lifelong champion of the Judeo-Christian values and
LBJ had held together: Northern Catholic ethnics and beliefs upon which this nation was built,” Buchanan went
Southern Protestant conservatives—what we called the on to attack Bill Clinton, the Democratic challenger, for
Daley-Rizzo Democrats in the North and, frankly, the having “a different agenda.” Buchanan suggested that
Wallace Democrats in the South.” “unrestricted abortion on demand” and “homosexual
The so-called Daley-Rizzo Democrats were party rights” were Clinton’s priorities. Moreover, according
constituencies in Chicago (under the control of Mayor to Buchanan, Clinton’s wife, Hillary, was an agent of
Richard J. Daley for more than two decades beginning in “radical feminism” and a person who once described the
1955) and Philadelphia (under the sway of Francis Lazarro institution of marriage as “slavery.” The team of “Clinton
“Frank” Rizzo, a former police commissioner who was & Clinton” were offering “not the kind of change we
elected mayor in 1972). The Chicago and Philadelphia can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country.”
voters whom Nixon wished to win over were mainly white Buchanan further criticized Clinton for having avoided
blue-collar workers who did not identify with student military service during the Vietnam War and faulted Al
antiwar demonstrators or the counterculture movement, Gore, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee who did
and generally believed that society was suffering from a serve in Vietnam, for siding with “environmental extrem-
breakdown of law and order. It was this voting bloc that ists who put insects, rats and birds ahead of families,
Nixon had in mind when, during a television address workers and jobs.”
on November 3, 1969, he said, “And so tonight—to Buchanan ended his speech by applying a bit of the
you, the great silent majority of Americans—I ask for Southern strategy, focusing on the recent riots in Los
your support.” As for “Wallace Democrats,” Buchanan Angeles sparked by the police beating of Rodney King,
meant the segregationist supporters of former Alabama an African American motorist who had been pulled over
governor George Wallace, who ran for president in 1968 for a speeding violation. Buchanan spoke with reverence
as a candidate of the American Independent Party and of “the brave people of Koreatown who took the worst of
carried five Southern states. As early as 1966, two years the L.A. riots, but still live the family values we treasure,
after landmark civil rights legislation was passed under and who still believe in the American dream.” In other
President Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon had suggested to words, without directly saying so, Buchanan categorized
Buchanan that the future of the Republican Party lay in the rioters, who were predominately black, as lacking
the South. Any reaching out to this constituency invari- family values and the drive that makes the American
ably would invoke “states’ rights,” a term often construed dream a reality. At least some listeners understood this
as veiled criticism of the federal dismantling of Jim Crow part of the speech as a general indictment of poor urban
laws. Invoking states’ rights in this manner, which in ef- blacks. Extolling the police and National Guard troops
fect invoked the issue of race as a way to win white voters, who had been deployed to “rescue the city,” Buchanan
became known as the “Southern strategy.” told of two soldiers who had gone up “a dark street” to
In his 1992 convention speech, after garnering 3 stop a “mob” from attacking a “convalescent home for
million votes in a losing nomination battle against GOP the aged.” With “force, rooted in justice, backed by cour-
incumbent George H.W. Bush, Buchanan touched on the age,” the soldiers (“19-year-old boys,” as he called them)
major culture wars issues of the day: abortion, feminism, trained their rifles on the cursing crowd members and
school choice, homosexual marriage, environmentalism, persuaded them to retreat. The young soldiers, Buchanan
women in combat, school prayer, pornography, and fed- explained, bravely put their lives on the line to save
eral judges “who think they have a mandate to rewrite others, exemplifying a passage from the Bible: “Greater
our Constitution.” Buchanan characterized Democrats, love than this hath no man than that he lay down his life
who had held their convention the previous month, as for his friend.” From Buchanan’s perspective, here was
“radicals and liberals” who deceitfully disguised them- a lesson for culture warriors, which is how he ended his
selves before voters as “moderates and centrists.” After speech: “And as they took back the streets of LA, block
referring to “the failed liberalism of the 1960s and ’70s,” by block, so we must take back our cities, and take back
including the “days of malaise” under President Jimmy our culture, and take back our country.”
Introduction xxxi
A Continuing Debate ist movement (with the goal of outlawing slavery), the
Despite the considerable media attention focused on trend toward universal education, an interest in prison
the culture wars since Buchanan’s speech, many schol- and asylum reform, and first wave feminism (with the
ars have dismissed the culture wars as a myth. The demand for women’s suffrage rights).
majority of Americans, these debunkers emphasize, Other cultural battles followed, including the Civil
are not so deeply divided. It has been documented, War (1861–1865), the populist revolt of the 1890s, the
for instance, that evangelicals do not cloister at the debate over imperialism (whether or not to take up “the
extreme end of the political spectrum but vary along white man’s burden”) following the Spanish-American
its continuum. Moreover, not all evangelicals support War (1898), the social reforms of the Progressive Era
the Religious Right, believing that political engage- (1900–1914), the post–World War I nativist move-
ment is corrupting and distracts from the true Chris- ment (characterized by an anti-immigrant backlash
tian mission. In short, Hunter’s thesis is disparaged as and the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan with its spread to
simplistic, based on generalizations, and unsupported the Midwest), the antiprogressive “return to normalcy”
by the facts. rule under the Republican presidents Warren Harding,
What some of Hunter’s critics have argued is what Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, the failed experi-
he himself has said all along: most Americans are po- ment of Prohibition (1920–1933), and finally the Great
litical moderates. Even so, just as a nation can be at Depression that led to the progressive reforms of the
war while a majority of its citizens remain civilians, so New Deal.
the culture wars can be waged by a few partisan actors Finally, there is the need for the culture wars to be
who control organizations and institutions that are ca- studied and considered from a global perspective, as the
pable of rallying a diehard base of supporters. The fact United States is not the only country that has been expe-
remains that there are political actors, orthodox as well riencing political and social polarization. Such a research
as progressive, who perceive an ongoing culture war and project could possibly shed light on commonalities of
act accordingly. culture wars across different lands and at the same time
Even so, some would fault Hunter for historical highlight what is unique about what has been occurring
amnesia, arguing that there is nothing new about the cul- in American society.
ture wars. For instance, from its early days the American
republic was divided between Federalists (who favored a Roger Chapman
strong national government) and Anti-Federalists (who
favored more power to the states). Indeed, the battle over Further Reading
ratification of the U.S. Constitution (to replace the Ar- Abrams, Richard. America Transformed: Sixty Years of Revolu-
ticles of Confederation) was very heated, and the populace tionary Change, 1941–2000. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
practically split down the middle on whether or not to University Press, 2006.
change the charter of government that would grant more Bernstein, Richard. Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and
power to central government. Afterward, the presidential the Battle for America’s Future. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
cabinet under George Washington was fractious, charac- 1984.
terized by a public feud between Alexander Hamilton, Carlson, Allan. The “American Way”: Family and Community
the treasury secretary who supported a strong federal in the Shaping of American Identity. Wilmington, DE: ISI
government, and Thomas Jefferson, the secretary of state Books, 2003.
who favored more power to the states. Washington ended DiMaggio, Paul, John Evans, and Bethany Bryan. “Have Ameri-
his tenure by presenting his Farewell Address (1796) in cans’ Social Attitudes Become More Polarized?” American
which he implored Americans to be united. Journal of Sociology 102:3 (November 1996): 690–755.
Later, beginning in the 1830s, the country was split Eagleton, Terry. The Idea of Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell,
between the Jacksonians (followers of President Andrew 2000.
Jackson) and the evangelical revivalists and reformers. Evans, M. Stanton. The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the
Whereas the former idealized the common folk, the lat- American Tradition. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1994.
ter sought to either redeem or uplift the common folk. Fiorina, Morris P., with Samuel J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope.
The period was marked by the Second Great Awaken- Culture Wars? The Myth of a Polarized America. New York:
ing, which accented regional differences and different Pearson Education, 2006.
approaches to solving social problems. In the South and Gelman, Andrew. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why
lower Midwest, the preachers emphasized personal piety Americans Vote the Way They Do. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
(reform of individuals). In the North, however, empha- University Press, 2008.
sis was placed on social reform (reform of institutions), Gitlin, Todd. The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is
which sparked a revitalized temperance movement (to Wracked by Culture Wars. New York: Metropolitan Books,
curb alcohol consumption), the start of the abolition- 1995.
xxxii Introduction
Gushee, David P., ed. Christians and Politics Beyond the Culture Scatamburlo, Valerie L. Soldiers of Misfortune: The New Right’s
Wars: An Agenda for Engagement. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Culture War and the Politics of Political Correctness. New York:
Books, 2000. Peter Lang, 1998.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude. The De-Moralization of Society: From Sharp, Elaine B., ed. Culture Wars and Local Politics. Lawrence:
Victorian Virtues to Modern Values. New York: Alfred A. University Press of Kansas, 1999.
Knopf, 1995. Sine, Thomas. Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture
Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Wars. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1995.
Democracy in America’s Culture Wars. New York: Macmillan, Sperling, John, Suzanne Helburn, Samuel George, John Morris,
1994. and Carl Hunt. The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America.
———. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Sausalito, CA: PoliPoint Press, 2004.
Basic Books, 1991. Thomas, Cal, and Bob Beckel. Common Ground: How to Stop the
Lakoff, George. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Partisan War That Is Destroying America. New York: William
Think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Morrow, 2007.
McConkey, Dale. “Wither Hunter’s Culture War? Shifts in Wattenberg, Martin P. The Decline of American Political Parties,
Evangelical Morality, 1988–1998.” Sociology of Religion 62:2 1952–1996. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
(Summer 2001): 149–74. 1998.
Miller, Alan S., and John P. Hoffman. “The Growing Divisive- White, John Kenneth. The Values Divide: American Politics
ness: Culture Wars or War of Words?” Social Forces 78:2 and Culture in Transition. New York: Chatham House,
(1999): 721–45. 2003.
Mouw, Ted, and Michael E. Sobel. “Culture Wars and Opinion Williams, Mary E., ed. Culture Wars: Opposing Viewpoints. Farm-
Polarization: The Case of Abortion.” American Journal of ington Hills, MA: Greenhaven Press, 2003.
Sociology 106:4 (January 2001): 913–43. Williams, Rhys H., ed. Cultural Wars in American Politics:
Nash, Gary B. History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of Critical Reviews of a Popular Myth. New York: Aldine de
the Past. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Gruyter, 1997.
Neuhaus, Richard John. The Naked Public Square: Religion and Wolfe, Christopher, and Richard John Neuhaus. The Naked
Democracy in America. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, Public Square Reconsidered: Religion and Politics in the Twenty-
1984. first Century. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2009.
Packer, George. “The Fall of Conservatism.” New Yorker, May Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Soci-
26, 2008. ety and Faith Since World War II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Rabkin, Jeremy. “The Culture War That Isn’t.” Policy Review, University Press, 1988.
August/September 1999. Young, Mitchell, ed. Culture Wars. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven
Renshon, Stanley A. America’s Second Civil War: Dispatches from the Press, 2008.
Political Center. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2002. Zimmerman, Jonathan. Whose America? Culture Wars in the
Rodriguez, Joseph A. City Against Suburb: The Culture Wars in Public Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
an American Metropolis. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. 2002.
troversial from the very beginning. Conservative critics
condemned it on several grounds. The most far-reaching
was the claim that human life begins at the moment of
conception, meaning that any abortion can be seen as
murder. Conservatives also argued against legalized abor-
Abortion tion on more practical grounds, claiming that it would
Abortion that is induced, specifically the willful lead to sexual promiscuity and an erosion of family values.
termination of pregnancy by medical or surgical means, On the other side of the issue, liberal commentators and
is perhaps the most contentious issue of the culture many women praised the decision, claiming that legal-
wars. From earliest times, families or individual women ized abortion recognized the right of women to control
have sought to end certain pregnancies for a variety of their own bodies, including their reproduction, without
reasons. Until modern times, abortions were usually interference by society. They denied that life begins at
dangerous, threatening permanent injury or death for conception, pointing out that the embryo is not viable
the pregnant woman. By contrast, modern medical outside the womb until much later in a pregnancy.
abortions are relatively safe. The most common abortion procedure performed
In the first decade of the 2000s about 1.2 million in the United States is vacuum aspiration, in which a
abortions were being performed annually in the United syringe or electrical pump is used to remove embryonic
States, the lowest figure since 1974. The all-time high tissue from the uterus. This procedure is used during the
figure occurred in 1990 with 1.6 million abortions. The first twelve weeks of pregnancy (the first trimester). The
effectiveness of contraceptives is cited for the declining second most common procedure is dilation and curettage,
rate of abortion. Of all abortions performed worldwide, requiring the scraping of the uterine walls, a procedure
4 percent occur in North America. According to a sum- often used for other gynecological purposes. These two
mer 2008 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, methods account for more than 90 percent of abortions
54 percent of Americans believe abortion should remain in the United States. Roe v. Wade ruled that abortions
legal, while 41 percent believe it should be outlawed. Of performed during the first trimester of pregnancy should
the two major political parties, 63 percent of Democrats be allowed without regulation. Abortions after the first
in comparison to 41 percent of Republicans believe abor- trimester are more difficult. They can be performed by
tion should remain legal. In that same poll, 62 percent of inducing a miscarriage with medication or by dilation of
white evangelicals and 47 percent of Catholics thought the cervix and removal of the fetus. Roe v. Wade allowed for
abortion should be illegal. legal restrictions on these mid- and late-term abortions.
Abortion opponents, who designate their cause “pro- Feminist supporters of legal abortion saw reproduc-
life,” believe that aborting an embryo or fetus is the mur- tive rights as a central part of women’s campaign for
der of an unborn human being. Proponents of abortion equal rights and equal treatment. The most powerful
rights, who take up the banner “pro-choice,” believe that groups both before and after 1973 were the National
abortion is about a woman controlling her own body and Organization for Women (NOW) and the National As-
fertility. For this reason, the argument over abortion has sociation for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, later renamed
been characterized as the “clash of absolutes.” the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).
Planned Parenthood, which had long advocated for the
Roe v. Wade and the Modern Debate availability of family planning and birth control informa-
In the United States in the late 1800s, a coalition of tion, also endorsed abortion rights.
women’s rights activists and doctors campaigned to The American Medical Association endorsed legal-
outlaw abortions, most of which were being performed ized abortion in 1967. Medical professionals reported that
by practitioners without medical training or being each year they were treating thousands of women who
attempted by the pregnant woman herself. These “back had obtained illegal abortions and had been injured as
alley abortions” resulted in many deaths and injuries. By a consequence. Believing that abortions were inevitable
1900 abortion was banned throughout the United States. in American society, they argued that legalizing the
By the mid-1900s, however, the medical profession had practice would allow trained medical staffs to perform
changed its position on abortion. By that time, private safe procedures in medical facilities. Religious leaders
physicians were able to perform safe abortions, and they in more liberal Christian denominations also became
did so in certain situations, particularly if a pregnancy advocates. These included the United Church of Christ,
was caused by rape or incest or if the life of the mother the United Methodist Church, the Episcopalian Church,
was at risk. Physicians joined with the growing feminist and the United Presbyterian Church.
movement to decriminalize abortion. The anti-abortion movement also began to grow in
Abortion remained illegal in most U.S. states, how- the 1960s and became a leading opponent of the Roe v.
ever, until the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade ruling. The Roman Catholic Church became a pow-
Wade was decided in 1973. The decision proved to be con- erful voice in opposition to abortion in the 1960s, when
1
2 Abortion
the National Conference of Catholic Bishops organized practitioners and engaged in civil litigation against doc-
the Family Life Division (FLD). After 1973, leaders of tors in order to raise the costs of their services.
the FLD formed the National Right to Life Committee, The most radical of pro-life supporters adopted direct
which became the largest anti-abortion organization. action. They set up picketing and other demonstrations
Led by John Wilke, the group fought for changes to at the entrances of clinics or medical offices that offer
abortion laws at the legislative level through lobbying abortion procedures. Pro-choice groups, working through
and sponsored publication of anti-abortion materials for the courts and through legislatures, gradually forced le-
distribution to voters. gal restrictions on such tactics, leading to the passage in
The abortion issue led to the creation of a new co- 1994 of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act
alition of Christians. Evangelical and other conservative (FACE). The law required protesters to maintain a physi-
Protestants rallied to the support of the anti-abortion cal distance from the clinics and to allow free entrance
groups, allying themselves with largely conservative and exit from the facilities. The statute was challenged
Catholic activists. These groups often agreed on other by pro-life groups, which claimed that it was an abridge-
prominent social issues. They opposed passage of the ment of free-speech rights, but was eventually upheld by
Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed constitutional the U.S. Supreme Court.
amendment specifying women’s equal rights. They also Other pro-life tactics have included the dissemina-
opposed the growing gay rights movement. tion of pamphlets, books, videos, and other media mate-
By his own account, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, a rial intended to provoke disgust at the “grisly” nature
leading television evangelist, was prompted by the Roe v. of abortion. The film Silent Scream (1984), produced by
Wade decision to change his mind about the involvement Bernard Nathanson, a former NARAL supporter who
of conservative Christians in political action. In 1979, he became a pro-life doctor, shows an ultrasound of an abor-
was a founder of the Moral Majority, which united anti- tion performed at eleven weeks. The narration provided
abortion supporters with other conservative crusaders and by Nathanson claims to show the fetus experiencing pain
became a central component of a new coalition known as and fear in the process, a claim that has been disputed by
the Religious Right. The latter threw its support behind medical professionals. In a similar tactic, Operation Rescue
the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan in 1980 also staged “Truth Trucks,” or large traveling displays
and 1984, and became an influential force within the showing photographs of developing and aborted fetuses.
Republican Party. Anti-abortion violence rose dramatically in the
1980s and 1990s. In a series of related incidents, several
Strategies Pro and Con abortion clinics in Florida were bombed on Christmas
Even as it joined other related conservative movements, Day 1984. In 1993, Dr. David Gunn was shot and
the pro-life faction was adopting multiple strategies killed in front of his clinic by Michael F. Griffin, an
in opposing legalized abortion. It sought to overturn anti-abortion activist, who surrendered to police at the
Roe in the courts, but also began to frame legislative scene and was sentenced to life in prison. In 1998, Dr.
measures to restrict abortion on several fronts. In 1976, Bernard Slepian, a doctor known to provide abortion ser-
the movement supported the Hyde Amendment, vices, was shot and killed at his home in Amherst, New
which banned the use of public funds for abortion. It York, near Buffalo, by a sniper. In 2001, James Kopp,
also succeeded in imposing new laws requiring minors a member of a radical anti-abortion group, was arrested
to obtain parental permission prior to undergoing an in France for the Slepian murder. Kopp was eventually
abortion. extradited to New York and convicted of second-degree
The movement also highlighted one particular abor- murder. Incidents of violence against clinics declined
tion procedure used for late-term abortions. Referred to after 2000, but abortion clinics still report more than
by doctors as “dilation and intact evacuation,” the pro- a thousand incidents per year, affecting approximately
cedure was called “partial-birth abortion” by movement a third of all such sites.
leaders and graphically portrayed as a means to kill a The anti-abortion movement has largely succeeded
fetus that might survive outside the womb. As a result, in restricting the ability of women to obtain abortion
Congress banned the procedure in 2003. That law, pro- services. As of 2008, even though early-term abortion
choice advocates point out, was mostly symbolic since was largely unregulated by law, 88 percent of counties
the procedure had been used in fewer than two out of in the United States had no abortion services. In practice,
every 1,000 abortions. this means that women seeking abortion must travel to
The pro-life movement also took action against local large urban areas, where abortion procedures are more
providers of abortion. It sponsored changes in zoning laws readily available. The movement’s success in restricting
that made it impossible for abortion clinics to operate practical access proves that determined resistance can go
in large areas of cities and towns. In some communities, far toward nullifying legal rulings that a large, devoted
activists demanded criminal investigations of abortion group finds unjust.
A bu Ghraib and Gitmo 3
The pro-life movement has been less successful in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo
affecting public opinion on abortion. Recent polls by a The two major prisons used by American military forces
variety of polling organizations show that a majority of following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—
adults continue to believe that abortion should be avail- Abu Ghraib (located on the outskirts of Baghdad,
able to women “all the time” or “most of the time.” A Iraq) and Gitmo (shorthand for the U.S. detention
substantial minority believes it should be available only in center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba)—were the scenes of
special cases, but fewer than 10 percent believe it should prisoner (or detainee) abuse, “robust interrogation,”
be outlawed in all cases. and even torture. The controversy over Abu Ghraib and
The most radical arguments on both sides of the Gitmo raised questions about the applicability of the
abortion issue have obscured certain beliefs shared by Geneva Convention to terrorist suspects, the legality
both sides. For example, few contend that abortion is of eliminating habeas corpus, the boundaries of legal
an absolute good, and most people favor reducing the interrogation, and whether the documented cases of
number of abortions by preventing unwanted pregnan- abuse represented isolated incidents or systematic and
cies. Where the two sides differ is on the specific means wholesale violations of human rights sanctioned by the
used to achieve this end. Conservatives tend to regard highest levels of the U.S. government. The revelations
the issue in moral or religious terms and concentrate of what occurred at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and elsewhere
on discouraging sexual relations before marriage. Many cast doubt on American ideals.
liberals concentrate on providing better sex education and Abu Ghraib was the scene of American GI abuse of
offering young unmarried people various birth control Iraqi prisoners that came to light in 2004 when pho-
methods to prevent conception. Many programs in recent tographs of the incidents were reported by Dan Rather
years have emphasized both approaches. during a CBS 60 Minutes II broadcast. The abuse oc-
curred there in 2003, after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq,
Claire E. Rasmussen and was unwittingly documented by personal digital
photographs taken by U.S. Army guards. These images,
See also: Birth Control; Planned Parenthood; Roe v. Wade many obscene and pornographic, featured Iraqi prisoners
(1973); Sexual Revolution. being forced to pose nude in degrading situations. At
least one photograph showed a naked male with a dog
Further Reading leash around his neck being led by an American female
Baird, Eleanor, and Patricia Baird-Windle. Targets of Hatred: guard. Another picture showed a guard dog at the end of
Anti-Abortion Terrorism. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, a taut leash snarling within inches of the face of a terrified
2001. prisoner. The definitive image of the scandal, one that ap-
Burns, Gene. The Moral Veto: Framing Conception, Abortion, and peared on television and on the front pages of newspapers
Cultural Pluralism in the United States. New York: Cambridge worldwide, was that of a hooded figure being forced to
University Press, 2005. stand on top of a wooden box while electrical wires were
Colker, Ruth. Abortion & Dialogue: Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, and attached to his limbs. Former defense secretary James
American Law. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Schlesinger called Abu Ghraib “Animal House on the
1992. night shift,” but in his official report he blamed Defense
Critchlow, Donald. The Politics of Abortion and Birth Control in Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Historical Perspective. University Park: Pennsylvania State for failing to exercise proper oversight.
University Press, 1996. Although some enlisted personnel were prosecuted
Nossiff, Rosemary. “Abortion Policy Before Roe: Grassroots for what took place at Abu Ghraib—Staff Sergeant Ivan
and Interest-Group Mobilization.” Journal of Policy History Frederick II was sentenced to eight years in prison, the
(2001): 463–78. stiffest punishment—no officers were court-martialed
Risen, James, and Judy Thomas. Wrath of Angels: The American and no political appointees resigned. Army specialist
Abortion War. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Joseph Darby, the whistleblower who turned over the
Rose, Melody. Safe, Legal, and Unavailable? Abortion Politics in incriminating photographs of the Abu Ghraib abuse to
the United States. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2007. the army’s criminal intelligence division, was sent back
Staggenborg, Suzanne. The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization to the United States early out of concern for his safety.
and Activism in the Abortion Conflict. New York: Oxford Darby was advised, due to threats against his life, not to
University Press, 1994. return to his home in Cumberland, Maryland, where the
Tatalovich, Raymond. The Politics of Abortion in the United States commander of the local Veterans of Foreign Affairs later
and Canada: A Comparative Study. Armonk, NY: M.E. described him on 60 Minutes as a “rat” and a “traitor.”
Sharpe, 1997. The first terrorist suspects—whom the Bush ad-
Tribe, Laurence. Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes. New York: ministration termed “illegal combatants”—arrived at
W.W. Norton, 1990. Gitmo in January 2002, most having been captured in
4 A bu Ghraib and Gitmo
more upset by prisoner abuse than terrorist bombings or

the May 2004 beheading of American defense contrac-
tor Nick Berg by insurgents in Iraq. Although military
professionals argued that torture is a less than effective
means of gathering intelligence (as people in extreme pain
will confess to anything), others thought that roughing
up terrorists was necessary for extracting timely infor-
mation to thwart pending terrorist plots. In December
2005, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who suffered abuse
as a POW in Vietnam, won support for an amendment
to a Pentagon budget bill to ban torture at American
prison camps and detention centers, but afterward it
was apparent that the Bush administration’s definition
of “torture” was narrow enough to allow certain of its
aspects to continue.
Amnesty International called Gitmo “the gulag of
The Guantánamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba, or Gitmo, our times,” referring to the Soviet prisons in Siberia, but
has been a source of public dispute and legal wrangling over in June 2005 Senator Dick Durban (D-IL) was forced
the rights and treatment of “enemy combatants”—those cap- to apologize after he referred to the Gitmo interroga-
tured in the U.S. War on Terror and detained without formal
tors as war criminals similar to the Nazis and Khmer
charges. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Rouge. While the Web site of conservative radio talk
show host Rush Limbaugh made light of “Club G’itmo”
Afghanistan. Eventually, over 700 detainees would be (describing it as “Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress
transferred to Gitmo. That same year, the Bush admin- of Jihad”) and Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) defended the
istration reasoned that terrorists are not prisoners of war events at Abu Ghraib by stating, “Interrogation is not
and thus have none of the protections specified by the a Sunday-school class,” there was expressed indignation
Geneva Conventions. It would be some time before the by artists, from folk music—2M’s “Our Own Kind”
Supreme Court would rule that terrorist detainees un- (2004) and Jim Page’s “Head Full of Pictures” (2007)—to
der American control have some legal protections—for classical—John Harbison’s “Abu Ghraib” (2006). A 2008
example, in Rasul v. Bush (2004), Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Coney Island sideshow called “Waterboard Thrill Ride”
(2006), and Boumediene v. Bush (2008). Soon after de- (billed “It don’t Gitmo better!”) featured robotic figures
tainees started arriving at Gitmo, various kinds of abuse conducting torture.
and torture took place, including simulated drowning On January 22, 2009, to the applause of sixteen
known as waterboarding. This came to light after the generals and admirals who were present, President Ba-
Abu Ghraib reports. rack Obama signed executive orders to close the Gitmo
It was later learned that prior to the 2003 invasion facility within one year and to ban harsh interrogation
of Iraq the Department of Defense authorized harsher practices. At that time, the detention facility in Cuba
interrogation techniques to be carried out at Gitmo, was still holding 245 detainees. What to do with the
including the use of dogs. Those practices afterward mi- prisoners remained to be resolved before Gitmo could
grated to Abu Ghraib. According to a bipartisan report be closed down.
of the Senate Armed Services Committee (December Roger Chapman
2008), Rumsfeld had approved coercive interrogation
in December 2002. Although those orders were soon See also: Bush Family; Central Intelligence Agency; Cheney
rescinded, the harsh tactics continued. Family; Human Rights; Limbaugh, Rush; Lott, Trent;
Revelations of the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, McCain, John; My Lai Massacre; September 11; Soviet Union
and later of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, led to a and Russia; United Nations; Whistleblowers.
spirited public debate. According to a Washington Post–
ABC News poll of May 2004, 63 percent of Americans Further Reading
said that torture was never acceptable. A higher major- Danner, Mark. Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War
ity rejected sexual humiliation (84 percent), electric on Terror. New York: New York Review of Books, 2004.
shocks (82 percent), water dunking (78 percent), and Hersh, Seymour M. Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to
kicking or punching (69 percent). However, a majority Abu Ghraib. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
supported tactics that employed sleep deprivation (66 Mayer, Jane. Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror
percent), hoods over heads (57 percent), and loud noise Turned into a War on American Ideals. New York: Doubleday,
(54 percent). Some observers accused the media of being 2008.
Ac ademic Freedom 5
Rose, David. Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights. New York: bill suggest that it is actually an attempt to impose a quota
New Press, 2004. system for ideological purposes, requiring a fixed percent-
Tsang, Steve. Intelligence and Human Rights in the Era of Global age of professors and campus speakers representing certain
Terrorism. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, political or religious viewpoints, with less consideration
2007. paid to academic merit. Thus, for example, if a university
Worthington, Andy. The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 were to invite a speaker to speak on the Holocaust, adher-
Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto ence to ABOR might require equal time for a Holocaust
Press, 2007. denier. In the long run, critics argue, ABOR would create
a chilly intellectual climate on campuses, in which aca-
demics would be reluctant to openly discuss controversial
Ac a d e m i c B i l l o f R i g h t s topics. Proponents of the bill, on the other hand, suggest
The Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR), according to the real issue is that liberal professors do not wish to be
advocate and conservative activist David Horowitz, is a held accountable to the responsibilities that come with
document that calls for “true intellectual diversity” on academic freedom.
college campuses and an end to “political indoctrination” Roger Chapman
in the classroom. From the perspective of Horowitz and
others, American college campuses are beset by a pervasive See also: Academic Freedom; Hillsdale College; Horowitz, Da-
liberal bias, with many professors refusing to present vid; Summers, Lawrence.
conservative perspectives objectively and in good faith.
Horowitz, who has been critical of higher education since Further Reading
at least the 1990s, introduced ABOR in 2003 and began Aby, Stephen H. The Academic Bill of Rights Debate: A Handbook.
to lobby state legislatures and the federal government to Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007.
mandate the bill for public colleges and universities. The “A Chilly Climate on the Campuses.” Chronicle of Higher Educa-
ensuing debate on academic freedom pitted Horowitz tion, September 9, 2005.
and his followers against the American Association of Giroux, Henry A. “Academic Freedom Under Fire: The Case
University Professors and the American Civil Liberties for Critical Pedagogy.” College Literature 33:4 (Fall 2006):
Union. By 2008, no state had adopted the ABOR. 1–42.
ABOR, as drafted by Horowitz and his Center for Horowitz, David. Indoctrination U.: The Left’s War Against Aca-
the Study of Popular Culture (founded in 1998), later demic Freedom. New York: Encounter Books, 2007.
the Students for Academic Freedom (founded in 2003), Roy, Sara. “Strategizing Control of the Academy.” Thought &
articulates eight basic principles: (1) faculty selection, Action 21 (Fall 2005): 147–62.
tenure, and promotion must be based on expertise and “a Wilson, John. Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its
view toward fostering a plurality of methodologies and Enemies. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007.
perspectives”; (2) faculty selection, tenure, and promotion
must not be denied due to “political or religious beliefs”;
(3) students must be graded “solely on their reasoned Ac a d e m i c F r e e d o m
answers . . . not on the basis of their political or religious Although not an absolute right, academic freedom is
beliefs”; (4) required readings must provide “dissenting regarded as essential to higher education in the United
sources and viewpoints where appropriate,” and when States, establishing basic protections for educators and
discussing the material teachers “should consider and students in the course of their academic work. Under
make their students aware of other viewpoints”; (5) faculty the principle of academic freedom, professors may teach,
must not “use their courses for the purpose of political, conduct research, and engage in extramural utterances
ideological, religious or antireligious indoctrination”; (6) without fear of censorship or punishment. Students may
funding for campus speakers “will observe the principles express views in class, disagree with a professor, form
of academic freedom and promote intellectual pluralism”; organizations to explore areas of interest, and invite
(7) protesters must not thwart campus speakers; and (8) in outside speakers to campus. The American Association
regard to the overall scholarly debate, “academic institu- of University Professors (AAUP), established in 1915,
tions and professional societies should maintain a posture has developed widely accepted guidelines defining
of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive academic freedom and remains the most prominent, if
disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, not always the most effective, vehicle for safeguarding
or outside, their fields of inquiry.” such protections.
Although a number of state legislative bodies have
shown some receptivity to ABOR, structures and proce- Tenure and Free Inquiry
dures for institutionalizing intellectual freedom are already The landmark document on academic freedom is the
in place at many colleges and universities. Critics of the AAUP’s Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and
6 Ac ademic Freedom
Tenure (1940). Subsequent AAUP documents, designed generally do not receive pension, health care, and other
to assist institutions of higher learning in developing benefits), the impact on academic freedom is regarded as
their own standards and policies, include the Statement deleterious. Contingent faculty do not have the same job
on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings protection or due process guarantees that are generally
(1958), Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic afforded tenure-track or tenured educators.
Freedom and Tenure (1958), and Statement on Procedural
Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Political Pressure
Appointments (1989). Academic freedom has been less secure during periods
Academic freedom in America has attained a legal of international tension as the different levels of
status approaching constitutional protection. In Keyishian government demand greater support and uniformity
v. Board of Regents (1967), a case arising from New York during wartime. For example, between 1952 and
State teacher-loyalty laws, Justice William J. Brennan de- 1954, during the period of McCarthyism, hundreds
livered the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court: “Academic of academics were fired for resisting congressional
freedom . . . is a special concern of the First Amendment, inquiries into alleged Communist Party affiliation.
which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy The FBI’s Responsibilities Program enabled hundreds
over the classroom.” of additional dismissals, with dissemination of letters
Advocates of academic freedom regard it as essential to political authorities alleging subversive activities. In
because the search for truth is facilitated through open addition, thirty-seven presidents of leading universities
inquiry. Society advances, they maintain, when ideas issued a statement casting in doubt the “fitness” of any
are freely explored and educators are not controlled or professor unwilling to silence alleged communists or
manipulated by external political or religious forces that opponents of the Cold War.
seek to regulate their activities and speech. The devel- Following the terrorist attacks of September 11,
opment of scientific inquiry in the seventeenth century 2001, some organizations have been perceived as posing
paved the way for secular alternatives to orthodox theo- a threat to academic freedom. Conservative groups such
logical instruction under the shadow of possible heresy. as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and
During the reign of King Frederick the Great of Prussia the National Association of Scholars have been bipartisan
(1740–1786), academic freedom was institutionalized in their support of academic freedom. Some liberal fac-
at the University of Göttingen. European models of aca- ulty members have been accused of lacking patriotism or
demic freedom subsequently influenced higher education promoting a radical social agenda. Organizations such as
in America. Students for Academic Freedom, the American Council
In the United States, academic freedom has been of Trustees and Alumni, and NoIndoctrination.org have
enhanced by the institution of tenure, in which uni- asserted that some professors are guilty of proselytization
versity professors are granted permanent appointment through lectures, biased reading lists, and intrusion of
following a probationary period of six years. In many controversial extraneous material.
venues, secondary school teachers may also achieve tenure. The post–September 11 war on terrorism has re
Tenure is considered a bedrock of academic freedom; job energized the culture wars and contributed to consider-
security enhances the freedom of educators to conduct able stress on academic freedom. For example, beginning
independent research and help students learn in a spirit in September 2002, Daniel Pipes, a conservative col-
of openness. The economic security of tenure, moreover, umnist and director of the Middle East Forum, used his
is intended to attract highly qualified individuals to online Campus Watch to vilify many Middle East schol-
academia. ars, whom he described as fifth columnists, supporters
Increasing numbers of university appointments, of “radical Islam,” and apologists for terrorism. Middle
however, are going to adjunct, non-tenure-track faculty East studies professors who did not support Israel in its
who are more vulnerable to self-censorship and arbitrary war with the Palestinians were charged with ideological
sanctions. Cary Nelson, elected in 2008 to a two-year intolerance, biased scholarship, and denying dissenting
term as president of the AAUP, observed that “tenure is students their academic freedom. Pipes’s efforts pre-
dying by a thousand cuts” as tenure-track faculty lines cipitated a robust counterreaction, in which hundreds
are eliminated or replaced by nontenured appointments. of nonspecialists requested that their names be added to
Contingent faculty—an unprotected labor force—have no the Campus Watch list. Pipes complied by releasing a
job security and are vulnerable to pressures both within separate list titled “Solidarity with the Apologists.”
and outside academia. By 2007, approximately 50 percent
of faculty hires were part-time appointments, and 56 Conservative Challenges to Academe
percent of all full-time positions were non-tenure-track Conservative activists often seize upon controversial
positions. While financial considerations are frequently ideological statements to arouse public opinion against
cited as the reason for this trend (part-time workers “radical” professors that may result in demands for
Adler, Mor timer J. 7
sanctions. Richard Berthold, professor of classical See also: Academic Bill of Rights; Anti-Intellectualism; Book
history at the University of New Mexico, was forced Banning; Buckley, William F., Jr.; Censorship; Churchill,
into early retirement for stating in the classroom on Ward; Hillsdale College; Horowitz, David; Israel; McCarthy-
September 11, 2001, “Anybody who blows up the ism; Revisionist History; September 11.
Pentagon gets my vote.” One hundred and four members
of Congress called for the dismissal of Nicholas De Further Reading
Genova, assistant professor of anthropology and Latino American Association of University Professors. Policy Documents
studies, for comments opposing the 2003 U.S. invasion and Reports (Redbook). 10th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
of Iraq (including expressions of hope for Iraq to defeat University Press, 2006.
the United States) made at a teach-in at Columbia Curran, Charles E. Catholic Higher Education, Theology, and
University. Peter N. Kirstein, professor of history at St. Academic Freedom. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Xavier University, was suspended and reprimanded on Dame Press, 1990.
Veterans Day 2002 for an impassioned antiwar e-mail Doumani, Beshara, ed. Academic Freedom After September 11. New
sent to Cadet Robert Kurpiel of the U.S. Air Force York: Zone Books, 2006.
Academy. Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies Hofstadter, Richard, and Walter P. Metzger. The Development of
at the University of Colorado, came under attack in Academic Freedom in the United States. New York: Columbia
2005 for describing the casualties of the September University Press, 1955.
11 attacks as “little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile Horowitz, David. The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academ-
sanctuary of the twin towers”—two years later he was ics in America. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2006.
fired. In 2004, the David Project Center for Jewish Kimball, Roger. Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Cor-
Leadership produced a provocative film claiming that rupted Our Higher Education. Rev. ed. Chicago: Ivan R.
Columbia University’s Middle East Studies program Dee, 1998.
was biased against Jews and discriminatory against pro- Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with
Israeli students. Documents. 2nd ed. New York: Bedford Books, 2002.
In books and articles, Roger Kimball, editor of the Van Alstyne, William W., ed. Freedom and Tenure in the Academy.
New Criterion, has excoriated tenure as insulating a politi- Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993.
cally radical elite. In Shut Up and Sing (2003), media per-
sonality Laura Ingraham equates the “ivory tower” with
being “red.” Right-wing activist David Horowitz has Ad l e r, M o r t i m e r J .
waged the most vigorous and well-organized campaign A well-known public intellectual and preeminent “great
against the academy. Based in California, his Center for books” supporter and philosopher, Mortimer Adler
the Study of Popular Culture and online FrontPageMaga- opposed radical multiculturalism in both education and
zine.com have issued many critiques against academics, American culture during the 1980s and 1990s.
citing anecdotal evidence of ideological student abuse. Born Mortimer Jerome Adler in New York City on
In 2003, Horowitz’s organization disseminated a December 28, 1902, he attended Columbia University
document called the Academic Bill of Rights, which its for undergraduate and graduate work, completing his
promoters said would enhance “intellectual diversity.” Its PhD in psychology in 1929. A longtime professor at
presupposition is that social sciences and humanities are the University of Chicago, he was hired in 1930 by the
dominated by left-wing professors who reject conserva- school’s president, Robert M. Hutchins. Both men used
tive job applicants and fail to present balanced pedagogy. the “great books” idea to attempt undergraduate cur-
Claiming that conservative students are intimidated and riculum reform.
persecuted by radical professors, proponents assert that Before leaving in 1952, Adler gained fame at the
the Academic Bill of Rights would expand academic university as a Jewish (hence non-Catholic) promoter of
freedom for students. While some consider the docu- the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. He was also author
ment consistent with the principles of academic freedom, of the best-seller How to Read a Book (1940). That work
others believe it could undermine the AAUP Statement helped Adler and Hutchins spread their ideas beyond the
of Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure. The AAUP’s academy through reading groups and the Great Books
Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure called Foundation in 1947. Adler also served as Hutchins’s as-
the Academic Bill of Rights “improper and dangerous,” sociate editor for Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books of
believing that it would erode institutional sovereignty the Western World (1952), focusing on the set’s idea index,
with external, legislative review and that, in the name the Syntopicon. Prior to that, the two men promoted the
of “intellectual neutrality,” it would force professors to notion of world federal government, a subject Adler ad-
discard the academic principle that not all ideas and dressed in How to Think About War and Peace (1944).
opinions are equally valid. After a period of somewhat less prominence in the
Peter N. Kirstein 1950s and 1960s, Adler reengaged the public with vigor
8 Af f ir mati ve Ac tion
in the late 1970s. The social and cultural tumult of the Americans have debated the fairness and desirability
late 1960s and early 1970s, and the academic turn toward of such programs since the 1960s. Opponents believe
relativist deconstructionism in philosophy, caused in that affirmative action programs constitute a system of
Adler a renewed devotion to communicating the work of unfair “preferences” or “quotas,” while proponents argue
earlier philosophers and fighting anti-intellectualism. His that such programs open the doors of opportunity for
efforts began with Aristotle for Everybody (1978) and con- all citizens and help overcome a legacy of social and
tinued with several books on philosophy in the 1980s. economic disadvantage created by unequal access to
During a period of illness in 1984, Adler, a longtime employment and education.
agnostic and secular humanist, converted to Christianity
(Episcopalianism). Around the same time, he promoted New Deal to Truman
a relatively liberal education reform movement called Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first American president
the Paideia Project, which attempted to bring the great to address the issue of equal access to occupational
books into the public schools. In the 1980s, Adler also opportunity. The New Deal and World War II provided
appeared frequently on William F. Buckley’s Firing the president with the chance to address employment
Line television program. At decade’s end, Adler led a discrimination between blacks and whites, which became
revision of the Great Books. Published in 1990, the set the basis for later affirmative action programs. The
was dismissed by critics, in part for failing to consider Unemployment Relief Act (1933) barred discrimination
works published after the mid-1950s or to address race in federal employment on the basis of race, color, or creed.
or gender in the set’s Syntopicon. Yet the president’s attempt to address the inequities
Despite Adler’s moderate politics, religious and was problematic, since many New Deal programs were
cultural conservatives in the Reagan era found common intended to be temporary. In addition, opposition from
cause with him on religion and education. Three of his southern states proved impossible to overcome as those
books in the period—How to Think About God (1980), The governments gave out benefits in unequal amounts to
Angels and Us (1982), and Truth in Religion (1990)—but- their white and black citizens.
tressed a Christian worldview. While only the last book During World War II, with jobs available in the pri-
promotes a conservative, antimulticulturalist agenda, vate sector as companies shifted to wartime production,
his neo-Aristotelian philosophy proved congenial to blacks were shut out of the job market as many compa-
traditionalists, as did his promotion of a common rather nies continued the tradition of hiring only white men.
than multiethnic culture, evident in his Paideia Project. When black labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened
But Adler despised what he termed “elitist” education a march on Washington, Roosevelt issued an executive
reformers, such as William Bennett and Allan Bloom, and order banning discrimination in defense industries and
he supported Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential bid. government.
In late 2000, Adler converted to Roman Catholicism. President Harry S. Truman continued FDR’s at-
He died on June 28, 2001. tempts to end discrimination against blacks in the
Tim Lacy workplace, issuing two executive orders addressing racial
discrimination. The first mandated the end of hiring and
See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Deconstructionism; Education employment discrimination in the government. The
Reform; Great Books; Hutchins, Robert M.; Literature, Film, second directed the implementation of equal treatment
and Drama; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Postmod- and opportunity in the armed services.
ernism; Race; Relativism, Moral; Secular Humanism; Struc-
turalism and Post-Structuralism. Origins
In 1961, John F. Kennedy became the first president
Further Reading to use the words “affirmative action,” when he issued
Adler, Mortimer J. Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiog- executive order 10925 concerning contractors. If a
raphy, 1902–1976. New York: Macmillan, 1977. business had a contract with the federal government,
———. A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror. New York: Mac- according to the order, it was required to “take affirmative
millan, 1992. action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that
employees are treated during employment, without
regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”
A f f i r m a t i ve Ac t i o n President Lyndon B. Johnson took two steps that further
The term “affirmative action” refers to federal and tied discrimination to affirmative action. In July 1964,
state programs that seek to redress past discrimination he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act, Title VII of
in the workplace and higher education by offering which banned discrimination at companies employing
special opportunities to racial minorities and women over twenty-five employees. In order to enforce Title
primarily, as well as to the handicapped and the aged. VII, Johnson issued an executive order that instructed
Af f ir mati ve Ac tion 9
the Department of Labor to end discrimination with and hired more than fifty employees. In December 1971,
regard to all federal contracts. It also directed the newly Revised Order No. 4 expanded the original order by
created Equal Employment Opportunity Commission including women in the group of minorities to which
to investigate and end discrimination in private affirmative action policies would apply. It would fall to
employment. In 1967, President Johnson expanded the later administrations to answer the critics’ questions.
order to cover women. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on affirmative action
Hiring mandates that prevented employers from in two cases concerning employment and education dur-
refusing employment to individuals based on race, creed, ing the 1970s. In 1971, the Supreme Court overturned
national origin, or gender sparked debate. In order to a lower court ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. In that
enforce these mandates, the Johnson administration of- case, the plaintiff argued that hiring and assigning
fered special financial inducements for those companies employees into all-black or all-white, higher-paying
that would seek out and hire African Americans, and job classifications violated Title VII of the Civil Rights
many large corporations began their own programs. Act of 1964. Griggs further argued that the company’s
Johnson directed the Department of Labor to establish implementation of aptitude tests subsequent to the pas-
some sort of “goals and timetables” to hire minorities sage of Title VII were also discriminatory and did not
on federal contracts; that is, to begin hiring with regard promote affirmative action. In this case, the Supreme
to race. Conservatives opposed the legislation because Court validated the Nixon administration’s interpreta-
they believed that employment opportunities should be tion of affirmative action to achieve the results mandated
based solely on merit. Liberals and moderates agreed that by Title VII. In a later case, Allan Bakke, a white male
employment should be based on merit. Like Johnson, who had been denied admission to the University of
however, they believed that years of Jim Crow segrega- California at Davis Medical School, claimed that quotas
tion had barred African Americans and other minorities used by the school to comply with its affirmative action
from the social and economic opportunities enjoyed by program amounted to reverse discrimination. In Regents
the white majority. Thus it seemed just to extend to them of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the high
some preferences in the hiring process. court ruled that universities may consider race as one
Contrary to black expectations, when President of many factors in admission in order to remedy racial
Richard Nixon took office in 1969, affirmative action disadvantages, but it also held that using strict racial
policies continued. With his attention focused on the quotas to resolve the situation violated Bakke’s rights
Vietnam War and other pressing problems, Nixon left by denying the equal protection guaranteed all citizens
employment issues to Secretary of Labor George Shultz, under the Constitution.
who developed what came to be called the Philadelphia
Plan. This was an attempt to address the issue of minor- Retreat
ity workers in cities with large minority populations. The gains made by African Americans and other
The program required that contractors on government- minorities during the 1960s and 1970s came under
funded building sites integrate their skilled workforces attack in the 1980s. Middle-class conservatives and
based on numerical goals and timetables. Philadelphia, blue-collar workers, believing that concessions made to
for example, had a population of about 30 percent Af- blacks, women, and other minorities were infringing
rican American, while local unions were all white. The on their own opportunities, increasingly questioned
Philadelphia Plan forced integration of the unions; if they programs designed to achieve affirmative action in
wanted to keep the contract, they had to hire about 5 employment and education. Using the courts to restrict
percent blacks each year until over 20 percent of the union the definition of affirmative action, the conservative
was black, in keeping with the racial composition of the administrations of the decade chipped away at legislation
local population. In 1970, this program was expanded to designed to promote equal access to occupational and
cover all federally funded hiring and contracting. educational opportunities.
The Philadelphia Plan was not without critics. The Supreme Court justices, a number of them
Those who opposed the program believed that it violated chosen by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act because it would mean Bush, handed down rulings—as in Wards Cove Packing
preferential hiring based on race. The issue was further Co. v. Antonio (1989)—that indicated their intent to limit
complicated by Order No. 4, signed by Shultz in 1970. the scope of the affirmative action programs established
The order established proportional hiring as a way to over the previous four decades. In this case, a group of
prove compliance with affirmative action. It protected nonwhite workers filed suit complaining that owners of
four minority groups, African Americans, Asians, Native the Wards Cove Packing Company had violated Title VII
Americans, and those with Spanish surnames, with regard of the Civil Rights Act by awarding a large number of
to hiring by establishing racial goals and timetables for skilled non-cannery jobs to whites and unskilled cannery
all businesses that accepted a $50,000 federal contract jobs to nonwhites. A lower court ruled in favor of the
10 Af f ir mati ve Ac tion
defendants, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Further Reading
District found that, based on statistical evidence, the Anderson, Terry H. The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirma-
packing company had discriminated against the nonwhite tive Action. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
workers. The case then went to the Supreme Court, where Ball, Howard. The Bakke Case: Race, Education, and Affirmative
the justices remanded the case back to the Court of Ap- Action. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
peals with instructions to use more appropriate evidence. Davies, Gareth. From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transforma-
Additionally, the lower court was instructed to show tion and Decline of Great Society Liberalism. Lawrence: Univer-
that the company demonstrated evidence of legitimate sity Press of Kansas, 1996.
business justification for their hiring practices. This case Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Devel-
ultimately imposed tougher standards on employees try- opment of National Policy, 1960–1972. New York: Oxford
ing to prove discrimination. The high court’s decisions University Press, 1990.
collectively made it more difficult for blacks, women,
and other minorities to sue if they believed they were
victims of discrimination. Afrocentrism
Federal and state policies in the 1990s indicated With the influence of Pan-Africanism in the early
that many Americans equated affirmative action with twentieth century, black intellectuals argued that African
reverse discrimination. One case brought before the Americans are linked historically as well as culturally
federal courts in the 1990s exemplified this belief. In with people of color who are of African descent. After
Hopwood v. Texas (1996), the U.S. Court of Appeals for World War II, the term “African diaspora” came into
the Fifth Circuit ruled that considering race as grounds fashion, emphasizing a transnational bond between all
for achieving student diversity at the University of Texas the descendants of African slaves. Later, the Black Power
was not within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment; movement of the late 1960s called for the reclamation
the ruling brought the decision in the Bakke case into of the African and African American past that had been
question. Later that same year, California passed Proposi- lost due to “cultural terrorism.” During the 1980s,
tion 209, an initiative that ruled out race, sex, ethnicity, Afrocentrism emerged as an offshoot of Pan-Africanism,
and national origin as criteria for preferring any group for advancing the view that African history and culture have
admission to public institutions. Both of these decisions not been objectively presented in mainstream Western
reflected suspicion that reverse discrimination results scholarship because of a Eurocentric bias. This has led to
from affirmative action policies. an ongoing debate in the culture wars over revisionist
Affirmative action in college admissions continued history and black American identity.
to spark debate in the first decade of the twenty-first cen- A term coined by Temple University communica-
tury. In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger tion studies professor Molefi Kete Asante (born Arthur
(2003), cases involving admissions at the University of Lee Smith, Jr.), Afrocentrism has a range of meanings.
Michigan, the Supreme Court ruled that assigning points At its most basic level, “Afrocentrism” is about present-
based on race amounts to a quota system and is therefore ing history from the perspective of Africans. As Asante
unconstitutional; however, it also reaffirmed the Bakke explained during a 1991 interview, “It means treating
ruling by declaring that the use of race in a broader con- African people as subjects instead of objects, putting
text, along with other factors, is indeed constitutional. them in the middle of their own historical context as ac-
Another policy that some universities employed to make tive human agents.” In this respect, Afrocentrism shares
decisions about applicants, legacy admissions, also common ground with Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978),
generated debate. According to this policy, prospective which negatively critiques the Western depiction of Asia
students have an advantage if they have a family mem- and the Middle East. As such, Afrocentrism is part of the
ber that is an alumnus of the university. Critics charged larger postcolonial intellectual movement.
that legacy admissions are racist because the applicants The stated goal of Afrocentrism is to reclaim the
tend to be white. Supporters claimed that it is only one cultural identity of people of color who were impacted
factor in evaluating a candidate. As these issues indicate, by Western colonialism, entailing a reexamination, and
affirmative action, a source of debate in America since in many cases a rejection, of what has been presented in
the early twentieth century, continues to provoke strong the Western history texts. For conventional scholars,
reactions. Afrocentrism is suspect because of the philosophical
Kathleen Barr and intellectual trends it draws from, including post-
modernism (rejecting the “grand narrative”—Western
See also: Bush Family; Civil Rights Movement; Feminism, tradition—and instead offering an African narrative);
Second-Wave; Great Society; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Judicial Marxism (emphasizing the “oppression” by the dominant
Wars; Kennedy Family; New Deal; Nixon, Richard; Race; Western culture and the imposition of a Eurocentric view
Reagan, Ronald; Truman, Harry S. of the past); and deconstructionism (taking apart the sto-
A ge Disc r imination 11
ries handed down in Western societies and “retrieving” Africa’s problems, but critics argue that Richburg failed
what was “lost” or “left out”). to consider the imperialistic legacies and economic world
Perhaps the most controversial development of systems that have made the continent what it is today.
Afrocentrism is the “Nile Valley” thesis, which locates These underlying factors were earlier addressed in the
the cradle of Western civilization in Egypt rather than nine-part film documentary The Africans (1986), the
Mesopotamia; identifies ancient Egypt as a Negro civi- Emmy Award–winning production of the International
lization; argues that Greek civilization borrowed heav- Women’s Project; the documentary was labeled an “anti-
ily from Egyptian culture; and insists that Socrates was Western diatribe” by the National Endowment for the
black. The foundation of Western civilization, it is thus Humanities director Lynne Cheney, who disavowed her
asserted, is of African and not Aryan origin. The Sen- agency’s sponsorship of the work.
egalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, author of The African Roger Chapman
Origin of Civilization (1974), advanced essential elements
of this argument, which was more fully articulated by See also: Cheney Family; Deconstructionism; Kwanzaa; Marx-
Martin Bernal, the Cornell University professor of An- ism; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; National Endow-
cient Eastern Studies and author of the three-volume work ment for the Humanities; Political Correctness; Postmodern-
Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization ism; Revisionist History; Said, Edward; Schlesinger, Arthur
(1987, 1991, 2006). Bernal, who is white, argues that M., Jr.
the “truth” of Western origins was kept out of standard
textbooks because of prejudice against blacks; most Further Reading
respected historians reject his findings as examples of Asante, Molefi Kete. The Afrocentric Idea. Philadelphia: Temple
political correctness and identity politics. Critics of the University Press, 1998.
“Nile Valley” hypothesis contend that, like the African Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical
American holiday of Kwanzaa, it is a romanticized inven- Civilization. Volumes 1–3. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
tion of the present rather than an actual discovery of the University Press, 1987–2006.
past. They accuse Afrocentrists of teaching untruths for Campbell, James T. Middle Passages: African American Journeys to
the purpose of building the self-esteem of African Ameri- Africa, 1787–2005. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
can students, which they find especially misdirected in Lefkowitz, Mary. Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became
this case because most blacks in the United States have an Excuse to Teach Myths as History. New York: Basic Books,
ancestral links to West Africa and not Egypt. 1996.
Washington Post reporter Keith Richburg aroused Richburg, Keith B. Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa.
heated public debate on Afrocentrism with the publica- New York: Basic Books, 1997.
tion of Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (1997), Walker, Clarence E. We Can’t Go Home Again: An Argument about
a memoir of his three years as a foreign correspondent in Afrocentrism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Africa. In this work, Richburg offers a bleak picture of the
Africa of the 1990s, recounting scenes of disease, poverty,
famine, filth, corruption, dictatorships, and genocide, Age Discrimination
and uses it to denounce Afrocentrism. “Talk to me about Age discrimination, or ageism, refers to bias against
Africa and my black roots and my kinship with my Afri- individuals or groups based on their age. Such
can brothers and I’ll throw it back in your face, and then discrimination may be seen in housing, employment,
I’ll rub your nose in the images of the rotting flesh,” he and other areas. One form of ageism is the devaluation
writes, having witnessed the Rwandan genocide and the of society’s elderly people in favor of youth. Legal
violence of Somalia. Out of America accuses Afrocentrists cases based on age bias frequently concern acts of
of practicing a double standard: romanticizing Africa discrimination against elderly workers, often regarding
while condemning Western culture. Richburg shocked forced retirement. Although discriminatory hiring and
many fellow blacks by declaring that he does not consider promotion often occur, it is significantly more difficult
himself an “African American” because nothing of Africa to meet the legal standard of proof for these acts of
remains in the descendants of slaves who were brought discrimination.
to North America. “Thank God my nameless ancestor, Beginning in the 1960s, laws against age discrimina-
brought across the ocean in chains and leg irons, made it tion were passed in a stream of antidiscrimination legisla-
out alive,” he writes. “Thank God I am an American.” tion. Most important are the Equal Pay Act (1963), Civil
Richburg’s African American critics accused him Rights Act (1964), Age Discrimination in Employment
of wishing he had been born white, suggested that he Act (1967), Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972),
was suffering from the black man’s “internal inferioriza- Rehabilitation Act (1973), Americans with Disabilities
tion,” and dismissed his book as writing packaged for Act (1990), and Older Workers’ Benefit Protection Act
a white readership. Out of America blames tribalism on (1990). These legislative measures were intended to
12 A g new, Spiro T.
protect against general discrimination, especially in the on October 10, 1973, resigning the vice presidency in
workplace. Polling data show that Americans are solidly order to avoid prison time for income tax evasion relating
against workplace discrimination, especially when the to the alleged acceptance of kickbacks from government
discrimination is based on race or sex. According to contractors.
some, however, workplace policies that may disfavor older The son of a Greek immigrant, Agnew was born on
people should not be lumped into the same category as November 9, 1918, near Baltimore, Maryland. Service
racial and sexual discrimination. in the U.S. Army during World War II interrupted his
Many accept the argument that race and sex do college studies, but after completing three years at Johns
not affect productivity, but it is not as obvious that Hopkins University, he transferred to the University of
age does not affect work. Also, older workers are more Baltimore and obtained a law degree (1947). Originally
expensive than younger workers because of health care a Democrat, he switched to the Republican Party on the
costs as well as the benefits and higher wages accrued advice of business associates. After losing an electoral bid
by seniority. While in some industries this may be for associate circuit judge (1960), he served as county
offset by worker experience, maturity, and reliability, executive of Baltimore County (1962–1966), governor of
such advantages are often difficult to demonstrate Maryland (1966–1968), and vice president of the United
empirically. And in industries strongly affected by States (1969–1973).
fast-changing technologies, worker experience is likely A political moderate initially, in Maryland he
to be less valued than the ability to shift work habits implemented civil rights reform, added kindergarten to
quickly, a characteristic associated with youth. Thus, the public schools, and focused on urban development.
some employers might argue that they have a strong He came to Nixon’s notice with a speech that attacked
economic incentive to institute policies that discrimi- African-American leaders for being silent while rioters
nate against older workers. burned Baltimore. During the 1968 presidential cam-
In public debates on age discrimination, moral and paign, as Nixon’s running mate, Agnew denounced
economic arguments often are set against each other. Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey as “squishy soft
Free market advocates argue that government inter- on communism.” He also announced that he would not
vention to regulate such discrimination unnecessarily campaign in urban areas because “if you’ve seen one city
ties the hands of business, lowers economic potential, slum, you’ve seen them all.”
invites lawsuits, and pushes society toward socialistic Following the election, Agnew continued to be a
mediocrity. Those who view all discrimination as a divisive figure, with the help of speechwriters Patrick
moral or civil rights issue remain strongly committed Buchanan and William Safire. Agnew called political
to enforcing and even extending protections against opponents “radiclibs,” administration critics “an effete
discrimination based on age. corps of impudent snobs,” and the press corps “nattering
Daniel Liechty nabobs of negativism.” Such rhetoric did little to fulfill
Nixon’s promise of unifying the country. Agnew contrib-
See also: Affirmative Action; Americans with Disabilities Act; uted greatly to the culture wars by pitting groups against
Civil Rights Movement. each other and fostering an attitude that criticizing the
government or the military was unpatriotic.
Further Reading As the Watergate scandal unfolded in 1973–1974,
Gregory, Raymond F. Age Discrimination in the American Work- Agnew’s own alleged political corruption during his
place: Old at a Young Age. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers tenure as Maryland governor began to catch up with him.
University Press, 2001. Informants even claimed that as vice president he had
Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. Aged by Culture. Chicago: accepted illegal payments. U.S. Attorney General Elliot
University of Chicago Press, 2004. Richardson put pressure on Agnew to resign, paving the
Lindemann, Barbara. Age Discrimination in Employment Law. way for Gerald Ford’s appointment to the vice presidency.
Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs, 2003. After resigning, Agnew pleaded nolo contendere (“no con-
Nelson, Todd D., ed. Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against test”) to one count of tax evasion; he was sentenced to
Older Persons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. three years’ probation and a fine of $10,000. He lived
the rest of his life in relative obscurity until his death on
September 17, 1996.
A g n e w, S p i r o T. Justin P. Coffey
Spiro Theodore Agnew, vice president of the United
States during the administration of President Richard See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Buchanan, Pat; Democratic
M. Nixon, participated in the culture wars by harshly Party; Ford, Gerald; Humphrey, Hubert H.; Jorgensen, Chris-
denouncing protesters against the Vietnam War, tine; Media Bias; Nixon, Richard; Republican Party; Vietnam
student activists, and the media. But he fell from grace War; War Protesters; Watergate.
A ids 13
Further Reading and evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell asserted that

Agnew, Spiro. Go Quietly . . . Or Else. New York: Morrow, AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexual behavior.
1980. By December, when one of the illnesses associated
Cohen, Richard M., and Jules Witcover. A Heartbeat Away: The with the new disease was first diagnosed in injecting
Investigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. drug users, there was clear evidence that the emerging
New York: Viking, 1974. epidemic could affect population groups other than gay
Lippman, Theodore, Jr. Spiro Agnew’s America. New York: W.W. men. The stigma associated with drug use compounded
Norton, 1972. the judgmental and pejorative associations being made
Safire, William. Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate between the disease and the people diagnosed with it.
White House. New York: Doubleday, 1975. The original framing of the disease in terms of the
Witcover, Jules. White Knight: The Rise of Spiro Agnew. New types of people who were getting it, rather than the ways
York: Random House, 1972. they were becoming infected, dominated the medical
approach in the first years of the epidemic. Even after
the name “acquired immune deficiency syndrome” was
AIDS adopted in 1982, the tendency to focus on specific groups
The disease that came to be known as AIDS (acquired of people remained. In a March 1983 report, the CDC
immune deficiency syndrome) was first described in the listed Haitian immigrants, hemophiliacs, intravenous
United States in 1981. In the course of the next twenty- drug users, and homosexual or bisexual men and their
five years, more than half a million Americans died from partners as groups at increased risk of AIDS. Haiti’s
AIDS-related illnesses. tourism industry suffered from the negative publicity,
Although transmission of the virus that causes and people began referring to a “4-H Club” of high-risk
AIDS—the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV— groups: homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and
can be prevented through personal behavior and public Haitians.
health measures, approximately 40,000 new infections
occur every year in the United States. And although the Stigma and Discrimination
disease can affect any group in society, the most margin- In the culture wars surrounding AIDS, some of the
alized communities are the hardest hit. In 2006, more affected began to be identified as either the “innocent”
than half of new HIV infections occurred among African victims of the epidemic or the “guilty” harbingers
Americans, even though this group makes up less than of disease. The “innocent” included the wives of
13 percent of the population. Increasingly, people of unfaithful husbands and hemophiliacs infected by blood
color and those living in poverty are disproportionately transfusions. The “guilty” were drug users, sexually
affected by the disease. These populations are also the promiscuous individuals, and gay men. After a blood
least likely to have adequate access to quality health test was developed to screen for the virus, gay rights
care and health insurance. As in the early years of the groups expressed concern about the possible misuse of
epidemic, the marginalized status of people facing the the test results to deny housing, jobs, or employment
challenge of AIDS sharply defines the help they receive to people who were HIV positive. Such outcomes
in addressing it. seemed within the realm of possibility, given the stigma
surrounding AIDS and the calls for such repressive
History public health measures as quarantine. Conservative
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in June and July columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., recommended
1981 published the earliest reports of unusual illnesses obligatory universal screening followed by tattooing the
(Kaposi’s sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) forearms and buttocks of people who tested positive,
among gay men in San Francisco and New York. an idea intended to stop drug users and gay men from
By October of that year, the new syndrome had been infecting others.
officially designated an epidemic. From the outset, the In the context of growing hysteria, people with
U.S. medical community and media framed the disease HIV or AIDS experienced widespread discrimination
in terms of the population in which it was first identified. and abuse. Ryan White, a thirteen-year-old hemophiliac
An article in the medical journal the Lancet described with AIDS who lived in Kokomo, Indiana, was barred
the new illnesses as “gay compromise syndrome,” and from attending school in 1985 on the grounds that
it was widely labeled “gay-related immune deficiency” he might transmit HIV to other students. Although
or “gay cancer.” Ideas about the possible causes of the his campaign to gain admission brought him national
disease were steeped in negative assumptions about celebrity—White became an activist and peer educator,
the supposed hedonism and promiscuity of the “gay and appeared on the cover of People magazine twice before
lifestyle.” Conservative figures such as former Reagan his death in 1991—this would not be the only instance
speechwriter and presidential candidate Pat Buchanan of such discrimination. The Rays of Arcadia, Florida, had
14 Aids
their home burned down in 1987 after winning a legal tacitly supporting illegal drug use. Condom distribution
battle to allow the family’s three HIV-positive children programs have also faced intense criticism from opponents
to attend school. who see them as encouraging promiscuity.
Restrictions on the content of AIDS-education mate-
AIDS Education rials extend far beyond the borders of the United States.
The media frenzy and public anxiety that fueled such In 2003, President Bush announced a $15 billion, five-
events resulted, in part, from the lack of a strong year global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS, especially
government position on the epidemic. In September in Africa and the Caribbean. Although the program
1985, some four years after the disease had appeared, brought a major increase in support for global AIDS ef-
President Reagan mentioned AIDS publicly for the first forts, provisions limiting the way funding can be used
time. When asked if he would send his own children may have undermined the efficacy of safe-sex education.
to school with a child who had AIDS, he replied that While a comprehensive program advocates the “ABC”
although the medical evidence suggested this would not approach—in which A stands for “abstinence,” B for “be
put them at risk, there was no unequivocal proof. U.S. faithful,” and C for “use a condom”—the president’s plan
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, the following year, focused on the first two elements at the expense of the
published the government’s first major statement on the third. Critics say this negatively affected programs in
epidemic. Koop recommended that schools and parents some areas, especially where sexual inequality impedes
facilitate frank, candid discussions about sex and HIV as joint decision-making about when to have sex or whether
a critical means to slow the spread of the disease. to use condoms.
The Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) had produced The contentious debates over what works versus
sex-education materials to define safe practices and risky what is appropriate have profound consequences for the
behaviors since its launch in 1981. Sometimes featuring future of the global AIDS epidemic. AIDS is often seen
explicit illustrations or descriptions of gay sex, such as one of the defining issues of our time, yet public health
materials were seized upon by conservative commenta- practitioners suggest that ideological squabbling may
tors. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), said to be particularly limit society’s ability to respond.
outraged by a GMHC cartoon booklet called After the Manon Parry
Gym, proposed the so-called Helms Amendment in 1987,
banning the use of federal funds for AIDS-education See also: Birth Control; Buchanan, Pat; Buckley, William
materials that “promote or encourage” homosexual or F., Jr.; Catholic Church; Focus on the Family; Gay Rights
premarital heterosexual activity. Movement; Gays in the Military; Hate Crimes; Health Care;
These restrictions formed the cornerstone of absti- Helms, Jesse; Koop, C. Everett; Kushner, Tony; Reagan, Ron-
nence-education programs advocated by conservatives, ald; Science Wars; Sex Education.
including President George W. Bush. Abstinence pro-
grams, which advise against sex before marriage, have Further Reading
been widely promoted by evangelical groups such as Antonio, Gene. The AIDS Cover-Up. San Francisco: Ignatius
Focus on the Family. In a 2004 review of abstinence-based Press, 1986.
curricula in American schools, however, the Sex Informa- Gostin, Lawrence O. The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice,
tion and Education Council of the United States found and Unfulfilled Expectations. Chapel Hill: University of North
that many of these programs depict traditional gender Carolina Press, 2004.
roles that undermine sexual equality and underplay the McKeever, James. The AIDS Plague. Medford, OR: Omega,
role of condoms in preventing the transmission of HIV. 1986.
Two of the most widely used programs, Worth the Wait Treichler, Paula. How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: Cultural Chron-
and Heritage Keepers, faced criticism for relying on fear- icles of AIDS. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
based messaging about the repercussions of sexual activity
to shame students into abstinence. According to critics,
exaggerated claims about the failure rates of condoms A l e xa n d e r, J a n e
have made young people less likely to use them if they Jane Alexander, an internationally acclaimed American
do engage in sexual activity. Proponents of abstinence- actress, entered the battlefield of the culture wars when
based education argue that sex education encourages she chaired the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
sexual experimentation. from 1993 to 1997 during President Bill Clinton’s
Similar struggles over the most appropriate ways administration.
to tackle the AIDS epidemic have played out in other Born Jane Quigly on October 28, 1939, in Boston,
ways. Needle-exchange programs, for example, designed she studied at Sarah Lawrence College (1957–1959)
to give drug users access to clean needles to prevent the and the University of Edinburgh (1959–1960). Her
spread of HIV through shared use, have been decried as first major performance was in The Great White Hope
A li, Muhammad 15
(1968), a Washington, D.C., production sponsored by Louisville, Kentucky, was famous not only for his
the NEA. She was cast as the white lover of a black unparalleled exploits in the ring but also for his
boxer, a role that generated controversy, including outspoken manner and controversial political stands.
hate mail and death threats. The production moved to At the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome, Cassius
Broadway the following year and brought her a Tony Clay won the gold medal in the light heavyweight cat-
Award for best performance by a featured actress in a egory by defeating Zbigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland.
play, the first of many acting awards and nominations A series of nineteen successive victories then gave him a
she would earn. shot at the world heavyweight title, which he won from
In the decades since, Alexander has worn a range of defending champion Sonny Liston with a surprising and
hats in the arts, including acting, film producing, and controversial sixth-round technical knockout in February
writing. Among her film credits are All the President’s 1964. He successfully defended his title nine times from
Men (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and The Cider 1964 to 1967, but his sporting career was increasingly
House Rules (1999). Her television performances have overshadowed by his flamboyant personality and politi-
included roles in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House cal activism.
Years (1977), Testament (1983), and Law and Order (2000). After winning the heavyweight crown, Clay
She has also served on the boards of such organizations changed his name to Cassius X, refusing to bear the
as Project Greenhope, the Wildlife Conservation Society, name that had been imposed on his slave ancestors.
and Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. He took the name Muhammad Ali after converting
The first working artist to direct the NEA, Alexander to Islam and joining the Nation of Islam, a radical,
headed an organization that had been on the political separatist group. This made Ali a lightning rod in the
defensive since the 1980s. Angry public criticism from decade’s tense racial climate. Young, fit, handsome, and
conservative groups such as the American Family As- articulate, he also became a symbol of racial pride for
sociation over NEA grants to several avant-garde artists the Black Power movement.
whose work contained controversial content led to budget Ali publicly opposed the Vietnam War on the
cuts and campaigns to disband the organization. Under grounds that fighting communism in Southeast Asia
Alexander’s tenure, Congress slashed the NEA’s annual was secondary to fighting racism in the United States.
budget from $170 million to $98 million. During her Declaring “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong; ain’t
four-year role as chair, Alexander reduced the NEA staff no Vietcong ever called me a nigger,” he petitioned to be
and transformed the agency into a publicly engaged insti- exempted from the military draft as a conscientious objec-
tution with a commitment to local communities, cultural tor, claiming that as a Muslim minister he could fight
diversity, and education. Despite her efforts to defend and only in a jihad (Muslim holy war). He was denounced
promote public funding for the arts, many artists criti- as a draft dodger, but sports announcer Howard Cosell
cized her for compromising too much with conservative defended him despite suffering criticism for doing so. In
Republicans in Congress. Others credited her political 1967, Ali was found guilty of “willful refusal to submit
skills, including placating Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), to the induction of the Armed Forces,” sentenced to five
with saving the NEA. Shortly before her resignation in years in jail, fined $10,000, and stripped of his heavy-
1997, the NEA published a report titled American Canvas: weight title. That conviction was overturned by the U.S.
An Arts Legacy for Our Communities, which advised that Supreme Court in Clay, aka Ali v. United States (1971).
artists and art institutions in America need to do more to He later recalled, “I was determined to be one nigger the
mitigate the negativity of the mainstream public toward white man didn’t get.”
contemporary art. Ali regained the championship belt in an October
Susan Pearce 1974 bout against George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire
(Congo). Promoted as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” the
See also: Censorship; Clinton, Bill; Helms, Jesse; Mapple fight was remembered for Ali’s skills and taunts, but
thorpe, Robert; National Endowment for the Arts; National also for the political symbolism of two African Ameri-
Endowment for the Humanities; Serrano, Andres. cans fighting for a world title in the capital of a newly
independent African nation. In two 1978 fights against
Further Reading Leon Spinks, Ali first lost the world title, then regained
Alexander, Jane. Command Performance: An Actress in the Theater it for the third time.
of Politics. New York: PublicAffairs, 2000. Ali became a less controversial figure following his
1981 retirement (with a 56–5 record) and the 1984
announcement that he suffered from pugilistic Parkin-
Ali, Muhammad son’s disease. He made a high-profile appearance as the
Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, final torchbearer in the opening ceremonies of the 1996
born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942, in Olympics held in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2005, President
16 A mer ic an Centur y
George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential tion, the World Bank, and the International Monetary
Medal of Freedom. Ali is widely regarded as a symbol Fund, whose role in effectuating U.S. dominance is noted
of the 1960s civil rights and antiwar movements as well by scholars such as David Harvey, Michael Hunt, Neil
as the cultural tensions of the time. His daughter Laila Smith, and Immanuel Wallerstein. The covert means fo-
became a prominent professional boxer in her own right cused primarily on the role of a newly created Central In-
during the late 1990s. telligence Agency to foster favorable governments around
Philippe R. Girard the world and to underwrite cultural enterprises during
the Cold War. Proponents of muscular U.S. intervention
See also: Afrocentrism; Bush Family; Civil Rights Movement; found inspiration in the resonant words of President John
Cold War; Malcolm X; Muslim Americans; Nation of Islam; F. Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural address: “to bear any
Vietnam War; War Protesters. burden” and “pay any price” for spreading freedom. That
spirit came to an abrupt halt in the Vietnam War, causing
Further Reading a crisis in what had been the “triumphalism” embedded
Ali, Muhammad. The Greatest: My Own Story. New York: Ran- in the American Century concept.
dom House, 1975. While American culture continued to gain footholds
Ali, Muhammad, and Thomas Hauser. Muhammad Ali in Per- everywhere in the world, U.S. political and economic
spective. San Francisco: Collins, 1996. hegemony suffered setbacks throughout the 1970s. In
Gorn, Elliott J., ed. Muhammad Ali, the People’s Champ. Urbana: the early 1980s, however, the administration of Presi-
University of Illinois Press, 1995. dent Ronald Reagan proclaimed its intention to restore
Kindred, Dave. Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful American preeminence in the world, even going beyond
Friendship. New York: Free Press, 2006. mere containment of the Soviet Union. With the col-
Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise lapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Century
of an American Hero. New York: Random House, 1998. ideologues confronted a dual challenge: how to sustain
and expand the military-industrial complex that was the
core of American dominance, and how to convince the
American Centur y American public to support military interventions for
Originally articulated in 1941 by Henry Luce, the editor strategic purposes. Out of this challenge grew a neocon-
and owner of Time and Life magazines, the American servative plan called the Project for the New American
Century is a concept that incorporates long-standing Century (PNAC).
visions of the United States as a redeemer nation while Formulated in 1997, PNAC defined its mission in a
pointing toward its future as the leading hegemon of the rhetorical question: “Does the United States have the re-
“free world.” Appropriating a sense that the future will be solve to shape a new century favorable to American prin-
defined by American standards in every aspect of life, the ciples and interests?” Among the signatories to PNAC’s
American Century worldview informed the desires and statement of principles were Republican stalwarts Dick
designs of policymakers seeking to establish the United Cheney, Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul
States as the indispensable nation for leading the world. Wolfowitz, all of whom would become key members of
On the eve of U.S. entry into World War II, Luce President George W. Bush’s administration. The PNAC
described the American Century as a “duty” and “op- supporters’ advocacy for “full spectrum dominance” was
portunity” for guaranteeing progress and prosperity seen in the Bush Doctrine of unilateral preemptive war,
throughout the world. He believed that America was under which the administration launched its military
the true inheritor of the best that civilization offered. It campaign in Iraq. The consequences led many to wonder
naturally followed that the inevitable global dominance whether the United States could or should be the sole
of the United States would be marked by the superla- agent of democratic change in the world. Even previous
tive qualities of American democracy and culture; thus, promoters of muscular intervention, such as Zbigniew
spreading that democracy and culture would be the pri- Brzezinski, and of neoconservative ideology, such as
mary mission of the nation. That mission would require Francis Fukuyama, raised doubts about the viability of
a geopolitical strategy built on the economic, military, Bush’s version of the American Century.
and cultural preeminence of the United States in the Nevertheless, some neoconservatives continued to ex-
postwar period. press confidence in a revised understanding of the Ameri-
Playing off these calls for an American Century, can Century, even as critics openly discussed the end of
postwar policymakers sought to establish U.S. geopoliti- it. While Robert Kagan, in Of Paradise and Power (2003),
cal supremacy in the world by overt and covert means. underscores the deeply rooted belief of American power
Among the overt designs was development of a host of as the prime mover for progress in the world, Immanuel
international and multilateral organizations, such as the Wallerstein, in The Decline of American Power (2003), sees
United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- the United States as lacking the power to effect global
A mer ic an Ci v il Liber ties Union 17
dominance. Other critics see the “new imperialism” as a American Civ il Liber ties Union
failing strategy of the “endgame of globalization.” These Founded in 1920 as a successor to the National Civil
critics contend that the American Century and PNAC Liberties Bureau, the American Civil Liberties Union
projects are doomed to failure because American power (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to
has reached its apex and is in the critical phase of impe- protecting individual rights. With chapters in states
rial overreach. nationwide and claiming a membership of over 500,000,
Nevertheless, many liberal as well as conservative the ACLU in 2008 was involved in about 6,000 cases.
policymakers, from Madeleine Albright to Condoleezza In the culture wars, political conservatives have accused
Rice, still regard the United States as the indispensable the ACLU of being partisan, liberal, antireligious, and
nation. Their ideological division is often over whether unpatriotic. (The initials, say some, stand for “Atheist
the United States should act unilaterally to effect the Commie Liberal Utopians.”) On occasion, however,
changes it wants in the world. Academic supporters of the ALCU has disappointed liberals for coming to the
an American imperial mission, such as Robert Kagan defense of Klansmen, Nazi demonstrators, and the
and Niall Ferguson, argue that the success of such a mis- Iran-Contra figure Oliver North. The organization has
sion depends on shouldering the economic and political steadfastly proclaimed a commitment to the liberties of
burdens, irrespective of internal and external criticisms all, regardless of political orientation.
and contradictions. Opponents of such an imperial mis-
sion note that to continue an imperial course would be a Civil Rights for All
delusion and invite disaster. From its inception, the ACLU promoted labor rights,
Beyond the debates over whether the twenty-first along the way working with communists. Early board
century will be a New American Century is a growing members included progressive reformers such as Jane
international sense of the demise of the American empire. Addams, as well as socialist Norman Thomas and
The issue of the rise and fall, and benevolence or malevo- communists William Z. Foster and Elizabeth Gurley
lence, of the American Century policies no doubt will Flynn. During the 1930s, the House Committee on Un-
remain part of the culture wars for some time to come. American Activities (HUAC) accused the ACLU of being
“closely affiliated with the Communist movement,”
Francis Shor asserting that “fully 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of
communists.” Critics saw communist taint in that Roger
See also: American Exceptionalism; Bush Family; Cold War; Baldwin, an admirer of the Soviet Union and author of
Kristol, Irving, and Bill Kristol; Neoconservatism; Reagan, Liberty Under the Soviets (1928), was executive director of
Ronald; September 11; United Nations; Vietnam War. the ACLU from its founding in 1920 until 1950.
After World War II, the organization turned its
Further Reading attention to civil rights, while the Communist Party of
Boggs, Carl. Imperial Delusions: American Militarism and Endless the USA, by then estranged from the ACLU, operated
War. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. its own front group, the CRC (Civil Rights Congress).
Engelhardt, Tom. The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America As communists came under attack by the federal govern-
and the Disillusioning of a Generation. New York: Basic Books, ment, the ACLU responded cautiously. It submitted a
1995. timid response to President Harry Truman’s government
Fukuyama, Francis. America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, loyalty program and offered a late amicus (friend-of-the-
and the Neoconservative Legacy. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni- court) brief on behalf of the Hollywood Ten. In 1948, as
versity Press, 2006. communists were prosecuted under the Smith Act, the
Harvey, David. The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford Uni- ACLU sat on the sidelines. However, the ACLU did issue
versity Press, 2005. an amicus brief on behalf of the communist defendants in
Johnson, Chalmers. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and Yates v. U.S. (1957), the successful appeal of the Smith
the End of the Republic. New York: Owl Books, 2004. Act ruling. The ACLU’s response to the McCarran Act
Lieven, Anatol. America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American (1950), which authorized detention of radicals in times
Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. of emergency, was restrained.
Project for the New American Century Web site. www Although the ACLU did not direct the legal actions
.newamericancentury.org. associated with the civil rights movement, it worked
Saunders, Frances Stonor. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the closely with the National Association for the Advance-
World of Arts and Letters. New York: New Press, 2001. ment of Colored People (NAACP) on many cases. Earlier,
Slater, David, and Peter J. Taylor, eds. The American Century: in the Supreme Court case of Hirabayashi v. U.S. (1943),
Consensus and Coercion in the Projection of American Power. the ACLU submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the
Walden, MA: Blackwell, 1999. Japanese-American internees, categorizing the govern-
Steel, Ronald. Pax Americana. New York: Viking, 1967. ment action as racially discriminatory. The ACLU also
18 A mer ic an Ci v il Liber ties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union, dedicated to protecting individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution, is criticized by
conservatives for advancing a partisan left-wing agenda. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)
filed an amicus brief in the historic school desegregation school prayer. With the Supreme Court rulings in Engel
case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The organi- v. Vitale (1962), Abington v. Schempp (1963), and Murray
zation went on to defend students who participated in v. Curlett (1963), largely the consequence of ACLU
the sit-ins throughout the South (1960s) and provided efforts, prayer and Bible reading in public schools were
legal assistance to arrested members of the Black Panther rendered unconstitutional. There was further rancor
Party (1960s–1970s). In addition, forms of black expres- when, in Waltz v. Tax Commission (1970), the ACLU
sion such as Afro hairstyles, which were banned in the argued against tax exemption for religious groups.
military, were defended in court. However, the ACLU on occasion has defended the
But the support for black rights did not dissuade rights of religious people—in Minersville School v. Gobitis
the ACLU from defending white supremacists. The (1940), a reversal of an earlier decision, the Supreme
African-American ACLU attorney and future District of Court agreed with the ACLU that school authorities do
Columbia delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton not have the right to impose pledging to the flag on
defended members of the National States’ Rights Party the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who regard such
in a number of cases involving speech rights, culminat- ritual as idolatrous; and in 1965, the ACLU wrote a
ing in the Supreme Court decision in Carroll v. Princess letter to the Federal Communications Commission
Anne (1968), which found prior restraint of speech to supporting the right of Carl McIntire, a proto–Religious
be unconstitutional. Norton also defended the speech Right activist, to acquire a radio broadcast license, an
rights of the Ku Klux Klan and handled a case on behalf application liberal groups were opposing.
of segregationist George Wallace, whom some were Many church leaders see the ACLU as set on building
trying to prevent from staging a political rally at Shea a high wall of separation between church and state—a
Stadium in New York. Most controversially, the ACLU wall higher than the nation’s founders, including Thomas
in 1977–1978 provided legal assistance to the Nationalist Jefferson, ever imagined—by unreasonably arguing
Socialist Party of America (a Nazi group), which had been that every religious expression in a public context is
banned from conducting a parade in Skokie, Illinois, a tantamount to the establishment of a state religion.
largely Jewish Chicago suburb. ACLU opposition to crèches and the posting of the Ten
Commandments on government property is regarded by
Church and State Separation religious conservatives as militant secularism. The ACLU
Evangelicals and fundamentalists generally view the has been successful in forcing municipalities to remove
actions of the ACLU as hostile toward people of faith. religious symbols from their seals, some designed in the
This perception dates back to the Scopes “Monkey” 1800s, prompting wags to wonder if the city of Corpus
Trial, the 1925 Tennessee case in which the ACLU Christi, Texas, will someday be forced to change its name.
successfully opposed a ban on the teaching of evolution, In 1990, the religious broadcaster Pat Robertson estab-
but it was heightened by the ACLU’s effort at ending lished the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ),
A mer ic an Ci v il Liber ties Union 19
a counterpart to the ACLU “dedicated to the ideal that precedent for partisanship, such as when it later opposed
religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, the appointments of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas
God-given rights.” to the Supreme Court.
Religious conservatives also attribute society’s de- During the 1960s and 1970s, the ACLU handled
clining morality to ACLU action, viewing its legal work a number of cases pertaining to “flag desecration.” A
on birth control, abortion, pornography, and sodomy as Long Island woman was successfully defended in 1969
having cast the nation morally adrift. The ACLU filed after she was arrested for flying her flag upside down
an amicus brief in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the in protest of the Vietnam War. In Street v. New York
Supreme Court case that overturned a state ban on con- (1969), the Supreme Court on a technicality reversed a
traceptives and, most significantly, enlarged the concept lower court’s ruling against Sidney Street, who burned
of privacy rights, paving the way for the overturning a flag in protest of the violence unleashed on civil rights
of abortion bans (Roe v. Wade, 1973) and sodomy laws activists. This period also underscored ACLU concern
(Lawrence v. Texas, 2003). Religious conservatives also for the rights of the accused—in Miranda v. Arizona
believe the ACLU has undercut family values. In the (1966), the landmark case requiring crime suspects to
ACLU case King v. Smith (1968), the Supreme Court be informed of their rights by the police, the ACLU
rescinded an Alabama law denying welfare benefits to filed an amicus brief. This period of ACLU activity
those engaging in illicit affairs. In In Re Gault (1967), gave detractors material to argue that the organization
about a fifteen-year-old accused of making lewd telephone represented a permissive, unpatriotic quality out of step
calls, and Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), about high school with the mainstream.
students demonstrating against the Vietnam War, the In 1987, Democratic presidential candidate Michael
Supreme Court, in accord with the ACLU, elevated the Dukakis proclaimed himself “a card-carrying member of
rights of minors. the American Civil Liberties Union.” His Republican op-
In 2001, two days after the terrorist attacks of Sep- ponent in the general election, George H.W. Bush, saw
tember 11, Jerry Falwell appeared on Pat Robertson’s that as a vulnerable statement and used it to argue that
700 Club television program and stated, “The ACLU’s Dukakis was far left of the average American voter. That
got to take a lot of blame for this.” Falwell argued that same year, the ACLU came to the defense of Lieutenant
God allowed the attacks to occur in order “to give us Colonel Oliver North, filing an amicus brief against his
probably what we deserve” as a consequence of secular- indictment in the Iran-Contra scandal, arguing that his
ization. He elaborated: “I really believe that the pagans, Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination
and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, would be violated since the charges were based on tes-
and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an timony he had been required to provide to an earlier
alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American investigatory committee of Congress. Defending North,
Way—all of them have tried to secularize America—I who was a hero to many political conservatives, enabled
point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped make the ACLU to argue that it champions civil liberties for
this happen.’” Robertson responded, “I totally concur.” people of all political stripes. However, that did not stop
Bush from arguing that the ACLU was overly liberal.
Vietnam War and Beyond During the first televised debate of that election contest,
The ACLU was highly active during the Vietnam War, Bush said he opposed the ACLU for its positions on film
defending war dissenters, including those who claimed ratings, tax-exemption status for Catholic schools, child
conscientious objector status not in opposition to war pornography laws, and the inscription “In God We Trust”
in general but specifically to the American involvement on currency. At the time, the ACLU was on record as
in Southeast Asia. The ACLU was defeated in 1971, stating that parents, not a ratings board, should decide
when the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 against selective what movies their children can view; that all churches,
conscientious objection. In U.S. v. Seeger (1965), however, not just Catholic, should be required to pay taxes; that
the high court ruled in favor of the ACLU position that producers of child pornography should be prosecuted,
there is no legal requirement for conscientious objection but pornography in general should not be censored; and
to be based on theistic rationale. The ACLU prompted the that the motto “In God We Trust” should be removed
high court in Oestereich v. Selection Board No. 11 (1968) to from U.S. currency.
overturn the Selective Service decree allowing local draft Roger Chapman
boards to revoke the draft deferments of war protesters.
In June 1970, the ACLU caused dissension in its own See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Church and State; Civil
ranks when it formally announced its opposition to the Rights Movement; Communists and Communism; Cre-
Vietnam War. When the ACLU called for impeaching ationism and Intelligent Design; Flag Desecration; Miranda
President Richard Nixon in a full-page advertisement in Rights; Pornography; Privacy Rights; School Prayer; Sodomy
the New York Times (October 19, 1973), it established a Laws; Ten Commandments; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
20 A mer ic an Ci v il Relig ion
Further Reading an annual commemoration of Americans who died in

American Civil Liberties Union Web site. www.aclu.org. military service.
Donohue, William A. Twilight of Liberty: The Legacy of the ACLU. Another ritual of American civil religion is the flag
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994. pledge, drafted by the socialist minister Francis M. Bel-
Krannawitter, Thomas L., and Daniel C. Palm. One Nation Under lamy in 1892. The original text read, “I pledge allegiance
God? The ACLU and Religion in American Politics. Lanham, to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands: one
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.”
Kutulas, Judy. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Making The Pledge of Allegiance was intended for recitation
of Modern Liberalism, 1930–1960. Chapel Hill: University of in schools to foster a common national bond. Over the
North Carolina Press, 2006. years, the words were slightly altered. In 1954, during
Smith, F. LaGard. ACLU—The Devil’s Advocate. Colorado the Cold War, Congress added the phrase “under God”
Springs, CO: Marcon, 1996. after “one nation,” to contrast theistic America with
Strum, Philippa. When the Nazis Came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech atheistic communism. “One nation under God” would
We Hate. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999. become an oft-repeated phrase among religious conserva-
Walker, Samuel. In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the tives. Signing the bill into law on Flag Day (June 14),
ACLU. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. President Dwight D. Eisenhower explained that adding
the phrase was a way of “reaffirming the transcendence
of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in
Amer ican Civ il Relig ion this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual
Civil religion is a sociological and political construct that weapons which forever will be our country’s most pow-
consists of the intertwining of religion and patriotism erful resource, in peace or in war.” Following the same
and whose expression in the contemporary United States principle, the phrase “In God We Trust” was inscribed
is much related to notions of American exceptionalism. on the nation’s currency in 1955. The following year it
American civil religion became a topic of the culture became the nation’s official motto, replacing “E Pluribus
wars beginning in the late 1960s through the writings Unum” (Out of many, one).
of the Harvard sociologist Robert Bellah, who argued In Rediscovering God in America (2006), a “walking
that Americanism consists in part of an institutionalized tour” of the national sites in Washington, D.C., former
civil religion that “exists alongside of and rather clearly U.S. congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA) offers “a re-
differentiated from the churches.” buttal to those who seek to write God out of American
The term “civil religion” can be traced to the French history.” In citing the inscriptions and dedications of
philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, who in The Social Con- major memorials, Gingrich points out the repeated
tract (1761) defined it as a society’s general, nonsectarian references to God. At the same time, however, Gingrich
belief in law and order and the existence of a God who stresses that he advocates no particular religion—all in
rewards good and punishes evil. According to Bellah, the keeping with the concept of American civil religion:
concept of civil religion crossed the Atlantic during the connecting nationhood with divinity without specific
late 1700s and directly influenced the founders of the theology. “There is no attack on American culture more
United States. Thus, the Declaration of Independence, destructive and more historically dishonest,” Gingrich
for example, linked the rights of human beings to the asserts, “than the secular Left’s relentless effort to drive
“Creator” and not the state. In the first presidential inau- God out of America’s public square.”
guration in 1789, George Washington took the oath of Proponents of civil religion, including Bellah, argue
office by placing his hand on the Bible and concluding, that it promotes social cohesion and inspires moral cour-
“So help me God.” Although this was nowhere prescribed age during times of national testing. Many figures of
in the U.S. Constitution, it became one of the rituals of the Religious Right have linked American civil religion
American civil religion. Likewise, the inaugural address with the Judeo-Christian tradition, predominately Prot-
from its inception became a national sermon with refer- estantism, and regard any attempt to curb religion in the
ences to God, who has a special interest in the affairs public sphere as an attack on their belief that America
of America. In his historic Farewell Address of 1796, was founded as a “Christian nation.” On the other hand,
Washington declared that religion should be valued as a some people of faith view civil religion as idolatrous.
tool of “political prosperity,” asserting that “reason and The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, rejected the flag
experience both forbid us to expect that National morality pledge as an act of idolatry and took their complaint to
can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.” During federal courts. The case culminated in the U.S. Supreme
the Civil War, the themes of “sacrifice” and “rebirth” Court ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v.
became part of American civil religion, as most notably Barnette (1943), which struck down compulsory recitation
conveyed in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Others,
(1863). In that spirit, Memorial Day was established as meanwhile, including both secularists and theists, regard
A mer ic an E xcep tionalism 21
civil religion as the shell of religiosity without substance. the people, for the people” would “perish from the earth.”
Many critics of civil religion regard the celebratory aspect In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to
of nationalism and its link to the divine as dangerous, join the Great War against Germany to help make the
especially if the United States determines that it must world “safe for democracy.” In 1941, President Franklin
assert its will on other nations. When religion fosters a Roosevelt identified Four Freedoms (freedom of speech,
“prophetic” viewpoint of the nation, say critics, leaders freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom
may mask their political ambition as God’s will or, much from fear) as basic human rights that should be pursued
worse, succumb to the delusion that they are divinely universally following World War II. That same year,
inspired. magazine publisher Henry Luce announced the American
Roger Chapman Century, envisioning the United States as the world’s
redeemer nation. Accordingly, during the Cold War, the
See also: American Exceptionalism; Church and State; Cold United States saw its mission of containing communism
War; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Founding Fathers; Gingrich, as essential to preserving freedom in the world. And after
Newt; Jehovah’s Witnesses; Religious Right; School Prayer; the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which some
September 11. argued were carried out because Islamic extremists “hate
our way of life” (i.e., the practice of freedom), Ameri-
Further Reading can neoconservatives promoted their agenda of a “New
Bellah, Robert N. “Civil Religion in America.” In Religion in American Century” in which the United States would
America, ed. William G. McLoughlin and Robert N. Bellah, use its power to foster progress in the world. Meanwhile,
3–23. Boston: Beacon Press, 1968. detractors of American exceptionalism argue that the
Canipe, Lee. “Under God and Anti-Communist: How the United States is like any other “empire” that exerts its
Pledge of Allegiance Got Religion in Cold War America.” power chiefly to advance its self-interest.
Journal of Church and State 45:2 (March 2003): 305–23. Discussing the religiosity of the American people as
Cloud, Matthew W. “‘One Nation, Under God’: Tolerable Ac- “proof” of national exceptionalism, commentators have
knowledgment of Religion or Unconstitutional Cold War quoted Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America
Propaganda Cloaked in American Civil Religion?” Journal (1835). Religion is “the foremost of the political insti-
of Church and State 46:2 (March 2004): 311–40. tutions” of the United States, Tocqueville wrote, and
Gingrich, Newt. Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the there is “no country in the world in which the Christian
Role of Faith in Our Nation’s History and Future. Nashville, religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men
TN: Integrity House, 2006. than in America.” More recently, however, Philip Jenkins
Zinn, Howard. “The Scourge of Nationalism.” Progressive, June in The Next Christendom: The Coming Global Christianity
2005. (2002) points to trends showing that, by the middle of
the twenty-first century, 80 percent of all Christians will
be living in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As for the
A m e r i c a n E xc e p t i o n a l i s m failure of socialism to gain a strong institutional foothold
American exceptionalism is the centuries-old idea that the in America—the German socialist Werner Sombart
United States is a unique—and superior—entity in the famously suggested in Why Is There No Socialism in the
world, in a class separate from other nations and blessed United States? (1906) that American class consciousness
by the divine (or marked by destiny) in an extraordinary had wrecked on the “shoals of roast beef and apple pie”—
way for a special mission. The view dates back to the commentators have pointed out that the United States
Puritans, who saw America as the “New Israel” and, has evolved into a mixed economic system with some
specifically, the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “city on aspects of socialism, such as Social Security and other
a hill” for the Old World to look upon as an example. entitlement programs. As for the two-party system in
Elements of American exceptionalism are said to include America, it has been pointed out that the “winner takes
religion, social class, and politics, emphasizing high all” election rules make it difficult for minority parties
church attendance compared to other countries with a to gain power, a kind of limitation on democracy that
Christian heritage; the failure of socialism to make major other countries impose in other ways.
inroads in American culture; and the narrow political Regardless of the extent to which American ex-
spectrum represented by the two national parties. ceptionalism is a valid concept—scholars are divided
Those who accept the premise of American excep- on this question—many politicians have acted on it
tionalism are more likely to regard the United States as a as a reality. Presidential inaugural addresses, in par-
safeguard for democracy in the world. In the Gettysburg ticular, have been framed around the idea of American
Address (1863), for example, Abraham Lincoln sug- exceptionalism: “Destiny has laid upon our country the
gested that if the North did not win the Civil War and responsibility of the free world’s leadership,” declared
preserve the Union, then “government of the people, by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, and the United States
22 A mer ic an Indian Movement
must “pay any price, bear any burden . . . in order to years, the government continued to minimize its role
ensure the survival and success of liberty [in the world],” on reservations, culminating in President Dwight D.
said John F. Kennedy in 1961. In his 1984 acceptance Eisenhower’s attempt to cease funding them entirely. To-
speech at the Republican National Convention, Ronald ward that end, Eisenhower favored the relocation of large
Reagan recounted his first term as president, stating, numbers of Indians to urban areas where they could find
“We proclaimed a dream of an America that would be education and become self-sufficient. As Native Ameri-
a Shining City on a Hill.” cans were removed from their homes and separated from
Roger Chapman their families, tribal leaders began to speak out against
their treatment. Between 1958 and 1967, members of
See also: American Century; American Civil Religion; Cold numerous tribes met across the United States and in Cuba
War; Communists and Communism; Eisenhower, Dwight to discuss their collective grievances, which culminated
D.; Founding Fathers; Human Rights; Kennedy Family; La- in the founding of AIM.
bor Unions; Neoconservatism; Reagan, Ronald; September
11; Social Security. Confrontations
The first clash between Native American activists and
Further Reading the government came in November 1969, when activist
Kammen, Michael. “The Problem of American Exceptional- Richard Oakes led a group made up of Indian students
ism: A Reconsideration.” American Quarterly 45:1 (March and urban Indians from the San Francisco Bay area in
1993): 1–43. a second takeover of Alcatraz Island. This occupation
Lipset, Seymour Martin. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged would last until June 1971; over those nineteen months,
Sword. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Indians from many tribes would move onto the island
Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Gary Marks. It Didn’t Happen in order to create public awareness of their plight and
Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States. New York: to obtain the deed to the island in order to proceed with
W.W. Norton, 2000. their plans for a university and cultural center. Although
Madsden, Deborah L. American Exceptionalism. Jackson: Univer- the protest did not directly involve AIM, it brought
sity Press of Mississippi, 1998. national attention to Indian grievances.
Shafer, Byron E., ed. Is America Different? A Look at American President Richard Nixon was unwilling to negotiate
Exceptionalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. with the occupiers at Alcatraz, but he refused to take the
island by force because the national news media appeared
to be sympathetic with the Indians. Instead, the govern-
A m e r i c a n I n d i a n M ove m e n t ment sought to pressure them out, cutting off electrical
In conjunction with the civil rights movement, the power and removing the island’s fresh water supply. The
youth counterculture, and the emerging emphasis on strain of these conditions caused tension and a sense of
multiculturalism, a pan-Indian movement began to take desperation among the Indian leadership, and in early
shape in America during the late 1950s and early 1960s. 1971 the media turned against the occupiers when three
The development in the culture wars coincided with the of their ranks were convicted of selling copper tubing
emergence of the first generation of Native American stripped from federal buildings on the island. Only then
academics, scholars who wrote and spoke eloquently did Nixon plan for a forced removal, though he insisted
of their people’s plight. The four-hour “occupation” of that it be done with a minimum of violence. His orders
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay in March 1964 by a were carried out on June 10, 1971, without a shot being
group of Sioux, claiming the land as Indian territory and fired. Although the incident ended without any accession
demanding that it be made into an Indian university and to the occupiers’ demands, Native Americans had gained
cultural center, symbolized this awakened identity. The the national spotlight.
activist American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded The following summer, a conglomeration of Indian
four years later in Minneapolis, Minnesota, inspired organizations, with AIM at the lead, organized a march
by Vine Deloria’s Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian on Washington, D.C., that became known as the Trail of
Manifesto (1968), which outlined the injustices suffered Broken Treaties. The protest was an effort to capitalize
by Native American peoples since the nineteenth century. on increased media coverage associated with the 1972
The founding leaders of AIM were Dennis Banks, Clyde presidential campaign. AIM leaders developed a list of
Bellecourt, Eddie Benton-Banai, and George Mitchell; twenty demands to be presented to the federal govern-
later, Russell Means emerged as the group’s spokesman. ment at the nation’s capital. The “Twenty Points,” as
The long-standing reliance of Native Americans on they were known, included calls for formal recogni-
the U.S. federal government began to change in 1934, tion of Indian nations as sovereign political entities; a
when the Indian Reorganization Act granted them a review of all past and present treaties between the U.S.
larger degree of self-government. For the next twenty government and Native Americans; Indian religious
A m e r i c a n I n d i a n M ove m e n t 23
freedom; and $15 billion to develop reservations. Upon Ridge Reservation to locate Jimmy Eagle, with a warrant
reaching Washington, D.C., on November 3, 1972, the for his arrest. They encountered AIM members Leonard
mass of protestors—including representatives of Indian Peltier, Norman Charles, Joe Stuntz, and others, who
organizations from throughout the United States and engaged them in a ten-minute firefight that resulted in
Canada—were unable to find sufficient accommodations. the deaths of both agents. During that incident, Coler
This circumstance prompted some 600–800 participants, and Williams fired a combined five rounds from their
including all those representing AIM, to forcibly take weapons, while their cars were riddled with 125 bullet
over the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices. After holes. By the time BIA officers reached the scene, the
a six-day standoff, President Nixon persuaded them to Indians had attempted to clear the area of shells and cas-
return home, promising to pay for their travel expenses ings, and had used one of the agents’ cars to escape. The
and give consideration to their demands. Two months FBI version of the story stands in a striking contrast to the
later, however, he dismissed the proposal. As in the case account in Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
of Alcatraz, he refused to concede to their demands even (1990), which describes the Native Americans as fending
as he avoided military action. off aggression by Coler, Williams, and two BIA agents.
A few weeks later, on February 27, 1973, AIM leaders In any event, Peltier was eventually convicted of the two
drew attention to their cause again when they forcibly murders and sentenced to two life sentences in federal
occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, prison. AIM regarded him as a political prisoner.
located on the Pine Ridge Reservation, to show their
disapproval of the Sioux tribal government (regarded by Later Activism
the demonstrators as a lackey of the federal government). In the second half of the 1970s and throughout the
The siege lasted seventy-one days, during which the 1980s, AIM’s focus faltered. Key leaders either faced
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. marshals legal charges in federal court or were on the lam. In
negotiated with the occupiers and carried out paramilitary addition, the federal government began responding
operations against them. When the smoke cleared, two to Native American demands with a variety of new
AIM members—Buddy Lamonte, one of the occupation’s legislation, including the Indian Self-Determination
leaders, and Frank Clearwater, a sympathizer to the Indian and Educational Assistance Act (1975), the American
cause who had married an Oglala Sioux—had been killed. Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), and the Native
In the minds of the AIM leadership, these casualties only American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
served to strengthen their case against a corrupt and (1990). AIM remained minimally active during this
oppressive government. Supporters of President Nixon, period, discouraging racism against Native Americans
however, cited his restraint and tolerance in handling the and supporting foreign indigenous peoples in their
incident, pointing out that he could have been much more own struggles to retain traditional culture. In 1978,
aggressive toward the occupiers. Once again, the federal AIM conducted the “Longest Walk” march from
government sought to avoid armed conflict as much as it San Francisco to Washington, D.C., to highlight its
could but refused to give in to Indian demands. continuing grievances. It also occupied the Black Hills
As trials ensued for the leaders of the Wounded Knee in 1981 and demanded the holy site there be returned
occupation, open hostility between AIM members and to the Lakota people. Another issue of importance
both federal agents and other Indians increased dramati- to the organization was the use of Indians as school
cally. Between July 1973 and March 1977, forty-five AIM mascots. By 1993, the movement had divided into
members or supporters met violent deaths, three of them two factions—one a nonprofit corporation that began
at the hands of FBI agents or BIA officers. Among the re- accepting government subsidies, the other retaining the
maining forty-two victims, there were seventeen confirmed more traditional organization and agenda established at
shootings, seven stabbing victims, six deaths associated AIM’s 1968 inception.
with automobiles, and fourteen who suffered a variety of Gwendolyn Laird
other fates. By the end of 1977, there had been thirteen
convictions associated with these crimes. AIM members See also: Civil Rights Movement; Counterculture; Cuba; Delo-
refer to this period as the “Reign of Terror” and believe it ria, Vine, Jr.; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Indian Casinos; Indian
was orchestrated by the corrupt tribal government of the Sport Mascots; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Revi-
Pine Ridge Reservation, condoned by the FBI and BIA. sionist History; Wounded Knee Incident.
The FBI responded to these allegations with a case-by-case
explanation of its actions (or lack of jurisdiction). Further Reading
Another hotly contested event during this violent American Indian Movement Web site. www.aimovement.org.
period involved the deaths of FBI special agents Jack Johnson, Troy, Joane Nagel, and Duane Champagne, eds.
Coler and Ronald Williams on June 26, 1975. Accord- American Indian Activism: Alcatraz to the Long Walk. Urbana:
ing to an FBI report, the two agents went onto the Pine University of Illinois Press, 1997.
24 A mer ic an s w ith Disabilities Ac t
Josephy, Alvin M., Jr., ed. Red Power: The American Indians’ Fight “reasonable accommodation,” liberals and conservatives
for Freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971. squabbled over whether or not particular disabilities
Means, Russell. Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography should be accommodated and in what ways. While
of Russell Means. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. some argued that the ADA promised to promote a more
Smith, Paul Chatt, and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: inclusive workforce at minimal cost to the government,
The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New others worried that the legislation would bring an end
York: New Press, 1996. to traditional American-style capitalism and might even
result in unfair practices in favor of the disability com-
munity. Fearful of the ADA’s implications for greater
A m e r i c a n s w i t h D i s a b i l i t i e s Ac t government intervention in private corporations, staunch
Landmark legislation that sailed through Congress on a conservatives worried about the rights of employers and
wave of popular support, the Americans with Disabilities expressed concerns that the law might create a class of
Act (ADA) was signed into law by President George H.W. “professional plaintiffs” constantly engaged in costly and
Bush on July 26, 1990. Modeled after the Rehabilitation time-consuming litigation.
Act of 1973, the new law extended the Civil Rights Act Although they remain optimistic, disability rights
of 1964 (which prohibited discrimination based on race, advocates have been disappointed with the slow pace of
religion, color, sex, or national origin) to people with change. With limited government resources allotted for
physical and mental disabilities. Enforced by the Equal the implementation of the ADA, it has been difficult to
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the ensure that employers comply with the regulations.
ADA guarantees equal access to employment, public
transportation, public accommodations and services, Kelly L. Mitchell
and telecommunications. Under ADA regulations, both
privately and publicly owned companies are required See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Civil Rights Move-
to make “reasonable accommodations” for persons with ment; Humphrey, Hubert H.; Individuals with Disabilities
disabilities. For the disability community, economic Education Act.
independence, personal freedom, and responsibility
were the desired outcomes. Further Reading
Passage of the ADA represented the culmination Krieger, Linda Hamilton. Backlash Against the ADA: Reinter-
of almost two decades of struggle for federal recogni- preting Disability Rights. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
tion of disability rights. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey Press, 2003.
(D-MN) first proposed the amendment to the Civil Vaughn, Jacqueline. Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy
Rights Act in 1972. Several smaller legislative victories and the Fight for Equality. Washington, DC: Georgetown
followed in the wake of ADA, including the Individu- University Press, 2003.
als with Disabilities Education Act of 1975, the Civil Young, Jonathan M. Equality of Opportunity: The Making of the
Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980, and Americans with Disabilities Act. Washington, DC: National
the Fair Housing Amendment Act of 1988. The newly Council on Disability, 1997.
formed American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities
continued the struggle into the 1980s and 1990s, pres-
suring the Ford, Carter, and Bush administrations for A n d r o g y ny
more sweeping legislation. With support from groups A state of being that is neither traditionally masculine
like the AIDS Action Council, American Civil Liberties nor traditionally feminine but exhibits characteristics
Union, National Council on Disability, and National As- of both, androgyny (the term combines the Greek
sociation of the Deaf, the emerging grassroots disability words for male and female) has played a significant
rights movement slowly gained momentum and media part in the culture wars by challenging assumptions
attention. Inspired by the civil rights movements of the about the definition of a man and a woman. For many,
1960s, it united a diverse cross-section of the population the changing understandings of sex and gender are an
to change the way society views disability. As opposed erosion of traditional values, but others have embraced
to isolation, dependence, and debilitation, the new em- what they see as a liberation from the constraints and
phasis was on integration, independence, and equality expectations imposed by society.
with minor accommodations. Pop musicians have been some of the most explicit
Although the disability legislation was well received vehicles of androgyny. In the 1960s, the Rolling Stones
by both Democrats and Republicans who thought they influenced a whole generation with their makeup, flam-
were “doing the right thing,” debate quickly ensued boyant clothing, long hair, and sexually ambiguous stage
over the actual application of the law. Since there were dancing. The trend toward androgyny was extended in
no clear definitions for terms like “mental disability” and the 1970s by “glam” rock artists, epitomized by David
A ngelou , Maya 25
Bowie’s alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Perhaps the most fa- A n g e l o u , M ay a

mous pop androgyne was British performer Boy George, As a best-selling writer, and as a performer, film
lead singer of the band Culture Club, who shot to fame producer, director, and social activist, Maya Angelou
in 1984 with the hit single “Karma Chameleon.” Boy has promoted black equality throughout her career.
George was considered outrageous by many who could She became known to millions of Americans when she
not tell whether he was a man or a woman. Although he read an original poem at the inauguration of President
was often ridiculed in the media, he developed legions Bill Clinton in January 1993—a moment regarded as a
of fans and influenced fashion. telling reflection of the culture wars.
Androgyny remains a familiar aesthetic in popular Born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 4, 1928,
music. Singer and songwriter k.d. lang, for example, in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou grew up in Stamps, Ar-
employs a subtle androgyny that goes almost un- kansas, during the era of Jim Crow segregation. She later
noticed by the cultural mainstream. Others are more moved to San Francisco with her mother but returned
sensational, such as Genesis P-Orridge, who not only to Stamps as a young teenager. After she revealed that
cross-dresses but has experimented with surgical body she had been sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend,
modification in pursuit of what the performer calls the which led her uncles to beat the man to death, Angelou
“pandrogyne.” did not speak for five years, until the age of thirteen; “the
In films, androgyny has provoked cultural debates. power of words,” she later said, “had led to someone’s
Michelle Rodriguez’s performance in Girlfight (2000) death.” Encouraged to pursue her writing talents, An-
and Jamie Bell’s in Billy Elliot (2000) gained attention gelou returned to San Francisco, where she struggled to
simply by presenting atypical gender characteristics, support a baby, became the city’s first African-American
in particular a girl who wants to box and a boy who streetcar conductor, and began performing with the Alvin
wants to dance ballet. Both films highlighted an aspect Ailey American Dance Theater. Later she moved to Cairo,
of androgyny that continues to cause confusion: sexual Egypt, where she worked as associate editor of the Arab
orientation. People who are disturbed by the challenge Observer. At the height of the civil rights movement, she
to gender posed by androgyny often make the mistake of returned to the United States and took a leadership role
assuming that androgynous men and women are gay or in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
lesbian. This may sometimes be the case, but androgy- Her first book, an autobiography titled I Know Why
nous gender characteristics can be freely displayed by the Caged Bird Sings (1970), received wide critical acclaim
heterosexual people. and a National Book Award nomination. It was followed
Contemporary fashion in America has taken on an by a series of autobiographies, including Gather Together
increasingly androgynous flavor, generally with little in My Name (1974), Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry
or no controversy. In the early 2000s, the image of the Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), and
“metrosexual” man, who pays particular care to his All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986). A prolific
clothes and grooming, was met more with amusement poet, Angelou published such verse collections as And Still
than derision by the cultural mainstream, suggesting I Rise (1978), Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987), I Shall Not
that society is becoming more tolerant of new under- Be Moved (1990), and The Complete Collected Poems of Maya
standings of gender. Nevertheless, androgyny remains Angelou (1994). A personification of the African diaspora,
a contentious issue for many Americans who adhere Angelou is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Italian,
to a more traditional idea of what defines a man or a Arabic, and the West African language Fanti. Her profi-
woman. ciency in languages has enabled her to explore the identity
Joseph Gelfer of people of color that transcends political borders.
In addition to her accomplishments as a poet and
See also: Gays in Popular Culture; Hay, Harry; Jackson, Mi- biographer, Angelou has produced, directed, and acted for
chael; King, Billie Jean; Lesbians; Manson, Marilyn; Sexual the stage and screen. She starred as Nyo Boto, the grand-
Revolution; Transgender Movement; Warhol, Andy. mother, in the historic television miniseries Roots (1977),
which won her an Emmy nomination for outstanding
Further Reading supporting actress in a miniseries. Angelou was also
Hargreaves, Tracy. Androgyny in Modern Literature. New York: Hollywood’s first African-American female director. Her
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. debut feature film was Down in the Delta (1998), a drama
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Toward a Recognition of Androgyny. New chronicling a black family’s ancestry in Mississippi.
York: Knopf, 1973. The second poet in U.S. history invited to read her
Singer, June. Androgyny: The Opposites Within. York Beach, ME: work at a presidential inauguration (after Robert Frost
Nicolas-Hays, 2000. in 1960), Angelou marked the beginning of President
Weil, Kari. Androgyny and the Denial of Difference. Charlottes- Clinton’s first term with the poem “On the Pulse of
ville: University Press of Virginia, 1992. Morning”—a kind of response to the campaign theme of
26 A nimal R ight s
the Reagan era, “It’s morning in America again.” Reflect- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
ing on Clinton’s taking office after the defeat of George represents what is sometimes referred to as the animal
H.W. Bush, who had been Reagan’s vice president, liberation movement. While rooted in the broader
Angelou’s poem depicted the transfer of power as a “new movement against animal cruelty, PETA activism grew
day” in which “You may look up and out / And into your directly out of the human rights and anticolonial ide-
sister’s eyes, into your brother’s face, your country / And ologies of the 1960s. The term “speciesism” (analogous
say simply / Very simply / With hope / Good morning.” to racism) was coined to refer to assumptions of human
A recording of the poem won a Grammy Award for best superiority. Although it could be argued that existing
spoken word album in 1994. animal cruelty laws already gave some legal foundation
Susan Pearce to the idea of animal rights, extreme animal rights activ-
ists pushed this concept much further than most of the
See also: Afrocentrism; Bush Family; Civil Rights Movement; public was ready to go.
Clinton, Bill; Haley, Alex; Morrison, Toni; National Associa- The highly public associations of many prominent
tion for the Advancement of Colored People; Reagan, R onald. animal rights activists with peace and environmental
organizations also fueled the perception of animal rights
Further Reading as standing on one side of America’s culture wars. How-
Agins, Donna Brown. Maya Angelou: “Diversity Makes for a Rich ever, apart from the sometimes disruptive tactics of some
Tapestry.” Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2006. activists, the specific goals of the general animal rights
Angelou, Maya. On the Pulse of Morning. New York: Random movement have over time clearly entered the cultural
House, 1993. mainstream.
Lupton, Mary Jane. Maya Angelou: A Critical Companion. West- A central goal of the animal rights movement has
port, CT: Greenwood, 1998. been to draw attention to vivisection and the use of ani-
Nadine, Corrine J., and Rose Blue. Maya Angelou. Chicago: mals in medical and industrial research. Although most
Raintree, 2006. Americans do not strongly question the basic concept
that human beings are of greater value than animals,
and would continue to react negatively to such animal
Animal Rights liberationist tactics as breaking into laboratories to free
Protecting animals from neglect and cruelty has a long caged animals, education programs by animal rights
and venerated history in the United States. One landmark activists have raised public awareness of the conditions
was the 1866 establishment of the American Society for under which animals live as a result of this research.
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). The Such criticism is strengthened by studies suggesting
goals of the ASPCA—to stress the caretaker role in that use of animals is not highly effective in medical
the relationship between humans and other species, to research because of the biological differences between
reduce cruelty toward animals, and at the local level to humans and other species. The popularity of “no harm”
act as an adoption agency for pets—have near-universal pledges—which state that no harm to animals occurred
approval among the American people. Some animal in the manufacture of a product—and the obvious prefer-
rights activism in the twenty-first century, however, ence for such no-harm products in the marketplace attest
has moved beyond the general philosophy of animal to the fact that the animal rights philosophy is being
protection by rejecting the idea of a hierarchy of species echoed in the cultural mainstream. Other examples are
with human beings at the top. the increased market popularity of organic, grass-fed, and
This more recent animal rights philosophy stands free-range meats, as well as the decreasing popularity of
against the use of other species as mere means to human fur clothing.
ends. Groups associated with this view have staged highly An awareness that animals are not simply dumb
visible protests against the fashion fur industry, the use servants of human whims, but have intrinsic right to life
of animals in cosmetics testing and medical experimen- and happiness themselves, has taken hold in the public
tation, the corporate industrial organization of animal consciousness. Gary Francione and Peter Singer have been
farming, and human encroachment on animal habitats among the most prominent advocates, although they ap-
through urban sprawl. Especially in highly publicized proach animal rights from different perspectives. Singer
disputes in the logging industry, based on laws protecting is credited with coining the term “animal liberation” and
the habitats of endangered species, the animal rights issue has focused on blurring the lines of qualitative distinction
has become an aspect of America’s culture wars, pitting between humans and the great apes. Francione has taken
advocates of economic development against “anarchist the most radical position, rejecting the very notion of a
tree-huggers” who would place the welfare of humans and human right of ownership of animals as property.
other species on a more equal plane. Here animal rights
activism has less widespread public support. Daniel Liechty
Anti-Intellectualism 27
See also: Ecoterrorism; Endangered Species Act; Environmen- Perhaps the most obvious forms of anti-intellectu-
tal Movement; Factory Farms; Fur; Human Rights; People for alism have appeared in the political arena. During the
the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Red Scare of the 1950s, American intellectuals—typified
by Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his Anglophile
Further Reading manner—came directly under attack. Senator Joseph
Francione, Gary L. Animals, Property, and the Law. Philadelphia: McCarthy’s persecution of academics and specialists in
Temple University Press, 1995. his anticommunist crusade caused many Americans to
Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University regard intellectuals as risks to national security. Then,
of California Press, 2004. in the 1952 presidential campaign, Republican Dwight
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins, D. Eisenhower, a less than eloquent candidate, beat
2001. out Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who was dubbed an
Sunstein, Cass R. Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Direc- “egghead” by vice presidential nominee Richard Nixon.
tions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. This dichotomy carried over into future elections, with
one candidate serving as an “everyman” and the other,
often unfairly, cast as an elitist intellectual. In a speech
Anti-Intellectualism given a few years after becoming president, Eisenhower
Broadly defined, anti-intellectualism is the distrust of characterized an intellectual as “a man who takes more
intellectuals and the resentment of intellectual activities. words than are necessary to tell more than he knows.”
Most champions of anti-intellectualism say they represent Stevenson, meanwhile, continued to revel in his own
the interests of “ordinary” people and claim simply to be bookishness, quipping, “Eggheads of the world, unite!
fighting against elitism. While intellectuals are widely You have nothing to lose but your yolks!”
credited with advances in medicine and technology— Anti-intellectualism pervaded other political contests
such as preventing polio, inventing computers, and of the 1950s and 1960s. On the right, several Dixiecrats
launching satellites—anti-intellectuals have tended to and segregationist Southern Democrats campaigned with
minimize their overall social and cultural influence. In a “down-home” style of populism. Alabama Democrat
the context of the culture wars, anti-intellectualism can George Wallace had a lifetime of successful election cam-
be traced to the 1950s and fears relating to the Cold paigns, repeatedly turning out a big vote by going after
War. By and large, it was believed, intellectuals were “pointy-headed bureaucrats.” And in the 1966 California
the ones who flirted with Marxism, gave the benefit of gubernatorial campaign, Republican candidate Ronald
the doubt to the Soviet Union, questioned the nuclear Reagan resorted to anti-intellectualism by castigating
arms race, and generally advocated a secular society student protesters as “riotous decadents.” The left wing
over an overtly religious one. Even with the end of the has had its own forms of anti-intellectualism as well.
Cold War, however, the trend continued, as evidenced In the early 1960s, many civil rights groups became
by George W. Bush’s dismissive “fuzzy math” remark grassroots-based populist movements, especially in the
during the 2000 election campaign against the serious Mississippi Delta. Whether Democrat or Republican,
“facts and figures” approach of Al Gore. Whether conservative or liberal, right or left, Americans increas-
in business, religion, education, or politics, anti- ingly invoked aspects of anti-intellectualism in their
intellectualism remains prevalent in American society politics. In the turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s
during the twenty-first century. over the Vietnam War and youth counterculture, anti-
In the corporate world, many business people con- intellectualism was reflected in mainstream views of the
sider “real world” experience superior to a formal liberal student-based antiwar movement and the “liberal press”
education. They often view the arts and humanities as believed to be supporting it. Vice President Spiro Agnew
a waste of time; if education is not directly related to famously referred to the protest leaders and those who
earning money, it is deemed an unnecessary intellectual supported them as “so-called intellectuals” and “an effete
pursuit. Theory, the anti-intellectuals claim, is worthless. corps of impudent snobs.”
The university campus is depicted as an “ivory tower,” In the 2000 presidential election, Democratic
a world separate from “reality.” A more pragmatic edu- nominee Gore was branded a dull “brainiac.” He spoke
cation involves doing, not merely thinking. The media, in a monotonous voice, quoted statistics at length, and
meanwhile, commonly portray college as an opportunity was even (falsely) accused of having claimed credit for
to attend wild parties, join fraternities and sororities, and inventing the Internet. Republican candidate Bush, on
perhaps network for future jobs—anything but nurture the other hand, was identified as the candidate most
the intellect. At the same time, professors are accused Americans would “want to have a beer with.” Even so,
of “brainwashing” young people with liberal views and Bush, like Dan Quayle before him, was the comedian’s
moral relativism, leading to political feuds over the mean- favorite target of ridicule and mimic.
ing of academic freedom. Terms like “nerd” and “geek” may have replaced
28 A nti -Semitism
the archaic “egghead,” but from the early 1950s to the who are unaffiliated but identify themselves as Jewish
present, anti-intellectualism has remained a prominent based on their ethnic or cultural heritage. American Jews
strain in American culture and a recurring theme in the are concentrated in the metropolitan areas surrounding
culture wars. large cities, especially in New York, southern Florida,
Keri Leigh Merritt and Southern California.
During the early 1900s, American Jews experienced
See also: Academic Bill of Rights; Academic Freedom; Bush many forms of discrimination. Jewish high school stu-
Family; Censorship; Cold War; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Elec- dents were often outstanding academically, but elite
tion of 2000; Gore, Al; Marxism; McCarthy, Joseph; Nixon, universities enforced quotas that excluded many qualified
Richard; Reagan, Ronald; Relativism, Moral. Jewish entrants. In growing suburban areas, homeown-
ers often signed “covenants” agreeing not to sell their
Further Reading homes to Jews. In the 1930s, during the rise of violent
Claussen, Dane S. Anti-Intellectualism in American Media: Maga- anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish American politicians
zines and Higher Education. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. and judges gained prominence in the administration of
Gitlin, Todd. “The Renaissance of Anti-Intellectualism.” U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt, but some prominent
Chronicle of Higher Education, December 8, 2000. conservatives, including aviation hero Charles Lindbergh
Hofstadter, Richard. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New and industrialist Henry Ford, spoke publicly against
York: Vintage, 1963. “Jewish influence.”
Lim, Elvin T. The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: From George At the end of World War II, when the dimensions
Washington to George W. Bush. New York: Oxford University of the Holocaust in Europe became widely known, the
Press, 2008. American public became more sympathetic to Jews at
home and abroad. At the same time, they began examining
examples of their own discrimination against Jews. Courts
Anti-Semitism began overturning real estate covenants excluding Jews. In
Anti-Semitism is prejudice against people of Jewish faith 1947, a movie about anti-Semitism in America, Gentleman’s
or heritage. This prejudice has a long and dark history Agreement, won the Academy Award for Best Film.
in the predominantly Christian lands of Europe, marked During the 1950s, many of the previous quotas and
by expulsions, forced conversions to Christianity, and restrictions on Jewish Americans were removed, and
massacres. It became a central issue of world history in Jewish individuals became increasingly prominent in
the 1900s, when Germany, under the rule of the Nazi many areas of endeavor. Abraham Ribicoff, first elected
party, sought first to expel Jews from all positions of to Congress in 1949, served as governor of Connecticut
trust in Germany, and later to exterminate Jews in all (1955–1961) and later had a distinguished career in the
the lands it controlled. As a result, as many as six million U.S. Senate (1963–1981). Leonard Bernstein, a composer
Jews were killed during World War II in what is known and conductor, gained worldwide fame for his musical
as the Holocaust. Many gypsies and other “undesirables” West Side Story (1957) and became music director of the
were also exterminated. New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Jewish Americans
In the United States, the first Jewish immigrants published many of the most admired and popular novels
arrived during colonial times; others came as refugees of the period, and many of the most popular television
during the European revolutions of the mid-1800s. The personalities were also Jewish.
largest wave, more than two million, arrived between After the 1950s, anti-Semitism in America lingered
1880 and 1924, prompted by hard times and growing (many country clubs, for instance, continued to bar Jews
violence against them in the old Russian empire. Most from joining) but was most overt with the extreme right.
of the immigrants had lived in what are today Poland, The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, published tracts
Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. During the 1930s and claiming that the United Nations and the international
1940s, because of persecution by German authorities, banking system are heavily influenced by Jews and pose
tens of thousands of new refugees left Europe, settling a threat to American liberty. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK),
in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. Some reached the best known for its virulent attacks on African Americans,
United States, but many others were turned away by the also attacked Judaism as detrimental to “white Chris-
restrictive immigration laws then in effect. After World tianity.” At the farthest end of the spectrum, George
War II, the United States admitted Jewish refugees from Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party (1959),
Europe. reveled in Nazi symbolism while verbally assaulting Jews
Today, by different estimates, there are between and denying that the Holocaust had occurred.
4 million and 7 million Jewish Americans. The lower During the 1960s and 1970s, attitudes toward Jews
number represents those affiliated with Jewish religious and Judaism in the United States were complicated by
organizations. The larger number includes many others the status and actions of the state of Israel. Granted in-
A r nold , Ron 29
dependence in 1948, Israel was established in the former See also: Aryan Nations; Buchanan, Pat; Buckley, William F.,
territory known as Palestine, and from the beginning Jr.; Farrakhan, Louis; Gibson, Mel; Hate Crimes; Israel; Jack-
was opposed by the neighboring Arab states. Israel son, Jesse; School Prayer; White Supremacists.
itself contained millions of Palestinians as well as Jews
who had arrived from many parts of the world. The U.S. Further Reading
government supported the establishment of Israel and Dinnerstein, Leonard. Antisemitism in America. New York: Ox-
eventually formed a strong alliance with the new state, ford University Press, 1994.
both politically and militarily. Most Jewish Americans Gerber, David, ed. Anti-Semitism in American History. Urbana:
strongly support Israel, and influential Jews have pressed University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Washington to continue its favorable support. Americans Stern, Kenneth. Antisemitism Today: How It Is the Same, How It
voicing criticism of Israel’s policies and actions were often Is Different, and How to Fight It. New York: American Jewish
charged with anti-Semitism. In 1979, for example, civil Committee, 2006.
rights leader Jesse Jackson was condemned by Jewish
American groups for agreeing to meet with Palestinian
Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat, whom many Ar nold, Ron
regarded as a terrorist murderer of Israeli civilians. Ron Arnold is a founder of the Wise Use movement,
The relationship between Jewish Americans and which organizes against government regulatory policies
African Americans was paradoxical. On one hand, many promoted by traditional environmentalist groups. As
Jews were active in campaigns for black civil rights. executive vice president of the Center for the Defense
Jewish religious leaders were prominent in the civil of Free Enterprise (CDFE) in Bellevue, Washington,
rights campaigns and marches of the 1950s and 1960s. Arnold is described by the CDFE as “an effective
In 1964, Mickey Schwerner and Andy Goodman, young fighter for individual liberties, property rights and
Jews who were part of a campaign to boost black voter limited government.” Arnold established himself as a
registration in the South, were murdered by the Ku Klux national expert on ecoterrorism in the early 1980s, and
Klan near Philadelphia, Mississippi, along with their environmental groups regard him as a leading figure in
African-American partner James Chaney. Their brutal the anti-environmental movement.
deaths helped set the stage for passage of the Voting He was born Ronald Henri Arnold, in Houston,
Rights Act of 1965, designed to protect the franchise Texas, on August 8, 1937. He studied business admin-
rights of African Americans. istration at the University of Texas at Austin (1954–
As the same time, some African Americans expressed 1955) and the University of Washington (1965) but
suspicion of or hostility toward Jews. Those living in never earned a degree. He was employed by the Boeing
poverty-stricken areas of big cities asserted that their Company, first as an illustrator and later in computer-
landlords and local merchants were often Jewish and aided design (1961–1971). As a hiking enthusiast in
accused them of oppressing the community. These ten- the 1960s–1970s, Arnold joined the Sierra Club and
sions erupted in 1991 in Brooklyn, New York, where worked with other environmental groups to preserve a
large communities of blacks and orthodox Jews lived in lakes region in Washington State. Somewhere along the
adjoining neighborhoods. When a car driven by a Jewish way, however, Arnold became uncomfortable with the
motorist went out of control and killed a seven-year-old liberal politics of fellow hikers. In 1971, he established
black child, the police let the driver go without formal a business and industry consulting firm, Northwoods
questioning. Black leaders angrily asserted that there was Studio, which produced more than 130 films about
no penalty for killing a black child. Black rioters invaded natural resources and social conflict for clients such as
the Jewish neighborhood, during which a black man Weyerhaeuser Lumber. Arnold soon gained a reputation
stabbed and killed a Jewish university student, prompt- as a sharp critic of the environmental movement and
ing further demonstrations by radical Jewish activists. was retained by timber interests to block an attempt
Most Jewish Americans are moderate to liberal in to protect redwood forests in California. In 1976, he
their political affiliations. They are strong supporters of founded the CDFE.
civil liberties and support clear separation of church and The author of seven books, including EcoTerror: The
state, perhaps recalling their ancestors’ persecutions at Violent Agenda to Save Nature (1997), Arnold has published
the hands of religious authorities. The Anti-Defamation hundreds of articles in numerous publications, including
League, founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism, USA Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Reason maga-
continues to monitor and report anti-Semitic incidents zine. His eight-part series “The Environmental Battle” in
in the United States. It also supports civil liberties and Logging Management magazine (1979–1980) received an
a pro-Israeli foreign policy. American Business Press Editorial Achievement Award.
Arnold also wrote the authorized biography of James
Gregory P. Shealy Watt, President Ronald Reagan’s beleaguered secretary
30 A r row, T re
of the interior, entitled At the Eye of the Storm: James Watt raised in Jensen Beach, Florida, he became interested in
and the Environmentalists (1982). environmental causes during his second semester at Florida
The Wise Use movement grew out of the August State University. Quitting his studies, he moved to Oregon
1988 national Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, and joined the Cascadia Forest Alliance (CFA). This group
Nevada, sponsored by the CDFE. According to Arnold, was involved in a protest over a federal timber sale at Eagle
participants “were representatives of a new balance, of a Creek in the Mount Hood National Forest. He changed his
middle way between extreme environmentalism and ex- name to Tre Arrow after becoming an ecowarrior, explain-
treme industrialism.” Critics have argued that the Wise ing, “Trees told me to change my name.”
Use Movement masquerades as a grassroots force when On July 7, 2000, a paramilitary operation conducted
in fact it has been, from its inception, a tool of the com- by the U.S. Forest Service broke up the CFA “resistance
mercial mining, logging, and off-road vehicle interests. camp” that had been preventing loggers from reaching
Environmentalists have further criticized Arnold for the Eagle Creek site. The dislodged activists then held
resorting to alarmist rhetoric. For example, he once de- a protest vigil outside the Forest Service office build-
scribed the National Park Service as “an empire designed ing in Portland. For eleven days, Arrow conducted a
to eliminate all private property in the United States.” “ledge sit” on the building, drawing media attention
In Trashing the Economy (1989), Arnold and co-author and prompting members of Congress to request further
Alan Gottlieb blame the environmental movement for review of the timber sale. That November, Arrow ran as
America’s declining strength. Environmentalists, they a Pacific Green Party candidate in the race for Oregon’s
argue, have “slipped a monkey wrench into America’s Third Congressional District, but he won only 6 percent
industrial gears and all the teeth are breaking off,” and of the vote. Becoming increasingly more radical, Arrow
launched an “economy-trashing campaign” and a “job- reportedly masterminded the April 2001 firebombing
killing program.” of vehicles at a Portland sand and gravel company to
Chip Berlet stop the construction of a logging road, an incident that
caused $200,000 worth of property damage. The Earth
See also: Ecoterrorism; Endangered Species Act; Environ- Liberation Front, a radical environmentalist group listed
mental Movement; Foreman, Dave; Forests, Parklands, and by the federal government as a terrorist organization, was
Federal Wilderness; Reagan, Ronald; Think Tanks; Watt, also reportedly linked to the Portland sabotage.
James. In October 2001, during a tree sit in God’s Valley
on the Oregon coast, Arrow was nearly killed when law
Further Reading enforcement officials mounted a siege that included the
Arnold, Ron, and Alan Gottlieb. Trashing the Economy: How use of chain saws, strobe lights, siren blasts, and loud
Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America. Bellevue, music to cause sleep deprivation. The activist fell from a
WA: Free Enterprise Press, 1989, 1993. fir tree and suffered a fractured pelvis, dislocated shoulder,
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Web site. www.cdfe and broken ribs.
.org. In the more restrictive political climate that followed
Helvarg, David. The War against the Greens: The “Wise-Use” the attacks on the United States by Islamic extremists
Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence. on September 11, 2001, Arrow was branded a terrorist
San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1997. by the federal government. In 2002, he was indicted in
Ramos, Tarso. “Wise Use in the West.” In Let the People Judge: connection with the Portland sabotage and was added to
Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, ed. John the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Arrow was arrested in March
Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby, 82–118. Washington, 2005 in Victoria, British Columbia, and immediately
DC: Island Press, 1995. fought extradition by seeking political asylum in Canada.
After a near three-year legal battle, Arrow was extradited
to Oregon, where he faced fourteen federal charges and
A r r o w, T r e possible life in prison. In June 2008, he pleaded guilty
The radical environmental activist Tre Arrow gained to two counts of arson and was later given a 78-month
national attention in 2000 and thereafter for his strident prison sentence and ordered to pay $154,000 in restitu-
protests against logging on public lands in the Pacific tion. He afterwards stated, “I would certainly love to
Northwest. Although his activism has included peaceful see the government and its prosecutors demonstrate the
civil disobedience and running for national office, he has same tenacity towards greedy corporations as they have
also been implicated in sabotage. In the culture wars, directed towards peaceful activists.”
Arrow is said to represent a disenchanted sector of the Roger Chapman
environmental movement that has crossed over from
working within the system to resorting to violence. See also: Ecoterrorism; Environmental Movement; Foreman, Dave;
Born Michael James Scarpitti on January 9, 1974, and Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; September 11.
At water, Lee 31
Further Reading groups to pursue a war against the Jewish people. Kreis
Sullivan, Randall. “The True Flight of Tre Arrow.” Rolling Stone, has stressed that Aryan Nations does not support the
December 12, 2002. principles of any specific religion but will work with any
like-minded organization.
Solomon Davidoff
Ar yan Nations
Aryan Nations (AN) was formed in 1974 by the white See also: Anti-Semitism; Conspiracy Theories; Duke, David;
supremacist Richard Girnt Butler as the political arm of Rockwell, George Lincoln; Rudolph, Eric; White Suprema-
the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, the religious wing cists.
of the Christian Identity movement. Christian Identity
was founded in 1946 by former Methodist minister and Further Reading
right-wing extremist Wesley Swift, comprising a system Dobratz, Betty A., and Stephanie L. Shanks-Meile. “White Power,
of religious and political concepts focused around a White Pride!”: The White Separatist Movement in the United
belief in white superiority and racial pride. States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Serving as a unifying force for diverse white pride Ridgeway, James. Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan
organizations—such as the Ku Klux Klan, Posse Comi- Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture.
tatus, neo-Nazi groups, and several Christian survivalist New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1995.
factions—Aryan Nations sponsors the International Roberts, Kelly, and Michael Reid. White Supremacy: Behind the
Congress of Aryan Nations and the prisoner outreach Eyes of Hate. Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2004.
suborganization Aryan Brotherhood. The Southern
Poverty Law Center’s Hate Groups Intelligence Project
has listed sixteen groups associated with Aryan Nations A ssisted Suicide
as active in the United States. The name Aryan Nations, See Right to Die
however, is claimed by no less than three organizations,
each proclaiming itself the authentic group.
Rather than depend on the inspiration, views, and At o m i c B o m b
leadership of any individual, Aryan Nations claims a See Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Nuclear Age
divine mandate for its philosophy of white racial superior-
ity. While similar associations have redefined themselves
in more politically correct terms, Aryan Nations proudly At w a t e r, L e e
proclaims its hatred and mistrust of Jews and people of Considered the quintessential practitioner of “dirty
color. Aryan Nations has two primary beliefs: (1) for the politics” and a master of the “whisper campaign”
divinely mandated existence of the white race to continue, and “push polling,” Lee Atwater was a Republican
a separatist sovereign Aryan nation must be established, campaign strategist most remembered for his role in
and (2) a war between Aryans and the descendants of orchestrating the racially charged 1988 presidential
Satan (their name for Jews) has already begun. campaign that enabled Republican George H.W.
In 2000, Butler and Aryan Nations were found li- Bush to defeat Democrat Michael Dukakis. Rising to
able for more than $6 million in damages following a the level of Beltway insider, Atwater became chair of
lawsuit by two people attacked by security guards at the the Republican National Committee in 1989. Shortly
group’s Hayden Lake compound. This judgment cost thereafter, however, he was diagnosed with an inoperable
them the Hayden Lake property and sent Butler into brain tumor; he died at age forty on March 29, 1991.
bankruptcy. Since then, the organization has been in Harvey Leroy Atwater was born on February 26,
flux. Butler fought to maintain control of Aryan Nations 1951, in Atlanta, Georgia. Raised in Columbia, South
and revitalize the group until his death in 2004. He left Carolina, he obtained a degree in history at nearby
no commonly accepted successor. The resulting crisis of Newberry College in 1973. During his teenage years, he
leadership precipitated the formation of splinter groups, became a Republican, regarding his decision as an act of
such as those led by August B. Kreis in Lexington, South counterculture rebellion against a southern establishment
Carolina; Charles Juba in Kansas City, Kansas (since ab- controlled by Democrats. While in college, he served as
sorbed by Kreis); and Carl Franklin’s formerly Montana- president of the state chapter of the College Republicans
based Church of Jesus Christ Christian, later ruled by a and helped Karl Rove (later George W. Bush’s chief po-
council of three—Jonathan Williams, Rick Spring, and litical adviser) become chair of the College Republican
Laslo Patterson—in Lincoln, Alabama. National Committee. Atwater became affiliated with
Kreis decided in 2005 to distance Aryan Nations longtime U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), serving
from the Christian Identity movement, announcing a as an intern and later playing a major role in Thurmond’s
call for “Aryan jihad” and an offer to ally with Islamic 1978 reelection campaign.
32 At water, Lee
Brady, John. Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater. New
York: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and
Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Au t o m o b i l e S a f e t y
Automobile safety is the effort to protect human life
on the road through improved vehicle design and
manufacture, road and highway design, traffic control,
and public and private regulation of cars and drivers.
Widespread awareness of auto safety in America began
with the anticorporate consumer movement of the
1960s and the subsequent federalization of vehicular
Republican strategist and party organizer Lee Atwater (right) safety. Drivers today demand safe cars and highways
engineered the racially charged presidential campaign of despite financial costs and personal restrictions, a source
George H.W. Bush (center) and running mate Dan Quayle of friction aggravated by early-twenty-first-century
(left) in 1988. Atwater was known as a master of aggressive concerns over fuel efficiency and environmental impact.
campaign tactics. (Cynthia Johnson/Atime & Life Pictures/ American automobile manufacturers initially oper-
Getty Images) ated with little oversight, even after pioneering crash
studies in the 1940s and 1950s by engineer and former
The 1988 Bush presidential campaign exploited aviator Hugh De Haven. When the United Nations
white fears of black criminality by calling attention to (UN) established the progressive World Forum for Har-
Willie Horton, a black convicted murderer who had raped monization of Vehicle Regulations in 1958, the United
a white woman and assaulted her fiancé while on furlough States declined membership, raising questions about
during Dukakis’s tenure as governor of Massachusetts. auto manufacturers’ influence on government. In 1959,
An unofficial Bush television ad featured a mug shot of lawyer Ralph Nader began writing about safety problems
Horton, while the official campaign spot made it seem in American automobiles and published his landmark
as if many dangerous murderers had escaped while on study Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965, in which he accused
furlough (a program in fact started by a previous gover- General Motors (GM) of negligence in car design. Al-
nor). Atwater later downplayed Republican use of racial leging that GM knew its Corvair was prone to rollovers
fear in the campaign, pointing out that Horton was never and loss of driver control, Nader simultaneously launched
pictured in official Bush campaign spots. He insisted the modern automobile safety and consumer protection
that the real issue was Dukakis’s being soft on crime. movements.
Perhaps most revealingly, Atwater explained during a Nader’s accusations, and the debates over them,
1981 interview that racial politics must be “coded,” us- spurred the establishment of the U.S. Department of
ing abstract terminology such as “forced busing,” “states Transportation (USDOT) in 1967 and its subsidiary,
rights,” and “crime.” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Prior to his death, Atwater underwent a religious (NHTSA) in 1970. The two federal authorities went on
conversion to Catholicism, leading to self-reflection on to bolster state and local authorities in the regulation
his past conduct as a political operative. He acknowledged of auto design, highways, signage, and traffic signals,
the “naked cruelty” used against Dukakis and lamented ultimately leading to mandates for driver and passenger
the Horton incident. “Like a good general,” he explained, seatbelts, air bags, and crashworthiness standards. Pri-
“I had treated everyone who wasn’t with me as against vately, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)
me.” Negative political strategies remain the legacy of and Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI)—both funded
his relatively short life. by insurers—test vehicles, collect statistics, and analyze
Robin Andersen highway design and construction. Insurers, manufactur-
ers, and government rely on IIHS/HLDI findings for
See also: Bush Family; Counterculture; Dukakis, Michael; loss prevention and actuarial calculations. Meanwhile,
Horton, Willie; Race; Republican Party; Rove, Karl; Thur- Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, has
mond, Strom. independently tested American automobiles, without
outside funding, since 1936.
Further Reading Until the 1960s, auto safety experts focused primarily
Atwater, Lee, and T. Brewster. “Lee Atwater’s Last Campaign.” on driver behavior. In the 1940s and 1950s, Americans
Life, February 1991. seeking a driver’s license took driver education classes
Automobile S afe t y 33
that combined hands-on instruction and graphic films. safety interests and commerce is underscored by debates
The poor production value of these films, however, often over higher speed limits allowed by the 1995 National
failed to communicate basic safety principles. Ironically, Highway System Designation Act and in the public out-
Hollywood celebrity James Dean appeared in one such cry over deregulation leading to truck driver overwork
film shortly before his death in 1955 in a speeding-related and foreign truck drivers on U.S. roads under the North
accident. Similar shock tactics have been employed since American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
the 1980s by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Contemporary automobile safety in America largely
and Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD), which ad- revolves around the size and efficiency of the vehicles
vocate education and strict DUI/DWI (driving under the themselves. Sport utility vehicles (SUVs), popular since
influence/driving while intoxicated) laws. To heighten the 1990s, dwarf most standard automobiles in sheer
awareness of highway deaths, MADD and SADD display physical size and can inflict significant damage in acci-
wrecked autos in public as well as roadside memorials, dents. SUVs are exempt from certain safety regulations
such as Christian crosses, at accident sites. Civil libertar- because they are built on truck frames, for which an
ians protest what they regard as the threat of prohibition inordinate number of rollovers—especially in the Ford
and unreasonable definitions of impaired driving on the Explorer—was blamed. Certain brands of tires issued as
part of MADD and SADD, but the groups have enjoyed standard equipment—especially imports from China—
popular support. were found to carry a high risk of accident-causing
Since the 1980s, federal, state, and local government blowouts and disintegration. Critics of the automobile
have relied heavily on driver regulation to improve auto- industry have remained angry at what they regard as
mobile safety. States have experimented with restrictions ongoing regulatory deficiencies, recalling Detroit’s past
on learner’s permits and driver’s licenses. At the behest dominance of government. As ever, American automo-
of MADD founder Candy Lightner, President Ronald bile safety in the twenty-first century must reconcile a
Reagan signed a bill in 1984 raising the national drink- number of competing interests: manufacturers’ profits,
ing age to twenty-one. DUI/DWI punishments came to effective regulation, safe and cost-effective highways, and
include fines, vehicle confiscation, license suspension, the personal freedom drivers have come to expect.
and incarceration. Some states require preventive mea-
sures for offenders, such as ignition systems equipped Damon Lindler Lazzara
with breathalyzers that disable engines at the detection
of alcohol. See also: Dean, James; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Nader,
Laws regarding seat belts and motorcycle helmets have Ralph; United Nations.
created a tension between safety concerns and libertarian
values. As enforced by the states, seatbelt laws are mandated Further Reading
for drivers and passengers everywhere in America except Albaum, Martin. Safety Sells. Arlington, VA: Insurance Institute
New Hampshire. By 2006, twenty-five states enforced for Highway Safety, 2005.
“primary” laws, making driving without seatbelts an of- Belzer, Michael H. Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in
fense for which police can stop drivers and issue tickets. As Trucking Deregulation. New York: Oxford University Press,
of 2008, twenty states required helmets for all motorcycle 2000.
riders, while Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and New Hampshire Jacobs, James B. Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma. Chicago:
were “helmet free” (and all other states required helmets University of Chicago Press, 1992.
for riders under ages eighteen or twenty-one). Martin, Justin. Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. New York: Per-
State and local governments have also recognized the seus, 2002.
safety impact of driver cell phone use, aggressive driv- Penenberg, Adam. Tragic Indifference: One Man’s Battle with the
ing, and “road rage,” adopting regulations to punish all Auto Industry over the Dangers of SUVs. New York: Harper-
three. However, the sometimes difficult balance between Collins, 2003.
See also: Central Intelligence Agency; Civil Rights Movement;
Counterculture; Dylan, Bob; Fonda, Jane; Guthrie, Woody, and
Arlo Guthrie; Human Rights; Vietnam War; Was Protesters.
Further Reading
Baez, Joan Baez, Joan. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. New York:
Folk singer and political activist Joan Baez has been a Summit Books, 1987.
prominent and outspoken warrior in the culture wars
since the early 1960s, always on the liberal side. Born
Joan Chandos Baez on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, Bank r uptc y Refor m
New York, she grew up in a family of Scottish and The importance of a national bankruptcy system in the
Mexican heritage. She was raised as a Quaker, and her United States was recognized by the founders of the
commitment to nonviolence has been the legacy of that republic, and provisions for one were incorporated in the
upbringing. After attending high school in California U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress
and a semester at Boston University’s School of Drama the power to establish “uniform laws on the subject of
(1958), she released her first album in December 1960. bankruptcies throughout the United States.” Although
Baez started her music career offering interpretations the initial constitutional provision was adopted with
of old folk songs, made distinctive by a strong soprano little comment, all subsequent bankruptcy law in
voice. Later, collaborating with the young folk singer America has been the subject of heavy debate.
Bob Dylan, she sang protest songs and was propelled At its core, U.S. bankruptcy law attempts to balance
into prominence as part of the great social movements and accommodate a creditor’s interest in being paid with
of the 1960s and beyond. the honest, but unfortunate, debtor’s interest in receiving
Her first foray into activism was with the civil rights a “fresh start” and paying its creditors only what it can.
movement in the early 1960s. Accompanying the Rev- The Bankruptcy Code attempts to achieve this uneasy
erend Martin Luther King, Jr., she toured the South to association by balancing the following three principles:
promote desegregation and voter registration. Between first, relieving honest but unfortunate debtors of the bur-
1964 and 1975, Baez worked passionately against U.S. den of insurmountable debt; second, repaying creditors
military involvement in Vietnam. In addition to singing through a prompt and economical liquidation or reorga-
protest songs, she withheld 60 percent of her income taxes nization and distribution of an insolvent debtor’s assets;
to protest military spending, created the Institute for the and, third, when proper, withholding relief from debtors
Study of Nonviolence in 1965 in Carmel, California, and to discourage fraud and needless waste of assets. Although
visited Hanoi in December 1972 to express solidarity legislators, courts, attorneys, and bankruptcy advocates
with the Vietnamese people. During the 1970s, Baez differ as to the relative weight each of these principles
explored a broader human rights agenda, establishing a should be assigned, they agree with the importance of
West Coast chapter of Amnesty International in 1973 and all three to U.S. bankruptcy law generally.
founding the Humanitas International Human Rights The rise in personal bankruptcy filings after World
Committee in 1979. War II, and an especially sharp increase in personal fil-
Baez has carried the scars of the culture wars: She was ings from 1996 to 2005, brought the question of how
twice jailed for her antiwar activities; the Daughters of the best to balance these principles to the forefront of pub-
American Revolution organized boycotts of her concerts; lic discourse, resulting in calls for bankruptcy reform.
and a L’il Abner cartoon series viciously lampooned her as Similarly, popular mistrust of large corporations filing for
“Joanie the Phoanie.” Baez also maintains that she expe- bankruptcy and the spate of corporate ethics scandals in
rienced CIA harassment during her 1967 concert tour in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most notably involving
Japan. In addition, Baez has been in conflict with other Enron and WorldCom, have raised concerns regarding
segments of the counterculture. Feminists objected to her the need for corporate reform. The resurgence of such
infamous poster proclaiming “Girls say yes to boys who long-standing debates culminated in passage of the
say no” to the Vietnam War. Antiwar leaders, including Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection
Jane Fonda, objected to Baez’s open letter in 1979 con- Act of 2005.
demning human rights abuses in the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam. For more than four decades, however, Baez History of the Bankruptcy Code
stuck to what she described in her 1987 autobiography U.S. personal bankruptcy law has evolved slowly.
And a Voice to Sing With as “my weapons in battle—my Congress passed federal legislation in 1800, 1841, and
voice and the desire to use it.” 1867, all in response to financial crises. However, each
was repealed upon the recovery of the economy. The first
Douglas Craig lasting law was passed in 1898. Unlike its predecessors,
34
B ank r up tc y Refor m 35
the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 remained in effect and debts, made it both too easy and too appealing for in-
eventually gave rise to a new group of Americans with dividuals to avoid repaying their debts. Such advocates
a vested interest in bankruptcy law and bankruptcy contend that, with bankruptcy in mind, households
reform—bankruptcy lawyers. are motivated to borrow more than they can afford,
By the 1930s, bankruptcy lawyers were playing ultimately allowing them to repay less than they could
a prominent role in lobbying for reform and drafting afford in the event of bankruptcy. Thus, they contend,
new legislation. With the passage of the Chandler Act debtors file under Chapter 7 even though they will have
in 1938, modern American bankruptcy law obtained sufficient income or assets in the future to repay a sig-
its fundamental features. The Chandler Act provided nificant portion, if not the entirety, of their debts. Some
bankruptcy relief for all types of individuals (personal such advocates also argue that a lessening of the stigma
bankruptcy) and businesses (corporate bankruptcy), en- traditionally associated with bankruptcy contributed to
abling debtors to choose liquidation and discharge on the the increased rate of filing.
one hand, or some type of readjustment or reorganization Those on the other side of the debate—consumer ad-
of debt on the other. vocates and many academics and bankruptcy attorneys—
Prompted by a rise in personal bankruptcy filings see the higher personal filing rate as largely reflecting an
during the 1960s, Congress initiated an investigation increase in financial distress within the household. Such
of bankruptcy law that culminated in the Bankruptcy distress, they contend, stems from adverse circumstances
Reform Act of 1978, the modern bankruptcy code. The that damage a person’s finances, including illness, unem-
legislation preserved all the options available to debtors ployment, and divorce. Consumer advocates in particular
embodied in the Chandler Act. Specifically, it provided have taken the position that most of the increase in per-
liquidation for businesses and individuals (Chapter 7), sonal filing rates is related to predatory lenders, particu-
corporate reorganizations (Chapter 11), and adjustment larly credit card lenders, who, they say, have overburdened
of debts for individuals with regular income to reimburse consumers by extending credit recklessly.
creditors through a repayment plan (Chapter 13). The continuing debate attests to the difficulty that
The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 was also Congress has in designing a bankruptcy law that pro-
characterized by the increased involvement of consumer motes the common good and is neither too tough nor
lenders, particularly credit card companies. The latter too lenient on debtors. The challenge for Congress is to
would become perhaps the most powerful proponent of develop a code that catches cheaters without hindering
bankruptcy reform in the 1990s and 2000s. Lobbying individuals who deserve a fresh start. While more exact-
by credit card companies and other creditor groups, and ing laws might lower borrowing costs, thus increasing
the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Northern Pipeline Co. the availability of credit, it could also deny a fresh start
v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. (1984)—which found parts of to worthy individuals. Conversely, more lenient laws
the Bankruptcy Reform Act unconstitutional—led to expanding the fresh start doctrine and allowing more
the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship cheaters to escape their debts might reduce the supply
Act of 1984, which attempted to roll back some of the of credit and raise the costs of borrowing.
pro-debtor provisions of the 1978 law.
Bankruptcy Reform of 2005
Ideological Viewpoints Responding to the increased rate of consumer bankruptcy
In contrast to corporate bankruptcy rates, which filings, Congress toughened personal bankruptcy law
remained relatively steady throughout the latter part with passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and
of the twentieth century, personal bankruptcy filings Consumer Protection Act of 2005. The stated intent of
have climbed progressively upward since the end of the measure was well summarized by President George
World War II, culminating in filings in excess of 1 W. Bush’s signing statement, in which he said that
million annually between 1996 and 2005. This increase bankruptcy reform was necessary because “too many
defines the question underlying the modern consumer people have . . . walked away from debts even when they
bankruptcy debate in America: Why have consumer had the ability to repay them.”
bankruptcy filing rates increased, both for the period The legislation was opposed by a wide variety of
between World War II and 1996 and, especially, from groups, including consumer advocates, legal academics
1996 to 2005? and practitioners, and the editorial pages of newspapers
Advocates on one side of the debate, including con- throughout the nation. Such opponents described the act
sumer lenders and particularly credit card banks, whose as responsive only to persistent and increasingly effective
unsecured claims against borrowers were to be discharged lobbying by consumer lenders, particularly credit card
under Chapter 7, believe that the structures and incen- companies and automobile lenders.
tives of the Bankruptcy Code are the cause. They argue The 2005 act contains numerous notable changes
that Chapter 7, which generally allows for discharge of to consumer bankruptcy law. Perhaps the most contro-
36 B ank r up tc y Refor m
versial of these is the institution of a “means test,” a Porter, Katherine M., and Deborah Thorne. “The Failure of
complicated mathematical analysis to determine whether Bankruptcy’s Fresh Start.” Cornell Law Review 92 (2006):
a debtor’s filing under Chapter 7 would be considered 67–127.
abusive and therefore subject to dismissal. In the past,
this decision was made by a bankruptcy judge, who
would evaluate the particular circumstances that led Barbie Doll
to a filing. Critics of the means test argue that it forces Barbie—the most commercially successful doll in
bankruptcy judges to ignore the specific circumstances history, with more than 1 billion sold worldwide—has for
of a debtor and instead requires adherence to a mechani- decades been a topic of debate concerning its socializing
cal formula. function as a toy and the message it communicates to
Besides the means test, opponents also objected to girls. By the early 2000s, many “tweens” were no longer
the other obstacles the act creates for individuals seeking playing with the 11.5-inch- (29.2-centimeter-) tall
bankruptcy protection. These include mandatory con- doll, partly due to a preference for Bratz Girls, but an
sumer credit counseling, higher fees, and the potential average of three Barbies were being sold every second
for additional liability on the part of bankruptcy attor- nonetheless.
neys. Critics argued that such changes would increase A polyvinyl doll in the shape of a woman (including
attorneys’ fees and possibly shrink the pool of bank- breasts), Barbie was introduced at the American Toy Fair
ruptcy attorneys. A number of bankruptcy judges have in 1959 by Ruth Handler, a co-founder of Mattel, Inc.
become major critics of the act, citing poorly drafted Handler named the doll after her daughter, Barbara, but
provisions, unfairly burdened debtors, and decreased the idea for the product was actually derived from the
judicial discretion. “Lilli porn doll” then being sold in Europe as a male gag
The 2005 legislation also contained provisions gift. The Lilli doll, 11.5 inches tall and featuring a plati-
impacting corporate bankruptcies, most notably limita- num blonde ponytail, symbolized illicit sex and was based
tions on the use of Key Employee Retention Plans—the on a cartoon about a voluptuous gold digger. Handler
practice of paying managers retention bonuses to stay discovered the Lilli doll while vacationing in Switzerland
with a bankrupt company. In response to perceived abuse and later bought the patent rights, but Mattel remained
by large corporate filers, the 2005 act caps executive mum about Barbie’s sordid origins. In 1961, the Ken
retention pay at ten times the average amount offered to doll was introduced, and named after Handler’s son, to
the average worker. Furthermore, it allows for retention give Barbie a male friend.
bonuses for managers only upon proof of a job offer that The first Barbie, featuring long blonde hair and a
pays as much as or more than their current compensa- black-and-white zebra bathing suit, seemed to exemplify
tion. Corporate filers have argued that these limits will American postwar femininity. Although there was resent-
prompt managers to leave, damaging the management ment about the many costly accessories sold separately,
structure needed to effectively reorganize. the doll’s redeeming value for some mothers was that it
The results of the 2005 law remain unclear. After inspired good grooming. The doll soon became the sub-
all-time-high filings in the last quarter before the new ject of media parodies, from art works by Andy Warhol
law became effective, 2006 filings were the lowest since to the adult novel Barbie’s New York Summer (1962) by
1989, totaling less than one-third of those filed in 2005. Cynthia Lawrence. Some regarded the doll as symbolic of
However, filings for the first three quarters of 2007 ex- the “new woman” then being heralded by Helen Gurley
ceeded filings for 2006. Brown in Sex and the Single Girl (1963). Until 1971,
Joseph Rosenblum however, Barbie’s eyes remained downcast, suggesting
submission.
See also: Corporate Welfare; Tax Reform; Wealth Gap; Welfare Over the years, feminists have expressed concern
Reform. about the doll’s measurements—if Barbie stood 5 feet, 7
inches (1.70 meters) tall, she would have a waist of only
Further Reading 16 inches (41 centimeters)—fearing that they commu-
Boyes, William J., and Roger L. Faith. “Some Effects of the nicated unrealistic expectations about the female body.
Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978.” Journal of Law and Econom- Some have even linked Barbie to female eating disorders.
ics 29:1 (1986): 139–49. To others, Barbie’s clotheshorse image was the object of
Carruthers, Bruce G., and Terence C. Halliday. Rescuing Business: ridicule, suggesting empty-headed passivity. Until 1965,
The Making of Corporate Bankruptcy Law in England and the with the introduction of bendable legs, Barbie lacked the
United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. mobility of the boys’ popular GI Joe action figure. Critics
Moringiello, Juliet M. “Has Congress Slimmed Down the Hogs? such as the syndicated columnists Ellen Goodman and
A Look at the BAPCPA Approach to Pre-Bankruptcy Plan- Anna Quindlen believed that Barbie was less than ideal
ning.” Widener Law Journal 15 (2006): 615–39. because of its emphasis on looks.
B at tle of Seat tle 37
cosmetology school. These people are projecting a lot of

fears on Barbie.” More controversies followed, such as
in 2002 when stores responded to customer complaints
by pulling from the shelves Lingerie Barbie (featuring
black lingerie and garters) and Barbie’s pregnant friend
Midge (featuring a belly from which a curled-up baby
popped out). Some were also bothered when Ken was
discontinued in 2004, but he returned in 2006 to placate
consumer demand.
Roger Chapman
See also: Beauty Pageants; Brown, Helen Gurley; Catholic

Church; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave;
War Toys; Warhol, Andy; Wolf, Naomi.
Further Reading
Brownell, Kelly D., and Melissa A. Napolitano. “Distorting
Reality for Children: Body Size Proportions of Barbie and
Ken Dolls.” International Journal of Eating Disorders 18:3
(1995): 295–98.
Debouzy, Marianne. “The Barbie Doll.” In European Readings of
Since its introduction in 1959, the Barbie doll—in all its sty- American Popular Culture, ed. John Dean and Jean-Paul Gabil-
listic, professional, and ethnic incarnations—has been the liet, 139–46. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.
subject of debate over its message to young girls concern-
Linn, Susan. Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood.
ing female identity and body type. A version dubbed “yuppie
Barbie” appeared in the mid-1980s. (Al Freni/Time & Life New York: The New Press, 2004.
Pictures/Getty Images) Lord, M.J. Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real
Doll. New York: William Morrow, 1994.
Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline, and Claudia Mitchell. “‘Just a Doll’?
At the same time, Barbie was said to exemplify fe- ‘Liberating’ Accounts of Barbie-Play.” Review of Education/
male independence. Researchers have noted, for example, Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 22:2 (2000): 175–90.
that the average Ken doll, a mere accessory, peripheral
figure, and occasional cross-dresser, was surrounded by
eight different Barbie characters, all of whom felt in Battle of Seattle
charge and seemingly unaware of patriarchy. In 1977, The “Battle of Seattle” refers to a dramatic
Handler defended her creation, stating, “Every little girl antiglobalization protest in Seattle, Washington, in
needed a doll through which to project herself into her November–December 1999 and, more broadly, to the
dream of the future.” Indeed, over the years, Barbie has overall antiglobalization movement. The events in
changed careers more than seventy-five times, working as Seattle dramatically demonstrated a radicalization of
a nurse, stewardess, physician, astronaut, and chief execu- young protesters reminiscent of the 1960s. Although
tive. She has also served in all branches of the military. In the passion for antiglobalization remained active for
response to criticisms about Barbie’s exclusive whiteness, many in the movement, the political climate in the
Mattel in 1979 introduced black and Hispanic versions. wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks put a chill on
(In 1967, Colored Francie was introduced as Barbie’s street protesting in America.
friend, but low sales forced its discontinuance.) The Seattle demonstrations marked the third min-
In 1992, controversy followed the release of a talk- isterial conference of the World Trade Organization
ing Barbie, which declared, in the voice of a Valley (WTO), held from November 30 to December 3, 1999.
Girl, “Math class is hard.” The American Association of The city’s municipal leaders had desired the prestige of
University Women (AAUW) deplored that message as an international trade conference, but Seattle’s reputa-
signaling society’s low expectations for girls in math and tion for liberal politics and activism made it an unlikely
science. According to the head of the AAUW, Sharon location for a WTO summit. The protests began peace-
Schuster, “The message is a negative one for girls, telling fully, but a melee soon ensued between police in riot
them they can’t do well in math, and that perpetuates gear and a small number of protesters. Many streets
a stereotype.” M.G. Lord, who went on to write a book were road-blocked, and the demonstrators encountered
about Barbie, disagreed, stating, “Math class is tough, police in high-tech riot gear who subsequently dispersed
but it doesn’t mean you have to drop out and go to large amounts of tear gas into the crowd. The Black Bloc
38 B at tle of Seat tle
(radical anarchists) retaliated with acts of vandalism. As Further Reading

clashes between police and protesters continued to es- Wallach, Lori, and Michelle Sforza. The WTO: Five Years of
calate, Seattle mayor Paul Schell declared the area a “no Reasons to Stop Corporate Globalization. New York: Seven
protest” zone and imposed a curfew as the city entered a Stories Press, 1999.
“state of civil emergency.” The mayor’s counter-activist Yeun, Eddie, George Katsiaficas, and Daniel Burton-Rose. Battle
stance proved all the more conspicuous given his history of Seattle: The New Challenge to Capitalist Globalization. New
as a 1960s antiwar protester. York: Soft Skull Press, 2001.
Protesters have argued that globalization results in
a “race to the bottom,” whereby corporations seeking
the lowest possible wages exploit workers in under- Beauty Pageants
developed countries, while creating unemployment Beauty pageants are competitions in which the contes-
in nations where the jobs had previously existed. The tants, typically young women or girls, are evaluated on
result, they say, is a global lowering of wages and ben- the basis of their appearance, and sometimes poise and
efits. Antiglobalization advocates argue further that talent. Winners typically receive some sort of prize, in-
lax environmental regulations in many Third World cluding money, scholarships, trophies, flowers, and tiaras,
nations enable products to be made cheaper but at in addition to being granted a title—such as Miss Amer-
an irresponsible ecological cost. The WTO maintains ica, Miss Universe, or Miss International. One of the first
that its programs create jobs and increase international beauty competitions in the United States was organized
commerce, arguing that, over time, economic standards by P.T. Barnum in the 1880s. By the twenty-first cen-
across the board will rise. The WTO is an outgrowth of tury, more than 7,000 annual beauty pageants were held
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in the United States. Because of their emphasis on out-
founded in 1947 and comprising 153 member nations ward appearance, beauty contests have been criticized as
(as of 2008). WTO policies are said to be predicated on perpetuating antiquated attitudes about women.
neoliberal free trade, but critics see the organization as The Miss America pageant, the most popular of the
an instrument of the powerful nations. beauty contests throughout the twentieth century, was
Before the Battle of Seattle, protests against the first held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1921, and
WTO were not treated as major news stories. That consisted of a bathing suit competition between eight
changed, certainly, as more than 50,000 protesters, in- women. As the judging evolved to include talent, for-
cluding radical environmentalists, steelworkers, vegan mal wear, and elimination rounds, the program grew in
activists, and others demonstrated in opposition to free popularity as well as number of contestants.
trade. Detractors criticized a lack of unity on the part Beauty pageants, especially Miss America, came
of the protesters, but it was precisely this lack of focus under attack with the growing feminist movement of
that made the protests difficult to undermine ideologi- the 1960s and 1970s. Feminists argued that the pageants
cally. While police reaction was gratuitously violent in should be discontinued because the grading of women
the opinion of some observers, media outlets around based on a socially constructed beauty ideal rather than
the county tended to focus on a group of protesters intelligence or character objectified all women and sanc-
(mainly young anarchists from Eugene, Oregon) who tioned the sexist values of a patriarchal society. In 1968,
vandalized a Starbucks coffee shop. Up to that time, the feminist group New York Radical Women drew
Starbucks had served as a symbol of the city’s youth media attention to their cause when they protested out-
culture; at that moment it became associated with side the Miss America pageant and mockingly crowned
corporate globalism. a sheep as the winner. The protesters also accumulated a
The event marked the beginning of a series of highly variety of “sex objects”—such as brassieres, high-heeled
publicized protests against globalization. In the years shoes, hair curlers, and fashion magazines—threw them in
following the Battle of Seattle, WTO Director-General a trash can, and set them on fire, inspiring pundits to refer
Michael Moore deplored the protesters: “They make me to feminists as “bra-burners.” In 1970, feminist protestors
want to vomit,” he declared. While the Battle of Seattle in London staged a similar demonstration at the Miss
drew protesters of all ages, it is largely credited with en- World pageant. Such criticism prompted the organizers
ergizing a generation of young people previously accused of mainstream pageants to recast the events as scholarship
of political apathy. competitions rather than beauty competitions.
William J. Emerson III Nevertheless, the swimsuit portion of such pro-
grams, euphemistically called Lifestyle and Fitness by
See also: American Century; Genetically Modified Foods; Miss America, has continued to draw feminist ire. Some
Globalization; Klein, Naomi; Labor Unions; Nader, Ralph; contestants have voiced disapproval and anxiety about
Perot, H. Ross; Privatization; September 11; Wal-Mart; walking in front of a large, televised audience in their
Wealth Gap. bathing suits and high heels for the purpose of being
Behe, Michael J. 39
judged. In 1994, the Miss America Organization held See also: Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave;
a call-in vote, asking viewers to help decide whether or Pornography; Race; Wolf, Naomi.
not the swimsuit competition should remain part of the
show. Callers overwhelmingly voted to keep the swimsuit Further Reading
component. Lesser-known pageants, responding to com- Banet-Weiser, Sarah. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty
plaints from viewers and contestants, have discontinued Pageants and National Identity. Berkeley: University of Cali-
this part of the program. In those pageants that have kept fornia Press, 1999.
the swimsuit segment, including Miss America, efforts Craig, Maxine Leeds. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? Black Women,
have been made to present female contestants as beauti- Beauty, and the Politics of Culture. New York: Oxford Uni-
ful, yet not sexually tempting. Competitors are trained versity Press, 2002.
to walk, stand, and smile in a way that minimizes overt Riverol, Armando. Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss
sexuality and jiggling flesh. This containment of sexual- America Pageant Before, After and in Spite of Television. Bowl-
ity became more problematic for Miss America with the ing Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular
allowance of two-piece bathing suits in 1997. Press, 1992.
Another contentious issue in mainstream pageants Watson, Elwood, and Darcy Martin, eds. “Here She Is, Miss
is the scant multicultural representation. Typically, America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most
pageants have few contestants who are women of color, Famous Pageant. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
and seldom are they crowned. The Miss Black America
pageant was established in 1968, but a segregated contest
was seen as a less than satisfactory solution. In 1983, Behe, Michael J.
Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America, The debate on the teaching of evolution in public schools
but she was forced to give up the crown the following intensified with the publication of Michael J. Behe’s
year after nude photos of her were published in Penthouse Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
magazine. The relatively low number of women of color (1996), a highly disputed work that challenges certain
in mainstream competitions is said to reflect a reliance aspects of the theory of evolution and argues that biolog-
on socially constructed white concepts of beauty. ical processes and structures at the molecular level con-
The issue of body type has become another source of stitute evidence of “intelligent design” in the universe.
concern to critics of the beauty contest ethic. As a thin Born on January 18, 1952, in Harrisburg, Pennsyl-
body has become the beauty ideal for American women in vania, Behe studied chemistry at Drexel University (BS,
popular culture—not the case when beauty pageants first 1974) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD, 1978)
began—contestants today are under constant pressure to and did postdoctoral research on the structure of DNA
lose weight and remain slim. While in recent times pag- at the National Institutes of Health (1978–1982). Since
eant organizers have attempted to downplay the beauty 1985, after three years of teaching chemistry at Queens
aspect of competitions, arguing that attractiveness is just College in New York, Behe has taught biochemistry at
one criterion of an ideal candidate, weight gain remains Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
anathema to international and national contestants. Cases Darwin’s Black Box claims that theories of evolution
have even been reported in which reigning beauty queens are misleading because certain molecular structures and
were warned to maintain slimness or risk forfeiting their mechanisms are too complex to have been the product
crown. And with plastic surgery becoming more afford- of evolution. An evolutionary account of development
able, socially acceptable, and widely available, more and assumes incremental changes and improvements in
more contestants in bikini contests, like Miss Hawaiian functionality. However, Behe contends, these biologi-
Tropic, have had body-altering procedures such as breast cal structures are so intricate that they could not have
implants and collagen lip injections. emerged as gradual improvements over prior stages of
Yet another controversial aspect of beauty pageants evolutionary development; if their structure were any
concerns the young age of participants—competitions are simpler, they would not have functioned at all—thus
even held for infants and toddlers—and the sexualization they are deemed “irreducibly complex.” An analogy he
of non-adult contestants. The murder of six-year-old fre- often invokes is that of a mousetrap, which, without any
quent beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey in 1996 one of its parts, would be completely useless, not just
brought the issue to national attention. Many individuals less efficient. And, Behe goes on, since these irreducibly
who were unaware of the extent of beauty competitions complex mechanisms could not have been the product
were disturbed at the thought of pre-pubescent girls wear- of evolution but had to have originated whole at their
ing visible makeup and bathing suits while parading in current level of complexity and functionality, there had
front of and being judged by adults, usually men. to have been an intelligent designer.
Behe’s argument of irreducible complexity has been
Alexandra DeMonte rejected by the vast majority of the scientific community.
40 Bell Cur ve , The
Instead of a scientific theory, opponents regard it as a The book, divided into four sections that build
rhetorical claim based on lack of knowledge regarding the Herrnstein and Murray’s argument regarding the predica-
structure and workings of the complex mechanisms. tive capacities of IQ scores, becomes more controversial
In Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board (2005), with each succeeding section. Part 1 introduces dif-
however, anti-evolutionists in Dover, Pennsylvania, ferential levels of intelligence across the United States,
argued that ideas such as irreducible complexity should arguing that the stratification of intelligence grew
be taught alongside evolution in the ninth-grade biol- steadily throughout the twentieth century, resulting
ogy curriculum. Behe served as an expert witness in the in an emergent “cognitive elite.” Part 2 analyzes the
trial, but during his testimony admitted that there are populations at the lowest levels of the cognitive strata,
no peer-reviewed articles supporting his claims and that suggesting a correlation between social position and in-
irreducible complexity does not rule out evolutionary telligence; it deals primarily with whites. Part 3—easily
mechanisms. the most discussed, debated, and disparaged section of
Gal Kober the book—addresses the role of IQ in determining social
and economic differences between races and ethnicities.
See also: Creationism and Intelligent Design; Fundamental- Given the delicate and complex nature of their compari-
ism, Religious; Religious Right. sons, the authors astutely warn readers of this section to
“read carefully.”
Further Reading Many did indeed read carefully, pondering Herrn-
Miller, Kenneth R. Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search stein and Murray’s findings, such as the conclusion that
for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. New York: differences between “black” and “white” IQ levels are
Harper, 1999. mostly genetic. Readers also questioned, often with
Pennock, Roger T., ed. Intelligent Design Creationism and Its vehemence, distrust, and disgust, the authors’ under-
Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives. standing of universal human intelligence measures,
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. the way they use the concept of race, their statistical
Ruse, Michael. Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? methods and analyses, and the credibility of their
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. sources.
Ruse, Michael, and William A. Dembski, eds. Debating Design: Even more questions arose when critics read Part 4,
From Darwin to DNA. New York: Cambridge University which outlines Herrnstein and Murray’s suggestions for
Press, 2004. social policy initiatives to help increase the cognitive abil-
ity of those at the bottom levels of society (i.e., blacks).
They present a pessimistic summary of failed efforts to
B e l l Cu r ve , T h e raise cognitive ability through existing social programs
Perhaps the most incendiary social scientific publication that resulted in the “dumbing down” of American public
of the late twentieth century, Richard J. Herrnstein and education and the shift in educational expenditures away
Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class from gifted children. Regarding affirmative action in col-
Structure in American Life (1994) brought the topics of leges and the workplace, Herrnstein and Murray claim
race and class to the surface of public consciousness. that many of the government’s prohibitions against using
The book quickly became an international best-seller certain tests impair economic productivity and that “race-
(400,000 copies were sold around the world in the normed” adjustments of test scores misclassify workers,
first months of publication), with a large following in create racial and ethnic “tokenism” in the workplace,
the mainstream media, general public, and scientific and stigmatize the intended recipients of governmental
community who rallied to either support or condemn aid. Like the previous section on racial differences in IQ,
the work’s conclusions. Part 4 was attacked as racist in tone and content despite
At the center of the book’s controversy were charges the authors’ advocacy of non-race-based policies (i.e.,
that it provided statistical support for racism. Going well treating persons as individuals rather than as members
beyond a discussion of racial and economic inequality in of racial groups).
American life, Herrnstein (a psychologist) and Murray The Bell Curve remains a part of the American culture
(a political scientist) offered an array of explanations wars, as issues of racial inequality, widening class dispari-
and justifications for such social disparities based on ties, education, and prospective plans for redistributing
statistically measured hereditary intelligence levels. The wealth continue to be subjects of public discourse.
Bell Curve not only connected brainpower to race and
class but identified low intelligence as a cause of pov- Michael Ian Borer
erty, unemployment, crime, unwed motherhood, school
dropouts, welfare dependency, and the demise of the See also: Affirmative Action; Education Reform; Moynihan,
functional family. Daniel Patrick; Race; Wealth Gap; Welfare Reform.
B iaf ra , Jello 41
Further Reading 1986, Bennett berated the school for no longer empha-
Fischer, Claude S., et al. Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell sizing Judeo-Christian values and the Western literary
Curve Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, canon. That same year, he criticized Stanford University
1996. for eliminating its core curriculum course on the great
Fraser, Steven, ed. The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the books.
Future of America. New York: Basic Books, 1995. In his book The De-Valuing of America (1992), Ben-
Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles Murray. The Bell Curve. New nett devotes the first chapter to the culture wars, which
York: Free Press, 1994. he characterizes as a liberal assault on society led by
Jacoby, Russell, and Naomi Glauberman, eds. The Bell Curve unaccountable academics. As an anecdote to “moral rela-
Debate. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995. tivism,” he edited The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great
Moral Stories (1994), a compilation of classic writings
that he claims are effective in building character. This
Bennett, William J. was followed by various other collections, which were
An outspoken political conservative since the 1980s, subsequently made into a PBS children’s cartoon series.
William Bennett contributed to the intensification of Bennett interprets the public’s divided reaction to Presi-
the culture wars while serving in the administrations dent Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct and the conflicting
of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, publishing interpretations of the causes of the September 11, 2001,
numerous books on education and morality, spearheading attacks as the consequence of moral relativism, which he
the Heritage Foundation’s index of cultural indicators, deplores in The Death of Outrage (1998) and Why We Fight
and hosting a radio talk show. One of his most (2002), respectively. In 2003, Bennett’s own moral clarity
controversial moments occurred during a September was called into question when it was reported that in one
2005 broadcast of his Morning in America radio program, decade he lost $8 million at gambling casinos.
when he argued, hypothetically, “You could abort every
black baby in this country, and your crime rate would Roger Chapman
go down.”
A native of Brooklyn, New York, William John Ben- See also: Bush Family; Catholic Church; Chomsky, Noam; Ed-
nett was born on July 31, 1943, into a Catholic family. ucation Reform; Great Books; Heritage Foundation; Neocon-
He studied political philosophy at Williams College (BA, servatism; Reagan, Ronald; Relativism, Moral; Republican
1965) and the University of Texas at Austin (PhD, 1970); Party; School Prayer; School Vouchers; September 11; Talk
in 1971 he graduated from Harvard Law School. After Radio; War on Drugs.
a stint as executive director of the National Humanities
Center (1976–1981), an independent institute for ad- Further Reading
vanced study, Bennett served as President Reagan’s chair Bennett, William J. The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our
of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1981– Culture and Our Children. New York: Touchstone, 1992.
1985) and then as secretary of education (1985–1988). ———. The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault of
Under President George H.W. Bush, he was the nation’s American Ideals. New York: Free Press, 1998.
“drug czar,” directing the national drug control policy ———. Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism.
(1989–1990). Prior to joining the Reagan administration, New York: Doubleday, 2002.
Bennett was a registered Democrat who identified with
John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey.
As head of the Department of Education, Bennett Biafra, Jello
championed education reform that focused on the three The first American recording artist charged with obscenity
Cs—content, character, and choice. For content, he ad- as a result of an album release, Jello Biafra is a punk rock
vised a return to the “great books,” or Western literary singer, record label owner, self-proclaimed anarchist,
canon, as the core curriculum. To promote character, he prankster, and supporter of progressive causes.
advocated a Judeo-Christian worldview and specifically Biafra was born Eric Reed Boucher on June 17,
backed Reagan’s call for a constitutional amendment sup- 1958, in Boulder, Colorado. In 1977, he dropped out
porting school-sponsored prayer. Arguing that parents of the University of California at Santa Cruz to join in
should have the right to choose the schools their children San Francisco’s growing punk rock community. In the
attend, he advanced the concept of school vouchers. While late 1970s, he chose his stage name to contrast the com-
defending Reagan’s cuts in federal tuition grants, Bennett mercialized culture of Jello-O advertisements with the
caused an uproar by suggesting that young people could war-induced starvation in Biafra.
fund their college education by “divesting” themselves Biafra’s song lyrics and spoken word performances
of expensive stereos, automobiles, and spring vacations highlighted contrasts between consumer culture and
to Florida. At Harvard’s 350th anniversary celebration in world poverty. In 1978, he formed the Dead Kennedys
42 B iotech Revolution
(DK), a punk rock band that quickly became known for level, the biotech revolution represents a method of
its humor, socially charged lyrics, and energetic perfor- manipulating the elements of life. Because the stakes are
mances. The group’s name was a reference to the death so high, the discussion about the future of biotechnology
of the American dream brought on by the assassinations has naturally become a part of the culture wars.
of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate One of the most outspoken proponents of a biotech
Robert F. Kennedy, but some viewed it as a poor joke. future is Ray Kurzweil, who in The Singularity Is Near:
In 1979, Biafra received mainstream attention when When Humans Transcend Biology (2005) defines a future
he ran for mayor of San Francisco as a prank; his platform in which the pace of technological change will be so
included a requirement that businessmen wear clown rapid and profound that human life will be irreversibly
suits. Growing public support, however, prompted him changed. Kurzweil’s vision of life is one of exponential
to take more serious positions—such as championing and limitless transformation. The epoch of “Singularity,”
legalized squatting for the homeless in buildings kept he asserts, will be one in which humans transcend biology
vacant for tax purposes. He lost the race but ranked fourth and redefine the conceptual basis of life. While critics
in a field of ten. This ultimately led to his nomination stress the potential risks associated with emerging genetic
by the Green Party of New York State in the 2000 presi- technology, nanotechnology, and robotics technology,
dential primary. Biafra later dropped out of the race in Kurzweil argues that the most vital aspects of humanity
favor of Ralph Nader. are not lost through these developments, but that future
With the release of its 1986 album Frankenchrist, technologies will refine and exceed the best of human
Biafra’s band included a poster of Work 219: Landscape traits. While few have come out as strongly in favor of
XX—also known as Penis Landscape—by the surreal- a brave new biotech world as Kurzweil, similar views
ist artist H.R. Giger. In response, Los Angeles deputy are widely held throughout the scientific community,
city attorney Michael Gaurino prosecuted Biafra, the particularly among genomic researchers.
band, and Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label for the Francis Fukuyama presents an altogether different
distribution of harmful matter to minors. Gaurino revision of the future in Our Posthuman Future: Consequences
marked that the prosecution was a “cost-effective way of of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002). For Fukuyama and
sending a message” to the recording industry. The trial like-minded critics, the biotech revolution has ushered
ended in a hung jury, and the charges were dropped. In in an extraordinary moral dilemma. The Catholic Church
1997, Gaurino admitted that “about midway through and conservative Protestant groups have taken a strong
the trial we realized that the lyrics of the album were in stance against many biomedical technologies such as
many ways socially responsible, very anti-drug and pro- birth control, in-vitro fertilization, abortion, stem cell
individual.” In 2005, he apologized to Biafra on National research, cloning, and prospective forms of genetic en-
Public Radio. gineering. Fukuyama’s straightforward solution to the
Solomon Davidoff moral dilemma brought on by the benefits and threats of
biotechnology is regulation through state power.
See also: Censorship; Counterculture; Election of 2000; Family While Fukuyama sees the biotech debate as one
Values; Kennedy Family; Nader, Ralph; Pornography; Punk largely polarized between the scientific and religious com-
Rock; Record Warning Labels; War on Drugs. munities, he argues that a religious stance is not the only
one available to biotech objectors. In place of religious
Further Reading objection, Fukuyama offers one based on human rights,
Biafra, Jello. High Priest of Harmful Matter. San Francisco: Al- nature, and dignity. Fukuyama argues against the widely
ternative Tentacles, 1989. held notion of human nature as socially constructed and
———. I Blow Minds for a Living. San Francisco: Alternative entirely malleable. Instead, he contends that humans
Tentacles, 1991. possess innate patterns of behavior. For these reasons,
———. Machine Gun in the Clown’s Hand. San Francisco: Al- some may view Fukuyama’s response to biotechnology
ternative Tentacles, 2002. as socially conservative in that it upholds an essentialist
view of human nature.
Paul Virilio warns of the threat of the “genetic bomb”
B i o t e c h Revo l u t i o n in his book with Sylvère Lotringer, Crepuscular Dawn
The biotechnology revolution entails new techniques (2002). Virilio summarizes the history of technology in
and processes across a range of areas in the life sciences, three revolutions—in transportation, transmissions, and
from agriculture and medicine to human genome, stem transplants. He does not believe that human beings are
cell, and cloning research. Biotechnology research offers capable of existing outside of their territorial, social, or
the potential to unravel some of the deepest mysteries animal bodies. Virilio’s criticisms are overtly political,
of life, exposing the inner workings of processes as showing contempt for “extreme sciences” that promote
fundamental as aging and disease. On the most basic the practices of “absolute eugenics,” “artificial selection,”
B ir th Control 43
and the creation of superhuman “genetic robots”—all of Rifkin, Jeremy. “What Biotechnology Means for the Future of
which he considers part of the “militarization of science,” Humanity.” In Biotechnology and the Future of Society: Challenges
leading humanity toward the “Total Accident.” and Opportunities, ed. Emirates Center for Strategic Studies
Jürgen Habermas has also raised a number of key and Research, 41–70. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
issues in the debate over the future of biotechnology. In Virilio, Paul, and Sylvère Lotringer. Crepuscular Dawn. Los
The Future of Human Nature (2003), he raises the primary Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2002.
problem of a secular or nonreligious (“postmetaphysical”)
response to the question of biotechnology. For Habermas,
the question hovering over the discussion about the bio- Birth Control
tech revolution is: What is the good life? His concern For most of human history, women of childbearing age
is the ethical and moral foundation on which secular had no reliable way of preventing conception when
communities reach consensus about controversial issues engaging in sexual intercourse. In addition, there was a
such as genetic screening and gene therapy. While such strong feeling among authorities that information and
techniques offer the possibility of treating hereditary devices intended to prevent conception were subversive
diseases, they also offer the possibility of gene modifica- and not to be discussed publicly. In the United States
tion being made based on individual preferences and in 1873, the Comstock Act prohibited the mailing of
market forces. any “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” materials, including
Habermas also examines “self-instrumentalization”— birth control information or devices. Many states enacted
human life instrumentalized through practices such similar statutes, which were known as “Comstock Laws.”
as cloning, the harvesting of replacement body parts, Beginning in 1914, Margaret Sanger, a New York
and the creation of designer babies. Arthur Kroker has feminist and social reformer, was prosecuted repeat-
characterized these trends as representative of a “culture edly under the Comstock Laws for mailing information
of nihilism” and draws on Nietzsche and Heidegger in on “family limitation.” Sanger coined the term “birth
exploring the seemingly innate drive toward the “will control” and opened the first family planning clinic in
to technology.” the United States in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York. The
Even by the estimations of practical-minded com- clinic was closed by the police after nine days, and Sanger
mentators such as Jeremy Rifkin, the prognosis for hu- served thirty days in prison. She viewed birth control as
man life is that it will likely undergo more change in the an important step in independence for women, allowing
next several decades than in the previous thousand years. them to make their own decisions about reproduction
Rifkin is deeply concerned about the prospects of “pat- and childbirth. With the help of other birth-control ad-
enting life” through the mapping of genetic blueprints, vocates, Sanger appealed her convictions, and the courts
going so far as to suggest that genes are the raw resource eventually ruled that birth-control information should be
of the new economic epoch. Despite opposition to cor- exempted from the Comstock Laws and could be mailed
porate efforts to commodify the gene pool, the merger of legally. In 1921 Sanger founded the American Birth
molecular biology and international commerce may very Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood
well transform genetic knowledge into what Rifkin has and Planned Parenthood International, still the largest
called “green gold.” family planning organization in the world.
Jon VanWieren The means of preventing conception (e.g., condoms,
diaphragms, and chemicals) promoted by Sanger and
See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Catholic Church; Fundamen- her colleagues were not completely reliable. Only in
talism, Religious; Genetically Modified Foods; Human Rights; the 1950s did pharmaceutical research produce the first
Science Wars; Secular Humanism; Stem-Cell R esearch. birth-control pill—a medication based on natural hor-
mones that could be taken regularly to prevent concep-
Further Reading tion. The first birth-control pills went on sale in 1961.
Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of In succeeding years, the pill was refined in many ways.
the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Today, dosages of the active ingredients are much smaller
Giroux, 2002. and have fewer dangers and side effects. In addition,
Habermas, Jürgen. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge, women may choose to receive regular hormone doses
MA: Polity Press, 2003. from a patch, an intrauterine device, or a small implant
Kaku, Michio. “Advances in the Field of Biotechnology.” In in the upper arm, rather than by mouth. Other safe and
Biotechnology and the Future of Society: Challenges and Oppor- reliable means of preventing conception have also been
tunities, ed. Jamal S. Al-Suwaidi, 19–40. South Court, UK: perfected. Women now have access to nearly total control
Ithaca Press, 2004. over their fertility.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near: When Human Beings In spite of the invention of the pill, many states
Transcend Biology. New York: Viking, 2005. continued to outlaw the sale of contraceptives, but
44 B ir th Control
those laws were increasingly challenged in the courts. Making of Roe v. Wade. Berkeley: University of California
Finally in 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Press, 1998.
Connecticut law that forbade the sale of contraceptives Gordon, Linda. Woman’s Body, Woman’s Choice. New York:
to married couples. In that landmark case, Griswold v. Penguin Books, 1990.
Connecticut, the justices ruled that the private decision to Kennedy, David. Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret
become pregnant was a constitutionally protected right. Sanger. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970.
It was the first Supreme Court ruling that recognized a Marks, Laura V. Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive
constitutional “right to privacy.” Pill. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.
Nevertheless, birth control remained controversial Petchesky, Rosalind. Abortion and Women’s Choice: The State,
in many quarters. The Roman Catholic Church opposed Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom. Boston: Northeastern
the distribution and use of contraceptive devices and University Press, 1990.
pills from the beginning and has regularly confirmed Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel. On the Pill: A Social History of Oral
that position. In the view of the Vatican, sexual inter- Contraceptives, 1950–1970. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-
course is intended for procreation only, and frustrating versity Press, 1998.
that purpose is contrary to God’s will. Some conservative
Protestants held similar views and continue to do so to
the present. There were also concerns that birth control Black Panther Par ty
leads to sexual promiscuity. Where Griswold concentrated The Black Panther Party (BPP), founded in October
on the behavior of married couples, the new birth-control 1966 in Oakland, California, was one of the most
methods worked equally well for unmarried women of controversial organizations to emerge from the Black
childbearing age. Many doctors and pharmacies faced Power movement of the late 1960s. Huey P. Newton
community pressure to withhold birth-control medica- and Robert “Bobby” Seale, who met while attending
tions or devices from young unmarried women because Merritt College in Oakland, organized the party to
they would make it easier to engage in premarital sex by combat police brutality against African Americans.
removing the danger of an unwanted pregnancy. As Seale explained in 1970, the BPP was inspired
Despite these prohibitions and obstacles, the use of “to resist police brutality and the murder of black people
birth control has become nearly universal in the United in the same manner that the Vietnamese people were
States. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that at resisting U.S. imperialist aggression—by violence if nec-
least 98 percent of all sexually active American women essary.” Influenced by the ideas of Malcolm X and Karl
have used at least one form of birth control in their Marx, Newton and Seale broadened the party’s objectives,
lives. Surveys even suggest that more than 95 percent drafting a ten-point program, summarized in the final
of married Roman Catholic women have used birth con- point: “We want land, bread, housing, education, cloth-
trol during their childbearing years. Birth control has ing, justice, and peace.” Rejecting the Reverend Martin
contributed to many changes in American society. Con- Luther King, Jr.’s integrationist stance and call for non-
trol over fertility enabled women to delay childbearing violence, the BPP’s ultimate goal was to unite the black
and have greater control over when, and if, they would urban poor against “white oppression” and overthrow the
have children. This allowed them to complete further U.S. government. Although best known for its militancy,
education or enter the workforce before, or instead of, the Black Panthers made attempts at addressing the
having children. fundamental needs of the black community, sponsoring
The pill also played a significant role in the sexual free health care and breakfast programs.
revolution. As conservative Christian groups feared, the The BBP gained national notoriety in 1967, when
connections between getting married, engaging in sex, Newton was arrested for the alleged murder of a police
and getting pregnant became less clear and convincing officer and the shooting of another. In February 1968,
for many. Yet the debate continues, involving every the Black Panthers, along with the Student Nonviolent
new generation of young women and those who care for Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and representatives
them. from other black militant groups, protested Newton’s
Claire E. Rasmussen incarceration by participating in “Free Huey” rallies.
While heightening the awareness of police brutality, the
See also: Abortion; Planned Parenthood; Sex Education. “Free Huey” campaign also made Newton a national icon.
Newton became lionized by many young people as a man
Further Reading fighting for social justice. The BPP, which prior to 1968
Critchlow, Donald. Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, was just one of many local black militant organizations,
and the Federal Government in Modern America. New York: greatly profited from Huey Newton’s celebrity status. The
Oxford University Press, 1999. BBP also gained the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, direc-
Garrow, David. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the tor of the FBI, who declared it “the greatest threat to the
Black Radic al Cong ress 45
internal security of the country.” In conjunction with local black mainstream leadership, the BRC has organized lo-
police forces, FBI agents infiltrated the ranks of the BPP cal chapters dedicated to grassroots work and supported
and raided local chapters, which often led to violence. other organizations committed to social justice.
Although the BBP emerged as a national organiza- The BRC has organized campaigns on such issues as
tion in 1970, maintaining chapters from San Diego to the No Child Left Behind education policy, the prison-
New Haven and a membership of nearly 5,000, signs industrial complex, U.S. militarism, labor exploita-
of decline soon became evident. The party lost about tion, state terrorism, the death penalty, environmental
twenty members in police shootouts the following year, racism, police brutality, and poverty. Its two biggest
and the organization purged hundreds of members in campaigns—Education Not Incarceration and Fight Back
an attempt to weed out undercover police operatives. Against War, Racism, and Repression—embody the
To make matters worse, the leadership of the BPP split BRC’s commitment to human rights and social justice
into two competing groups. While Eldridge Cleaver and in the United States and throughout the world.
other Black Panthers wanted the organization to focus Recognizing the failures of past movements and the
on the oppression of blacks, Newton sought to forge a persistent divisions within the black community, the
multiethnic class-based coalition movement against in- BRC since its inception has attempted to bypass or avoid
ternational capitalism. The internal rifts, along with law the tensions and fissures stemming from charges of sec-
enforcement efforts, decimated the BPP, which ceased to tarianism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Americanism, and
exist by the late 1970s. antiwhite racism. In its principles of unity, the BRC states
Bruce E. Stewart that it must embrace “the diverse tendencies within Black
radicalism, building upon the traditions of socialism,
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Counterculture; Hoover, J. revolutionary nationalism, and feminism.” Eschewing
Edgar; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Malcolm X; Marxism; Na- narrow nationalist approaches and exclusionary practices
tion of Islam; Police Abuse; Vietnam War. of past and present black freedom organizations, the BRC
opposes “all forms of oppression,” including imperialism
Further Reading and prejudice toward immigrants.
Cleaver, Kathleen, and George Katsiaficas. Liberation, Imagination, Despite such rhetorical pronouncements and the
and the Black Panther Party. New York: Routledge, 2001. effort to avoid major cultural battles, the BRC has
Jones, Charles E., ed. The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Bal- nevertheless struggled with these divisions as well.
timore: Black Classic Press, 1998. During its initial conference, feminists in the organiza-
Ogbar, Jeffrey O.G. Black Power: Radical Politics and African tion questioned how its caucus and issues were being
American Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University prioritized, and other members have criticized the BRC
Press, 2004. for its inability to devise a radical plan that empowers the
Seale, Bobby. Seize the Time. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, community, accusing the BRC of simply being a haven
1970. for celebrity activists.
Still, the BRC has faced little controversy and back-
lash in its short history, no doubt due to its failure to in-
Black Radical Congress fluence the mainstream, garner national media coverage,
In an effort to fill a perceived lack of leadership in the and gain support from the increasingly conservative and
mainstream African-American community, the Black middle-class black community. Also, by focusing on less
Radical Congress (BRC) was founded in 1998 in Chicago sensational issues—such as poverty instead of hip-hop and
to bring together individuals of African descent and the use of the N-word—the BRC has attracted little of
address the inequalities experienced by many African the spotlight, thereby limiting its exposure, fundraising
Americans. Dedicated to grassroots organizing and capability, and stake in the national discourse on race.
the advancement of civil and human rights, the BRC
quickly established itself as a powerful voice. David J. Leonard
After convening more than 2,000 activists at its
founding conference, the BRC attracted more than 20,000 See also: Capital Punishment; Civil Rights Movement; Edu-
subscribers to its various causes in its first eight years of cation Reform; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-
existence. As a source of information and a clearinghouse Wave; Gay Rights Movement; Human Rights; Immigration
of ideas and opinions, the BRC has regularly provided Policy; Labor Unions; Police Abuse; Prison Reform; Wealth
statements on timely issues for the African-American Gap.
community, publishing analytical articles and maintain-
ing both a Web site and a listserv. Although it has not Further Reading
had a great impact on the national debates pertaining to Ards, Angela. “The New Black Radicalism.” Nation, July
race and inequality and has been unable to supplant the 27–August 3, 1998, 19–23.
46 Blackface
Black Radical Congress Web site. www.blackradicalcongress.org. evoked the days of slavery, when blacks were addressed
Horne, Gerald. “Black Radicals Unite.” Dollars and Sense, Sep- by whites as “aunt” or “uncle” (never “Mr.” or “Mrs.”).
tember 1, 1998. Although these particular name brands have remained in
Lusane, Clarence. “From Crisis to Congress: Assessing the Black use, the images have been redesigned and modernized.
Radical Congress.” Social Justice 25:3 (1998): 108–15. And while Aunt Jemima no longer says “Tempt yo’ ap-
petite,” some blacks remain bothered by the resemblance
of the bowtie-sporting Uncle Ben to a Pullman porter.
Black face Perhaps inevitably, blackface has also become part
Blackface, a theatrical tradition and cultural stereotype of material culture and the collectibles market, includ-
that dates to the eighteenth century, is a style of makeup, ing postcards, knickknacks, and cast-iron statues such as
costume, and performance used in minstrel shows and lawn jockeys. The latter, sometimes called “Jockos,” are
similar entertainment, typically involving a white deeply offensive to many African Americans when they are
performer who paints his or her face black with burnt painted with black faces and displayed on the front lawns
cork, greasepaint, or shoe polish to look like an African of white residences. In an attempt to be less offensive to
American. Oversized lips (red, pink, or white) are usually a people of color, some owners have painted the statues with
part of the persona, and the costume varies from the formal white faces. Earl Kroger published a children’s book titled
(top hat, white gloves, and tails) to the informal (ragged Jocko: A Legend of the American Revolution (1976), in which
and clownish attire). Depending on the performance and he maintains that the Jocko figures honor the memory of
the individual audience member, blackface is viewed a twelve-year-old African American who froze to death
as simple comedy, humorous self-parody, low-class during a vigil, lamp in hand, keeping watch over General
buffoonery, or demeaning form of racism. Blackface Washington’s horse during the winter attack on the Brit-
imagery has been depicted in film, used in commercial ish at Trenton—historians do not corroborate the legend.
advertising, and made into artwork. In the culture Others have spread the rumor that statues of the boy were
wars, debate continues regarding the social meanings of used for designating safe houses on the Underground
blackface and its many forms and manifestations. Railroad—which has also been refuted by historians.
By the 1950s, largely as a result of activism by the Celebrity African Americans, including Bill Cosby
National Association for the Advancement of Colored and Oprah Winfrey, are known collectors of blackface
People (NAACP), blackface came under public attack as artifacts, which they put on display to draw inspiration by
racist, demeaning to blacks, and a means of perpetuating reflecting on how far blacks have progressed. In 1996, the
negative stereotypes. Television programs such as Beu- Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia was founded
lah (1950–1953) and Amos ’n’ Andy (1951–1953) were on the campus of Ferris State University in Black Rapids,
criticized for having black actors portray stereotypical Michigan, to collect and preserve blackface artifacts as
figures in a manner reminiscent of blackface performers. object lessons in teaching tolerance.
Mounting public pressure forced these shows off the air, Blackface occasionally still emerges in American
but some historians have suggested that the NAACP was culture. In 1993, Ted Danson, a white actor then dating
actually demanding that black characters be portrayed black actress Whoopi Goldberg, appeared at a roast in
as “less colored.” In any event, broadcasters also stopped blackface—to general disapproval. In 2000, the well-
airing cartoon programs with blackface characters, such known black director Spike Lee, in the film Bamboozled,
as Jungle Jitters (1938), Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943), and portrayed an ambitious assimilated black television ex-
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943). ecutive who reintroduces blackface in live theater. Lee’s
A controversy arose in the late 1970s over the name film portrays the nervousness of both blacks and whites
of a restaurant chain called Sambo’s, widely associated in at its reappearance. In 2001, a white fraternity at Auburn
the public’s mind with the “Little Black Sambo” charac- University stirred controversy when photos of its mem-
ter. The name actually derived from a combination of the bers in blackface appeared on the Internet.
names of the chain’s founders, Sam Battistone and Newell
Bohnet, who opened their first restaurant in Berkeley, Abraham D. Lavender and Roger Chapman
California, in 1957. They did use a Sambo figure for
restaurant décor, but the character had Indian rather than See also: Civil Rights Movement; Lee, Spike; Literature, Film,
African-American features. The chain gradually expanded and Drama; National Association for the Advancement of
to 1,114 locations, but by the early 1980s public pressure Colored People; Political Correctness; Winfrey, Oprah.
compelled a renaming of most of the restaurants in the
Northeast to No Place Like Sam’s. Further Reading
Discussion and debate likewise arose over the use of Goings, Kenneth W. Mammy and Uncle Mose: Collectibles and
such commercial icons as Aunt Jemima (pancake mix), American Stereotyping. Bloomington: Indiana University
Rastus (hot cereal), and Uncle Ben (rice)—images that Press, 1994.
Bob Jones Uni versit y 47
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia Web site. www.ferris

.edu/jimcrow.
Lhamon, W.T., Jr. Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim
Crow to Hip Hop. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1998.
Manring, M.M. Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.
Sanneh, Kelefa. “Black in the Box.” Transition 10:4 (2001):
38–65.
Strausbaugh, John. Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult &
Imitation in American Popular Culture. New York: Penguin,
2006.
B o b J o n e s U n i ve r s i t y
In its engagement in the culture wars, Bob Jones Uni
versity (BJU) fosters a tradition of Christian fundamen- A science professor at Bob Jones University teaches creation-
talism. As Bob Jones III said in 1989, we “are proud to ism at the Christian fundamentalist school in the late 1940s.
be known as fundamentalist . . . we oppose all atheistic, Minority policies, tax-exempt status, and political involvement
agnostic, and humanistic attacks upon the scripture.” have been sources of controversy for the university. (Maude
Mirroring the pattern of Christian fundamentalism gen- Stout/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
erally, the university in recent years has become more
actively involved in American politics. BJU and America’s larger culture over civil rights.
Evangelist Bob Jones, Sr., founded the school in Bob Jones, Sr., in his pamphlet Is Segregation Scriptural?
Bay County, Florida, in 1927. His motivation included (1960), argued that it was morally wrong to “eradicate
a particular concern for the secularization of higher edu- racial boundaries God had set.” With this in mind, BJU
cation in the wake of the 1925 Scopes trial. The college in 1964 awarded an honorary doctorate to Alabama gov-
relocated to Cleveland, Tennessee (1933), and finally to ernor George Wallace for his pro-segregation stance. In
its present location in Greenville, South Carolina (1947). 1970, the Internal Revenue Service began proceedings
Not unlike other higher education institutions, the uni- against BJU that would lead, after thirteen years of legal
versity doubled in size after World War II. In 1947, Bob wrangling and two cases before the Supreme Court, to
Jones, Jr., became BJU’s new president and eventually the school’s loss of its tax-exempt status due to institu-
expanded the school’s fine arts program. Bob Jones III tionalized racial discrimination. In the meantime, BJU
became BJU’s president in 1971, and Stephen Jones (his attempted modest reforms, in 1971 allowing African
son) succeeded him in 2005. Student enrollment stood Americans to enroll as long as they were married. Four
at 5,000 in 2006, and the alumni office could boast such years later, BJU admitted unmarried blacks but main-
prominent graduates as Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left tained a campus prohibition on interracial dating.
Behind book series, and Asa Hutchinson, who served as a By the early 1990s, Bob Jones III began arguing that
U.S. representative (R-AR, 1997–2002) and in 2003 was “worldly practices” ought not to “separate good Christians
appointed by President George W. Bush as undersecre- from bad ones.” While this indicated less of a separatist
tary for border and transportation security. BJU has also mentality, cultural clashes continued. In December 1998,
actively supported the growing home school movement BJU announced that it would arrest all homosexuals who
in America, publishing K–12 textbooks written from a entered its campus. In March 2000, after controversy sur-
fundamentalist perspective. rounding a George W. Bush campaign appearance at the
Early controversies associated with BJU revolved university, Bob Jones III dropped the interracial dating
around the split between fundamentalists and evangeli- ban. In 2008, the university issued a formal apology for
cals. Bob Jones, Jr., proved instrumental in advancing the its racist policies, stating that such rules were not based
“set apart” mentality in the 1950s by severing ties with on the Bible.
moderate and conservative Christians and organizations, Tim Lacy
including the National Association of Evangelicals (1953),
former BJU student Billy Graham (1957), the Moody Bible See also: Bush Family; Catholic Church; Church and State;
Institute (1958), and Youth for Christ (1960). At the time, Civil Rights Movement; Evangelicalism; Fundamentalism,
BJU sought what it described as an “ultrafundamentalist” Religious; Graham, Billy; Hillsdale College; Homeschooling;
identity, distinct from moderate evangelicalism. LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; McCain, John; Religious
Beginning in the 1960s, dissension arose between Right; Wallace, George.
48 Bono
Further Reading By the mid-1980s, Bono was a ubiquitous presence

Bob Jones University Web site. www.bju.edu. in various humanitarian efforts supported by popular
Dalhouse, Mark Taylor. An Island in the Lake of Fire: Bob Jones entertainers. In 1984, he appeared in the Band Aid video
University, Fundamentalism, and the Separatist Movement. Ath- “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” on behalf of Ethiopian
ens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. famine relief; this was followed by a live performance at
Turner, Daniel L. Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones the Live Aid concert in 1985. U2 was a prominent part
University. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1997. of the six-city Conspiracy of Hope tour of America on
behalf of Amnesty International in 1986. Bono’s vehe-
ment, profane denunciation (included in the film Rattle
Bono and Hum) of a bombing by the Irish Republican Army
Bono (Paul Hewson), lead singer and lyricist for the (IRA) in 1987 allegedly earned him a spot on an IRA
Irish rock band U2, is something of a musical bridge death list.
between global popular culture and the American During the 1990s, Bono became increasingly iden-
evangelical subculture. Markedly influenced by his tified with efforts to address the problem of disease
adolescent spiritual experiences, the singer has used and poverty in the Third World. In 1999, he met with
his jet-set superstardom and ability to communicate members of the Clinton administration, such as Treasury
to fans, secular elites, and born-again believers to great Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and raised the issue of
advantage in touting various social justice causes, Third World debt relief. The following year, he persuaded
including the HIV/AIDS epidemic and Third World Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) to support funding to fight
debt relief. AIDS in Africa, appealing to the conservative legislator
Born in Dublin on May 10, 1960, Paul David by quoting from the Bible. In 2002, Bono established
Hewson was the product of a mixed Protestant/Catholic the organization DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa)
marriage and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive and sought out links with the Republican administration,
School, the first ecumenical school of its kind in the city. meeting with President George W. Bush and escorting
At Mount Temple in 1976, he joined the first of a series Treasury Secretary Paul O’ Neill on a tour of impover-
of groups that eventually became U2. He took the stage ished regions of four African countries. Later that year, he
name “Bono Vox” from a hearing aid shop. In 1979, headlined a tour of colleges in the American heartland—
Bono and fellow U2 members Dave Evans (“The Edge”) including the evangelical Wheaton College, where he
and Larry Mullen, Jr., became involved with the Shalom praised alumnus Billy Graham—to promote student
community, a charismatic Protestant Bible study group activism in the battle against AIDS in Africa.
that emphasized the “gifts of the Spirit” such as speak- As a legitimate artist, popular entertainer, and effec-
ing in tongues and prophesying. The association ended tive advocate for global causes, Bono has been accepted
when Shalom’s leaders demanded that the band members by both secular and evangelical audiences. His reputation
choose between their budding rock and roll careers and with evangelicals rests on the evident Christian motiva-
membership in the community. tion for his tireless humanitarian work. For his part,
Although he was no longer formally linked to the Bono sees conservative U.S. Protestants as an important
charismatic movement, biblical imagery and spirituality moral force that can be harnessed for relief projects and
were a dominant theme of Bono’s lyrics on U2’s early social justice.
albums, such as October (1981) and War (1983). Thus, as Larry Eskridge
the band moved toward superstardom, it was embraced
by many in the American Contemporary Christian Music See also: AIDS; Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Contemporary
community. However, the band’s refusal to identify with Christian Music; Evangelicalism; Globalization; Graham,
the conservative moral and political ethos of American- Billy; Helms, Jesse; Human Rights; Jackson, Michael; Sum-
style evangelicalism—compounded by Bono’s fondness mers, Lawrence; Televangelism.
for alcohol, earthy language, increasingly antinomian
spiritual style, and criticism of U.S. foreign policy in Further Reading
songs like “Bullet the Blue Sky” (1987)—alienated many Assayas, Michka. Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas. New
evangelicals during the mid-1980s and afterward. None- York: Riverhead Books, 2005.
theless, he remained an enormously influential figure for Bordowitz, Hank, ed. The U2 Reader: A Quarter Century of
a core of dedicated fans as well as aspiring evangelical Commentary, Criticism, and Reviews. Milwaukee, WI: Hal
musicians, even as projects like Achtung Baby (1991) and Leonard, 2003.
Zooropa (1993) and Bono’s stage characters—the demonic Dunphy, Eamon. Unforgettable Fire: The Definitive Biography of
“Macphisto” and “Mirrorball Man” (a parody of a corrupt U2. New York: Warner, 1987.
televangelist)—caused many evangelical pop culture Vagacs, Robert. Religious Nuts, Political Fanatics: U2 in Theological
observers to write him off. Perspective. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2005.
Boy Scout s of A mer ic a 49
Book Banning also charge that librarians censor collections through

Public schools and libraries in the United States have selective acquisitions of materials.
been the primary battleground in efforts over recent Between 1990 and 2000, 6,364 challenges were
years to limit the availability of, or ban outright, books reported to the OIF. Books were most frequently chal-
deemed dangerous to children and adolescents. This lenged because of “sexually explicit” material (1,607 inci-
struggle, which generally pits religious groups and other dents), followed by materials considered to use “offensive
social conservatives against liberals and progressives, language” (1,427 incidents), and materials considered
highlights the tension between parental authority and “unsuited to age group” (1,256 incidents). Substantial
society, but it is ultimately about defining American numbers of books were also challenged because they had
values. The constituencies on the right demand that an “occult theme” or sympathized with “the occult of
young readers be protected from books that contain Satanism,” were considered “violent,” had a “homosexual
obscenities or sexually explicit or racist language, theme” or were tolerant of homosexuality, promoted “a
promote witchcraft, feature homosexual characters or religious viewpoint,” or were considered “antifamily.”
themes, or are “antifamily.” Generally, the left fiercely Other works were challenged because they contained
defends free speech, citing the First Amendment, and “nudity,” “racism,” or “sex education.”
opposes any attempt at censorship. Among the most challenged books in the 1990s were
Censorship campaigns have emerged at various times Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Daddy’s Roommate
throughout the history of the United States, but by the by Michael Willhoite, and Harry Potter by J.K. Rowl-
time Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, the ing. Most challenges came from the right, but some
primacy of the First Amendment and its protection of the originated on the left because of books believed to be
printed word appeared to be settled. Attempts to control reinforcing sexist stereotypes or portraying ethnic and
the reading materials available to children and adoles- racial groups in racist ways. For example, some liberals
cents, however, continued. The effort to remove books have challenged Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for its
from schools and public libraries has taken place almost use of racist language.
exclusively at the state and local level, and has primarily Jana Brubaker
come from the Religious Right or members of conserva-
tive organizations. In 1995, for example, according to See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Censorship; Counterculture;
Publishers Weekly, there were a reported 475 attempts in Family Values; Focus on the Family; Fundamentalism, Reli-
forty-four states to compel librarians to remove titles or gious; Gays in Popular Culture; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
accept restrictive acquisitions and access guidelines. In Studies; Pornography; Religious Right; Sex Education; Speech
1988, the American Library Association (ALA) and the Codes; Steinbeck, John; Wildmon, Donald; Wilson, Edmund.
American Association of School Administrators published
a handbook designed to assist school officials and librar- Further Reading
ians facing censorship pressures. Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from
The ALA has become a major actor in the banned the Gilded Age to the Computer Age. Madison: University of
books arena, and its advocacy of unrestricted access to Wisconsin Press, 2002.
library materials has made it a target of criticism by con- Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the U.S.A.: A Reference Guide to
servative groups, such as Focus on the Family. The ALA, Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries. Westport, CT:
along with the American Booksellers Association and the Greenwood, 2002.
Association of American Publishers, sponsors Banned Saunders, Kevin W. Saving Our Children from the First Amendment.
Books Week, designed to raise awareness of censorship New York: New York University Press, 2003.
and attempts to remove books from libraries or schools.
The ALA distinguishes between challenged and banned
books. Books are considered challenged when attempts B oy S c o u t s o f A m e r i c a
are made to restrict or remove them based on the objec- With roots in England dating to 1907, the Boy Scouts
tions of a person or group; a banned book is one that has of America (BSA) was incorporated in 1910 by William
been successfully challenged and physically removed. The D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher. By the first decade of
ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) documents the twenty-first century, it had nearly 5 million scouts
censorship incidents around the country and releases a list and volunteers (including Cub Scouts and Webloes
of the most frequently challenged books each year. as well as Boy Scouts). Because of its strict policy of
Conservative groups, such as the American Family not allowing girls, gays, or atheists as members, the
Association, take issue with the ALA’s focus on chal- organization has frequently had to defend its position
lenged books, but the ALA responds that whether a book against civil libertarian groups such as the American
is merely challenged or subsequently removed, the effect Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Although numerous state
is nonetheless chilling. Conservative groups, however, courts—including those in California, New Jersey, and
50 Boy Scout s of A mer ic a
Illinois—have sided with plaintiffs in discrimination of a “gay exception” to civil rights and created a situation
claims against the Boy Scouts, the U.S. Supreme Court in which homosexuals could be treated differently from
(and the federal government as a whole) has consistently any other group.
supported the Boy Scouts and its right to set membership An underlying tension, however, is that while ad-
standards of its choosing. To do otherwise, it is held, vancing a religious ethos, the BSA receives government
would go against the First Amendment protections of support, as when Scout Jamborees are held on federal
freedom of expression and association. land. In 2002, the Boy Scouts of American Equal Ac-
Since its inauguration by the British war hero Robert cess Act, amended to the No Child Left Behind Act of
S.S. Baden-Powell in 1907, the organization has been 2001, allowed the organization access to public schools
geared toward boys between the ages of fourteen and to hold meetings. In 2005, the Support Our Scouts Act
eighteen. It professes that boys’ needs are different from encouraged government support of the Boy Scouts in
those of girls and that the two genders learn in different general. Opponents contended that such measures violate
ways. The U.S. Congress reiterated this viewpoint in a the establishment clause of the First Amendment (“Con-
charter issued for the Boy Scouts in 1916 and later in gress shall make no law respective of an establishment
one for the Girl Scouts. The Boy Scouts today remains of religion”).
all-male at the scout level, though women have been al- Kirk Richardson
lowed to serve as scoutmasters since 1988. Girls continue
to be denied membership at the scout level, and the U.S. See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Church and State;
federal courts, in cases such as Mankes v. Boy Scouts of Family Values; Gay Rights Movement; Judicial Wars; Outing.
America (1991), have supported this stance by ruling that
providing an outlet for boys does not necessarily imply Further Reading
intentional discrimination against girls. Boy Scouts of America. Fieldbook. Irving, TX: Boy Scouts of
According to the Boy Scouts, the best citizens are America, 2004.
righteous citizens. Its position on religion and belief in Boy Scouts of America Web site. www.scouting.org.
God is woven into the two most important guides for a Mechling, Jay. On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of Ameri-
Boy Scout, the Scout Law and the Scout Oath. Reciting can Youth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
these, a scout promises to be “reverent” and to do his Zeiger, Hans. Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of
“duty to God.” Every advancement through the ranks of America. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman, 2005.
scouting requires the scout to demonstrate, in some way,
his adherence to these tenets. Atheists have brought suit
against the Boy Scouts, alleging that the requirement to B r a d l ey, B i l l
recite these words infringes on their freedom to profess A former professional basketball player and U.S. senator
atheism. In Randall v. Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of (D-NJ), Bill Bradley ran against Vice President Al Gore
America (1998), however, the California Supreme Court in the 2000 Democratic presidential primary, presenting
established that Boy Scouts have legally been granted the himself as a candidate of old-fashioned values and small-
right to require theistic affirmation in its law and oath, town virtues. Of those who supported Bradley over
based on the premise that the Boy Scouts do not force a Gore, 70 percent cited character as the chief reason.
particular religion on their members, only the concept William Warren “Bill” Bradley was born on July 28,
of a higher power. 1943, in Crystal City, Missouri. He studied American
While there is no professed line in the Scout Oath or history at Princeton University (BA, 1965), where he
Scout Law against homosexuality, the former maintains was an All-American in basketball; captained the U.S.
that a scout must be “morally straight” and the latter basketball team in winning the gold medal at the Tokyo
requires that he must be “clean.” The BSA maintains that Olympics (1964); and completed his formal education at
homosexuality is inconsistent with institutional values Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar (MA, 1968). As a
and does not tolerate open homosexuality. Its position starting forward for the New York Knicks (1967–1977),
on homosexuality has been challenged a number of times he was nicknamed “Dollar Bill” by his teammates in
by members and volunteers who are openly homosexual. tribute to his simple lifestyle. During the same period,
In the early 1990s, former Eagle Scout James Dale of he served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves (1967–1978).
New Jersey brought suit after he was dismissed from Upon retiring from the National Basketball Association,
the organization when a newspaper article reported that Bradley served three terms as a U.S. senator from New
he was gay. In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the Jersey (1979–1997).
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the dismissal and refused A pursuer of reform, Senator Bradley was the driving
even to consider Dale’s argument on the merits. The force behind the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was
dissenting opinion argued that the precedent of not designed to cut taxes and eliminate loopholes for spe-
scrutinizing the Boy Scouts’ policy set up the possibility cial interests. He backed the Family Leave and Medical
B rock , Dav id 51
Emergency Act (1993) and Megan’s Law (1996), the latter B r o c k , D av i d

requiring the registration of sex offenders; he opposed the A prominent conservative journalist and columnist
welfare cutback known as the Personal Responsibility in the 1990s, David Brock later became disenchanted
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996; and with Republican Party tactics and conservative politics,
he voted against the Gulf War (1991). When he left the professed a feeling of guilt for his unfair and inaccurate
Senate, he declared the political system “broken.” Later, reporting, and voiced his opposition to conservative
some ridiculed him for seeking the presidency after ren- influence in the media.
dering such a harsh verdict on Washington. Brock was born in Dallas, Texas, on November 2,
As a presidential candidate, Bradley indirectly 1962. After studying journalism at the University of Cali-
criticized Gore and Republican George W. Bush, stating fornia, Berkeley (BA, 1985), he interned at the Wall Street
that his small-town values enabled him to achieve the Journal. He then worked under Norman Podhoretz at the
American Dream without having “a famous family name conservative news magazine Insight (a sister publication
or great wealth.” Bradley called for a new national vision of the Washington Times), and eventually joined the staff
to address family problems such as the 2.8 million chil- of the American Spectator. Brock entered the public eye in
dren in deep poverty, an economic system that requires 1992 with an article criticizing Anita Hill, a law professor
many parents to work several jobs and have less time for and former federal official who had accused Republican-
passing on values to their children, and health care that backed Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of
remains unaffordable for millions of people. During the sexual harassment; the article included Brock’s famous
primary campaign, Bradley was endorsed by Senator Paul characterization of Hill as “a bit nutty and a bit slutty.”
Wellstone (D-MN), Paul Volcker (former Federal Reserve This was followed by a best-selling book, The Real Anita
Board chairman), and Seattle mayor Paul Schell, but he Hill: The Untold Story (1993), which was highly critical
could not compete against Gore’s formidable campaign of Hill and supportive of Thomas and Republican efforts
war chest. Bradley was defeated in every primary, includ- to appoint conservatives to the judiciary.
ing New Jersey. Five weeks after the New Hampshire In a 1994 magazine article, Brock was the first to
primary, he withdrew from the race. report on accusations by Paula Jones and the “Trooper-
In his book The New American Story (2007), Bradley gate” scandal during Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial term
blames special-interest groups, aided by gerrymandered in Arkansas, which began a chain of events that led to an
congressional districts and a sensationalist news media, independent counsel investigation and President Clinton’s
for polarizing the nation by shifting focus away from impeachment. Brock continued to focus on the Clintons
issues important to people of both red and blue states in The Seduction of Hillary Rodham (1996), a sympathetic
(e.g., affordable health care, good schools, pensions, a treatment of the first lady. Brock began to feel abandoned
clean environment, and well-paying jobs) to issues of by conservative colleagues, who were critical of the book’s
primary concern to culture warriors (e.g., abortion, gay lack of scandal. This was a major turning point in his rela-
rights, gun control, medical marijuana, and the display tionship with the Republican establishment.
of the Ten Commandments). Bradley is also the author Brock eventually became disillusioned with his
of Life on the Run (1976), about his professional basket- party’s attitudes toward homosexuals, came out of the
ball experience; The Fair Tax (1982), an argument for closet as a gay man, and recanted many of his previous
tax reform; Time Present, Time Past (1996), a memoir of right-wing statements. He apologized publicly to Anita
his Senate experience and nationwide travels; Values of Hill and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Brock’s mea culpa was
the Game (1998), a collection of essays on basketball and the best-selling memoir Blinded by the Right: The Conscience
character; and The Journey from Here (2001), a reflection of an Ex-Conservative (2002), a work of both soul searching
on his failed bid for president. and investigation into the uses and effects of right-wing
Roger Chapman propaganda. Still, many critics on both the left and right
suspected a self-serving motive behind the confessions.
See also: Democratic Party; Election of 2000; Family Values; In The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and
Gay Rights Movement; Gore, Al; Gun Control; Health Care; How It Corrupts Democracy (2005), Brock theorizes about a
Red and Blue States; Sex Offenders; Tax Reform; Ten Com- structured effort by the right wing to instill a conservative
mandments; Welfare Reform; Wellstone, Paul. bias in the American media, augmented by a strategy of
attacking a supposed liberal bias in the same media. These
Further Reading concerns inspired Brock in 2004 to found Media Matters
Jaspersohn, William. Senator: A Profile of Bill Bradley in the U.S. for America, an Internet-based organization dedicated to
Senate. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. analyzing and countering conservative bias and misinfor-
White, Kenneth John. The Values Divide: American Politics and mation in the media.
Culture in Transition. New York: Chatham House, 2003. Benjamin W. Cramer
52 B rokaw, Tom
See also: Clinton, Hillary; Clinton Impeachment; Gay Rights News (1987) is thought to be a spoof of Brokaw as a
Movement; Gays in Popular Culture; Hill, Anita; Judicial figure who reduces the complexities of news events to
Wars; Media Bias; Neoconservatism; Outing; Republican sound bites and glossy reporting. Yet it is also true that
Party; Sexual Harassment; Thomas, Clarence. Brokaw was successful at securing exclusive interviews
with important world figures, including Mikhail Gor-
Further Reading bachev, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton,
Brock, David. “The Real Anita Hill.” American Spectator, March George W. Bush, and Vladimir Putin. In the early 1970s,
1992. he contributed vital reporting on the Watergate scandal
Hitchens, Christopher. “The Real David Brock.” Nation, May as chief White House correspondent for NBC. Although
27, 2002. conservatives often accused him of a liberal bias, Brokaw
Media Matters Web site. www.mediamatters.org. invited the conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh
York, Byron. “David Brock Is Buzzing Again.” National Review, to appear on NBC Nightly News to offer analysis of the
June 14, 2004. 2002 midterm elections.
Brokaw has focused admiring attention on the World
War II generation in his books The Greatest Generation
B r o k a w, To m (1998), The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflec-
The retirement in 2004 of TV news anchor and best- tions (1999), and An Album of Memories: Personal Histories
selling author Tom Brokaw marked the end of the from the Greatest Generation (2002). He considers the men
media era in which most Americans got their news and women of that era as “the greatest” because of their
from network television. One of the so-called Big Three humility, courage, service to country, and patriotic spirit.
network anchors, Brokaw served as the face of NBC He credits them not only with defeating fascism abroad,
News’s evening broadcast for more than twenty-one but also with expanding civil liberties and social rights
years. His calm demeanor and deep voice of authority in the United States. Brokaw, however, concedes that the
lifted NBC to the top of news ratings, while critics saw generation he admires is to be faulted for mistakes such as
him as representing style over substance in the delivery McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and acting too slowly
of the news. In addition to his broadcasting career, to end Jim Crow restrictions in the South. Even so, his
Brokaw is known for coining the term “the Greatest positive retrospect stands in contrast to the reflections of
Generation,” the title of his 1998 book heralding the some prominent members of the Greatest Generation,
ordinary men and women who came of age during such as Norman Mailer, James Jones, Kurt Vonnegut,
World War II. Joseph Heller, Howard Zinn, Studs Terkel, and William
Born Thomas John Brokaw on February 6, 1940, Manchester. In Boom! Voices of the Sixties (2007), Brokaw
in Webster, South Dakota, he received a bachelor’s focuses on the baby boomers, but in a less than conclusive
degree in political science from the University of South manner than he did with the WWII generation.
Dakota (1962) and married his high school sweetheart.
Prior to joining NBC in 1966, he worked for KTIV in John Balz and Roger Chapman
Sioux City, Iowa (1960–1962), KMTV in Omaha, Ne-
braska (1962–1965), and WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia See also: Civil Rights Movement; Cronkite, Walter; Generations
(1965–1966). He was the late-night anchor for KNBC and Generational Conflict; Limbaugh, Rush; Mailer, Norman;
in Los Angeles (1966–1973), NBC White House cor- McCarthyism; Media Bias; Rather, Dan; Terkel, Studs; Vietnam
respondent (1973–1976), co-host of the morning show War; Watergate; World War II Memorial; Zinn, Howard.
Today (1976–1983), and finally the prime-time anchor for
NBC Nightly News (1983–2004). In 2005, the Franklin Further Reading
and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute presented Brokaw with Brokaw, Tom. A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the Ameri-
the Four Freedoms Medal for contributing to freedom of can Heartland in the Forties and Fifties. New York: Random
speech. Since stepping down as anchor, Brokaw has nar- House, 2003.
rated and produced numerous television documentaries, Goldberg, Robert, and Gerald Jay Goldberg. Anchors: Brokaw,
covering topics from global warming to the war in Iraq Jennings, Rather, and the Evening News. New York: Birch
to religion in America. In January 2007, he delivered a Lane, 1990.
eulogy at the funeral of President Gerald Ford. In June
2008, Brokaw was appointed the interim host of NBC’s
Meet the Press, following the unexpected death of the B r o w n , H e l e n G u r l ey
program’s longtime moderator, Tim Russert. Known for sassy remarks such as “Good girls go to
Brokaw’s style of journalism has been the subject of heaven, bad girls go everywhere” and “A single woman
some debate. The character Tom Grunik (portrayed by is known by what she does rather than by whom she
actor William Hurt) in the Hollywood film Broadcast belongs to,” the author and longtime Cosmopolitan
B ro w n v. B o a rd o f E d u c a t i o n ( 19 5 4 ) 53
magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown sought from Brown, Helen Gurley. I’m Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a
the early 1960s to liberate young, unmarried women Few Brazen Thoughts. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
through sexual empowerment. Her greatest critics were Meadows, Susannah. “The Original Cosmo Girl.” Newsweek,
feminists, yet her “Cosmo Girl” proved to be an enduring June 23, 2003.
cultural icon well into the twenty-first century, even Scanlon, Jennifer. Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen
inspiring the racy HBO television comedy Sex and the Gurley Brown. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
City (1998–2004).
Helen Gurley was born on February 18, 1922, in
Green Forest, Arkansas, and raised in Little Rock, the
B ro w n v. B o a rd o f E d u c a t i o n
daughter of a poor family. After attending Texas State ( 19 5 4 )
College for Women (1939–1941) and Woodbury Busi- With the words “We conclude that in the field of public
ness College (1942), she worked briefly as a secretary education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no
at a New York advertising agency. Her writing ability place,” school segregation in America was unanimously
resulted in her rapid rise as a well-paid ad copywriter. declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court
In 1959, she married film producer David Brown, who in one of the most famous rulings of the twentieth
encouraged her to write the memoirs of her years as a century, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).
single woman. This resulted in the best-seller Sex and For years thereafter, however, the ruling was met with
the Single Girl (1962). resistance. Prince Edward County in Virginia, one of the
From 1965 to 1997, Brown served as editor-in-chief plaintiffs in the case, chose to close its school district.
of Cosmopolitan magazine. She raised circulation from Some states sought to give white parents public funds
750,000 to a high of 3 million copies while developing to send their children to private schools. Even President
the magazine’s trademark of covers featuring glamorous Dwight D. Eisenhower, despite enforcing the court’s
models and big-breasted women exuding sexuality. Out- ruling, never publicly condemned segregation. During
spoken on the topics of love, sex, money, and women’s his inaugural address, nine years after Brown, Alabama
liberation, Brown was occasionally booed in public and governor George Wallace promised, “Segregation now!
pelted with tomatoes. In 1983, she published the best- Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”
seller Having It All, an older and wiser complement to Sex
and the Single Girl. In I’m Wild Again (2000), she boasted Origins and Arguments
of receiving breast implants at age 73. The Brown case began in the fall of 1950, when the
Brown’s strongest critics came from the newly form- National Association for the Advancement of Colored
ing feminist movement. Betty Friedan, the founder of the People (NAACP) asked the Reverend Oliver Brown
National Organization for Women (NOW), referred to and a dozen other parents to enroll their children in
Cosmopolitan as “quite obscene and quite horrible,” add- neighborhood white schools in Topeka, Kansas. As
ing, “It embraces the idea that a woman is nothing but a anticipated, local officials denied the requests, citing
sex object.” Gloria Steinem, however, maintained that it “separate but equal”—the doctrine that there is no
made Brown a feminist “pioneer.” Ultimately, Brown’s discrimination in separating the races if each group
views on sexual liberation and freedom for women lost receives the same quality of public service. In 1951, the
much of their power as she expressed lack of concern about NAACP filed a lawsuit against the local school board,
sexual harassment in the workplace. She went so far as even though the association membership, predominately
to defend Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and educators, was divided over legal strategy. Some feared
U.S. senator Bob Packwood, two public figures accused a direct attack on “separate but equal” could jeopardize
of sexually harassing women. Her philosophy seemed newly won gains, such as black enrollment in previously
anachronistic to many of the younger generation living all-white colleges. Their worst fear was triggering a
in a world of HIV/AIDS. decision that would restate the Supreme Court holding
Stephanie Chaban in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which set the precedent
for “separate but equal” by upholding a Louisiana law
See also: AIDS; Counterculture; Feminism, Second-Wave; requiring the racial segregation of rail passengers. Instead,
Feminism, Third-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Hefner, Hugh; Pack- these NAACP members advised a campaign to improve
wood, Bob; Sexual Harassment; Sexual Revolution; Steinem, black schools in the seventeen segregated states. Black
Gloria; Thomas, Clarence. teachers, it was further argued, would lose their jobs if
schools were desegregated because whites would not
Further Reading want blacks, especially males, teaching their children.
Berebitsky, Julie. “The Joy of Work: Helen Gurley Brown, The federal district court first heard the Topeka case
Gender and Sexuality in the White Collar Office.” Journal on June 25, 1951. Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP at-
of the History of Sexuality 15:1 (2006): 89–127. torney, argued the case on the grounds that segregation
54 Brow n v. Board of Education (1954 )
invalidates the promise of equal protection under the law To help the court arrive at a unanimous decision, Chief
as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Justice Warren allowed six months to explore and
Constitution. Attorneys representing the school officials debate all the issues prior to taking a formal vote. This
rebutted Marshall, arguing that there was no violation enabled the justices to reach a unanimous agreement,
of the Fourteenth Amendment because black children lending greater weight to their ruling.
were “equally protected” by being provided an education The Brown decision was handed down on May 17,
comparable to what white children enjoyed. The district 1954. The basis of the ruling was that segregation was
court ruled in favor of the school officials, citing Plessy damaging to blacks because it “generates a feeling of
as legal precedent. inferiority as to their status in the community that may
Undeterred, the NAACP appealed to the Supreme affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to
Court on October 1, 1951. Four similar cases then be undone.” According to an editorial in the New York
pending with the high court were merged with the Times, “It took no reference to social scientists to know
Kansas appeal. The cases bundled with Brown were that state-enforced segregation was a calculated device
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County to exalt one group and debase another.”
(Virginia), Briggs v. Elliott (South Carolina), Bolling v. In a follow-up 1955 decision, known as Brown II,
C. Melvin Sharpe (Washington, D.C.), and Gebhart v. the high court addressed the difficult matter of imple-
Belton (Delaware). On December 9, 1952, oral argu- menting the standard it had established in the original
ments in Brown were heard before the Supreme Court, ruling. To do so, it assigned principal authority for
with Marshall representing the plaintiffs and John W. supervising desegregation to federal district courts
Davies representing South Carolina and the other school because of their proximity to local conditions—and
systems. To show that school segregation was harming resistance. The justices left it to the district courts to
black children, Marshall cited the “Doll Test” that had develop integration procedures and implement them
been conducted by psychologist Kenneth Clark and his “with all deliberate speed.” Nevertheless, it was not
wife. In that study, young black children were asked to until passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which in-
select their preference of dolls presented before them. cluded a provision restricting federal education funding
A majority chose “Caucasian” dolls over “Negro” ones. to integrated schools, that the holdout states earnestly
The conclusion of the study was that black children, begin dismantling school segregation. Subsequent
as a consequence of segregation, develop self-loathing federal cases have limited the means by which states
and feelings of inferiority. Davies countered that in are permitted to implement integration, and shifts in
nonsegregated schools a higher percentage of black population (including “white flight” from urban areas)
children, 72 percent as opposed to 62 percent, chose the and housing patterns have led to resegregation in many
Caucasian doll. He also quoted from W.E.B. Du Bois, locations. By the mid-1990s, blacks represented the
the renowned black sociologist, who once argued that majority in 90 percent of public schools in metropolitan
it was better to place black children in schools where areas such as Atlanta, Richmond, and Washington, D.C.
they are wanted than in white schools “where they are Minorities accounted for 84 percent of students in New
ridiculed and hated.” York City public schools and 90 percent in Chicago
public schools.
Ruling and Aftermath
The jurists failed to arrive at a decision and, on Martha J. Ross-Rodgers and Roger Chapman
the advice of Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, a
second hearing was scheduled for addressing specific See also: Bunche, Ralph; Busing, School; Civil Rights Move-
questions. Prior to the second round of oral arguments ment; Du Bois, W.E.B.; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Judicial
on December 8, 1953, however, Chief Justice Fred M. Wars; National Association for the Advancement of Colored
Vinson died and President Eisenhower appointed Earl People; Race; Wallace, George; Warren, Earl.
Warren, a California politician, as his replacement.
Although the case was particularly complex because Further Reading
of the different school districts involved, the justices Bell, Derrick. Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and
had to make their decision based solely on whether the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform. New York: Oxford
or not school segregation was a violation of the University Press, 2005.
Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of the matter, Clotfelter, Charles. After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School
at least according to one approach, was the issue of Desegregation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
original intent of the writers of that amendment. In 2006.
interpreting the U.S. Constitution, here was a classic Friedman, Leon, ed. Brown v. Board: The Landmark Oral
tension between a strict constructionist (literal reading) Arguments Before the Supreme Court. New York: New Press,
and loose constructionist (general meaning) approach. 2004.
B r yant , A nita 55
Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board campaigns against gay rights in Kansas, Oregon, Wash-
of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. New ington, and Minnesota. The efforts perpetuated the notion
York: Vintage, 2004. that gays sought to molest children or convert them into
Williams, Juan. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. New homosexuals. Following her victory in Miami, Bryant’s
York: Three Rivers Press, 2000. organization, now called Protect America’s Children, as-
sisted the Briggs Initiative in California, which sought to
ban gays and lesbians from being schoolteachers.
Br yant, Anita Bryant’s lucrative entertainment career suffered after
Born on March 25, 1940, in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, Anita the Dade County vote. She lost a number of show con-
Jane Green Bryant is best known for leading a crusade tracts and her role as spokesperson for the Florida Citrus
against gay rights in 1977. Prior to her incursion into Commission. She had simply become too controversial,
the culture wars, this Southern Baptist was crowned and her promotional appearances and musical tours were
Miss Oklahoma (1958), a runner-up in the Miss America vigorously protested by gays and lesbians across the
pageant (1958), and a successful recording artist. As a United States and Canada.
singer, she performed on several occasions for President In 1978, Bryant and her husband, Bob Green,
Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House and offered the founded Anita Bryant Ministries Christian Heritage
“Battle Hymn of the Republic” at his funeral in 1973. Institute, which offered religious counseling to gays and
In 1969, Bryant became a spokesperson for the lesbians so they could become heterosexual. After the
Florida Citrus Commission and began appearing in a couple divorced in 1980, ending a twenty-year marriage,
series of nationally televised orange juice commercials. Green took over leadership of Anita Bryant Ministries and
That same year, she sang at the Rally for Decency in renamed it Crusade for Morality. In the meantime, Bryant
Miami, organized to protest an alleged act of indecent was shunned by many of the religious conservatives who
exposure by Jim Morrison, lead singer of the rock group had previously supported her. She continued campaigning
The Doors. But Bryant is best known for being the fig- on behalf of religious conservative causes, though by the
urehead of an antigay organization, Save Our Children mid-1980s her public appearances had become increas-
from Homosexuality, Inc. (SOC). ingly intermittent. She remarried in 1990 and afterward
SOC was founded in January 1977 after commis- attempted to resurrect her singing career in small towns
sioners in Dade County, Florida, passed a human rights in Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee.
ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of Bryant’s legacy in the American culture wars is com-
“sexual or affectional preference” in the areas of hous- plex. She served as the figurehead for the conservative
ing, employment, and public accommodations. Bryant backlash against gay civil rights. Her campaign crafted
and SOC protested the ordinance on the grounds that it the rhetoric of child protection that to this day underpins
would “discriminate against children’s rights to grow antigay social movements and legislative campaigns. Yet
up in a healthy, decent community.” SOC reflected Bryant’s efforts also reinvigorated the commitment of the
the assumption that gays target children, stating that gay and lesbian communities to political activism and
“recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for public visibility. The attempts by her organizations to push
the survival and growth of homosexuality—for since homosexuality back into the closet galvanized sexually
homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must recruit, must variant individuals to become politically active. In 1998,
freshen their ranks.” Miami-Dade County passed a new ordinance protecting
By working with activists from conservative churches gays from discrimination, and in 2002 the measure with-
and Orthodox synagogues, SOC gathered enough signa- stood a referendum repeal effort.
tures to have the ordinance put to a public referendum. Gill Frank
SOC was heavily supported by groups that opposed abor-
tion and the Equal Rights Amendment. On June 7, 1977, See also: Beauty Pageants; Censorship; Equal Rights Amend-
the Metro-Dade gay rights ordinance was repealed by a ment; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gay Rights Movement;
69 percent majority of voters; half of all eligible voters Johnson, Lyndon B.; Lesbians; Rock and Roll; Sex Offenders;
cast ballots in the referendum—an unprecedentedly high Southern Baptist Convention.
turnout for a special election. The referendum inspired a
series of legislative and electoral backlashes against gay Further Reading
rights. While some states and municipalities banned gay Adams, Cheryl. Gay Liberation Today: An Exchange of Views. New
adoption rights and marriages, others drafted legislation York: Pathfinder, 1977.
to ban gay organizations from college campuses and Bryant, Anita. The Anita Bryant Story: The Survival of Our Na-
prohibit gays from holding government jobs. Gay rights tion’s Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality. Old
bills were defeated in numerous legislatures. Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1977.
Dade County served as the blueprint for similar ———. A New Day. Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1992.
56 B uchanan, Pat
Buchanan, Pat
Journalist, presidential adviser and speechwriter, and
three-time presidential candidate, the conservative
populist Pat Buchanan is perhaps most noted for his
“culture war” speech to the 1992 Republican National
Convention in Houston, Texas. In that speech, delivered
in support of President George H.W. Bush (who had
defeated him in the Republican primaries), Buchanan
insisted that “this election is about much more than
who gets what,” and that the nation faces a “cultural war
. . . religious war . . . as critical to the kind of nation we
will one day be as was the Cold War itself.” Condemned
by many as overly pugnacious and mean-spirited,
applauded by many others as an effective rallying cry
for the Republican faithful, Buchanan’s speech sought
to frame the 1992 election in cultural terms and to
place the Republican Party on the side of tradition and
virtue.
Born in Washington, D.C., on November 2, 1938,
Patrick Joseph Buchanan was raised as a Roman Catho-
lic and attended Catholic high school and Georgetown
University (BA, English and philosophy, 1961). After
earning his MA from the Columbia School of Journal-
ism in 1962, he began his career as a journalist with
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Pat
the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. A supporter of Republican Buchanan celebrates his showing in the 1992 New Hamp-
candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 and a member of shire primary. In a historic speech at the GOP convention
the conservative Young Americans for Freedom, Buch- that August, he referred to “a culture war [and] religious
anan went on to positions in the Nixon administration war . . . for the soul of America.” (Steve Liss/Time & Life
as an opposition researcher, speechwriter, and political Pictures/Getty Images)
adviser. After a brief stint in the Ford White House,
Buchanan returned to journalism as a columnist and
television and radio commentator. He became popular by Bush, Buchanan himself, and the Republican Party,
as the conservative voice on CNN’s political debate and a relativistic, secular, unbelieving minority that
show Crossfire, a position that he would hold, off and on, had insinuated itself at the highest levels of American
through the 1990s. Buchanan served as White House society, epitomized by Bill and Hillary Clinton and their
communications director during the second Reagan Democratic Party. Buchanan cited a host of political
administration, from 1985 to 1987. He is the author and cultural issues of concern to the Religious Right—
of numerous books, including Right from the Beginning anticommunism, abortion, gay rights, feminism, threats
(1988); A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America’s to Judeo-Christian values, strict constructionist juris-
Destiny (1992); Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neo- prudence, and law and order—each time linking the
conservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked traditionalist position with the Republican Party and
the Bush Presidency (2004); State of Emergency: The Third Bush. At the end of this list of traditional religious and
World Invasion and the Conquest of America (2006); and political virtues, Buchanan offered his famous assessment
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are of the contemporary American scene, referring to the
Tearing America Apart (2007). “cultural [and] religious war” for the soul of the nation,
Buchanan sought the presidency three times, run- in which “Clinton and Clinton are on the other side,
ning unsuccessfully in the Republican primaries in 1992 and George Bush is on our side.” Buchanan’s “our side”
and 1996 and as the Reform Party candidate in the 2000 clearly represented, in his mind, God’s side. Specifically,
general election. In 1992, he mounted a surprisingly he distinguished Bush’s Republican conservatism from
strong challenge to President George H.W. Bush, gar- Clinton’s call for “change,” stating, “[A]bortion on de-
nering nearly 40 percent of the Republican vote in New mand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual
Hampshire and more than 3 million primary votes in rights, discrimination against religious schools, women
all. That campaign produced the “culture wars” speech, in combat—that’s change, all right. But . . . is not the
in which Buchanan drew a stark contrast between a kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still
mainstream, traditional, religious America represented call God’s country.”
B uck ley, William F. , Jr. 57
Although many of his positions on culture war issues Reagan. Buckley’s critics, liberals as well as moderates,
mirror those of the right wing of the GOP, Buchanan’s often found his conservative ideology hostile to civil
relationship with the party has been rocky at best. His liberties. Some on the political right recoiled at his
strong convictions on isolationism and economic national- libertarian positions, such as advocating the legalization
ism have led him to sharply criticize U.S. foreign policy in of drugs and the use of medical marijuana.
the Middle East and to oppose such treaties as the North The son of a wealthy oilman, William Frank “Bill”
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Buchanan Buckley, Jr., was born in New York City on November
has also taken a strong stance against immigration from 24, 1925. Raised as a devout Roman Catholic, Buckley
Mexico, opposing any proposals for guest-worker status or would later approach politics with a moral code based on
amnesty for illegal immigrants. His objections to immi- the tenets of that faith—as he explained in Nearer, My
gration policy are rooted in his view of the United States God: An Autobiography of Faith (1997). Buckley attended
as the product of a white, Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1942–
cultural heritage that is endangered by a rising tide of 1943); served in World War II as a second lieutenant
immigrants who refuse to learn English and assimilate. in the U.S. Army (1944–1946); and studied economics,
Buchanan’s isolationism has put him at odds with many political science, and history at Yale University (BA,
neoconservatives, especially those in the George W. Bush 1950). After a brief stint with the Central Intelligence
administration who engineered the invasion of Iraq. Also, Agency as a covert operative in Mexico (1951–1952),
Jewish conservative intellectuals have been troubled by Buckley wrote for the American Mercury (1952–1955) and
certain of Buchanan’s statements about Israel, regarding then founded the National Review, a biweekly conserva-
them as anti-Semitic. In 2002, Buchanan founded the tive magazine he edited for many years (1955–1990). In
American Conservative, a magazine devoted to defense of his addition to writing some three dozen nonfiction books,
brand of “paleo-conservatism” in the face of what he saw he is the author of the popular spy novel series featur-
as the imperialist ambitions of Bush and his neoconserva- ing the character Blackford Oakes. In 1991, President
tive allies. George H.W. Bush awarded Buckley the Presidential
Andrew R. Murphy Medal of Freedom.
The National Review, with William Rusher as pub-
See also: Anti-Semitism; Bush Family; Catholic Church; Clin- lisher, provided a conservative forum on current events
ton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Election of 2000; Gay Rights chiefly aimed at opinion makers. It also spurred greater
Movement; Globalization; Illegal Immigrants; Israel; Neo- unity within the broad conservative movement, including
conservatism; Religious Right; Republican Party; Women in critics of the New Deal, anticommunist Cold War hawks,
the Military. free-market purists, and social conservatives. In addition
to his role as magazine editor, Buckley hosted a widely
Further Reading viewed television program on current affairs, Firing Line
Buchanan, Pat. “The Election is About Who We Are: Taking (1966–1999). The longest-running program on the
Back Our Country.” In The New Christian Right: Political and Public Broadcasting System (PBS), Firing Line featured
Social Issues, ed. Melvin I. Urofsky and Martha May, 26–29. prominent guests of all political and social persuasions
New York: Garland, 1996. whom Buckley engaged in debate on events and trends
Corn, David. “Buchanan Has a Party.” Nation, May 1, 2000. of the day. As moderator, Buckley was able to articulate
Grant, George. Buchanan: Caught in the Crossfire. Nashville, TN: his conservative ideology to a national audience, just as
Thomas Nelson, 1996. he had been doing since 1962 with his widely circulated
Podhoretz, Norman. “Buchanan and the Conservative Crackup.” syndicated column “On the Right.”
Commentary, May 1992. Buckley’s first public controversy followed the publi-
Shapiro, Edward S. “Pat Buchanan and the Jews.” Judaism 45:2 cation of God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic
(Spring 1996): 226–35. Freedom (1951), an account of his undergraduate experi-
ence that generated a national debate on the ideology of
academics. The book castigated Yale for abandoning its
B u c k l ey, W i l l i a m F. , J r. Christian roots, turning against capitalism, and hiring
Regaled as the catalyst of modern American conservatism, faculty with “intellectual drive toward agnosticism and
William F. Buckley, Jr., actively participated in the collectivism.” The author recommended the dismissal
culture wars with years of political involvement as an of professors guilty of advancing “values . . . against the
author, magazine editor, television host, and public public welfare.” In McCarthy and His Enemies (1954), co-
activist. He founded the National Review in the mid- written with brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell, Buckley took
1950s to campaign against liberalism, which he saw as a similarly rigid line in defense of McCarthyism, calling
undermining the nation’s moral fortitude. Along the it “a movement around which men of goodwill and stern
way he influenced both Barry Goldwater and Ronald morality can close ranks.” Critics over the years, includ-
58 B uck ley, W illiam F. , Jr.
regard was conservative commentator and three-time

presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
During the Nixon administration, Buckley was an
advisory board member of the U.S. Information Agency
(1969–1972). He also served a short stint as a U.S. del-
egate to the United Nations General Assembly (1972), af-
terward exposing the organization’s “anti-Americanism”
in United Nations Journal: A Delegate’s Odyssey (1974).
With Reagan’s ascendancy the following decade, Buckley
found himself an advocate for the establishment. Like
Reagan, Buckley was in essence a cold warrior, sharing
the view that coexistence with the Soviet Union was not
a sustainable option.
Just as Buckley came to regard President Richard
Nixon as too liberal because of his federal intervention
in the economy, he later denounced President George
W. Bush as not being a true conservative because of
his interventionist foreign policy. Buckley’s criticism
of Bush and the Iraq War was in essence a rejection of
Author, magazine publisher, and public intellectual William
neoconservatism. A supporter of globalization, Buckley
F. Buckley, Jr., helped raise conservatism to the center
of political discourse in America. He has been called the was criticized by populist conservatives who believed
“spiritual father of the movement” as well as “the scourge that America’s economy was being damaged by unfair
of American liberalism.” (Truman Moore/Time & Life Pictures/ international trade agreements. In an early book titled
Getty Images) Up from Liberalism (1959), Buckley sided with white
southerners who opposed federal intervention in ending
ing the novelist Gore Vidal, accused Buckley of having segregation—a position he recanted in a 2004 interview.
fascist tendencies. William F. Buckley died at his desk in Stamford, Con-
Wishing to build a conservative base for the future, necticut, on February 27, 2008.
as well as to offset the “liberal” atmosphere found on col- Roger Chapman
lege campuses, Buckley in 1960 helped establish Young
See also: Academic Freedom; Anti-Semitism; Buchanan, Pat;
Americans for Freedom. This organization, which grew
Catholic Church; Cold War; Goldwater, Barry; John Birch
to 55,000 members by the late 1960s, was a kind of
Society; McCarthyism; National Review; Neoconservatism;
training center for young conservatives. In 1961, Buck-
Rand, Ayn; Reagan, Ronald; Republican Party; Soviet Union
ley helped form the New York Conservative Party, and
and Russia; Student Conservatives; Vidal, Gore.
in 1965 he ran as its candidate for mayor of New York
City; he won less than 14 percent of the vote and after- Further Reading
ward wrote a book about the adventure, The Unmaking Bridges, Linda, and John R. Coyne, Jr. Strictly Right: William
of a Mayor (1966). F. Buckley and the Conservative Movement. New York: John
Buckley’s political strategy also entailed attacks Wiley & Sons, 2007.
on the extreme right, in particular “Birchism” (Robert Buckley, William F., Jr., Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Col-
Welch and his John Birch Society) and “Randism” (Ayn lected Speeches with New Commentary by the Author. Roseville,
Rand and her Objectivist philosophy). Buckley saw these CA: Forum, 2000.
fringe groups as bringing discredit on the entire conserva- ———. Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography. Washington,
tive movement and potentially harming the Republican DC: Regnery, 2004.
Party. The John Birch Society was, in his estimation, a Judis, John B. William F. Buckley Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conserva-
kooky group of conspiracy theorists with anticommunist tives. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
positions beyond rational conservatism. In 1957, Buckley Winchell, Mark Royden. William F. Buckley, Jr. Boston: Twayne,
published an unfavorable review of Rand’s popular 1957 1984.
novel Atlas Shrugged that dismissed Objectivists as anti-
Christian, anarchistic, and too extreme in their support of
capitalism. He also intervened to block Rand’s involve- B u d e n z , L o u i s F.
ment in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. A former communist who during the McCarthy era
Years later, Buckley published In Search of Anti-Semitism testified at about sixty Red Scare trials and hearings, Louis
(1992) to warn that anti-Semitism in conservative ranks Francis Budenz was regarded as either an opportunist or
was a political liability; among those he criticized in this a prodigal son. Critics accused him of being a stooge who
B ullard , Rober t D. 59
enjoyed financial gain while shaping his testimony to Budenz, Margaret. Streets. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visi-
suit the needs of federal investigators. Others applauded tor, 1979.
him for returning to his senses after experiencing the Chapman, Roger. “Louis Francis Budenz’s Journey from the
treachery and deceit of the communist underworld. Electric Auto-Lite Strike to the Communist Party and
Born into a devoutly Catholic family on July 17, Beyond.” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 73 (Summer–Fall 2001):
1891, in Indianapolis, Budenz became a political progres- 118–41.
sive in harmony with his religion. After obtaining a law Packer, Herbert L. Ex-Communist Witnesses: Four Studies in Fact
degree at Indianapolis Law School in 1912, he became Finding. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962.
interested in labor and social justice through his work
with various Catholic organizations. After marrying a
divorced woman, however, he was excommunicated from Bullard, Rober t D.
the church. In 1920, he became publicity director for A controversial sociologist and environmental justice
the American Civil Liberties Union. The following year, activist, Robert D. Bullard has argued that racial
he served as editor of Labor Age and worked as a strike inequality and “housing apartheid” in the United States
organizer. In 1934, as national secretary of A.J. Muste’s have caused minority communities to be inordinately and
Conference for Progressive Labor Action, the forerunner adversely affected by industrial pollution. According to
of the short-lived American Workers Party, Budenz was his writings, racism, and not economic inequality, is the
a central figure in the violent Electric Auto-Lite strike root cause of environmental injustice. This position has
in Toledo, Ohio. The following year, he joined the Com- put him at odds not only with political conservatives,
munist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), but also with many in the environmental movement.
serving as a labor organizer as well as managing editor Robert Doyle Bullard was born on December 21,
of the Daily Worker. 1946, in Elba, Alabama. He studied government at
Seeking to mix leftism with nationalism, Budenz Alabama A&M University (BS, 1968) and sociology at
pursued economic justice by developing an “American Atlanta (later Clark Atlanta) University (MA, 1972) and
approach” to revolution. He joined the CPUSA when he Iowa State University (PhD, 1976). He also served a tour
thought it was receptive to his ideas. During this period, with the U.S. Marines (1968–1970). Prior to becom-
the Communist Party, desirous of influencing the labor ing the Ware Professor of Sociology at Clark Atlanta in
movement, introduced the slogan “Communism is the 1994, Bullard taught at a number of institutions in the
Americanism of the twentieth century.” South and on the West Coast. In September 1994, he
Budenz gradually became disillusioned with com- established the Environmental Justice Resource Center
munism, however, and rejoined the Catholic Church. On (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta and assumed its directorship.
October 10, 1945, under the guidance of Msgr. Fulton Working closely with activists, the EJRC has served as a
J. Sheen, he left the CPUSA and took teaching positions clearinghouse for scientific, technical, and legal informa-
first at Notre Dame University and then at Fordham tion on environmental justice issues.
University in New York City. Environmental justice became a topic of academic
Budenz informed the FBI about the CPUSA’s inner inquiry and an essential component of the contemporary
workings, eventually identifying nearly 400 individu- civil rights movement following the publication of Bul-
als he claimed to be communists. In 1948, he joined lard’s Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental
Whittaker Chambers in testifying against Alger Hiss. Quality (1990), which documented locally unwanted
He reportedly received thousands of dollars for his ac- land uses (LULUs) in black communities in Houston
tivities as a former communist. Louis Budenz died on and Dallas, Texas; Emelle, Alabama; Institute, West
April 27, 1972, in Newport, Rhode Island. Virginia; and Alsen, Louisiana. According to Bullard’s
research, black communities are more likely than white
Roger Chapman neighborhoods to be affected by environmentally unsafe
LULUs.
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Catholic Church; Bullard was one of the main organizers of the First
Chambers, Whittaker; Cold War; Communists and Com- National People of Color Environmental Leadership
munism; Conspiracy Theories; Hiss, Alger; Hoover, J. Edgar; Summit, held in October 1991 in Washington, D.C.
Labor Unions; McCarthyism; Sheen, Fulton J.; Soviet Union The four-day gathering led to the issuance of “The Prin-
and Russia. ciples of the Environmental Justice Movement,” a call for
people of color to unite on environmental issues and to
Further Reading join the mainstream environmental movement. Public-
Budenz, Louis F. The Bolshevik Invasion of the West. Linden, NJ: ity of the summit led President George H.W. Bush to
Bookmailer, 1966. create the Office of Environmental Equity (OEE) in the
———. This Is My Story. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947. Environmental Protection Agency. Later, Bullard per-
60 B unche, Ralph
suaded President Bill Clinton to expand the OEE and to Negro Congress to promote an interracial movement
establish the National Environmental Justice Advisory of professional, white-collar, and unskilled workers. In
Council (NEJAC); Bullard served on the NEJAC from 1940, however, he resigned from the organization because
1994 to 1996. it had become communist infiltrated.
Some supporters of environmental justice have In 1939 and 1940, Bunche participated in a study
criticized Bullard’s claims of environmental racism, of African-American status sponsored by the Carnegie
arguing that economic inequality rather than race is Corporation and headed by the Swedish sociologist Gun-
the root cause of environmental injustice. Beyond that, nar Myrdal. Bunche accompanied Myrdal on field trips
many environmentalists regard the environmental justice through the South, narrowly escaping brushes with rac-
movement as a NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) reaction ist mobs, and wrote several manuscripts analyzing black
on behalf of minorities that disregards the broader eco- life, institutions, and leadership. The resulting book by
logical issues. Conservative critics of the environmental Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Mod-
justice movement argue that the examples used to prove ern Democracy (1944), gave scholarly authority to the rising
environmental racism, such as increased cancer and birth- view that Americans must overcome racism in order to
defect rates in minority communities, may not be directly fulfill the country’s democratic ideals. A decade later,
attributable to industrial pollution but may be a function in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a unanimous U.S.
of dietary habits or even statistical anomalies. Supreme Court cited An American Dilemma in outlawing
segregation in public schools.
Sean Parson During World War II, Bunche was an adviser to the
state department and the military as an expert on Africa
See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Environmental Move- and helped draft the trusteeship provisions for the United
ment; Race. Nations. He went on to serve various capacities in the
UN. From 1947 to 1949 he was the secretary of the UN
Further Reading Palestine Commission and was responsible for negotiating
Bullard, Robert D. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from a peace settlement between Jews and Arabs in the Middle
the Grassroots. Boston: South End Press, 1993. East following the establishment of Israel. For that endeavor
———. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Qual- Bunche was awarded the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize.
ity. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990. Although the FBI investigated Bunche in 1953 and
———. The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the 1954 because of his earlier radicalism, his life was widely
Politics of Pollution. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2005. extolled as a rags-to-riches tale that discredited prejudice
Cole, Luke W., and Sheila R. Foster. From the Ground Up: and showed the nation’s progress toward equality. During
Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice the 1960s, black militants such as Malcolm X targeted
Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Bunche as a different kind of symbol: an accommodating
black under white jurisdiction. Yet Bunche spoke at the
March on Washington in 1963, demonstrated for voting
Bunche, Ralph rights in Alabama beside Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1965,
Ralph Bunche, an African-American scholar, teacher, and continued to identify with black freedom struggles
and celebrated United Nations diplomat, documented until his death on December 9, 1971.
pervasive discrimination against blacks and became an Robert Weisbrot
icon of the movement for racial equality.
The son of a barber, Ralph Johnson Bunche was born See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Civil Rights
on August 7, 1904, in Detroit. He later studied interna- Movement; Communists and Communism; Israel; King,
tional relations at the University of California at Los Ange- Martin Luther, Jr.; Malcolm X; Marxism; Race; United Na-
les (BA, summa cum laude, 1927) and Harvard University tions; Wealth Gap.
(MA, 1928; PhD, 1934). For years he was affiliated with
Howard University, as either a professor or an administra- Further Reading
tor (1928–1950). He also briefly taught at Harvard Uni- Henry, Charles P. Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or American Other?
versity (1950–1952). Bunche’s research in Africa shaped New York: New York University Press, 1999.
his vision of racial problems as global, and he devoted his Urquhart, Brian. Ralph Bunche: An American Life. New York:
life to increasing civil rights for African Americans and W.W. Norton, 1993.
independence for people under colonial rule.
A vocal Marxist during the 1930s, Bunche criticized
white liberals for timidity, black leaders for neglecting B u s h Fa m i l y
the masses, and American democracy for failing to address The Bush political dynasty, with three generations
racism and poverty. In 1936, he co-founded the National of electoral success at the state and national levels, is
B u sh Family 61
sometimes viewed as the Republican counterpart to Bush won election to the House of Representatives, where
the Kennedy family. With deep roots in the eastern he would serve two terms (1967–1971). As a moder-
establishment, the Bushes—stalwart Republicans— ate Republican, Bush supported “open housing” and
have been praised for their strong commitment to family planning legislation, positions that would later
public service, and criticized for being too dependent on cause him trouble with the GOP’s conservative wing.
old money and family connections. The politics of the In 1970, Bush lost his second bid for the Senate, but as
Bushes have evolved dramatically as the GOP has been a consolation, President Richard Nixon appointed him
transformed by southerners and social conservatives, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1971–1973).
often placing them in the thick of the culture wars. Other appointments followed, including stints as chair
The Bush political brand traces back to patriarchs of the Republican National Committee (1973–1974),
Samuel Prescott Bush (1863–1948) and George Herbert envoy to China (1974–1975), and director of the Central
Walker (1875–1953), captains of business and industry Intelligence Agency (1976–1977).
during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The financial Although Bush’s extensive government service po-
and social capital they accumulated enabled subsequent sitioned him well to run for president in 1980, Ronald
generations of Bushes to gain access to the top tier of Reagan was the star of the emerging conservative majority
the American society. The families and fortunes merged among Republicans. After defeating Bush in the primary
when Samuel’s son, Prescott, married George’s daughter, campaign, Reagan chose him as his vice presidential
Dorothy. running mate, much to the consternation of the party’s
right wing. Bush served loyally for two terms as vice
Prescott Bush president (1981–1989), but, when he secured his party’s
Prescott Sheldon Bush was born on May 15, 1895, in presidential nomination in 1988, conservatives recalled
Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Yale University his moderate positions in Congress and his criticisms of
(BA, 1917), before serving in the U.S. Army during Reagan’s economic program during the 1980 primary
World War I. After amassing considerable wealth campaign.
working with his father in banking, Bush entered politics. To assuage such concerns, Bush selected as his run-
Although he failed in his first bid for a U.S. Senate seat ning mate the little-known Indiana senator J. Danforth
from Connecticut (1950), two years later he prevailed in a “Dan” Quayle, whose outspoken conservative views
special election. As a member of the Senate (1952–1963), would make him a lightning rod for controversy in the
he maintained a low profile as a moderate Republican. He administration. Bush also sought to reposition himself
was pro-business, fiscally conservative, and an advocate as a strong social conservative, branding his Democratic
of strong national defense. However, he also supported opponent, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, as
progressive social policies such as civil rights reform and an extreme liberal who, as a “card-carrying member of
antipoverty programs. Staunchly anticommunist, he the ACLU,” was on the “wrong side” of every issue in
nonetheless denounced the red-baiting tactics of fellow the culture wars (such as abortion, flag desecration, and
senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), voting to censure capital punishment). Indeed, the Bush campaign ran a
him—a point notably recalled by Governor Bill Clinton of series of highly controversial television spots criticizing
Arkansas in a 1992 presidential debate against Prescott’s Dukakis’s positions on crime, including the notorious
son, George H.W. Bush, when the latter’s campaign Willie Horton ad, successfully creating the impression
questioned Clinton’s patriotism. that Dukakis was soft on law and order. Though the
Horton ad provoked a firestorm of debate, it helped Bush
George H.W. Bush soundly defeat Dukakis in the general election.
Following Prescott Bush’s retirement from the Senate, Bush’s presidency (1989–1993) is best remembered
son George Herbert Walker Bush launched his own for developments in foreign policy. His term coincided
political career. Born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, with the disintegration of the Eastern bloc, the demise
Massachusetts, George was a highly decorated aviator of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. Ironi-
in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, cally, President Reagan received virtually all the credit for
he excelled at Yale (BA, 1948) and then headed for these events. Bush also organized and led the international
Texas, where his family’s wealth and social connections coalition that drove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s in-
facilitated his entry into the oil industry. By the early vading army out of Kuwait during the 1990–1991 Gulf
1960s, Bush was on his way to becoming a millionaire War. Afterward, Bush crowed about ending “the Vietnam
and preparing to enter politics. Syndrome,” though he was later criticized for failing to
Like his father, George H.W. Bush stumbled in finish off Hussein’s regime—a situation notably redressed
his political debut, losing a U.S. Senate race in Texas when his son, George W., became president.
(1964) when his opponent successfully branded him as At home, Bush stoked considerable debate by con-
a northeastern carpetbagger. Two years later, however, tinuing the so-called Reagan Revolution with a series
62 B u sh Family
of controversial domestic policy initiatives, including Accomplished,” he landed in a fighter jet aboard an
attempts to impose limits on abortion rights, supporting aircraft carrier to announce, prematurely as it turned
a constitutional amendment banning desecration of the out, the end of major combat operations in the Iraq
American flag, and shifting the Supreme Court to the War.
right. In this last regard, Bush’s appointment of Clar- After graduating from Harvard, George W. Bush
ence Thomas, a staunch black conservative, to the high relied on family friends to gain entry into the oil busi-
court led to explosive Senate confirmation hearings that ness in Texas. He ran for a seat in Congress in 1978 but
centered on charges of sexual harassment and racism, pro- was defeated after his opponent accused him of trying
viding one of the most dramatic and polarizing chapters to ride northeastern dynastic coattails into office. Bush
of the culture wars. The Thomas nomination was widely returned to the oil business and spent much of the 1980s
seen as an attempt by Bush to redeem his standing among struggling to make headway in an industry beset by a
conservatives dismayed by his earlier appointment to collapse in prices. After a timely sale of his interest in a
the high court of David Souter, who proved to be more Texas energy company, Bush purchased a minority stake
liberal than expected. in the Texas Rangers baseball team, solidifying his state
Bush had also provoked the ire of his conservative connections in advance of his run for governor in 1994. In
base by calling for “a kinder, gentler nation,” thereby that election, he defeated the highly popular incumbent
seeming implicitly to critique some of the more dra- Democrat, Ann Richards, surprising many who saw him
conian aspects of the Reagan Revolution. He earned as something of a privileged ne’er-do-well. He would be
conservatives’ eternal enmity after agreeing to a modest reelected in a landslide in 1998.
tax increase, breaking his famous 1988 “no new taxes” As governor of Texas (1995–2000), Bush advanced a
campaign pledge. Accordingly, Bush faced a spirited conservative agenda that was unabashedly pro-business,
challenge from his party’s right wing during the 1992 while also prioritizing tort and school reform. However,
Republican primaries, when Patrick Buchanan tailored few issues he dealt with generated more publicity than
a campaign that appealed to cultural conservatives on a the controversy surrounding the 1998 execution of Karla
host of polarizing issues such as abortion, school prayer, Faye Tucker, a woman convicted and sentenced to death
immigration, and homosexuality. Bush prevailed over for her role in a gruesome double murder in 1983. While
Buchanan but went on to lose the general election to in prison, Tucker experienced a religious awakening and
Democrat Bill Clinton. In one of his last acts as president, become a model inmate as well as an integral member
Bush pardoned six high-ranking Reagan administration of the prison ministry. As the date of her execution ap-
officials for their involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. proached, Bush was deluged with appeals for clemency,
The action was praised by those who felt the officials were including from such notable figures as Pope John Paul
victims of an overzealous special prosecutor, while crit- II, televangelist Pat Robertson, and Republican House
ics accused Bush of completing a cover-up of the affair, Speaker Newt Gingrich. Bush allowed the execution to
including, possibly, his own role in the episode. proceed as scheduled, maintaining that Texas law pre-
vented him from doing otherwise. The controversy was
Brother Governors revived when, in a magazine interview during the 2000
The abrupt termination of the political career of George presidential campaign, Bush appeared to mock Tucker’s
H.W. Bush shifted the spotlight to two of his sons: appeal for mercy.
George W. Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Jeb Bush, meanwhile, after completing his educa-
Haven, Connecticut; and John “Jeb” Ellis Bush was tion, worked for several years as a banker in Texas and
born on February 11, 1953, in Midland, Texas. Though Venezuela, and then went into real estate development in
raised in Texas, both attended private high school in Florida. He briefly served as Florida’s secretary of com-
Massachusetts. George followed the family tradition, merce (1987–1988) before making an unsuccessful bid
graduating from Yale (BA, 1968) before attending to unseat the popular incumbent Democratic governor,
Harvard Business School (MBA, 1975). Jeb took a Lawton Chiles, in 1994. Bush ran again in 1998 and this
different path, graduating from the University of Texas time won easily; he became the state’s first Republican
(BA, 1974). George also served a five-year stint with the governor elected to a second term when he won in a
Texas Air National Guard (1968–1973) but was later landslide in 2002.
accused of using family influence to get an assignment As governor (1999–2007), Bush was a moderate con-
that would keep him out of Vietnam. Some would be servative. Several of his initiatives sparked considerable
troubled by Bush’s lack of combat experience, given the debate, including a statewide school-voucher program
hawkish positions he adopted as president and the extent and his replacement of affirmative action admissions
to which he seemed to relish his role as commander policies in higher education in favor of a “race neutral”
in chief. The latter was famously underscored in May approach. Governor Bush was also at the center of the
2003 when, under a large banner proclaiming “Mission disputed 2000 presidential election in which the outcome
B u sh Family 63
of the vote in Florida would determine the victor in the Ban Act (2003); (4) ordered the Department of Health
contest between his brother and Al Gore. Although Bush and Human Services to undertake a new review of the
recused himself from the process in light of the obvious safety of the FDA-approved drug RU-486, also known
conflict of interest, doubts about his role in the recount as the “morning after” pill; and (5) gave strong support
were inevitable, given that he was the sitting governor. to abstinence-only sex education programs.
One of the most controversial episodes of Bush’s ten- As part of his program of “compassionate conserva-
ure involved the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman tism,” Bush created the White House Office of Faith-
whose husband was locked in a protracted legal battle Based and Community Initiatives to promote the work
with her parents over whether to remove her from life of religiously oriented charitable organizations. He also
support. After the Florida courts affirmed the husband’s caused a stir by weighing in on other divisive cultural
right to remove the feeding tube in March 2005, Presi- debates, such as whether the concept of intelligent design
dent Bush interrupted a Texas vacation so he could sign ought to be taught alongside evolution in the nation’s
an emergency measure passed by the Republican-led U.S. schools, a position the president embraced; and on the
Congress transferring the case to federal court for review. question of gay marriage, to which he was opposed.
The federal courts declined to get involved, however, and Accordingly, he supported the proposed Federal Mar-
Schiavo passed away several days later. Pro-life advocates riage Amendment, which would constitutionally define
approved of the efforts to stop what they regarded as “ju- marriage in the United States as a union of one man
dicial murder,” but others condemned what was widely and one woman. These policies and stances delighted
perceived as highly politicized governmental meddling social and religious conservatives. Nevertheless, many
in a private family matter. others, including some moderate Republicans, saw the
initiatives as an attempt to impose the policy preferences
George W. Bush of the Religious Right on all Americans and, in some
In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush instances, as blurring the line of separation between
prevailed over the incumbent vice president, Al Gore, church and state.
in one of the closest and most controversial presidential Conservatives likewise welcomed the administra-
contests in U.S. history. Although Bush campaigned tion’s participation in a pair of pivotal Supreme Court
as “a uniter, not a divider,” he implemented a series cases—Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger
of decidedly conservative policies immediately upon (2003)—challenging affirmative action admissions poli-
taking office, raising doubts about the sincerity of his cies at the University of Michigan. Plaintiffs in the cases,
promise to mend the nation’s sharp political divisions. backed by the Bush administration, charged that the
As a result, his two terms as president (2001–2009) school’s use of affirmative action in admissions amounted
sharply escalated the culture wars in a variety of ways. to a quota system and urged the high court to invalidate
Bush put tax cuts and education reform at the top it. While the justices narrowly upheld the policy of af-
of his domestic agenda and had considerable success firmative action, they did order significant modifications
in these areas. During his first term, Congress enacted to the way in which the university tailored its policies,
several rounds of broad-based tax cuts, and he won pas- allowing both supporters and critics of affirmative action
sage of a landmark education bill, the No Child Left to claim a modest victory in the cases.
Behind Act of 2001. The law tied federal supplemental No aspect of George W. Bush’s presidency, however,
funding of state education to results on proficiency tests provoked more contentious debate than his conduct of
and made it easier for parents to remove their children what the administration called the War on Terror, which
from underperforming schools. Several years after the began in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.
law’s enactment, reform supporters pointed to modest The administration sought to define the war as a Man-
improvements in standardized test scores as evidence of ichean cultural struggle, with Bush famously declaring
the policy’s success. Detractors charged that the reform in a speech before a joint session of Congress, “Either
forced educators to “teach to the test” at the expense of you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Accord-
genuine learning. ingly, policymakers in the administration insisted that
Far more polarizing, however, were initiatives to the asymmetrical nature of the War on Terror required
advance a conservative social policy agenda. For ex- that national security strategies be dramatically recon-
ample, in the name of promoting a “culture of life,” ceptualized if the United States was to prevail in the
Bush (1) restored the Reagan-era ban on federal funds struggle. As a result, many of the antiterror initiatives
to any nongovernmental aid organization that offers or authorized by Bush raised vexing questions regarding the
even mentions abortion services; (2) limited federally government’s ability to protect national security without
funded research on stem cells to existing lines in order unduly encroaching on core constitutional principles
to exclude usage of additional human embryonic organ- and national ideals. Among these initiatives were: (1)
isms; (3) signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion the indefinite detention and harsh treatment—perhaps
64 B u sh Family
even torture—by American authorities of those whom gan, Ronald; Republican Party; Schiavo, Terri; September 11;
the administration referred to as “illegal combatants”; Stem-Cell Research; Tax Reform.
(2) reluctance to provide detainees with basic rights of
habeas corpus and due process; (3) allegations that some Further Reading
prisoners were subjected to a practice known as “extraor- Eksterowicz, Anthony J., and Glenn P. Hastedt, eds. The Presi-
dinary rendition,” whereby they had been transferred to dencies of George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush:
another nation and subjected to what some call “torture Like Father Like Son? New York: Nova Science Publishers,
by proxy”; (4) and questions about how broad the gov- 2008.
ernment’s authority to conduct domestic surveillance Minutaglio, Bill. First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family
ought to be. Supporters of the administration praised Dynasty. New York: Times Books, 1999.
such measures as tough but necessary given the nature Parmet, Herbert. George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee.
of the terrorist threat. However, many raised concerns New York: Scribner, 1997.
that the administration’s basic approach to the War on Phillips, Kevin. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and
Terror undermined the very ideals and principles it was the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush. New York: Viking
fighting to defend. Penguin, 2004.
Equally controversial was the Bush Doctrine, the Schier, Steven E. Panorama of a Presidency: How George W. Bush
doctrine of preemptive war, which the administration Acquired and Spent His Political Capital. Armonk, NY: M.E.
invoked when invading Iraq in 2003 to topple the regime Sharpe, 2009.
of Saddam Hussein. In justifying the war, the administra- Schweizer, Peter, and Rochelle Schweizer. The Bushes: Portrait
tion made a concerted effort to link in the public’s mind of a Dynasty. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
memories of the terror attacks of September 11 to what it Weisberg, Jacob. The Bush Tragedy. New York: Random House,
insisted was the imminent likelihood that the Iraqi dicta- 2008.
tor would obtain weapons of mass destruction. Defenders
of the administration’s actions argued that the lesson of
September 11 was that national security interests require Busing , School
going on the offense against possible threats; thus, it Busing, often court ordered, represented an attempt
was argued, preemptive action against the Iraqi dictator to desegregate schools across the nation after the U.S.
was prudent. However, critics noted that there was no Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
link between the September 11 attacks and the Hussein (1954), which held that separate school systems on
government; moreover, they argued, Iraq posed no im- account of race are ipso facto unequal and therefore
mediate threat to the United States, and the administra- unconstitutional. The courts believed that it was
tion “cherry-picked” intelligence information to make a necessary to bus students in order to redistribute them
fallacious argument that Hussein had weapons of mass to achieve racial balance and end segregated school
destruction. Preemptive war, critics warned, represented systems that reflected segregated housing patterns so
a radical and dangerous departure from the fundamental common in many communities. Busing proved highly
principles of American foreign policy. unpopular, leading to heated debates that focused on
The War on Terror opened significant new fronts school quality, taxation, and the time children spent on
in the culture wars, as it pitted national security hawks, the buses. In some cases, the anger aroused by busing
who demanded no holds barred in the pursuit of terror- necessitated that school buses be escorted by police.
ists, against those who insisted terrorists can be fought Among the most poignant illustrations of the culture
without undermining cherished American principles. As wars was the 1976 antibusing protest in south Boston
he was nearing the end of his second term in office, the cu- in which a white demonstrator used an American flag
mulative effects of five years of difficult and inconclusive on a pole as a spear to attack a black man, a scene that
struggle in Iraq, continued controversy over the handling was captured in a photograph that won a Pulitzer Prize.
of enemy combatants, and an economy teetering on the Polls over the years have shown that a majority of both
brink of recession saddled Bush with the lowest public- whites and blacks oppose busing.
approval ratings in the history of the modern presidency. School busing began in the late 1960s and was first
It is certain that the legacy of George W. Bush will cast a addressed by the Supreme Court in Swann v. Charlotte-
long shadow over the fortunes of the Bush family dynasty Mecklenburg School District (1971). The case focused on a
well into the twenty-first century. North Carolina school district where, given segregated
Sven Dubie housing patterns and the policies of the school system,
more than half the African Americans attended schools
See also: Abortion; Affirmative Action; Capital Punishment; that were 99 percent black. The ruling specified that it
Cold War; Compassionate Conservatism; Election of 2000; was necessary to end segregation resulting directly from
Faith-Based Programs; Horton, Willie; Judicial Wars; Rea- school district policies but did not address discrimination
B y rd , Rober t C . 65
based on housing patterns in general. In other words, districts. In lieu of attempting to integrate the schools,
state-imposed segregation (de jure discrimination, or dis- the judiciary has focused on ensuring equal resources to
crimination by law) was distinguished from unintentional all students regardless of race.
discrimination (de facto discrimination, or discrimina-
tion from social factors not based on law). In this case, Anthony C. Gabrielli
the Supreme Court approved the lower court’s decision
to require busing as a means of achieving integration. See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Civil Rights Move-
The Swann decision led many school districts across the ment; Homeschooling; Race.
nation to begin implementing busing.
In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the Supreme Court Further Reading
ruled against a regional approach to school desegrega- Jones, Andrew G. “Busing, ‘White Flight,’ and the Role of
tion. At issue in this case was the Detroit school dis- Developers in the Continuous Suburbanization of Frank-
trict, characterized by predominately black schools in a lin County, Ohio.” Urban Affairs Review 34:2 (1998):
city surrounded by predominately white schools in the 340–59.
suburbs. The discrepancy between the Detroit school Lukas, Anthony. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives
district and the surrounding communities was the re- of Three American Families. New York: Knopf, 1985.
sult of white flight from the inner city, a national trend Riddle, David. “Race and Reaction in Warren, Michigan, 1971
in the 1960s and 1970s. Much of the migration was a to 1974: Bradley v. Milliken and the Cross-District Bus-
response to the Brown and Swann decisions. In Milliken, ing Controversy.” Michigan Historical Review 26:2 (2000):
the lower court’s decision to require suburban districts 1–50.
to work with urban districts in achieving integration Rossell, Christine. The Carrot or the Stick for School Desegregation
was struck down. Policy: Magnet Schools or Forced Busing. Philadelphia: Temple
The Milliken decision reinforced white flight, as University Press, 1992.
it led many white parents simply to move to predomi-
nantly white school districts. As a result, only black
children were left in many urban districts. Once settled By rd, Rober t C .
in a predominantly white district, parents no longer Elected nine times to the U.S. Senate, most recently
had to worry about their children being bused to black in 2006, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia made his
schools. The white flight resulted in lower tax bases mark as a maverick politician and socially conservative
for the inner cities, increasing the disparity of wealth Democrat, often defying categorization in the culture
between suburban white schools and predominantly wars.
black inner-city schools. In cases where school districts Born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr., in North Wilkes-
were racially mixed and integration was required by boro, North Carolina, on November 20, 1917, he was
law, many white students opted for private school or adopted (and renamed) by maternal relatives in West
homeschooling. Many school systems offered magnet Virginia after his mother’s death in the 1918 influenza
schools in order to attract students of a different race to pandemic. The valedictorian of his high school class,
promote voluntary integration. Byrd did not first go to college but worked at a series
The wealth disparity between school districts re- of odd jobs. During World War II, he was a welder in
sulted in the next phase of litigation. In Missouri v. Jenkins ship construction. After ten years of night classes, Byrd
(1995), the Supreme Court ordered equality in spending completed law school at American University (JD, 1963),
across school districts within a state to alleviate the effects only later obtaining his undergraduate degree from Mar-
of discrimination. But because the goal of desegregating shall University (BA, 1994).
predominantly black districts would be impossible in Famous for fiddle playing while electioneer-
light of the Milliken decision, the debate was transformed ing, Byrd first held public office in West Virginia’s
from desegregation or integration of the schools to one lower house (1946–1950) and later in the state senate
of equal treatment of students. The lower court also had (1950–1952). This was followed by three terms in the
ordered raising taxes on inner-city residents to increase U.S. House of Representatives (1952–1958). Since
funding for inner-city schools, but the Supreme Court first being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958, Byrd
repealed the tax increase as a violation of the “separa- has served in numerous leadership capacities, including
tion of powers.” The Court upheld equality in per-pupil majority whip (1971–1976), majority leader (1977–
spending, but left it up to the legislature to work out 1980, 1987–1988), minority leader (1981–1986),
the funding details. and president pro tempore (1989–1994, 2001–2003,
In many respects, the debate over busing to achieve 2007–). In February 2007, he became the longest-
desegregation has come full circle. The courts now accept serving senator, surpassing the record set by Strom
de facto segregation in housing patterns and hence school Thurmond (R-SC).
66 B y rd , Rober t C .
Byrd’s first major controversy was accounting for Constitution in 1999 when he offered a resolution that
his membership in the Ku Klux Klan during the 1940s, would have dismissed the impeachment charges against
an affiliation revealed during his 1952 congressional Bill Clinton, despite his believing that the president had
bid. Although he claimed to have been attracted to the committed crimes.
KKK because of its anticommunism, many remained In actuality, Byrd disliked Clinton and several times
convinced that there were racist motives. Later, he fili- refused to attend his State of the Union addresses. As he
bustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and voted later explained, “His lifestyle and mine were so differ-
against the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Subsequently, ent I didn’t care about coming to hear him.” But of the
Byrd apologized for both his KKK past and his opposi- dozen presidents holding office during Byrd’s time on
tion to the civil rights movement, but critics noted that Capitol Hill, he disliked George W. Bush the most. In
he is the only senator to have voted against the only two 2002, Byrd opposed the creation of the Department of
blacks appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court—Thurgood Homeland Security, which he called a “snake” for giving
Marshall (1967) and Clarence Thomas (1991). In 2001, too much power to the executive branch. Byrd also voted
he was embroiled in controversy after referring to “white against the Iraq War resolution that year, after making
niggers” during an interview on the Fox News channel. an impassioned speech that some would later regard as
For fiscal conservatives, Byrd represents liberal prophetic. In Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and
spending. Taking advantage of his many years as a mem- Arrogant Presidency (2004), he castigated President Bush
ber (often serving as chair) of the Senate Committee on for abuse of power.
Appropriations, Byrd is said to have arranged numerous Roger Chapman
“pork projects” for his state. During his 2000 reelection
campaign, claiming credit for directing $1 billion in See also: Bush Family; Civil Rights Movement; Clinton Im-
federal grants to his state, he said, “West Virginia has peachment; White Supremacists.
always had four friends: God Almighty, Sears Roebuck,
Carter’s Liver Pills, and Robert C. Byrd.” Further Reading
Known for carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution Byrd, Robert C. Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Ar-
in his coat pocket and for regularly quoting passages from rogant Presidency. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.
it during legislative debates, Byrd in 2004 amended a ———. Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields.
budget bill to include a provision requiring all colleges Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2005.
receiving federal aid to hold an education program on U.S. Senate. “Tributes to the Honorable Robert C. Byrd in
the U.S. Constitution each September 17 (Constitution the Senate.” Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Day). Republicans have accused Byrd of ignoring the Office, 1990.
Watergate disclosures, the Federal Election Commis-
sion (FEC) was established with additional limits set on
campaign donations.
The major remaining loophole involved what came
to be called “soft money” contributions. Although
Campaig n Finance Refor m “hard money” contributions (to a specific candidate’s
Among the most enduring features of American campaign) were limited, contributors were free to make
politics is a popular suspicion that politicians are more unlimited contributions to the political parties for so-
influenced by special interests than by the general called party-building activities. This shifted the burden
welfare of the nation. While bribery, graft, and other of solicitation from the individual candidates to state and
forms of overt corruption have long been illegal, the national party commissions. Arguably, this constituted
American electoral process leaves the door open to a an improvement, since it insulated individual politicians
more covert avenue of influence. Since candidates for from direct obligation to large donors. As soon as the
public office must amass great sums of money to fund loopholes were figured out, however, the influence of
their campaigns, they are vulnerable to influence from special interests on legislation continued more or less
large contributors. unabated.
Campaign finance reform in its many forms and This led to yet another round of campaign finance
incarnations is in essence the effort to place barriers be- reform, especially after the 2000 election. The Bipartisan
tween those who contribute to campaign war chests and Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as
the influence this inevitably exerts over the recipients. the McCain-Feingold Bill—after its two Senate sponsors,
Those assigned the task of cultivating and maintaining John McCain (R-AZ) and Russ Feingold (D-WI)—
contributor enthusiasm naturally look for loopholes in sought to severely limit soft money activities by political
reform legislation; that is, they seek new ways for con- parties. Once again, however, before the bill was even
tributors to show their appreciation to politicians will- passed, articles appeared in both the professional and
ing to bend the system in their favor. As the loopholes popular press outlining the loopholes.
are found and exploited, they become the normal way The issue of campaign finance reform was eclipsed
of conducting business, eventually sparking calls for a entirely by the so-called “K Street Project” of Republican
new round of campaign finance reform legislation. congressional leaders during the George W. Bush admin-
Since the 1950s, the Republican Party has been the istration. The K Street Project left all subtlety aside and
main recipient of largesse from the corporate business instituted an open policy of mutuality between special
and managerial class, while the Democratic Party has interest lobbyists and the Republican Party. The GOP
been the main recipient of largesse from the professional gained in the relationship in the form not only of swelling
and, through labor unions, working classes. Generally campaign war chests, but also of well-paid jobs for friends
speaking, when a Democratic politician rails against and family, expensive travel, elite dining, and exclusive
the undue influence of special interests, he or she is social gatherings. Washington lobbyists, in exchange,
pointing a finger at large corporations; the same speech gained all but unfettered access to politicians whose vote
coming from a Republican candidate is likely to point directly affected their industries. Bills with complete sec-
at big labor and trial lawyers as the villains. Propos- tions written word-for-word by lobbyists were regularly
als for campaign finance reform have focused on how introduced; in some cases the lobbyists were seen on the
money can be raised, how much donors can give, and House floor making last-minute text changes before the
how money can be spent—up to and including proposals bills were dropped into the hopper.
for 100 percent public financing of political campaigns. Such unconcealed influence peddling was unpre-
The fact that politicians of both parties benefit from the cedented in modern American history and was made pos-
status quo and contributions from special interests leads sible only because the normal channels of congressional
in no small part to the widespread cynicism regarding self-regulation were clogged. A strong Republican major-
reform efforts. ity in both houses, combined with a purposeful gutting of
Although campaign finance reform dates back to the House Ethics Committee’s power to regulate member
at least the 1860s, the contemporary movement can be behavior, left the doors open to the kinds of abuses that
traced to the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) subsequently occurred. The failure of campaign finance
of 1971. This legislation, passed by a Democratic- reform was highlighted by the scandal involving Jack
controlled Congress and aimed largely at the Nixon ad- Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist and Bush supporter who
ministration in light of rumors of sacks full of cash being in 2006 pled guilty to multiple felony counts pertaining
passed around in closed offices, basically required public in part to the corruption of public officials.
disclosure of the sources of campaign contributions and In light of these revelations, campaign finance re-
transparency in campaign expenditures. In wake of the form has come to be seen as less important than certain
67
68 C ampolo, A nthony “ Tony ”
customs of legislative procedure—especially so-called those positions and have allowed those issues to define
earmarks, whereby substantive measures can be added their political views too narrowly.
to bills without vote or publicity. If the larger bill In his writings on the culture wars in evangelical
passes, the earmark passes as well. Earmarks can be churches, Campolo depicts a struggle between funda-
used to fund special projects, protect specific industries mentalists and modernists. He regards the takeover of
from legal action, or make special exemptions to federal the Southern Baptist Convention by theological conser-
regulations, among other things. It is widely suggested vatives during the 1980s as a gain for fundamentalism.
that the smart money from special interests is aimed at According to Campolo, traditional modernists focused
earmarking legislation, and real reform to the system attention on the Social Gospel and were less concerned
must include the curtailment of such practice. Yet, while about evangelism; fundamentalists focused on evangelism
opposition to earmarking is strong and bipartisan at the but, because they regarded the world as “lost,” saw ef-
grassroots level, politicians of both parties benefit from forts for social justice as equivalent to rearranging deck
the practice—making curtailment unlikely. chairs on the Titanic. Evangelicals, who rejected the anti-
intellectualism of fundamentalists, were urged by leaders
Daniel Liechty such as Carl Henry, often to no avail, to apply the whole
gospel of evangelizing and promoting social justice.
See also: Bush Family; DeLay, Tom; Democratic Party; Labor Many of today’s evangelicals, laments Campolo, rep-
Unions; McCain, John; Nixon, Richard; Republican Party; resent a new strain of fundamentalism. Over time, largely
Watergate. in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion
in Roe v. Wade (1973), evangelicals became politicized
Further Reading but, like the fundamentalists, harbored pessimism about
Continetti, Matthew. The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the society. Consequently, many of today’s evangelicals are
Republican Machine. New York: Doubleday, 2006. not interested in social justice and reject political pro-
Corrado, Anthony. Campaign Finance Reform: Beyond the Basics. gressivism, instead bolstering the Religious Right and
New York: Century Foundation Press, 2002. aligning with the Republican Party.
Smith, Bradley A. Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Campolo has challenged evangelicals to care more
Reform. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. about children already born. “I have three things I’d like
Urofsky, Melvin I. Money and Free Speech: Campaign Finance to say today,” he began many speeches during the 1980s.
Reform and the Courts. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, “First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died
2005. of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second,
most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worst is that you’re
more upset that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids
C a m p o l o , A n t h o ny “ To ny ” died last night.” He has complained that the Christian
A Baptist minister representative of the progressive Coalition cares more about tax cuts for the wealthy than
wing of evangelicals, and a popular speaker and author, the plight of the poor, whom he says the Bible refers to
Anthony “Tony” Campolo has been a vocal opponent of 2,000 times.
the Religious Right, denouncing it as less than biblical. Roger Chapman
He shares leanings with the Christian progressives Jim
Wallis and Ron Sider. See also: Abortion; Anti-Intellectualism; Christian Coali-
Born Anthony Campolo on February 25, 1935, in tion; Evangelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Progres-
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of a union organizer, sive Christians Uniting; Religious Right; Roe v. Wade (1973);
he studied at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, Same-Sex Marriage; Sider, Ron; Southern Baptist Convention;
where beginning in 1965 he taught sociology. He ob- Wallis, Jim.
tained a PhD at Temple University in 1968 and ran for
Congress as a Democratic candidate in 1976. Although Further Reading
subjected to a charge of heresy raised by pastors of the Campolo, Tony. Can Mainline Denominations Make a Comeback?
Evangelical Free Church in 1985, he was cleared by the Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1995.
Christian Legal Society. During the Monica Lewinsky ———. Is Jesus a Republican or a Democrat? Dallas: World Books,
scandal, Campolo was a spiritual counselor to President 1995.
Bill Clinton. ———. Speaking My Mind. Nashville, TN: W. Publishing
As a participant in the culture wars, Campolo has Group, 2004.
argued that neither of the two main political parties rep- Mason, John Oliver. “Meet Evangelist Tony Campolo.” Progres-
resents the Christian faith. Like the Religious Right, he sive, August 2005.
is against abortion and same-sex marriage, but he thinks Olsen, Ted. “The Positive Prophet.” Christianity Today, Janu-
that many evangelicals have been unloving in articulating ary 2003.
C apital P unishment 69
Canada Capital Punishment

Many Americans perceive few major differences Capital punishment, widely referred to as the death
between the United States and Canada. On particular penalty, is the supreme act of punishment that over
moral and social issues, however, Canada has come the years has been imposed for major criminal offenses,
to play a significant role in the contemporary culture such as murder, sexual assault, and treason. The most
wars. For example, considering that Canadians tend common method of execution in the United States today
to be more liberal than Americans on issues such as is lethal injection, but electrocution, the gas chamber,
abortion, capital punishment, and gay rights, it is not hanging, and the firing squad have also been used since
surprising that American conservatives may formulate the 1970s. From 1930 to 2008, the United States
negative comments about Canada. Canada’s refusal to carried out a total of 4,900 executions (including 36
take part in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, as well by federal authorities). Although a vast majority of the
as its recognition of same-sex marriage and its softer cases involved murder, less than 1 percent of homicides
stance on marijuana possession, sparked attacks from in America result in the death penalty.
conservative advocates, journalists, and politicians in
the United States. In April 2004, conservative television The “Modern Era”
host Bill O’Reilly of Fox News called for a boycott In the culture wars, aside from the ages-old
on Canadian goods and services after two American philosophical and moral debate, the death penalty has
military deserters fled to Canada. The desertions were been controversial because of issues pertaining to race,
a reminder that thousands of American draft dodgers the moral culpability of the mentally handicapped and
had sought refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War, juveniles, and wrongful convictions. Many of the U.S.
which created a significant cultural and political issue Supreme Court cases on capital punishment have been
for both countries. split verdicts, indicative of political polarization that
On the liberal side of America’s ideological divide, is part of the judicial wars. These cases have focused
views about Canada are generally more positive. In Mi- primarily on the issue of prohibiting “cruel and unusual
chael Moore’s 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, punishment” as guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment
for example, Canada is depicted as a much safer and more to the U.S. Constitution and as applied to the states by
peaceful country than the United States, where gun vio- the Fourteenth Amendment.
lence and fear are seen as widespread. And Canada has Supporters of capital punishment, including groups
enacted reforms that many liberal politicians would like such as the Texas-based Justice For All (founded in 1993),
to implement in the United States, such as gay rights view it as carrying out justice and bringing closure to the
and universal health care. victim’s family. They also argue that the death penalty
The conjunction of liberal reforms in Canada and the deters crime and costs less than lifetime incarceration.
conservative ideology of the George W. Bush adminis- However, criminologists report a lower murder rate in
tration in the United States increased the apparent gap states without the death penalty and note the legal costs
between these two countries at the start of the twenty- of imposing a death sentence as dwarfing what is spent for
first century. It is likely that on specific moral and social long-term imprisonment. Those against the death pen-
issues, Canada will remain a focus of conservatives and alty regard it as an archaic practice, rooted in primitive
liberals involved in America’s culture wars. vengeance and out of step with the advances of modern
jurisprudence. They further note that, as one of the last
Daniel Béland industrialized nations still clinging to the death penalty,
the United States is in league with China, Saudi Arabia,
See also: Abortion; Capital Punishment; Gay Rights Move- Iran, and Pakistan, which together are responsible for 88
ment; Gun Control; Health Care; Moore, Michael; O’Reilly, percent of the world’s executions (according to Amnesty
Bill; Same-Sex Marriage; School Shootings; War on Drugs. International), while 135 other nations, including mem-
bers of the European Union, have abandoned the practice.
Further Reading It could be argued that the Supreme Court decision in
Banting, Keith, George Hoberg, and Richard Simeon, eds. Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008)—a 5–4 ruling that limits the
Degrees of Freedom: Canada and the United States in a Changing death penalty to crimes involving loss of life, and exclud-
World. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997. ing even the rape of an eight-year-old girl—indicates a
Grabb, Edward, and James Curtis, eds. Regions Apart: The Four subtle shift in American legal philosophy. A majority of
Societies of Canada and the United States. New York: Oxford Americans favor capital punishment, but the number has
University Press, 2005. been slipping (65 percent in 2006 versus 80 percent in
Lipset, Seymour Martin. Continental Divide: The Values and 1994, according to Gallup). As of 2008, thirty-six states
Institutions of the United States and Canada. New York: Rout- plus the federal government (and the armed forces) had
ledge, 1990. laws sanctioning capital punishment.
70 C apital P unishment
Opponents of the death penalty demonstrate against the execution of a prisoner in California in 2005. Capital punishment
has remained one of the most contentious and enduring social issues in modern America. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The so-called modern era of capital punishment in (103), Oklahoma (89), and Florida (67). Kansas, New
the United States began with the 1977 execution of Gary Hampshire, and the armed forces did not carry out any
Gilmore, who had robbed and murdered two people the executions during this period, despite having the legal
previous year. His death by firing squad, the subject of authority. Most of the fourteen states that do not have
Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Ex- the death penalty are “blue states.”
ecutioner’s Song (1979), was preceded by two landmark Su-
preme Court cases—Furman v. Georgia (1972) and Gregg v. Questions of Fairness and Decency
Georgia (1976). The first decision, a 5–4 vote, overturned The anti–death penalty movement has largely been
the death penalty on the grounds that its implementation represented by the American Civil Liberties Union
was “freakish,” “random,” and therefore a violation of the (ACLU) and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The Penalty, the latter of which was founded in 1976 and is
second decision, a 7–2 verdict, lifted the moratorium on headquartered in Washington, D.C. These organizations
executions following Furman, as a majority of the justices have been joined by the National Association for the
were convinced that the state of Georgia (along with Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense
others) had remedied the earlier constitutional concerns Fund, which since the 1960s has made race an issue in
with corrective legislation. The Gregg decision explicitly the debate on capital punishment. Although African
ruled that capital punishment, if applied fairly, is not Americans constitute about 14 percent of the total U.S.
cruel and unusual but “an extreme sanction, suitable to population, they represented some 42 percent of the
the most extreme of crimes.” Some states, in an effort to 3,263 individuals on “death row” in 2007. Of the total
avoid arbitrariness, automatically mandated the death executions in the period 1976–2007, 34 percent were
penalty for certain crimes, an approach overruled by the black. Supporters of the death penalty argue that race is
high court in Woodson v. North Carolina (1976). From not an issue if a person has in fact committed a capital
Gilmore’s death through February 2009, a total of 1,151 crime; critics point to studies showing that blacks tried
executions were carried out nationwide. A vast majority for murder are more likely to receive the death penalty
occurred in “red states,” including Texas (431), Virginia than whites in the same legal situation. Statistics also
C arson , Rachel 71
show that cases involving white murder victims are more Some people have turned against the death penalty
likely to result in the death penalty than those of black because they have lost confidence in the justice system due
murder victims. This issue was considered in McCleskey to the many reports of wrongful convictions. In February
v. Kemp (1987), with the plaintiff arguing that capital 1997, the American Bar Association passed a resolution
punishment is a violation of “equal protection under calling on states to desist from carrying out death sen-
the law” as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. tences until ensuring that capital cases “are administered
In that 5–4 decision, the majority of the high court fairly and impartially” in order to “minimize the risk that
determined there was no proof the jury in Georgia had innocent parties may be executed.” From 1973 to 2008, a
exercised racial discrimination, even though that justice total of 129 people had been released from death row after
system was reportedly eleven times more likely to seek being acquitted, having charges against them dropped, or
the death penalty in cases involving blacks. receiving a governor’s pardon based on newly discovered
Other controversies have focused on the moral evidence. The average person experiencing a wrongful
culpability of offenders who are juveniles or mentally conviction spent nearly ten years in prison. In sixteen of
handicapped. In Supreme Court cases beginning with these cases, DNA evidence brought exoneration. Most
Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988) and Stanford v. Kentucky dramatically, in 2000, Illinois governor George Ryan
(1989), culminating with Roper v. Simmons (2005), it cleared the state’s death row of 164 inmates and imposed
was ruled that executing a minor for a capital offense (or a moratorium on executions, citing his concern about the
an adult for a capital offense committed when he or she state’s thirteen wrongful convictions. Prior to leaving
was a minor) represents cruel and unusual punishment. office in 2003, Ryan commuted all the death sentences
The question of the mentally handicapped was brought to life in prison. In the meantime, Congress passed the
to the fore with the Johnny Penry case, involving an Justice For All Act of 2004, which contains a provision
individual who was found to be mentally retarded (mild to expand post-conviction testing of DNA evidence to
to moderate) after his arrest for raping and murdering address the problem of wrongful convictions.
a woman in Texas in 1979. The Supreme Court ruled
in Penry v. Lynaugh (1989) and again in Penry v. Johnson Roger Chapman
(2001) that mental retardation is a mitigating factor
that must be taken into consideration in capital cases. See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Gilmore, Gary; Ju-
Finally, in a similar case involving a 1996 robbery and dicial Wars; Mailer, Norman; McVeigh, Timothy; National
murder in Virginia, the high court ruled 6–3 in Atkins v. Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Prison
Virginia (2002) that the execution of the mentally ill is Reform; Red and Blue States; Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel
unconstitutional because it culturally represents cruel and Rosenberg; Ryan, George.
unusual punishment. While all of these cases involved a
changing standard for what constitutes “decency,” many Further Reading
supporters of the death penalty believe that any person, Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cam-
whether minor or mentally handicapped, who is able to bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
function well enough to take another person’s life ought Bedau, Hugo Adam, and Paul G. Cassel. Debating the Death
to be made to face the full extent of the law. Penalty: Should Americans Have Capital Punishment? The
Experts on Both Sides Make Their Case. New York: Oxford
Lethal Injection and Wrongful University Press, 2004.
Convictions Death Penalty Information Center Web site. www.
A more recent debate on the topic of cruel and unusual deathpenaltyinfo.org.
punishment has focused attention on the most common Kukathas, Uma. Death Penalty. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press,
method of carrying out executions: lethal injection. 2008.
Critics maintain that death by lethal injection—which Ogletree, Charles J., and Austin Sarat. From Lynch Mobs to the
involves the intravenous administration of a series of Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America. New
toxic chemicals—is cruel because it paralyzes the body York: New York University Press, 2006.
while that person is experiencing acute pain. They
see this form of execution as on par with the electric
chair, which also had originally been intended as a Carson, Rachel
humanitarian and painless solution to carrying out the A marine biologist and author who helped inspire the
death penalty. In Bases v. Rees (2008), the Supreme Court postwar environmental movement, Rachel Carson is
ruled, 7–2, that lethal injection does not constitute remembered primarily for her book Silent Spring (1962),
cruel and unusual punishment, declaring that some a best-seller that documented the negative effects of
pain, whether accidental or as part of the death process, unregulated chemical pesticides, in particular DDT
is permissible. (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane). During a period
72 C arson, Rachel
in which 500 new chemicals were being introduced colonialism.” In the first decade of the 2000s, the World
each year, Carson asserted that these “elixirs of death” Health Organization recommended that DDT be used in
and “biocides” were disrupting the balance of nature Africa to fight the rampant spread of malaria. Political
and responsible for the near extinction of forty species conservatives such as former congressman Tom DeLay
of birds, including the bald eagle and the robin. If the (R-TX), along with others hostile to the environmental
chemical industry was allowed to remain unregulated, movement, linked Carson with the death of millions due
she warned, the future might bring a “silent spring,” to the DDT ban.
without songbirds. Thirty years after the publication of Roger Chapman
Silent Spring, Al Gore in Earth in the Balance (1992) warned
of global warming and cited the importance of Carson in See also: Carter, Jimmy; DeLay, Tom; Endangered Species Act;
shaping his understanding of the natural environment. Environmental Movement; Global Warming; Gore, Al; Nu-
Rachel Louise Carson was born on May 27, 1907, clear Age; Science Wars.
in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She studied biology at the
Pennsylvania College for Women (AB, 1929) and Johns Further Reading
Hopkins University (am, 1932). After a stint with the Levine, Ellen. Rachel Carson: A Twentieth-Century Life. New
zoology staff at the University of Maryland (1931–1936), York: Viking, 2007.
Carson worked for the Bureau of Fisheries, later renamed Lytle, Mark H. The Gentile Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1936–1952). After and the Rise of the Environmental Movement. New York: Oxford
publishing two books—Under the Sea (1941) and The Sea University Press, 2007.
Around Us (1951), the latter winning the National Book Matthiessen, Peter, ed. Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists,
Award—Carson left public service to write full-time. and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson.
The final volume of her ocean trilogy, The Edge of the Sea Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
(1956), focused on coastal life and further secured her Murphy, Priscilla Cort. What a Book Can Do: The Public Recep-
reputation as a prose stylist. tion of Silent Spring. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
It was Silent Spring, however, that gained Carson Press, 2005.
enduring influence in modern environmental science and Quaratiello, Arlene R. Rachel Carson: A Biography. Westport,
public policy. The work debuted as a series of articles in CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.
the New Yorker magazine and appeared in book form in
September 1962. Its selection as a Book of the Month Club
title helped spread the message. The National Agricultural C a r t e r, J i m my
Chemicals Association spent hundreds of thousands of A one-term Democratic president (1977–1981), Jimmy
dollars to discredit the work, unwittingly drawing more Carter occupies the period in American political history
attention to Carson’s arguments (which were backed with between Watergate and the “Reagan Revolution.”
fifty-four pages of reference material). Critics vilified the The Carter years were beset by economic problems, a
author as a spinster who cared more about insects than hu- gasoline shortage, and the “hostage crisis” in Iran, all
man beings; right-wing reactionaries warned that the book of which eroded the president’s popularity. Despite
was a communist plot designed to damage the American identifying himself as a “born again” Christian, Carter
economy. For her part, Carson warned that humans, not ended up alienating fundamentalists and evangelicals,
just insects and birds, were put at risk by exposure to who turned against him in the 1980 election.
dangerous chemicals. As she wrote in the book, “If the The son of a farmer, James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr.,
Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. After
secure against lethal poisons, distributed either by private attending Georgia Southwestern College (1941–1942)
individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because and Georgia Institute of Technology (1942–1943), he
our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and became a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy (BS,
foresight, could conceive of no such problem.” 1946). This was followed by active duty in the navy’s
Carson died on April 14, 1964, in Silver Spring, nuclear-submarine program (1947–1953). Following the
Maryland, a victim of breast cancer. In 1980, President death of his father, Carter returned home to run the family
Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded her the Presidential peanut farm and farm-supply business in Plains. He also
Medal of Freedom. Meanwhile, in 1972, the U.S. Envi- embarked on a political career, advancing from Georgia
ronmental Protection Agency officially banned DDT, state senator (1963–1966) and governor (1971–1975)
with a number of European countries following suit. to chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Developed nations halted shipments of the insecticide (1972–1974) and finally president of the United States.
to Third World countries, even though it was benefi- As a presidential candidate, Carter capitalized on
cial in killing mosquitoes and curbing malaria. Critics public disgust over Watergate by presenting himself
called the policy of withholding DDT a case of “eco- as a Washington outsider. A Southern Baptist from
C ar ter, Jimmy 73
a small town in rural America, he touted himself as a The nation’s “crisis of confidence” grew following
common man with traditional values, promising voters the Islamic student takeover of the U.S. Embassy in
“a government as good as its people” and assuring them, Iran on November 4, 1979. Fifty-two Americans were
“I will never lie to you.” After winning the Democratic held hostage. After months of negotiations reached an
primary, he opposed President Gerald Ford in the 1976 impasse with only a few hostages freed, Carter in April
general election. The highlights of the campaign were the 1980 directed Delta Force, the U.S. Army special opera-
gaffes committed by both candidates—Ford insisting in tions unit, to rescue the hostages. The daring mission was
a televised debate that there was “no Soviet domination aborted at the infiltration stage after several helicopters
in Eastern Europe” (October 6, 1976) and Carter confess- developed mechanical failure. While aircraft refueled in
ing in Playboy magazine that “I’ve committed adultery the Iranian desert in the middle of the night, in prepa-
in my heart many times” (November 1976). In the end, ration to head back, a helicopter crashed into a parked
the peanut farmer won 50.1 percent of the popular vote fuel-tanker aircraft; the resulting explosion killed eight
and 297 of the 537 electoral points, becoming the first American servicemen. Commentators ridiculed the rescue
president from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor. attempt as foolhardy and cast it as a symbol of Carter’s
Conservatives disliked many initiatives of the Carter “inept” presidency. The remaining American hostages
presidency, namely the pardoning of Vietnam draft dodg- were released after 444 days of captivity, on the day of
ers (1977); the cancellation of the production of the B-1 Reagan’s inauguration. Years later, following the Iran-
bomber (1977); the treaties for returning the Panama Ca- Contra scandal, in which the Reagan administration was
nal to Panama (narrowly ratified by the Senate in 1978); accused of bribing Iran with arms for the release of U.S.
the expansion of federal bureaucracy that included two hostages in Lebanon, Carter’s handling of his hostage
new executive departments, energy (1977) and educa- crisis was reevaluated more favorably.
tion (1980); and the increase in payroll deductions for Unwittingly, the Carter administration provoked the
Social Security (1977). There was also skepticism about wrath of conservative Christians, inspiring the Baptist
Carter’s tying foreign policy to human rights, as some minister Jerry Falwell to form the Moral Majority (1979).
thought this could undermine ongoing efforts at contain- This was triggered by the actions of Carter’s Internal
ing communism. Carter signed the SALT II arms-control Revenue Service, which in 1978 sought to withdraw
agreement with the Soviet Union (1979), but it was tax-exempt status from private Christian schools, which
never ratified due to Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan were believed to be resisting federal desegregation ef-
six months later. Carter’s major success was facilitating forts. Many fundamentalists and evangelicals, previously
the Camp David Accords of 1978, leading directly to the apolitical, emerged as the unified Religious Right and
Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty the following year. in 1980 voted for Reagan.
The Carter years were fraught with an energy crisis Shortly after leaving office, Carter established the
and inflation. Early on he placed a high priority on de- Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia,
veloping an energy program, calling the effort the “moral using it as a base from which to promote international
equivalent of war” and warning that national security was human rights. Time magazine in September 1989 de-
at stake due to America’s growing dependence on foreign clared Carter “the best ex-president the U.S. has had
oil. For critics, his message of energy conservation con- since Herbert Hoover.” In 1999, President Bill Clinton
veyed weakness rather than resoluteness. As OPEC hiked presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
the price of petroleum, pushing up the domestic price of a In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
barrel of crude oil from $14.40 (1977) to $25.10 (1979), The ex-president went on to stir great controversy with
Americans faced a gasoline shortage and long lines at the the publication of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006),
pump. At the same time, inflation rose from 6.5 percent which largely blames Israel for the lack of peace in the
(1977) to 11.3 percent (1979). Carter’s attempt to calm Middle East.
the public backfired after he gave a national address that Roger Chapman
came to be called “the malaise speech” (July 15, 1979).
In it, Carter diagnosed Americans as suffering a “crisis See also: Cold War; Democratic Party; Ford, Gerald; Human
of confidence” that legislation alone could not solve. Rights; Iran-Contra Affair; Israel; Moral Majority; Presiden-
“It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much tial Pardons; Reagan, Ronald; Religious Right; Social Secu-
deeper—deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, rity; Soviet Union and Russia; Watergate.
deeper even than inflation or recession,” he said. “In a
nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, Further Reading
close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many Busch, Andrew H. Reagan’s Victory: The Presidential Election of
of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consump- 1980 and the Rise of the Right. Lawrence: University Press of
tion.” Critics, in particular Ronald Reagan, viewed the Kansas, 2005.
president as offering blame instead of leadership. The Carter Center Web site. www.cartercenter.org.
74 C atholic C hurch
Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: however, is not one that automatically favors a welfare
Bantam Books, 1982. state ideology in response to social problems. Rather, the
Jordan, Hamilton. Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency. church strongly defends the principle of “subsidiarity,”
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982. the idea that a higher authority such as the state should
Kaufman, Burton I. The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr. Law- not intervene in matters that the church considers the
rence: University of Kansas Press, 1993. privileged domain of the family, which for the church is
Schulman, Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, the fundamental moral unit of society.
Society, and Politics. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001. The nuances in the Catholic Church’s multilayered
social doctrine make it a complex political actor. On the
one hand, the church articulates a vision of social justice
Catholic Church and care for the poor—a vision that frequently sets it at
Long before it took a role in the modern culture wars, odds with Protestant-infused public policy and public
generally as part of the Religious Right, the Catholic opinion. On the other hand, when the state takes an ac-
Church in America was the object of suspicion and tivist role, the church is frequently its opponent, largely
marginalization by the culturally dominant Protestant because of what it perceives to be unwarranted state
establishment. By 2006, however, with the appointment interference in private or family matters. Further, the
of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, five of the church is not motivated just by doctrinal and theological
nine justices serving on the high court were Roman concerns. It is also a realpolitik strategic actor, committed
Catholic—a sure sign of the political power and social to protecting and extending its institutional interests in
acceptance attained by the church and its members. a competitive democratic environment vis-à-vis other
institutional actors, including the state, education, the
Catholic-Protestant Divide medical community, and other religious organizations.
Although less pronounced than in times past, a
substantive cultural gap between the Catholic Church Secularization of Education
and American society remains very much a reality in the The church’s doctrinal tenets and institutional interests
early twenty-first century. The historical underpinnings combine to make its public policy stances less predictable
of this gap are exacerbated by core social and theological than one might assume. During the late nineteenth
differences in the Catholic versus the Protestant century, for example, the church opposed the imposition
imagination. Historically, the Catholic Church is an of prayer and Bible education in public schools because
outsider institution; it is an immigrant church, home to it regarded them as efforts to impose a lowest-common-
impoverished ethnic minorities who were subordinated denominator Protestant religion on secular education. At
to the economic and political rule of the settled Protestant the same time, church officials lobbied for government
upper class after arriving in America. Further adding to financial support for Catholic parochial school
Protestant suspicion, the U.S. Catholic Church is part of a education, thus seeking to preserve the institutional
transnational organization headquartered in the Vatican, significance of Catholic schools in the socialization
a fact challenging American notions of both patriotism of younger generations. Much later, in the landmark
and local democracy. The American Catholic Church’s U.S. Supreme Court case of Engel v. Vitale (1962), the
active opposition to communism during the 1940s and church actively opposed compulsory nondenominational
1950s helped strengthen its patriotic credentials, but prayer in public schools (which the high court declared
the belief voiced by many Americans that the John F. unconstitutional), again because it saw this as extending
Kennedy presidency would make American public the Protestant bias of public education (and of the culture
policy susceptible to Vatican interference echoed earlier as a whole). Thus, given the competitive denominational
suspicions of attenuated Catholic loyalty. environment in the United States, the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is also a cultural outsider, ab- has a history of opposing state initiatives that observers
sent from the American Puritan-Protestant narrative that would see as friendly toward religion, not because the
has been so critical in articulating America’s founding church is an avid proponent of secularism, but because
ideals (equality, democracy, freedom) and in particular the (Christian) prayers being advocated are Protestant.
its strong ethos of individualism. By contrast, Catholic This stance contrasts with the church’s political activism
theology has long articulated a communitarian discourse, in countries where it holds a religious monopoly (such as
emphasizing group responsibility for the fabric of the Ireland, Poland, Spain, and Italy) and expects the state to
social good. Such an ethos contradicts the American bolster the faith and its institutions.
cultural consensus that individuals—including the poor,
the homeless, the uninsured, unmarried teenage moth- Contraception and Sex Education
ers, and illegal immigrants—are responsible for their The Catholic Church has been a nagging thorn in the
own welfare. The church’s communitarian perspective, side of the American Protestant economic establishment
C atholic C hurch 75
since Pope Pius XI issued a landmark encyclical express its views in the public sphere, especially on a
(Quadragesimo Anno) in 1931 in which he outlined the human rights issue that it sees as transcending religion.
rights of workers to fair wages and humane working It has thus maintained a sustained public program of
conditions. In the years since, successive popes and other extensive pro-life activism.
church officials (such as the National Conference of The Catholic Church in America has also been vocal
Catholic Bishops) have forcefully reiterated these views. in condemning homosexual relations and has increased its
The church’s social justice teachings have thus provided activism since 2002 because of the legalization of same-
an ongoing countercultural voice against the profit- sex marriage in Massachusetts and elsewhere. In church
oriented, capitalist practices of corporate America. Not teaching, homosexuality represents an “objectively dis-
surprisingly, the critique of the excesses of capitalism ordered” condition, and homosexual sexual relationships
articulated by the church is an ongoing source of tension are inherently sinful and immoral (because they cannot
between church officials and political and economic be biologically open to the creation of new life). More-
elites (and among Catholics, too). over, the introduction of same-sex marriage fuels church
The tension is further exacerbated by a gulf between activism because it threatens the stability and exclusivity
the Catholic Church and secular elites in regard to of what the church regards as the only legitimate form
population control, which many Americans regard as a of marriage, lifelong partnership between a man and a
more salient factor than capitalism in the persistence of woman. At the same time, however, the church teaches
poverty. This, too, has a long history. Dating to the turn that gays should not be discriminated against in housing,
of the twentieth century, the church has opposed social employment, and the like. Such views, while regarded by
reforms aimed at population control, including both some critics as hypocritical given the church’s condemna-
sex education in public schools and the use of artificial tion of same-sex relationships and marriage, fit with the
contraception. To the present day, the church remains a broader Catholic teaching that all humans (including the
vocal opponent of these practices. Its opposition stems poor, undocumented immigrants, and prisoners) have
from the core doctrine that all sex outside of marriage is dignity and should be treated with respect.
immoral; that all sexual activity should be open to the The church has similarly condemned sexism as a sin
natural transmission of human life (thereby barring the and has been vocal in support of women’s equality. Again,
use of artificial contraception); that sex education should however, this is a source of division, especially among
teach only abstinence or natural-cycle family planning, Catholics. Many politically and theologically liberal
and that this teaching is the exclusive moral prerogative of Catholics point to the church’s opposition to contracep-
parents and not the business of teachers or of the state. tion, abortion, and divorce, and to its doctrinal teaching
that women cannot be priests, as evidence that the church
Abortion, Homosexuality, Women’s itself is guilty of institutional sexism. These remain
Equality ongoing debates within the church, and many faithful,
The moral logic behind the church’s teachings on sexual practicing Catholics maintain that the church can only
behavior and artificial contraception extends to its preserve its own avowed commitment to be relevant to the
opposition to abortion and same-sex relationships. Its modern world and exemplify its own ideals of equality and
activism in these debates, however, is further accentuated social justice by recognizing the full equality of women
by the additional moral issues raised, respectively, by (both inside and outside the church) as well as the moral
these phenomena. The legalization of abortion in Roe v. autonomy of women and men to make decisions (about
Wade (1973) galvanized the church’s public activism in sexual behavior, for example) in good conscience.
a way that no other issue has, either before or since. The The church’s voice in American politics and society
Vatican not only teaches that abortion is a mortal sin, but was subdued for a period of years as it dealt with the
it also maintains that abortion is not a matter of moral challenges posed to its pastoral and institutional cred-
interest just to Catholics, but to all people regardless ibility as a result of persistent sexual abuse of children
of faith. Because human life is objectively sacred, the by priests. From 1950 to 2007, the U.S. Catholic Church
church maintains, no one has, or can claim, the right to listed 13,000 credible accusations of sexual abuse against
take or dispose of a human life. And because the church its priests; by 2008, it had paid some $2 billion in legal
argues that life begins at the moment of fertilization, settlements and expenses involving these cases. The sex-
the destruction of embryonic life—abortion—is a abuse scandals prompted many Catholics who had never
grave moral wrong, regardless of whether or not one is been involved in lay activism regarding gender equality
Catholic. Some critics argue that the church is entitled and other controversial doctrinal issues to call for greater
to articulate an anti-abortion stance to its own members accountability and transparency in the church’s internal
but it is not entitled to address a broader, non-Catholic matters. Adding to the culture wars rhetoric, however,
audience. The church hierarchy counters that it is as some conservative observers argued that pedophilia in
entitled as any other citizen’s group or organization to the church was evidence of the acceptance of a culture of
76 C atholic C hurch
homosexuality within the hierarchy, while some liberals McGreevy, John T. Catholicism and American Freedom. New York:
used the scandal to argue that compulsory celibacy is W.W. Norton, 2003.
pathological. Regardless of the validity of either of these
claims, the crisis prompted church officials to devote at-
tention to its internal affairs, and the fallout certainly cast Censorship
a dark shadow on the church’s credibility as a publicly Censorship is the regulation of speech and other forms
engaged and culturally legitimate moral voice. During of expression by an entrenched authority. Intended as a
an April 2008 visit to the United States, Pope Benedict kind of safeguard for society, typically to protect norms
XVI announced that he was “deeply ashamed” by the and values, censorship suppresses what is considered
pedophile scandal, adding, “It is difficult for me to unobjectionable from a political, moral, or religious
derstand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this standpoint. Any serious debate on censorship must take
way their mission to give healing, to give the love of God into account who is being served by the decision and
to these children.” To show his concern he privately met who is not served, as well as the ethical ramifications
with some victims and prayed over them. and social and political consequences of excluding
Trying to get past the pedophile scandal, the church particular voices, viewpoints, and information from the
has been increasingly reclaiming its cultural activism, public discourse. In the culture wars, both the left and
evident in renewed attention to the ongoing national and the right have at various times promoted and deplored
state-level debates on abortion, same-sex marriage, stem censorship, depending on the material in question.
cell research, and end-of-life issues, and its attempts to Censorship can occur through a range of formal
hold Catholic politicians accountable for any doctrinal and informal practices. Some of these are explicit, such
inconsistencies in their views. Catholics, too, have increas- as the banning of books, the regulation of language on
ingly redirected their attention to political and cultural broadcast media, and the criminalization of particular
issues. As suggested by an upturn in financial donations acts of political expression, such as burning the American
to the church following the drop-off during the sex-abuse flag. Other methods of censorship are implicit, such as
scandal, many seem ready to move beyond the crisis. ostracism or the threat of the loss of employment. The
In sum, any analysis of the Catholic Church’s in- fear of either explicit or implicit censorship may result
volvement in America’s culture wars must focus on at in self-censorship, whereby an individual refrains from
least two dimensions: first, the relationship of the church potentially objectionable forms of expression without
to American culture, whereby its institutional history direct external pressure to do so.
and doctrinal tenets pit it against the Protestant main- Self-censorship is often seen as the most powerful
stream; and second, the polarization between liberals and insidious form of censorship, as it occurs within the
and conservatives in the ongoing debates about politics individual or organization and requires only periodic
and values in American society as it is also reflected and reinforcement from dominant social groups or govern-
played out among Catholics. These variously interact- mental agencies. One of the most widely recognized
ing dynamics challenge any assessment that suggests an examples of self-censorship in the United States occurred
undifferentiated and monolithic Catholic stance in the during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. In the context of
cultural wars. the Cold War, the federal government actively pursued
Michele Dillon programs to eliminate perceived communist influences in
American society. Fear of implication or association with
See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Church and State; Family such influences—and the explicit sanctions that might
Values; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; result—led to self-censorship among individuals and or-
Ferraro, Geraldine; Gay Rights Movement; Religious Right; ganizations. The response was most evident in the motion
Right to Die; Same-Sex Marriage; School Prayer; Sex Educa- picture industry, which sought to alleviate government
tion; Sex Offenders; Sheen, Fulton J. suspicion by self-regulating its personnel and the content
of the films it produced. In a similar vein, the Record-
Further Reading ing Industry Association of America made significant
Burns, Gene. The Moral Veto: Framing Contraception, Abortion, and efforts in 1999 to assure the Federal Trade Commission
Cultural Pluralism in the United States. New York: Cambridge and the U.S. Justice Department of the music industry’s
University Press, 2005. responsible actions and cooperation in order to avoid
Byrnes, Timothy A. Catholic Bishops in American Politics. implication in studies of media and violence.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. The exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast during the
Dillon, Michele. Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and halftime show at the 2004 Super Bowl led to $550,000
Power. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. in fines against CBS by the Federal Communications
Greeley, Andrew. The Catholic Imagination. Berkeley: University Commission (FCC). The uproar sent “decency ripples”
of California Press, 2000. throughout the American media industry. Clear Channel
Central Intelligence A genc y 77
Entertainment dropped controversial radio personality and activist viewpoints, combating corporate and gov-
Howard Stern—an act of censorship resulting from the ernmental censorship.
corporation’s newly instituted zero-tolerance policy on An organized file-sharing campaign in 2004, des-
decency. Clear Channel was also sanctioned by the FCC ignated “Grey Tuesday,” protested the censorship of the
for Stern’s on-air remarks, with a fine of $495,000. (In critically acclaimed Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse
2008, a federal appeals court struck down the fines for (Brian Burton), leading to 100,000 downloads and send-
the Jackson incident, declaring the penalty “arbitrary ing it briefly to the top of the charts. (The album was
and capricious.”) the subject of a copyright dispute with EMI Music over
While censorship is often associated with the sup- the use of sample tracks drawn from the Beatles’ White
pression of liberal viewpoints, perceptions of censorship Album and mixed with samples from artist Jay-Z’s Black
are also common among those on the Religious Right. Album.)
For example, religious conservatives point to the legal Cynthia J. Miller
disputes over the constitutionality of displaying the Ten
Commandments on public property, offering prayer at See also: Academic Freedom; Book Banning; Comic Books;
public school events such as graduation exercises and Culture Jamming; Federal Communications Commission;
football games, and teaching “intelligent design” in Flag Desecration; Hoffman, Abbie; Hollywood Ten; Motion
public schools. Political conservatives in general regard Picture Association of America; Pornography; Record Warn-
“political correctness” as a tool of censorship to suppress ing Labels; Religious Right; Speech Codes; Stern, Howard.
honest debate on important contemporary issues, and
many have characterized limits on campaign financing Further Reading
as a form of censorship. Atkins, Robert. Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free
America’s youth have been embroiled in ongoing Expression. New York: New Press, 2006.
censorship debates as schools seek to control some forms Bernstein, Matthew. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and
of expression in learning environments. In a highly Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
publicized case in 1965, three students in Des Moines, University Press, 1999.
Iowa, were suspended from school for wearing armbands Soley, Lawrence. Censorship, Inc: The Corporate Threat to Free
in protest of the Vietnam War; the U.S. Supreme Court Speech in the United States. New York: Monthly Review Press,
later upheld their First Amendment right to do so. Still, 2002.
under the pretext of fostering an environment conducive Vaughn, Stephen. Freedom and Entertainment. New York: Cam-
to education, school systems routinely impose dress bridge University Press, 2006.
codes that forbid students from wearing shirts that bear
controversial symbols and messages—from antipolitician
slogans and statements of gay pride to beer logos, draw- Central Intelligence Agenc y
ings of marijuana leaves, and images of weapons. Schools The primary U.S. intelligence entity, founded in 1947
also restrict students from wearing any apparel deemed and headquartered in Langley, Virginia, the Central
“gang related.” Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to the Office
Commercial entities that are seen as influencing of Strategic Services (OSS), which operated during
youth behavior have been targets of censorship. One World War II. In the wake of an investigation on the
example is the 1997 campaign to stop the R.J. Reynolds intelligence failure preceding the surprise attack on
Tobacco Company from using the cartoon character Joe Pearl Harbor, President Harry Truman determined that
Camel to market a brand of cigarettes. In 1999, Henry a permanent centralized clearinghouse for intelligence
Hyde (R-IL) proposed a bill in the House of Representa- was necessary, especially in light of mounting concerns
tives to ban the sale of violent music to minors. pertaining to the Soviet Union and the onset of the
The media offer various opportunities for activism Cold War. The clandestine nature of the CIA has made
and protesting censorship, such as self-publication in it a lightning rod in the culture wars, with critics
print and digital media, Internet file sharing, and culture regarding it as an example of sinister and unaccountable
jamming. Digital media have proven to be a powerful government power.
tool for circumventing or responding to censorship. In Clearly, the most controversial aspect of the CIA is
2006, for example, the Dixie Chicks country music trio its “dirty tricks,” otherwise known as covert operations.
released their new CD on the Internet after radio stations Activity of this nature has included supporting the
imposed a ban because they had made negative comments Christian Democrats in the defeat of the Italian Com-
about President George W. Bush and the invasion of munist Party (1948); orchestrating coups in Iran (1953)
Iraq. The Independent Media Center (or Indymedia), an and Guatemala (1954); and engaging in paramilitary
Internet media collective, was established in 1999 as a operations in the Philippines (1950–1954), Southeast
decentralized grassroots outlet for alternative political Asia (1950s–1970s), Afghanistan (1980s), and Nicaragua
78 Central Intelligence A genc y
(1980s). There were also failed attempts to overthrow as the Church Committee, named after its chair Senator
the governments of Indonesia (1958) and Cuba (1961), Frank Church (D-IA). In the end, with the establishment
the latter incident known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. In of intelligence committees in both houses, the CIA for the
addition, the CIA has been linked to assassination plots first time came under some oversight by the legislative
targeting foreign leaders, namely Fidel Castro of Cuba branch. And it became official policy that the CIA would
(early 1960s), Patrice Lumumba of the Congo (1961), no longer be involved in assassination plots of foreign lead-
Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic (1961), Ngo ers. Nevertheless, some regarded the work of the Church
Dinh Diem of South Vietnam (1963), and Salvador Al- Committee as less than wise, even treasonous. The May
lende of Chile (1973). 1976 issue of Reader’s Digest, for example, carried an article
Supporters of covert operations argue that they entitled “Let’s Stop Undermining the CIA.”
able the president to have more options in implementing Beginning in the 1970s, the Committee for Action/
foreign policy, as diplomacy sometimes fails and the costs Research on the Intelligence Community (CARIC), a
of going to war are too high. In 1999: Victory without private watchdog organization headquartered in Wash-
War (1988), former president Richard Nixon reasoned, ington, D.C., worked to expose the activities of the CIA
“Overt economic or military aid is sometimes enough and its agents. CARIC was blamed for the murder of
to achieve our goals. Only a direct military intervention CIA agent Richard Welch in Athens in December 1975
can do so in others. But between the two lies a vast area because it had published his name. The murder of Welch
where the United States must be able to undertake covert prompted the Church Committee to shift its focus from
actions. Without this capability, we will be unable to critically assessing the CIA to strengthening the protec-
protect important U.S. interests.” tion of overseas agents. Efforts to further reform the CIA
Opponents of covert operations argue that failed stalled at that point.
missions often lead to disastrous consequences, souring Liberals and conservatives have been traditionally
long-term diplomacy. Even when missions are success- divided over the CIA, although clearly most members
ful, critics note, they often do not remain secret. Or what of the two major political parties believe in the neces-
is initially regarded as a success—such as supplying sity of a spy organization. Conservatives blame liberals
arms to the mujahedeen to fight the Soviet Union in for hurting the CIA and weakening it to the point that
Afghanistan—sometimes creates “blowback” that leads to on September 11, 2001, the United States was caught
worse problems, such as Osama bin Laden and the birth unprepared. Liberals, on the other hand, think the CIA
of al-Qaeda. Lastly, it has been argued that dirty tricks has too often been used as a tool by presidents to avoid
divert resources from the more important work of gath- congressional scrutiny or to go forward with policies not
ering and analyzing intelligence information. However, otherwise permitted (such as the Iran-Contra affair of the
covert operations can be intertwined with intelligence 1980s and the secret abduction, imprisonment, and tor-
gathering. For example, shortly after the outbreak of ture of suspected terrorists in the 2000s). Liberals further
the War on Terror in 2001, the CIA began operating a argue that it was covert operations that distracted the
secret network of detention centers in Eastern Europe and agency from focusing on intelligence gathering, failing
Asia (called “black sites”) where suspected terrorists were to forecast not only September 11 but also the Iranian
subjected to “waterboarding” and other forms of torture Revolution (1979) and the collapse of the Soviet Union
during the course of interrogation, all of which came to (1991). Ironically, it was liberals who cried foul over the
light in 2005 after the Washington Post broke the story. White House’s “outing” of CIA operative Valerie Plame
Even aside from the general consensus among military in 2003 after her husband, former ambassador Joseph
experts that extreme interrogation techniques tend to C. Wilson IV, argued in an op-ed piece in the New York
yield intelligence information of dubious quality, critics Times that the Bush administration had exaggerated in-
point to the international outrage following the revela- telligence reports concerning Iraq’s attempt to acquire
tion of the secret prisons as an example of the negative materials for weapons of mass destruction.
consequences of covert operations.
Three decades earlier, the CIA came under negative Roger Chapman
public scrutiny in 1974 following a report in the New York
Times of “massive and illegal” domestic spying on Vietnam See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Cold War; Cuba; Iran-Con-
War protesters. The same report, written by investigative tra Affair; New York Times, The; September 11; Soviet Union
journalist Seymour Hersh, also detailed CIA dirty tricks and Russia; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
operations overseas, including assassination attempts
against foreign leaders. The subsequent brouhaha led to Further Reading
congressional investigations, chiefly by the U.S. Senate Central Intelligence Agency Web site. www.cia.gov.
Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations Goodman, Allan E., and Bruce D. Berkowitz. The Need to Know:
with Respect to Intelligence Activities, otherwise known The Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Covert
C har ter S chool s 79
Action and American Democracy. New York: Twentieth Cen- the 1930s. Hiss could not be charged with espionage,
tury Fund Press, 1992. despite extensive circumstantial evidence, because of the
Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. The CIA and American Democracy. New statute of limitations. Instead, he was tried and convicted
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989. for perjury and served a prison sentence. Although Hiss
Theoharis, Athan, with Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, protested his innocence throughout his life, evidence
Kathryn Olmsted, and John Prados, eds. The Central came to light during the post-Soviet era of the 1990s that
Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny. Understanding supported the accusations levied by Chambers.
Our Government Series. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Morose and isolated, Chambers died of cancer on
2006. July 9, 1961, at his home in Westminster, Maryland. In
“Seymour M. Hersh Reveals Illegal C.I.A. Spying in America.” 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded
In Muckraking! The Journalism That Changed America, ed. him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Judith and William Serrin, 164–68. New York: New Press,
2002. William T. Walker
See also: Communists and Communism; Hiss, Alger; Marxism;

C h a m b e r s , W h i t t a ke r McCarthyism; National Review; Nixon, Richard; Norquist,
Journalist Whittaker Chambers, an American communist Grover; Reagan, Ronald; United Nations.
and then a staunch anticommunist, emerged in the late
1940s and 1950s as a hero to the right during the early Further Reading
years of the Cold War. Through his testimony against Swan, Patrick, ed. Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Schism
accused communist spy Alger Hiss in the late 1940s, in the American Soul. Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Stud-
his autobiography Witness (1952), and his service as an ies Institute, 2003.
editor of the National Review (1957–1959), Chambers Weinstein, Allen. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. New York:
became identified as an awakened anticommunist and Random House, 1997.
dedicated defender of American traditional values. Weinstein, Allen, and Alexander Vassiliev. The Haunted Wood:
The son of a newspaper artist and an actress, Cham- Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era. New York:
bers was born Jay Vivian Chambers on April 1, 1901, in Modern Library, 2000.
Philadelphia; he changed his name eleven times during
his lifetime. After a short stint as a student at Williams
College in 1920, Chambers enrolled at Columbia Univer- Char ter Schools
sity, where he studied under the poet and noted literary Charter schools, part of the “school choice” movement
critic Mark Van Doren. In 1925, he joined the Commu- of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries,
nist Party USA and began writing for its newspaper, the are public, nonsectarian schools operated by private
Daily Worker. During the late 1920s, Chambers became organizations, either for profit or nonprofit, using public
disenchanted with Stalinist policies but, because of the funds. In accordance with a charter (contract) issued
impact of the Depression, rededicated himself to com- by state or education authorities, the charter school
munism and served as a Soviet agent in Washington, is exempted from certain school regulations on the
D.C., for seven years. In 1938, he made a final break with condition that student achievement is improved. If the
communism and, during the following year, joined Time charter school meets its specified goals by the end of the
magazine as a reviewer and special projects editor. contract, then the charter most likely will be extended.
It was during his year at Time that Chambers became Advocates of charter schools emphasize the virtues
involved in the culture wars as an outspoken anticom- of accountability, competition, and decentralization,
munist. In his testimony before the House Committee on believing that a marketplace approach will spur
Un-American Activities (HUAC, 1948–1950), Chambers needed education reform and allow for greater parental
identified Alger Hiss as a Soviet agent. Hiss had served involvement due to less bureaucratic structure. Critics
in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and was of charter schools view them as an assault on public
involved in the establishment of the United Nations. education and part of a larger ideological campaign for
Chambers befriended Representative Richard M. Nixon the increased privatization of society; they resent the fact
(R-CA), who took an active part in the hearings, and that, at a time of public-revenue shortfalls, tax dollars
went on to contribute to the political polarization of the are being siphoned away from school systems in order to
McCarthy era by writing a polemical autobiography, fund what are in many cases for-profit corporations.
Witness. The term “charter schools” dates to the 1970s and is
To a large extent, Chambers’s identity in the cul- credited to a retired Massachusetts schoolteacher named
ture wars was linked to his accusations against Hiss— Ray Budde, who got the idea reading about the 1609
specifically, that Hiss had been a Soviet agent during charter issued to the explorer Henry Hudson by the East
80 C har ter S chool s
India Company. During the late 1980s, in reaction to Henningfield, Diane Andrews. Charter Schools. Detroit, MI:
the federal study on the declining performance of public Greenhaven Press, 2008.
schools in America, A Nation at Risk (1983), president Saltman, Kenneth J. The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling
of the American Federation of Teachers Albert Shanker and the Assault on Public Education. New York: Routledge,
championed the idea of charter schools. In 1992, Min- 2005.
nesota opened the first charter school, a development
influenced by Shanker. By 2008, there were more than
3,700 charter schools in forty states and the District of C h áve z , C é s a r
Columbia, with over half of them operating in California César Chávez, one of the most important Latino lead-
(543), Arizona (501), Florida (342), Texas (319), Ohio ers in American history, was a union organizer for farm
(316), and Michigan (264). That same year, about 4 workers for much of the second half of the twentieth
percent of the nation’s schoolchildren were attending century. Deeply influenced by Gandhi’s social activist
charter schools. commitment to nonviolence, Chávez not only brought
In the history of American charter schools, perhaps no national attention to long-standing concerns of migrant
player has been more controversial than Edison Schools, workers, but infused a brand of moral leadership to the
the largest educational management organization (EMO) Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In doing
in the country. Founded in 1992 by H. Chris Whittle, the so, he raised public consciousness about the nature of
former publisher of Esquire magazine and the developer Mexican-American societal woes and developed success-
of Channel One (the classroom “news” program with ad- ful strategies for effecting meaningful change. Because
vertising), Edison Schools is a for-profit corporation that of his efforts, powerful forces in the agricultural world
opened its first schools in 1995 and went on to control were compelled to address issues of reasonable wages,
one-fourth of the nation’s schools run by EMOs. But humane work and living conditions, and pesticide mis-
Edison Schools’ overall performance has been called into use. Featured on the cover of Time magazine in July
question—critics argue that this EMO has not produced 1969, Chávez was characterized as the “Chicano” Martin
anticipated results; defenders insist that its students start Luther King, Jr.
out at below national standards but do achieve at the same One of five children, César Estrada Chávez was born
rate as students in public schools. on March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona. His parents were
Studies of charter schools in general have led to farm workers who owned their own land and small store;
similar debates. According to a 2006 report issued by however, they lost their property during the Great De-
the National Center for Education Statistics, based on pression and were forced to live in a number of migrant
a 2003 study of charter schools in Michigan, California, camps throughout Arizona and California. Eventually, the
and Texas, “[C]harter school mean scores in reading family moved to California’s Imperial Valley in search of
and mathematics were lower, on average, than those for economic stability. Due to his need to work to help his
public noncharter schools.” With investors eyeing charter family, Chávez ended his formal education at the seventh
schools as a potential $600 billion market (just behind grade. Following his service in the navy during World
the health and defense sectors), public school advocates War II, he married and returned to migrant work, settling
argue that charter schools have failed to raise education in San Jose, California. From 1952 to 1962, Chávez, at
standards, while defenders emphasize that many students the influence of a Catholic priest, was an organizer for the
who attend charter schools have achieved less noticeable Community Service Organization (CSO) but quit after it
gains because they start out at lower levels. refused to support a farm workers’ union.
Chávez promptly founded what eventually became
Roger Chapman the United Farm Workers (UFW), the largest union of
agricultural workers in California, with nearly 50,000
See also: Education Reform; Homeschooling; Privatization; members. Committed to organizing farm workers to
School Vouchers. ensure better working conditions and higher wages,
he spearheaded groundbreaking strikes and national
Further Reading boycotts of grapes and lettuce that helped revolutionize
Bracey, Gerald W. What You Should Know About the War Against farm labor practices and policies. In particular, his efforts
America’s Public Schools. Boston: Pearson Education, 2003. to lead the UFW in boycotting the powerful Delano,
Buckley, Jack, and Mark Schneider. Charter Schools: Hope or Hype? California, grape growers in 1965 influenced 22 million
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Americans to refuse to purchase California table grapes
Carnoy, Martin, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel, and for half a decade. In 1970, after losing millions of dol-
Richard Rothstein. The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining lars from the boycott, California grape growers agreed to
the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement. Washington, DC: increase farm worker salaries and safeguard their rights.
Economic Policy Institute, 2005. By the mid-1970s, the movement had achieved
C heney Family 81
higher wages, safer working conditions, greater protec- postmodern perspectives. Liz Cheney Perry worked for
tion from toxic chemicals and pesticides, clean accessible the U.S. State Department; and Mary Cheney, an open
water, and suitable work equipment for farm workers. lesbian, was her father’s chief campaign aide.
The latter was especially significant because it banned The son of a federal bureaucrat and New Deal Demo-
the short-handled hoe, which caused thousands of de- crat, Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney was born on January
bilitating back injuries. Equally important, the Agri- 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Casper,
cultural Labor Relations Act was passed in 1975, which Wyoming. His high school sweetheart and future wife,
gave farm workers the right to organize and negotiate a native of Casper, was born Lynne Ann Vincent on Au-
for better wages and working conditions. At this point, gust 14, 1941. After dropping out of Yale University
Chávez attained unprecedented popularity and power (1959–1962), Cheney enrolled at Casper Community
within the Hispanic community as he continued to lead College (1963), married Lynne (1964), and studied po-
protests, surrender himself to hunger strikes, and make litical science at the University of Wyoming (BA, 1965;
media appearances. Transcending farm worker grievances, MA, 1966). She majored in English at Colorado Col-
the man and message inspired the larger Hispanic civil lege (BA, 1963) and the University of Colorado (MA,
rights movement. 1964). Depending on the storyteller, Dick’s motivation
Chávez died on April 23, 1993. Tens of thousands for resuming studies was to avoid the military draft (he
attended his funeral in La Paz, California, including received five deferments during the Vietnam War) or
official representatives of the U.S. and Mexican govern- to make himself a compatible marriage partner. The
ments and the Vatican. In subsequent years, eight states couple enrolled as graduate students at the University of
and numerous cities designated his birthday an official Wisconsin, Madison, where she earned a PhD in British
holiday: César Chávez Day. In 1994, he was posthumously literature in 1970; he, in accepting a congressional fellow-
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. ship, left undone the dissertation necessary for receiving a
doctorate in political science. In the meantime, Elizabeth
Darius V. Echeverría Lynne “Liz” Cheney was born on July 28, 1966, followed
by Mary Claire Cheney on March 14, 1969.
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Hispanic Americans; Ille-
gal Immigrants; Immigration Policy; La Raza Unida; Labor Republican Couple
Unions; Migrant Labor; Race. On Capitol Hill, Dick Cheney joined the staff of U.S.
Representative Donald Rumsfeld (R-IL), who was on
Further Reading his way to becoming director of the Office of Economic
Dunne, John Gregory. Delano: The Story of the California Grape Opportunity in the Nixon administration. Cheney
Strike. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. accompanied his mentor, who ended up working for
Ferriss, Susan, and Ricardo Sandoval. The Fight in the Fields: President Gerald Ford. When Rumsfeld left his position
César Chávez and the Farmworkers’ Movement. New York: as White House chief of staff to become secretary
Harcourt Brace, 1997. of defense, Cheney filled the vacancy (1975–1976).
Griswold del Castillo, Richard, and Richard A. Garcia. César That served as Cheney’s springboard to Congress as a
Chávez: A Triumph of Spirit. Norman: University of Okla- representative from Wyoming (1979–1989). After
homa Press, 1995. writing for the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting
Matthiessen, Peter. Sal si Puedes (Escape If You Can): César Chávez (1982–1983) and editing Washingtonian magazine
and the New American Revolution. Berkeley: University of (1983–1986), Lynne was appointed by President Ronald
California Press, 2000. Reagan, and later reappointed by President George
H.W. Bush, to chair the NEH (1986–1993). Dick, also
appointed by Bush, became secretary of defense (1989–
C h e n ey Fa m i l y 1993). Following Bush’s defeat by Bill Clinton in the
The New York Times once aptly summarized the Cheney 1992 election, the Cheneys moved to Dallas, Texas,
family—Republican stalwarts Dick and Lynne Cheney, where Dick served as chief executive officer (1995–2000)
and daughters Liz Cheney Perry and Mary Cheney—as of Halliburton, the Fortune 500 oil services firm.
“a foursome fully immersed in conservative politics and As a five-term congressman, Dick Cheney opposed
policy.” Dick Cheney was perhaps the most powerful vice abortion and welfare, supported the Strategic Defense
president (2001–2009) in U.S. history, orchestrating Initiative (SDI), and received high ratings from the
massive tax cuts, tailoring energy policy to big oil and American Conservative Union. Cheney’s stint as secretary
utility companies, and formulating a neoconservative of defense involved overseeing the invasion of Panama
response to terrorism. As chairperson of the National (Operation Just Cause, 1989) and the Gulf War (Opera-
Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), Lynne Cheney tion Desert Storm, 1990–1991). These military successes,
battled liberal academics of multicultural, feminist, and said to overcome the nation’s “Vietnam syndrome,” in-
82 C heney Family
spired Cheney in 1997 to endorse (along with Rumsfeld)

the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a
neoconservative foreign policy platform calling for fur-
thering American values abroad, by force if necessary.
The PNAC blueprint would prove to be influential in
the George W. Bush administration.
In the meantime, Lynne Cheney was a culture war-
rior at the NEH, deleting the organization’s name from
the credits of the documentary film The Africans (1986)
because of its criticism of Western imperialism, denounc-
ing the “political correctness” and “cultural relativism”
of academia and the decline in stature of the Western
canon (the “great books”), and acting as a gatekeeper to
steer grants toward “traditional” (conservative) humani-
ties projects. Upon departing the NEH, she campaigned
against the national history standards, deploring the focus
on minorities at the expense of figures such as George
Washington. In her book Telling the Truth (1995), she Republican vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney ap-
asserted that the theories of French philosopher Michel pears at the 2000 GOP national convention with members
of his family: daughter Mary (left), wife Lynne (right), and
Foucault were destroying Western civilization. She also
daughter Elizabeth (far right). (Tom Mihalek/Stringer/AFP/
called for the abolition of the NEH. Later, as an ap- Getty Images)
pointee of Governor George W. Bush, she served on a
task force to develop the history standards for the Texas
school system. who earlier chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Desert
Storm, and Donald Rumsfeld, who was back as secretary
“Imperial Vice Presidency” of defense) and a cohort of neoconservatives, Cheney
Most controversial was Dick Cheney’s “imperial vice pressed for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, despite the lack of
presidency,” as critics called it. With Bush’s blessings, evidence of its involvement in the attacks on New York
Cheney had free rein to attend any White House meeting and Washington. Later, Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis
and to pursue any policy initiative. It was Cheney who “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstruction of justice
arranged the $1.35 trillion tax cut during the first term, and perjury in the scandal involving the leaked identity
over the objections of major cabinet officials. The vice of CIA agent Valerie Plame, in what was apparent retri-
president even persuaded legislators to go further than bution for the actions of her husband, Joseph C. Wilson
Bush originally intended by including a capital gains IV, a former ambassador, who publicly disputed the
cut; the measure passed in the Senate 51–50, with Bush administration’s assertion that Iraq was developing
Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. nuclear weapons—specifically the allegation that it had
In 2001, Cheney headed a task force to develop a attempted to acquire uranium from Niger. Many were
new White House energy policy in close consultation convinced of Cheney’s involvement in the Plame affair,
with executives of the energy industry, but to the con- but it stood unproven, and weapons of mass destruction
sternation of environmental watch groups he refused to were never found in Iraq. The record does show, however,
publicly release the names of the participants on the basis that Cheney was the main figure behind the policies of
of executive privilege; a 2004 Supreme Court decision “robust interrogation” (which many call torture) of ter-
upheld this lack of disclosure. Cheney’s support of energy rorist suspects and their indefinite detention at sites such
companies brought him into conflict with environmental as Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
laws, leading to the 2003 resignation of Christine Todd
Whitman, director of the Environmental Protection Children in the News
Agency, in objection to the vice president’s insistence During the George W. Bush presidency Liz Cheney Perry
on loosening the pollution-control regulations of power and her husband, Phillip, were criticized in the press
plants. In 2002, Cheney lifted the ban on snowmobiling for securing high-level federal jobs. A law graduate of
in national parks. That same year, over the objections of the University of Chicago (JD, 1996), the elder Cheney
federal biologists, he forced the release of irrigation water daughter worked for the state department’s bureau of
from Oregon’s Klamath River to relieve drought-stricken Near Eastern affairs (2002–2003, 2005–2007), while
farmers—killing 77,000 salmon in the process. her husband served as an associate attorney general
After September 11, 2001, surrounded by former at the Justice Department (2001–2002) and general
colleagues (including Secretary of State Colin Powell, counsel at both the Office of Management and Budget
C hic ago Seven 83
(2002–2003) and the Department of Homeland Security Further Reading

(2005–2007). Their combined annual federal income Cheney, Mary. Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political
of nearly $300,000 was described in one newspaper Life. New York: Threshold Editions, 2006.
editorial as “a pure form of nepotism.” Didion, Joan. “Cheney: The Fatal Touch.” New York Review of
The son-in-law came under political scrutiny in No- Books, October 5, 2006.
vember 2001 after the Justice Department announced Dubose, Lou. Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American
it would no longer seek to break up Microsoft—as Presidency. New York: Random House, 2006.
the department’s third-ranking official, Phillip Perry Hayes, Stephen F. Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s
oversaw the antitrust division. Critics emphasized that Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President. New York:
the CEO of Microsoft had earlier met with the vice HarperCollins, 2007.
president. Levine, Art. “Dick Cheney’s Dangerous Son-in-Law.” Washington
Looming in the culture wars spotlight was Mary Monthly, March 2007.
Cheney’s sexual orientation, which Democratic challenger Wiener, Jon. “Hard to Muzzle: The Return of Lynne Cheney.”
John Kerry injected into the third 2004 presidential Nation, September 27, 2000.
debate. When asked if homosexuality is a choice, he
responded, “We’re all God’s children. . . . If you were
to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, C h i c a g o S eve n
she would tell you that she’s . . . who she was born as.” The Chicago Seven (originally Eight) was the popular
Afterward, Lynne Cheney called Kerry’s comments “a name for a group of anti–Vietnam War protestors and
cheap and tawdry political trick.” A headline in Time New Left radicals charged and brought to trial on
magazine, however, asked, “Who Gets to Talk About charges of conspiracy, inciting to riot, and resisting
Mary Cheney?” arrest stemming from street demonstrations and clashes
In her political memoir, Now It’s My Turn (2006), with police during the 1968 Democratic National
Mary Cheney accused Kerry of seeking “to drive a Convention in Chicago, held from August 24 to 29.
wedge between the Republican ticket and evangelical On March 20, 1969, a grand jury summoned at the
Christian voters.” Many did find her open lesbianism urging of Chicago mayor Richard Daley returned indict-
incongruent with the Bush-Cheney position on tradi- ments against eight demonstrators: Rennie Davis, David
tional family values and its support of the Federal Mar- Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman,
riage Amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, and Lee Weiner. The trial be-
In early 2004, for example, gay activists founded the gan thirteen months after the Chicago riots, on September
DearMary.com Web site to pressure the vice president’s 24, 1969, in the courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman.
daughter to speak out for gay rights. They placed her Defendants Hoffman and Rubin, co-founders of the
photograph on the side of an image of a milk carton, Youth International Party (Yippies), viewed the trial as
made to look as if she was a missing person, with the an opportunity to make a creative and entertaining ap-
accompanying statement: “Silent since her father en- peal to America’s youth to join the movement by turn-
dorsed antigay constitutional amendment making her ing the courtroom into a theater of the absurd. Hoffman
and millions of Americans second-class citizens.” In suggested that the judge try LSD and offered to get him
May 2006, Time magazine quoted her claiming to have some; Rubin and Hoffman showed up in court one day
had “serious reservations” about working for Bush’s wearing mock judicial robes. Ultimately, the trial came
reelection, but the threat of terrorism convinced her to highlight the clash of cultures and values in 1960s
“I didn’t have the luxury to be a single-issue voter on America. Among the notable figures of the American
same-sex marriage.” counterculture who testified were folk singers Pete
In 2007, Mary Cheney gave birth to a son, declar- Seeger, Judy Collins, and Phil Ochs; poet Allen Ginsberg;
ing the child “a blessing from God” and not “a political writer Norman Mailer; and LSD guru Timothy Leary.
statement.” The evangelical group Focus on the Family Judge Hoffman, for his part, little indulged the
earlier editorialized that it was not in a child’s best inter- defendants. When Seale’s lawyer Charles Garry took
est to be conceived outside the context of a female-male leave to undergo surgery, Judge Hoffman refused Seale’s
relationship. request for a postponement and would not allow Seale
Roger Chapman to represent himself. Seale, a Black Panther, let loose a
verbal tirade against the judge, accusing him of being a
See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; American Century; Bush racist and calling him a “fascist dog” and a “pig.” When
Family; Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; Gay Seale refused to be silenced, Judge Hoffman ordered him
Rights Movement; National Endowment for the Humanities; gagged and bound to his chair in the courtroom. Seale’s
Neoconservatism; Outing; Privatization; Same-Sex Marriage; case was ultimately declared a mistrial and severed from
September 11; Tax Reform. the rest of the trial, transforming the Chicago Eight to
84 C hic ago Seven
the Chicago Seven. Judge Hoffman declared Seale in Chick , Jack

contempt and imposed one of the longest sentences ever Author-illustrator Jack Thomas Chick has published
handed down in an American court for that offense—four more than half a billion Christian fundamentalist tracts
years in prison. in more than a hundred languages. His religious comics
The trial closed on February 14, 1970, and with have reached a wide audience despite lockouts by Christian
the jury in deliberation, Judge Hoffman cited the seven bookstores and even a brief ban in Canada during the
defendants, along with attorneys William Kunstler 1980s. Chick tracts attack evolution, homosexuality,
and Leonard Weinglass, for contempt of court, passing paganism, witchcraft, Catholicism, rock music, popular
sentences ranging from two months to four years and culture, and any other social and cultural trends deemed
thirteen days (for Kunstler). On February 18, 1970, the antithetical to his fundamentalist evangelism.
Chicago Seven were found not guilty of conspiracy; five Chick was born on April 13, 1924, in Los Angeles,
were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent California. He attended the Pasadena Playhouse School
to foment riot and sentenced to five years in prison and of Theater on scholarship and served three years in the
$5,000 in fines; Froines and Weiner were acquitted of U.S. Army. His conversion to fundamentalist Christian-
all charges. ity, fostered by his wife and mother-in-law, is said to
During jury selection, attorneys Kunstler and have occurred in 1948. Over the course of the 1960s, he
Weinglass had sought to expose cultural biases among went from producing his first book to founding his own
potential jurors and submitted a list of fifty-four pos- publishing company.
sible questions for prospective deliberators—such as Although his product line includes comic book series,
whether or not they knew who Jimi Hendrix and Janis posters, books, and films, his proselytizing tracts remain
Joplin were, or whether their daughters always wore a his most popular products. A small “J.T.C.” on the cover
bra. Judge Hoffman refused all of the questions except credits Chick for the text and illustrations, but since 1975
one that asked jurors if they had close friends or family half of the artwork has been produced by Fred Carter. De-
members who worked for any law enforcement agency. spite being widely parodied and ridiculed, Chick’s cartoon
In the end, the predominantly middle-class jury of two tracts—which measure about 3” x 5” —have exerted a ma-
white men, two black women, and eight white women jor influence on diverse fundamentalist campaigns, such as
would prove difficult for the defense to win over. In the those targeting rock music, homosexuality, and paganism.
aftermath of the trial, jurors made comments suggesting All of the tracts offer evangelical Protestant-themed lessons
that the defendants should have been convicted merely for that must be followed in order to avoid being sent to hell.
their appearance, language, and lifestyle; one suggested The most controversial tracts warn against such
that they should have been shot by police. specific evils as Christian rock music (“Angels”), evolu-
On November 21, 1972, the U.S. Court of Appeals tion (“Apes, Lies, and Ms. Henn”), homosexuality (“The
for the Seventh Circuit overturned all convictions in the Birds and the Bees”), Jehovah’s Witnesses (“The Crisis”),
case, citing Judge Hoffman’s refusal to allow defense Freemasonry (“The Curse of Baphomet”), role-playing
inquiries into potential cultural biases among jurors, games (“Dark Dungeons”), Catholicism (“The Death
along with judicial bias. The contempt charges were later Cookie”), Islam (“The Little Bride”), and astrology, drugs,
retried by a new judge and several of the defendants found television, spiritualism, and the ecumenical movement
guilty, but no sentences were handed down. (“Bewitched?”). His attacks on the Catholic Church are
particularly virulent, promoting a conspiracy theory that
Jeff Shantz the Vatican is a continuation of Babylon and the pope
is the Antichrist.
See also: Counterculture; Democratic Party; Ginsberg, Allen;
Although Chick’s publications decry popular culture,
Hayden, Tom; Hoffman, Abbie; Leary, Timothy; Mailer, Nor-
his use of the comic book as a means of mass communi-
man; Seeger, Pete; Students for a Democratic Society.
cation represents an appropriation of the cultural media
he criticizes. Comics have enabled Chick to spread his
Further Reading religious worldview and participate in the culture wars
Babcox, Peter, and Deborah Babcox, eds. The Conspiracy: The
by addressing issues of particular concern to Christian
Chicago Eight Speak Out! New York: Dell, 1969.
fundamentalists.
Dellinger, David. From Yale to Jail. New York: Pantheon Books,
1993. Solomon Davidoff
Epstein, Jason. The Great Conspiracy Trial: An Essay on Law, Lib-
erty, and the Constitution. New York: Random House, 1970. See also: Book Banning; Catholic Church; Censorship; Comic
Hayden, Tom. Reunion: A Memoir. New York: Random House, Books; Contemporary Christian Music; Counterculture; Evan-
1988. gelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gays in Popular Cul-
———. Trial. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970. ture; Jehovah’s Witnesses; New Age Movement; Rock and Roll.
C hina 85
Further Reading publicans, such as Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and

Barnette, Mark. “From the Other Side of the Tracts: Jack T. Robert Dole, however, accused the Carter administration
Chick’s Pyramid Plan.” Comics Journal 145 (October 1991): of selling out Taiwan to appease the Chinese communists.
89–94. In 1979, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act,
Fowler, Robert. The World of Chick? San Francisco: Last Gasp, which guaranteed future arms sales to the Nationalist
2001. government, upheld all previous international obliga-
Kuersteiner, Kurt. The Unofficial Guide to the Art of Jack T. Chick: tions, and authorized quasi-diplomatic relations.
Chick Tracts, Crusader Comics, and Battle Cry Newspapers. Between 1979 and 1989, the United States and the
Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2004. People’s Republic developed a close strategic partnership
against the Soviet Union, and economic and cultural
exchanges increased dramatically. Under the leadership
China of Deng Xiaoping, China began to reform its planned
China has been an evolving source of controversy for economy and institute limited free-market capitalism,
Americans since the establishment of the People’s which led many Americans to expect a political opening
Republic of China in 1949. During the Cold War, up as well. However, the Tiananmen Square massacre of
Americans’ concerns about China were defined largely June 1989 underscored to Americans the authoritarian
by their concerns over communism. In the 1950s and realities of the communist regime. President George
1960s, Americans wondered if China was a puppet of H.W. Bush imposed economic sanctions on China and
the Soviet Union. In contrast, during the 1970s and pressured Beijing to release detained dissidents.
1980s, the United States regarded China as a special After 1989, issues pertaining to human rights,
partner against the Soviet Union, despite China’s which had been kept in the shadows because of strategic
Marxist regime. Since the end of the Cold War in the concerns, were brought into the open. Organized labor
late 1980s, Americans and U.S. policymakers have in America accused China of using prison labor to make
demonstrated a diversity of opinions on trade, human goods for export. Religious conservatives criticized Chi-
rights, and security issues regarding China. na’s birth-control policy (one child per family) and called
China fell into communist hands in October 1949 for religious freedom. The independence movements of
after years of civil war between Chiang Kai-shek’s Na- the Taiwanese and Tibetans gained many sympathizers
tionalist Party and Mao Zedong’s Communist Party. The in the United States as well. Since 1989, Human Rights
Nationalists, who were America’s ally during World War Watch (Asia) has been publishing yearly reports on hu-
II, fled to Taiwan and established the Republic of China. man rights in China to pressure the U.S. government to
Despite heavy lobbying by Chiang’s American friends, take up the issue with Beijing.
the Truman administration concluded that the Nation- During the 1990s, congressional debate regarding
alists would never be able to regain mainland China. In China’s most favored nation (MFN) trade status became a
August 1949, the U.S. State Department published the battleground for the interests of the business community,
China White Paper, in which it blamed the Nationalists for labor unions, and human rights activists. The business
their own defeat. Republicans seized the issue of the “loss community supported granting unconditional MFN sta-
of China” to discredit the Democrats as being soft on com- tus; the AFL-CIO lobbied for revocation; human rights
munism. The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, which activists argued that a conditional MFN status would
pitted a U.S.-led United Nations force and South Korea force China to improve its human rights practices. Presi-
against a Chinese- and Soviet-backed North Korea, ended dent Bill Clinton linked China’s MFN status with human
any foreseeable possibility for formal relations between rights in 1993, then reversed himself in 1994 and shifted
Washington and Beijing. The United States maintained from a punitive China policy to a policy of engagement.
its nonrecognition policy for two decades. In 2000, Congress granted permanent normal trade rela-
When the rift between China and the Soviet Union tions to China, despite a strong conservative opposition
became clear in the 1970s, the United States reached led by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC).
out to Beijing. In February 1972, President Richard Americans today remain divided over China policy.
M. Nixon made a heavily publicized visit to China. Al- Supporters of engagement argue that it is the best way
though the step received an outpouring of praise from the of transforming China into a responsible international
American public, the anticommunist right was furious player and reducing its threat to the Unites States. They
that Nixon had promised to eventually withdraw U.S. believe that extensive ties between China and the Western
troops from Taiwan and end official relations with the world expose the Chinese to Western ideas of freedom
Nationalist government. and democracy and will ultimately transform China into
It was not until December 15, 1978, under President a democratic society.
Jimmy Carter, that the United States normalized relations Critics of the engagement policy argue that increased
with the People’s Republic of China. Conservative Re- economic ties between the United States and China have
86 C hisholm, S hirley
only reduced the competitive advantages of the United Congress, she represented New York’s Twelfth District
States and strengthened the abusive power of the Chinese from 1969 to 1982.
Communist Party. With inexpensive, Chinese-made Chisholm’s election to the House of Representatives
goods filling Wal-Mart and other retail stores, the U.S. in 1968 was made possible after the U.S. Supreme Court
trade deficit with China quadrupled within ten years. in 1964 ordered redistricting to undo previous gerryman-
Americans suspicious of globalization blame China for dering, which led to the formation of a predominately
the loss of jobs in the United States. Conservatives warn black district in Brooklyn. In that contest, Chisholm,
that China is using the trade surplus to expand its defense the Democratic candidate, faced Republican challenger
budget and is using espionage to steal vital American James Farmer, former chair of the Congress of Racial
technologies to enhance its military capability. Equality, who turned the campaign into a question of
Not everyone sees a “China threat.” Many econo- gender. The tactic backfired. Chisholm won 34,885 votes
mists point out that China simply replaced other Asian to Farmer’s 13,777.
producers from which the United States used to import, On Capitol Hill, Chisholm made waves by opposing
and argue that inexpensive cheap goods from China help the House seniority system, objecting to her appointment
check inflation. Some point out that a large portion of to the Agriculture Committee. She eventually landed her
China’s defense budget simply pays the food costs and assignment of choice, a seat on the Education and Labor
stipends of the soldiers, and that its military expendi- Committee, using that position to advocate liberal eco-
tures are still far behind that of the United States. nomic programs. In 1971 she co-sponsored the Adequate
Income Act, which stipulated a guaranteed income level
Min Song for all families. President Gerald Ford vetoed her legisla-
tive initiative to provide federal subsidies for day-care
See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Carter, Jimmy; Cold War; centers. Her record on environmental issues was criti-
Fundamentalism, Religious; Goldwater, Barry; Helms, Jesse; cized, but she defended her position as protecting jobs.
Human Rights; Labor Unions; Reagan, Ronald; Wal-Mart. During her first term, she sponsored legislation to end
the draft and opposed spending on the Vietnam War that
Further Reading could have been directed toward domestic programs.
Bernstein, Richard, and Ross H. Munro. China: The Coming In her 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential
Conflict with America. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. nomination, Chisholm failed in her quest to create a co-
Christensen, Thomas. Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Do- alition of blacks, women activists, and other minorities.
mestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflicts, 1947–1958. She participated in twelve state primaries, however, and
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. at the Democratic National Convention received 152
Lampton, David M. Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing first-round votes. She saw her candidacy as advancing
U.S.-China Relations, 1989–2000. Berkeley: University of minority candidates, just as Al Smith, the first Catholic
California Press, 2001. to run for president, paved the way for John F. Kennedy.
Mann, James. About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relation- Chisholm campaigned for Jesse Jackson when he ran for
ship with China, from Nixon to Clinton. New York: Vintage the presidency in 1984 and 1988. She later retired to
Books, 1998. Florida, where she died on January 1, 2005, at the age
of eighty.
Leah Martin and Roger Chapman
C h i s h o l m , S h i r l ey
The first African-American woman elected to Congress, See also: Civil Rights Movement; Democratic Party; Environmen-
Shirley Chisholm focused on issues important to her tal Movement; Feminism, Second-Wave; Ford, Gerald; Jackson,
Brooklyn, New York, constituency, including jobs Jesse; Kennedy Family; Vietnam War; Welfare R eform.
training, education, housing, and day care. In 1972, she
became the first black and the first woman to seek a Further Reading
major party’s nomination for president. Chisholm, Shirley. The Good Fight. New York: Harper and
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was born in Brooklyn Row, 1973.
on November 30, 1924. After being raised by her grand- ———. Unbought and Unbossed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.
mother in Barbados, she attended Brooklyn College (BA, Scheader, Catherine. Shirley Chisholm: Teacher and Congresswoman.
1946) and Columbia University (MA, 1952). She headed Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 1990.
a preschool in Brooklyn for six years and then served as
an educational consultant in the New York City govern-
ment’s day-care division from 1959 to 1964. Launching C h o m s k y, N o a m
her career in politics, she won election to the New York A leading linguistic theorist, libertarian socialist, and
State Assembly in 1964 and served until 1968. In the U.S. activist, Noam Chomsky has criticized U.S. foreign
C hom sk y, Noam 87
policy, critiqued American mass media, attacked the War with Asia (1970), For Reasons of State (1973), Human
policies of Israel, defended the free speech of a Holocaust Rights and American Foreign Policy (1978), Towards a New
denier, and suggested after September 11, 2001, that Cold War (1982), Culture of Terrorism (1988), What Uncle
the United States is a leading terrorist state. Critics Sam Really Wants (1992), World Orders, Old and New (1994),
have portrayed him as a pariah, extremist, conspiracy Hegemony or Survival (2003), and Failed States: The Abuse of
theorist, and polemicist, but Chomsky has for decades Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006).
been one of America’s most internationally recognized In his analysis of mass media, Chomsky consistently
intellectuals. He is a figure not easily dismissed, though targets the New York Times, arguing that it is an agenda-
many on the political right have tried. setter largely determining what the overall media report.
Avram Noam Chomsky, born on December 7, Not only do some important topics intentionally go unre-
1928, in Philadelphia, was raised in an Orthodox Jewish ported, he argues, but the political spectrum of viewpoints
household. He specialized in linguistics at the University is significantly narrowed to the point that anything seem-
of Pennsylvania (BA, 1949; MA, 1951; PhD, 1955). ingly “liberal” is actually quite conservative. (This coincides
Although well-traveled and a visiting scholar at various with his assertion that there is little difference between the
academic institutions, Chomsky has been a faculty mem- Democratic and Republican parties.) Such manipulation
ber at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of information, Chomsky says, limits public debate while
since 1955. Published works such as Syntactic Structures “manufacturing the consent” of society’s managerial class.
(1957) and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) revolu- Furthermore, as Chomsky asserts with Edward S. Herman
tionized the field of linguistics, leading to the hypothesis in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass
of an innate, universal grammar, but his opposition to Media (1988), the media are corporate entities that protect
the Vietnam War and his recognition of MIT’s role in corporate interests. Chomsky believes American society is
the military-industrial complex compelled him in 1964 inundated with propaganda from commercial interests with
to become a political activist. a conservative media bias. The documentary film Manufac-
More than half of Chomsky’s extensive writings are turing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) offers a
political, primarily questioning U.S. foreign policy, at- lively overview of Chomsky’s theories of propaganda.
tributing the causes of the Cold War and terrorism to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and others
American imperialism and business interests. These works have taken Chomsky to task for his critique of Zionism,
include American Power and the New Mandarins (1969), At criticism of Israel’s policies, and support for the Palestin-
ian cause. Chomsky has called for a binational Jewish-
Palestinian state, as opposed to “the sovereign State of
the Jewish people.” Chomsky was further criticized in
the mid-1990s for his defense—on the grounds of free
speech and academic freedom—of Robert Faurisson, a
French professor who denied the existence of Nazi gas
chambers and raised doubts about the Holocaust.
In 9-11 (2001), a compilation of interviews with
Chomsky about the cause and context of the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States is presented
as a less than innocent victim. Whereas Chomsky views
Osama bin Laden as a private practitioner of terrorism, he
accuses the U.S. government of being a leading perpetra-
tor of state terrorism. America was attacked by al-Qaeda,
he argues, because of its imperialistic policies and actions
in the Middle East. William J. Bennett, the author of
Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism
(2002), is among those who have publicly clashed with
Chomsky over the issue of terrorism and has pointedly
asked the professor why he chooses to reside in a country
he regards as a terrorist state.
Roger Chapman
MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky, a longtime po-
litical dissident and outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy,
See also: Academic Freedom; Anti-Semitism; Bennett, Wil-
addresses a 2002 symposium on the Iraq War. Chomsky liam J.; Cold War; Conspiracy Theories; Holocaust; Israel;
has described himself as a “libertarian socialist.” (William B. Media Bias; New York Times, The; September 11; Vietnam
Plowman/Stringer/Getty Images) War; Williams, William Appleman; Zinn, Howard.
88 C hr is tian Coalition
Further Reading “culture wars” rhetoric. Ralph Reed was an anti-abortion

Barsky, Robert F. Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge, activist who was arrested for harassment at abortion
MA: MIT Press, 1997. clinics. He also advocated the Christian Coalition’s use
Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz, eds. The Anti-Chomsky of “stealth” politics by comparing politics to guerrilla
Reader. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004. warfare. Robertson voiced his fair share of inflammatory
McGilvray, James, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky. speech as well. On one occasion, he asserted that the lib-
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. eral attack on religious freedom was the equivalent of a
gang rape. In The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration,
Demands for Recognition (1997), Justin Watson cites Rob-
Christian Coalition ertson’s famous statement of 1992: “The feminist agenda
The Christian Coalition of America was founded by is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist,
evangelical leader Pat Robertson in 1989, after his failed antifamily political movement that encourages women to
bid for the Republican presidential nomination the leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witch-
previous year. In light of the crumbling of Jerry Falwell’s craft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
Moral Majority and the perceived failure of President These and other statements widely viewed as extreme
Ronald Reagan to advocate strongly for the Christian made the organization an easy scapegoat for the failed
right’s social positions, the Christian Coalition sought to reelection campaign of President George H.W. Bush
give conservative Christians a new voice in government. in 1992. In the aftermath, the Christian Coalition was
Robertson asked the young and charismatic Ralph Reed forced to rebuild its image and focus on state and local
to serve as the organization’s first executive director, a affiliates. It emphasized voter education, handing out
post he held until 1997. Based in Washington, D.C., hundreds of thousands of voting guides for local, state,
the Christian Coalition today boasts more than 2 million and federal elections. These efforts helped in the Repub-
members nationwide. Its primary focus is promoting lican congressional landslide of 1994.
what it describes as a “pro-family” agenda that includes Although it focused primarily on fiscal policy, the
educating voters, protesting anti-Christian bigotry, Republicans’ 1994 Contract with America was supported
speaking out to the public, and training future leaders by the Christian Coalition, which hoped that congres-
for action. sional Republicans would support the group’s own Con-
After its first meeting in 1989, the Christian Coali- tract with the American Family the following year. The
tion drew nearly 5,000 members, though some officials Christian Coalition’s contract, however, was criticized by
at organizations such as Focus on the Family thought both the right and the left: the right considered it too
the group was simply a front for Robertson’s next bid mainstream, and the left considered it too extreme.
for president. Despite such speculation, the organization Broadening the Christian Coalition’s reach was
stuck to a grassroots focus and became a household name, always a primary focus of Ralph Reed, who continued
largely due to Robertson and Reed’s staunchly conser- “mainstreaming” despite the criticism. He reached out
vative politics on issues such as school prayer, abortion, to nonwhites and Catholics, called on evangelicals to pray
and homosexuality. Further adding to its appeal, after for their racist and anti-Semitic sins, and invited women
the televangelist scandals of the 1980s, the Christian to be members and leaders of the national organization
Coalition operated as a lay-based movement, as opposed and its affiliates.
to the familiar preacher-led model. The organization was influential in securing Bob
The Christian Coalition emerged as a key player on Dole’s 1996 Republican presidential nomination, but the
the political scene in 1990 by taking out full-page ads mid-1990s brought significant troubles—which have not
in the Washington Post and USA Today that called for entirely subsided. It had to fight for its tax-exempt status,
an end to “tax-payer funded pornography” sponsored which was not resolved until 2005. Reed resigned as ex-
by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This ecutive director in 1997 amid financial turmoil, alleged
attack, a response to the work of artists such as Robert internal fighting, and stagnant or declining membership.
Mapplethorpe and Holly Hughes, earned the Christian His replacements were soon ousted by Robertson, who
Coalition significant credibility among conservatives as a took over the helm until 2001. That year, Robertson re-
moralistic, pro-family advocate. With momentum from signed under pressure after he voiced support for China’s
the NEA controversy, the 1991 nomination of Clarence one-child policy in a television interview. Although he
Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court placed the Christian insisted otherwise, many conservatives understood his
Coalition on the national radar. Thomas’s confirmation endorsement of the Chinese policy as support for forced
amid accusations of sexual harassment is touted as one abortion.
of the organization’s greatest successes. With Robertson’s resignation, Roberta Combs, a
Despite its significant political influence, the Chris- former state director from South Carolina, took over the
tian Coalition was often a lightning rod because of its leadership. However, Combs was accused of nepotism for
C hr is tian Radio 89
hiring her daughter and son-in-law. The organization’s of the first half of the twentieth century were Charles
debt was more than $2 million at the end of 2004. In E. Fuller’s Old-Fashioned Revival Hour, which broadcast
March 2006, one of its most prominent chapters, the over thirty-eight stations to more than 10 million people
Christian Coalition of Iowa, broke ties with the national in the late 1930s, and Billy Graham’s Hour of Decision,
body. which amassed over 20 million listeners within weeks of
From its inception, the Christian Coalition has its debut in 1950.
sought to promote “Christian values” and demanded By the end of World War II, religious broadcasting
political recognition for the conservative Christian com- had become big business. Fueled by the Communica-
munity. While their goals were easier to pursue during tions Act of 1934, which required commercial stations
the 1980s and 1990s, subsequent conservative victories to broadcast public-service programming, evangelicals
made it difficult for the leadership to sustain membership began to produce radio shows that not only attracted
and political influence. listeners but also garnered financial support. Although
Karma R. Chávez some stations gave away free air time to fulfill their
federal obligations, others preferred to charge, forcing
See also: Abortion; Church and State; Contract with America; religious broadcasters to become more media savvy.
Family Values; Focus on the Family; Gay Rights Movement; Funded mostly through voluntary donations, the best
Moral Majority; National Endowment for the Arts; Reed, radio preachers were those who appealed to listeners’
Ralph; Religious Right; Robertson, Pat; School Prayer; Tel- pocketbooks as well as their spiritual needs. In 1947
evangelism. alone, Charles Fuller solicited $40,000 per week to pay
for commercial radio time. The Mutual Broadcasting
Further Reading System, which aired his show, made $3.5 million a year
Boston, Robert. The Most Dangerous Man in America? Pat on religious programming.
Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Right. Amherst, NY: In 2006, some 1,600 Christian organizations were
Prometheus Books, 1996. broadcasting in the United States, from single stations to
Christian Coalition of America Web site. www.cc.org. expansive networks that covered vast geographic regions.
Reed, Ralph. Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul Broadcasting formats include gospel music, “teach and
of American Politics. New York: Free Press, 1996. preach” sermons, talk radio, and contemporary Christian
Watson, Justin. The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration, De- music. Salem Communications, based in Southern Cali-
mands for Recognition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. fornia, became the nation’s fastest-growing radio empire,
with more than a hundred stations in the nation’s most
populated markets and broadcasting to more than 1,900
Christian Radio affiliates. The company dominated the Christian airwaves
Christian radio has become a major force in the and boasted that its news division was the only Christian-
contemporary American media scene, with more than a focused group with fully equipped broadcast facilities at
hundred million people tuning in at least once a month. the White House and U.S. Capitol.
Conceived as an electronic means of bringing evangelism Despite the constitutionally mandated separation of
into the home, early programs such as The Lutheran Hour church and state, Christian radio has played an important
(beginning in 1930) and Radio Bible Class (beginning in role in American politics since 1976, when presidential
1936) were used to create a nationwide community of candidates Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both met with
faithful listeners. Many of such shows have evolved into leaders of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB)
a pulpit for criticizing secular society, giving Christian association. The acknowledgment of NRB’s political
broadcasters political and cultural power. clout prompted the organization to chart a more aggres-
The first radio sermon in America was aired from the sive media strategy. By the early 1980s, Christian radio
Calvary Episcopal Church on station KDKA (Pittsburgh) entered a second golden age, led by James Dobson, whose
on January 2, 1921. Within six years, religious groups Focus on the Family program was syndicated worldwide,
across the country had licensed sixty radio stations to and Marlin Maddoux, whose USA Radio Network was the
carry their message into followers’ homes. Faith-based first gospel station completely funded through commer-
stations included KFSG (Los Angeles), created by Aimee cial advertising. In 1994, both men used their programs
Semple McPherson and her Church of the Foursquare to encourage listeners to protest a federal bill that would
Gospel, and WMBI (Chicago), run by Henry C. Crowell have outlawed homeschooling. Nearly a million callers
and the Moody Bible Institute. The Golden Hour program jammed the House of Representatives telephone lines,
of Charles Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest, drew resulting in the defeat of the bill.
millions of listeners over the CBS network from 1926 to Religious broadcasters continue to flex their political
1938, when he was forced off the air for his anti-Semitic muscle, mobilizing allies in hotly debated causes. Their
and pro-Nazi viewpoints. Other popular radio shows most vociferous and prolonged battle has been against
90 C hr is tian Recon s tr uc tionism
homosexuality. In the early 1990s, born-again Christian its laws should be applied to contemporary society,
deejay Warren Duffy rallied a march on Disney Studios including the death penalty for adultery, sodomy,
to protest that company’s “Gay Day,” an annual event and blasphemy. As postmillennialists, they believe
encouraging homosexuals and their families to visit Dis- that there will be a Christian thousand-year reign of
neyland. In 1997, talk show host Rich Agozino stirred the earth, culminating with the Second Coming of
controversy in Orange County, California, when he asked Jesus Christ. Consequently, they dismiss the notion
his listeners whether homosexuality should be punishable of a secular society that separates church and state.
by death. Antigay rhetoric is a frequent theme of many Although Reconstructionists constitute a tiny segment
religious talk shows, including the nationally syndicated of American Christianity, they have had an inordinate
Janet Parshall’s America, hosted by a member of the right- influence on the Religious Right.
wing Christian group Concerned Women for America. The Reconstructionist movement can be traced to
Former NRB president E. Brandt Gustavson has R.J. Rushdoony, an ordained Presbyterian minister who
warned that radio listeners may be “turned off to the real in 1965 founded the Chalcedon Foundation, located
message of hope and encouragement of finding Christ” in Vallecito, California, for the purpose of promoting
if programs are too political. In this spirit, Salem Com- biblical law as an alternative to civil law for govern-
munications has taken as its mission the homespun goal ing society. Rushdoony, who died in 2001, authored
of mending marriages, regaining childhood memories, numerous books and was the founding editor of the
and restoring faith one broadcast at a time. Still, an Journal of Christian Reconstruction. A staunch advocate of
undeniable political agenda underlies many Christian homeschooling, Rushdoony disliked the public school
radio shows. In a 2004 editorial published in Broadcast- system, which he believed was corrupted by secular
ing and Cable, Salem chair Stuart Epperson described humanism (influenced by the philosophies of Horace
his company’s vigorous support of limited government, Mann and John Dewey). Rushdoony’s Institutes of Bibli-
free enterprise, a strong national defense, and traditional cal Law (1973), a commentary on the Ten Command-
moral values. Moreover, Epperson has twice run for Con- ments, provides an outline of a program for establishing
gress. He and business partner Edward Atsinger III have a Christian theocracy. In 1981, Newsweek magazine
personally contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars described the Chalcedon Foundation as a think tank
to conservative causes and political candidates. of the Religious Right, including the Moral Majority.
Important members of Rushdoony’s movement over the
Cindy Mediavilla years have included Gary North (who married one of
Rushdoony’s daughters), Gary DeMar, Greg Bahnsen,
See also: Anti-Semitism; Carter, Jimmy; Catholic Church; David Chilton, Kenneth Gentry, and Andrew Sandlin.
Contemporary Christian Music; Dobson, James; Focus on the North, who has stated that the biblically correct way to
Family; Ford, Gerald; Gay Rights Movement; Graham, Billy; carry out capital punishment is by stoning, defines his
Same-Sex Marriage; Schiavo, Terri; Walt Disney Company. politics as Neo-Puritanism.
Critics regard Reconstructionism as a dangerous
Further Reading dogma, which, if put into practice, could lead to the
Hangen, Tona J. Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, and Popular Christian equivalent of the Taliban. Such opponents ar-
Culture in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina gue that a religious sect exercising dominion over society
Press, 2002. would pose a threat to democracy as well as individual
Schultze, Quentin J. Christianity and the Mass Media in America: liberty. Disagreeing, Reconstructionists maintain that
Toward a Democratic Accommodation. East Lansing: Michigan individual and social life should be ruled by a godly do-
State University Press, 2003. minion. True liberty, they add, creates a moral society,
Ward, Mark, Sr. Air of Salvation: The Story of Christian Broadcast- not a libertine one.
ing. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994. Andrew J. Waskey
See also: Church and State; Homeschooling; Moral Majority;

Chr istian Reconstr uc tionism Religious Right; Secular Humanism; Ten Commandments.
Christian Reconstructionism—also referred to as
Dominion Theology or Dominionism (based on Further Reading
Genesis 1:26, a passage stating that human beings are The Chalcedon Foundation Web site. www.chalcedon.edu.
to have dominion over the earth) and Theonomy (from Diamond, Sara. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Po-
the Greek, meaning “God’s law”)—is a fundamentalist litical Power in the United States. New York: Guilford, 1995.
movement that promotes the integration of biblical House, H. Wayne, Thomas Ice, and Rodney L. Morris, eds.
law into American society. Reconstructionists adopt Dominion Theology: Blessing or Curse? An Analysis of Christian
a literal view of the Old Testament and argue that Reconstructionism. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1988.
C hr is tma s 91
Rushdoony, Rousas J. Roots of Reconstruction. Vallecito, CA: Ross

House Books, 1991.
———. The Nature of the American System. Vallecito, CA: Ross
House Books, 2002.
Christmas
Whether regarded as a midwinter folk festival, a
religious holiday, or a combination of the two, Christmas
is observed in some form or fashion by 95 percent of
Americans. In the culture wars, traditionalists and
social conservatives have sounded off against what they
construe as an effort by secularists and multiculturalists
to impose political correctness by deemphasizing the
religious aspect of Christmas as a celebration of the
birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The legal dispute over public Christmas displays—such as
The “defense” of Christmas by culture warriors can this nativity scene in Florissant, Missouri, in 1997—raises
be traced back to the early Cold War years. During the competing First Amendment principles: protecting the “free
exercise” of religion and barring government preference of
late 1950s, the John Birch Society sounded the alarm
one religion over another. (Bill Greenblatt/Getty Images)
that communists and supporters of the United Nations
were launching an “assault on Christmas” in order to
“destroy all religious beliefs and customs.” According protected” and registered disapproval “of attempts to ban
to this conspiracy theory, department stores would references to Christmas.”
start using UN symbols for Christmas decorations to Ironically, there are fundamentalist Christians as well
begin the process of secularization. The rationale was as Jehovah’s Witnesses who do not observe Christmas,
that centralized forces were scheming to undermine the dismissing it for its pagan roots. Moreover, people of faith
moral foundations of the United States and weaken it have long deplored the commercialization of Christmas,
as a superpower. regarding it as not in harmony with Christian values.
In a different yet similar twist, television and radio Some evangelicals have suggested that it is wrong to
talk show host Bill O’Reilly devoted a chapter to “The demand that stores (“palaces of consumerism”) require
Battle for Christmas” in his book Culture Warrior (2006), their employees, many of them not practicing Christians,
asserting that the “secular-progressive program”—backed to greet customers with a religious salutation.
by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—seeks In other controversies pertaining to Christmas, John
to “marginalize” Christmas as a national holiday as part Lennon in his hit single “Happy Christmas” (1971) co-
of an overall strategy to deemphasize religion in order to opted the holiday to protest against the Vietnam War;
advance a secular agenda. The ACLU has made enemies of antismoking activists have asked that pictures of Santa
the traditionalists because of its successful campaign over Claus not show him with a pipe; and feminists have
the years in persuading courts, in the name of enforcing criticized the film Miracle on 34th Street (1947) for sug-
the separation of church and state, to order the removal gesting that the greatest Christmas gift a single mother
of nativity scenes from municipal properties and other could receive is a husband.
public places. Roger Chapman
From the Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights to the American Family Association, the Christian See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Church and State;
Right has deplored the societal trend to avoid Christmas Jehovah’s Witnesses; John Birch Society; Kwanzaa; O’Reilly,
words, such as using the more generic greeting “Happy Bill; Political Correctness; Religious Right; Secular Human-
Holidays” or renaming the Christmas tree a “holiday ism; Thanksgiving Day.
tree.” Some religious groups have organized or threatened
boycotts against retailers for doing away with Christmas Further Reading
words in their seasonal advertisements and store decora- Barnett, James H. The American Christmas: A Study in National
tions, prompting Wal-Mart to reverse course. Even Presi- Culture. New York: Macmillan, 1954.
dent George W. Bush was criticized for sending White Hertzberg, Hendrik. “Comment: Bah Humbug.” New Yorker,
House Christmas cards that wished recipients a happy December 26, 2005, and January 2, 2006.
“holiday season.” Feeling the pressure, the U.S. House of Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. New York:
Representatives in December 2005 approved a resolution Knopf, 1996.
urging “that the symbols and traditions of Christmas be O’Reilly, Bill. Culture Warrior. New York: Time Warner, 2006.
92 C hurch and State
Church and State the freedom from religion, debates continue. Religious
Among the most persistent and contentious issues in the organizations like Americans United for the Separation of
culture wars has been the role of religion in American Church and State argue that any government involvement
society and government. The U.S. Constitution in religion threatens the free exercise of religion. Secular
contains only two references to religion. According to organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union
Article 6, “no religious test shall ever be required as and People for the American Way support that premise
a qualification to any office or public trust under the but also join with organizations like the Freedom from
United States,” meaning that no one otherwise qualified Religion Foundation in arguing that the wall of separa-
may be prevented from being elected because of his or tion is necessary to ensure equality for religious skeptics,
her religion (or lack thereof). The second and far more agnostics, and atheists.
controversial reference is found in the First Amendment, Conservatives argue that the Supreme Court has
which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting misread the Constitution and the intent of the Establish-
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free ment Clause. The Heritage Foundation, for example,
exercise thereof.” maintains that a majority of the framers wished to ensure
Most of the controversies concerning the relation- that the government would not take sides and mandate
ship between church (religion) and state (government) in one religion over others. This is not the same, they argue,
America revolve around the interpretation of the Estab- as ridding the public square of all generic references to
lishment Clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting theism. Religious conservative organizations, including
an establishment of religion”), following the Supreme the Christian Coalition, argue that the United States
Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education of the was founded as a Christian nation and that the wall of
Township of Ewing, et al. (1947). In that case, the majority separation has contributed to a decline in public and
decreed that the Establishment Clause effectively creates private morals.
a wall of separation between church and state. Prior to Martin J. Plax
Everson, the most noteworthy controversies were over the
Free Exercise Clause (“Congress shall make no law . . . See also: American Civil Religion; Creationism and Intel-
prohibiting exercise thereof”). Among these was the right ligent Design; Faith-Based Programs; Founding Fathers;
of Catholics (and later other “minority” religions) to cre- Fundamentalism, Religious; Heritage Foundation; Jehovah’s
ate parochial schools (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1925). Witnesses; O’Hair, Madalyn Murray; School Prayer; School
The turn toward the Establishment Clause was pre- Vouchers; Secular Humanism; Ten Commandments.
pared by two Supreme Court decisions during World
War II involving a petition by Jehovah’s Witnesses to Further Reading
be exempted from the American flag pledge, on the Hamilton, Marci A. God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of
grounds that their religion forbids pledging allegiance to Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
anyone or anything but God. In School District v. Gobitis Himmelfarb, Milton. “Church and State: How High a Wall?”
(1941), the justices denied the petition; two years later, Commentary, July 1996.
the Court reversed itself in West Virginia State Board of Levy, Leonard. The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First
Education v. Barnette, allowing the exemption on grounds Amendment. New York: Macmillan, 1986.
of religious conscience. Justice Felix Frankfurter, in a Phillips, Kevin. American Theocracy. New York: Viking, 2006.
dissenting opinion in the second case, argued that by Plax, Martin J. “The Rule of Law and the Establishment
granting an exemption to the law on the basis of religious Clause.” In Jews and the Public Square, ed. Alan Mittleman
conscience, the Court had, in effect, created an establish- and Robert Licht, 87–131. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
ment of religion. Littlefield, 2002.
On the basis of the Everson decision, the Supreme
Court subsequently decreed that the practice of releasing
students from school for religious instruction is uncon- C h u r c h i l l , Wa r d
stitutional (Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, A symbol of the national debate on academic freedom,
1948), as is any state-sponsored prayer in school (Engel v. social activist and academic Ward Churchill was fired in
Vitale, 1962). In other decisions, the Court ruled on the July 2007 from his position as professor of ethnic studies
legal permissibility of the displaying of crèches on public at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the wake of
property, the usage of school vouchers for attending reli- controversy surrounding his article on the September
gious schools, the posting of the Ten Commandments in 11 attacks, in which he compared some of the victims
or on public buildings, and the teaching of creationism or of the World Trade Center bombings to the Nazi war
intelligent design alongside evolution in science class. criminal Adolph Eichmann.
Although the Supreme Court sought to encourage Ward LeRoy Churchill was born on October 2, 1947, in
toleration of all religious beliefs and practices, including Urbana, Illinois. A Vietnam veteran who had been drafted
Ci v il R ight s Movement 93
into the U.S. Army (1966–1968), Churchill went on to had inflated his military record, falsely presented himself
attend Illinois Central College (AA, 1972) and Sangamon as a former activist with the Weather Underground, and
State University (BA, communications, 1974; MA, cross- made dubious claims of being Native American. Critics
cultural communication, 1975). After earning his degrees, also emphasized that Churchill had never earned a doc-
he was hired to teach commercial arts at Black Hills State torate. In May 2006, a campus panel found him guilty
College in Spearfish, South Dakota (1976–1977) and then of multiple counts of falsifying information, fabricating
moved on to the University of Colorado, where he filled research, and plagiarism. University officials reported that
various staff positions (1978–1991) and served as a faculty the findings pertained not to his writings on September
member in the communications department (1991–1992) 11, but to his publications on Indian history. For instance,
and the ethnic studies department (1992–2007). Churchill he was accused of misrepresenting sources in his assertion
is the author of numerous published works, primarily on that Captain John Smith willfully spread smallpox to a
Native American history and culture. native tribe in colonial Virginia. In July 2007, on the
His provocative essay on September 11—“Some recommendation of the acting chancellor, the Univer-
People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” sity of Colorado board of regents voted 8 to 1 to dismiss
published on the Internet in 2001 and later expanded as Churchill. Supporters of the professor regarded him as the
a book—argued that certain victims of the World Trade victim of a witch hunt, convinced that his dismissal was
Center were not innocent civilians because, as “techno- retribution for his unpopular stance on the September 11
crats of empire,” including financiers and even some CIA attacks. In response to his firing, Churchill filed a lawsuit
officers, they were acting on behalf of the U.S. military in state court, arguing that his First Amendment rights
and its mission of world dominance. The article suggested had been violated. In April 2009, a jury found that he
that the terrorist attacks were a “befitting” way to harm had been wrongfully fired, but only awarded him one
“the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of dollar in damages.
the twin towers.” Roger Chapman
A frequent speaker at college campuses, Churchill
came under fire in January 2005 after his name appeared See also: Academic Bill of Rights; Academic Freedom; O’Reilly,
on a speakers’ list at Hamilton College in Clinton, New Bill; September 11; Students for a Democratic Society.
York. Ironically, he was scheduled to give a presentation
on Indian affairs, not his views on September 11. He had Further Reading
been invited by the Kirkland Project for the Study of Churchill, Ward. On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections
Gender, Society, and Culture, which earlier had sparked on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality.
controversy by inviting to campus a convicted felon Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2003.
and former member of the Black Liberation Army and Cockburn, Alexander. “Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs of
Weather Underground, Susan Rosenberg. Little Green the Right.” Nation, February 21, 2005.
Footballs, a politically conservative Weblog, was instru- Gravois, John. “Colo. Regents Vote to Fire Ward Churchill.”
mental in publicizing Churchill’s essay, which was picked Chronicle of Higher Education, August 3, 2007.
up by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. On his program The Schrecker, Ellen. “The New McCarthyism in Academe.” Thought
O’Reilly Factor, the host urged viewers to contact Hamilton & Action 21 (Fall 2005): 103–18.
College and register disapproval of Churchill’s scheduled Smallwood, Scott. “Anatomy of a Free-Speech Firestorm: How
campus visit. The college received thousands of irate e- a Professor’s 3-Year-Old Essay Sparked a National Contro-
mails and phone calls, some containing threats of violence, versy.” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 10, 2005.
prompting campus officials to cancel the event.
Republican governors also entered the fray, with
George Pataki of New York calling the professor a “big- C i v i l R i g h t s M ove m e n t
oted terrorist supporter” and Bill Owens of Colorado urg- The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was
ing his resignation. Churchill remained unapologetic but an organized campaign to fight racial discrimination.
did issue a press statement clarifying his position: “I am Representing a new approach to “the problem of the
not a ‘defender’ of the September 11 attacks, but simply color line,” as W.E.B. Du Bois once called it, civil
pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive rights activists relied less on lobbying and litigation,
death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence as earlier undertaken by the National Association for
when some of that destruction is returned.” the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and
Under political pressure, officials at the University of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and began
Colorado launched an investigation into alleged “research employing a strategy of civil disobedience.
misconduct” on Churchill’s part, reviewing all of his pub- American society was still beset by four distinct
lications. In the meantime, outside commentators called types of racial discrimination. The most widely known
into question the professor’s credentials, alleging that he was segregation, legitimized by the U.S. Supreme Court
94 Ci v il R ight s Movement
in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld the doctrine of local chapters. Instead, it offered training, general assis-
“separate but equal.” Common forms of racial segrega- tance, and money to existing groups and organizations.
tion were seen in education and public accommodations, Building from the success of the MIA, the SCLC stressed
including restaurants, buses, rest rooms, and drinking nonviolent resistance.
fountains. A second form of discrimination was disen- Also in 1957, the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown
franchisement, which often involved literacy tests and was finally enforced. The NAACP decided to push the
poll taxes to disqualify blacks from voting. The literacy issue in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the school board
tests, officially administered to make certain that voters eventually succumbed to the pressure and agreed to
could read, typically asked blacks questions that few integrate. When Governor Orville Faubus activated the
people (white or black) could answer. A third form of Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine black students
discrimination was economic, such as legal restrictions from attending school, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
that denied blacks the opportunity or resources to open federalized the Arkansas troops and sent them home.
a business or buy a home. Violence was the final form of Eisenhower then deployed U.S. Army units from the
discrimination, often involving vigilantes (such as the 101st Airborne Division to protect the students, thereby
Ku Klux Klan) tacitly supported by local government enforcing the Supreme Court’s ruling.
and law enforcement.
The NAACP was successful in Sweatt v. Painter Expansion
(1950) and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Inspired by CORE’s success of the 1940s, black
(1954), cases that challenged the “separate but equal” college students throughout the South conducted sit-
doctrine. But by the mid-1950s many African Americans ins during the 1960s. These actions were designed to
were dissatisfied with the protracted pace of legal and protest the refusal of local stores to desegregate their
political efforts, and their resistance to the status quo in lunch counters. Because it was important to present
the South grew to unprecedented levels. the right image, protestors typically dressed nicely and
conducted themselves respectfully. Sit-ins generated
Origins media attention because of the violent response of local
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a volunteer secretary police attempting to arrest the peaceful protestors. By
for the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the NAACP, the end of 1960, sit-ins had spread to every major city in
refused to give up her seat on a public bus for a white the South and to Ohio, Illinois, and Nevada. Eventually,
passenger. Her defiance resulted in arrest because she they spread to museums, theaters, parks, libraries, and
had violated a city ordinance. Influential black leaders other public places.
quickly met to discuss strategies to force the city to In addition to generating media attention, the sit-
treat blacks fairly, but her disobedience inspired the ins became a fiscal burden to cities, counties, and states.
larger community and set in motion events that led to When demonstrators were arrested, they generally refused
the Montgomery bus boycott. Black churches played a to post bail and remained in jails, which became over-
significant role in the defiance. A sizable group of black crowded. The arresting jurisdictions had to pay for their
leaders determined that the organizations that had led food and additional guards.
the charge for reform to that point, the NAACP and Because of the success of the sit-ins, student organiz-
CORE, were not suited to coordinating this new form ers formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com-
of nonviolent protest. The Montgomery Improvement mittee (SNCC) in April 1960 to expand their nonviolent
Association (MIA) was founded four days after the Rosa form of protest. The following year, in coordination with
Parks incident, with a relatively unknown minister CORE, the SNCC conceived a plan to force businesses
named Martin Luther King, Jr., designated as its first associated with interstate commerce to desegregate. The
president. The bus boycott lasted 382 days, until the plan called for groups of white and black students to
U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal court decision travel together by bus from Washington, D.C., to New
repealing bus segregation laws. Orleans, Louisiana, stopping throughout the Deep South.
The success in Montgomery sparked nonviolent re- The SNCC called the operation “freedom rides.” Before
sistance and civil disobedience movements throughout the freedom rides began, CORE backed out because of
the South. These protests included bus boycotts, sit-ins, fear that the rides would become too dangerous. These
freedom rides, and marches. The activities were primarily fears were realized as freedom riders faced violence along
coordinated and organized by local churches and grass- the route. They were often beaten and arrested. In one
roots organizations. In 1957, King joined the leaders Alabama town, a bus was firebombed; at a stop in Bir-
of several of these organizations to form the Southern mingham, Alabama, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which repre- “Bull” Connor urged the Ku Klux Klan to attack.
sented the first attempt to coordinate actions across the In mid-November 1961, taking the protests to a
South. Unlike the NAACP, the SCLC never established new level, the SNCC encouraged supporters in Albany,
Ci v il R ight s Movement 95
Georgia, to fight for desegregation of the entire city. By Southern whites had mixed feelings about the move-
mid-December, more than 500 demonstrators had been ment as well. It was largely felt that the demonstrations
jailed. When the movement needed help, King was called had been instigated more by outside agitators and had
in. But unlike the police in many other cities, Albany’s less to do with the local community. Some, particularly
law enforcement decided to follow the same nonviolent students, sympathized with the black protesters and op-
tactics that King and his demonstrators preached. Also, posed segregation. Others, however, believed that whites
in order to keep the jail from overcrowding, the police were superior to blacks and that blacks were not entitled
chief arranged to use the detention facilities in neighbor- to equal treatment. Many politicians, worried about los-
ing communities. To cultivate better relations with the ing power and privilege, formed what became known as
black community, the police made a point of freeing King the Dixiecrats, a pro-segregation southern contingent in
following each arrest. the Democratic Party.
In the end, more than a thousand demonstrators were
arrested in the Albany protest. Without the violence usu- Realization of the “Dream”
ally seen from the police, the news media lost interest. By 1963, the civil rights movement had reached full
Despite the combined efforts of the SCLC and the SNCC, stride, culminating in the March on Washington for
it was not a particularly successful campaign. Organizers Jobs and Freedom, as organized by a collaboration
realized that they would have a difficult time prevailing of civil rights, progressive labor, and liberal groups.
because they could not generate enough participants to Despite Kennedy’s attempt to stop it, the march was
fill all the jail space. held on August 28. Officially, the march had six goals:
meaningful civil rights laws, the right to vote, decent
Brutality Captured housing, a massive federal works program, full and fair
King and the SCLC shifted their attention from employment, and adequate integrated education. The
Albany to Birmingham, Alabama. Instead of trying to primary focus was passage of a federal civil rights law.
desegregate the whole city, the SCLC decided to focus Between 200,000 and 500,000 demonstrators par-
on downtown merchants. Once again, Bull Connor ticipated in the march, gathering in front of the Lincoln
encouraged brutality when arresting demonstrators. Memorial, where King delivered his impassioned “I Have
King decided that a march was needed to draw attention a Dream” speech and other leaders called for action. John
to the campaign. On April 12, 1963, King was arrested Lewis, chair of the SNCC, caused a great deal of tension
for parading without a permit and, four days later, wrote with his speech admonishing the Kennedy administra-
his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” tion for its inability to protect southern blacks and civil
By the time King was released on April 19, the rights workers.
Birmingham campaign had started to unravel, as the In 1964, civil rights activists initiated the Missis-
brutality of the police was defeating the will of the black sippi Freedom Summer, whose goal was to help register
community to continue. In an unprecedented move, the black voters throughout the state. Near the town of
SCLC appealed to high school students. On May 2, more Philadelphia, three volunteer workers—including two
than a thousand high school students left class to join the white men from the North—disappeared. President
demonstrations; more than 600 were peacefully arrested. Lyndon B. Johnson sent in the FBI to investigate. The
The next day, another thousand students left school, and bodies were soon discovered, and it was determined that
this time Connor responded with brutality. He allowed members of the Ku Klux Klan were responsible for the
police dogs to attack the demonstrators and turned murders. Outrage over the incident reverberated for
high-pressure fire hoses at them, events captured by the weeks, helping Johnson gain passage of the Civil Rights
national media and widely broadcast. Responding to the Act of 1964 that July.
national public outrage, the John F. Kennedy administra- After that legislative triumph, the SNCC decided
tion intervened, arranging for the desegregation of lunch to focus on voter registration. In 1965, it chose Selma,
counters and other public accommodations downtown. It Alabama, as the starting point for the program, but op-
also brokered a deal to have the demonstrators released position in the state proved too much for the group. The
and to create a committee to end discriminatory hiring SCLC was brought in to assist, and King quickly orga-
practices. nized peaceful marches. They were met with substantial
Not all African Americans in the South agreed with violence. On March 7, more than 600 civil rights advo-
the actions of the SNCC and the SCLC. A sizable number, cates were marching peacefully toward the state capital
especially of the older generation, believed that the use of when state troopers and local police began attacking them
demonstrations was having a negative effect. Indeed, there with billy clubs, rubber tubes wrapped in barbed wire,
was an increase in violence from the white community, and tear gas. The national reaction motivated Congress
including bombings, assassinations, and random acts of to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Johnson
assault on innocent blacks. signed on August 6.
96 Ci v il R ight s Movement
Legacy Clinton, Bill

By 1966, ineffective enforcement of the Civil Rights The forty-second president of the United States (1993–
Act prompted some activists to start the Black Power 2001), Bill Clinton was the first Democrat since Franklin
movement. The Black Panther Party, formed that year, D. Roosevelt to serve two full terms in the White
urged a more violent response to racism. These new House. Clinton presided over the longest sustained
movements were far more radical than the nonviolent period of economic prosperity in American history,
civil rights movement, and the fight for equality lost while simultaneously transforming a federal deficit of
many white supporters. $291 billion into the first budget surplus in nearly three
On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Mem- decades. Yet despite his efforts to govern as a pragmatic,
phis, Tennessee, and the news of his murder set off conciliatory centrist, he became a polarizing figure
riots in more than sixty cities throughout the nation. because of his cultural liberalism, perceived ethical
President Johnson declared a national day of mourn- lapses, and sexual improprieties. Misleading statements
ing. Following King’s death, civil rights efforts were that he made under oath in connection with a sexual
expanded to include the goals of political and economic affair led to his impeachment in 1998.
self-reliance and self-sufficiency, freedom from white Born William Jefferson Blythe IV on August 19,
authority, and racial dignity. The movement continued 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, he later took his stepfather’s
until about 1975. last name. Clinton showed a proclivity for academics and
The civil rights movement had far-reaching ef- politics at an early age. He received a Rhodes scholarship
fects on racial dynamics and social tensions in America, to study at Oxford after graduating from Georgetown
providing the impetus for a wide variety of culture war University (1968) and earned a JD at Yale Law School
issues. It exposed social cleavages that had been ignored (1973) before returning to his home state of Arkansas to
for decades. It revealed the barbaric ways that humans begin a political career. Clinton married Hillary Rodham,
can treat one another. And it challenged popular concep- a fellow law student, in 1975. Three years later, at age
tions of what it means to be an American. The success of thirty-two, he became the nation’s youngest governor
the civil rights movement led other groups—including when he won that office in Arkansas. He quickly estab-
feminists, Native Americans, Hispanics, and gays—to lished a reputation as a political moderate, while remain-
initiate national campaigns for equality during the course ing sensitive to the concerns of African Americans and
of subsequent decades. promoting education reform. In 1985, he helped create
the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist organiza-
James W. Stoutenborough
tion that eschewed its party’s traditional faith in social
welfare spending.
See also: Black Panther Party; Brown v. Board of Education During his 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton
(1954); Equal Rights Amendment; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Ken- portrayed himself as a political moderate. Revelations of
nedy Family; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; National Association a past extramarital affair threatened to sink his bid for
for the Advancement of Colored People; Parks, Rosa; Phila- the Democratic presidential nomination, but he made
delphia, Mississippi; White Supremacists. a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, thus
earning the nickname the “Comeback Kid.” Yet social
Further Reading conservatives criticized choices he had made in the late
Branch, Taylor. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1960s, including acceptance of a draft deferment to avoid
1965–68. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006. military service in Vietnam, brief experimentation with
———. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–63. marijuana while at Oxford, and participation in antiwar
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. protests.
———. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65. New The Clinton campaign focused on the economy, a
York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. theme that resonated with many Americans during a
Burns, Stewart, ed. Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus recession. He downplayed controversial social issues such
Boycott. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, as abortion and pledged to “end welfare as we know it,” a
1997. promise that echoed the rhetoric of political conservatives.
Fager, Charles. Selma 1965: The March That Changed the South. At the same time, he reached out to liberals by promot-
Boston: Beacon, 1985. ing gay rights. After his election victory over incumbent
Morris, Aldon D. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. New President George H.W. Bush and independent candidate
York: Free Press, 1984. H. Ross Perot in November 1992, Clinton selected a
Newman, Mark. The Civil Rights Movement. Westport, CT: cabinet that reflected the gender, racial, and ideological
Praeger, 2004. diversity that he championed.
Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, President Clinton experienced an early setback in his
1954–1965. New York: Penguin, 1988. administration when he attempted to fulfill a campaign
C linton, Hillar y 97
promise to allow gays to serve openly in the military. In time of fiscal prudence, economic prosperity, and cen-
the face of public opposition from General Colin Powell, trist policies, while his detractors criticize his personal
chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from Senator Sam foibles. Some critics argue that he overlooked the threat
Nunn (D-GA), as well as from social conservatives, Clin- of terrorism and left the military unprepared, but his de-
ton settled for the policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The fenders point out that he proposed only modest decreases
compromise was insufficient in the eyes of many gays and in military spending and pursued a foreign policy that
did nothing to appease the Religious Right. reflected a bipartisan consensus. The legacy of Clinton
In 1993, the first lady headed a health care task force is still controversial, and although popular, he remains
that recommended the creation of a national health in- a polarizing figure.
surance program to provide coverage for every American Daniel K. Williams
while preserving competition among private insurance
providers. The plan failed in Congress amid strong op- See also: Clinton, Hillary; Clinton Impeachment; Contract
position from conservatives, small business owners, and with America; Democratic Party; Gays in the Military; Gin
especially the insurance and medical industries. grich, Newt; Globalization; Gun Control; Health Care; Per-
Achievements of Clinton’s first two years in the ot, H. Ross; Relativism, Moral; Starr, Kenneth; Tax Reform;
White House included the passage of gun control legisla- Welfare Reform.
tion, a family leave bill, and a crime control measure. He
also began reducing the deficit during his first year in Further Reading
office and convinced the Senate to ratify the North Ameri- Berman, William C. From the Center to the Edge: The Politics and
can Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), despite opposition Policies of the Clinton Presidency. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
from many members of his own party. Even though he Littlefield, 2001.
was willing to endorse the Republican principles of free Clinton, Bill. My Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
trade and fiscal prudence, Republicans denounced him as Harris, John F. The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House. New
a liberal because of his support for federally funded health York: Random House, 2005.
insurance and his willingness to raise taxes. Klein, Joe. The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill
Clinton’s relative unpopularity in 1994 allowed Re- Clinton. New York: Doubleday, 2002.
publicans to regain control of both houses of Congress, Lowry, Richard. Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
leading to a standoff with House Speaker Newt Gingrich Washington, DC: Regnery, 2003.
(R-GA). In December 1995, the failure of Congress and Morris, Dick, and Eileen McGann. Because He Could. New York:
the president to reach an agreement on the federal budget Regan Books, 2004.
resulted in a three-week government shutdown, for which
the public tended to blame the Republicans. Although
Clinton opposed some of the proposals in Gingrich’s Clinton, Hillar y
“Contract with America,” he proved amenable to others, The first woman to make a strong showing as a
including middle-class tax cuts, a line-item veto, and presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton first
welfare reform. entered the public spotlight as an activist first lady
Scandals dogged Clinton throughout his presidency. during the presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton.
Allegations that he and his wife had engaged in finan- Weathering her spouse’s myriad scandals, she emerged
cial irregularities in connection with the Whitewater to claim the spotlight on her own as the junior senator
Development Corporation in Arkansas during the late from New York, a contender for the presidency, and later
1970s led U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in 1993 to U.S. secretary of state. Culture warriors of conservative
appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation. passion have vilified Clinton over the years, portraying
The Clintons were eventually cleared of all charges in the her as a left-wing feminist who disavows traditional
case, but the ongoing inquiry led to the appointment of values.
an independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, who expanded
his investigation to include other matters, chiefly the Early Life
president’s relationship with White House intern Monica Born Hillary Diane Rodham in Chicago on October
Lewinsky. Clinton at first denied any sexual impropriety, 26, 1947, she graduated from Wellesley College (BA,
but after proof emerged that he had given misleading 1969) and later Yale Law School (JD, 1973). Following
testimony, the House of Representatives impeached him a stint as a staff attorney for the Children’s Defense
in December 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice. Fund, she moved to Arkansas, where she taught law
The Senate voted not to convict Clinton, allowing him to at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. In 1975
complete his presidency with high approval ratings but she married Bill Clinton, and two years later was
his reputation tarnished. appointed to the board of the United States Legal
Clinton’s supporters remember his presidency as a Services Corporation by President Jimmy Carter.
98 C linton, Hillar y
Clinton became first lady of Arkansas in 1978 and gave The Senate and Beyond
birth to daughter Chelsea in 1980, yet she continued In 2000, Clinton ran for a Senate seat as the
her career as an attorney and children’s advocate. With representative from New York, overcoming attacks of
her husband’s presidential election (1993), she rose being a carpetbagger. She was originally slated to run
to national prominence and was later elected to the against then–New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, but
U.S. Senate (2001). In 2008, she lost the Democratic he withdrew after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
presidential nomination to Barack Obama, who Clinton faced off against a little-known opponent and
afterward appointed her secretary of state. became the only first lady of the United States to win
public office. She was reelected in 2006 with 62 percent
First Lady of the vote, but the over $30 million spent on her
Hillary Clinton came to public attention after president- campaign exceeded every other Senate race that year.
elect Bill Clinton jokingly referred to his presidency As a member of the Senate Committee on Armed
as “two for the price of one.” She indeed went on to Services, and representing a state that suffered the brunt
play a special role, heading the Task Force on National of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton
Health Care Reform. The plan for universal health care, took a favorable position on U.S. military intervention
however, was met with fierce opposition and negatively in Afghanistan. She also voted in support of the Iraq
nicknamed “Hillarycare.” In the end, her 1,342-page War Resolution (2002), which came back to dog her
health-care proposal died on the House floor in 1994. during her presidential bid. In 2005, she co-introduced
Much of the Clinton presidency was overshadowed legislation to increase recruits in the U.S. Army, stating
by the Whitewater investigation—about a failed real that it would be “a big mistake” to withdraw from Iraq.
estate deal in Arkansas prior to the Clinton presidency— She blamed the Bush administration for mismanaging
and the Monica Lewinsky scandal—stemming from the the war.
president’s affair with a White House intern. During the Outspoken on domestic issues, Clinton in 2003
course of the Whitewater probe the suicide of Hillary’s clashed on the Senate floor with Santorum over so-called
former law partner and White House deputy counsel, partial-birth abortion. She was also the co-sponsor of the
Vince Foster, added to the political drama. The conser- Prevention First Act (2005), which aimed to increase
vative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who often access to family planning despite the Bush administra-
referred to Mrs. Clinton as a man and questioned her tion’s approach to abortion and contraception. In 2006,
sexual orientation, went so far as to suggest that Foster’s she caused a flap by accusing the Republican Party of
death had been arranged by the first lady. For her part, she running the House of Representatives “like a plantation”
asserted that a “vast right-ring conspiracy” had placed the to keep Democrats in their place.
White House under siege. Hillary was never implicated Hillary supporters were stunned by Obama’s upset
in any wrongdoing. victory in the Iowa caucus in January 2008, but their
As first lady she was the honorary chairperson of candidate bounced back by winning the New Hampshire
the U.S. delegation to the 1995 United Nations Fourth primary after a humanizing moment when, expressing her
World Conference on Women in Beijing, using the passion to make a difference in public service, she welled
occasion to promote women’s rights as human rights. up tears. Her backers accused the media of misogyny, and
Yet many were displeased by her attendance and what feminist Gloria Steinem, in a New York Times op-ed piece,
it implied. Conservatives voiced concern over the “pro- bitterly complained that the “gender barrier” in politics is
abortion” stance of Clinton and the other delegates, while taken less seriously than the “racial barrier.” Meanwhile,
Democrats saw her presence at an event hosted by China Bill Clinton’s angry interjections about race during the
as ignoring that country’s dismal human rights record. South Carolina primary led to negative publicity. Hil-
Women’s rights activists from the developing world lary herself committed gaffes, such as citing the 1968
viewed her featured prominence as confirmation of U.S. assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as a reason she should
hegemony in international affairs. stay in the race up until the end. Obama maintained that
Clinton authored the bestseller It Takes a Village Clinton was too polarizing of a figure to win the general
(1996), citing ways in which individuals and institutions election, while she argued that he would fail to garner
outside of the family can help the lives of children. While the white, blue-collar vote. Ironically, Obama might have
her book offered positive reflection on the traditional wrapped up the nomination sooner had it not been for
nuclear family, it also focused on extended families, single Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos,” which encouraged
parenting, and so on. In retort, Senator Rick Santorum conservatives to “switch” parties and vote for Hillary in
(R-PA) published It Takes a Family (2005), strictly order to weaken Democrats by extending their primary
promoting the traditional family headed by a married fight. By June, finally conceding defeat, Clinton said
man and woman, and characterizing Clinton’s work as her primary-vote tally represented “18 million cracks”
“masking a radical left agenda.” in the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” women face in
C linton Impeachment 99
American society. She suggested that her race paved the Institute, Clinton was questioned concerning his relation-
way for a woman someday being elected president of the ship with various women, including twenty-one-year-old
United States. White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In his December
Stephanie Chaban and Roger Chapman 1997 deposition, Clinton denied having had “sexual rela-
tions” or a “sexual affair” with Lewinsky. The following
See also: Abortion; Clinton, Bill; Clinton Impeachment; Dem- month, a friend and confidante of Lewinsky named Linda
ocratic Party; Election of 2008; Family Values; Health Care; Tripp contacted Starr about secretly recorded telephone
Human Rights; Limbaugh, Rush; Marriage Names; Obama, conversations in which Lewinsky detailed her relation-
Barack; September 11. ship with Clinton.
When sex became the central focus of Starr’s inves-
Further Reading tigation, many called into question his motives as well
Bernstein, Carl. A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham as the merits of the independent-counsel system. Some
Clinton. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. observers felt that conservative hardliners were using
Clinton, Hillary Rodham. Living History. New York: Simon & Whitewater as a political dragnet, seeking payback for
Schuster, 2003. the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals that had tar-
Morrison, Susan, ed. Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections nished earlier Republican presidencies. First Lady Hillary
of Women Writers. New York: Harper, 2008. Clinton, in a January 1998 interview on NBC’s Today,
Noonan, Peggy. The Case Against Hillary Clinton. New York: complained of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” against
ReganBooks, 2000. her husband. Those she had in mind likely included the
Troy, Gil. Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady. Law- billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, who had contributed
rence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. heavily to the Arkansas Project (a series of investiga-
tions intended to damage the Clinton presidency); such
publications as the American Spectator and the Washington
Clinton Impeachment Times; and Paul Weyrich, Rush Limbaugh, and other
The most controversial political event of the 1990s, the right-wing media commentators who kept up a steady
impeachment and Senate trial of President Bill Clinton drumbeat against the Clinton White House.
in 1998–1999 prompted debate over the extent to After news of the sex scandal broke on the online
which the private lives of public officials matter, while Drudge Report (January 17, 1998), Clinton publicly de-
also heightening political partisanship and once again nied having had “sexual relations with that woman, Miss
calling into question the prudence of the Watergate- Lewinsky.” Six months later, however, Lewinsky, having
inspired position of independent counsel. already turned over a dress stained with the president’s
The Clinton impeachment resulted from what be- semen, disclosed a different story to Starr’s grand jury.
gan as an investigation of Whitewater, a failed 1970s In August, testifying before the same body, Clinton
land investment in Arkansas involving then governor admitted to an “improper physical relationship” with
Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. An Lewinsky. In a nationally televised address, he confessed
expanded probe also looked into allegations concerning that he “misled people” about the relationship but argued
the dismissal of personnel from the White House travel that it was a private matter.
office (dubbed “Travelgate”); the White House mishan- When the case against Clinton reached Capitol Hill,
dling of FBI files (dubbed “Filegate”); and the suicide of the focus was exclusively on the Lewinsky scandal, as
Clinton aide Vincent Foster. Kenneth Starr, appointed addressed in the Starr Report (September 1998). Accord-
as independent counsel in August 1994, completed the ing to the special prosecutor, Clinton had committed
Whitewater probe, eventually prosecuting the Arkan- perjury and obstructed justice with witness tampering.
sas governor and the Clintons’ former partners in the Following the November 1998 election, in which House
land deal. As for the Clintons, they were cleared in the Republicans lost seats, the GOP leadership began im-
Whitewater matter, as well as Travelgate, Filegate, and peachment proceedings during the lame-duck session
Foster’s death. But along the way, beginning on January of the 105th Congress. On December 19, 1998, after a
16, 1998, Starr was authorized to focus on allegations of rancorous floor debate, the House voted along partisan
sexual misconduct inside the White House. lines to impeach Clinton; it was only the second time in
This latter phase of Starr’s investigation related to a American history that such a decision had been reached.
lawsuit filed in May 1994 alleging that Clinton, while In the meantime, the president had launched a surprise
governor of Arkansas, had requested sexual favors from attack on Iraq the previous day and faced widespread
a state employee named Paula Corbin Jones. Jones con- criticism for attempting to distract the country from
tended that her career suffered as a consequence of reject- the scandal.
ing his demands. In a deposition pertaining to the case, The Senate refused to hold a trial during the 105th
which was bankrolled by the conservative Rutherford Congress’s little remaining time and opted instead to
100 C linton Impeachment
hold it during the next session, a decision that raised Further Reading
constitutional questions in the minds of some observ- Isikoff, Michael. Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story. New York:
ers because of the belief that both impeachment and Random House Press, 1999.
the trial should be addressed in the same session. In Schippers, David. Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton’s
addition, Starr’s ethics adviser, Samuel Dash, resigned Impeachment. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2000.
because the independent counsel failed to remain
impartial on the question of impeachment. (Dash felt
that Starr was behaving like a prosecutor instead of an C o l d Wa r
independent counsel, who is supposed to impartially An ideological and militaristic rivalry between the
gather evidence and let Congress decide.) The Senate United States and the Soviet Union, officially beginning
trial lasted from January 7 to February 12, 1999. In on September 2, 1945, and ending on December 26,
the end, the two-thirds majority required for convic- 1991, the Cold War had a major impact on American
tion and removal from office was not reached—fifty culture and the federal government’s foreign and
senators voted that Clinton was guilty of obstructing domestic policies. For most Americans, the Cold War
justice, forty-five that he was guilty of perjury. Again, represented a contest of democracy, free enterprise, and
the vote was largely along partisan lines; not one Senate individual freedom versus dictatorship, communism,
Democrat voted against Clinton. and tyranny of the individual. Although both American
Two months after the Senate trial, Federal District political parties were equally invested in the Cold War,
Court Judge Susan Webber Wright, a former student each sought to discredit the other as having the least
of Clinton’s, found him guilty of civil contempt for his effective approach in dealing with the Soviet challenge.
“willful failure” to testify truthfully in the Jones suit. Throughout the ordeal, culture warriors of the
Specifically, Wright found that Clinton had made in- American left and right engaged in name calling. Conser-
tentionally false statements in the deposition about his vatives called liberals “Soviet sympathizers,” “peaceniks,”
relationship with Lewinsky. In a deal with the indepen- “appeasers,” and “naive”; condemned negative criticisms
dent counsel to end the case, Clinton agreed to a five-year of U.S. foreign policy as “blame America first”; and ac-
suspension of his Arkansas law license and Jones accepted cused leftists of being communists. Liberals, in turn,
an $850,000 out-of-court settlement. freely referred to conservatives as “warmongers,” “im-
The depth of emotion surrounding the Clinton perialists,” “fascists,” and “red-baiters”; warned against
impeachment trial was intense, but the president, much excessive government secrecy; and portrayed the far right
to the chagrin of his opponents, enjoyed high approval as eager for nuclear Armageddon. Liberals were more
ratings in the wake of the impeachment—indeed higher inclined to favor “peaceful coexistence” between the two
than any ratings received during the Reagan administra- superpowers, while conservative hardliners emphasized
tion. At the same time, approval ratings for the GOP an uncompromising stance with phrases such as “Better
plummeted. Many Americans strongly disagreed with the dead than red.”
Starr investigation, seeing it as gutter politics calculated
to humiliate and degrade Clinton. Policies of Containment
In addition, the case exposed the marital infidelity The Cold War began under Harry Truman, a Democrat
of many players in the impeachment drama, lending who succeeded to the presidency following the death of
support to charges of hypocrisy. In particular, it exposed Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945. Prior to meeting
past infidelities by such key House players as Newt Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference that July,
Gingrich (R-GA, the Speaker of the house, who pushed Truman had a great mistrust of the Soviet dictator.
for impeachment); Bob Livingston (R-LA, who was to These feelings intensified as the Soviet Union dominated
replace Gingrich as Speaker); Henry Hyde (R-IL, the lead Eastern Europe in the months immediately following
House manager in the Clinton impeachment trial); and the defeat of Nazi Germany. On March 5, 1946, at
Bob Barr (R-GA, one of the most outspoken proponents Truman’s arrangement, the British statesman Winston
of impeachment). Some of these disclosures came in the Churchill gave an address at Westminster College in
wake of an offer by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt Fulton, Missouri, declaring that Europe was divided
to pay $1 million for information about the sexual affairs between east and west by an “iron curtain,” separating
of Republican leaders. free nations from communist ones. Although Churchill’s
Stephen Kershnar message was initially deplored by the American public
as extremist, it prepared the way for a bold American
See also: Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Conspiracy Theo- response to Soviet expansionism.
ries; Coulter, Ann; Drudge Report; Gingrich, Newt; Religious The same year as Churchill’s controversial address,
Right; Starr, Kenneth; Thomas, Clarence; Washington Times, George F. Kennan, a U.S. diplomat stationed at the
The; Watergate; Weyrich, Paul M. American Embassy in Moscow, telegraphed his supe-
Cold War 101
riors in Washington an assessment of Soviet behavior, War III. On the right, Truman’s main critic was Senator
recommending that the United States commit itself to “a Robert A. Taft (R-OH), who was an isolationist and an
long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of opponent of a Pax Americana commitment. The most
Russian expansive tendencies.” An abbreviated version of vocal critic on the left was former vice president Henry
Kennan’s “long telegram” later appeared in Foreign Affairs Wallace, the Progressive Party candidate in the 1948
as well as Life magazine, but liberals and conservatives presidential election. Truman narrowly won that contest,
interpreted the message differently. Kennan, who was despite polls predicting a victory for GOP candidate
moderately conservative, believed that Moscow could be Thomas Dewey. Republicans were deeply embittered by
contained by diplomatic, political, and economic mea- losing the White House for a fifth consecutive time. The
sures. Conservative hardliners, but also even Truman, sup- following year, with the news of the Soviet acquisition
ported a militarized version of containment. Later, liberals of the atomic bomb and the communist takeover of
who backed the original conception of containment would China, the GOP began a concerted effort to discredit
be denigrated by their opponents as lacking strength of Democrats as being weak on national security. With the
will. By 1950 the militarized form of containment was U.S. nuclear monopoly ended, Truman was politically
official policy, formalized in the top secret National Se- pressured to order the development of the hydrogen
curity Council Paper 68, known as NSC 68. bomb. In the meantime, children were instructed by
Truman first put containment into practice by an- Bert the Turtle in the civil defense film Duck and Cover
nouncing the Truman Doctrine (1947), pledging U.S. (1951) on how to dive under their school desks should
support to any country fighting against a communist an atomic flash suddenly light the sky.
takeover. Consequently, $400 million ($3.3 billion in Beginning in 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-
2007 currency) was provided to Turkey and Greece, to WI) launched the Red Scare by asserting that communists
keep them out of the Soviet bloc. That same year, the Mar- and communist sympathizers had infiltrated the federal
shall Plan began the reconstruction of Western Europe government while Democrats stood idly by. Promoting
to bolster its economy as a safeguard against communist conspiracy theories, conservatives began asking, “Who
recruitment, a program that cost $13 billion ($107 billion lost China?” Red China became all the more an issue with
in 2007 currency). Also, Truman established the Central the outbreak of the Korean War and the intervention of
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to provide intelligence and Chinese forces. Truman’s popularity rating plummeted
covert capability in countering communist intrigues. In to 52 percent. In 1951, General Douglas MacArthur was
1948, in response to the Soviet blockade of Berlin, Tru- relieved of command for insubordination after he publicly
man began what would be a fifteen-month airlift of food disagreed with Truman’s decision not to take the fight
and supplies to prevent the western portion of the old Ger- into China. Afterward, Republicans treated MacArthur
man capital from coming under communist control. The as a hero when he delivered his “Old Soldiers Never Die”
next year, Truman established the North Atlantic Treaty farewell speech before a joint session of Congress.
Organization (NATO), an anti-Soviet military alliance In 1952, with Dwight Eisenhower becoming the first
between Western Europe and the United States. Truman Republican to win the presidency since Herbert Hoover,
hoped that NATO would not only enforce containment the GOP committed itself to the anticommunist agenda
but help reduce U.S. military spending so that he could and the policy of containment. Significantly, Eisenhower
advance domestic social programs under his Fair Deal. came to the helm of his party by defeating Taft in the
Over the expanse of four decades, the U.S. govern- primary, consigning isolationism to political oblivion.
ment conducted numerous foreign interventions against As a two-term president, the former D-Day commander
communism, both overtly and covertly. These actions brought an end to the fighting in Korea and implemented
took place in many corners of the globe, including the “New Look” defense strategy, avoiding direct military
Korea (1950–1953), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), engagement by relying on covert operations and nuclear
Cuba (1961), Vietnam (early 1960s–1975), Indonesia deterrence. Democrats went on the political offense by
(1965–1966), Nicaragua (1978–1990), Afghanistan accusing Eisenhower of acquiescing to McCarthy while
(1980–1988), and Grenada (1983). The costliest imple- the party’s hawks such as John F. Kennedy, a senator from
mentations of containment were the wars in Korea and Massachusetts, raised alarm over the so-called missile
Vietnam—$54 billion ($370 billion in 2007 currency) gap. With the successful launching of Sputnik, the first
with 34,000 fatalities, and $150 billion ($850 billion in manmade satellite, the Soviets in 1957 made Americans
2007 currency) with 58,000 fatalities, respectively. feel that they were losing the technological edge, inspir-
ing educators to emphasize math and science.
Party Politics
Truman’s Cold War policies were controversial, initially From Détente to Reagan
criticized by both conservatives and liberals for increasing In his inaugural address, Kennedy pledged that the
the tension between the superpowers and risking World United States would “pay any price” for promoting
102 Cold War
freedom around the world. He continued Eisenhower’s communism in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Grenada.
Cold War policies and even inherited a covert plan to Reagan suggested that coexistence of the two compet-
overthrow Cuba’s Fidel Castro, which turned into the ing ideologies of the Cold War was intolerable. In what
disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. The the preeminent historian Henry Steele Commager at the
following year, the Cuban Missile Crisis, a dispute over time called the worst speech ever given by an American
the placement of Soviet missiles with atomic warheads president, Reagan in a March 1983 address before the
on Cuban soil, brought the two superpowers to the National Association of Evangelicals, pronounced the
brink of nuclear war. In the aftermath, the two sides Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Many liberals at the time
made efforts to defuse tensions, paving the way for were certain that the president was escalating tensions
détente, although under President Lyndon B. Johnson that could possibly lead to a nuclear holocaust. Some
the U.S. military would be bogged down in Vietnam. commentators suggested that both countries were “evil
To this day, supporters of Kennedy insist that had he empires.” Before leaving office, Reagan had arranged
not been assassinated in 1963, the Vietnam War would some accords with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
never have evolved into a quagmire. most notably an agreement to eliminate medium-range
In 1968, Republicans returned to ascendancy as missiles in Europe (1987).
Richard Nixon won the presidency on the promise of Although the Soviet Union was dissolved during the
ending the Vietnam War honorably. As efforts toward term of President George H.W. Bush, Republicans gener-
peace in Southeast Asia dragged on, Nixon in 1972 played ally give Reagan the credit. Reagan’s actions, they insist,
the “China card,” establishing diplomatic relations with brought Moscow to its knees and set in motion the spi-
Beijing in order to throw off balance the Soviets, who raling events that would lead to the regime’s implosion.
greatly mistrusted the Chinese. Controversially, the Others maintain, however, that Reagan’s actions actually
agreement required the United States to cease recognizing prolonged the Cold War by arousing Soviet hardliners,
democratic Taiwan as the official China. Also in 1972, who in turn undermined the reform efforts of Gorbachev.
Nixon negotiated the first SALT (Strategic Arms Limita- Ford, in an interview published posthumously in 2006,
tion Treaty) agreement with Moscow. In 1975, the year declared, “It makes me very irritated when Reagan’s
after Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal, South people pound their chests and say that because we had
Vietnam fell to the communists. On April 30, President this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed.”
Gerald Ford oversaw the humiliating American retreat
from Saigon, with helicopters being pushed off of aircraft Revisionist History
carriers into the South China Sea to make room for hordes American historians have intensely debated the origins
of refugees. Prior to leaving office, Ford arranged the Hel- of the Cold War, dividing themselves over the years into
sinki Accord with the Soviet Union, in which the United three competing perspectives: orthodox, revisionist, and
States acknowledged the boundaries of Eastern Europe post-revisionist. The orthodox position, as articulated
as established after World War II and the Soviets agreed by Herbert Feis, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and others,
that those nations were entitled to human rights and were dominated the scholarship of the 1940s and 1950s and
no longer to be militarily subjugated by the Kremlin. squarely blamed Soviet aggression as the cause of the
Ronald Reagan, a Republican presidential contender, conflict. During the 1960s and 1970s, influenced by
denounced the agreement as appeasement. the Vietnam War, the diplomatic historians William
President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, brought hu- A. Williams, Walter LaFerber, and others offered the
man rights to the forefront of his foreign policy, seeking revisionist position, arguing that Soviet actions were
to “regain the moral stature” of the United States in the a natural reaction to the American drive for global
wake of Vietnam. Carter, however, came to be regarded as hegemony. In the 1970s there emerged a synthesis of the
a weak president as a consequence of the Iranian hostage first two perspectives, leading to a third position known
crisis (the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran as post-revisionist. According to Cold War historian
for 444 days) and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan John Lewis Gaddis, whereas the first two positions focus
in December 1979. With a downward economy and a on ideology as the cause of the Cold War, the latter
national “malaise,” Carter lost his 1980 reelection bid emphasizes a “realist” view of rational actors operating
to Reagan, who campaigned on a platform of regaining on both sides.
American stature and military might. In the political arena, conservatives frequently point
Reagan’s tenure was characterized by a dramatic to the Yalta Conference (February 1945) and blame
increase in military spending (from $171 billion in 1981 Roosevelt for agreeing that after the defeat of Hitler all of
to $376 billion in 1986); the initial research funding for Eastern Europe would come under a Soviet sphere of in-
a prospective space-based missile shield called the Stra- fluence. Republicans over the years have construed Yalta
tegic Defense Initiative (popularly known as Star Wars, as a moment when a Democratic administration “sold
as first coined by detractors); and interventions against out” a group of free nations to communist dictatorship.
Cold War 103
Since the State Department official Alger Hiss had been Fred Inglis, writing in 1991, concluded that the Cold
present at the Yalta Conference, some conservatives have War had been a “cruel peace,” a chain of conflicts big
suggested that Roosevelt, who was ailing at the time, had and small that led to 16 million deaths worldwide. In
been manipulated by a federal employee who was later The End of History and the Last Man (1992), the Har-
proved to be working on behalf of Kremlin interests. vard professor and neoconservative Francis Fukuyama
In May 2006, President George W. Bush pub- declared that the end of the Cold War marked the apex
licly apologized for the Yalta agreement, asserting that of humanity’s ideological development, the culmination
Roosevelt, as well as Churchill, had been appeasers. That of liberal democracy and a global free-market system.
decision, Bush asserted, led to “the captivity of millions The following year, however, President Bill Clinton
in Central and Eastern Europe” and “will be remembered half-jokingly stated that he missed the Cold War. “We
as one of the greatest wrongs of history.” However, highly had an intellectually coherent thing,” Clinton explained.
respected Cold War historians such as Gaddis maintain “The American people knew what the rules were.” In
that the Yalta decision was the best that the overstretched a retort to Fukuyama, the Harvard professor Samuel P.
United States and Great Britain could have obtained at Huntington warned in The Clash of Civilizations and the
that time. Furthermore, the Yalta agreement stipulated Remaking of World Order (1996) that ancient disputes
temporary Soviet occupation followed by free elections. about culture and religion would resurface now that
Over the years Eastern Europe was pointed at and two competing superpowers were no longer policing
debated by American politicians who sought to cast the globe.
blame or score political points. Iconic moments were Following the jihadist terrorist attacks of Septem-
Kennedy’s June 1963 speech next to the newly built ber 11, 2001, Huntington’s thesis resonated with many
Berlin Wall (in which he proclaimed, “All free men . . . are observers, while social critics such as Noam Chomsky
citizens of Berlin”) and Reagan’s June 1987 speech at the argued that the attacks represented blowback of the Cold
same location (in which he demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, War. In his promotion of globalization, New York Times
tear down this wall!”). Between those two events, dur- columnist Thomas L. Friedman, in The World Is Flat: A
ing an October 1976 presidential candidates’ debate, Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005), used the
Ford lost credibility (and later the election) with the 11/9 date of the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 11,
gaffe, “There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe 1989) as a metaphor for the victory of free enterprise and
and there never will be under a Ford administration.” global communications, writing, “The walls [of closed
Years earlier, in October 1957, Kennedy (then a senator) totalitarian societies] had fallen and the Windows [com-
marked the occasion of the failed Hungarian rebellion puter software] had opened . . .”—while urging that 9/11
to deplore any notion that Eastern Europe was a “lost not be allowed to overshadow 11/9.
cause.” This was clearly a veiled criticism of Eisenhower Roger Chapman
for refusing to intervene in that crisis. Later, George
W. Bush compared the “liberation” of Iraq with the See also: China; Communists and Communism; Cuba; Eisen-
earlier struggles of Hungary, presenting himself as a hower, Dwight D.; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Marxism;
leader who conducts foreign policy out of principle and McCarthyism; Nixon, Richard; Nuclear Age; Reagan, Ron-
not convenience. In June 2006, Bush visited Hungary ald; Revisionist History; Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosen-
to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the start of berg; Soviet Union and Russia; Strategic Defense Initiative;
the Hungarian rebellion. Truman, Harry S.; Vietnam War.
Victory Rituals and Lingering Debate Further Reading

In 1990, as the Cold War essentially came to a halt, Charen, Mona. Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the
George H.W. Bush heralded the change as a “new world Cold War and Still Blame America First. Washington, DC:
order,” one in which the two superpowers “can work Regnery, 2003.
in common cause.” Some observers, however, noted Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York:
American triumphalism in the pronouncement. Indeed, Penguin Press, 2005.
later at the 1992 Republican National Convention, ———. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War,
when Bush was running for reelection, a big chunk of 1941–1947. New York: Columbia University Press,
the dismantled Berlin Wall was put on display. In the 2000.
end, presidential libraries made permanent exhibits out Inglis, Fred. The Cruel Peace: Everyday Life in the Cold War. New
of pieces of the old “iron curtain,” while neoconservatives York: Basic Books, 1991.
began encouraging a more aggressive American foreign Kengor, Paul. The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Com-
policy, as represented by the Project for a New American munism. New York: Regan Books, 2006.
Century (founded in 1997). Leebaert, Derek. The Fifty-Year Wound: How America’s Cold War
Meanwhile, the British cultural studies professor Victory Shapes Our World. Boston: Little, Brown, 2002.
10 4 Col son, C huck
Levering, Ralph B. The Cold War: A Post–Cold War History. 2nd Colson promoted his efforts with the publication of
ed. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2005. his autobiography Born Again (1976), which sold more
May, Ernest R., ed. American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC than 2 million copies and inspired a 1978 film starring
68. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1993. Dean Jones. With the strength of this success along with
a follow-up best-seller—Life Sentence (1979)—and the
backing of influential evangelical corporate leaders such
Colson, Chuck as Jack Eckerd (of Eckerd Drugs), he distanced himself
A convicted Watergate conspirator, Chuck Colson from politics and concentrated on building his organiza-
became a leading evangelical thinker after a much- tion. Within just a few years, Prison Fellowship was the
publicized 1973 conversion experience. Shaken by largest evangelical prison ministry in America; by 2005
his seven months in prison, he founded the largest it had an operating budget of more than $37 million and
evangelical prison ministry in the United States and a full-time staff of over 300.
became an influential author and radio commentator. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Colson began to ad-
Although revered in most sectors of the Religious Right, dress a variety of social, cultural, and political concerns,
liberals have viewed him with suspicion. including abortion, the church’s role in society, American
Born Charles Wendell Colson on October 16, 1931, “cultural decline,” postmodernism, and the teaching of
in Boston, he was raised in a middle-class Episcopalian evolution in the schools. His books promoting a “bibli-
family. Educated at Brown University (AB, 1953) and cal worldview,” such as Kingdoms in Conflict (1987), were
George Washington University (JD, 1959), in between consistent best-sellers in the nation’s Christian book-
completing a tour in the U.S. Marine Corps (1953–1955), stores. At the time, he was also serving as an informal
Colson became a member of the Boston law firm of Gads- adviser for televangelist Pat Robertson’s presidential bid.
by and Hannah (1961–1969). Prior to working for Nixon, In 1991, Colson launched a daily, syndicated radio spot
he obtained public-service experience as an assistant to (called BreakPoint) that by 2005 was being carried on
the assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy (1955–1956) and more than a thousand (predominantly evangelical) radio
an administrative assistant to Senator Leverett Saltonstall stations across the country. In the mid-1990s, Colson sup-
(R-MA) (1956–1959). ported the growing cooperation between evangelicals and
Colson was instrumental in gaining the 1966 Mas- Catholics, serving as co-editor of Evangelicals and Catholics
sachusetts Republican nomination for Edward Brooke, Together (1995), a collection of essays that explored the
the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate by growing affinity and remaining differences between the
popular vote. Following Richard M. Nixon’s election vic- two groups.
tory in 1968, Colson was tapped for the position of White Colson moved from celebrity “trophy convert” to a
House special counsel. He quickly gained a reputation as role as one of evangelicalism’s most respected spokesmen
Nixon’s “hatchet man” and was reported to have said he and dominant opinion shapers. His combination of tra-
would “walk over” his “own grandmother if necessary” ditional Christian morality, conservative cultural values,
to assure the reelection of the president. It was Colson vision of limited government, and desire to promote so-
who wrote the 1971 memo creating the Nixon “enemies cial justice through faith-based efforts could be seen as a
list” and who organized the White House “plumbers template of an evangelical ideology that has evolved from
unit” that carried out the break-in at the office of Daniel the 1970s onward. Among liberals, including progressive
Ellsberg’s psychiatrist and the June 1972 burglary of the Christians, Colson is remembered for his role as Nixon’s
Democratic National Committee headquarters in the “dirty tricks” maestro, and his mixing of religion and
Watergate hotel and office complex. politics is largely regarded as the cloaking of a conserva-
As fallout from Watergate engulfed the Nixon ad- tive Republican agenda with pious rhetoric.
ministration in early 1973, Colson resigned and sought
counseling from an evangelical friend. Impressed by Larry Eskridge
C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (1952), Colson underwent
a conversion experience. The following March, he was See also: Catholic Church; Compassionate Conservatism; Evan-
indicted on charges related to the Watergate and Ells- gelicalism; Faith-Based Programs; Felt, W. Mark; Liddy, G.
berg break-ins. Through a plea bargain, he was fined and Gordon; Nixon, Richard; Religious Right; Republican Party;
sentenced to one to three years at Maxwell Federal Prison Robertson, Pat; Televangelism; Watergate.
in Alabama. Appalled by conditions there and the dehu-
manizing effect of prison, he looked to his new faith to Further Reading
provide solutions. Released in early 1975, Colson formed Aitken, Jonathan. Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed. Colorado
Prison Fellowship, a nonprofit organization promoting Springs, CO: Waterbrook, 2005.
the evangelization of prisoners and their families and Colson, Charles, with Jack Eckerd. Why America Doesn’t Work.
reform of the penal system. Dallas: Word, 1992.
Columbu s Day 105
Colson, Charles, with Richard John Neuhaus, eds. Evangelicals October as Native American Day. However, the resistance
and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission. Nashville, is much more broadly based; a number of communities,
TN: Thomas Nelson, 1995. many of them university towns, have adopted alternative
Menendez, Albert J. Three Voices of Extremism: Charles Colson, Indigenous People’s Day celebrations.
James Dobson, D. James Kennedy. Silver Spring, MD: Americans Downplaying the importance of Columbus and Euro-
for Religious Liberty, 1997. pean exploration in public celebrations and in the public
school curriculum has in turn raised the ire of some Italian
American organizations and the broader segment of the
C o l u m b u s D ay population concerned that America’s heroic history is be-
Columbus Day has been an autumn celebration in the ing undermined by “political correctness.” Communities
United States since the early nineteenth century and was and school boards have struggled to maintain a fine line
declared a national holiday in 1937. Traditionally set between public observances that (1) are candid about the
for October 12, it has been celebrated since 1971 on the past and do not symbolically perpetuate the racism and
second Monday in October, commemorating the voyage brutality wrought on native peoples, and (2) do not offend
of Christopher Columbus to the American continent in Italian Americans and traditionalists.
1492. Daniel Liechty
As public consciousness began to be raised regarding
European colonial history, the landing of Columbus came See also: American Indian Movement; Deloria, Vine, Jr.; Mul-
to be seen by many less as a symbol of the noble human ticulturalism and Ethnic Studies; Political Correctness; Revi-
spirit of exploration than as the initial step in the Euro- sionist History; Thanksgiving Day; Victimhood.
pean conquest and exploitation of the Americas. It seemed
increasingly incongruous to criticize the brutalities of Further Reading
European colonial history while continuing to celebrate Churchill, Ward. Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader.
the arrival of Columbus on American shores. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Resistance to Columbus Day celebrations is often Harjo, S.S. “I Won’t Be Celebrating Columbus Day.” Newsweek,
associated with the rise of radical political groups such September 1, 1991.
as the American Indian Movement, which in 1989 pres- Penner, Lucille. Celebration: The Story of American Holidays. New
sured South Dakota to designate the second Monday in York: Macmillan, 1993.
A Native American demonstrator smudges (cleanses) fellow protesters at Denver’s March for Italian Pride on Columbus
Day, 2000. American Indian groups joined in blocking the parade and denouncing Columbus as a symbol of “genocide.”
(Mark Leffingwell/Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
10 6 Comic Book s
Comic Book s push the conflict to the next level, comic book publishers
Comic books have been a battleground in America’s that year chose to form a self-censoring committee—the
culture wars from the time of their inception in the Comics Magazine Association of America.
1930s. With children as their target audience, comics For the next decade, the pages of American comics
immediately aroused the suspicion of activist groups were filled with simple escapist fantasies, usually involving
that feared the medium’s pernicious potential. It was superheroes and plots that affirmed rather than challenged
not until after World War II, though, that the battle gender and political norms. When the United States ex-
for the hearts and minds of American youth began in panded its war against communism in the early 1960s,
earnest. comic books dutifully followed suit. In Marvel Comics’s
During the war, the government sanctioned comic Iron Man, an industrial billionaire named Tony Stark pro-
books that showcased values of patriotism and sacrifice. vided the South Vietnamese Army with advanced weap-
The alliance was often an uneasy one—in March 1941, onry to fight the Viet Cong. The Hulk’s deadliest enemy,
before America’s entry into the war, the cover of Marvel’s the Abomination, was an irradiated Soviet agent.
Captain America depicted the hero punching Adolph Growing opposition to the Vietnam War, the Nixon
Hitler, an image that prompted many politicians to warn administration, and authority in general brought pro-
against politics creeping into comic books. Such senti- found changes to the comic book industry, which began
ments changed dramatically following Japan’s attack on to challenge the constraints imposed on it during the
Pearl Harbor. Then, Captain America, along with the 1950s. After years of fighting the Cold War on their
characters Sub Mariner and the Human Torch, waged war country’s behalf, Iron Man and Captain America started
on the Nazis and the Japanese with full approval. Direct to question both their own efforts and the foreign policy
Comics’s Batman and Superman encouraged readers to of the United States. Green Arrow and Green Lantern
buy war bonds. More recent comic book creations, such set out to demonstrate that the world was composed of
as Uncle Sam, Star Spangled Kid, and the Atom, likewise grays, not the simple blacks and whites that earlier com-
have battled America’s enemies. ics had suggested.
After World War II, the issue of juvenile delinquency By the 1980s, a growing emphasis on direct sales,
unified cultural opposition to the comic book. Psy- along with a greater tolerance for behavior and sentiments
chologist Frederick Wertham, in Seduction of the Innocent once deemed unacceptable, enabled the comic industry
(1954), linked the reading of comic books to juvenile to break free of the 1954 comic code and make a major
delinquency, although he was hardly the first to make the move to the left. Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight
connection. In 1947, the Fraternal Order of Police had Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen featured antiheroes
condemned the increasingly popular genre of “true crime” who engaged in graphic violence and sex, and who per-
comic books as conducive to juvenile delinquency. The sonified a dark worldview that would have been banned
Daughters of the American Revolution and the Catholic years earlier. The age of the dark, brooding antihero had
National Organization for Decent Literature called for arrived. The most popular characters now were Batman,
bans on “crime comics.” Wolverine, and the Punisher, whose methods and behav-
In the midst of the criticism, comic book publishers ior closely resembled those of their enemies.
moved in two dramatically different directions. The first In the 1990s and early 2000s, new comic titles like
involved the publication of romance comics, made popu- Warren Ellis’s Transmetropolitan and The Authority joined
lar three years earlier with the debut of Young Romance. old Marvel and DC mainstays the Avengers and the Justice
These comics used wholesome cautionary tales as a means League of America in depicting relations between heroes
of promoting conservative values in American women and their world in increasingly dysfunctional and graphic
and upholding the gender status quo. Not surprisingly, terms. While comic books have remained a contested
the ad hoc comic book committees that had formed after cultural battleground, the alarmism of the 1950s has yet
the war approved the romance titles. to resurface. And market realities suggest that it will not,
Pushing in the opposite direction, EC Comics’s because the average comic book reader, in his or her late
lurid but popular Tales from the Crypt featured graphic twenties, is demanding far more adult entertainment. Al-
violence and more than a hint of sexuality. That EC titles though comic books were once the principal battleground
also contained a fair share of antisegregation and antiwar for the hearts and minds of children, they no longer evoke
plots brought even more conservatives into the opposi- the intensity of fear and passion that characterized them
tion’s ranks. And EC Comics played a prominent role in in the past.
the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Investigation of Juvenile Bryan E. Vizzini
Delinquency. At a time when parents found nearly half of
comic book material objectionable, the Senate not surpris- See also: Catholic Church; Censorship; Cold War; Comic
ingly supported the notion that many comic books, and Strips; Communists and Communism; Motion Picture Asso-
especially the EC titles, had gone too far. Rather than ciation of America; September 11; Vietnam War.
Comic Str ips 107
Further Reading creation of a modern welfare state. Women and working-

McAllister, Matthew P., Edward H. Sewell, Jr., and Ian Gordon, class Americans willingly submitted to Warbucks’s en-
eds. Comics and Ideology. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. lightened patriarchal leadership. The Tarzan comic strip
Nyberg, Amy Kiste. Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics affirmed the need for white leadership.
Code. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. The increasingly volatile international arena pro-
Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of vided ample fodder for the adventures of Flash Gordon.
Youth Culture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni- Ming’s tireless efforts to enslave humanity surely must
versity Press, 2003. have resonated with readers whose concerns over imperial
Japan escalated rapidly following the Japanese invasion
of Manchuria and China. By the time the Japanese air
Comic Strips force bombed the USS Panay in 1937, the threat that
A frequent flashpoint in the modern culture wars, comic Americans (and their proxy, Flash) faced was all too clear.
strips were relatively uncontroversial for much of their Ming was evil for evil’s sake, much as Americans believed
history, serving simply as working-class entertainment. was true of the Japanese and the Nazis.
Early examples like The Katzenjammer Kids (1897) and
Mutt and Jeff (1907) proved highly popular and paved From Pogo to Doonesbury and Beyond
the way for the post–World War I boom in comic The age of comic strips as an affirmation of American
entertainment. political and social conservatism came to an end in
Rising wages and shrinking unemployment rates the early 1950s. To be sure, Blondie, Popeye, and the
heralded the emergence of the consumer culture in the Gasoline Alley gang continued to uphold the status
United States that fueled the production of comic strips. quo and avoid controversy, as did newcomers like Beetle
The number of syndicated dailies increased dramatically Bailey, Hi and Lois, and Charles Schultz’s Peanuts. But
after World War I, allowing Americans to follow the es- Walt Kelly’s decision to attack McCarthyism in his daily
capades of Gasoline Alley (1918); Thimble Theater (1919), panels of Pogo forever changed the cultural landscape of
which in 1929 featured the debut of Popeye the Sailor; comic strips. When conservative viewers complained of
Little Orphan Annie (1924); and Buck Rogers (1929). The his depiction of Senator Joseph McCarthy as a wildcat
Depression years witnessed the arrival of other lasting named Simple J. Malarky, Kelly drew a bag over the
favorites, such as Blondie (1930), Dick Tracy (1931), Flash character’s head, leading to additional complaints that
Gordon and Li’l Abner (1934), Prince Valiant (1937), and the notorious senator now resembled a member of the
Mary Worth (1938). The arrival of both Batman and Super- Ku Klux Klan, an image that Kelly apparently found
man in the 1940s rounded out a successful half century appropriate. From his assault on McCarthy’s excesses
of comic strip production. to his 1968 lampooning of all that year’s presidential
candidates, Kelly consistently aroused the ire of American
Conservative Values conservatives, whose protests eventually led many
Far from challenging the norms of the day, American newspapers to move the strip to the editorial pages.
comic strips before World War II by and large affirmed Kelly’s Pogo and Al Capp’s Li’l Abner (which fre-
them. Blondie, for example, began her career as a flapper quently lampooned southern politicians) reflected the
but quickly settled into the gender role assigned to her by extent to which the line between escapist comedy and
1930s’ society. Mary Worth maintained all the socially political satire had blurred in the postwar years—no real
correct behaviors of a wealthy elderly widow. Dick Tracy surprise since both Kelly and Capp had worked formerly
battled America’s criminal underworld in stark hues of as political cartoonists. Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury (1970)
black and white that any child could recognize. Even soon attracted the full wrath of American conservatives for
strips set in the far future or distant past steered clear of its relentless attacks on American politics. Shortly after
thorny questions and nuance. Despite the differences in President Richard Nixon announced his “Vietnamiza-
time and setting, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Prince tion” plan to turn over the fighting in Southeast Asia
Valiant represented a modern America that viewed itself to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the jingoistic
as the pinnacle of civilization and progress. character B.D., who had just enlisted in hopes of seeing
To the extent that comic strips served as political or some action, assured his friend Mike Doonesbury that
social commentary, they tended to espouse fairly conserva- he had faith in the president’s ability to get U.S. troops
tive values with respect to both domestic and international into the line of fire. Once in Vietnam, B.D. became
issues. In Little Orphan Annie, Daddy Warbucks personified chummy with Phred, an entrepreneurial member of the
all the alleged virtues of a capitalist, industrial America, Viet Cong who would later become a Nike executive in
capable of genuine empathy and willing to assist those Vietnam. Zonker, the quintessential hippie, shamelessly
who were less fortunate. Warbucks had little sympathy for and openly indulged in drug use and spent his life pursu-
government handouts and opposed Franklin Roosevelt’s ing the perfect tan.
10 8 Comic Str ips
From 1973 to 1976, Doonesbury was moved to the political satire and entertainment as one and the same.
editorial pages of many newspapers and was dropped from Moreover, much of what makes the comics humorous is
others, yet it won a Pulitzer Prize, and American liberals their incisiveness on current events. Yet the ongoing suc-
loved the strip. Over the next several decades, Trudeau cess of strips like Blondie, now over seventy-five years old,
mocked the war on drugs, the war in Panama, the war in speaks volumes about comics’ ability to remain popular
Grenada, and the wars in the Persian Gulf. He featured and entertaining even when avoiding touchy topics.
an AIDS-stricken character, depicted President George
H.W. Bush as invisible, and showed B.D. losing a leg Bryan E. Vizzini
in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Trudeau’s opponents are
See also: AIDS; Bush Family; Comic Books; Counterculture;
legion, though his sympathies clearly lie less with the
Falwell, Jerry; McCarthy, Joseph; Nixon, Richard; North,
right than with the left.The same held true of the comic
Oliver; Robertson, Pat; Televangelism; Thompson, Hunter S.;
strips that followed in Doonesbury’s wake.
Vietnam War; War on Drugs.
Berke Breathed’s Bloom County (1980) harkened back
to Walt Kelly’s Pogo in its tone and emphasis on animals Further Reading
as characters—the lead character is Opus, a talking pen- Heer, Jeet, and Kent Worcester. Arguing Comics: Literary Masters
guin. Like Trudeau, Breathed recognized no sacred cows on a Popular Medium. Jackson: University Press of Missis-
(and especially conservative ones) when commenting on sippi, 2004.
American life and politics. The televangelist boom in the Inge, M. Thomas. Comics as Culture. Jackson: University Press
1980s, perhaps best characterized by Oral Roberts’s cam- of Mississippi, 1990.
paign to raise money lest God call him back to heaven,
led Breathed to transform his omnipresent Bill the Cat
into Fundamentally Oral Bill, who promised true believ- C o m m a g e r, H e n r y S t e e l e
ers that the sooner they sent him their money, the sooner Believing that a historian should not retreat into
God would call home his competitors Jimmy Swaggart, detached research but should join in current debates and
Jerry Falwell, Jim Baker, and Pat Robertson. In another find potential solutions to modern problems through
instance, Opus purchased Bolivia with money he received knowledge of history, the American historian Henry Steele
from the Reagan administration under the pretense of Commager gained notoriety for his populist politics. He
constructing a missile defense shield. When called upon is especially remembered for taking a strong stand for
to present the results of his research, Opus and computer intellectual freedom during the McCarthy era.
whiz Oliver Wendell Jones easily bluffed the oversight Commager was born on October 25, 1902, in Pitts-
committee and escaped federal prosecution. burgh, Pennsylvania. After completing a doctorate from
Other prominent targets during Bloom County’s nine- the University of Chicago in 1928, he embarked on a
year run included conservative favorite Oliver North, long academic career, teaching at New York University
politicians in general (like Bloom County’s own Senator (1926–1938), Columbia University (1939–1956), and
Badfellow), the war on drugs (company executives who had Amherst College (1956–1994). He also served as a visit-
ten to twelve alcoholic drinks per day were deemed “clean,” ing professor at Cambridge and Oxford in England. He
while the cartoonist who consumed a marijuana brownie died at the age of ninety-five on March 2, 1998.
ten years earlier was slated for immediate termination), Commager’s writings appeared in such popular
and the legal system (Steve Dallas explained why suing publications as the New York Times, the New Republic, and
the wealthy was the basis of American civilization). Like Harper’s, and his many submissions usually focused on
Doonesbury, Bloom County often served as the foil of conserva- the historical context of current events and social issues.
tives, though its criticisms struck across the spectrum. The Growth of the American Republic (1930), a collaboration
Breathed eventually discontinued Bloom County, by Commager and Samuel Eliot Morrison, was for years
claiming that the fictional setting imposed too many cre- the standard textbook on U.S. history. In the 1940s and
ative constraints. His subsequent Outland took Opus and 1950s, Commager wrote a number of influential works on
other cast members into the life of inner-city America. civil liberties, free speech, and social discourse, including
While Outland’s lifespan was shorter than that of its pre- The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought
decessor, the strip provided a bridge of sorts for one of and Character Since the 1880s (1950), Freedom, Loyalty, and
the most provocative comics yet, Boondocks (1997), which Dissent (1954), and Freedom and Order: A Commentary on the
featured ten-year-old African-American radical Huey American Political Scene (1966). His intellectual focus was
Freeman and provided an uncompromising and unflatter- the influence of free thought and public knowledge on
ing look at lower-class African Americans. Writer Aaron the American national character. During the Cold War,
McGruder’s work skewered both the left and right. his defense of dissent and dissenters got him branded by
Comic strips likely will continue to evoke controver- some critics as a leftist and communist sympathizer.
sy, especially with many cartoonists and readers viewing As an activist scholar, Commager frequently lectured
Commoner, B ar r y 10 9
to large audiences on political matters. A critic of the been best known for its work in campaign finance reform,
Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the policies increasing diversity in the media, removing barriers to
of the Reagan administration, he attracted right-wing voting, encouraging government ethics and accountabil-
criticism. He was also tangentially involved in the civil ity, and increasing citizen participation in politics.
rights movement because he favored liberal pluralism, if Important individual victories for Common Cause
not necessarily multiculturalism. This gained Commager include advocating for the Twentieth Amendment; low-
criticism from the left of the political spectrum as well. ering the voting age to eighteen (1971); lobbying for the
Commager’s lifelong advocacy of intellectual passage of the Freedom of Information Act (1974); gen-
freedom, popular knowledge, and the historical inter- erating support for the Americans with Disabilities Act
pretation of contemporary issues has had long-lasting (1990); campaigning for the enactment of the Bipartisan
influence on scholars and public advocates, though over Campaign Finance Reform Act (2002); and alerting the
the years his politics has been seen as either too liberal public to inequities in media ownership rules enacted by
or too conservative by various detractors. He is ranked the Federal Communications Commission (2003).
among such other great historians of his time as Arthur The stated mission of Common Cause is to “strength-
Schlesinger, Jr., Allan Nevins, Richard Hofstadter, and en public participation and faith in our institutions of
Samuel Eliot Morrison. self-government; to ensure that government and political
Benjamin W. Cramer processes serve the general interest, rather than special
interests; to curb the excessive influence of money on
See also: Academic Freedom; Anti-Intellectualism; Civil government decisions and elections; to preserve fair
Rights Movement; Cold War; McCarthyism; Multicultural- elections and high ethical standards for government of-
ism and Ethnic Studies; Reagan, Ronald; Schlesinger, Arthur ficials; and to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of
M., Jr.; Secular Humanism; Vietnam War; Watergate. all Americans.” This stance has led to bipartisan success
in lobbying, grassroots activism, public education, and
Further Reading media outreach.
Jumonville, Neil. Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism Benjamin W. Cramer
and the History of the Present. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1999. See also: Americans with Disabilities Act; Campaign Finance
Reform; Federal Communications Commission; Freedom of
Information Act; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Media Bias; Tort Re-
Common Cause form; Vietnam War; Voting Rights Act; War Protesters.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy
organization founded by John W. Gardner in 1970. Further Reading
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with staff Common Cause Web site. www.commoncause.org.
in thirty-eight states, the organization is dedicated to McFarland, Andrew S. Common Cause: Lobbying in the Public
political reform at the federal, state, and local levels, Interest. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1984.
serving as a vehicle for citizens to engage in the political Rothenberg, Lawrence S. Linking Citizens to Government: Inter-
process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to est Group Politics at Common Cause. New York: Cambridge
the public interest. University Press, 1992.
Gardner, a Republican, served as secretary of health,
education, and welfare under Democratic President
Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. He was later chair of C o m m o n e r, B a r r y
the National Urban Coalition, an advocacy group for Dubbed the “Paul Revere of Ecology” by Time
minorities and the working poor in urban areas. These magazine, Barry Commoner helped fashion America’s
experiences, especially his interactions with special inter- environmental sensibilities by calling attention to
est groups, led Gardner to conclude that in the political the environmental costs of technological innovation.
arena, “everybody’s organized but the people.” Within a Born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 28, 1917, and
few months of his starting Common Cause, the fledgling trained as a cellular biologist at Columbia University
organization had more than 100,000 members, many of (AB, 1937) and Harvard University (MA, 1938; PhD,
whom had joined to protest the Vietnam War. 1941), Commoner spent most of his academic career at
Common Cause today operates nationwide with Washington University in St. Louis (1947–1981). In
thousands of active volunteers. The group is funded 1981, a year after running for president of the United
chiefly by dues and donations from individual members. States on the Citizens Party ticket, he relocated to
A thirty-member governing board in Washington deter- Queens College in Flushing, New York.
mines the group’s policies and provides oversight for the In the 1950s, while teaching at Washington Uni-
organization. Since its formation, Common Cause has versity, Commoner became one of the early opponents of
110 Communis t s and Communism
nuclear energy and especially atmospheric nuclear testing. and the establishment of a planned economy, will usher
With the help of the academic community, Commoner in an egalitarian society. Traditionally feared and reviled
founded the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Informa- by most Americans, communists have maintained a long
tion, which produced data linking nuclear testing with and active presence in U.S. society and public affairs.
radioactive buildup in the human body. These findings In the modern culture wars, communists have been
led to the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in 1963. both participants and victims. Perhaps more telling about
Of the hundreds of articles and nine books he pub- American society, however, is how the perceived threat of
lished, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology communism has been either exaggerated (by Republican
(1971) remains his most influential work. In this major opportunists, business leaders, Dixiecrat segregationists,
environmentalist tract, he proposed that the environmen- and conservative Christians) or flatly denied (by defen-
tal degradation that had occurred since World War II sive liberals, avowed leftists, “fellow travelers,” romantic
had not been solely the function of affluence and popula- progressives, liberal Christians, and humanists). Conser-
tion growth—two of the commonly asserted reasons for vatives, primarily members of the Republican Party, for
environmental problems. Rather, he argued, American years portrayed the “red menace” as the consequence of
society’s adoption of new technology was to blame. These “liberal dupes” and a Democratic Party “soft on com-
new technologies included such items as plastics, laundry munism.” Leftists who refused to publicly admit and
detergent, and synthetic textiles. He went on to propose denounce Stalinist excesses from the 1920s to the early
four laws of ecology: (1) “everything is connected to 1950s were the objects of conservative ridicule. For their
everything else”; (2) “everything must go somewhere”; part, liberals were prone to classify vocal anticommunist
(3) “nature knows best”; and (4) “there is no such thing conservatives as “fascist,” while accusing them of “red
as a free lunch.” These principles became maxims to en- baiting.” On the other hand, notable liberal Democrats
vironmentalists, who used them to support their efforts such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, and John
to protect wilderness and curb pollution. Kenneth Galbraith in 1947 established Americans for
Commoner had his detractors. Many conservatives Democratic Action (ADA), an anticommunist organiza-
considered him a radical who only espoused doomsday tion supportive of the Cold War policy of containing
scenarios. Grouping him with writers such as Paul Ehrlich Soviet global influence. In academia, debates raged
and Rachel Carson who trumpeted that environmental between anticommunists and anti-anticommunists. The
Judgment Day was near, conservatives argued that these post–Cold War era has been characterized by arguments
activists were little more than modern incarnations of over revisionist history, including the extent to which
Thomas Malthus, the eighteenth-century philosopher opened Soviet archives and declassified American docu-
who predicted imminent worldwide famine. Moreover, ments show that the Kremlin was dictating the operation
Commoner seldom published in peer-reviewed journals of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and whether or
and did not command the respect of the scientific commu- not that organization posed a threat to the American
nity. His rejection of Francis Crick and James Watson’s way of life.
hypotheses about the structure of DNA further harmed
his scholarly reputation. Popular Front and “Browderism”
Nicolaas Mink The CPUSA enjoyed its greatest influence from 1930 to
1939, known as the “Red Decade.” This was the period
See also: Carson, Rachel; Environmental Movement; Love of the so-called united front or popular front, when
Canal; Nuclear Age; Three Mile Island Accident. communists cooperated with socialists and liberals
in opposing fascism. There were untold thousands of
Further Reading “fellow travelers,” individuals sympathetic to the ideals
Egan, Michael. Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The of communism and interested in the “experiment” taking
Remaking of American Environmentalism. Cambridge, MA: place in the Soviet Union but reluctant to formally join
MIT Press, 2007. the communist movement. CPUSA membership itself
Kriebel, David, ed. Barry Commoner’s Contribution to the Environ- peaked at about 100,000 in 1939, with about 70,000
mental Movement: Science and Social Action. Amityville, NY: still in the fold toward the end of World War II—and
Baywood, 2002. with a high turnover rate. Many members left the party
in 1939 after the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression
pact with Nazi Germany and the CPUSA announced
Communists and Communism the end of the popular front. Following Hitler’s invasion
Proponents of communism are committed to the of the Soviet Union in 1941, the CPUSA returned to
teachings of the nineteenth-century German economist antifascism, but the recruitment of new members never
and political philosopher Karl Marx, believing that a again reached the 1930s levels. Critics noted the zigzag
worker revolution leading to the overthrow of capitalism, course of CPUSA positions and how they paralleled
Communis t s and Communism 111
the Moscow viewpoint. With the end of World War II to liberal causes. These people were publicly exposed as
and the onset of the Cold War, the CPUSA came under communists, fellow travelers, or liberal “dupes.”
attack from both mainstream conservatives and liberals. With the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947),
At the same time, division within the party ranks requiring unions to sign noncommunist affidavits or else
decimated the CPUSA, marginalizing it even further. lose their protections under the National Labor Relations
By 1958, such wear and tear had reduced the CPUSA Board, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
membership rolls to about 3,000. began purging communists from its leadership ranks, a
The leader of the communist movement during its significant development considering that communists
heyday was Earl Browder, a homegrown radical from in the early postwar years controlled one-fourth of the
Kansas who became general secretary of the CPUSA in CIO unions. When the CPUSA supported Progressive
January 1930. During his tenure, Browder attempted to Party candidate Henry Wallace in the 1948 presidential
Americanize Marxism and coined the slogan, “Commu- race, unionists were outraged because the endorsement
nism is twentieth-century Americanism.” On May 20, had the potential to divide the liberal vote and throw
1944, he dissolved the party and formed the Communist the election to the Republican candidate. Although
Political Association (CPA), a decision that ultimately Truman, the Democratic candidate, emerged victorious,
led to his political downfall. Since Americans were “ill- union leaders henceforth largely dismissed the CPUSA as
prepared for socialism,” Browder argued it made strategic more interested in its ideological agenda than the good
sense for American communists to settle for being a left- of the labor movement. At the same time, communists
wing pressure group. shifted their focus from labor unions to the civil rights
In June 1945, on orders from Moscow, Browder movement. Southern segregationists, in an attempt to
was stripped of his position, the CPA dissolved, and the discredit Martin Luther King, Jr., and his followers,
CPUSA reactivated. The ousting was led by longtime argued that the civil rights movement was part of a com-
party hack William Z. Foster, who denounced Browder munist conspiracy to divide and weaken the nation, but
as “an unreconstructed revisionist . . . a social imperialist King was careful to keep communists at arm’s length.
. . . an enemy of the working class . . . a renegade . . . an The U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education
apologist for American imperialism.” Eight months later, (1954) decision, forcing school desegregation, was char-
Browder was expelled from the party. In 1946, Eugene acterized by Congressman James Eastland (D-MS) as the
Dennis emerged as the CPUSA general secretary, while product of “some secret . . . very powerful Communist or
Foster maintained ideological control. With “Browder- pro-Communist influence.”
ism” defeated, the CPUSA turned its attention to recruit- In 1948, twelve CPUSA leaders were prosecuted for
ing farmers, blacks, and militant labor, striving to build conspiracy under the Smith Act (1940), which made it
its base while awaiting the soon anticipated depression, illegal for any group to conspire to overthrow the U.S.
which communists predicted would be worse than that government. The 1948 case tipped against the commu-
of the 1930s. nists after Louis Budenz, an ex-communist turned FBI
informant, interpreted communist theoretical writings
Cold War and Red Scare as conspiratorial. It did not matter that prosecutors were
In the meantime, the party suffered public hostility due unable to present tangible evidence of an actual CPUSA
to Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe and the fall of plot. In 1956, after the damage had already been done
China to communism in 1949. With former communists to the CPUSA, the U.S. Supreme Court in Yates v.
such as Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, and Whittaker United States ruled that the Smith Act “requires more
Chambers publicly testifying that the CPUSA engaged than the teaching and advocacy of an abstract doctrine
in espionage activities on behalf of the Soviet Union, that the government should be overthrown by force and
the American public largely viewed communists as a violence.”
sinister fifth column under Kremlin control. In 1947, The decade of the 1950s, especially during the
President Harry Truman established a federal loyalty Korean War (1950–1953), was perhaps the worst time
program for the purpose of keeping communists out for the CPUSA. In January 1950, former government
of public service and to show that he was not “soft on official Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury after it was
communism.” That same year, U.S. attorney general determined that, contrary to earlier testimony, he had
Tom Clark drafted a list of “subversive organizations,” passed on secret documents to the Soviet Union years
of which many were communist “front groups” formed earlier, when he worked for the U.S. State Department.
during the popular front or World War II. At the same Since Hiss had been present at the Yalta Conference near
time, the House Committee on Un-American Activities the end of World War II, at which the Allies agreed that
(known as HUAC) compiled a master index of names Eastern Europe would come under the Soviet sphere of
of individuals who had joined or lent support to these influence after the war, conservatives offered a conspiracy
organizations, such as by signing petitions pertaining theory that the ailing President Franklin Roosevelt had
112 Communis t s and Communism
been snookered by a federal employee who was working disfigured by the cold war, is still the only rhetoric
on behalf of Kremlin interests. In April 1950, Senator left with which to berate the delusions and cruelty of
Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) gave a controversial speech in horrible old capitalism.” In The End of History and the
Wheeling, West Virginia, charging that 205 members Last Man (1992), the neoconservative Francis Fukuyama
of the Communist Party were working at the U.S. State countered that the demise of the Soviet Union was an
Department. Also in 1950, the German émigré physicist ideological victory for free enterprise and thus the “end
Klaus Fuchs was convicted in Great Britain of having of history.”
disclosed secrets of the Manhattan Project to the Soviets. In the meantime, politically conservative academics,
Then, in March of the following year, Julius and Ethel most notably John Earl Haynes of the Library of Con-
Rosenberg, a husband and wife from New York City and gress and Harvey Klehr of Emory University, ransacked
members of the Community Party, were found guilty of old Soviet archives and obtained declassified U.S. docu-
having passed on atomic secrets to Soviet agents; they ments of the Cold War to assess how serious a threat the
were executed in June 1953. CPUSA had posed to American internal security. They
As the outward pressure against the CPUSA con- concluded that, despite the excesses of McCarthyism, the
tinued, internal problems developed as well. Many threat had been real. Part of their research was based on
longtime communists resigned from the party follow- the Venona Project, which began in 1946 and involved
ing official Kremlin revelations of the Stalinist purges the U.S. government’s secret deciphering of Soviet dip-
and death camps in the Soviet Union. This admission lomatic cables. According to Haynes and Klehr, these
was part of the 1956 “secret speech” delivered by Ni- cables indicate that the Soviet agents had recruited spies
kita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, at the 20th Party throughout the U.S. government and that some 349
Congress in Moscow. The following year, the CPUSA’s Americans, immigrants, or permanent residents had
newspaper, the Daily Worker, ceased publication. All maintained covert connections with Soviet intelligence.
the while, the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sounded Moreover, of those 349 individuals, some 200 were never
the warning against communists and their secret ways, fully identified. Haynes and Klehr have expressed frus-
publishing Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in tration that, despite such archival evidence, academics of
America and How to Fight It (1958). In 1959, Gus Hall more liberal persuasions have been reluctant to concede
emerged as the new general secretary of the CPUSA, that the anti-anticommunists of the past had been wrong
a position he held to 2000. It would later be learned about a lot of things. Such reluctance is at least in part a
that the Kremlin provided secret financing to the negative reaction to the triumphal posturing of the old
CPUSA for years, including about $20 million during anticommunists.
the 1980s. Nevertheless, any potential threat posed by Roger Chapman
communism in America during the 1960s and 1970s
was more than offset by the extensive FBI infiltration See also: Budenz, Louis F.; Cold War; Conspiracy Theories;
of the red network. Hargis, Billy; Hiss, Alger; Hoover, J. Edgar; Marxism; Mc-
Carthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel
Reagan and Revisionist History Rosenberg; Sheen, Fulton J.; Soviet Union and Russia.
The Hollywood film Reds (1981), about the early
twentieth-century American journalist John Reed and Further Reading
his flirtation with the Russian Revolution, was privately Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspec-
watched by President Ronald Reagan, who remarked tive. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
afterward, “I was hoping it would have a happy ending.” Haynes, John E. “The Cold War Debate Continues: A Tradition-
The end Reagan was waiting for began in 1989 with alist View of Historical Writing on Domestic Communism
Eastern Europe breaking free of Soviet control. and Anti-Communism.” Journal of Cold War Studies 2:1
Moscow’s funding of the CPUSA dried up that same (Winter 2000): 76–115.
year, and when the Soviet Union was finally dissolved ———. Red Scare or Menace? American Communism and An-
in 1991, so died the dreams of American communism. ticommunism in the Cold War Era. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
Indeed, communism in the United States had been 1996.
broadly discredited prior to that moment. In 1990, Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr. Venona: Decoding Soviet
the University of Rochester’s Marxist historian Eugene Espionage in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
Genovese acknowledged this reality, stating, “An awful 1990.
lot of corpses have been piled up in what we hoped was Lewis, George. The White South and the Red Menace: Segregationists,
a good cause. Socialism in the strict and serious sense Anticommunism, and Massive Resistance, 1945–1965. Gaines-
has failed. And now we have to eat it.” At the same ville: University Press of Florida, 2004.
time, the British cultural studies professor Fred Inglis Ryan, James G. Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism.
argued in The Cruel Peace (1991) that “socialism, forever Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1997.
Compa ssionate Con ser vatism 113
C o m p a r a b l e Wo r t h argue that comparable worth policies will hurt women

Comparable worth, sometimes referred to as pay equity, workers in the long run, by reducing the number of jobs
became a significant issue among feminist activists in female-dominated fields.
beginning in the late 1970s as a method for reducing Rebecca Bach
the gender gap in wages. Supporters of comparable
worth such as the National Organization for Women, See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Equal Rights
the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Amendment; Feminism; Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-
Education Association believe that the best method for Wave; National Organization for Women.
reducing the gender gap in wages is to develop a rating
scale for occupations based on their skill, effort, risk, Further Reading
responsibilities, and contribution levels and to set wages Benokraitis, Nijole, and Joe Feagin. Modern Sexism: Blatant,
based on these ratings. Several state governments have Subtle, and Covert Discrimination. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs,
undergone comparable worth assessments of their civil NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.
service occupations, but the federal government, courts, England, Paula. “The Failure of Human Capital Theory to
and private businesses have resisted the comparable Explain Occupational Sex Segregation.” Journal of Human
worth idea. Resources 17:3 (1982): 358–70.
The concept of comparable worth originated in an Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, and Greg Lee Carter. Working Women in
early version of the Equal Pay Act proposed by Senators America: Split Dreams. New York: Oxford University Press,
Claude Pepper (D-FL) and Wayne Morse (R-OR) in 1945. 2000.
The language of “equal pay for comparable work” did not Kessler-Harris, Alice. A Woman’s Wage: Historical Meanings
survive in the final version of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and Social Consequences. Lexington: University of Kentucky
which requires equal pay for men and women in the same Press, 1990.
occupations. Although the Equal Pay Act is considered Rhoads, Steven E. Incomparable Worth: Pay Equity Meets the Mar-
by many to be landmark legislation for women’s rights ket. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
in the United States, it made only modest progress in
reducing the gender gap in wages.
Feminist scholars argue that the segregation of men
Compassionate Conser vatism
and women in the labor force is a major source of the Compassionate conservatism is an ideology that
gender gap in wages and conclude that the differences encourages privatized efforts, often supported with
in wages for male-dominated and female-dominated oc- federal grants, to combat poverty. Compassionate
cupations are due to discriminatory practices rather than conservatives (who call themselves “comcons”) blame
to differences in the amount of skill and training. Paying traditional welfare programs for creating dependency,
women less for their work is a long-established tradition undermining personal responsibility, and teaching
in the American labor market. The concept of a family the poor to regard themselves as victims. Comcons
wage, a sum that would adequately provide support believe that it is the government’s role to protect the
for a man, his wife, and two children, which developed free-market system, ensure quality public education,
during the late nineteenth century, formed a standard promote family in the context of marriage, and urge
for basing wages on gender. Women workers were not local private charities, primarily religious, to recruit
considered family breadwinners, so they were generally volunteers to help neighbors in need.
paid lower wages for their work. Even as late as 1994, George W. Bush made compassionate conserva-
nearly two-thirds of all employed women in America were tism a central theme of his 2000 presidential election
concentrated in six occupational categories: health care campaign. Some recognized the influence of his father,
workers, teachers, sales workers, clerical workers, service George H.W. Bush, who during his acceptance speech
workers, and machine operators. Such female-dominated for the Republican nomination in 1988 called for “a
occupations have lower wages on average than do occupa- kinder, gentler nation” and likened volunteer efforts to
tions dominated by men (e.g., truck driver, construction “a thousand points of light.” The elder Bush, in fact, later
worker, mechanic, engineer). established the Office for National Service, promoting
Supporters of comparable worth point out that states the Points-of-Light Initiative. The younger Bush went
that have undergone comparable worth ratings and pay further and adopted the ideas of Myron Magnet, editor
adjustments for their civil service positions have sig- of the neoconservative City Journal magazine, and Marvin
nificantly reduced the gender gap in wages among state Olasky, professor of journalism at the University of Texas
employees. Opponents of comparable worth insist that at Austin and editor of World, a conservative Christian
wages should be determined by market forces and that news magazine.
the enactment of comparable worth policies would place George W. Bush was most influenced by Olasky,
an undue burden on private businesses. In addition, they author of The Tragedy of American Compassion (1992),
114 Compa ssionate Con ser vatism
a work that romanticizes the charitable giving of the Olasky, Marvin N. Compassionate Conservatism: What It Is, What
late nineteenth century. Representative Newt Gin It Does, and How It Can Transform America. New York: Free
grich (R-GA) hailed Olasky’s findings and wrote the Press, 2000.
foreword to his second work, Renewing American Com-
passion (1996). Olasky’s third volume, Compassionate
Conservatism (2000), for which Bush wrote the foreword, Confederate Flag
is a folksy travelogue of the author’s visits to various The Confederate flag has a red background and a blue
charities across the nation. Faith-based organizations diagonal cross design, adorned with thirteen white stars
of a nonliberal stripe, the “tough love” kind, receive representing the eleven seceding states plus Missouri
the highest marks. Government bureaucrats are casti- and Kentucky. Often misidentified as the Stars and
gated for hindering care ministries by refusing to work Bars as well as mistakenly called the flag of the Army
with them or imposing restrictions on how to provide of Northern Virginia, the Confederate flag was never
services. Overall, Olasky depicts poverty as a spiritual officially adopted by the government of the Confederate
problem. States of America. It nonetheless has long been a potent
Because of its faith-based premise, allowing churches, and controversial symbol of the American South, and
synagogues, and mosques to compete for federal dollars to it has become one of the most debated symbols in the
provide social services, critics argue that compassionate culture wars.
conservatism blurs the separation between church and The controversy over the Confederate flag stems
state. Some skeptics regard it as a ploy by the Republican from disagreement over what it symbolizes. Groups
Party to galvanize the support of the Religious Right by like the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) and United
distributing federal dollars to its supporters like spoils. Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) assert that the
In addition, some observers have suggested that comcons flag preserves the heritage of the South, honoring the
wish to seize moral authority for political conservatives, to hundreds of thousands of soldiers who fought and died
compensate for their earlier opposition to the civil rights for the Confederacy. Other organizations, including the
movement. Nonetheless, the modifier “compassionate” National Association for the Advancement of Colored
has insulted some conservatives who think it implies that People (NAACP), hold that the flag represents the South’s
they are otherwise heartless. long history of slavery and racial violence and oppression,
Detractors of compassionate conservatism argue that which they insist was the cause of the Civil War.
it does not address the structural problems of society that To make the “heritage versus hate” debate even
foster poverty. An untamed marketplace, for instance, more complicated, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and
allows Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, to deny other hate groups have appropriated the Southern Cross
many of its workers a living wage, as has been pointed as their own symbol. One of the best-known Civil War
out by Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed (2001). historians, Shelby Foote, has spoken out against these
Critics also argue that comcons ignore why the modern white supremacists, calling them “scum” who made the
welfare state emerged in the first place—the failure of Confederate flag, once a “symbol of honor,” a “banner
charities to meet the needs of the poor, infirm, handi- of shame.” Perhaps the most interesting case of symbol
capped, mentally ill, and elderly. After Hurricane Katrina appropriation involved that of Sherman Evans and Angel
devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, many came to regard Quintero, two African-American men from Charleston,
compassionate conservatism as less than adequate for a South Carolina, who in 1994 started a sportswear line
First World nation. called “Nu South Apparel” that featured the logo of a
Roger Chapman Confederate flag design with a black cross and green
stars, representing the colors of the African liberation
See also: Bush Family; Church and State; Ehrenreich, Barbara; movement.
Faith-Based Programs; Family Values; Hurricane Katrina; To others, however, the Southern Cross is simply a
Religious Right; Sex Education; Tax Reform; Wal-Mart; War symbol of revolt against conformity. Groups like punks,
on Poverty; Welfare Reform. skateboarders, and bikers all consider displaying the flag
a statement of rebellion. According to James C. Cobb in
Further Reading Away Down South (2005), the Confederate flag “had be-
Conason, Joe. Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and come a signifier not just of racial but of class differences
How It Distorts the Truth. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin as well, and not simply the economic distance between
Press, 2004. white and blue collar but the emotional distance between
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in believing the system is there for you and believing it is
America. New York: Henry Holt, 2001. there for everybody but you.”
Magnet, Myron. The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy In recent years, several southern states have changed
of the Underclass. San Francisco: Encounter, 2000. their policies and practices concerning the Confederate
Con spirac y T heor ies 115
led to the adoption of a new state flag in 2001. Miller’s

successor, Roy Barnes, also a Democrat, signed the bill
into law and almost immediately became the target of
angry reaction by “flaggers” demanding that the issue be
decided by referendum. Governor Barnes lost reelection
the following year to Republican Sonny Perdue, who
promised a flag referendum. In 2004, however, Georgia
legislators adopted yet another flag—one that incorpo-
rated the pre-1956 flag’s Stars and Bars—and Georgians
voted 3 to 1 in support of that decision.
Thus, since 2002, Mississippi has been the only
southern state to still have the Rebel symbol as part of
its state flag. The Southern Cross, however, is far from
invisible elsewhere. From specialty state license plates to
Nu South Apparel, the meaning of the flag is constantly
On July 1, 2000, as a result of ongoing protests by the
being displayed and reinterpreted.
African-American community, the state of South Carolina
finally removed the Confederate flag from the dome of the
statehouse in Columbia. (Stephen Morton/Getty Images) Keri Leigh Merritt
See also: Blackface; Civil Rights Movement; Flag Desecration;

flag. Georgians and Mississippians had to decide whether Jackson, Jesse; National Association for the Advancement
to keep the Southern Cross incorporated in their state of Colored People; Sharpton, Al; Thurmond, Strom; White
flags, while South Carolinians had to choose whether to Supremacists.
keep the rebel flag flying above their statehouse.
In South Carolina, the Southern Cross had been Further Reading
added to the top of the state capitol for the Civil War Bonner, Robert E. Colors and Blood: Flag Passions of the Confederate
centennial in 1962. Thirty-six years later, Republican South. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
governor David Beasley lost reelection after urging that Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity.
the flag should be placed instead on a Confederate memo- New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
rial near the statehouse. Even Senator Strom Thurmond Horwitz, Tony. Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Un-
(R-SC), who once ran for president on a segregationist finished Civil War. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
ticket, spoke out against the Rebel flag, stating that it
had outlived its usefulness in paying tribute to men of
the state who fought in the Civil War. In 1999, after Conspirac y T heories
Governor Jim Hodges refused to revisit the flag issue, From the end of World War II to the present,
the state’s black leaders, aided by the NAACP, called for the proliferation of conspiracy theories has been a
a tourism boycott of South Carolina. In less than a year, prominent part of American culture, contributing to the
the state lost about $20 million in tourist revenue and polarization of society while undermining confidence in
legislators finally acquiesced, voting to move the flag to public leaders. Often based on partial truths, conspiracy
a Confederate monument. theories have ranged from suspected communist plots
In Georgia, the Confederate flag issue proved more during the Cold War to suggestions that the terrorist
complicated. After the Brown v. Board of Education deci- attacks of September 11, 2001, were carried out by
sion in 1954, the staunchly segregationist state legislature sinister elements within the federal government. While
attempted to change the old flag, based on the Stars and conspiracy theories repeatedly have called into question
Bars, to one incorporating the more racially incendiary the official accounts of events, they have also made
Southern Cross. The new flag was adopted in 1956 and public monitoring by journalists and watch groups
became a divisive issue. Several groups, mostly centered more difficult, because anyone suggesting a political
in the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to many African cover-up, for example, risks being branded a “conspiracy
Americans and non-southerners, began sustained protests theorist.”
against the flag in the late 1980s. By 1992, Governor
Zell Miller, a Democrat, declared his support for a bill Communist and Global Conspiracies
restoring the pre-1956 flag. While polls consistently The fear that communists wanted to establish a world
showed that 60 percent of Georgians wanted to keep the government dominated conservative conspiracy
Rebel flag, the heated situation in South Carolina and the thinking in the late 1940s and 1950s. Anticommunist
threat of another NAACP-led boycott in Georgia finally literature often argued that the United Nations was the
116 Con spirac y T heor ies
forerunner of this communist conspiracy. Theories about the right and left, most notably the charge that it was
the UN also included the notion that UNESCO (United responsible for the Kennedy assassination on November
Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organization) 22, 1963. Mark Lane, in Rush to Judgment (1966) and
was designed specifically to spread communism. Plausible Denial (1991), argues that former CIA agent
Conspiracy theorists such as Lyle P. Sheen contended E. Howard Hunt, a veteran of the failed CIA-backed
that the fluoridation of the nation’s municipal drinking invasion of Cuba in 1961, played a critical role in the
water was not only a health risk but also a communist assassination of the president. CIA operatives, according
plot to weaken the minds of the American public to to Lane, directed Hunt to kill the president after Kennedy
facilitate the socialist revolution. Others linked the indicated that he was determined to end covert activities
civil rights movement with the communist menace. against Cuba. In 1978, conspiracy theorists linked the
Former communist Kenneth Goff, for example, argued CIA to the People’s Temple mass suicide in Guyana.
in Reds Promote the Racial War (1955) that the National According to these theories, cult leader Jim Jones was a
Association for the Advancement of Colored People CIA operative trained in the psychic science of coercion.
(NAACP) had been infiltrated by communists for the The more than 900 suicides by cult members and the
purpose of stirring up racial strife in order to overthrow assassination of U.S. Representative Leo Ryan (D-CA)
the U.S. government. and his delegation sent to investigate the Temple’s
Over the years, conservative conspiracy theorists activities were said to be an attempt by the CIA to keep
have repeatedly tried to raise doubts about who is ruling hidden a vast program of medical experimentation.
the country, variously arguing that the United States According to a conspiracy theory from the liberal side of
is controlled by shadowy groups such as the Council the political spectrum in the 1980s, the CIA was part of
on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. a cocaine-smuggling program for funding the Contras
Such organizations, theorists allege, direct the nation’s in Nicaragua.
domestic, foreign, political, and economic policies with- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the
out the consultation of the American public. This fear is Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have
representative of a great cultural and social chasm that has also been targeted by conspiracy theorists. The FBI is
long existed between the elite and the rank and file. In viewed as the agency assigned to falsify evidence and
A Choice Not an Echo (1964), conservative activist Phyllis conceal the truth about the Kennedy assassination and
Schlafly asserted that Republican presidential candidates the existence of aliens from other planets. The popular
were being chosen by a “secret group of kingmakers,” the television series The X-Files (1993–2002), by following
Bilderbergers, who would meet once a year to determine the activities of two FBI agents, furthered the belief that
the fate of the Republican nomination. Right-wing po- the FBI is integrally tied to government conspiracies.
litical commentator Phoebe Courtney charged in The CFR FEMA, meanwhile, has been portrayed by conspiracists
(1968) and Nixon and the CFR (1971) that the admin- as a secret government within the United States. The
istrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, belief is that in response to a disaster, one likely caused
Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon were under by the federal government, FEMA will be given emer-
the control of the Council on Foreign Relations. gency powers that nullify the rights guaranteed by the
Government secrecy, the growth of a national secu- Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and then go on to
rity state, and a growing public distrust of government establish a dictatorship.
were among the factors contributing to the rise of con-
spiracy theories. One of the most popular and enduring “New World Order”
conspiracy theories is the notion that the government has Conspiratorial fears were also the basis for the founding
hidden the existence of extraterrestrial life since a July of the modern American militia movement in the
1947 crash of an alien spacecraft in Roswell, New Mexico. 1990s. In the wake of the federal raids at Ruby Ridge,
U.S. Marine Major Donald Keyhoe in Flying Saucer from Idaho (1992), and Waco, Texas (1993), militiamen saw
Outer Space (1953) and The Flying Saucer Conspiracy (1955) the coercive powers of the state as a direct threat to their
charged that the federal government had engaged in constitutional rights. The undermining of individual
secret programs to hide the truth of flying saucers and freedom and U.S. membership in the United Nations,
aliens from the American public. A more recent accusa- they argued, were precursors to the establishment of
tion leveled by conspiracy theorists is the charge that the a “New World Order” in which U.S. sovereignty and
six Apollo moon landings were a NASA hoax designed to basic rights would be nonexistent. Invoking the Second
demoralize the Soviet Union during the space race. Amendment, they formed paramilitary organizations to
protect the United States from a vast conspiracy.
CIA and FBI “Plots” Some conspiracy theories have centered on the an-
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been the nihilation of people of African descent. In Black Men:
subject of numerous conspiracy theories from both Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? (1990), Haki R. Madhubuti
Contemporar y C hr is tian Mu sic 117
(Don L. Lee) asserts that acquired immunodeficiency syn- Goldberg, Robert Alan. Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy
drome (AIDS) is caused by a genetically engineered virus in Modern America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
specifically created to destroy the black race. The World 2001.
Health Organization, he contends, purposely introduced Knight, Peter, ed. Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in
AIDS in Africa. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Postwar America. New York: New York University Press,
Orleans in 2005, conspiracy theorists charged that the 2002.
George W. Bush administration secretly engineered the
destruction of levees to preserve the white sections of the
city while destroying heavily black neighborhoods. Contemporar y Chr istian Music
Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) is a hybrid
September 11 genre that weds rock and other modern musical styles
Numerous conspiracy theories have been offered in to evangelical Christian themes and imagery. From its
lieu of the official explanations of the September 11 obscure beginnings in the 1960s, CCM has evolved into a
terrorist attacks. While some theories argue that the diverse array of forms and serves an important role within
Bush administration hid certain facts about its failure to the evangelical subculture as an inspirational musical
stop al-Qaeda from carrying out the plot, others charge alternative and a “sanctified” source of entertainment.
that the U.S. government itself, not the terrorists, was The roots of CCM lie in the rise of the countercul-
behind the attacks. Claremont theology professor David tural Jesus People movement of the late 1960s. The
Ray Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor (2004), Jesus People incorporated pop, folk, and rock musical
charged that the attacks were committed by the Bush styles into their worship and frequently used music as
administration to strengthen public opinion to go to an evangelistic tool. Eventually, solo artists such as Larry
war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Such theories maintain Norman and bands like Love Song began to emerge as
that planted explosives, not burning jet fuel from planes, regional and national favorites. The first major attempt
caused the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. to market “Jesus Music” nationally came with the efforts
This argument has been championed by Brigham of Word Records, based in Waco, Texas. Its Myrrh label
Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones and posted modest sales despite having almost no access to
Clemson University engineer Judy Wood. The attack on radio airplay or national retail chains. However, the mu-
the Pentagon has elicited related theories. And United sic’s potential was demonstrated by the success of 2nd
Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in the Pennsylvania Chapter of Acts, a brother-sister trio, and its album With
countryside after being hijacked on September 11, is Footnotes (1974), which sold nearly 300,000 copies.
said by some theorists to have been shot down by a U.S. Jesus Music eventually came to be called Contem-
government cruise missile. porary Christian Music. With Nashville as its center,
Although the March 2005 edition of Popular Mechan- CCM by 1984 had chalked up annual sales of nearly
ics magazine showed how the September 11 conspiracy $75 million. Nashville’s own Amy Grant, the first CCM
theories are easily refuted, doubt persists in some circles. superstar, would eventually sell more than 25 million
According to a 2006 survey by the Scripps Survey Re- albums, becoming the first CCM artist to have a gold
search Center at Ohio University, one-third of Americans record, the first to land a song in the Top 40 (“Find a
believed that the federal government was responsible for Way,” 1985), and the first to have a number one single
the attacks. (“Baby Baby,” 1991).
Matthew C. Sherman While Grant’s brand of upbeat country-pop was
CCM’s best-selling offering, it was by no means repre-
See also: AIDS; Central Intelligence Agency; Communists and sentative of the entire genre. As the nation’s multiplying
Communism; Hurricane Katrina; Iran-Contra Affair; Ken- youth subcultures adapted and discarded musical styles
nedy Family; Militia Movement; National Association for the in the 1980s and 1990s, there were CCM equivalents to
Advancement of Colored People; Schlafly, Phyllis; September be found for all of them, from heavy metal to punk to rap
11; Stone, Oliver; United Nations. and hip-hop. In the mid-1990s, CCM neared the $900
million mark. In 2005, it comprised over 7 percent of
Further Reading the total American music market, surpassing Latin, jazz,
Dean, Jodi. Aliens in America: Conspiracy Culture from Outerspace classical, new age, and soundtrack sales.
to Cyberspace. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. Despite its growth, CCM has not been an unbridled
Dunbar, David, and Brad Regan, eds. Debunking 9/11 Myths: success. Very conservative sectors regard it as worldly or
Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts. New York: bordering on satanic. Some evangelicals were shocked
Hearst Books, 2006. by Grant’s crossover style, including a romantic video,
Fenster, Mark. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American and frowned on her 1999 divorce. For some, singer Sandi
Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Patti’s 1992 divorce and her confession of an adulterous
118 Contrac t w ith A mer ic a
affair also cast CCM in a negative light. Within the

CCM industry, the ghost of the penniless Jesus People
troubadour hangs heavily over executives and artists alike
as they struggle over the conflict between ministry and
the gravitational pull of the bottom line. Moreover, with
few exceptions, the music has never been well received
by secular audiences and critics—even some evangelical
youth—who regard it as watered down and imitative.
Larry Eskridge
See also: Bono; Chick, Jack; Evangelicalism; Heavy Metal;

Jesus People Movement; Punk Rock; Rap Music; Rock and
Roll.
Further Reading
Baker, Paul (Frank Edmondson). Contemporary Christian Music:
Where It Came From, What It Is, Where It’s Going. Westchester,
IL: Crossway, 1985.
Hendershot, Heather. Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and
Conservative Evangelical Culture. Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 2004.
Howard, Jay R., and John M. Streck. Apostles of Rock: The
Splintered World of Contemporary Christian Music. Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Contract with America

The Contract with America, released by Republicans
in the House of Representatives during the 1994
midterm election campaign, was a document calling A political cartoon in 1994 portrays the Contract with
for political reform that contributed to the escalation America—the conservative Republican legislative agenda—
of the culture wars. Written mostly by Representative as a death warrant for the policies of the Bill Clinton admin-
Dick Armey (R-TX), the contract was signed by all but istration. (A 1994 Herblock Cartoon, copyright by The Herb
two Republican members of the House and all of the Block Foundation)
party’s non-incumbent House candidates. When the
Republicans won a majority in the House for the first
time since 1952, the Contract with America was given the states, had also passed the Senate and been signed
much of the credit. into law by President Bill Clinton. Republicans’ efforts
The contract was dedicated to extensive reform of were stymied by a political system designed to encourage
the House of Representatives and the implementation fragmentation and delay. The designers of the contract
of conservative policies. After the 1994 elections, Newt sought to elevate the House to parity with the president
Gingrich (R-GA) was elected Speaker of the House as an agenda setter but found themselves frustrated in
and used the contract to set the agenda for Congress their attempts to do so.
and the nation. Many of the Republicans taking office For many conservatives, the Contract with America
for the first time in 1994 wedded their fortunes to was considered a success because Republicans gained
the Contract with America, dedicating their energies control of the House for the first time since 1953.Yet, al-
to dismantling welfare and regulatory programs and though the contract was heavily covered in the media and
reforming Congress. was a target of Democratic counterattacks, most voters
House Republicans demonstrated overwhelming apparently went to the polls unaware of its existence.
unity throughout the highly publicized first hundred
days of the 104th Congress and passed nine of the ten Patrick Fisher
items in their contract. But at the close of the first hun-
dred days, only two items, those applying federal labor See also: Clinton, Bill; Gingrich, Newt; Republican Party; Tax
laws to Congress and a curb on unfunded mandates to Reform; Welfare Reform.
Coulter, A nn 119
Further Reading public lands by an estimated $66 million per year, and
Andersen, Alfred F. Challenging Newt Gingrich. Eugene, OR: allegations of fraud at the Houston-based Halliburton in
Tom Paine Institute, 1996. providing goods and services under government contract
Drew, Elizabeth. Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich to U.S. troops in Iraq. In 2008, following the outbreak of
Congress and the Clinton White House. New York: Simon and the subprime-loan crisis, Congress appropriated a $700
Schuster, 1996. billion bank bailout package.
Gingrich, Newt, et al. Contract with America: The Bold Plan by Corporate welfare is in many ways as complicated as
Rep. Newt Gingrich, Rep. Dick Armey, and the House Republicans welfare for the elderly and the poor. Subsidies, grants, and
to Change the Nation. New York: Times Books, 1994. tax breaks are often cited as a potential policy solution to
market failures. The rise of economic globalization creates
increasing competition among cities for the retention of
C o r p o r a t e We l f a r e jobs, leading cities to offer incentives such as tax breaks,
“Corporate welfare,” a pejorative term popularized by free land, and infrastructure development to attract busi-
consumer advocate Ralph Nader in 1956, refers to the nesses. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, is a major
system of direct government subsidies, grants, tax breaks, recipient of this kind of corporate welfare. Cities that do
tax loopholes, discounted insurance, debt revocations, not offer these incentives may experience job loss, revenue
bailouts, and “special favorable treatment” for corpora- loss, and overall slowed growth as corporations locate else-
tions. The term implies criticism of government support where. Cities that do provide such incentives, however,
of private markets, as opposed to welfare payments to the may find that they have only nominal employment for a
poor. Many contend that corporate welfare is a symptom labor force that must bear more of the tax burden.
of government deregulation and the monopolistic ten- Corporate welfare is problematic from various per-
dencies of capitalism. Corporate welfare is not linked to spectives, making the political process seem more corrupt
any particular ideology, as both liberals and conservatives and undermining the public trust in both government
are likely to call for government support for different pri- and the free market. At the same time, enterprises that
orities. Critics contend that special treatment for corpora- do not take advantage of such incentives lose their com-
tions is an unnecessary, inefficient, and even unfair inter- petitive advantage.
vention in free markets that gives a competitive advan- Holona LeAnne Ochs
tage to large companies and shifts tax burdens away from
large firms to smaller organizations and individuals. See also: Battle of Seattle; Bush Family; Cheney Family; Eisen-
A prominent example of corporate welfare in recent hower, Dwight D.; Executive Compensation; Globalization;
history was the savings and loan bailout, which cost Nader, Ralph; Privatization; Reagan, Ronald; Tax Reform;
American taxpayers an estimated $500 billion. Considered Wal-Mart; Welfare Reform.
one of the largest corporate welfare expenditures, it began
with the deregulation of the savings and loan industry in Further Reading
the early 1980s, a result of efforts by the well-connected Bartlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele. America: Who Really
savings and loan lobby in Congress. The interconnected- Pays the Taxes? New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
ness of lobbying and campaign contributions resulted in Neckerman, Kathryn M. Social Inequality. New York: Russell
the diffusion of risks to taxpayers and subsequently riskier Sage Foundation, 2004.
investments. A series of bank failures and government bail- Sen, Amartya Kumar. Inequality Reexamined. New York: Russell
outs compounded the costs, and the widening crisis among Sage Foundation, 1992.
credit-lending institutions threatened the collapse of an Whitfield, Dexter. Public Services or Corporate Welfare: Rethinking the
economic system based on credit. The resulting legislation Nation State in the Global Economy. Sterling, VA: Pluto, 2001.
did not include proposed financial consumer associations
that would have minimized the cost to taxpayers and al-
lowed consumers to act on their own to prevent similar C o u l t e r, A n n
crises and bailouts in the future. A politically conservative writer and commentator
Since that time, federal corporate welfare has in- who uses shock, humor, hyperbole, and mean-spirited
creased to more than $125 billion annually, not including discourse, Ann Coulter has emerged as a highly
tax loopholes, discounted insurance, debt revocations, or polarizing figure in the culture wars. Her constant target
state and local programs. Meanwhile, corporate scandals of derision is “liberals.” While critics accuse her of hate
have continued, including the Enron bankruptcy and speech and distortion, her fans (political conservatives)
accounting fraud (2001–2002), procurement irregulari- regard her as refreshingly candid and entertaining in
ties at Boeing that inflated government arms sales by an belittling liberals and their arguments.
estimated $810 million (2003–2005), the underpayment Born on December 8, 1961, in New York City, Ann
of royalties by oil companies for the extraction of oil on Hart Coulter was raised in an upper-middle-class fam-
120 Coulter, A nn
ily in New Canaan, Connecticut. A graduate of Cornell See also: Clinton, Hillary; Clinton Impeachment; Cold War;
University (1985) and the University of Michigan Law Cronkite, Walter; Franken, Al; Hoffman, Abbie; McVeigh,
School (1988), she was politically active during her stu- Timothy; Media Bias; National Review; New York Times, The;
dent years, contributing to the conservative Cornell Review Religious Right; September 11; Vietnam War.
and starting a chapter of the Federalist Society. Later, she
clerked for Judge Pasco Bowman II of the U.S. Court of Further Reading
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Kansas City (1989) and Carr, David. “Deadly Intent: Ann Coulter, Word Warrior.” New
worked as a staffer for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Com- York Times, June 12, 2006.
mittee (1994–1996). In 1996, she began appearing on Estrich, Susan. Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church
television programs as a political commentator, wearing of Hate. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
short skirts and tossing her long blonde hair. Franken, Al. Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair
Coulter achieved best-seller status with High Crimes and Balanced Look at the Right. New York: Dutton, 2003.
and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (1998), Scherer, Michael, and Sarah Secules. “Books: How Slippery
arguing for President Clinton’s impeachment; Slander: is Slander?” Columbia Journalism Review 41 (November/
Liberal Lies About the American Right (2002), charging December 2002).
the media with an overall liberal bias; Treason: Liberal
Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003),
accusing liberals of deep-seated anti-Americanism; How Counterculture
to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) (2004), belittling liberal The general term “counterculture” came into use during
thinking; Godless: The Church of the Liberal (2006), depict- a period from the late 1950s to the late 1970s that
ing liberals as antireligious and immoral; and Guilty: was characterized by cultural, political, and economic
Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America (2008), behaviors very different from those of the mainstream.
arguing that liberals are society’s oppressors. The counterculture, actually a number of loosely
In Slander, directing much of her criticism at the New connected left-wing or alternative lifestyle movements
York Times, Coulter asserts that liberals have “hegemonic involving primarily young people, was an attempt at
control” of the media. However, a 2002 New Yorker cultural criticism and reinvention that has been a highly
cartoon depicts Coulter standing in Times Square with contentious flashpoint in the American culture wars.
her image on the surrounding billboards and electronic Common to the diverse groups of the counterculture
screens, complaining about the liberal media; the caption was a search for authenticity in what was perceived as
is a quotation from Slander: “In this universe, the public an alienating and corrupt society. Central to this search
square is wall-to-wall liberal propaganda.” was a defiant or questioning attitude toward authority
Liberal media figure Al Franken devotes two chap- and hierarchy, involving a creative or mystic/spiritual
ters of his book Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) resistance to the status quo and its demands and institu-
(2003) to Coulter, characterizing her as “the reigning tions. The backdrop for much of the counterculture was
diva of the hysterical right” and a writer of “political the Vietnam War protests and the civil rights move-
pornography.” He also points to factual errors in her ment, both of which called into question America’s
work. According to a short content analysis of Coulter’s moral and cultural high ground. Derided by supporters
Slander in the Columbia Journalism Review, of forty specific of the establishment as “beatniks,” “hippies,” “freaks,”
errors charged by reviewers, nineteen passed muster but “troublemakers,” “rebels without a cause,” “drug addicts,”
twenty-one were found to be fallacious. and “communists,” members of the counterculture were
Coulter’s first job as a TV commentator ended in criticized for being radical and irresponsible, naive with
1997, when she was fired by MSNBC for criticizing a their visionary egalitarianism, anti-American in the face
disabled Vietnam veteran, stating on the air, “People like of Soviet aggression, self-indulgent with sex and drugs,
you caused us to lose the war.” She was also fired from self-righteous, and unappreciative of the many opportuni-
National Review Online, after writing in her September 13, ties provided to them in the “land of the free.”
2001, column, “We should invade their [Islamic] coun- The counterculture was expressed in four primary
tries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” areas—artistic, political, spiritual, and communal. In
In an August 26, 2002, article in the New York Observer, its artistic dimension, in literature, music, and film,
she wrote, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he the counterculture provided the grounding for much
did not go to the New York Times building.” And in her of the ethos of the era. Writers and poets such as Ed-
book Godless, she calls the widows of men who died in ward Abbey, Amiri Baraka, Richard Brautigan, Wil-
the September 11 terrorist attacks “harpies” and charges liam Burroughs, Carlos Castaneda, Diane Di Prima,
that they are “enjoying their husbands’ deaths.” Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac,
Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer, Herbert Marcuse, J.D.
Roger Chapman Salinger, Ed Sanders, Gary Snyder, Susan Sontag, and
Counterc ulture 121
Kurt Vonnegut proposed important themes that ani- movement. A lasting legacy was the demand for alterna-
mated much of the counterculture. Two paradigmatic tive histories of the United States that rejected a norma-
books by Kerouac—On the Road (1957) and The Dharma tive “great white men” viewpoint, focusing instead on
Bums (1958)—dramatized the young person’s search for the minority voices and victims of the dominant culture.
authenticity in a culture that worshipped conformity Paradigmatic books are Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at
and materialism. Kerouac helped articulate a vision of Wounded Knee (1971), Howard Zinn’s A People’s History
an America more culturally, artistically, and politically of the United States (1980), and Richard Drinnon’s Fac-
free. Other literary roots of the counterculture include ing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-
Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), Building (1980).
Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Along with this shift in examining the past came the
(1971), Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (1954), willingness of passionate and committed people such as
and the poems of Allen Ginsberg. the Baltimore Four, the Catonsville Nine, members of
Influential publishers such as Beacon Press, Black the Plowshares Movement, and the veterans of the civil
Sparrow Books, City Lights Publishers, Grove Press, and rights struggle to practice civil disobedience to challenge
Shambhala Publications, and still later South End Press, perceived unjust government policies. The activism
were created or adapted to service the growing need for of the counterculture contributed to making America
alternative knowledge and cultural mores. Periodicals more inclusive, expanding the realm of freedom and
including the Evergreen Review, Ramparts, Rolling Stone, equal protection in dramatic ways. Lasting institutional
and the Realist became popular. The Village Voice, Los political influence can be seen in the Green Party, which
Angeles Free Press, Berkeley Barb, and San Francisco Oracle remains minuscule in the United States but is significant
and other underground papers served as important vein western Europe.
hicles of communication, expressing the views of political The counterculture also questioned traditional Chris-
and cultural dissenters, highlighting antiwar sentiments, tianity and other institutionalized spiritual paths, encour-
cultural reform, ecological issues, civil rights, women’s aging the exploration of a range of different religious and
liberation, gay liberation, Native American rights, and spiritual sources such as paganism, Wicca, Transcendental
psychedelia. Two of the most enduring texts to come Meditation, Krishna consciousness, Buddhism, Taoism,
out of the movement for alternative knowledge were and Native American religions, all of which served as a
the Whole Earth Catalog (1968) and Our Bodies, Ourselves precursor to the New Age movement. Many sought to
(1969), the latter produced by a collective of women aid this spiritual exploration by using LSD, marijuana,
frustrated by the paternalism of the medical profession. hashish, or other drugs or hallucinogens. Drug use was
In music, the Beatles, Joan Baez, The Doors, Bob Dy- made popular in part by the antics of dropout professors
lan, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Phil Ochs, and Timothy Leary and Richard Albert (later Ram Dass), the
the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, as well as concert promoter novelist Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, and the
Bill Graham, were among those contributing to the new rock band the Grateful Dead.
cultural ethos. The movement culminated in the chaotic An important aspect of the counterculture was the
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, in New York’s Catskill commune movement, which involved tens of thousands
Mountains in August 1969, perhaps the most emblematic of people. During the 1960s hippie communities
event of the era. Working in other media, film director in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco and
Robert Altman, cartoonist Robert Crumb, hippie “clown” Manhattan’s Lower East Side emerged and expanded
Wavy Gravy (Hugh Romney), and pop artists Peter Max rapidly. Many participants were young people who left
and Andy Warhol played important roles in challenging conventional life and their families to develop larger
aesthetic, social, and political norms. Hollywood pre- networks of relationships, enacting alternative visions
sented iconic countercultural images in such releases as of modern living. Particularly attractive were places like
the film Easy Rider (1969) and the television series The Taos, New Mexico, where communes were established
Monkees (1966) and The Mod Squad (1968). exemplifying new ways of communication, caring,
On the political front, counterculture leaders in- intimacy, and social freedom. Some of these com-
cluded Stokely Carmichael, Tom Hayden, Michael Har- munities were sexually or psychologically abusive or
rington, Abbie Hoffman, Betty Friedan, Paul Krassner, became extreme cults, such as the group that followed
Jerry Rubin, and Mario Savio. Various political groups the mass murderer Charles Manson. Most communes
also emerged, including the Youth International Party failed within a few years. Since 1972, however, tempo-
(whose members were called “Yippies”), the Weather rary communal experiences called Rainbow Gatherings
Underground, the Diggers, Students for a Democratic have occurred yearly.
Society, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear The mainstream media continue to debate the lega-
Policy, and the Black Panther Party. Activism also cy of the counterculture, which, for all of its abuses and
emerged in the women’s movement and the gay rights excesses, made important strides in helping the United
122 Counterc ulture
States to become more socially, culturally, politically, Further Reading

and legally inclusive. Supporters of the counterculture Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. Destructive Generation:
movement lament what they see as missed opportunities Second Thoughts About the ’60s. New York: Free Press,
for transforming the nation toward social justice, and 1996.
they perceived social and political regressions during the Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counter-
presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. culture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University
Critics such as George Will, David Horowitz, and Roger of Chicago Press, 1998.
Kimball, as well as many politicians and religious lead- Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York:
ers on the right, maintain that the counterculture was Bantam, 1993.
a monstrous mistake, the cause of serious moral decline Kimball, Roger. The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution
in America, representing rampant hedonism and the of the 1960s Changed America. San Francisco: Encounter,
glorification of irrationality. 2001.
Critics further argue that veterans of the counter- Miller, Timothy. The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond. Syracuse,
culture, now said to be tenured radicals on university NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
campuses, are indoctrinating the young with subversive Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections
notions of secularism, multiculturalism, antimilitarism, on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. Garden
egalitarianism, feminism, relativism, and gay rights. As a City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968.
result, the critics continue, the nation is in internal crisis, Steinhorn, Leonard. The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby
becoming soft and vulnerable to outside threats such as Boom Legacy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
terrorism. While supporters of the counterculture lament
the decline of political involvement among American
youth, critics accuse the counterculture of creating an Countr y Music
adversarial culture in which inherent social, political, and A popular genre closely associated with the southern
economic “truths” are denied. Such antitraditionalism United States and its culture, evangelical Christianity,
and liberationist tendencies cause conservatives to fear and conservative politics, country music (also referred to
something called “cultural dissolution” and “Western as country and western music) is often used as a vehicle
collapse.” for the expression of conservative beliefs. Emerging
For their part, people on the left criticize the coun- from the rural South in the 1920s, country music, more
terculture for playing a significant role in the ascendance than most other forms of popular music, addresses
of modern conservatism and religious evangelism, which the everyday concerns of lower- and middle-class
gained significant power in reaction to the perceived Americans. The emphasis on specific daily problems has
excesses of the counterculture. Moreover, from the early made country music an important vector of conservative
1990s, aspects of the counterculture have been resur- sentiment in the culture wars.
rected, co-opted commercially, and disconnected from Although country musicians had long espoused con-
their roots in radical or progressive politics—as in the servative views on social issues such as gender roles and
use of classic rock music and counterculture personalities religion, many artists during the 1960s and 1970s became
in commercial advertising. More consequently, powerful deeply embroiled in the upheavals of the counterculture.
terms fundamental to popular democratic politics such It was in this era that the link between country music
as “revolution” and “liberation” have become buzzwords and conservative values was cemented. Segregationist
for selling products. Yet hope lives in liberal quarters politician George Wallace of Alabama, for example,
that the excesses of neoconservatism; the power of the used country music as the soundtrack for his political
religious and political right; attacks on reproductive campaigns throughout the 1960s; well-known country
rights, welfare, and gay rights; and most notably Amer- musicians were frequent performers at his rallies. Merle
ica’s foreign interventions might inspire the emergence Haggard’s hit song “Okie from Muskogee” (1969) fa-
of a new, more substantive counterculture to pick up mously celebrated the values of small-town life, such as
where the old one left off. patriotism, and attacked hippies and draft dodgers. In
“Fightin’ Side of Me” (1971), Haggard expressed a “love
Omar Swartz it or leave it” patriotism amid conflict over the Vietnam
War, challenging war protestors who were walking on
See also: American Indian Movement; Civil Rights Move- his “fightin’ side.”
ment; Environmental Movement; Feminism, Second-Wave; Country music achieved mainstream appeal through-
Feminism, Third-Wave; Gay Rights Movement; Hoffman, out the nation in the last third of the twentieth century,
Abbie; Leary, Timothy; Literature, Film, and Drama; New but it retained a close connection to conservative politi-
Age Movement; New Left; Rock and Roll; Sexual Revolution; cal causes. Responding to events in the Middle East that
War on Drugs; War Protesters. led to the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, Hank
Creationism and Intelligent Desig n 123
Williams, Jr., sang “Don’t Give Us a Reason” (1990), attacks with a poignant song that concludes with a reaf-
whose lyrics threatened Iraqi president Saddam Hussein firmation of Christian love. There is little or no discussion
with retaliation. Similarly, in the wake of the terrorist of non-Christian faiths in country music.
attacks of September 11, 2001, Toby Keith wrote songs Despite country music’s close association with con-
that urged retaliation against terrorists. In “Courtesy servative politics and culture, the music has never spoken
of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” with a unified voice. There have always been notable
(2002), he sang, “You’ll be sorry that you messed with exceptions to country music’s mainstream conservatism.
the U.S. of A. / We’ll put a boot in your ass / It’s the In the 1960s, country musicians were often politically
American way.” divided, with some expressing support for conservative
Although not all country musicians are aggressively causes and others advocating more liberal politics. In
conservative, those who voice a different political opin- the 1990s, superstar country musician Garth Brooks,
ion are often shut out of the genre. Natalie Maines, lead one of the most popular country musicians of all time,
singer of the Dixie Chicks, publicly stated that she was recorded songs on such taboo subjects as homosexuality
“ashamed” of George W. Bush during a 2003 London and wife beating. His song “We Shall Be Free,” on the
concert. Despite being one of country music’s most popu- album Chase (1992), raised eyebrows in some circles for
lar groups, the Dixie Chicks were immediately dropped its tolerance of homosexuality (“We shall be free / when
from country radio stations. Some fans protested by burn- we’re free to love anyone we choose”) and non-Christian
ing or smashing the group’s albums. The Dixie Chicks faiths (“When we all can worship from our own kind of
went on to new success after the incident, with several hit pew / Then we shall be free”). Albeit at the fringes of
albums and Grammy awards, but much of their following mainstream country music, some “alt-country” perform-
came from outside the country music community, which ers use their music to support liberal causes. Steve Earle’s
still largely shuns the band. “John Walker’s Blues” (2002), for example, is a sympa-
Although female performers have always been inte- thetic ballad about John Walker Lindh, the “American
gral to country music, the genre often emphasizes tradi- Taliban” arrested in Afghanistan after September 11.
tional gender relations and remains one realm of popular Although the majority of country songs confront deeply
culture that largely rejects modern feminism. Perhaps no personal, rather than overtly political, subjects, the overall
song better illustrates country music’s traditional message themes and messages of country music are fundamentally
about gender relations than Tammy Wynette’s “Stand and consistently conservative and traditional, making it a
By Your Man” (1968), which urges women to adopt a form of popular culture closely aligned with conservative
subordinate position to their husbands. That song became causes in the culture wars.
the best-selling single ever recorded by a woman artist. Jeffrey T. Manuel
Feminists denounced Wynette, arguing that the song
promoted male dominance. At the same time, country See also: Bush Family; Counterculture; Evangelicalism; Nel-
music has traditionally featured many female performers son, Willie; Red and Blue States; Rock and Roll; September
and songs that express an independent female perspective, 11; Vietnam War; Wallace, George; War Protesters.
often from the view of working-class women. Female
performers have used songs to “talk back” to male artists, Further Reading
such as Kitty Wells’s “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Bufwack, Mary A., and Robert K. Oermann. Finding Her Voice:
Tonk Angels” (1952), a response to Hank Thompson’s The Saga of Women in Country Music. New York: Crown,
hit “The Wild Side of Life” (1952)—which declared that 1993.
male unfaithfulness is the reason that some women resort Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A. 2nd rev. ed. Austin:
to “wild living.” Later female country stars such as Loretta University of Texas Press, 2002.
Lynn, Shania Twain, and Gretchen Wilson continued the ———. Don’t Get above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern
tradition of female country artists who expressed a feisty, Working Class. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
working-class female viewpoint without threatening Willman, Chris. Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country
conventional gender arrangements. Music. New York: New Press, 2005.
Country music’s conservatism is due in part to its
support for evangelical Protestantism. Along with gospel
music, country is one of the most overtly Christian styles Creationism and Intelligent
of popular music in America. As the music developed out Design
of the plain folk of the South, it tended to filter current One of the most polarizing conflicts in American
events through a religious worldview. During the Cold culture is that between “creationism” and “evolution.”
War, for example, one country song claimed, “Jesus The former is the belief in the divine creation of living
Hits Like an Atom Bomb” (1951). More recently, star beings in their present forms; the latter is the scientific
performer Alan Jackson responded to the September 11 theory that species emerge through a complex process
124 Creationism and Intelligent Desig n
of genetic variation and natural selection. The scientific Santee, California. Renamed the Institute for Creation
community overwhelmingly supports the theory of Research (ICR) in 1972, it has since become the leading
evolution, while the majority of Americans believe in institutional proponent of biblical creationism, with
creationism (e.g., according to a 2005 CBS poll, 51 books, a museum, radio programs, speakers, and courses
percent favor the biblical account; 30 percent some form and degree programs in creation science. After Morris’s
of theistic evolution; and 15 percent scientific, non- retirement in 1995, he was succeeded as head of the ICR
theistic evolution). The conflict between creationists by his son, John Morris.
and evolutionists has been played out in America’s
public schools and courts, where creationists have faced “Equal Time” Conflict
a series of defeats on issues of teaching perspective and State statutes forbidding the teaching of evolution in
curriculum. A new wrinkle was added to the dispute in American public schools were voided on Establishment
the 1990s with the rise of a new position in the creation Clause grounds by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
movement, “intelligent design.” According to this view, Epperson v. Arkansas (1969). Consequently, the legislative
the irreducible complexity of living organisms renders and political strategy of creationists in the 1970s shifted
evolution untenable. from attempting to suppress the teaching of evolution
entirely to claiming equal time for “creation science.”
Darwin Versus the “Young Earth” Rather than directly attacking evolution in their legal and
The conflict between evolutionists and creationists, political arguments, creationists asserted that evolution
dormant since the 1920s, began to heat up again in the is “just a theory” and that giving it a monopoly over the
late 1950s. Concern over the weakness of the American question of origins is unfair. “Scientific creationism” fit
science curriculum after the Soviet launch of the space perfectly with this strategy. Creationists believed that if
satellite Sputnik in 1957 and the centennial of Charles creationism could be taught in public schools without
Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1959 led biologists to attack reference to the Bible, the Establishment Clause issues
the omission of evolution from most high-school biology would be circumvented.
texts. The Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, a During his 1980 presidential campaign, conservative
group of biologists funded by the National Science Republican Ronald Reagan called for equal treatment of
Foundation, began revising textbooks to incorporate evolution and creationism in the classroom. The following
evolution as a fundamental concept, arousing opposition year, Arkansas and Louisiana passed “equal time” laws.
from conservative religious groups. Since there is no constitutional prohibition on teaching
In 1961, the adherents of the literal biblical ac- bad science, these laws put evolutionists in the legal po-
count of creationism were bolstered by the publication sition of demonstrating that any creationist theory was
of John Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris’s The Genesis inherently religious, even without mention of God or the
Flood. Building on the work of early-twentieth-century quoting of biblical texts.
Canadian creationist George Macready Price, Whitcomb The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which
and Morris made a case for “young-earth creationism.” has supported the teaching of evolution going back to
Young-earth creationists see the world as only a few the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925, represented the pro-
thousand years old, basically accepting the chronology of evolution view in challenging the “equal time” laws. The
Archbishop James Ussher, the seventeenth-century theo- ACLU succeeded in overturning the Arkansas law in the
logian who claimed the earth had been created in 4004 U.S. District Court case of McLean v. Arkansas Board of
b.c.e. Accordingly, the geological strata are believed to Education (1982), in which creationism was defined as in-
have been laid down by the Great Flood as described in herently religious and unscientific. Creationism suffered
Genesis, and most fossils are understood as the remains of another defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court, which
animals that drowned in the flood. This theory is some- ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) that the Louisiana
times referred to as “deluge geology” or “flood geology.” “equal time” law was a violation of the Establishment
The term “scientific creationism” is also applied to the Clause. The ACLU’s main concern was church-state
work of creationists like Whitcomb and Morris, who tried separation, rather than educating the public on evolu-
to establish creationism as a scientific theory rather than tion. The scientific challenge to creationism became
one purely resting on the biblical account. Their work more prominent when the scientific community, often
quickly became the leading creationist authority. in alliance with Catholic, “mainline” Protestant, and
Following The Genesis Flood, the young-earth theory Jewish organizations, started to more openly support the
spread through the American fundamentalist community, teaching of evolution. The Oakland, California–based
displacing “old earth” approaches that reconciled the National Center for Science Education, founded in 1981,
Genesis account with an earth many thousands or even concentrated on producing evolutionary arguments for
millions of years old. This was propelled by the Creation popular consumption and combating grassroots creation-
Science Research Center, founded by Morris in 1970 in ists. Its director, anthropologist Eugenie Scott, became
Creationism and Intelligent Desig n 125
a prominent public face of anticreationism. Leading sci-

entists, including paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and
biologist Richard Dawkins, also denounced creationism
and testified against it in court. Scientists argued that
“creation science” was not science at all but thinly veiled
religious doctrine.
Regardless of the statements of scientists or the deci-
sions of courts and state legislatures, grassroots creationist
activists continued to work, often with great success, to
influence school boards, administrators, and individual
teachers. Outside public schools, many Christian private
schools and homeschoolers taught biblical creationism.
One creationist textbook came out in two editions, one
for Christian schools including biblical references and one
for public schools without biblical references. The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, features
displays of God’s creation of the world as described in the
Intelligent Design Controversy Hebrew Bible. The facility, which opened in 2007, was funded
by a Christian ministry called Answers in Genesis. (Melanie
A revival of the old “argument from design,” intelligent Stetson Freeman/Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images)
design (ID) has no necessary link with Christianity,
the Bible, or even the concept of a creator God. It was
originally proposed, in part, as a way to put aside the a statement describing Darwinism as an open question
acrimonious differences between old- and young-earth and encouraging students to read an ID textbook, Of
creationism. Intelligent design advocates also hoped Pandas and People (1993). A parent of one of the students,
that the defeat of Darwinian evolution would sweep Tammy Kitzmiller, sued with the help of the ACLU
away “scientific naturalism,” the scientific approach that and won the case before a U.S. District Court despite
rejects supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. the participation of Behe as a witness for the defense.
Scientific naturalism was linked not only to Darwinism, The board members who supported ID were voted out
but also to Nazism and homosexuality. Creationists by Dover citizens upset at the cost of the trial and the
hoped ID would split the foundation of philosophical negative publicity their town had attracted.
naturalism and radically change the culture. Although ID advocates are the most prominent cre-
The early leader of the intelligent design movement ationists in legal and educational disputes, young-earth
was Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, who saw it creationism remains a powerful cultural force among
in part as a way of introducing creationist ideas into the biblical literalists. Australian Ken Ham’s Kentucky-
public school curriculum by severing them completely based Answers in Genesis (originally Creation Science
from the biblical narrative. While young-earth creation- Foundation, established in 1979) rivals the Institute for
ists spent considerable effort making scientific claims Creation Research as the largest creationist organization
for their theory of “flood geology,” ID supporters have and holds to a strict line on such issues as a literal cre-
focused nearly exclusively on attacking evolutionary ation in six twenty-four-hour days. Both creationists and
explanations as inadequate to explain the complexity of anticreationists have brought their fight to the Internet.
living things. Many ID proponents, such as mathemati- Answers in Genesis maintains a strong Web presence,
cian William A. Dembski and biochemists Michael Behe while the evolution side is represented by, among others,
and Jonathan Wells, have serious scientific credentials, the group blog The Panda’s Thumb, based in Australia
although not in the field of evolutionary biology. The but with much American participation.
central institution promoting intelligent design is the American creationism has also had a global impact.
Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, founded Small foreign creationist groups have been converted
in 1996 as part of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. to young-earth creationism by the circulation of tracts
The Center and its fellows, including Dembski, Behe, from well-funded American creationists, and U.S.-based
and Wells, maintain an active program of publishing, creationist groups have established foreign affiliates in
speaking, and holding conferences. many countries. A major international victory for ID
Despite the widespread attention it attracted from has been the support it has received from Pope Benedict
secular media, ID has proven no more successful in the XVI, support that dismayed liberal American Catholics,
courtroom than scientific creationism has. The most particularly scientists and academics. Creation science
important ID case was Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), which has even spread into some non-Christian countries, such
centered on the actions of a school board in Dover, Penn- as Islamic Turkey. American creationists have been am-
sylvania. The board required ninth-grade teachers to read bivalent about this development, some welcoming any
126 Cronk ite, Walter
ally and others arguing that true creationism can only he adopted from his days as a UP reporter. His style on
be Christian. camera, often described as “avuncular,” was calm and de-
William E. Burns liberate. Years later, in the documentary Outfoxed (2004),
he was presented as a contrast to the sensational and biased
See also: Behe, Michael J.; Church and State; Fundamentalism, approach of Fox News. Yet Cronkite broke from the main-
Religious; Homeschooling; Internet; Science Wars; Secular stream in 1968 when, in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive
Humanism. in Vietnam, he editorialized on the air, “It seems now more
certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam
Further Reading is a stalemate.” President Lyndon B. Johnson lamented,
Answers in Genesis Web site. www.answersingenesis.org. “If I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America,”
Eldredge, Niles. The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Cre- and shortly thereafter announced his decision not to seek a
ationism. New York: W.H. Freeman, 2001. second term as president. Cronkite was especially proud of
Forrest, Barbara, and Paul R. Gross. Creationism’s Trojan Horse: his role in keeping the Watergate story alive by devoting
The Wedge of Intelligent Design. New York: Oxford University a comprehensive two-part series to the scandal when the
Press, 2004. general media were starting to lose interest.
Larson, Edward J. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over In 1976, however, after ABC correspondent Sam Jaffe
Creation and Evolution. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University stated that Cronkite was one of a number of reporters who
Press, 2003. worked for the CIA (an allegation vehemently denied),
Morris, Henry M. A History of Modern Creationism. San Diego, the anchor’s credibility was briefly called into question.
CA: Master Books, 1984. Conservative pundit Mona Charen, a former Reagan
Numbers, Ronald. The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to speechwriter, dismissed Cronkite’s reputation as being
Intelligent Design. Expanded ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard of the political center, arguing that he tilted to the left
University Press, 2006. and represented the “liberal intelligentsia.” Similarly,
Panda’s Thumb Web site. www.pandasthumb.org. conservative commentator Ann Coulter has ridiculed his
reputation as a voice of the mainstream, dubbing him
the president of the “Ho Chi Minh Admiration Society.”
C r o n k i t e , Wa l t e r Cronkite’s criticism of President George W. Bush and the
A pioneer in television news and once widely referred to war in Iraq was, according to Coulter, a throwback to the
as “the most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite newscaster’s liberal bias during the Vietnam era.
was the anchor for the CBS Evening News from 1962 to Cronkite died on July 17, 2009.
1981. His nightly sign-off—“And that’s the way it is”—
later came to be regarded as the reflection of a simpler Tom Lansburg and Roger Chapman
time when Americans accepted news programming at
face value. See also: Brokaw, Tom; Bush Family; Central Intelligence
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr., was born on November Agency; Coulter, Ann; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Media Bias; Mur-
4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Missouri, and raised in Houston, doch, Rupert; Rather, Dan; Vietnam War; Watergate.
Texas. After attending the University of Texas (1933–
1935), he worked for the Houston Press and the United Further Reading
Press. Before joining CBS as a correspondent in 1950, he Charen, Mona. Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the
distinguished himself covering World War II, parachuting Cold War and Still Blame America First. Washington, DC:
into Normandy during the D-Day invasion and accompa- Regnery, 2003.
nying bombing missions over Germany. After the war, he Coulter, Ann. Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the
covered the Nuremberg war crimes trials and opened news War on Terrorism. New York: Crown Forum, 2003.
bureaus across Europe, including one in Moscow. Cronkite, Walter. A Reporter’s Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Early in his CBS career, Cronkite recognized that 1996.
television would likely emerge as the primary news James, Doug. Cronkite: His Life and Times. Brentwood, TN:
source for Americans, and he gladly succeeded Douglas J.N. Press, 1991.
Edwards in April 1962 as the Evening News anchor. In
1967, CBS overtook NBC in the news ratings, largely
due to Cronkite’s Main Street decency and humanity. His Cuba
tears while reporting the Kennedy assassination in 1963 A Caribbean island nation located 90 miles (145
and his genuine enthusiasm when NASA rockets lifted kilometers) south of Florida, Cuba has been a controversial
off endeared him to his audience. subject in American politics since the Spanish-American
Cronkite cultivated a reputation for delivering the War in 1898. U.S. involvement in the country’s internal
news “fast, accurate, and unbiased,” to quote a slogan affairs, largely due to business interests, continued until
Culture Jamming 127
Fidel Castro’s overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, and the thousands of Cubans who fled to
in 1959. Gradually, political conservatives came to view Florida on small boats were viewed as tragic figures es-
this Latin American country as a communist dagger caping communist tyranny.
pointed at the underbelly of the United States. By the Beginning in the 1980s, two primary debates about
turn of the twenty-first century, Cuba, in the eyes of Cuba emerged. First, segments of both the left and the
many Americans, had come to symbolize one of the last right called for an end to the economic and diplomatic
vestiges of Marxist tyranny. embargo, which over the years was maintained by Re-
Ironically, Castro’s revolution was initially welcomed publican and Democratic administrations. Second, the
by the United States, as Batista’s regime was known for influx of Cuban refugees was greeted with a less than
its corruption. However, nationalization of American- welcoming spirit by many Americans, especially those
owned companies, the expulsion of pro-American Cuban living in Florida, leading to changes in immigration
conservatives, and Castro’s close relationship with the Ar- policy. Beginning in 1995, the U.S. Coast Guard started
gentinean Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara returning refugees rescued at sea, angering many Cuban
soon prompted the Eisenhower administration to take Americans. The highly vocal Cuban-American commu-
a hard stance against Castro. Some critics believe that nity, largely based in Miami, continues to exert pressure
this pushed Castro into the communist camp, inspiring on politicians, especially Republicans, who do not want
him to sign trade agreements with the Soviet Union in to lose votes by alienating this constituency.
1960. By May 1961, Castro began identifying himself Proponents of normalization argue that sanctions
as a Marxist-Leninist. have not worked but, instead, have strengthened the Cas-
Eisenhower, who earlier arranged for the CIA to tro regime while thwarting American business interests.
overthrow the governments of Iran (1953) and Guatemala Restoring trade, they argue, will expose Cubans to ideas
(1954), decided to oust Castro from power. By the time and culture that will promote freedom. Supporters of the
John F. Kennedy took office as president in January 1961, embargo maintain that the normalized relations Cuba
the plan was ready to be executed. Three months later, enjoys with Mexico and Canada have had little effect on
the Kennedy administration launched the Bay of Pigs Castro’s actions. Many have concluded that U.S.-Cuban
invasion, carried out by CIA-trained Cuban exiles. The relations will not change dramatically until the death of
invasion was a miserable failure—news of the attack had the elderly Fidel Castro, whose health has been a topic
leaked out beforehand, and U.S. air support never materi- of much speculation on both the right and the left. In
alized. The subsequent deployment of Soviet short-range February 2008, Castro officially stepped down from
nuclear missiles in Cuba and the tense standoff it caused power, but his brother Raúl has maintained control of
between Moscow and Washington in October 1962 were the country.
a direct consequence of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Mike Timonin
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the Soviet
Union and the United States came to a nuclear war. Ken- See also: Black Panther Party; Cold War; Communists and
nedy’s response—an embargo on shipments to Cuba—led Communism; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; González, Elián; Im-
to a peaceful resolution and came to be viewed by many as migration Policy; Kennedy Family; Malcolm X; Marxism;
a perfect example of the victory of diplomacy over mili- New Left; Nuclear Age; Soviet Union and Russia.
tary aggression. After the removal of the Soviet missiles,
a brief period of calm existed between Washington and Further Reading
Havana. Trade resumed, and the prisoners taken during Gott, Richard. Cuba: A New History. New Haven, CT: Yale
the Bay of Pigs were released. The period of calm came University Press, 2005.
to an end in 1963, however, as the Cuban government Latell, Brian. After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and
officially became communist and the U.S. government Cuba’s Next Leader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
responded with a diplomatic and economic embargo. Perez, Louis A., Jr. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New
It was later learned that the CIA attempted to arrange York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Castro’s assassination.
Over the years, U.S. opinion on Cuba has been mixed.
During the 1960s and 1970s, radicals of the New Left Culture Jamming
viewed Castro’s Cuba as a model for a successful revolu- Culture jamming is the practice of scrambling, inter
tion, shifting their admiration from the Soviet Union to rupting, or co-opting media in order to communicate
Cuba. Che Guevara became an icon of popular culture, a subversive message. Also known as “media jamming”
admired by student activists across college campuses. or “media hacking,” culture jamming is particularly
Black activists, from Malcolm X to the leaders of the associated with alternative and do-it-yourself (DIY)
Black Panthers, also approved of Castro. The American media. Surrealist pranks with a political edge, such as
mainstream, however, regarded Cuba as a totalitarian street theater events staged by Billionaires for Bush, and
128 Culture Jamming
acts of politically driven vandalism such as billboard actually reinforcing the consumer culture it claims to re-
alteration are also examples of culture jamming. ject, while its emphasis on individualism undermines the
The philosophy behind culture jamming owes much capacity for collective political action. Heath and Potter
to French theorist Guy Debord and his anarchist group, assert that consumer capitalism is not fundamentally at
Situationists International. Debord’s Society of the Spectacle fault for economic inequality. In their view, the solution
(1967) asserts that capitalist, corporate-controlled media to inequality is to support legislation that would prevent
use pleasure and the promise of a “good life” to control the exploitation of loopholes in the economic system.
the masses while hoarding resources and profits. Today,
the most well-known culture jamming organization Christine Hoff Kraemer
is the Vancouver-based Adbusters, which publishes a
magazine featuring spoofs of famous ads. According to See also: Biafra, Jello; Counterculture; Globalization; Klein,
antiglobalization activist Naomi Klein in No Logo (1999), Naomi.
such activities are one way to combat the economic in-
equality and political disenfranchisement perpetrated by Further Reading
homogeneous corporate culture. Adbusters: Culture Jammers Headquarters Web site. www
Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter’s Nation of Rebels .adbusters.org.
(2004), also published as The Rebel Sell, attacks the phi- Branwyn, Gareth. Jamming the Media. San Francisco: Chronicle
losophy behind culture jamming. The authors suggest Books, 1997.
that counterculture ideals have been repackaged and sold Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter. Nation of Rebels: Why Counter-
as products to Americans who want to see themselves as culture Became Consumer Culture. New York: HarperBusiness,
individuals and rebels. The counterculture, they argue, is 2004.
defiant concession speech, climaxing with a shrill in-
terjection that came to be known as the “Dean scream.”
The scene was repeated endlessly on television, exem-
plifying to Dean’s supporters a mainstream-media bias
against his insurgent candidacy. The campaign never
Dean, Howard recovered. Within weeks, Dean withdrew from the
Howard Dean, the former Democratic governor of race and shortly thereafter endorsed eventual nominee
Vermont, ran perhaps the most influential losing John Kerry.
presidential campaign in modern U.S. political history Sudden collapse notwithstanding, Dean was widely
in 2004. His bid for the Democratic nomination not credited with framing the Democratic general-election
only galvanized opposition to the Iraq War and the campaign and catalyzing internal debate about the par-
resurgence of what he called “the Democratic wing” of ty’s direction. In February 2005, after prospective rivals
the Democratic Party, but it was also the first true online stepped out of the running, Dean was elected chairman of
campaign, using the Internet in unprecedented ways the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the ob-
to attract support and contributions. In the aftermath jections of several party leaders. Through the DNC and
of his campaign, Dean continued his efforts to expand Democracy for America, the organization that grew out
and strengthen the party as chairman of the Democratic of his presidential campaign, he continued to promote
National Committee beginning in 2005. His fifty-state grassroots, Internet-oriented activism. He got much
strategy is credited with paving the way for Barack of the credit for the Democratic win in both houses of
Obama’s 2008 election victory. Congress in the 2006 midterm election. Dean is viewed
Howard Brush Dean III was born on November by many in both major parties as a polarizing figure
17, 1948, in East Hampton, New York, to a wealthy for his blunt comments on the Iraq War, the Religious
Republican family. After earning degrees from Yale Right, and other hot-button topics, but his approach to
University (BA, 1971) and the Albert Einstein Medi- online politicking has become a model for candidates
cal College in New York City (MD, 1978), he moved
to Vermont, married, and established a family medical
practice in Burlington.
Dean got involved in politics in 1980, working for
President Jimmy Carter’s reelection and leading a local
fight to stop a condominium project. He was elected to
the Vermont House of Representatives in 1982 and four
years later ran successfully for lieutenant governor. The
death of Governor Richard Snelling in 1991 elevated
Dean to the governorship, where he served for twelve
years. Generally viewed as fiscally moderate and socially
liberal, he signed the nation’s first “civil union” law
granting legal rights to same-sex couples in 2000, spark-
ing an in-state conservative backlash and accelerating
the national debate over gay marriage.
While the civil-union controversy brought Dean a
measure of national attention, he began his presidential
run as a relatively obscure and seemingly marginal can-
didate. With the U.S. invasion of Iraq looming in early
2003, his strong antiwar stance, and his outspoken criti-
cism of President George W. Bush, Dean began winning
favor with left-leaning, activist, and Internet-savvy
Democrats. His campaign seized on the groundswell and
pioneered the use of blogs, networking sites, and other
online means to directly engage backers and raise record
funds, mostly through small online donations.
Dean’s emergence as the front runner made him
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean won early support in
a target for rivals and the media, particularly over his the 2004 Democratic primaries on the strength of his antiwar
intemperate comments and bristly personality. Amid stance and Internet organizing, but he was undone by his own
intense negative campaigning, he finished a surprising exuberance. He later served as chairman of the Democratic
third in the January 2004 Iowa caucuses and gave a National Committee. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
129
13 0 Dean, James
across the ideological spectrum. In 2009, shortly after white, middle-class adult world. Dean’s portrayal of re-
Obama’s inauguration, Dean resigned as party chairman. bellion influenced a generation of adolescents struggling
The new president did not offer Dean a cabinet position with problems of the postwar era. These included not only
but did praise him as a “visionary and effective leader.” fear of nuclear disaster but also such common adolescent
It was reported that Dean and Obama’s political advisers issues as self-esteem, gender, conformity, sexuality, and
had earlier clashed over campaign strategy. authority. Dean glamorized the wild and self-destructive
impulses of teens in a sterile world inhabited by ineffectual,
Andy Markowitz distant parents. Epitomizing the outsider with a poetic
sensibility, his characters sought to establish their identity
See also: Carter, Jimmy; Democratic Party; Internet; Kerry, apart from peer pressure and materialistic adult values.
John; Media Bias; Religious Right; Same-Sex Marriage. Dean’s portrayals made teenage loneliness and alienation
“cool.” Embodying hip, estranged youth, James Dean
Further Reading became the Rebel incarnate.
Dean, Howard, with Judith Warner. You Have the Power: How Deborah D. Rogers
to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. See also: Automobile Safety; Counterculture; Generations and
Singer, Mark. “Running on Instinct.” New Yorker, January 12, Generational Conflict; Nuclear Age; Steinbeck, John.
2004.
Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Further Reading
Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything. New York: Regan- Alexander, Paul. Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and
Books, 2004. Legend of James Dean. New York: Viking, 1994.
Wolf, Gary. “How the Internet Invented Howard Dean.” Wired, Bast, William. Surviving James Dean. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade
January 2004. Books, 2006.
Hofstede, David. James Dean: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1996.
Dean, James Spoto, Donald. Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. New
A cult icon of rebellious youth, the legendary film York: HarperCollins, 1996.
actor James Dean epitomized the angst of middle-class
American adolescents during the 1950s. Before his
untimely death at age twenty-four, Dean made three Dean, John
classic films: East of Eden (1955), directed by Elia Kazan; One of the central figures in the Watergate scandal,
Rebel Without a Cause (1955), directed by Nicholas Ray; John Dean was both a perpetrator and a witness for the
and Giant (1956), directed by George Stevens. prosecution. His role in the greatest American political
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, in scandal of the twentieth century stemmed from his
Marion, Indiana, but moved with his family to California activities as White House counsel to President Richard
as a boy. After his mother’s death in 1940, he returned to M. Nixon from 1970 to 1973.
Indiana to live on his aunt and uncle’s farm. Although he John Wesley Dean III was born on October 14, 1938,
attended college in California, he dropped out to move in Akron, Ohio. After earning his LLB from Georgetown
to New York, where he studied at the prestigious Ac- University in 1965 and a brief stint with a law firm in
tor’s Studio with Lee Strasberg. After limited work in Washington, D.C., Dean joined the Judiciary Committee
television and theater, Dean began what would become of the U.S. House of Representatives as chief counsel. He
a short if stunning movie career, starring in three major later was appointed associate deputy to the attorney gen-
films in a little over a year. He received Academy Award eral in the Nixon administration and in 1970 was named
nominations (both of them posthumously) for his roles counsel to the president, replacing John Ehrlichman, who
in East of Eden and Giant. had become Nixon’s chief domestic policy adviser.
On September 30, 1955, while driving his Porsche In 1973, FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray im-
550 Spyder (nicknamed “Little Bastard”) to a race in plicated Dean in the cover-up surrounding the previous
Salinas, California, Dean was killed in a highway accident. year’s break-in at the Democratic National Committee
Ironically, several weeks earlier, he had filmed a commer- headquarters in the Watergate hotel and office complex.
cial on automobile safety. Although Dean’s troubled life Nixon requested that Dean prepare a comprehensive
has been well documented, his sexual orientation remains report of everything he knew about the Watergate break-
a matter of debate. in and subsequent events, but Dean refused, suspecting
In the culture wars, the charismatic young actor struck that he was being set up as a scapegoat. Nixon fired Dean
a chord with the 1950s generation of disaffected youth, on April 30, 1973, and Dean decided to cooperate with
symbolizing teenage alienation from a status-conscious, Watergate investigators.
Decon s tr uc tionism 131
While testifying before the Senate Watergate Com- with French philosopher and literary critic Jacques
mittee, Dean was the first to charge that President Nixon Derrida. He and others labored to undermine the con-
was directly involved in the cover-up. Dean also impli- cept of an established or settled meaning to classical
cated himself and other top administration officials in texts. By paying especially close attention to the gaps
illegal activities. The infamous White House tapes (audio or silences in texts—to what is not said even more than
recordings of Nixon’s conversations in the Oval Office), what is said—the established meanings of texts were
which surfaced later, confirmed Dean’s allegations. Thus, cast in doubt.
Dean’s testimony was instrumental in starting a chain of Deconstructionists assert that the reader plays as
events that led to Nixon’s resignation. large a role in establishing the meaning of a text as does
Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and the original author. Hence, the meaning of every text is
served several months in prison. After his release, he indecipherable in any absolute sense. Critics of decon-
chronicled his part in the Watergate scandal in the struction faulted the theory for its radicalism, relativism,
books Blind Ambition: The White House Years (1976) anarchism, and nihilism. As deconstructionism spilled
and Lost Honor (1982). Later, while pursuing a career over from philosophy and literary criticism into studies of
as an investment banker, Dean remained involved in history, theology, politics, and law, academics were split
politics as a commentator on government misdeeds in relation to it, often along generational lines.
and the ongoing American fascination with Watergate. As young deconstructionists aged into the older,
His 2002 book Unmasking Deep Throat unsuccessfully establishment generation, they mostly abandoned their
attempted to identify the anonymous source for the revolutionary pose, along with their deliberately dense,
momentous Watergate reporting by Carl Bernstein and convoluted, nonlinear, but also creative and pun-full
Bob Woodward. prose. It now is possible to look at deconstructionism
He rose to prominence again in 2004 with the book with the calmer wisdom of hindsight to see what con-
Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. tributions it has made to the understanding of human
Bush. In it, Dean recommended the impeachment of Bush discourse.
and Vice President Dick Cheney, on grounds that they One insight from deconstructionist theory is that
had lied to Congress in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion human discourse (or text, subsuming both speech and
of Iraq. Dean also raised concerns in 2006 about the Bush writing) contains both accidental and essential features.
administration’s antiterrorist wiretapping practices. While the essential features are generally overt and con-
scious to the author, representing purposeful intent, the
Benjamin W. Cramer accidental features are often not present to consciousness
and may contradict or undermine the essential features
See also: Bush Family; Cheney Family; Colson, Chuck; Felt, of the discourse. In oral discourse, body language may
W. Mark; Liddy, G. Gordon; Nixon, Richard; Republican undermine or contradict what one is saying. This applies
Party; Watergate; Woodward, Bob. no less to written texts, although the accidental features
may be more difficult to make manifest. Making mani-
Further Reading fest the accidentals of human discourse is the essence of
Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men. deconstruction.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974. Another insight from deconstruction is that rational
Rothschild, Matthew. “John Dean.” Progressive, October 2006. thought is logocentric: expressed almost exclusively in
Sussman, Barry. The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of words. In the process of learning to speak, we acquire
Watergate. New York: Crowell, 1974. distinguishable oppositions (ideas defined mainly by
Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. The Final Days. New York: reference to their opposite, such as good/bad, masculine/
Simon and Schuster, 1976. feminine) that are not value neutral; the preference for
one over the other is not metaphysically grounded but
linguistically grounded only. Thus, in discourse, such
Deconstructionism categories as “good” do not communicate anything
“Deconstructionism” refers to an academic style of authoritative or substantive but instead call for further
reading and interpreting texts, associated especially investigation and a questioning of the common belief
with Parisian postmodern philosophy and a general assumed in the text. A deconstructionist reading, for
suspicion of authority. An academic style rather than a example, would examine whose good or whose bad.
specific hermeneutic method, deconstructionism simply
means taking apart the arguments of an opponent and Daniel Liechty
examining the pieces in detail.
Deconstructionism entered the academic scene See also: Academic Freedom; Foucault, Michel; Great Books;
during the late 1960s and is most closely associated Literature, Film, and Drama; Postmodernism.
132 DeL ay, Tom
Further Reading High School shooting incident, DeLay laid blame on a

Norris, Christopher. Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. society in which daycare, birth control, and the teaching
New York: Routledge, 2002. of evolution were rampant.
Powell, James, and Joseph Lee. Deconstruction for Beginners. New DeLay remained outspoken into the Republican ad-
York: Readers and Writers, 2005. ministration of President George W. Bush, whose “com-
passionate conservatism” he criticized as an indulgence in
government handouts. In 2005, DeLay led the House in
D e L ay, To m an unsuccessful attempt to stop the court-ordered removal
By the time U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) of the feeding tube from Terry Schiavo, a Florida woman
resigned his seat on June 9, 2006, Congress bore the who had been in a vegetative state for over a decade. And
distinct imprint of his crusade to mold a legislative body in March 2006, at a conference in Washington, D.C.,
that would pursue an agenda friendly to big business titled “The War on Christians and the Values Voter,”
and the Religious Right. DeLay, an arch-conservative DeLay spoke of the need to confront an American society
and master politician, rose to the heights of political that offers abortion on demand, degrades the institution
influence in the nation’s capital—serving successively of marriage, and regards Christianity as a “second-rate
as House majority whip and majority leader—only to superstition.”
come crashing down under the weight of various charges DeLay’s confrontational style, adeptness at raising
of ethics violations and illegal campaign funding. campaign funds for his party, and ability to impose
The son of an oil driller, Thomas Dale “Tom” DeLay discipline on fellow House Republicans to support the
was born on April 8, 1947, in Laredo, Texas, and grew party agenda earned him such appellations as “The Ham-
up partly in Venezuela (where his father worked in the mer,” “The Exterminator,” and the “Meanest Man in
petroleum industry). Raised a nominal Baptist, he en- Congress.” Characteristically, his office had on display
rolled at Baylor University as a pre-med major, only to marble copies of the Ten Commandments alongside a
be expelled for alcohol violations and vandalism (1967). set of bullwhips. By spring 2006, Democrats were be-
He completed his education, majoring in biology, at ginning a successful campaign to regain control of the
the University of Houston (BS, 1970). As the owner of House, highlighting the Washington scandal revolving
a pest-control business (1973–1984), DeLay came to around Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist and friend of DeLay,
resent government regulation, including a ban on the and the congressman’s September 2005 indictment in
potentially carcinogenic pesticide Mirex; he referred to Texas on money laundering charges. These and other
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as scandals, according to Democrats, reflected a “culture of
“the Gestapo.” With such passionate views, DeLay en- corruption” in the GOP.
tered politics, representing a suburban Houston district, The Abramoff scandal was about corporate influence
first as a member of the Texas House of Representa- peddling and was tied to DeLay’s K Street Project, named
tives (1979–1984) and later as a member of Congress after the street in Washington where many lobbyists
(1985–2006). Following the 1994 national elections, have their offices. DeLay made it clear to lobbying firms
which gave Republicans control of Congress, DeLay was that if they wanted access and favorable treatment in his
chosen as the House majority whip; in 2002 he became Congress, then it would be necessary for them to hire only
the House majority leader. Republicans. The scandal also involved expensive golf
DeLay claims that during the 1980s he experienced outings for members of Congress and the raising of cam-
a religious conversion while watching a home video by paign funds. Ronnie Earle, Democratic district attorney
the evangelical preacher and family-values activist James of Travis County, Texas, charged that DeLay in 2002 ar-
Dobson. The experience inspired DeLay to give up his ranged to have corporate campaign contributions, which
heavy drinking and to espouse “absolute truth” in his are illegal in Texas, laundered and given to Republican
political discourse; the enemies were feminism, human- candidates for the Texas legislature. These activities were
ism, relativism, and postmodernism. During his first part of DeLay’s successful strategy for Republicans to gain
term in Congress, DeLay began earning his conservative control of the Texas lower house, with the ultimate aim
stripes with attacks on the National Endowment for the of having Republicans redraw the state’s congressional
Arts, criticizing the agency for funding “profane” and district map. Following a fierce redistricting battle in
“obscene” works. In 1990, when President George H.W. 2003, the Republicans, after picking up six seats in the
Bush broke his campaign promise not to raise taxes, 2004 election, became the majority party in the Texas
DeLay publicly criticized what he regarded as a moral congressional delegation.
lapse. In late 1998 and early 1999, as majority whip, In addition, the House Ethics Committee had on
the Texas Republican took an active role in orchestrating three occasions admonished DeLay for using question-
impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. able tactics in pursuing his political objectives. After
That spring, in the wake of the Columbine (Colorado) Abramoff and two associates who previously had worked
Delor ia, V ine, Jr. 133
for DeLay pleaded guilty to various criminal charges, the United Scholarship Services in Denver (1963–1964),
including fraud and conspiracy to bribe public officials, executive director of the National Congress of American
DeLay, who had already surrendered his position as Indians in Washington, D.C. (1964–1967), and chair
majority leader, announced that he would resign from of the Institute for the Development of Indian Law in
Congress and not seek reelection. Golden, Colorado (1970–1976).
In his final speech as a member of Congress, DeLay Discarding early aspirations for Christian ministry—
defended his combative political style and characterized he would later refer to himself as a “Seventh Day Absentist”
liberals as pursuing “more government, more taxation, while offering a harsh critique of Christianity—Deloria
more control over people’s lives and decisions and wal- evolved into an activist scholar. The author of more than
lets.” In December 2006, DeLay launched his own Web twenty books, beginning with Custer Died for Your Sins:
site and blog column in his continuing effort “to push An Indian Manifesto (1969) and its sequel, We Talk, You
the conservative cause and conservative thought.” Listen: New Tribes, New Turf (1970), he taught political
science at the University of Arizona in Tucson (1978–
Glenn H. Utter 1990), where he chaired its program in American Indian
studies (1979–1982). He later taught at the University
See also: Campaign Finance Reform; Carson, Rachel; Clinton of Colorado at Boulder (1990–2000).
Impeachment; Dobson, James; Environmental Movement; In his writings, Deloria challenged the traditional
National Endowment for the Arts; Religious Right; Republi- Euro-American view of history and advised American
can Party; Schiavo, Terri; School Shootings. Indians to return to tribalism and maintain a separate
cultural identity. He deplored the violence of American
Further Reading westward expansion carried out in the name of manifest
Continetti, Matthew. The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the destiny, referring to George Armstrong Custer, the
Republican Machine. New York: Doubleday, 2006. cavalry officer who died at the Battle of Little Bighorn
DeLay, Tom, with Stephen Mansfield. No Retreat, No Surrender: in 1876, as “the Adolf Eichmann of the Plains.” Deloria
One American’s Fight. New York: Sentinel, 2007. extended his argument to suggest that all white Ameri-
Dubose, Lou, and Jan Reid. The Hammer: God, Money, and the Rise cans harbor an inherent guilt for how their ancestors
of the Republican Congress. New York: Public Affairs, 2004. treated native peoples. His arguments on behalf of Indian
Tom DeLay Web site. www.tomdelay.com. self-identity influenced the passage of the federal Native
Toobin, Jeffrey. “Drawing the Line.” New Yorker, March 6, 2006. American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990),
which requires museums and research institutions to
return Indian remains and funerary and sacred artifacts
D e l o r i a , V i n e , J r. to their respective tribes. Deloria also debunked the
The Native American lawyer, academic, and activist stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans as ignorant,
Vine Deloria, Jr., emerged as a prominent, sometimes drunk, and lazy, blaming that misconception on both
controversial national figure during the 1960s and 1970s popular culture and anthropology. In Behind the Trail
for his criticisms of the way in which indigenous peoples of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence
have been portrayed in mainstream pop culture, history, (1974), Deloria offered a legal justification for AIM’s
and anthropological studies. More significantly, his takeover of Wounded Knee the previous year and at the
advocacy of indigenous civil rights and self-determination, same time called on the federal government to honor its
as well as his calls on the U.S. government to live up to its past treaties. He opposed Indian sports mascots and once
responsibilities to native peoples and to deal with them orchestrated a losing legal effort to strip the Washington
on a “government-to-government” basis, energized pan- Redskins football team of its name.
Indian organizers and gave ideological impetus to the Deloria also wrote extensively on Native American
budding American Indian Movement (AIM). cosmology—God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (1973,
The son of an Episcopal priest, Vine Victor Deloria, 1992), Metaphysics of Modern Existence (1979), Red Earth,
Jr., was born in Martin, South Dakota, near the Pine White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact
Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation, on March 26, 1933. (1995), Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths
One-fourth Sioux Indian, he was a member of the Stand- (2002), and The World We Used to Live In: Remembering
ing Rock Sioux tribe of South Dakota. Deloria studied the Powers of Medicine Men (2006)—arguing that Indian
science at Iowa State University (BS, 1958), theology at traditional knowledge offers an alternative and a comple-
the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island, Illinois ment to Judeo-Christianity and Western philosophy
(MTh, 1963), and law at the University of Colorado and science. He suggested, for example, that Western
(JD, 1970). He also served a stint in the U.S. Marines culture could benefit by adopting an ecological ethic,
(1954–1956) and held various positions for promoting something that has long been a component of the Native
Native American causes, including associate director of American worldview. Asserting that Christianity has
13 4 Demjanjuk , John
been a “curse” wherever it has spread, Deloria endorsed guilty of hiding his Nazi past on his 1951 immigration
the New Age movement as a spiritual option. In his application. He was stripped of his U.S. citizenship, but
embrace of indigenous oral tradition, Deloria defended he steadfastly denied participating in the Holocaust. In
Native American claims that Indians originated in the February 1986, Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel to
Western Hemisphere. He thus rejected the mainstream stand trial for war crimes. He was convicted on April 25,
view that the ancestors of the Indian people came from 1988, and sentenced to death, but in August 1993, Israel’s
Asia by crossing a land bridge over the Bering Strait. Supreme Court, ruling on newly available evidence from
Some regard his view of creationism as being in accord the former Soviet Union, overturned the conviction.
with fundamentalist Christianity, including its rejection At the center of both trials was controversy over the
of evolution and belief in a young earth (thousands, not authenticity of an identity card carrying Demjanjuk’s
millions of years old), a past worldwide flood, and the photo, which indicated his being trained by the SS as a
simultaneous occurrence of humans and dinosaurs. His camp guard. Ukrainian Americans, fearing that a link
position on creationism generated much criticism from with the Nazis would strengthen Soviet resistance to
academic and religious communities. their appeals for Ukrainian independence, argued that
Deloria retired from teaching in 2000 but continued the card was likely a Soviet-produced forgery. Jewish
to write and lecture until his death on November 13, organizations, however, argued that a preponderance of
2005, in Golden, Colorado. evidence supported the card’s authenticity.
Roger Chapman Non-Ukrainian critics of the trials turned their
politically conservative anti-Soviet conspiracy claims
See also: American Indian Movement; Creationism and Intel- into anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic conspiracy claims.
ligent Design; Indian Sport Mascots; Multiculturalism and Demjanjuk supporter Jerome Brentar, speaking to the
Ethnic Studies; New Age Movement; Political Correctness; Holocaust-denying Institute of Historical Review, ac-
Revisionist History; Wounded Knee Incident. cused OSI officials of seeking only to protect their “lucra-
tive jobs,” and Jews, whom he called “Holocaustians,”
Further Reading of promoting a multimillion-dollar Holocaust industry.
Bilosi, Thomas, and Larry J. Zimmerman, eds. Indians and An- After repeating that the identity card was a Soviet forg-
thropologists: Vine Deloria, Jr., and the Critique of Anthropology. ery, the noted conservative Patrick Buchanan, who has
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977. a record of defending other accused Nazis in America,
Deloria, Vine, Jr. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. referred to the U.S. Congress as “a parliament of whores”
New York: Macmillan, 1969. on “Israeli-occupied” Capitol Hill.
Pavlik, Steve, and Daniel R. Wildcat, eds. Destroying Dogma: Upon Demjanjuk’s return to Cleveland from Israel,
Vine Deloria, Jr. and His Influence on American Society. Golden, he was charged by the OSI with having murdered Jews at
CO: Fulcrum, 2006. the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland. A U.S. circuit
Tinker, George E. “Walking in the Shadow of Greatness: court subsequently ruled that he could be stripped of
Vine Deloria Jr. in Retrospect.” Wicazo Sa Review 21:2 (Fall citizenship, and on December 28, 2005, an immigration
2006): 167–77. judge ruled that he be deported to his country of origin,
Ukraine. In March 2007, however, the government of
Ukraine indicated that it would refuse to accept him. In
Demjanjuk , John May 2008, Demjanjuk lost his final appeal at the Supreme
John Demjanjuk, a retired Cleveland autoworker, was Court, but the accused Nazi guard remained in Cleveland
accused in 1978 of being the notorious murderer “Ivan because no country was willing to issue him a visa. Ten
the Terrible” at the Nazi death camp at Treblinka in months later, prosecutors in Munich, Germany, issued
occupied Poland during World War II. Decades-long a warrant for Demjanjuk’s arrest, charging him with
legal battles ensued over his U.S. citizenship and alleged 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. In May 2009, he
crimes against humanity, and public debate over his was deported to Germany.
guilt or innocence exposed, some believe, anti-Semitism Martin J. Plax
and Holocaust revisionism.
Born on April 3, 1920, near Kiev, Ukraine, Dem- See also: Anti-Semitism; Buchanan, Pat; Cold War; Conspiracy
janjuk was drafted by the Soviet military in 1940 and Theories; Holocaust; Israel; Soviet Union and Russia.
captured by the Germans in 1942. His whereabouts
during his period of capture became the subject of an Further Reading
investigation by the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Plax, Martin J. “The Holocaust as Moral Instruction.” Society,
Special Investigations (OSI) after a Holocaust survivor in March/April 2003.
1978 identified him as a Nazi guard. In February 1981, Shiftel, Yoram. Defending “Ivan the Terrible”: The Conspiracy to Con-
he was brought to trial in U.S. federal court and found vict John Demjanjuk. Washington, DC: Regnery Books, 2005.
Democ ratic Par t y 135
Democratic Par ty against alcohol prohibition, “blue laws” (opposing com-

The Democratic Party grew out of Thomas Jefferson’s mercial activity on Sundays), Protestant indoctrination in
Democratic-Republicans of the 1790s–1820s. In the public schools, and immigration restriction. Democrats’
American political spectrum, Democrats have stood in cultural diversity has reinforced their rhetorical embrace
opposition to the Federalists (1790s–1820s), Whigs of equality.
(1830s–1850s), and Republicans (1854–present). As Because their constituents were of the lower and
one of the major components in America’s two-party middle classes of small farmers, artisans, small busi-
system, the Democratic Party has comprised a diverse ness owners, and workers, Democrats have traditionally
coalition of regional, ethnocultural, and socioeconomic advocated equal opportunity for the ordinary individual
groups. Since World War II, Democrats have increasingly against the designs of the economically powerful. Be-
represented the liberal side in the culture wars. fore 1900, Democrats distrusted centralized political
power, believing that the federal government could be
Nineteenth Century to the Great corrupted by conspiring economic elites who sought
Depression unfair advantages. Consequently, Democrats advocated
Until relatively recently, the Democratic Party small, decentralized government (“states’ rights”) and
dominated the politics of the American South. It was laissez-faire policies. However, the rise of big business
the majority party in the antebellum South, enjoying in the late nineteenth century transformed the party’s
hegemonic status from the Civil War through World economic philosophy. Whereas Democrats had previously
War II. Southern Democrats united in white supremacy, viewed government as a threat to individual liberty and
although they sometimes split between conservatives economic opportunity, they now believed that unfettered
and populists on economic issues. Following World War industrial capitalism, which led to monopolistic corporate
II, national Democrats’ growing cultural liberalism, power, also endangered these values. As a result, modern
especially regarding race, lessened the party’s popularity Democrats argue that it is government’s duty to oversee
among white southerners: Democrats routinely won 80 the economy for the benefit of all Americans.
percent of the southern congressional vote through the
1940s, but that figure steadily dropped in the postwar New Deal Through the 1960s
era, falling below 50 percent in the mid-1990s. The Great Depression of the 1930s prompted most
Democrats always comprised a more ethnically and Americans to embrace Democrats’ liberal economic
religiously diverse coalition than their Federalist, Whig, policies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal
or Republican counterparts. In the South, most Democrats pumped federal money into the economy, regulated the
were native-born Protestants. Elsewhere, Democrats drew market, provided welfare relief, protected labor unions’
primarily from ethnocultural groups outside the white rights, raised taxes on the wealthy, provided Social
Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) mainstream. In the early Security pensions, and increased defense spending.
1800s, these groups included the Scots-Irish, Irish, Ger- Fiscal liberalism united the party’s diverse coalition
mans, and French. During the mid-nineteenth century, for years, but the coalition eventually broke down as
Democrats drew support from Catholic immigrants from political attention shifted to cultural matters, especially
Ireland and Germany. This infusion, however, led many race, following World War II.
Protestants to abandon the party. The phenomenon of In the postwar era, liberal Democrats promoted
national and ethnic groups shifting allegiance from the racial equality, thereby alienating the party’s cultural
Democrats to the Republicans after assimilating into conservatives. In 1948, President Harry S Truman’s
American culture and rising in socioeconomic status has support for mild civil rights measures caused a revolt by
recurred throughout U.S. history. a bloc of southerners, who formed the States’ Rights, or
From the 1880s through the early 1920s, Democrats “Dixiecrat,” Party. Although the Dixiecrats folded after
gained followers among Catholic and Jewish immigrants winning only 2 percent of the presidential vote that year,
from southern and eastern Europe. Many immigrants their rebellion presaged the breakdown of the Democratic
settled in Northern cities, making Democrats the more coalition. White southerners increasingly supported Re-
urban party. More recently, other minority groups— publican candidates, beginning at the presidential level.
African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Whereas Roosevelt had won three-fourths of the white
Americans, and gays—have also identified themselves as southern vote in 1944, Truman won only half in 1948.
Democrats. As cultural liberals’ influence grew within the national
As a diverse coalition, the Democratic Party has Democratic Party, many cultural conservatives—white
tended toward a libertarian cultural ethic. Democrats southerners and acculturated white Catholics, most
generally have viewed moral-reform laws as invasive and notably—shifted to the Republican Party.
coercive. Early in their history, they opposed legislation The events of the 1960s cemented the identification
that would have abolished slavery, and later they were of the national Democratic Party with racial and cul-
13 6 Democ ratic Par t y
tural liberalism. President Lyndon B. Johnson advanced the “conservative hard-working American” against the
racial equality through his Great Society policies, such “liberal elites.” Meanwhile, Democrats moved to the
as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act cultural left, with support for abortion rights becoming
of 1965, and the War on Poverty. Meanwhile, cultur- a “litmus test” for aspiring presidential candidates. By
ally liberal Democrats applauded, and conservatives the late 1980s, the conservative-liberal debate was so
condemned, rulings made by the U.S. Supreme Court polarized that commentators perceived a full-fledged
under Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Court culture war.
declared unconstitutional many culturally conserva-
tive state laws, including racial segregation in public Culture Wars of the 1990s and 2000s
schools, mandatory public school prayer, and bans on In the face of conservative Republican ascendancy, a
birth control devices. group of centrist “New Democrats” sought to refashion
Beginning in the 1960s, liberal Democrats became the party. New Democrats usually hailed from southern
intertwined with numerous social movements, includ- or border states and gathered around the Democratic
ing civil rights, the counterculture, feminism, youth Leadership Council (DLC). They accepted culturally
protest, and the sexual revolution. In addition, the liberal policies now viewed as mainstream, such as
Vietnam War split conservatives from liberals. Party integration, environmental protection, and, more grudg
divisions exploded in 1968, when pro-war and antiwar ingly, abortion rights. But they rejected unpopular
factions clashed at the Democratic Convention in Chi- liberal programs, distanced themselves from liberal
cago. Cultural conservative George Wallace, a former “special interests,” favored moderate economic policies,
governor of Alabama, abandoned the Democrats to run and took a conservative stance on such cultural issues as
as a third-party presidential candidate, splitting the welfare, crime, public morality, patriotism, and defense.
Democratic vote, while Republican Richard Nixon In 1992, Bill Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore,
skillfully employed a culturally conservative “southern both DLC members, won the election.
strategy.” As a result, Democrats won no southern elec- Despite Clinton’s centrism, Republicans portrayed
toral votes for the first time in history, allowing Nixon him as a cultural radical. Republicans and conservative
to win the White House. organizations attacked Clinton’s character unrelentingly,
as well as the administration’s support for culturally
1970s and 1980s liberal policies such as abortion rights, women’s rights,
During the 1970s and 1980s, Democrats often had affirmative action, and homosexuals serving openly in the
large majorities in Congress, governorships, and state military. GOP criticism drove down Clinton’s approval
legislatures, but they accomplished little because they ratings and mobilized conservatives, helping Republicans
were irrevocably split. After the Democrats changed capture both houses of Congress in 1994.
their presidential nominating rules prior to the 1972 Once in power, however, the Republicans over-
convention, cultural liberals grew more powerful within reached. Clinton stymied the GOP and won reelection
the national party. Consequently, many conservative in 1996 by portraying himself as a sensible moderate
Democrats backed local conservative Democrats while and his opponents as right-wing extremists. In Clinton’s
simultaneously supporting Republican presidents second term, congressional Republicans investigated
Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and the president’s sexual involvement with an intern and
George H.W. Bush. Jimmy Carter, the lone Democratic his misleading statements about the affair, impeaching
president during this period, was unable to overcome him in 1998. Democrats, especially liberals, and many
his party’s intractable divisions. independents were outraged by the Republicans’ actions.
As the Democrats floundered, the GOP worked to The bitterness of the Clinton era widened the gap between
forge a new majority coalition. The economic dislocations the major parties in the culture wars.
of the post-1973 era diminished the popular appeal of Several controversial incidents inflamed partisan
Democrats’ fiscal liberalism. Moreover, the GOP sought discord in the early 2000s. Democrats were outraged that
to win over culturally conservative Democrats, capture the Republican-dominated Supreme Court intervened
new voters from conservative Democratic backgrounds, in the contested 2000 presidential election in support
and politicize formerly apolitical conservatives, especially of Republican George W. Bush, a staunch cultural con-
white evangelical Christians. Republicans mobilized servative. Democrats, especially liberals, were further
conservatives by publicizing emotional cultural issues: angered by what they believed was Bush’s partisan use of
communism, abortion, school prayer, integration, bus- the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2003
ing, affirmative action, crime, drugs, gun control, flag U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. By the end of the Bush era,
burning, pornography, environmentalism, and feminism. the culture war between conservative Republicans and
Using sophisticated public relations techniques, Repub- liberal Democrats was more pronounced than ever. Yet
licans portrayed themselves as populists who represented the Democratic Party had become more active in south-
Di versit y T raining 137
ern and western states, supporting more conservative or force would be composed of members of nondominant
centrist members of the party there and attracting more groups. Researched and written by William Johnston
independents. In the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats and Arnold H. Packer, Workforce 2000 inspired a number
won majorities in both houses of Congress. of books that explored changes in the employee profile,
impressing the need for organizations to become more
Diane Benedic and George Rising sensitive to the differences in the workplace. To remain
competitive, it was argued, employers would have to
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Clinton, Bill; Countercul- adapt to the fact that women, people with disabilities,
ture; Election of 2000; Great Society; Health Care; Johnson, people of color, and gays and lesbians are a significant
Lyndon B.; Kennedy Family; New Deal; New Left; Red and part of the employee population. Workforce 2000 spurred
Blue States; Republican Party; Social Security; Vietnam War. the creation of numerous training and consulting firms,
multicultural institutes, and professional programs for
Further Reading trainers and educators.
Baer, Kenneth S. Reinventing the Democrats: The Politics of Lib- Keeping companies competitive in an increasingly
eralism from Reagan to Clinton. Lawrence: University Press of global community has been the ultimate aim of diversity
Kansas, 2000. training. Corporate proponents contend that diversity
Berman, William C. America’s Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton. training helps improve the recruitment, retention, and
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. promotion of a talented, diverse workforce. They be-
Edsall, Thomas Byrne, and Mary D. Edsall. Chain Reaction: The lieve that such training increases communication and
Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics. New cooperation, thereby fostering innovative, multicultural
York: W.W. Norton, 1991. work teams. They also believe that diversity training
Fraser, Steve, and Gary Gerstle. The Rise and Fall of the New helps companies to effectively develop, market, and sell
Deal Order: 1930–1980. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University products and services to a variety of groups in the global
Press, 1989. marketplace.
Gillon, Steven. The Democrats’ Dilemma: Walter Mondale and Just what diversity training entails is highly vari-
the Liberal Legacy. New York: Columbia University Press, able. Even so, by the late 1990s diversity trainers had
1992. undergone a credentialing process as promoted by three
Kovler, Peter B., ed. Democrats and the American Idea: A Bicenten- major professional associations: the American Society
nial Appraisal. Washington, DC: Center for National Policy for Training and Development, the Conference Board,
Press, 1992. and the Society for Human Resource Development.
Lawrence, David G. The Collapse of the Democratic Presidential Although corporations agreed on the necessity of diver-
Majority: Realignment, Disalignment, and Electoral Change sity training, the question of what such training should
from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. Boulder, CO: West- include actually reflected a more fundamental confusion
view, 1996. in American culture about race, class, gender, ability,
Milkis, Sidney M., and Jerome M. Mileur. The New Deal and the and sexual orientation.
Triumph of Liberalism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Several styles of diversity training have emerged,
Press, 2002. reflecting two points of view about cultural integration
Witcover, Jules. Party of the People: A History of the Democrats. in the United States. The “melting pot” proposes that
New York: Random House, 2003. people of different races and ethnicity should blend to-
gether and assimilate into a common national culture.
The “multicultural society” suggests that persons of
D i ve r s i t y T r a i n i n g different ethnic groups should coexist but retain their
As social protest movements provoked workplace respective cultural patterns and traditions.
integration during the 1970s, corporations began to One method of diversity training, designated the
adjust their business policies to handle a more diverse “isms” approach, focuses on teaching employees how to
workforce. Although organizations have used various both recognize and correct the negative effects of racism,
approaches to meet the challenges of multiculturalism, sexism, ageism, ableism, and heterosexism. Its aim is to
diversity training has been one of the most common right the wrongs of the past and create a more egalitarian
strategies. The question of how to conduct diversity and fair corporate organization in the broader context of a
training has been a controversy of the culture wars. multicultural society. The “isms” approach has provoked
The implementation of diversity training in the a backlash from many cultural conservatives, with some
corporate world dramatically increased in 1987 after the dismissing it as “white male bashing.”
U.S. Department of Labor issued Workforce 2000: Work The University of California at Santa Cruz professor
and Workers for the 21st Century, which predicted that, by and political activist Angela Davis, in her liberal cri-
the turn of the century, 80 percent of the incoming work- tique of the “isms” approach, believes that it is actually
13 8 Di versit y T raining
a method of social control of a heterogeneous workforce Further Reading

for the purpose of minimizing conflict. According to Bennett, Janet M., and Milton J. Bennett. “Introduction and
this view, society’s power relations based on class, race, Overview.” In Handbook of Intercultural Training, ed. Dan
ethnicity, and gender go unquestioned. Change is kept Landis, Janet M. Bennett, and Milton J. Bennett, 13–37.
at an individual, rather than social, level. Davis argues Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004.
that diversity training, since it rarely addresses social Cavanaugh, J. Michael. “(In)corporating the Other? Manag-
and economic inequalities, serves to circumvent liberal ing the Politics of Workplace Difference.” In Managing the
arguments about the power dynamics of racism, sexism, Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity,
and heterosexism. ed. Pushkala Prasad et al., 31–53. Thousand Oaks, CA:
A second method of diversity training, the “capital Sage, 1997.
C” culture approach advocated by intercultural commu- Davis, Angela. “Gender, Class, and Multiculturalism: Rethink-
nications workshop facilitators Janet M. Bennett and Mil- ing ‘Race’ Politics.” In Mapping Multiculturalism, ed. Avery
ton J. Bennett, focuses on the cultural artifacts of diverse Gordon and Christopher Newfield, 40–48. Minneapolis:
peoples and builds on such things as the familiarity of University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
ethnic food. Training is aimed at increasing the visibility Hemphill, Hellen, and Ray Haines. Discrimination, Harassment,
of various groups and may include lectures, newsletter and the Failure of Diversity Training: What to Do Now. West-
articles, costumes, concerts, or a month dedicated to a port, CT: Quorum Books, 1997.
nondominant group. Lynch, Frederick R. The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change
Critics of the “capital C” approach argue that it the “White Male Workplace.” New York: Free Press, 1997.
reinforces differences between individuals instead of
concentrating on their commonalities, helping to fur-
ther racialize the workplace and create situations in Dobson, James
which people tiptoe around issues such as how to relate A best-selling evangelical author, family therapist, and
to those of different cultures. This approach, opponents popular radio show host since the late 1970s, James
argue, does nothing to help people communicate with Dobson has been a leading voice of the Christian Right.
and truly understand each other. Instead, the “capital Born James Clayton Dobson on April 21, 1936, in
C” approach relies on broad, superficial generalizations Shreveport, Louisiana, he grew up in a conservative
based on vague notions of cultural background. Such Nazarene home and maintained a strong evangelical
generalizations, opponents argue, might create a new faith, which he applied to his studies of child psychology.
era of misunderstanding in which difference is treated After earning a PhD in child development from the
as commodity and spectacle. University of Southern California (1967), he became a
A third method is the “assimilationist” approach, medical researcher at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles
which harmonizes with the “melting pot” view. This while also serving as an associate clinical professor of
training focuses on preparing “outsiders” to internalize pediatrics at USC’s School of Medicine.
mainstream cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors. It is Beginning in 1970 with the publication of Dare to
directed at facilitating the newcomers’ assimilation into Discipline, a conservative parental advice manual that
the culture of the corporation. sold over 3 million copies, Dobson became a nationally
Critics view the assimilationist type of training as known Christian psychologist. Seven years later, he es-
a flawed approach, since the nondominant groups are tablished the Focus on the Family daily radio broadcast, his
expected to adapt so that they “fit in”; the burden of flagship enterprise. By 2002, more than 2,000 American
making the change falls on them. Those outside the stations as well as hundreds of stations overseas carried
mainstream must assimilate to the organizational norms the program, enabling Dobson to reach millions of daily
and are forced to become “bicultural”; they must adopt listeners—a majority of whom were women—with mes-
the norms of the dominant group during work hours, sages about childrearing, marital difficulties, and a wide
while trying to keep their identity group values intact range of other family-related subjects covered from a
in off hours. Whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality conservative evangelical perspective.
are implicitly framed as the norm, while other social Dobson’s initial foray into politics came in 1979,
identities and groups are constituted as “diversity” that when he served as a delegate to the White House Con-
is to be “managed.” ference on Families, and continued with the formation
Molly Swiger of the Family Research Council, a lobbying group, in
1981. Beginning in the 1990s, Dobson’s organizations
See also: Affirmative Action; Americans with Disabilities Act; campaigned against gambling and pornography and
Gay Rights Movement; Gender-Inclusive Language; Glo- advocated legislative bans on partial-birth abortion and
balization; Lesbians; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; same-sex marriage. On some occasions, as many as 1 mil-
Political Correctness; Race. lion listeners have called the Capitol Hill switchboard at
Donahue, Phil 13 9
Dobson’s urging to help defeat bills that threatened to the decency standards of daytime television—either by
limit the rights of anti-abortion protestors and home- airing “inappropriate” subject matter or by addressing
schooling parents. sensitive issues in a sensationalized manner. In addition,
Republican politicians came to realize that they could conservatives objected to his liberal framing of social
ignore Dobson only at their peril. The major contenders issues.
for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in A showman, Donahue once wore a skirt for a segment
1996, with the exception of Steve Forbes, made it a point on cross-dressing and during a program on contraceptives
to speak with Dobson before the presidential primaries. tossed condoms at the studio audience. He conducted
In the late 1990s, however, Dobson grew increasingly and broadcast interviews with lesbians, transvestites,
critical of the Republican Party because he thought that and victims of incest, all of which was shocking for that
Republicans were softening their opposition to abortion, time. One of his most infamous shows featured dwarf
and in 1997 he threatened to leave the GOP if it did juggling. During the mid-1980s, the program hosted “A
not devote greater attention to “moral” issues. Dobson Citizen’s Summit” in the Soviet Union, taping a show
became more conciliatory toward the Republican Party before a live Soviet audience for the stated purpose of
when President George W. Bush restricted federal fund- fostering peace and understanding. In 1994, Donahue
ing for embryonic stem cell research and signed a ban lost a court case against North Carolina in an attempt to
on what opponents call partial-birth abortion (clinically film a state execution.
known as intact dilation and extraction). The son of a furniture salesman, Phillip John “Phil”
After the Christian Coalition’s decline in the late Donahue was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 21,
1990s, Dobson has probably been the most influential 1935, and raised in a Catholic family. After graduat-
leader of the Christian Right. He has written more than ing from the University of Notre Dame (BA, business
thirty books on issues of concern to families. He has mil- administration, 1957), he worked as an announcer at
lions of admirers, but his belief in traditional gender roles, KYW-TV and AM, a college station in Cleveland; a news
determination to take his moral agenda to the political director at WABJ radio in Michigan; and a newscaster
arena, and unwillingness to brook any compromise in his at WHIO radio and TV in Dayton, Ohio, where he
opposition to abortion and gay rights have made many became a radio talk show host for the daily Conversation
people outside the Christian Right wary of his influence. Piece (1963–1967).
In February 2009, Dobson resigned as chairman of Focus The Phil Donahue Show first aired on November
on the Family, but continued to play an active role in 6, 1967, at WLWD-TV, also in Dayton. It would
the organization. later move to Chicago (1974–1984) and then New York
Daniel K. Williams (1985–1996). The program’s guests for the first week
set the tone—Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the atheist ac-
See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Christian Radio; Family tivist (Monday); single men describing what they seek
Values; Focus on the Family; Fundamentalism, Religious; in women (Tuesday); an obstetrician showing a film of
Pornography; Religious Right; Republican Party; Same-Sex childbirth (Wednesday); a funeral director (Thursday);
Marriage; Stem-Cell Research. and the sales promoter of an anatomically correct male
doll (Friday). The show would gain a reputation for its
Further Reading unflinching focus on the sexual revolution. During the
Alexander-Moegerle, Gil. James Dobson’s War on America. Am- 1970s, for example, the show broadcast films of an abor-
herst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997. tion procedure and a reverse vasectomy and tubal ligation;
Buss, Dale. Family Man: The Biography of Dr. James Dobson. interviewed Al Goldstein, the editor of Screw magazine,
Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2005. and the sexologists Masters and Johnson; featured lesbians
Gerson, Michael J. “A Righteous Indignation: James Dobson— explaining their fight for child custody; and had parents
Psychologist, Radio Show Host, Family Values Crusader—Is of gay children share their views. In 1981, the Moral
Set to Topple the Political Establishment.” U.S. News and Majority specifically condemned The Phil Donahue Show
World Report, May 4, 1998. for its sexual content.
Donahue’s program came to an end after its mostly
female audience began tuning into the television talk
Donahue, Phil show hosted by Oprah Winfrey. In 2002, MSNBC
The Emmy-winning host of The Phil Donahue Show began airing Donahue, but that program was canceled
(1967–1996), Phil Donahue invented the daytime the following year. Supporters of Donahue believe he
television talk show genre in which the studio audience was canceled because of his vocal opposition to the Iraq
interacts with guests and panelists who discuss hot- War. Donahue afterward produced Body of War (2007),
button issues or share the details of personal scandals in a critical documentary on that war.
their lives. Cultural critics blamed Donahue for lowering Roger Chapman
14 0 Dougla s, W illiam O.
See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Capital Punishment; Gay of privacy” that together provide the foundation for a
Rights Movement; Lesbians; Media Bias; Moral Major- general right of privacy. His contention that the right of
ity; O’Hair, Madalyn Murray; Sexual Revolution; Winfrey, privacy is contained in “penumbras, formed by emana-
Oprah. tions” of the other amendments has remained jarring for
conservatives, who believe the Constitution should be
Further Reading strictly interpreted by what is literally enumerated. The
Abt, Vicki, and Mel Seesholtz. “The Shameless World of Phil, right to privacy established in Griswold was fundamen-
Sally, and Oprah: Television Talk Shows and the Decon- tal to the 1973 abortion cases of Doe v. Bolton and Roe v.
structing of Society.” Journal of Popular Culture 28:1 (Summer Wade and the 2003 sodomy case of Lawrence v. Texas, all
1994): 171–91. matters of dispute in the culture wars.
Carbaugh, Donald A. Talking American: Cultural Discourses on Douglas was also controversial for his extracurricular
Donahue. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1988. activities and personal life. On a number of occasions,
Donahue, Phil. Donahue: My Own Story. New York: Fawcett Republicans tried to impeach him. In 1953, for example,
Crest, 1981. he came under scrutiny for granting a stay of execution
Timberg, Bernard M. Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been convicted
Show. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In 1970,
House Republicans led by future president Gerald R.
Ford initiated impeachment proceedings against Douglas
Douglas, William O. for nonjudicial sources of income and ties with certain
William Orville Douglas served on the U.S. Supreme institutions, but an investigation cleared him of wrong
Court for thirty-six years (1939–1975), the longest doing. Since Douglas was the only Supreme Court justice
tenure of any justice and perhaps the most liberal. He is in history to have been divorced—he was married four
known as a defender of the Bill of Rights, especially the times—some felt that he disgraced the dignity of his
First Amendment, and for his expansive view of judicial public office. It was all the more shocking to conservative
power. sensibilities that his last two wives were much younger
The son of a Presbyterian minister, Douglas was than he.
born on October 16, 1898, in Maine, Minnesota, and Almost a year after suffering a stroke, Douglas
grew up in Yakima, Washington. He graduated from resigned from the bench on November 12, 1975. Ironi-
Whitman College (BA, 1920) and Columbia University cally, it was Ford who appointed his successor, John Paul
(LLB, 1925), and then taught law at Yale University Stevens. Douglas died on January 19, 1980, at his home
(1928–1939). After serving as head of the U.S. Securities in Washington, D.C. His books include three autobio-
and Exchange Commission (1937–1939), appointed to graphical works: Of Men and Mountains (1950); Go East,
that position by President Franklin Roosevelt, he was Young Man (1974); and The Court Years (1980).
named to the high court in April 1939—also by FDR—
upon the retirement of Louis Brandeis. Tony L. Hill and Roger Chapman
Known for his eloquent and flowery opinions, Doug-
las was a prolific writer. Relatively few of his opinions See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Ford, Gerald; Hutchins,
have stood the test of time in subsequent court rulings, Robert M.; Judicial Wars; Roe v. Wade (1973); Rosenberg, Ju-
however, partly because of his lack of meticulousness in lius, and Ethel Rosenberg; Sodomy Laws.
tying his opinions to legal precedent. A favorite judge
of liberals for his support of individual liberties, civil Further Reading
rights, free speech, and the right of dissent, and for his Hall, Kermit L., and John J. Patrick. The Pursuit of Justice: Su-
opposition to government interference in the private preme Court Decisions That Shaped America. New York: Oxford
sphere, Douglas interpreted the Constitution as a living University Press, 2006.
document that offers general principles. Hoyt, Edwin Palmer. William O. Douglas: A Biography. Middle-
Perhaps his best-known opinion is that in Griswold v. bury, VT: Eriksson, 1979.
Connecticut (1965), which inferred a constitutional right Murphy, Bruce Allen. Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William
to privacy even though the word “privacy” is nowhere O. Douglas. New York: Random House, 2003.
mentioned in the Constitution. In Griswold, which con-
sidered a state statute prohibiting the use of contracep-
tives, even by married couples, the Supreme court ruled D r. P h i l
in a 7–2 decision that privacy is one of the inherent rights A psychologist, self-help author, and popular television
covered by the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth personality, Dr. Phil is a self-described outsider in
Amendments. In the majority opinion, Douglas wrote the psychological profession. One of his catchphrases
that various elements of the Bill of Rights imply “zones is “Analysis is paralysis.” In stark contrast to many
Drudge Repor t 141
popular self-help gurus who emphasize the importance they contend that psychological distress cannot be allevi-
of improving one’s self-esteem, Dr. Phil uses a tougher ated in a five-minute broadcast segment. Scholars across
approach, suggesting that focusing on one’s actions and disciplines contend that Dr. Phil’s focus on individual
consequences, developing good decision-making skills, responsibility ignores the ways in which culture and
and concentrating on finding solutions leads to a happier, society influence and shape an individual’s views and be-
healthier, more successful, and more fulfilling life. His havior. His emphasis on individual behavior, they believe,
one-liners highlight this perspective: “You’re going to ignores the link between psychological ailments and the
get real about fat, or you’re going to get real fat.” “If you larger social, political, and economic structure.
want more, you have to require more from yourself.”
“Failure is no accident.” Dr. Phil’s therapeutic approach Jessie Swigger
has resonated with “tough love” social conservatives,
who believe that personal responsibility is the answer See also: Family Values; Kerry, John; Obesity Epidemic; Vic-
to most social ills. timhood; Winfrey, Oprah.
Dr. Phil was born Philip Calvin McGraw on Sep-
tember 1, 1950, in Vinita, Oklahoma. He graduated Further Reading
from Midwestern State University in Wichita, Texas Cottle, Michelle. “Daddy Knows: The Bad Doctor.” New Re-
(1975), and received his PhD in clinical psychology from public, December 2004.
the University of North Texas (1979). Finding private Dembling, Sophia, and Lisa Gutierrez. The Making of Dr. Phil:
practice frustrating, he co-founded Courtroom Sciences The Straight-Talking True Story of Everyone’s Favorite Therapist.
Inc. (CSI) in 1989; CSI uses psychological techniques to Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.
prepare witnesses for legal trials. Moskowitz, Eva S. In Therapy We Trust: America’s Obsession with
Oprah Winfrey, sued in 1996 by the Texas cattle Self-Fulfillment. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
industry for on-air statements she made about mad cow 2001.
disease, hired CSI and credits Dr. Phil not only for helping
her to win the case, but also for allowing her to maintain
a positive attitude throughout the trial. She hired him Drudge Report
to appear on her television show in 1998 and soon added The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com) is a news,
“Tuesdays with Dr. Phil” to her weekly line-up. During commentary, and aggregation Web site operated by Matt
his years working for Oprah, Dr. Phil published several Drudge, who has been dubbed the Rush Limbaugh of
best-selling self-help books, including Life Strategies: Do- the Internet. In addition to original reporting, the site
ing What Works, Doing What Matters (1999) and Relation- features links to breaking news stories and the columns
ship Rescue: A Seven-Step Strategy for Reconnecting with Your of a number of commentators. The focus of content is
Partner (2000). In 2002, with the support and help of U.S. political news, world events, and entertainment,
Winfrey, he started his own spin-off show, Dr. Phil. with a predilection for the salacious. The Drudge Report
Political conservatives have found Dr. Phil’s rejec- will be remembered in history for breaking the story on
tion of traditional psychological approaches and tools the Monica Lewinsky scandal in January 1998. Drudge’s
refreshing; they argue that the focus of so many other style and prominence on the Internet places him at the
psychologists on self-esteem mirrors liberal guilt. Rather nexus of the debate over so-called new media and the
than improving people’s lives, they contend, most unfiltered and often overtly partisan style it typifies. In
psychologists simply enable destructive behavior by en- late 2007, the site claimed more than 400 million log-
couraging individuals to accept, rather than to change, ons per month.
themselves. Further, they appreciate Dr. Phil’s emphasis The Drudge Report first came to national attention in
on the importance of relationships, particularly marriage 1997 when it featured a rumor concerning spousal abuse
and family. Some liberals have also aligned themselves by Sidney Blumenthal, a newly appointed adviser to Presi-
with Dr. Phil, among them 2004 Democratic presidential dent Bill Clinton. After Blumenthal and his wife filed a
candidate John Kerry, who appeared with Dr. Phil on a $30 million lawsuit against Drudge, however, the posting
show about parenting skills. Kerry and other political was removed. The publicity over the Blumenthal suit was
moderates have used their support of Dr. Phil as a means dwarfed early the next year when Drudge broke the story
of demonstrating that liberal politicians also value mar- about Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica
riage and family. Lewinsky, earning applause from the right and disdain
Dr. Phil’s style is not without controversy. Several from the left. Because Newsweek had declined to publish the
professional psychologists have argued that his “tough story, the Drudge Report became a noticed example of how
love” approach is in fact detrimental in many cases. They the new, Internet-based media was potentially moving to
suggest, for example, that Dr. Phil is unclear about the supplant the mainstream press. Drudge’s book The Drudge
difference between his TV shows and professional therapy; Manifesto (2001) expounds on that thesis.
142 Drudge Repor t
D r u g Te s t i n g
The testing of blood, urine, breath, or hair samples for
traces of chemical properties associated with illicit drugs
is what is known as “drug testing.” The official rationale
for drug testing at the workplace and schools has been
public health and safety. In the culture wars, opponents
of drug testing have largely failed to convince a majority
of the public, or the courts, that the practice represents
an invasion of privacy that flouts the tenet of probable
cause.
The precursor to American drug testing was the
drug screening of athletes at the 1968 Olympic Games
in Munich. During the late 1960s, members of the armed
services returning home from the Vietnam War were
screened for heroin use, and by 1981 the U.S. military
was conducting a million drug tests each year. On Sep-
The conservative political Web site Drudge Report, launched tember 15, 1986, President Ronald Reagan, expanding
in 1994 as a Washington “gossip column” by then-unknown the “War on Drugs,” signed Executive Order No. 12564,
Matt Drudge, emerged as a leading nonmainstream media mandating random drug testing of select federal employ-
outlet by being the first to break a series of political scandals. ees. Later, the Drug Free Workplace Act of 1988 went
(Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images) into effect, requiring private government contractors to
establish policies and procedures to curb employee drug
use. Department of Transportation regulations issued in
Critics point to Drudge’s sensationalistic style (head 1988 required random drug testing of airplane pilots,
lines are often set in large fonts with a flashing siren graphic railroad workers, truck and bus drivers, and energy pipe-
on the site’s nation page) and disregard for traditional jour- line workers. Drug testing soon spread throughout the
nalistic standards (such as multiple confirmation of facts private sector, state and local governments, and school
prior to publication). During the 2004 election campaign, systems.
for example, Drudge touted a story about an alleged affair In 1985, less than 20 percent of American companies
by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry that were conducting drug testing, but this figure increased to
was quickly proven to be false. Between the Blumenthal 50 percent by 1988 and to more than 80 percent by 1996.
incident and the breaking of the Lewinsky story, there was Traditionally, testing has been restricted to job applicants
little doubt that Drudge’s political loyalties were consid- or employees in situations when there is “probable cause.”
ered to be on the Republican side of the aisle—a perception Blue-collar workers have more often been screened than
reinforced by the circulation of the Kerry rumor. white-collar ones, and workers in the South more often
Drudge is known for his disdain of the mainstream than workers in the Northeast. In earlier years, drug
press, though he briefly had a television show on the Fox testing was primarily restricted to larger firms (such as
News Channel (1998–1999). He also hosts a syndicated Wal-Mart), inspiring passage of the Drug Free Workplace
radio show and is often a primary source for such radio Act to federally subsidize the expansion of drug testing
talk show hosts as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh. to small businesses.
As such, Drudge is considered a shill for Republican po- In the period 1993–1998, the federal government
sitions by many moderates and liberals. In 1998, he was conducted 250,000 random drug tests, yielding 1,345
the subject of a documentary film titled Digital Dirt, by positive results, costing taxpayers $23,637 for each federal
journalists Ted Koppel and Howard Kurtz. worker found to have used an illegal substance. American
businesses spent about $1.2 billion annually on drug
Steven L. Taylor testing. Positive test results from the workplace declined
from the late 1980s (13.6 percent) to 1999 (4.7 percent).
See also: Clinton Impeachment; Internet; Kerry, John; Lim- Most positive readings revealed marijuana use.
baugh, Rush; Media Bias. Proponents of drug testing argue that it identifies
people who need help in overcoming drug abuse, deters
Further Reading the casual use of drugs that can lead to addiction, and
Drudge, Matt. The Drudge Manifesto. New York: NAL, 2001. promotes a safer work and school environment. Businesses
Goldstein, Tom. “Journalist or Kangaroo?” Columbia Journalism argue that they save money by exposing drug users and
Review 39 (January/February 2001): 76–77. terminating their employment, because such people have
Sullivan, Andrew. “Scoop.” New Republic, October 30, 2000. more medical expenses, a higher rate of absence, and a
D ’Sou z a , Dinesh 143
greater likelihood of getting hurt and claiming worker’s In 2004, only 200 schools randomly tested their entire
compensation benefits. In addition, corporate executives student body.
believe that since drug testing has become the norm in In the meantime, foiling drug tests has become a
American workplaces, any company that does not do it cottage industry. An organization that calls itself Privacy
will tend to attract drug users. Protection Services provides drug-free urine samples
Opponents of drug testing, who regard it as surveil- that people can substitute for their own. There are also
lance and social control, argue that the issue is about the drug-masking kits, including “Urine Luck,” the brand
right to privacy and protections in the Bill of Rights offered by Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame).
against unreasonable searches and self-incrimination. The 1960s counterculture icon Abbie Hoffman, in col-
The U.S. Supreme Court, however, in Samuel K. Skinner laboration with John Silvers, wrote Steal This Urine Test:
v. Railway Labor Executives’ Association et al. (1989) and Fighting Drug Hysteria in America (1987), a treatise that
National Treasury v. Von Raab (1989), upheld government includes tips on faking samples.
workplace testing for drugs or alcohol, stating that it does Roger Chapman
not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of un-
reasonable searches and seizures. In Vernonia School District See also: Bennett, William J.; Counterculture; Hoffman, Ab-
47J v. Acton (1995), the Court upheld the drug testing of bie; Judicial Wars; O’Connor, Sandra Day; Reagan, Ronald;
student athletes in junior high school. In Board of Edu- Vietnam War; Wal-Mart; War on Drugs; Zero Tolerance.
cation of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie
County v. Earls (2002), the Court affirmed the testing of Further Reading
students participating in extracurricular activities, argu- Finley, Laura L., and Peter Finley. Piss Off! How Drug Testing
ing that such situations imply a voluntary reduction of and Other Privacy Violations Are Alienating America’s Youth.
privacy. However, in Chandler v. Miller (1997), the Court Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 2005.
overturned the state of Georgia’s requirement for drug Tunnell, Kenneth D. Pissing on Demand: Workplace Drug Test-
testing of individuals seeking or holding elected office. ing and the Rise of the Detox Society. New York: New York
Opponents of drug testing argue that estimates of University Press, 2004.
the cost of drug use to society ($160.7 billion in 2000)
and of the reduction in corporate productivity ($110.5
billion in 2000) are based on subjective and unsubstanti- D ’S o u z a , D i n e s h
ated analyses. Citing 1979–1992 figures, they argue that Dinesh D’Souza, in his writing and speeches, has not
when drug testing was introduced in the mid-1980s, drug hesitated to confront cherished liberal notions and
use was already on the decline. Moreover, they main- promote conservative ideas and leaders. He is a noted
tain, drug testing sometimes includes testing for other advocate of “race neutrality,” which his opponents
conditions without proper consent, such as pregnancy, criticize as an endorsement of racism.
sickle-cell anemia, and sexually transmitted diseases. Born on April 25, 1961, in Bombay, India, D’Souza
False positives are another problem, both because of flaws came to the United States in 1978 as an exchange stu-
in the handling of samples and because over-the-counter dent. He was accepted at Dartmouth College and, by his
medicines can be misread; the cold medication Nyquil, senior year, had become the editor of the conservative and
for example, often registers as an opiate. Officers of the controversial Dartmouth Review. After a stint as a freelance
New York City Police Department are prohibited from writer, he became a domestic policy adviser to President
eating muffins with poppy seeds because of the potential Ronald Reagan in 1987–1988. Since that time, D’Souza
for false drug readings. In a 2007 study by the Children’s has worked at various conservative think tanks, including
Hospital Boston’s Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His books
Research, 12 percent of drug testing was found to be include Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on
subject to misrepresentation and 21 percent of “positive” Campus (1991), The End of Racism (1995), The Virtue of
tests were found to be attributable to legal over-the- Prosperity (2000), and The Enemy at Home: The Cultural
counter medication. Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 (2007).
Critics question the social and monetary costs of D’Souza criticizes public universities for “political
school drug testing. Children, they argue, are being correctness” and multiculturalism, and he accuses educa-
taught to accept violations of their privacy, which con- tors of engaging in the “self-esteem hoax,” arguing that
tradicts teachings about democracy and freedom. In affirmation in the classroom has eroded competition and
addition, drug testing is expensive, utilizing funds that high standards. He charges that universities claim to be
could have been spent on textbooks or technology in paragons of liberal thought, free inquiry, and open debate
the classroom. Moreover, a 2003 national study revealed but instead foster illiberality, conformity, and intoler-
that there was little difference in teen drug use between ance. He was especially critical of the short-lived campus
schools that conduct drug testing and those that do not. speech codes, regarding them as restricting professors
14 4 Du B ois, W. E . B .
and students from debating “sensitive topics” such as in Ghana, the night before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I
affirmative action or racial and sex differences. Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., firmly tied
In The End of Racism, D’Souza attacks affirmative the end of his life to the most public representation of
action, arguing that it is antithetical to reward based the legacy he left behind.
on merit and that it devalues the genuine achievements His best-known work, The Souls of Black Folk (1903),
of blacks. He does not believe racism is the reason for is regarded by many as no less influential than Harriet
America’s social and economic inequality. He argues that Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) on bring-
Asian Americans have succeeded despite racial animosity ing civil rights to the forefront of American consciousness.
because they, unlike African Americans, have a culture The fourteen essays combine autobiography, philosophy,
that values hard work, entrepreneurship, academic ac- sociology, and history in a condemnation of the repression
complishment, and intact families. Critics counter that of blacks in American society. Du Bois also commented
D’Souza, while engaging in class warfare, ignores op- on the dual nature of the American minority experience,
pressive structures and legacies of the larger society that remarking how a black person “ever feels his two-ness”—
adversely affect particular groups. being “an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts,
In The Enemy at Home, D’Souza charges that “the two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one
cultural left” is responsible for the terrorist attacks on dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from
September 11, 2001, because liberal values and decadence being torn asunder.” These essays, which illustrate both
are so offensive to Muslims. He suggests that American the tormented psyches of minorities in the United States
social conservatives should consider forming a coalition and the subconscious complicity of the American people
with “traditional Muslims” in order to resist the cultural in the suppression of their fellow citizens, force those who
left. read his words to reconsider deeply entrenched “truths”
E. Michael Young regarding both civil rights and human potential.
Du Bois’s activism marked him as an American
See also: Affirmative Action; Bell Curve, The; Family Values; hero to some and a traitor to others. He worked with
Multicultural Conservatism; Multiculturalism and Ethnic the Niagara Movement (1905–1909), chaired the an-
Studies; Political Correctness; Race; Reagan, Ronald; Sep- nual Atlanta University Conference for the Study of the
tember 11; Speech Codes; Think Tanks; Wealth Gap. Negro Problems (1898–1914), and was the only black
founder of the National Association for the Advancement
Further Reading of Colored People (NAACP), serving as publicity director
MacDonald, Heather. “D’Souza’s Critics: PC Fights Back.” and editor of Crisis (1910–1934). These roles provided
Academic Questions 5 (Summer 1992): 9–22. opportunities for Du Bois to both voice dissent and work
Maserati, Sarah. “Campus Crusader for Conservatism.” National for change from within the system.
Review, March 24, 2003. His more extreme activities and views, however, led
Spencer, Robert. “D’Souza Points Conservatives Toward Disas- to the revocation of his passport, shunning by segments
ter.” Human Events, February 5, 2007. of the black community, and criminal indictment as an
Stimpson, Catharine R. “Big Man on Campus.” Nation, Sep- unregistered agent of a foreign power. For a time, he
tember 30, 1991. supported the American Socialist Party but eventually
left over their weakness on racial issues. He argued for
activism over gradualism, most notably in his critical
D u B o i s , W. E . B . essay “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others.” He
Educator, editor, and equal rights activist W.E.B. opposed the proliferation of nuclear weapons and was
Du Bois spent his life working for the principle that chair of the Peace Information Center. Du Bois was seen
the minds and bodies of all people should be freed as a radical because of his use of Marxist theory in his
from bondage. His efforts to liberate America from writings, his support for socialist dogma, and his formal
institutional racism and its effects have made his works affiliation with the Communist Party prior to renouncing
frontline weapons in the culture wars. his U.S. citizenship in 1961.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born Feb- Du Bois’s writings, focusing on issues of ethnicity
ruary 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He and personal freedom, have a flair and accessibility that
graduated from Harvard University (1890), attended the have kept them in print for more than a century. They
University of Berlin (1892), and became the first African serve as a monument to the evolution of his political and
American to receive a PhD from Harvard University social beliefs.
(1896). He served as the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary to Solomon Davidoff
Liberia (1924), was inducted into the National Institute
of Arts and Letters (1943), and received the Lenin Interna- See also: Afrocentrism; Civil Rights Movement; Communists
tional Peace Prize (1958). His death on August 27, 1963, and Communism; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Marxism; Mul-
Duke, Dav id 145
ticulturalism and Ethnic Studies; National Association for flag. It was also underscored that he favored abortion
the Advancement of Colored People; Race; Soviet Union and rights and opposed capital punishment.
Russia. The Bush campaign also convinced voters that Du-
kakis was soft on crime by focusing on a Massachusetts
Further Reading prison furlough program and the crimes committed by
Lewis, David Levering. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality convicted murderer Willie Horton while on leave under
and the American Century, 1919–1963. New York: Henry the program. It was implied, incorrectly, that Dukakis
Holt, 2000. had established the furlough program as governor. The
Dukakis campaign proved unable to reverse the impres-
sion created by the ads, which also had overtones of
Dukak is, Michael racism. On Election Day, Dukakis won only ten states
Michael Dukakis was the Democratic Party’s candidate and the District of Columbia, losing the popular elec-
for the presidency in 1988, running against George H.W. tion with 46 percent of the vote, compared with Bush’s
Bush in a contest in which Republicans denigrated the 53 percent.
word “liberal” as the opposite of traditional American Solomon Davidoff
values.
The son of Greek immigrants, Michael Stanley See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Anti-Intellectual-
Dukakis was born on November 3, 1933, in Brookline, ism; Comic Strips; Democratic Party; Family Values; Flag
Massachusetts. Between graduating from Swarthmore Desecration; Horton, Willie; McGovern, George; Mondale,
College (1955) and entering Harvard Law School (1960), Walter; Prison Reform.
he served a stint in the U.S. Army. Dukakis began his
formal political career while still a law student, win- Further Reading
ning a Brookline town-meeting seat in 1959. He served Gaines, Richard, and Michael Segal. Dukakis: The Man Who
three terms as Massachusetts governor (1974–1978, Would Be President. New York: Avon, 1988.
1983–1990). Lucas, Peter. Luke on Duke: Snapshots in Time. Boston: Quinlan,
Dukakis’s behavior during his first term as governor 1988.
was widely viewed as inflexible and arrogant; broken
promises regarding tax hikes and cuts in social welfare
programs burdened Massachusetts with the nickname D u ke , D av i d
“Taxachusetts.” Although the fiscal problems had Arguing for the preservation of Anglo cultural heritage,
carried over from the previous administration, which David Duke is known for his controversial commitment
neglected to report a $600 million state budget deficit, to white nationalism and for the racial tension and
Dukakis received the blame. Moreover, he angered the political conflict it evokes. A former head of the Ku
political establishment by primarily consulting with Klux Klan, in 1989 he was elected to the Louisiana
Harvard “technocrats” and taking personal credit for State House as a Republican representing Metarie, a
statewide accomplishments. After losing his reelec- suburb of New Orleans. He ran unsuccessfully for the
tion campaign in 1978, Dukakis worked to modify his Louisiana State Senate, governorship of Louisiana, U.S.
leadership style and public image, building coalitions Congress, and the presidency. He has run for office as a
and acknowledging the efforts of others, while maintain- Republican, Democrat, and Populist.
ing closer ties to ordinary citizens. These adaptations Born David Ernest Duke on July 1, 1950, in Tulsa,
helped him return to the governorship for a second and Oklahoma, he later moved to Louisiana and attended
third term. Louisiana State University (1970–1974). In college, he
Dukakis is best known for his unsuccessful 1988 participated in ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps)
presidential bid. As lampooned by Berke Breathed in but was expelled from the organization after founding the
the Bloom County comic strip, the contest was a choice radical White Youth Alliance, an organization that pro-
between “Wimp or Shrimp.” Dukakis was called the moted neo-Nazi ideas. He gained campus-wide notoriety
“Shrimp” because of his short stature and was criticized for donning a swastika at Alliance events, including the
for his insistence on fiscal responsibility while simultane- celebration of Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
ously maintaining social programs. Bush forces depicted Following his graduation, Duke was elected grand
Dukakis as a liberal far adrift from the American main- wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, unusual
stream and an enemy of family values. He was mocked for one so young. As national director of the organiza-
for being a “card-carrying member” of the American Civil tion, which claimed to be the largest Klan group in the
Liberties Union (an allusion to 1950s’ radicals labeled country, Duke sought to transform the secretive and
“card-carrying members of the Communist Party”) and ritualistic organization into a modern political party. In
attacked for opposing a ban on burning the American 1980, Duke officially severed his Klan ties and estab-
14 6 Dwork in, A ndrea
lished the National Association for the Advancement of Born on September 26, 1946, into a working-class
White People. Jewish family in Camden, New Jersey, Andrea Rita
In 1991, he reached the height of his popularity dur- Dworkin experienced sexual violence throughout her
ing the Louisiana governor’s race. Garnering 32 percent early years, beginning at age nine when she was mo-
of the open primary vote, Duke pushed out incumbent lested. At eighteen, after being arrested at a protest
governor Buddy Roemer but was later defeated by Edwin against the Vietnam War, she suffered a brutal, invasive
Edwards in the general election. The majority of white internal exam at a Manhattan prison hospital that left
voters (55 percent) supported Duke’s candidacy, even her bleeding for days. Seeking to escape the publicity
though his earlier activities as a Klansman were well that surrounded her after recounting this story to the
known. Political analysts noted that Duke’s strong stance media, Dworkin left the United States for Europe. After
against affirmative action and welfare tapped into racial returning to the States, she graduated from Bennington
anxieties that extended from the civil rights movement College in Vermont with a BA in literature in 1969, then
of the 1950s and 1960s. traveled to Amsterdam to look into a Dutch countercul-
Duke continued to promote his ideas in his autobi- ture movement called Provo. It was there that she met
ography, My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding and married a Dutch anarchist, who beat her repeatedly.
(1998). While serving a sixteen-month sentence for tax Dworkin fled her husband’s violent grasp and, with no
evasion, Duke wrote Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on money, briefly turned to prostitution to survive. These
the Jewish Question (2003), a work that denies that the Ho- were the events that set the direction for her later writ-
locaust took place and advances the notion of a worldwide ings and activism.
Zionist conspiracy. In 2003, he founded the European- Dworkin published ten books of nonfiction—most
American Unity and Right Organization (EURO), which notably Woman Hating (1974), Intercourse (1987), and Por-
advocates ending non-European, nonwhite immigration nography: Men Possessing Women (1989)—as well as several
to the United States. His anti-Semitic views have proved works of poetry and fiction. Provocative ideas about sex
popular in Eastern Europe and in many Arab countries. and gender relations, along with explicit writings and de-
In December 2006, he spoke at a Holocaust-denying scriptions of sexual violence, established Dworkin as one
conference in Iran. of the most outspoken and controversial activists in the
Angie Maxwell women’s movement, by both opponents and supporters
of the feminist cause. The essence of sexual intercourse,
See also: Affirmative Action; Anti-Semitism; Civil Rights she wrote, is “physiologically making a woman inferior.”
Movement; Holocaust; Immigration Policy; Israel; Race; Romance is nothing more than “rape embellished with
Welfare Reform; White Supremacists. meaningful looks.”
In addition to writing books, articles, and speeches,
Further Reading Dworkin teamed with feminist lawyer and collaborator
Bridges, Tyler. The Rise of David Duke. Jackson: University Press Catharine MacKinnon in 1983 to draft an antipornogra-
of Mississippi, 1994. phy ordinance for the city of Minneapolis. The proposed
Kuzenski, John C., Charles S. Bullock III, and Ronald Keith measure was based on the premise that pornography
Gaddie, eds. David Duke and the Politics of Race in the South. harms women and therefore constitutes a violation of their
Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995. civil rights. Although the ordinance was passed twice by
Rose, Douglas D., ed. The Emergence of David Duke and the the city of Minneapolis, and a few years later by the city
Politics of Race. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina of Indianapolis as well, it was deemed unconstitutional
Press, 1992. on the grounds that it violated the right to free speech
guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Andrea Dworkin remained active in the fight against
D wo r k i n , A n d r e a pornography throughout her life, publishing one con-
The leading voice in the antipornography campaign troversial article after another, working with city and
of the modern women’s movement, Andrea Dworkin state governments in the United States and Canada to
passionately dedicated her life to fighting what she ban pornography, and delivering angry and powerful
viewed as the violence, degradation, and oppression speeches to various audiences. She died of heart failure
caused by pornography against women. In the process on April 9, 2005, at her home in Washington, D.C.
of combating the evil she saw in porn, Dworkin not
only made strange bedfellows with usual opponents Courtney Smith
of feminism, such as the Religious Right, but she also
unintentionally spurred a branch of feminism now See also: Feminism, Third-Wave; MacKinnon, Catharine; Por-
known as “sex-positive” feminism, which originated in nography; Religious Right; Sexual Assault; Vietnam War;
direct reaction to her antipornography struggle. War Protesters.
Dylan, B ob 147
Further Reading also performed for and brought national attention to the
Digby, Tom, ed. Men Doing Feminism. New York: Routledge, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
1998. which used music to advocate for desegregation in the
Dworkin, Andrea. Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist South. In 1963, he performed with fellow folk singer
Militant. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Joan Baez at the March on Washington, led by Martin
Harer, John B., and Jeanne Harrell. People For and Against Re- Luther King, Jr. Later, Dylan claimed that as a white
stricted or Unrestricted Expression. Westport, CT: Greenwood man he could never understand the black experience and
Press, 2002. shifted his music away from civil rights issues. Protest
Levy, Ariel. “The Prisoner of Sex.” New York Magazine, June songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963), “A Hard
6, 2005. Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (1963), and “The Times They Are
A-Changin’” (1964) exemplified Dylan’s antiwar senti-
ment, and their popularity helped spread the ideals of
Dylan, Bob the protest movement.
In a career that began in the early 1960s and continues By the end of the 1960s, the radical phase of Dylan’s
strong into the twenty-first century, the influential and career was over. In the 1970s, he converted to Christian-
enigmatic singer, songwriter, and lyricist Bob Dylan has ity. In 1985, he helped raise funds for famine relief in
recorded more than thirty studio albums—including Ethiopia, contributing to the single “We Are the World”
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), Bringing It All Back and performing at the Live Aid concert. He sparked
Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde on some controversy and inspired the creation of Farm Aid,
Blonde (1966), Nashville Skyline (1969), Blood on the following his suggestion that a small portion of the
Tracks (1975), Time Out of Mind (1997), and Modern Times Live Aid money should go toward relieving bank debt
(2006)—and a number of politically and socially charged for American farmers. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine
hit singles that contributed to his early reputation voted “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965) the greatest song of
(which he resisted) as the “bard of the counterculture” all time. Later albums have included Time Out of Mind
or “the voice of his generation.” Combining folk, blues, (1997), which earned a Grammy, Love and Theft (2001),
country, rock, jazz, and gospel styles, often with long, and Modern Times (2006). In the summer of 1988, Dylan
narrative lyrics, Dylan’s cultural resonance has rested in embarked on what many have called the Never Ending
his innovative songwriting and its ability to bridge the Tour, for two decades onward making live appearances
gap between mainstream America and the social and internationally.
political concerns of the 1960s counterculture. J. Robert Myers
He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May
24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, into a family of East- See also: Baez, Joan; Civil Rights Movement; Counterculture;
ern European Jewish heritage. He was enamored with Guthrie, Woody, and Arlo Guthrie; King, Martin Luther, Jr.;
blues, country, folk, and early rock and roll music as an Nelson, Willie; Rock and Roll; Till, Emmett; Vietnam War;
adolescent, taking up piano and guitar and performing War Protesters.
at local venues. After a brief stint at the University of
Minnesota, he moved to New York in 1961, where he Further Reading
found success in Greenwich Village’s folk music scene, Bob Dylan Official Web site. www.bobdylan.com.
launching his professional music career. After decades of Dylan, Bob. Chronicles. Vol. 1. New York: Simon & Schuster,
success, Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall 2004.
of Fame in 1988. Hajdu, David. Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan
In the culture wars, Dylan became a reluctant leader Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña. New
of the folk protest movement, using his music and lyrics York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
to advance the social and political causes of the 1960s Hampton, Wayne. Guerrilla Minstrels: John Lennon, Joe Hill,
counterculture. He supported the civil rights movement, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan. Knoxville: University of
recording “Only a Pawn in Their Game” (1964), about Tennessee Press, 1986.
the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963 Shelton, Robert. No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob
and commenting on the roots of American racism. Dylan Dylan. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997.
rivers. Among the more important initiatives were the
creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970),
strengthening of the Clean Air Act (1970) and Clean
Water Act (1972), and passage of the Endangered Species
Act (1973) and Eastern Wilderness Act (1975). Nelson,
E a r t h D ay a key player in shepherding these measures through the
Earth Day is an annual event, now celebrated worldwide, Senate, came to be regarded as America’s strongest en-
to promote ecological awareness and focus attention on vironmental advocate in Washington.
the protection of the natural environment. The day Most Americans saw Earth Day as a time for consen-
is marked by marches, rallies, tree plantings, litter sus, not conflict, but radical environmental groups such
removal, and other outdoor activities. While belittled as the Animal Liberation Front, Greenpeace, and Earth
by the likes of radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and First! often use April 22 as an occasion for dramatic direct
other political conservatives, Earth Day has from its action. On the other side of the political spectrum, the
inception been intended as a centrist celebration of the conservative John Birch Society referred to Earth Day
natural world. as a communist plot, noting that the first celebration
Conceived by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), fell on the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of
the first Earth Day was observed on April 22, 1970, and Vladimir Lenin.
celebrated by 20 million people who gathered at schools, Nicolaas Mink
parks, and houses of worship to show their support for
environmentalism. Over 1,500 college and university See also: Animal Rights; Conspiracy Theories; Ecoterrorism;
campuses and 10,000 schools participated by holding Endangered Species Act; Environmental Movement; Forests,
special events. The first Earth Day is said to have been the Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; John Birch Society; Lim-
largest public demonstration in U.S. history, involving baugh, Rush; Silent Majority.
more than 10 percent of the national population. American
Heritage magazine called it “one of the most remarkable Further Reading
happenings in the history of democracy.” In the years Christofferson, Bill. The Man from Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder
since, Earth Day has grown into a worldwide observance, Senator Gaylord Nelson. Madison: University of Wisconsin
celebrated by tens of millions of people. Press, 2004.
While Nelson deserves much of the credit for ini- Nash, Roderick Frazier. The Rights of Nature: A History of En-
tiating Earth Day, its beginnings reflected the growing vironmental Ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
environmental concerns of the late 1960s. The year pre- 1989.
ceding the first Earth Day was marked by environmental Nelson, Gaylord, with Susan Campbell and Paul Wozniak.
catastrophes, including a major oil spill off the coast of Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise. Madison: University
Santa Barbara, California, and the industrial effluent float- of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
ing in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River catching on fire. This Rothman, Hal. The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the
was on top of continuing anxiety about the effects of the United States Since 1945. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1998.
carcinogenic pesticide DDT and the Cold War threat of
nuclear attack. This context helped raise environmental
consciousness in the public at large, which organizers of Ecoterror ism
Earth Day tapped. The politically charged term “ecoterrorism” now com-
Earth Day was immensely successful in bridging monly refers to sabotage tactics used by radical envi-
gaps among peoples of different races, political beliefs, ronmentalists (self-described “ecowarriors”) against
and cultures, as the threat of pollution was recognized as activities of the government or private enterprise for
everyone’s problem. Even conservatives in what President the purpose of halting perceived harm to the natural
Richard M. Nixon had termed the “Silent Majority” took environment or animals. An earlier definition referred
part in Earth Day festivities. After the first celebration to willful ecological destruction for political or military
in 1970, the New York Times remarked of Earth Day: purposes—such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein ordering oil
“Conservatives were for it. Liberals were for it. Democrats, spills in the Persian Gulf and the detonating of 1,250
Republicans and independents were for it. So were the oil wells during the 1991 Gulf War (actions President
ins, the outs, the Executive and Legislative branches of George H.W. Bush at the time denounced as “environ-
government.” mental terrorism”) or the U.S. military’s use of the forest
As a consequence of Earth Day, environmentalism defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
during the 1970s became a mass movement that inspired In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September
a string of environmental legislation aimed at protecting 11, 2001, which shifted the focus in America from harm
wild places, curbing pollution, and cleaning up lakes and against the environment to violence committed in the
148
Ecoter ror ism 14 9
name of protecting the environment, the FBI defined Many environmentalists became radicalized after
ecoterrorism as “the use or threatened use of violence of Ronald Reagan’s election as president in 1980. Rea-
a criminal nature against innocent victims or property gan was widely recognized as hostile to environmental
by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for concerns, evident by his appointment of James Watt as
environmental-political reasons. . . .” Since ecowarriors secretary of the interior and, more symbolically, by his
follow a creed to carry out sabotage while avoiding harm removal of the solar panels President Jimmy Carter had
to others, some believe that it is disingenuous to put erected on the roof of the White House. Earth First! held
them in the same category as traditional terrorists, who its first rally in March 1980 at the Glen Canyon Dam in
purposely kill and maim innocent bystanders. In recent Utah to campaign against the two-month-old Reagan ad-
decades, ecowarriors have committed various forms of ministration. Later, Foreman published Ecodefense: A Field
property damage, including arson attacks on buildings Guide to Monkeywrenching (1986), which included “how
and construction equipment, tree spiking (the insertion to” information on spiking old-growth trees to discourage
of metal spikes into trees for the purpose of damaging logging companies from clearing timber in wilderness
chainsaws), destroying research materials at animal areas. Spiking trees, a tactic initiated by Earth First! in
laboratories, releasing animals from labs and fur farms, 1984, was especially controversial because the metal
vandalizing products deemed ecologically harmful such spikes could shatter chainsaw blades and put loggers at
as sports utility vehicles, and sabotaging newly built risk of injury or even death (though the logging compa-
homes on previously undeveloped land. nies were warned in advance of cutting the trees).
During the decade of the 1970s, some environmen- By the late 1980s, the FBI had infiltrated Earth First!
talists expanded their activities from lobbying to civil and indicted its top five leaders, following the sabotage of
disobedience to sabotage and other illegal activities. a ski resort in Fairfield, Arizona, the downing of power-
This trend intensified as more and more environmen- line towers near the Grand Canyon, and the planning of
talists became disillusioned by the democratic process, other such acts. All but one of the five received prison sen-
concluding that the natural environment cannot be saved tences. By this time, dissension within the ranks of Earth
by legislative compromise. For example, staunch environ- First! prompted its most radical members to leave and
mentalists disagreed with legislators who would protect join the Earth Liberation Front. The remaining members
wetland areas by preserving 90 percent and permitting of Earth First! renounced tree spiking and instead focused
10 percent to be developed. Hence, “No Compromise on civil disobedience, rallies, tree sits, and the blocking of
in Defense of Mother Earth” became the motto of the logging roads. In May 1990 in Oakland, California, the
radical environmentalist group Earth First!, founded in new leader of Earth First!, Judi Barr, was injured along
1980 by Dave Foreman and other activists who gave up with a fellow activist when a nail-bomb under the seat of
on the political process. The activist group was inspired her car exploded—the two were arrested for possessing
by Edward Abbey, the author of Desert Solitaire (1968) explosives but later won a $4.4 million lawsuit for false
and The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) and the coiner of arrest and other civil rights violations. Activists remain
the term “monkeywrenching”—sabotage on behalf of the convinced that a logging company or even the federal
environment such as destroying billboards, pulling up government planted the bomb.
surveyor stakes, putting dirt in the crankcases of earth- The Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Lib-
moving equipment, and the like. eration Front—founded in England in 1992 and 1972,
Even before Earth First!, however, others were already respectively—have been active in the United States since
engaged in radical action for the cause of environmental- the 1980s. The two groups melded into one highly de-
ism. Some Earth Day organizers, for example, in 1971 centralized organization, the ELF/ALF, which the FBI
formed the group Environmental Action, which pub- blames for more than 600 criminal acts, resulting in $43
lished Ecotage (1972), a handbook that offered sabotage million worth of property damage, from 1996 to 2001.
tips similar to Abbey’s. In the early 1970s, an anony- In what authorities consider one of the worst acts of eco-
mous activist known as “the Fox” made headlines for his terrorism, the ELF on October 18, 1998, set fires at Vail
pro-environmental exploits in the Chicago area, which Resorts in Colorado, the largest ski resort in the country,
ranged from plugging waste pipes and emission stacks at causing $12 million in damage—to protest the proposed
local manufacturing plants to returning to a company a expansion of the ski area into a lynx habitat.
barrelful of the sewage it had discharged into a river. In
Michigan, the “Billboard Bandits” brought down signs, Roger Chapman
while in Minnesota the “Bolt Weevils” toppled a dozen
power-line towers. That same decade, Eco-Commando See also: Animal Rights; Arnold, Ron; Arrow, Tre; Carter, Jim-
Force ’70, operating in the Miami area, used yellow dye my; Earth Day; Environmental Movement; Foreman, Dave;
to prove that sewage was entering nearby waterways and Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; Fur; Global Warm-
the Atlantic Ocean. ing; Hill, Julia “Butterfly”; September 11; Watt, James.
15 0 Educ ation Refor m
Further Reading Education Association (NEA) and others argued that

Chalecki, Elizabeth L. “A New Vigilance: Identifying and the federal government should play a role in funding
Reducing the Risks of Environmental Terrorism.” Global schools because the uneven distribution of wealth
Environmental Politics 2:1 (February 2002): 46–64. meant that the availability and quality of schooling was
Foreman, Dave. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Har- a function of a child’s place of residence. After World
mony Books, 1991. War II, supported by organized labor, the NEA, and the
Illegal Incidents Report: A 25-Year History of Illegal Activities by National Parent-Teacher Association, Presidents Harry
Eco and Animal Extremists. Washington, DC: Foundation for Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and their congressional
Biomedical Research, February 2006. allies attempted to enact legislation for broad federal aid
Long, Douglas. Ecoterrorism. New York: Facts On File, 2004. to education. The postwar baby boom children began
Schwartz, Daniel M. “Environmental Terrorism: Analyzing enrolling in school in 1951. The numbers of students
the Concept.” Journal of Peace Research 35:4 (July 1998): and the demand for new classrooms overwhelmed local
483–96. resources.
The argument for federal aid was simple: local dis-
tricts could not afford to educate all children equitably.
Education Refor m The argument against federal aid rested on the fear that
On January 8, 2002, with leading Democrats such federal aid would lead to federal control not only of
as Senator Ted Kennedy (MA) at his side, President schools but also of other local institutions, such as those
George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left involving race and class relationships; on objections that
Behind Act (NCLB), a reauthorization and revision of religious schools would get aid in violation of the separa-
federal education programs established under the Ele- tion of church and state; or on objections that religious
mentary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. schools would not get aid, thus forcing those who sent
Regarded as evolutionary rather than revolutionary, children there to pay for education twice, through both
NCLB was an elaboration and extension of principles taxes and tuition.
and policies embodied in the previous reauthoriza- Opponents of federal aid to education were success-
tion of ESEA, the Improving America’s Schools Act of ful in defeating proposals for broad federal assistance to
1994. Passage of NCLB represented a bipartisan con- schools. In the Great Society movement led by President
sensus that the federal government should settle some Lyndon Johnson, proponents took a new tack, passing
of the debates as to how public education in America legislation that directed federal funds to schools to address
should be conducted. particular social problems (categorical aid) rather than for
The legislation touched on the major issues relating general educational purposes. The 1965 Elementary and
to education. Those issues center on questions of control, Secondary Education Act provided funds to states and
curriculum, pedagogy, quality, assessment, and fund- public school districts to improve achievement among
ing—all of which are intertwined. The fundamental issue poor and disadvantaged students, to enhance library
is control, determining (1) what level of government, if resources, and to support research. Instead of giving
any, should regulate, evaluate, implement, and finance broad grants to states to support education, Congress
education; (2) the scope of authority of professionals in regularly amended ESEA to provide federal funds for
control of education; and (3) how should both govern- specific purposes, such as assisting schools with limited-
ment officials and professional educators consider the English-proficient (LEP) students, schools with high con-
preferences of parents. How the control issue is resolved centrations of poverty, after-school programs, programs
predicts how the other issues are resolved. Control has to improve teacher quality, programs to support school
three key aspects: authorization and funding, operations, technology infrastructure and applications, and programs
and assessment of performance. for Safe and Drug-Free Schools. By defining all of these
categories loosely, Congress enabled broad access to fed-
Authorization and Funding eral funds by states and local school districts.
The idea of mandatory schooling as a key to civic order Because federal involvement in school funding had
and national progress became a recognized American grown through implementation and subsequent reautho-
principle in the nineteenth century. Horace Mann rization of ESEA, and because he saw education as a major
and his successors in the Progressive Era succeeded in national responsibility, President Jimmy Carter created
building a public school system funded at the local the Department of Education at the cabinet level in
level. Federal involvement in education began as a data- 1979. In his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan
gathering activity with the creation of the U.S. Bureau threatened to abolish the department, but this did not
of Education in 1867. As the public school movement come to pass after he took office. Instead, his secretary of
grew in the nineteenth century and became dominant education, Terrell Bell, in 1981 appointed the National
in the first half of the twentieth century, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, whose 1983
Educ ation Refor m 151
report, A Nation at Risk, detailed the faults of American Thirty years of complaints about American schools
schooling and made a specific set of proposals for reform. came together in A Nation at Risk in 1983. The report
Addressing long-standing questions concerning the issue challenged the legacy of progressive education by chal-
of control, the report argued that state and local officials lenging its consequences. According to A Nation at Risk,
have the primary responsibility for financing and gov- professional educators had failed in their responsibility to
erning the schools; that the federal government should operate the education system. The report gave impetus
help meet the needs of key groups of students such as to school reform that led to substantial changes in ESEA
the gifted and talented, the socioeconomically disadvan- through reauthorizations in the Improving America’s
taged, minority and language-minority students, and the Schools Act of 1994; the Goals 2000: Educate America
handicapped; that the federal government’s role includes Act 1994; the School-to-Work Opportunities Act in
protecting constitutional and civil rights for students and 1994; and then the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002.
school personnel, collecting information about education A Nation at Risk asserted, “If an unfriendly power
generally, and providing funds to support curriculum had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educa-
improvement, research, and teacher training; and that tional performance that exists today, we might well have
the federal government has the primary responsibility viewed it as an act of war.” The report found curricula
to identify the national interest in education and should that were homogenized, diluted, and diffused, having
help fund and support efforts to protect and promote no central purpose; standards that focus on the minima
that interest. rather than maxima; haphazard teaching of study skills;
teachers who were drawn from the lowest academic quar-
Management and Operations ters of their classes; and teachers who had been educated
The second central component of control is manage- in “educational methods” rather than the subjects they
ment and operations. Like other professions, teaching were to teach. The commission recommended stronger
and school administration became professionalized in graduation requirements that require mastery of basic
the twentieth century, and local government officials subjects; adoption of higher and measurable standards
ceded management of schools to the experts. In the mid- for academic performance; longer school days; and more
twentieth century, it appeared that America’s schools rigorous standards for teacher selection and performance.
were under the firm control of professional educators— Rather than abandon federal involvement in education,
teachers, principals, superintendents. Professional edu- the Reagan administration began the movement to fed-
cators designed curricula and managed schools. eralize educational reform.
These professionals had reached consensus about
the purposes and methods of K–12 education under the Performance
rubric of “progressive education”: the purpose of school- A demand for demonstrable performance—the third
ing was socialization and life adjustment. Progressive element of control—by both teachers and students is the
education’s methods emphasize experiences and activities heart of NCLB. After nearly twenty years of discussion,
rather than reading and study. Particular programs were and specific attention to these matters in many states,
designed to meet the needs of students who were tracked NCLB required states to show accountability by reporting
by vocation and whether they were preparing for jobs or “adequate yearly progress.” This requirement has led to
for college. Progressive education had triumphed in the controversial high-stakes testing of students and requires
schools and in the colleges of education that prepared states to develop specific standards and competencies for
teachers. K–12 students as well as for those who would be teachers,
Progressive education had its critics, however, as in and requires teachers to address the standards.
two books published in 1953 (Arthur Bestor’s Educa- NCLB calls for implementing educational programs
tional Wastelands and Robert Hutchins’s The Conflict in and practices that have been proven effective through
Education) that argued the schools should be engaged in scientific research. Competing definitions of what com-
intellectual training, not teaching life adjustment. These prises “valid scientific research” led to charges by colleges
critics and others continued to challenge the schools’ fail- of education, whose faculty produce many of the studies
ures to equip American children to compete with other published, that government now defines what is and what
nations technologically (as evidenced by the Soviet launch is not accepted as “knowledge.”
of Sputnik in 1957). Some saw the disorderly conduct of The enhanced professional performance called for by
youth in the 1960s as evidence of the effects of progressive A Nation at Risk is specifically addressed by NCLB, which
education. Others, stimulated by such books as Rudolph requires schools to employ (but does not define) “highly
Flesch’s Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955), saw a need to qualified teachers.” The heritage of progressive education
move away from the schools’ perceived social focus and still thrives in colleges of education, where, as author Rita
back to teaching fundamental skills, coalescing in a loose Kramer found, “self-esteem has replaced understanding
“Back to Basics” movement in the 1970s. as the goal of education.” Kramer wrote, “Nowhere in
152 Ehrenreich , B arbara
America today is intellectual life deader than in our issues. She is perhaps best known for Nickel and Dimed:
schools—unless it is in our schools of education.” These On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), which chronicles
schools for teachers, it is argued, resist what they perceive her attempt to earn a living while working “under cover”
as federal encroachment on their professional turf. at a variety of minimum-wage jobs. This was followed
Those who opposed federal aid to education in the by Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the
1950s because they saw funding tied to control now New Economy (2003), Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit
could see their fears realized in NCLB, under which of the American Dream (2005), and This Land Is Their
states that do not show yearly progress risk losing federal Land: Reports from a Divided Nation (2008).
funding. If withdrawal of funds is the stick, there are also Although a trained scientist with a PhD in biology
carrots in NCLB that address aspects of control. School from Rockefeller University (1968), Ehrenreich is most
districts are allowed flexibility in their use of federal widely recognized as a political essayist and social critic
funds to improve student achievement; the categorical who frequently targets members of the political and cul-
restrictions are somewhat loosened. NCLB broadens the tural right, but especially the upper echelons of corporate
choices for parents of students attending schools where America. In the 1970s, she emerged as one of the country’s
there is a high percentage of disadvantaged or minority most vociferous feminists but was also active in various
students, through support for charter schools. Those who Marxist or socialist political movements, including the
opposed federal aid in the 1950s because they feared the New American Movement (NAM, which emerged out of
wall between church and state might be breached now Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS) and the Demo-
see their fears realized because charter schools that teach cratic Socialists of America, an organization she co-chaired
particular beliefs or focus on “character education” can with prominent leftist Michael Harrington.
be created and publicly supported. Critics accuse Ehrenreich of radically left-wing poli-
The fundamental question of the purpose of educa- tics. In the summer of 2003, the Committee for a Better
tion remains at the forefront of discussion about schooling Carolina vociferously objected to the inclusion of Nickel
in America. The cultural questions are perennial, as are and Dimed on a reading list for incoming freshmen at the
the choices offered: Is the purpose of schooling to acquire University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, denouncing
knowledge, to become socialized, or to be acculturated to a the book as a “classic Marxist rant.” The group took
specified set of values and beliefs? Is the purpose of school- out full-page ads in several North Carolina newspapers.
ing to create a cohesive society based on common public Ehrenreich responded with a scathing article in the Sep-
school educational experiences, or is it to sharpen differences tember 2003 issue of the Progressive, highlighting the
by education in specialized schools, private schools, or even presence of widespread poverty in the state.
homeschooling? And should alternative education choices Ehrenreich’s other works include Fear of Falling: The
be supported by taxpayers? Inner Life of the Middle Class (1989), Blood Rites: Origins and
Keith Swigger History of the Passions of War (1997), a collection of essays
entitled The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from
See also: Bush Family; Charter Schools; Church and State; Great a Decade of Greed (1990), Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A
Society; Homeschooling; Kennedy Family; School Vouchers. History of Women Healers (1972), For Her Own Good: 150
Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women (1978; with Deirdre
Further Reading English), and Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex
Cremin, Lawrence. The Transformation of the School: Progressivism (1986; with Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs).
in American Education, 1876–1957. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1961. Patrick Jackson
Kramer, Rita. Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America’s
Teachers. New York: Free Press, 1991. See also: Academic Freedom; Book Banning; Censorship;
Ravitch, Diane. Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms. Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Glo-
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. balization; Harrington, Michael; Marxism; Students for a
U.S. Department of Education. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative Democratic Society; Wal-Mart; Welfare Reform; Women’s
for Educational Reform: A Report to the Nation and the Secretary Studies.
by the National Commission on Higher Education. Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983. Further Reading
Ehrenreich, Barbara. “The Anti-Christ of North Carolina.”
Progressive, September 2003.
Ehrenreich, Barbara ———. “Class Struggle.” Progressive, November 2003.
Barbara Alexander Ehrenreich, born on August 26, Sherman, Scott. “Class Warrior: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Singu-
1941, in Butte, Montana, is the author of over a dozen lar Crusade.” Columbia Journalism Review 42 (November/
books on topics mainly relating to class and gender December 2003).
Elec tion of 20 0 0 153
E i s e n h o we r, D w i g h t D. friend and mentor General George C. Marshall, suggest-

The 1952 election victory of Republican presidential ing that he was communistic, the president failed to come
nominee and World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Marshall’s defense. Although critics view Eisenhower’s
popularly known as “Ike,” ended two decades of inaction as timid capitulation to his Republican conserva-
Democratic control of the White House. Champions tive base, others say he exemplified a high-minded and
of Eisenhower’s political legacy point to the country’s pragmatic style of presidential leadership.
postwar economic boom, eight years of relative peace In his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961, the
in a challenging Cold War atmosphere, and the quick former general cautioned of a new force in American
cessation of the Korean War. Defenders cite his two public life. “In the councils of government,” he declared,
terms for the calming influence of an experienced “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
organizational leader, while critics view the period as a influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-
“do nothing” era that perpetuated the nation’s civil rights industrial complex.” The last phrase, which has remained
shortcomings. Although detractors have condemned the part of the country’s antiwar lexicon ever since, serves as
Eisenhower administration for its heavy reliance on the an ongoing warning against overly influential military
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert interest groups, particularly given Eisenhower’s long and
operations and implement regime change abroad, they celebrated military record. Under his watch, however,
applaud his Farewell Address of January 1961, in which America was said to have lost its innocence in foreign
he warned of the “military-industrial complex.” affairs with the CIA’s role in overthrowing the govern-
Dwight David Eisenhower, the son of a railroad hand, ments of Guatemala (1953) and Iran (1954).
was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. Raised
in Abilene, Kansas, he attended the U.S. Military Acad- R. Matthew Beverlin
emy at West Point, graduating in 1915. A distinguished
military career culminated in his service as supreme See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Central Intelli-
commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World gence Agency; Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; McCarthy,
War II. He commanded the invasion of North Africa Joseph; McCarthyism; Soviet Union and Russia.
in November 1942, the D-Day invasion of Normandy
in June 1944, and the sweep of Allied troops through Further Reading
Europe to the surrender of Germany in May 1945. After Broadwater, Jeff. Eisenhower and the Anti-Communist Crusade.
the war, he served as president of Columbia University Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
(1948–1953), his tenure interrupted by a leave of absence Duram, James C. A Moderate Among Extremists. Chicago: Nelson-
to serve as the founding commander of the North Atlantic Hall, 1981.
Treaty Organization (NATO) (1950–1952). Eisenhower Fishman, Ethan M. The Prudential Presidency: An Aristotelian
died on March 28, 1969, at Walter Reed Army Hospital Approach to Presidential Leadership. Westport, CT: Praeger,
in Washington, D.C. 2001.
Although rarely accused of overt racism, President Larson, Arthur. Eisenhower: The President Nobody Knew. New
Eisenhower has been accused of remaining silent about York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968.
racially motivated crimes, being slow to pursue a fair Pauley, Garth E. The Modern Presidency and Civil Rights: Rhetoric
employment commission, and failing to voice support for on Race from Roosevelt to Nixon. College Station: Texas A&M
the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation University Press, 2001.
ruling by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, in 1957
he deployed federal troops to enforce school desegregation
in Little Rock, Arkansas; ended segregation in the Dis-
Election of 2000
trict of Columbia and the armed forces; eradicated racial The U.S. presidential election of 2000, pitting
discrimination in government contracting; and appointed Democratic candidate and sitting vice president Al
African Americans to federal positions in unprecedented Gore against the Republican nominee and governor of
high numbers. In the debate among historians, one side Texas, George W. Bush, was one of the closest and most
argues that President Eisenhower did what was practical contentious in American history. Long-term effects of
at the time, while the other side points to his failure to the election have included an increased readiness on
prepare the country for a new era in race relations. the part of candidates from both parties to seek judicial
With regard to McCarthyism and the anticommunist remedies to electoral discrepancies and the cynical
fervor of the times, Eisenhower’s private attitudes and sentiment of many voters that an individual’s cast ballot
public actions have been characterized as inconsistent. may not necessarily get counted.
He has been faulted for failing to publicly challenge the Bush officially won the election with 271 electoral
excesses of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI). For ex- votes to Gore’s 266 (with one abstention, a Gore elector
ample, when McCarthy railed against Eisenhower’s close from the District of Columbia). For only the third time
15 4 Elec tion of 20 0 0
in U.S. history, however, the winning candidate in the

Electoral College actually lost the popular vote. (The
previous occurrences were in 1876 and 1888.) Bush to-
taled 50,456,002 (47.87 percent) popular votes to Gore’s
50,999,897 (48.38 percent), a national differential of
543,895 (1.08 percent). The closeness of the national
vote was paralleled by the results in many states as well.
Specifically, the election came down to a multiweek
legal battle over the balloting in Florida. It eventually
culminated in a U.S. Supreme Court determination to
halt a limited hand recount that had been ordered by the
Florida Supreme Court—giving the state’s decisive 25
electoral votes to Bush.
Election Night Controversies
The events of election night set the tone for the The election of 2000, the most contentious in modern U.S.
subsequent battle over Florida (and, in many ways, the history, exposed the deep political and social differences that
political climate of the country for years to come). Indeed, divided the American people. In mid-December, the two sides
much of the rancor and frustration that developed was converged at the Supreme Court, where the election result
no doubt linked to the fact that both sides appeared was decided. (David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)
on the brink of victory at different points that night.
Initially, the networks were calling Florida for Gore,
which would have made him the victor in the Electoral trolled by Republicans, while the Florida Supreme Court
College. As the night wore on, however, vote totals in was dominated by Democrats. The ultimate adjudicator
the state narrowed, then shifted in Bush’s direction, of the process was the U.S. Supreme Court, which was
causing the networks to “take away” Florida’s electors controlled by Republican appointees.
from the Gore column and then to hand the state to If these affiliations were insufficient to spur suspi-
Bush (at least briefly). cions about the results, the fact that a cousin of Bush’s,
In the early hours of Wednesday, November 8, the John Prescott Ellis, was in charge of making election
networks began calling the election for Bush on the predi- projections (predicting state-by-state outcomes on the
cate that he would win Florida by roughly 50,000 votes. basis of voter polling) at the Fox News Channel raised
Vice President Gore called Governor Bush to concede, but further concerns. It was Ellis who made the Fox decision
before the vice president made his concession speech, the to call Florida for Bush—making it the first network to
Florida returns showed a far smaller victory margin for do so that night, though the others eventually followed
the Republican challenger. Gore called back and retracted suit. Some have argued that by making the initial call,
his concession. According to the Associated Press, he told Ellis and the Fox Network established the narrative of
an exasperated Bush, “You don’t have to get snippy about Bush as winner and Gore as sore loser.
this.” Bush informed Gore that he had been told by his
brother, Jeb (then governor of Florida), that Bush had won Hanging Chads and Federal Intervention
in Florida. Gore replied, “Let me explain something— In the wake of the election turmoil, the Gore campaign
your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on initiated a strategy of seeking recounts in four heavily
this.” From there it went to the courthouse. Democratic counties of Florida: Palm Beach, Dade,
The fact that Jeb Bush was governor of the state Broward, and Volusia. Machine and hand recounts
that ended up deciding the election for his brother com- were undertaken, and a number of lawsuits were filed
pounded the concerns of some Democrats that Election over issues of recount methods in different counties.
Day chicanery had taken place. Nor was the partisan Heated discussions as to how to count “chads” (the
storyline limited to Florida’s governor. Its secretary of paper rectangles from punch-card ballots) ensued. It was
state, Katherine Harris, was a Republican and co-chair of unclear, for example, whether a chad that was dimpled
George Bush’s Florida campaign. (In addition, Harris was but not punched out should be counted as a vote for
accused prior to the election of zealously purging voter the given candidate. The question of hanging, dimpled,
lists of so-called disqualified voters, many of whom were “pregnant,” and other types of chads became a topic of
African American and most likely to vote Democratic.) national humor. In any event, the central issue in the
It was Harris who officially certified the results of the recount process was that of “voter intent.”
Florida balloting in Bush’s favor. The state legislature, a Another controversy arose over the so-called butterfly
potential arbiter of the state’s electoral vote, was also con- ballot used in Palm Beach County and the unusually high
Elec tion of 20 0 0 155
number of votes in that county for third-party candidate More important, Nader won 97,488 votes in Florida,
Patrick Buchanan. The ballot was confusing, it was al- more than enough to have given Gore the edge in that
leged, leading many elderly voters to mistakenly vote for state.
Buchanan when they thought they were voting for Gore. Bush’s reelection in 2004 was greeted by Republicans
The irony of the situation is that the ballot was designed as vindication, as well as a validation that he was the
specifically to make it more readable for elderly voters. leader the majority wanted. but the stigma that Bush was
Even Buchanan, who over the years had been accused of “selected” by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court
anti-Semitism, publicly acknowledged that the heavily continued to linger into his second term. The Iraq War
Jewish precincts he won in Palm Beach County clearly and the influence of neoconservatism on foreign policy,
showed a mistake and that those voters had intended to Bush’s appointment of federal judges (including two on
cast ballots for Gore. the high court), and the undermining of environmental
After nineteen days of court challenges, appeals, and regulations, among other things, all made Gore’s defeat
recount arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to in 2000 especially bitter to Democrats.
hear an appeal by the Bush camp of a Florida Supreme The 2000 elections also brought into the American
Court order for a limited hand recount in counties with political lexicon the idea of red and blue states. While in
significant numbers of undervotes (ballots that lacked a the past the television networks had alternated colors to
registered vote for president, but that had votes for other represent the two parties in their electoral maps, the 2000
offices). On December 12, 2000—more than a month election solidified the association of red with conserva-
after the election—the high court ruled in Bush v. Gore tive, Republican states and blue with liberal, Democratic
that the Florida Supreme Court’s order to recount ballots states. Among actively partisan segments of the popula-
was unconstitutional—that is, that recounting only in tion, the designation of red stater or blue stater came
selected counties would be a violation of equal protec- to be considered a badge of honor. Some commentators
tion guarantees under the Fourteenth Amendment. The have represented the division as clear and useful, while
decision in effect awarded Florida’s electoral votes to the others have observed that most states are actually purple
Bush-Cheney ticket. The official margin of victory in (a mixture of red and blue).
Florida was a mere 537 votes. One irony of the overall Despite voting reforms—including the federal Help
legal dispute is that the Republicans, who generally America Vote Act (2002), which appropriated $4 billion
emphasize states’ rights, appealed to the federal courts for states to standardize national elections by upgrading
after the state judiciary ruled against them. voting systems—some subsequent elections have been
In the years since the election, Bush’s detractors beset by the disappearance of votes from electronic voting
have continued to assert that he was “selected” for the machines. Such machines, it was hoped, would eliminate
presidency rather than “elected” to it. In 2001, a media the ambiguity of hanging chads in punch-card balloting,
consortium that initiated its own recount found that Bush but many people were—and remain—concerned about
would have won the election even if the Supreme Court any trend that would totally eliminate a paper record
had not intervened (i.e., had the recount gone forward in of votes cast. And perhaps inevitably, the experience
the four counties ordered by the Florida Supreme Court). of 2000 renewed calls from some quarters to eliminate
However, the research also indicated that a statewide re- the Electoral College and determine the outcome of
count likely would have resulted in a Gore victory. Thus, presidential elections purely on the basis of a national
there were legitimate arguments to be made on behalf of majority vote.
both candidates, and the lack of closure contributed to Steven L. Taylor
lasting bitterness and partisanship.
See also: Buchanan, Pat; Bush Family; Democratic Party;
Nader as Spoiler Gore, Al; Judicial Wars; Nader, Ralph; Neoconservatism;
Beyond the traditional Democratic-Republican divide, Red and Blue States; Rehnquist, William H.; Republican
the election dispute also created conflict on the left. The Party; Thomas, Clarence.
Green Party and its candidate, Ralph Nader, had used
2000 to pursue partial public funding for the party in Further Reading
the 2004 election, which required at least 5 percent of Ackerman, Bruce, ed. Bush v. Gore: The Question of Legitimacy.
the national vote in the 2000 contests. As such, many New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Democrats have criticized Nader supporters (most of Bugliosi, Vincent. The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court
whom, it is assumed, would have voted for Gore if they Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President. New York:
did not have a Green candidate) for helping to elect Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001.
Bush, a logic that created lasting rancor among some Caesar, James W., and Andrew E. Busch. The Perfect Tie: The
progressives. Nader won 2,882,955 votes nationally True Story of the 2000 Presidential Election. Lanham, MD:
(or 2.74 percent—far short of the desired 5 percent). Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
15 6 Elec tion of 20 08
Crigler, Ann N., Marion R. Just, and Edward J. McCaffery, eds. tion from former New York City mayor Rudolph Giu-
Rethinking the Vote: The Politics and Prospects of Election Reform. liani, who gained national attention in the days following
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New
Posner, Richard. Breaking the Deadlock: The 2000 Election, the York City and Washington, D.C. In December 2006,
Constitution, and the Courts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni- polls showed Giuliani tied with McCain, as the party was
versity Press, 2001. split, with 28 percent backing one candidate and another
28 percent the other. Many Republicans remained unde-
cided, while every other announced candidate garnered
Election of 2008 less than 5 percent of support. Giuliani, a former prosecu-
The national election of 2008 continued the culture tor and known for “law and order,” was also on record as a
wars as Democratic candidate Barack Obama made supporter of abortion rights, which raised doubts among
history in becoming the first African American to be religious conservatives. Other contenders included for-
elected president of the United States. The election mer Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a successful
increased the Democrats’ majority in both the House business executive and investor who had support in the
of Representatives and the Senate. This contest was the business community; former senator Fred Thompson of
latest battle in the culture wars between Republicans and Tennessee, who had become known as a television actor;
Democrats that had begun in the 1960s and had been former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a one-time
further inflamed by widespread disapproval of President Baptist minister; and Congressman Ron Paul of Texas,
George W. Bush’s Republican administration. an antiwar libertarian.
With Bush increasingly unpopular during the course The Republican candidates tended to agree on most
of his second term, GOP nominee John McCain sought issues, calling for lower taxes and a reduction of the size
to distance himself from the incumbent president while and spending of government. However, their position
maintaining the loyalty of the party’s conservative base. was undermined by the record of the Bush administra-
Meanwhile, Obama narrowly defeated Senator Hillary tion, which had amassed enormous budget deficits, and
Rodham Clinton of New York, the former first lady, in by indications that the economy was entering a serious
a grueling primary battle. Although Obama’s campaign recession. As the campaign progressed, GOP candidates
sought to downplay culture war issues, his race, name, downplayed economic issues and emphasized their op-
and background became the subject of such partisan at- position to abortion, illegal immigration, terrorism, and
tack. In the end, Obama’s charisma and the strength of the prospect of losing the Iraq War. A problem for all
his campaign organization, combined with a faltering GOP candidates was the unpopularity of the president—
economy, enabled him to defeat McCain. by 2008 polls showed that only about 25 percent of
Americans approved of Bush’s performance as president,
Republican Primaries while 70 percent disapproved.
Even though the GOP held the White House, it began Most of the excitement in the Republican campaign
with several disadvantages. The 2008 election was occurred in 2007, before the primaries began. Twenty-one
the first since 1928 in which neither an incumbent separate debates and sharp-edged attack advertisements
president nor a present or former vice president sought revealed deep splits between party factions. Giuliani,
the nomination. Bush was completing his second term Romney, and Thompson in turn rose high in the polls,
and could not run for a third. Vice President Dick then plummeted as Republican voters saw more of
Cheney declined to run, on his age and health concerns. them. Evangelical Christian Huckabee and libertarian
In addition, the Bush-Cheney team was widely Paul inspired minority factions but could not win over
unpopular, and no other administration figure sought a majority. This left McCain, who nearly lost the race
the nomination. when his campaign ran out of money in mid-2007 but
Best positioned to win the wide-open nomination finally prevailed as the other candidates fell in the polls.
was Senator John McCain of Arizona, but he had to Seeking to win the party’s core, McCain emphasized his
overcome conservative doubts. McCain boasted a heroic experiences as a senator and his aggressive patriotism.
biography as a navy aviator who was held as a prisoner He stepped back from his earlier disagreements with the
of war in Vietnam for more than five years, and he had Bush administration on tax cuts and extreme interroga-
run a strong second to President Bush in the 2000 GOP tion methods. He also muted his earlier lenient position
primaries. Although the media and many independents on the treatment of undocumented aliens.
respected his maverick spirit, which caused him to buck The Republican primaries of 2008 proved anti
his own party on a few reformist issues, his unpredict- climactic. McCain and Giuliani skipped the Iowa cau-
ability and sometimes moderate stances caused some cuses on January 3, while Huckabee mobilized cultural
Republicans to question his conservative convictions. conservatives to win a surprising victory with 34 percent
McCain faced opposition for the Republican nomina- of the vote, and Romney finished second with 25 percent.
Elec tion of 20 08 157
Republican candidate John McCain (left) and Democratic nominee Barack Obama (right) meet in the first of three presidential
debates in September 2008. In what many called the most important election in decades, both candidates offered themselves
as agents of change. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)
In the New Hampshire primary on January 8, McCain lived for four years as a child in Indonesia with his mother
outpolled Romney 37 percent to 32 percent; Hucka- and Muslim stepfather. Young, intelligent, and eloquent,
bee finished third with 11 percent. McCain then beat Obama issued an optimistic but vague call for “change”
Huckabee in the South Carolina primary, 33 percent to 30 and “hope.” As a campaigner, he avoided the labels of the
percent. In late January, Thompson, Giuliani, and Rom- culture war, but as a black man with a Muslim-sounding
ney all ended their candidacies and endorsed McCain, middle name and a childhood spent partly in Asia, he
leaving only Huckabee and Paul to dog the front runner. was soon a target of cultural conservatives.
McCain won every primary and clinched the nomination The other major candidates included establishment
on March 4. He then waited as the media focused on the Democrats and fringe candidates. Among the establish-
spectacularly close Democratic race. ment candidates were North Carolina senator John Ed-
wards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee;
Democratic Primaries Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico; and senators
With an unpopular Republican president, discouraging Joe Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Con-
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a faltering economy, necticut. The fringe candidates were Congressman Den-
Democrats anticipated victory in 2008. The seemingly nis Kucinich of Ohio and former senator Mike Gravel
inevitable favorite was Senator Hillary Rodham of Alaska. The Democrats agreed broadly on the issues,
Clinton, the first woman candidate to seriously pursue criticizing Bush’s policies on the economy, energy, health
the nomination of a major party. At first the former first care, and foreign relations (particularly Iraq).
lady deemphasized her gender, presenting herself as The Democratic campaign began to take shape in the
experienced, competent, moderate, and tough, calling aftermath of the 2006 midterm elections. In December
for a return to the “glory days” of the Clinton era. 2006, a Gallup poll of voters gave Clinton 33 percent,
Leading the pack behind Clinton was another U.S. Obama 20 percent, and Edwards 8 percent of the party
senator with a historic candidacy, Barack Hussein Obama vote. The main pre-primary action came during twenty-
of Illinois. The son of a white American mother and a six candidate debates. Obama tapped into widespread dis-
black Kenyan father, Obama was born in Hawaii and satisfaction, especially about the Iraq War, which Clinton
15 8 Elec tion of 20 08
had supported. Despite his limited experience, Obama conspicuously absent. John McCain gave a measured,
emphasized his early opposition to the intervention and positive speech accepting the Republican nomination,
succeeded in creating a cohesive, polished campaign but the rest of the convention was typical culture wars
organization. The Clinton organization, by contrast, with attacks on Obama led by McCain’s vice-presidential
was torn by personality and strategy conflicts. Obama choice, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. A right-wing
surprised the party by matching Clinton in fundraising populist, Palin personified the rural, white, working-
during 2007, each raising more than $100 million, an class, evangelical-Christian wing of the GOP. Her folksy
all-time record. Altogether, Democrats contributed more but hard-hitting speech attacking Obama appealed to
than twice as much to their candidates as Republicans part of the Republican base but was criticized by many
did to theirs. others. Young and inexperienced on the national stage,
The 2008 Democratic primaries were unprecedented Palin fired up social conservatives against Obama, but the
in voter turnout, media interest, and the closeness of the hope that she might win over many of Hillary Clinton’s
race. In the Iowa caucuses on January 3, Obama won a female supporters proved to be unfounded.
surprising victory with 38 percent of the vote, Edwards
received 30 percent, and Clinton 29 percent. In New General Election Campaign
Hampshire, Obama had the lead in early polling, but The general election campaign focused the spotlight on
Clinton won a comeback victory on January 8, with 39 McCain and Obama. Minor-party candidates made little
percent of the vote to Obama’s 37 percent. In South impact and combined to win less than 2 percent of the
Carolina on January 26, Obama mobilized black voters vote. McCain had few winning issues, as voters general-
and won 55 percent of the vote, doubling Clinton’s total. ly preferred Democratic positions on domestic matters.
The South Carolina results prompted Senator Edward Even traditional Republican issues—defense, taxes, and
Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the economy—were no longer clear winners for McCain.
the late president John F. Kennedy, to endorse Obama. Stymied, his campaign tried to convert the economic is-
Meanwhile, John Edwards announced his withdrawal sue into a cultural one by celebrating “Joe the Plumber”
from the race. On February 5, “Super Tuesday,” when (Samuel J. Wurzelbacher), a white Ohio worker who
Democratic primaries were held in twenty-three states, had criticized Obama’s tax plan as “socialistic.”
Obama won thirteen of the contests, taking a lead in the The McCain-Palin campaign focused largely on
delegate count. questioning Obama’s character. One study found that 100
By mid-February, it was apparent that Democratic percent of McCain’s commercials in October were attacks
voters were splitting along ideological, cultural, and racial on Obama. Palin repeatedly accused Obama of “palling
lines. Obama won majorities of liberals, professionals, around with terrorists”—a reference to his work in the
city dwellers, blacks, and young voters; Clinton did best 1990s with Professor William Ayers, a 1960s radical.
among moderate Democrats, the working class, the less McCain tried to differentiate himself from Obama by
educated, rural voters, women, and older voters. Seeking claiming that he “put country first” and was not “willing
to capitalize on these strengths, Clinton began to present to lose a war to win an election.” At rallies, McCain-Palin
herself as a populist sympathetic to the working poor, supporters maligned their Democratic opponent as an
while criticizing Obama as an “elitist.” She also con- un-American terrorist, claimed that he was secretly a
demned Obama’s friendship with the African-American Muslim, and shouted violent threats.
minister of his church in Chicago, the Reverend Jeremiah The McCain-Palin tactics, however, appeared to
Wright, who had been recorded making antiwhite and many to be desperate and ineffective. Palin came to
anti-American statements. The controversy compelled be seen as a flawed messenger for a campaign based on
Obama to make a long and serious address on the issue character. Her few media interviews revealed a lack of
of race and racial attitudes in his life. political knowledge, and she was under investigation in
On June 3, Obama finally won enough delegates Alaska over her dismissal of a state trooper who was her
to clinch the nomination. A month later, he drew huge former brother-in-law. It was also revealed that Palin’s
crowds while traveling in the Middle East and Europe. seventeen-year-old daughter was pregnant and unmar-
The principal question remaining was whether Clinton ried, and that the Republican National Committee had
and her supporters would back him against McCain. In spent more than $150,000 on Palin’s clothes during the
late August, at the Democratic National Convention in campaign. In view of these revelations, Palin became a
Denver, Hillary and Bill Clinton gave strong speeches popular subject for television comics. McCain and his
supporting Obama’s candidacy. Obama chose Joe Biden, advisers received increasing criticism for having chosen
a veteran senator from Delaware, as his running mate. her, even among conservatives and Republicans.
The Republicans held their national convention in The U.S. financial crisis, which exploded in Septem-
Minneapolis–St. Paul the following week, September ber, soon overwhelmed all other campaign issues. Such
1–4. The unpopular President George W. Bush was venerable financial institutions as Fannie Mae, Freddie
Endangered Spec ies Ac t 15 9
Mac, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch all collapsed, E n d a n g e r e d S p e c i e s Ac t

and the stock market plummeted. The situation made The Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 is
McCain’s repeated claim, “The fundamentals of the econ- comprehensive federal legislation designed to protect all
omy are strong,” seem ridiculous. As Congress discussed species in the United States designated as endangered by
a $700 billion bailout bill in late September, McCain protecting habitats critical to their survival. Congress
temporarily suspended his campaign to fly to Washington passed the ESA with near unanimity in both the House
to join the talks and threatened to cancel his scheduled (390–12) and Senate (95–0), and the bill was signed into
debate with Obama. His role in the bailout controversy law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973.
proved inconsequential, however, and he ended up ap- The ESA was part of an unprecedented period in U.S.
pearing with Obama in the presidential debate after all. environmental policy characterized by a flurry of major
The series of three debates between the candidates did legislation. Of the dozens of laws enacted during this
little to change the polls, which showed Obama leading period—including the National Environmental Policy
by double digits. The Obama campaign continued to Act (1969), Clean Air Act (1970), and Clean Water Act
raise record-setting amounts of money, including $150 (1977)—the Endangered Species Act proved to be one
million in September alone, giving him an additional of the most controversial. Opponents have claimed that
advantage in the closing days of the campaign. ESA is a tool unjustly used to bar commercial access to
On November 4, Obama won the presidency by a public lands and deprive private property owners of their
comfortable margin, and Democrats increased their ma- rights. Ironically, the legislation is also controversial
jorities in both houses of Congress. Obama beat McCain among some environmentalists, who claim that ESA is
by 53–46 percent in the popular vote and by 365–173 ineffective at protecting species, for several reasons: the
in the Electoral College, winning Ohio and Florida and length of time necessary to get a species added to the
several states that had been dependably Republican. endangered list, inadequate protection of habitats once
Obama was helped by the worsening economy, as 63 the species is listed, and perverse incentives for private
percent of voters chose it as the main issue, compared landowners to destroy endangered species’ habitats.
to less than 10 percent who identified the Iraq War, Under ESA, a species may be listed as either endangered
terrorism, health care, or energy. Nevertheless, cultural or threatened, for the purpose of assisting in the recovery
identification still appeared to motivate voting behav- of its natural population. The ESA defines an endangered
ior, as Obama won blacks by a 95–4 margin, Latinos by species as one “in danger of extinction throughout all or
66–31, those aged 18–29 by 66–32, urban residents by a significant portion of its range.” A threatened species
63–35, and women by 56–43. Religious identification re- is any deemed “likely to become an endangered species
mained a key political determinant, as Obama lost among through all or a significant portion of its range.” The U.S.
evangelical Christians by 26–73, while winning Jews by Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) administers the ESA
78–21 and the religiously unaffiliated by 75–23. On a for all terrestrial and freshwater species, the National
broader scale, however, Obama won every major region Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for all marine species.
of the country by at least 10 points, except for the South, Once a species is listed, the secretary of the USFWS or
which he lost 54–45. Even there, he carried Virginia and NMFS must designate critical habitats—the terrestrial
North Carolina. In congressional elections, Democrats or aquatic area necessary for the existence of the species—
raised their majority to 256–178 in the House (with one and develop a suitable recovery plan.
vacancy) and to 56–41 in the Senate. In addition, two Under the terms of the ESA, the decision to list a spe-
seated independents caucused with the Democrats, and cies must be based entirely on science; economic factors
one election was still disputed. may not be taken into account. This stipulation has been
George Rising a major focal point of conflict from the outset. Opponents
of the measure have argued that the economic conse-
See also: Clinton, Hillary; Election of 2000; McCain, John; quences of listing a species as endangered or threatened
Obama, Barack; Palin, Sarah. deserve consideration. Proponents insist that economic
concerns should not be taken into account during the
Further Reading listing process—which may determine the survival or
Gibbs, Nancy, et al. “Election 2008.” Time, November 17, extinction of a particular species—but that the develop-
2008. ment of critical habitat and recovery plans take economic
Thomas, Evan. “A Long Time Coming”: The Inspiring, Combative factors into account by allowing the incidental harm of
2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama. New an endangered or threatened species.
York: PublicAffairs, 2009. Two of the most controversial cases involving
Todd, Chuck, and Sheldon Gawiser. How Barack Obama Won: A the listing of a species and the conflict over economic
State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Election. New York: considerations involved the snail darter in Tennessee
Vintage Books, 2009. and the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. In 1973,
16 0 Endangered Spec ies Ac t
ecologist Michael Johnson discovered the snail darter, a National Research Council. Science and the Endangered Species Act.
small brown-gray fish, upstream of the Tennessee Valley Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1995.
Authority’s development project for the Tellico Dam Goble, Dale D., J. Michael Scott, and Frank W. Davis, eds. The
on the Little Tennessee River. The species was quickly Endangered Species Act at Thirty, Volume 1: Renewing the Conser-
listed as endangered, resulting in the issuance of an vation Promise. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2005.
injunction to halt construction of the nearly complete
$160 million dam. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed
the injunction to halt construction on the grounds that
English as the Official
economic concerns should not be taken into account, Language
but Congress eventually passed an exception in this case Since the 1980s, a movement referred to as “official
to allow completion of the dam. In the end, the snail English” by proponents—and “English-only” by crit-
darter was transplanted to the nearby Hiwassee River ics—has actively pushed for codifying English as the
(and later, as it turned out, the fish was found existing national language of the United States. Neither the
in other waterways; in 1984 it was downgraded from U.S. Constitution nor any federal statutes mandate an
endangered to threatened). The case of the spotted owl official language. In 1983, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)
presented a similar controversy. The northern spotted founded the advocacy group U.S. English, Inc., based
owl is dependent on old-growth forest, which is highly in Washington, D.C., to lobby for passage of such a
coveted by the timber industry. The owl was listed as measure. Another prominent group in the movement
a threatened species in 1990, which promptly halted is called ProEnglish, founded in 1994 and based in Ar-
logging of critical habitat in national forestland. Many lington, Virginia.
timber workers were left without work, causing oppo- The first attempt to legislate English as the national
nents of the ESA to cite this case as an example of the language began in 1981, when U.S. Senator S.I. Hayaka-
far-reaching—and, for some, devastating—economic wa (R-CA) introduced a constitutional amendment. “Of-
implications of the law. ficial English” bills and constitutional amendments have
As of the spring 2007, 1,880 species in the United been introduced in every subsequent session of Congress,
States had been officially listed as threatened or en- but none has come close to final enactment. In 1996, the
dangered. In the ESA’s thirty-four-year history, only House of Representatives approved such a bill, but it was
twenty-three species had been dropped from the list. never voted on by the Senate. Federal reluctance to make
With the recovery of species being the paramount goal of English the official language contrasts with sentiment in
the legislation, some environmentalist critics cite this as thirty states and a number of municipalities that have
evidence that the ESA has failed to live up to its purpose. enacted such measures, including Hawaii’s designa-
Moreover, some environmentalists fear that the designation of both English and Hawaiian as the state’s official
tion of critical habitats leads certain landowners to destroy languages. In 2002, the Superior Court of Alaska struck
habitat on private land prior to the listing of a species, down that state’s English initiative, which had been
so as to avoid government regulation. At the same time, passed by 68 percent of voters, ruling in favor of Yupik
however, only nine listed species have been removed from Eskimos, the plaintiffs in the case.
the endangered species list due to extinction—which Activists for “official English” emphasize the cause
proponents of the ESA point to as evidence of legislative of national unity, asserting that the country could split
success. One success story is that of the bald eagle, which into diverse linguistic communities without an official
was removed from the endangered species list in 2007 national language. In support of their argument, they
after four decades of protection, growing in number from point to countries such as Belgium and Canada, where
about 400 to 10,000. Regardless of one’s perspective, the language diversity has contributed to civil unrest, inde-
Endangered Species Act is likely to remain a contentious pendence movements, and other forms of societal insta-
issue in U.S. environmental policy as long as it remains bility. Not having an official language, they contend,
in effect. creates little incentive for immigrants to learn English,
David N. Cherney making assimilation more difficult. They further argue
that an informed citizenry depends on command of the
See also: Arnold, Ron; Environmental Movement; Forests, English language.
Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; Nixon, Richard; Watt, The cost of disseminating information in other lan-
James. guages is another focus of “official English” proponents.
Taxpayers’ money is wasted, they argue, if matters of
Further Reading society have to be translated and posted in different
Barker, Rocky. Saving All the Parts: Reconciling Economics and languages. While proponents concede that materials
the Endangered Species Act. Washington, DC: Island Press, should be published in other languages for the promotion
1993. of public health, safety, tourism, and foreign language
Enola Gay E x hibit 161
instruction in school, they believe that non-English pub- the museum were good for many years. Largely run by
lications should be discontinued in other areas. Especially former military personnel, the museum showcased avia-
irksome to “official English” advocates are mandates for tion’s technological accomplishments. Tensions between
bilingual education and bilingual ballots. the two organizations began to build in 1986, however,
Those who oppose what they call “English-only” when Cornell University astrophysicist Martin Harwit
argue that a majority of immigrants eventually do learn was chosen over an Air Force general as the new museum
English. As for the fear of national fragmentation, they director.
note that the United States has always had non-English– Harwit viewed the museum’s mission as educational
speaking populations who have lived as peaceable citizens and believed that it should provide context to the exhibits
and there is no reason to believe that this trend will not through references to the impact of aviation and space
continue. Moreover, they argue, multilingual countries technology on society. When the first draft of the Enola
are not necessarily unstable, citing Switzerland as an Gay exhibit script was released in 1993, it reflected a
example, and monolingual countries are not necessarily scholarly historical interpretation of events and was read
more stable. Finally, they maintain, banning the use of by some as a criticism of American actions at the end of
other languages violates individual freedom of speech World War II. The text included the Japanese perspec-
and squelches ethnic pride and cultural diversity, while tive and suggested that the atomic bomb attack may not
publishing official information in several languages have been necessary. Correll condemned the exhibit as
better informs people of their rights and obligations as anti-American, and veterans groups such as the American
citizens. Legion joined in the criticism.
Elliot L. Judd The battle heated up when Republicans took over
both houses of Congress in the November 1994 election
See also: Gender-Inclusive Language; Hispanic Americans; and Newt Gingrich became House Speaker. After a po-
Immigration Policy; Multicultural and Ethnic Studies. litical campaign that consisted largely of attacks on the
cultural left and its negative influence on American life
Further Reading and institutions, the Enola Gay exhibit was an obvious
Baron, Dennis. The English-Only Question: An Official Language for target. In August 1994, twenty-four members of the
Americans? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. House of Representatives sent a letter to Smithsonian sec-
Crawford, James, ed. Language Loyalties: A Source Book on the retary Robert McCormick Adams criticizing the proposed
Official English Controversy. Chicago: University of Chicago exhibit. In May 1995, the Senate Rules and Administra-
Press, 1992. tion Committee held hearings on the management of the
ProEnglish Web site. www.proenglish.org. Smithsonian Institution. The committee made clear that
U.S. English, Inc., Web site. www.us-english.org. what they viewed as “politically correct” exhibits would
not be funded by the government.
The Enola Gay script was rewritten five times and
Enola Gay Exhibit still failed to satisfy its critics. On January 31, 1995, the
The Enola Gay, the B-29 aircraft that carried the Smithsonian announced that it would mount a scaled-
atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, entered back exhibit that would exclude interpretive elements.
the culture wars in 1994 when it was to be exhibited
at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Jana Brubaker
in Washington, D.C. The controversy, which coincided
with the fiftieth anniversary of the two atomic bombings See also: American Exceptionalism; Anti-Intellectualism;
of Japan at the end of World War II, pitted academics Censorship; Cold War; Gingrich, Newt; Hiroshima and Na-
and peace groups against conservatives and veterans gasaki; Japan; Nuclear Age; Political Correctness; Republican
groups. While the curators of the proposed exhibit Party; Revisionist History; World War II Memorial.
argued that they were presenting a balanced view of the
event and the context surrounding it, those who opposed Further Reading
it claimed that it reflected “revisionist history.” Bird, Kai, and Lawrence Lifschultz, eds. Hiroshima’s Shadow.
John T. Correll, editor of the Air Force Association’s Stony Creek, CT: Pamphleteer’s Press, 1998.
(AFA’s) Air Force Magazine, led the charge against the Kohn, Richard H. “History and the Culture Wars: The Case of
exhibit. Although often described as a veterans organiza- the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay Exhibition.” Journal
tion, the AFA has close ties to the U.S. Air Force and the of American History 82:3 (December 1995): 1036–63.
defense industry and is also closely linked to the National O’Reilly, Charles T., and William A. Rooney. The Enola Gay and
Air and Space Museum. The founder of the AFA, Hap the Smithsonian Institution. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005.
Arnold, successfully lobbied Congress to establish the Otto, Mayr. “The Enola Gay Fiasco: History, Politics, and the
museum in 1946, and relations between the AFA and Museum.” Technology and Culture 39:3 (July 1998): 462–73.
162 Env ironmental Movement
E nv i r o n m e n t a l M ove m e n t Gordon Edward’s conclusion that there was no positive

Whatever its consequences for the ecological well-being link between DDT use and human health. With support
of the nation, the modern environmental movement has from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the chemical
polarized popular and political opinion in the United companies argued that the benefits of DDT as a ma-
States since its origins in the mid-twentieth century. larial mosquito control far outweighed any potential
Beginning as a grassroots movement concerned with risk to wildlife populations. Nevertheless, Carson’s work
issues such as vanishing wilderness, pollution, and prompted many Americans to question the environmen-
human health concerns, the more radical branches tal consequences and long-term health effects of certain
of environmentalism came into direct conflict with chemical products.
modern business and industry by the 1980s and 1990s. Leopold’s and Carson’s works both coincided with
The conservative backlash accused environmentalists of and helped promote social movements of the 1950s
stifling free enterprise and trammeling personal property and 1960s that questioned conventional standards and
rights, going so far in some cases as to label direct-action norms. Indeed, three prominent New Left intellectuals
environmentalism as domestic terrorism. of the1960s—Murray Bookchin, Paul Goodman, and
Herbert Marcuse—were particularly influential in stimu-
Origins lating environmental awareness. Bookchin, a “social ecol-
The roots of the American environmental movement ogy” proponent, critiqued postwar U.S. environmental
lie in the conservation movement of the first half of problems and advocated a national shift from the use of
the twentieth century. The pioneers of conservationism fossil fuels to renewable resources like wind, solar, and
called for the efficient and professional management tidal power. Goodman, a widely read public intellectual,
of natural resources as commodities. Conservationists wrote a series of essays criticizing the American ethos
fought for reforms because they feared that the rapid of mass consumption as a way of life disconnected from
destruction of forests, fertile soil, minerals, wildlife, and nature. Goodman proposed a series of utopian solutions to
water resources would lead to their eventual depletion. industrialization that ranged from banning automobiles
A combination of private and government action led to in cities to building self-contained garden communities
the creation of hydroelectric dams, professional forest where everyone lives close to sources of production. In
management, soil conservation programs, and fish and One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse, a radical social
game laws to manage the environment. While these philosopher at Brandeis University, asserted that modern
conservation programs were the main focus of the society was out of touch with its environmental base. He
movement, activism also led to measures, such as the pointed to nuclear proliferation and a fixation on technol-
creation of the National Park Service (1916), that were ogy as signs of a society focused on waste and a domina-
less practical and focused more on preserving natural tion of nature. While Bookchin, Goodman, and Marcuse
scenic areas. all were less well known than Leopold or Carson, their
Two books were especially influential in launching work was formative in establishing the early concerns of
the postwar environmental movement, Aldo Leopold’s A the environmental movement.
Sand County Almanac (1949) and Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring (1962). Leopold criticized the economic motiva- Legislation and Early Activism
tions of the early conservation movement and encour- The first legislative lobbying efforts of the environmental
aged a deeper appreciation of the human place in the movement focused on bills designed to preserve and
ecosystem. In A Sand County Almanac, he called for the protect the last vestiges of the nation’s wild and scenic
development of a land ethic that “enlarges the boundaries places. The Land and Water Conservation Act (1964),
of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and National Wilderness Preservation System (created by
animals, or collectively: the land.” Environmentalists the Wilderness Act of 1964), National Trails System Act
in the 1960s adopted Leopold’s land ethic, contending (1968), and National Wild and Scenic Rivers System
that ecological awareness and preservation of ecosystems (created by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968) all
are in the best interests of humanity. Carson’s landmark emphasized wilderness preservation and aesthetics rather
work connected the nation’s declining bird populations than economic value and management. The next wave
with the widespread use of chemical pesticides such as of environmental legislation dealt with pollution issues.
dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and suggested The National Environmental Policy Act (1970), Clean
that the use of such agents has especially harmful effects Air Act (1970), and Clean Water Act (1972) created
on humans and other apex predators. Attempts to “control more stringent regulations governing environmental
nature” by means of synthetic substances, she argued, is quality standards and health issues. Samuel P. Hays, a
an approach based on ignorance. Carson’s work was not prominent historian of U.S. environmental politics, has
without its critics. Chemical companies like Monsanto characterized the wave of legislation as the product of a
and American Cyanamid pointed to entomologist J. grassroots movement made possible by an increasingly
Env ironmental Movement 163
affluent middle class. Popular support for these acts U.S. nuclear testing. In 1978, the organization launched
stemmed from public concern over vanishing wild a refitted trawler and pursued the Icelandic whaling fleet
lands, the pollution of ecosystems, and the effects of in an attempt to disrupt that nation’s annual catch.
pollution on human health. Ironically, some of the Inspired by Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey Wrench
strongest opposition to many of the new laws came from Gang (1975), a group of Arizona environmentalists formed
government agencies, including the Soil Conservation Earth First! in 1980. Bringing a new level of radicalism to
Service and the U.S. Forest Service, which feared a the movement, Earth First! called for an ecocentric view
loss of management control over the nation’s natural of the world whereby the preservation of every living be-
resources. ing was put on the same plane as human survival. Earth
While federal agencies such as the Environmental First! activists protested logging, hydroelectric dams,
Protection Agency (EPA) and Fish and Wildlife Service and development projects in California, Oregon, and
(FWS) wrote and administered most of the environmental Washington in the 1980s and 1990s, relying even more
legislation, the strength of the movement came largely on directly confrontational methods than Greenpeace. Its
from private grassroots organizations. Founded in 1892, tactics included blockading logging roads, staging tree
the Sierra Club originated as a preservationist organiza- sittings, and even engaging in industrial sabotage. Earth
tion but by the 1970s focused on ending logging in First! opponents such as Ron Arnold of the conservative
public forests, protecting wilderness areas, and ensuring Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise criticized such
clean water and air resources. The National Audubon activities as “ecoterrorism” designed to impede the natu-
Society is nearly as old (founded in 1916), and by the ral operation of the free market.
1970s its rapidly expanding membership concentrated Conservative critics of the environmental movement
on bird preservation and research and environmental such as Arnold and Alan Gottlieb characterized it as
education programs. Another large private organization radical and misguided, limiting individual freedom and
with the goal of increasing environmental awareness was liberty for the sake of plants and animals. Opponents were
the National Wildlife Federation, which emphasized the especially critical of government environmental regula-
protection of wildlife habitat, global warming education, tions like the Endangered Species Act and Clean Air Act,
and strengthening the Endangered Species Act (1973). which they felt compromised private property rights,
All three of these private organizations funded influential industry, and the nation’s overall economic growth. Con-
political action committees that lobbied for environmen- servatives also challenged scientific evidence supporting
tal education and reform. fundamental tenets of the environmental movement such
The inauguration of Earth Day on April 22, 1970, as ozone depletion and global warming. They argued that
was another example of the grassroots underpinnings the government should act on undisputed facts rather
of the movement. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) and than unproven theories and produced scientists like J.
Harvard University student Denis Hayes conceived and Gordon Edward, who was willing to testify that certain
promoted Earth Day as an environmental teach-in and environmentalists’ conclusions were unfounded. Osten-
protest. The initial demonstration involved millions of sibly liberal public officials also expressed reservations
students and other activists at thousands of colleges and about the relevance and purpose of the environmental
secondary schools across the nation. Earth Day combined movement. For example, in a 1970 Time magazine article,
public support for an environmental agenda with protest mayors Carl Stokes of Cleveland, Ohio, and Richard
against the Vietnam War, encouraging participants to Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, argued that environmentalism
contact their public officials and become involved in their diverted the attention of Americans from more pressing
local communities. social issues like housing shortages and poverty.
The environmental movement also spawned organiza-
tions that believed that political advocacy and legislation The Contemporary Movement
were either ineffective or inefficient solutions to growing and Its Critics
ecological problems. In 1971, American and Canadian Two notable cases involving the Endangered Species Act
activists formed Greenpeace, the most prominent of these pitted environmentalists against their conservative critics
direct-action groups, in Vancouver, British Columbia. in the public purview. Southeastern Tennessee activists
Greenpeace called for nonviolent action against govern- and local landowners used the act and the discovery of
ments and corporations engaged in environmentally the snail darter, a tiny endangered fish, to challenge
destructive activities. Organization activists protested construction on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Tellico
and interfered with a wide range of American and in- Dam in the mid-1970s. The case reached the U.S.
ternational activities, from nuclear testing to whaling Supreme Court, which ruled in Tennessee Valley Authority
to old-growth logging. The first Greenpeace mission, in v. Hill (1978) that the stipulation of the Endangered
1971, was an attempt to sail a manned boat to Amchitka Species Act dictated a halt to the construction of the dam.
Island off the coast of Alaska to draw global attention to Led by Republican senators John Stennis of Mississippi
16 4 Env ironmental Movement
and Howard Baker of Tennessee, conservatives argued first century. Issues of health and environmental quality
that it was irrational to waste millions of tax dollars continue to concern activists, who work to focus public
for the sake of one small fish species and called for the attention on topics ranging from global climate change to
congressional implementation of a “balancing test” to the disposal of hazardous waste. Environmentalists have
weigh the costs and benefits of federal projects that mounted the strongest opposition to proposed oil drilling
might affect endangered species. Public interest groups in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other areas as
like the Environmental Defense Fund countered by the price of oil has continued to increase. Some members
arguing that obscure species like the snail darter served of the movement pointed to Hurricane Katrina in 2006
as indicators of overall ecosystem health. Stennis and as an example of the potential costs of ignoring nature
Baker ultimately prevailed on this issue, and in 1978 in urban planning, warning that environmental neglect
Congress amended the Endangered Species Act to create will have even direr consequences in the future.
a committee with the authority to exempt projects like
Tellico from the act’s stipulations. Drew A. Swanson
In 1986, a Pacific Northwest environmentalist group
petitioned the FWS to add the northern spotted owl to See also: Animal Rights; Arnold, Ron; Carson, Rachel; Earth
the Endangered Species List. Activists feared that log- Day; Ecoterrorism; Endangered Species Act; Forests, Park-
ging of old-growth forests in the coastal ranges of Or- lands, and Federal Wilderness; Global Warming; Kyoto Pro-
egon and Washington was destroying the owl’s habitat tocol; Leopold, Aldo; New Left; Science Wars; Watt, James.
and driving the species to extinction. In 1990, the FWS
concurred and restricted timbering activity inside a 1.3- Further Reading
mile (2.1-kilometer) radius of any known spotted owl Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang. Philadelphia: Lip-
nesting or activity site. Environmentalists applauded the pincott, 1975.
owl’s endangered designation, claiming that the preserva- Arnold, Ron, and Alan Gottlieb. Trashing the Economy: How
tion of the species was an important first step in saving Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America. Bellevue,
the Northwest’s remaining old-growth forests. Timber WA: Free Enterprise Press, 1993.
industry officials and many local residents criticized the Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
federal ruling, insisting that the economic costs of lost 1962.
jobs on timber crews and at sawmills far outweighed the Foreman, Dave. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Har-
ecological benefits of protecting the owl. One timber mony Books, 1991.
industry report claimed that the government restrictions Gottlieb, Alan M. The Wise Use Agenda: The Citizen’s Policy
could end up costing more than 28,000 jobs in Oregon Guide to Environmental Resource Issues. Bellevue, WA: Free
and Washington alone, with a detrimental effect on the Enterprise Press, 1989.
U.S. wood products industry as a whole. Industry officials Gottlieb, Robert. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the
also contended that cutting old-growth trees made forest American Environmental Movement. Rev. ed. Washington,
management sense, as secondary-growth trees grow faster DC: Island Press, 2005.
and produce usable timber more efficiently. Hays, Samuel P. A History of Environmental Politics Since 1945.
In the 1990s and the early 2000s, critics of the Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.
movement have also pointed to the activities of radical Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and
environmental groups as examples of the excesses of There. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949.
environmentalism. Organizations such as the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
promoted their cause by engaging in acts of vandalism Equal Rights Amendment
and destruction of property. In 1998, the ELF claimed The goal of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was
responsibility for an arson attack at a Vail ski resort in to provide constitutional guarantees against gender
Colorado that resulted in an estimated $12 million in discrimination. The campaign for its ratification led
damage. In 1999, the group set fire to a plant genetics to intense debates in the 1970s over the amendment’s
laboratory at Michigan State University and carried out merits and, more generally, women’s roles. Its defeat was
a similar attack at a University of Washington facility a blow for the feminist movement.
in 2001. In 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Following ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment
initiated Operation Backfire, a program designed to (1920), which gave women the right to vote, suffragist
locate and arrest the leaders of groups like ELF, whom Alice Paul sought to introduce a new amendment to the
U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales labeled as vio- U.S. Constitution that would eliminate all legal forms
lent criminals. of gender discrimination. As originally drafted, the ERA
Environmental issues have remained at the center stated, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be
of American political and social debate into the twenty- denied or abridged by the United States or by any State
Evangelic alism 165
on account of sex.” Paul’s ERA was regularly introduced Further Reading

in Congress beginning in 1923 but was rejected for three Berry, Mary Frances. Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights,
decades, despite the support of every president since and the Amending Process of the Constitution. Bloomington:
Harry Truman. Among the ERA’s early opponents was Indiana University Press, 1986.
Eleanor Roosevelt, who feared that it would undermine Hoff-Wilson, Joan, ed. Rights of Passage: The Past and Future of
special protections for women. the ERA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
During the late 1960s, following the passage of the Mansbridge, Jane J. Why We Lost the ERA. Chicago: University
Civil Rights Act (1964), the formation of the National of Chicago Press, 1986.
Organization for Women (1966), and the growing influ-
ence of the women’s rights movement, the ERA received
new impetus. Testifying before the Senate Subcommittee Ev a n g e l i c a l i s m
on Constitutional Amendments on May 6, 1970, feminist Hardly a unified or monolithic form of Christian
activist and Ms. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem argued Protestantism, evangelicalism has informed the beliefs
that the proposed amendment was necessary to end the and practices of millions of Americans in the era of the
“second-class treatment” of women. Congress approved culture wars. As in the past, cleavages between left- and
the amendment in March 1972 (554–24 in the House, right-wing Christians revolve around which specific
84–8 in the Senate), sending the issue to the states, where ideological, cultural, and political values should define
final ratification required the approval of a three-fourths evangelicalism and American identity. The result is a
majority, a total of thirty-eight states, within a seven- religious impulse that historian Randall Balmer has
year period. described as “quintessentially American,” both because
Twenty-two states approved the proposed amend- of its “variegated texture” and its ability to offer
ment in 1972, but the pace of ratification slowed after meaningful answers to “a culture that is not yet ready to
Roe v. Wade (1973), the U.S. Supreme Court decision up- divest itself entirely of its belief in God.”
holding abortion rights. As a backlash against feminism Popularized after the Revolutionary War by Meth-
ensued, religious conservatives charged that the ERA odist, Baptist, and Presbyterian itinerants, evangelical
would lead to public funding of abortions, legalization principles emphasized the redemptive work of Jesus on
of same-sex marriages, and the outlawing of separate the cross and the necessity of a definite beginning point
public bathrooms for men and women. Others argued of religious conversion. Like their contemporary counter-
that the ERA would lead to further judicial activism in parts, most early American evangelicals also averred the
federal courts. importance of sincerity during worship, the authority of
A prominent foe of the ERA was Phyllis Schlafly, the Protestant canon, an individualist approach toward
founder of the pro-family Eagle Forum (1972). Schlafly piety and morality, and a suspicion of “high church”
launched the “STOP the ERA” campaign, selectively polity.
targeting states to prevent a three-fourths’ majority. She Throughout the nineteenth century, evangelical
agreed that some laws and court decisions were sexually denominations and churches in America grew in number
discriminatory but argued that women were frequently and variety. A distinct African-American evangelicalism
the beneficiaries rather than the victims of such dis- emerged in the antebellum period, while sectionalist
crimination. If the ERA passed, she warned, courts might conflict over slavery divided southern and northern white
force women to register for the military draft, enter the evangelicals and laid the groundwork for important new
workforce, pay alimony, and cede child custody rights denominational bodies, such as the Southern Baptist
following divorce. Convention. After the Civil War, evangelicals wrestled
Thirty-four states approved the amendment by the with the coming of urbanization, industrial capitalism,
March 1979 deadline, but four reversed their decisions. and “modern ideas” in a number of ways. Revivalists such
In eight other states, the ERA had been approved by as Dwight L. Moody and later Aimee Semple McPherson
one but not both houses of the legislature. A three-year used advertising and other trappings of the developing
extension was granted, but by the final deadline of June consumer culture to increase the potential for conversion.
30, 1982, ratification fell three states short. Fundamentalists rejected any compromise with modern
ideas and culture, arguing for creationism, a literal inter-
Philippe R. Girard pretation of the Bible, and nonengagement with secular
institutions. Premillennial dispensationalists insisted that
See also: Abortion; Family Values; Feminism, Second-Wave; Christ would “rapture” his church at any minute, con-
Feminism, Third-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Judicial Wars; Ms.; demning the unfaithful to judgment. Missionary societies
National Organization for Women; Roe v. Wade (1973); sponsored evangelizing crusades as well as humanitarian
Same-Sex Marriage; Schlafly, Phyllis; Stay-at-Home Mothers; efforts, both domestically and abroad. Indeed, by the time
Steinem, Gloria. of the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial in 1925 (in which a
16 6 Evangelic alism
public school teacher in Tennessee faced criminal charges ing, Falwell formed what he termed the “Moral Majority,”
for teaching the theory of evolution) evangelicals were as a multidenominational coalition of evangelicals (and some
kaleidoscopic a group as ever. Fundamentalist and conser- Catholics) for the preservation of “traditional” social at-
vative evangelical groups, to be sure, were well organized titudes and “family values.” Ronald Reagan and other
and growing, but evangelicalism itself included voices on Republican candidates reaped the support of those who
the right, left, and everywhere in between. agreed with Falwell’s general plan for a more politically
After the Great Depression and World War II, engaged evangelicalism.
evangelicals in America continued their steady growth, The various roles of evangelicals in engaging the
building churches, expanding youth ministries, and spon- cultural trappings of contemporary America have been no
soring foreign missions. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, less important than their political role. During the 1970s
however, calls for more hard-line defenses against “liberal” and 1980s, evangelicals again showed their considerable
influences began to split loyalties. The conservative evan- savvy at using media outlets and marketing techniques to
gelical magazine Christianity Today, first published under draw attention and adherents. Televangelists like Jimmy
revivalist Billy Graham’s direction in 1956 as a counter Swaggart, Pat Robertson, and Jim Bakker attracted the
to the more liberal Christian Century, served as a symbol donations and devotion of millions during the Reagan
of these splits. These mid-century schisms, however, were era, while any number of “Christian” businesses and
not neatly divided into fundamentalist/conservative versus publishing industries likewise grew in popularity. Mem-
liberal/mainline camps. For instance, Graham’s acceptance bership in evangelical churches—mostly fundamentalist
of the mainline Council of Churches’ sponsorship for his or conservative leaning—also grew during the 1970s
1957 New York City crusade made him a pariah among and 1980s, and “big-box” or “full-service” evangelical
more fundamentalist evangelical groups and leaders. churches became symbols of evangelicalism’s cultural
For evangelicals, the Vietnam War era was one of relevance and its continuing influence among numerous
increasing dissent, both among themselves and with social, economic, and racial groups. Though less visible
broader changes in American political and popular cul- and well organized, progressive evangelicals from Jimmy
ture. African-American evangelical bodies gave the civil Carter to Jesse Jackson to Jim Wallis continued to dissent
rights movement some of its most important leaders, from rightward turns in evangelical America. Which side
including Martin Luther King, Jr. At the same time, will prevail in the struggle to define American evangeli-
calls for more sensitive approaches to civil rights, poverty, calism is not clear, but, as history reveals, the movement
social justice, and pacifism led to further breakdowns is likely to continue with fervor and close attentiveness to
between conservative and liberal groups. In numerous the larger context of American politics and culture.
evangelical denominations, these concerns folded into
renewed debates over biblical inerrancy. While lib- Darren E. Grem
eral evangelicals advocated the importance of historical
context in interpreting and applying biblical passages, See also: Carter, Jimmy; Church and State; Creationism and In-
conservatives and fundamentalists defended the Bible telligent Design; Falwell, Jerry; Fundamentalism, Religious;
as the literal and infallible Word of God that must be Moral Majority; Premillennial Dispensationalism; Progres-
read literally. By the end of the 1960s, these social and sive Christians Uniting; Religious Right; Southern Baptist
intellectual debates had fractured the memberships of Convention; Televangelism; World Council of Churches.
evangelical churches across the country and, most notably,
informed the “fundamentalist takeover” of the Southern Further Reading
Baptist Convention in the 1970s and 1980s. Balmer, Randall. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the
Although evangelicals had played an important role Evangelical Subculture in America. 4th ed. New York: Oxford
in the course of American politics since the Revolutionary University Press, 2006.
period, the 1960s and 1970s inspired a more politically Marsden, George M. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evan-
engaged set of evangelicals, particularly from the white gelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991.
right. In order to offset the “liberalizing” trends of that Noll, Mark A. American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction.
period, conservative evangelicals saw the need for a Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.
more active approach toward electoral politics. As such, Smith, Christian, and Michael Emerson. American Evangelical-
they served as an important constituency for the “New ism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago
Right” in American politics. Virginia fundamentalist Press, 1998.
Jerry Falwell made the most of conservative evangelical ———. Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of
disdain for any number of perceived ills, namely femi- Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
nism, abortion, youth delinquency, “secular humanism,” Wuthnow, Robert. The Struggle for America’s Soul: Evangelicals,
Hollywood immorality, gay activism, and the culling of Liberals, and Secularism. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans,
school prayer. Believing that these trends needed oppos- 1989.
E xec uti ve Compen sation 167
E xe c u t i ve C o m p e n s a t i o n American industry, and the high risk of firing within

Though usually lucrative, executive compensation has the top positions of a firm. Companies want the best
grown rapidly since the economic boom of the early person to maximize profits, and in order to attract that
1990s. A chief executive officer (CEO) working for a top- individual, the firm must offer a pay and benefits pack-
ranked corporation typically receives 300 times what an age commensurate with the demands of the job and the
average worker makes. Between 1993 and 2003, the top volatility of an executive position.
five executives at 1,500 American corporations were col- One complaint about astronomical executive com-
lectively paid $350 billion. In the culture wars, populists pensation pay is its contribution to the inequality of
and investors have rallied for greater corporate disclosure wealth distribution in America. Many factors contribute
about executive pay, a demand imposed by the U.S. Se- to the stratification of society, but executive compensa-
curities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2007. tion levels further widen the gap between the rich and
Executive compensation generally can be broken the poor. They are also a potent symbol of personal greed
down into two parts: annual pay and retirement benefits. at the public’s expense.
Both components, particularly for a CEO, have increased Executives are compensated not just with a high sal-
at a rate far surpassing growth in the inflation rate, the ary based on increasing company size and overall revenue
gross domestic product, the NASDAQ, and the Dow but also with stock options. The value of stock options
Jones Industrial Average. The highest-paid American rises and falls not with the revenue of the company but
executive in 2005 was Yahoo’s CEO Terry S. Semel, with its profits. Such a system is said to lend an air of
who had a total annual compensation package of more fairness to the pay process, but it also opens the door to
than $230 million. That year, the CEOs of America’s actions of avarice such as selling off stock before a com-
top 500 companies received a 54 percent aggregate pay pany’s imminent collapse. The misuse of such insider
raise over 2004. information has been a major focus of a number of court
While the $400 million retirement package granted cases, such as those involving top executives of the Enron
in 2006 to outgoing ExxonMobil CEO Lee R. Raymond Corporation, which also focused attention on excessive
drew the ire of many Americans, such large payments executive compensation.
have their champions. When bringing on a new executive R. Matthew Beverlin
or renegotiating the salary of a current one, corporations
rely on compensation surveys, which indicate levels of See also: Corporate Welfare; Wealth Gap.
executive pay within an industry. The compensation
package is usually targeted between the fiftieth and the Further Reading
seventy-fifth percentiles of those in similar positions, Balsam, Steven. An Introduction to Executive Compensation. San
which over the years has led to an upward spiral in top- Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2001.
level compensation. Delves, Donald P. Stock Options and the New Corporate Account-
Other justifications for high executive pay include ability. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
the increasing demand for talented company leaders, Lehne, Richard. Government and Business. Washington, DC:
the overall high level of performance of the captains of CQ Press, 2006.
farmers, who are able to sell their harvest to factory farms
at good prices.
Opponents claim that factory farms have a negative
impact on the animals, communities, and the environ-
ment. The Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM)
Fa c t o r y Fa r m s was one of the first groups to oppose factory farms. Since
Factory farms, also known as megafarms or industrial its beginning in 1976 and official formation in 1981,
farms, are large agribusiness corporations that practice FARM has organized grassroots efforts in rural commu-
confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The nities to limit factory farming through land zoning and
industrial approach to farming originated in the other local and state ordinances. Also, FARM and other
1920s with the advent of adding vitamins A and D to animal rights activists, including In Defense of Animals
animal feed. This enabled the raising of farm animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have
indoors year-round because the nutrients provided by criticized the inhumane treatment of animals on factory
vitamins offset the necessity of exercise and sunshine. farms. Animal rights activists argue that the animals
Since the 1980s, the trend has been toward replacing cease to be treated as individual living creatures. Animals
the traditional family farm with increasing numbers of housed on factory farms typically spend their lives chained
confined animal feeding operations. Critics of factory or caged in extremely cramped quarters, are exposed to
farms believe that rural communities suffer socially and little or no sunlight, and are given hormones so they can
economically when family farms are put out of business. grow faster. Some animals, such as veal calves and laying
In addition, factory farms have been condemned for chickens, are deliberately malnourished. Veal calves are
their environmental impact and treatment of animals. fed anemia-inducing liquid formula and are deprived of
Supporters of factory farms emphasize the competition water, roughage, and iron so that their meat maintains a
of the free market and the benefits to consumers. Today, pale color. Laying hens are often starved in order to force
these operations dominate the beef, dairy, pork, poultry, molting and boost egg production. Because chickens in
and egg-laying industries. such close proximity become very aggressive and attack
The factory farm is very different from traditional one another, their beaks are trimmed at a young age.
farming. To begin with, industrial farms are owned, The threat of negative publicity has initiated some
managed, and worked by separate entities. Farmers, for change in how animals are treated. In 2002, for example,
example, do not own the animals in the factory farm. In- the McDonald’s Corporation announced that it would
stead, they are laborers who raise the animals according to no longer buy eggs from producers who give hens less
a formula dictated by the end-processor, whether an egg than 72 square inches (465 square centimeters) of cage
company, dairy corporation, or meat packer. Megafarms space each or use starvation to induce molting. In 2004,
are also vertically integrated; the same corporation often Kentucky Fried Chicken declared that it would curb
controls all aspects of production, including raising, own- its purchasing from one supplier after slaughterhouse
ing, slaughtering, and marketing the animal products. workers were shown on videotape throwing live chickens
The most controversial difference between factory farms against concrete walls and stomping on them.
and the traditional farm is that the corporate owners of The extremely tight quarters in which animals live
factory farms set up industrial sites for raising animals on factory farms have caused a great deal of concern about
where hundreds or thousands of farm animals are confined bacteria. Such conditions make disease more prevalent.
at a single location, often inside completely enclosed Eric Schlosser’s best-seller Fast Food Nation (2002) and
buildings. Such a compact operation reduces the expense Christopher Cook’s Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food
of labor and the amount of land needed. Industry Is Killing Us (2004) illustrate how, in the 1990s,
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the American bacterial strains such as E. coli 0157:H7 and salmonella
Farm Bureau Federation, the agricultural industry in emerged as public health hazards. Chronic ailments in-
general, and even some individual farmers emphasize cluding reactive arthritis, Reiter’s syndrome, and stom-
the value of factory farms. Supporters argue that because ach ulcers have been linked to bacterial infections often
the operations benefit from an economy of scale that caused by contaminated foods. To combat such infections,
maximizes efficiency based on mass-production tech- animals raised on factory farms are given high doses of
niques and high volumes of a standardized product, they antibiotics, more than animals raised on small farms.
lower everyone’s grocery bill. This is why, they explain, Such abundant use of antibiotics has caused concern
Americans spend less of their income on food than do about antibiotic resistance in animals and the humans
people in other countries. Without factory farms, they who consume them.
argue, it would not be possible to meet the worldwide Also directly affected by factory farms are traditional
demand for animal products. Supporters also maintain farmers and rural citizens. Because large companies like
that others in the rural community benefit, such as grain Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms contract with farmers to
168
Faith - B a sed P rog ram s 16 9
expand operations and eliminate overhead, traditional and community groups across America.” As part of his
family farms are disappearing. This phenomenon has Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI), Bush
been called the “Wal-Marting” of American agriculture. established by executive order the White House Office
Like wholesalers to Wal-Mart who are economically of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and set up
squeezed because of the dictates of the near-monopolistic FBCI offices in ten agencies, including the departments
corporation, farmers have no choice but to capitulate to of Commerce, Education, and Health and Human
the demands of the agribusiness corporations. The loss Services. These offices were given the role of ensuring
of traditional farmers also means a loss of local farm that faith-based organizations (FBOs) have improved
culture and communities, along with local revenue and access to the programs operated by their agencies.
the businesses that those communities support. As farm According to the White House Office of FBCI, in
size and absentee ownership increase, social conditions 2005 a total of $2.1 billion in funding for faith-based
in rural America decline. organizations was provided through 151 federally admin-
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the istered competitive grant programs for domestic social
National Resources Defense Council contend that factory services, representing 10 percent of the total amount
farms are large, unchecked pollution sources. Of particu- spent on such programs. In addition, more than thirty
lar concern is the amount of animal waste, often liquefied states set up offices for FBCIs. The greater participation
and kept in giant cesspools known as lagoons and later of faith-based organizations in the provision of social
dumped or sprayed over fields. These practices create services was accomplished largely through an extension
environmental problems, odor nuisances, and health of “Charitable Choice” rules to most federally supported
hazards. The runoff of the animal waste into streams has social service programs. A provision of the welfare reform
led to fish kills. Pollution from the factory farms has statute of 1996, Charitable Choice mandated that if a
been blamed for respiratory problems, skin infections, state employs nongovernmental organizations for the
nausea, miscarriages, and other serious illnesses. Studies provision of welfare-related services, it cannot exclude
have shown that neighbors of factory farms experience religious organizations from participating on the basis
significantly greater physical and mental health problems of their religious character.
than the rest of the population. The faith-based initiative was controversial from
Molly Swiger the start, provoking extended debate in Congress as to
whether to accept the provisions of the executive orders
See also: Animal Rights; Ecoterrorism; Environmental Move- relating to FBCI—a debate that remained unresolved
ment; Food and Drug Administration; Genetically Modified by legislative action. To its advocates, FBCI ends unfair
Foods; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; Wal- discrimination against religious organizations in the
Mart; Young, Neil. provision of social services and provides an opportunity to
employ the resources of religious organizations, organiza-
Further Reading tions that have a long history of charitable social work, for
Coats, David. Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm: The Myth of the the greater social good. To opponents, FBCI represents a
Traditional Farm and the Shocking Truth About Animal Suffering violation of the principle of the separation of church and
in Today’s Agribusiness. New York: Continuum, 1991. state, amounting to government support of “inherently”
Fitzgerald, Deborah. Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal religious activities, as well as religious discrimination,
in American Agriculture. New Haven, CT: Yale University and entails potentially intrusive governmental regulation
Press, 2003. of religious organizations.
Marks, Robbin. Cesspools of Shame: How Factory Farm Lagoons One matter of particular controversy has been
and Sprayfields Threaten Environmental and Public Health. whether FBOs that receive government funding for the
Washington, DC: Natural Resources Defense Council and delivery of social services may engage in discriminatory
the Clean Water Network, 2001. hiring practices. Although Title VII of the Civil Rights
Ricketts, Cliff, and Omri Rawlins. Introduction to Agribusiness. Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment on
Albany, NY: Delmar Thompson Learning, 2001. the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,
Schiffman, S.S. “Livestock Odors: Implications for Human religious entities are exempt from the provisions prohib-
Health and Well-Being.” Journal of Animal Science 76:5 iting hiring discrimination on the basis of religion. For
(1998): 1343–55. example, when a Catholic Church hires a priest, there is
no legal obstacle to the requirement that the position
be filled only by a devout Catholic. Such discriminatory
Fa i t h - B a s e d P r o g r a m s practices, however, have in general concerned positions
Soon after taking office in 2001, President George paid for by the organization’s private funds. An expanded
W. Bush put forward an agenda to “enlist, equip, Charitable Choice poses the question of whether such
empower, and expand the heroic works of faith-based discrimination is permissible when it applies to employ-
170 Falwell , Jer r y
ment in social service programs that are directly funded

by the government. The Bush administration repeatedly
held, through a series of executive orders, that such dis-
crimination is permissible. Supporters of FBCI argue that
religious organizations must maintain their autonomy
(specifically the “hiring rights”); critics argue that FBCI
policies amount to countenancing government-funded
religious discrimination.
The debate over hiring practices can be seen as part
of a larger debate regarding the principle of separation
of church and state. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled
that public money can be used for religious instruction or
indoctrination, but only when the intended beneficiaries
make the choice themselves between religious and secular
programs—as when parents decide whether to use tuition
vouchers at a religious or secular school. But the high
court has also held that the government cannot directly
fund “inherently religious activities” such as worship,
religious instruction, and proselytizing. Such activities
must be separated in time and place from government-
funded secular services provided by FBOs, and care
must be taken that government funds not be redirected
to support such activities. Government agencies have
been criticized for inadequately monitoring FBOs, and
a number of court cases have resulted from charges that
governmental funds were being used to support clearly
religious activities. For example, in the October 2004
decision Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Montana Of- As the founder and head of the Moral Majority from 1979 to
fice of Rural Health, the U.S. District Court of Montana 1989, televangelist Jerry Falwell stood at the vanguard of the
conservative Christian political movement and its “pro-life,
(Butte Division) held unconstitutional a direct grant to pro-traditional family, pro-moral, and pro-American” agenda.
a parish nursing program that mixed community health (Terry Ashe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
care with spiritual formation and prayer.
Falwell regarded himself as a prophet called by God to
Evan Charney denounce the secularization of American society.
Jerry Lamon Falwell was born on August 11, 1933,
See also: Bush Family; Church and State; Compassionate Con- in Lynchburg, Virginia. He began his studies at Lynch-
servatism; Religious Right; Welfare Reform. burg College (1950–1952) and finished at Baptist Bible
College in Springfield, Missouri (BA, 1956). Immedi-
Further Reading ately upon graduation, he founded the Thomas Road
“Charitable Choice Rules and Faith-Based Initiatives.” Con- Baptist Church in Lynchburg, a congregation that would
gressional Research Service Report for Congress, January evolve into a megachurch of some 20,000 members.
26, 2006. Also in 1956, Falwell began the television broadcast
Dionne, E.J., and Ming Hsu Chen, eds. Sacred Places, Civic The Old-Time Gospel Hour, becoming a pioneer of tel-
Purposes: Should Government Help Faith-Based Charity? Wash- evangelism and the electronic church. In 1971, Falwell
ington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001. founded Liberty University (originally Liberty Baptist
Wuthnow, Robert. Saving America? Faith-Based Services and the College), also in Lynchburg. From 1979 to 1989, he
Future of Civil Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University ran the Moral Majority, describing his pro–Republican
Press, 2004. Party organization as “pro-life, pro-traditional family,
pro-moral, and pro-American.” Falwell wrote and pub-
lished numerous works intersecting religion and politics,
Fa l we l l , J e r r y including Listen, America! (1980), The Fundamentalist
A controversial Baptist minister and televangelist, Jerry Phenomenon (1981), and New American Family (1992).
Falwell was the founder and head of the Moral Majority, He also published Falwell: An Autobiography (1997).
the organization at the forefront of the Religious Right Falwell died on May 15, 2007, after suffering bouts of
during the 1980s. A leading figure in the culture wars, heart disease.
Family Values 171
When Falwell began his ministry career he was in he raised eyebrows by charging that the children’s tele-
accord with most fundamentalists, believing that the vision character Tinky Winky was cast as a homosexual
clergy should not become involved in politics. Conse- and communicated a gay message, and urged parents to
quently, his university, church pulpit, and television boycott the Teletubbies program on which the character
program were strictly devoted to promoting the gospel. appeared. Perhaps his most controversial comment came
In 1956, Falwell publicly condemned the Reverend Mar- in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when, during an
tin Luther King, Jr., and other members of the clergy appearance on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, he blamed the
involved in championing civil rights, arguing that terrorist attacks on the forces of secularism in America,
ministers are not to be “politicians” but “soul winners.” including the American Civil Liberties Union, People
Falwell, who at the time favored racial segregation, for the American Way, pagans, abortionists, feminists,
linked the civil rights movement with communism. gays, and lesbians.
Although he would later apologize for resisting civil Although Falwell never changed his view that ho-
rights, Falwell during the 1980s opposed activists who mosexuality is a sin, in 1999 he went against the recom-
demanded economic sanctions against South Africa for mendations of other evangelical leaders and met with
its apartheid policies. the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights
Falwell became politicized following the U.S. Su- organization Soulforce. Founded by Falwell’s former col-
preme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973), which legalized league the Reverend Mel White, Soulforce asked Falwell
abortion. (He called abortion “America’s national sin” and to tone down his antihomosexual rhetoric.
a “biological holocaust.”) Greatly influenced by Francis
Schaeffer, then the intellectual guru of religious funda- Karma R. Chávez
mentalism, Falwell followed his advice to use ministry
broadcasts to address social issues from a moral perspec- See also: Abortion; AIDS; American Civil Liberties Union;
tive. The favorable reception of those messages inspired Christian Coalition; Civil Rights Movement; Flynt, Larry;
the creation of the Moral Majority, a lobbying group that Gay Rights Movement; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Moral Ma-
sought to pressure legislators to vote in socially conserva- jority; Religious Right; Robertson, Pat; Schaeffer, Francis;
tive ways. The Moral Majority was against abortion, gay Televangelism.
rights, the women’s liberation movement, pornography,
legalized gambling, and “porn rock.” It was for school Further Reading
prayer, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong mili- Boston, Rob. “The Real Legacy of the Reverend Jerry Falwell.”
tary, and the defense of Israel. Falwell claimed that his Humanist, September–October 2007.
organization was responsible for sending 3 to 4 million Falwell, Jerry. Falwell: An Autobiography. Lynchburg, VA: Liberty
newly registered voters to the polls in 1980, enabling House, 1997.
Ronald Reagan’s election as president. The Moral Majority Harding, Susan Friend. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist
disbanded following the negative public reaction to sev- Language and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
eral televangelism scandals in the 1980s (involving such Press, 2000.
prominent figures as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart) Smolla, Rodney A. Jerry Falwell vs. Larry Flynt: The First Amend-
and was essentially replaced by Pat Robertson’s Christian ment on Trial. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Coalition. In 2004, Falwell attempted to revive the Moral
Majority as the Faith and Values Coalition.
Falwell was often in the news over the years. In the Fa m i l y Va l u e s
early 1970s, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Com- From an anthropological and sociological perspective,
mission filed fraud charges against the Thomas Road “family values” denotes morals, principles, and ethics
Baptist Church, but they were later dropped. In the late that support and strengthen the family system within
1980s, Falwell’s reputation suffered from the televan- a given cultural setting. In the modern culture wars,
gelism scandals, in particular his association with and the term began to be invoked in conservative political
subsequent takeover of the PTL ministry headed by Jim speech starting in the early 1970s. Although “family
and Tammy Bakker. In the 1980s, Falwell sued Hustler values” continues to appear in speeches, sound bites,
magazine founder Larry Flynt for libel, but lost his case and headlines, the groups and organizations that give it
in the Supreme Court. circulation—such as the American Family Association,
Many remember Falwell for his inflammatory state- Focus on the Family, and Family Research Council—
ments. He once said that AIDS was God’s punishment have offered no clear definition.
for the “sinful behavior” of homosexuality. He often used “Family values” as a politically rhetorical term
the issue of homosexuality as a tool for fundraising—in began to appear most clearly in material expressing
a 1995 fundraising letter, for example, he wrote that the opposition to the emergence of modern feminism (late
“radical homosexual onslaught” was “raging.” In 1999, 1960s and continuing), to the Supreme Court ruling
172 Family Values
in Roe v. Wade (1973), and to the failed Equal Rights See also: Abortion; Bryant, Anita; Christian Coalition; Clin-
Amendment. It is fair to say, then, that while the term ton, Hillary; Dobson, James; Equal Rights Amendment;
is nowhere clearly defined, as a code word in conser- Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Focus on
vative political rhetoric it gained ground as a way of the Family; Gay Rights Movement; Quayle, Dan; Roe v. Wade
conveying support for the patriarchal two-parent fam- (1973); Same-Sex Marriage.
ily system and opposition to social forces perceived as
likely to dilute or destabilize that particular type of Further Reading
family system. Christensen, Bryce J. Utopia Against the Family: Problems and
A high point in popular media attention to the issue Politics of the American Family. San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
came in the late 1970s with the appeal to family values 1990.
by Anita Bryant and others supporting the overturn of Clinton, Hillary Rodham. It Takes a Village, and Other Lessons
an antidiscrimination ordinance in Florida’s Miami-Dade Children Teach Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
County that specifically extended civil rights to gay and Lewis, Robert. Real Family Values: Leading Your Family into
lesbian citizens. Another usage of prominence was by the 21st Century with Clarity and Conviction. Portland, OR:
Vice President Dan Quayle in highly publicized 1992 Multnomah, 2000.
remarks criticizing positive portrayals of single-parent Luker, Kristin. Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood. Berkeley:
families on television (specifically the title character of University of California Press, 1984.
the Murphy Brown series). Quayle extended his comments Santorum, Rick. It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common
to an expansive and extended commentary on American Good. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2005.
society, attributing such events as the Los Angeles riots
of 1992 to a breakdown in family values.
In the culture wars, the term “family values” is Fa r r a k h a n , L o u i s
also used to convey opposition to abortion, the eas- The long-time outspoken leader of the Nation of
ing of sexual mores (reflected in teen pregnancy and Islam, Louis Abdul Farrakhan has stirred controversy
the prevalence of pornography), a relaxation of laws for decades over his advocacy of black separatism as
concerning divorce, and especially the normalization well as his often incendiary social commentary and
of same-sex relationships. In addition, certain types of “hate speech.” From the mid-1950s through the mid-
home- and parochial-school “family values curricula” 1970s, Farrakhan served as a minister and spokesperson
stress a philosophy of absolute and objective standards for the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Elijah
of right and wrong. Muhammad. Following the death of Muhammad in
In practice, both conservatives and liberals invoke 1975, Farrakhan led a dissenting group to organize a
family values to promote their agendas. A microcosm of new Nation of Islam. In 1995, as organizer of the Million
the difference is reflected in usages by Senator Hillary Man March, a male-only event attended by hundreds of
Rodham Clinton (D-NY), a liberal, and Senator Rick San- thousands of African Americans on the National Mall
torum (R-PA), a conservative. In It Takes a Village (1996), in Washington, D.C., Farrakhan demonstrated the
Clinton stresses programs of corporate responsibility to potential of his movement.
support the nation’s children. In It Takes a Family (2005), The son of a schoolteacher and a Baptist preacher,
Santorum stresses private responsibility. In general, liber- he was born Louis Eugene Walcott on May 11, 1933,
als appeal to family values in support of increased social in New York City and grew up in the Roxbury section
programs and regulations, such as subsidized child day of Boston. After attending the Winston-Salem Teach-
care and paid family medical leave (including maternity ers College in North Carolina on a track scholarship
leave) at the local, state, and federal levels. Critics argue (1951–1953), he began his career as a calypso singer,
that the social policy of liberals directly and indirectly un- dancer, and violinist, performing in nightclubs. In
dermines individual responsibility and parental authority 1955, he joined the Nation of Islam through the min-
in the family and community. Conservatives, on the other istry of Malcolm X at Temple 11 in Boston and gave up
hand, proclaim attachment to both family values and show business at the insistence of Elijah Muhammad,
the free-market system. Critics argue that conservatives who later surnamed him Farrakhan. He then went on to
overlook or ignore the stresses placed on families by the gain prominence within the Black Muslim movement
free-market system, pointing to the rise in the working with his hit song “A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black
poor, the need for two incomes to maintain a middle-class Man’s Hell” as well as the writing of two polemical plays
lifestyle, and the undermining of local communalism that toured nationally. From 1965 to 1975 Farrakhan
when companies transfer their employees or move their was based in Harlem.
workplaces overseas for cheaper labor. By 1964, relations between Malcolm X and Elijah
Muhammad had deteriorated, leading the former to
Daniel Liechty split from the organization. Farrakhan remained loyal
Federal B udge t Def ic it 173
condemning the homosexual lifestyle in harsh rhetoric.

The Million Man March, held on October 16, 1995,
drew criticism from some women’s groups because
they felt wives and mothers were purposely excluded.
In fact, the focus of Farrakhan’s concern was the main-
stream media image of black males, which, he believed,
unfairly emphasized drug use and gang membership.
In an effort to counter that image, he organized what
was billed as a “Holy Day of Atonement, Reconciliation
and Responsibility.”
In February 2007, plagued by health problems, Far-
rakhan gave his last public address as the leader of the
Nation of Islam, leaving the fate of the organization in
the hands of an executive committee. In that two-hour
farewell speech, delivered in Detroit at the Nation of
Islam’s annual meeting, Farrakhan denounced the Iraq
War and called on Congress to impeach President George
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has invoked some- W. Bush.
times incendiary rhetoric in advocating for black separatism
and the Black Muslim movement since the 1950s. His extrem-
Steve Young
ist comments have targeted Jews, whites, and homosexuals.
(Scott Olson/Stringer/AFP/Getty Images) See also: Anti-Semitism; Bush Family; Gangs; Jackson, Jesse;
Malcolm X; Million Man March; Muslim Americans; Nation
of Islam; Race; Rap Music.
to Elijah Muhammad and proclaimed Malcolm “worthy
of death” in the Nation’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. Further Reading
In tumultuous times for the Black Muslim movement, Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farra-
Malcolm was murdered by Nation of Islam assassins in khan and the Nation of Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University
New York City on February 21, 1965. A decade later, Press, 1996.
upon Elijah Muhammad’s death, his son, Warith Deen Magida, Arthur J. Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and
Muhammad, was proclaimed Elijah’s successor. The his Nation. New York: Basic Books, 1996.
new leader renamed the Nation the World Community Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Resur-
of Al-Islam in the West and worked to transform the rection, Transformation, and Change of the Lost-Found Nation
movement in line with traditional Sunni doctrines, of Islam in America, 1930–1995. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
reaching out to all races. Farrakhan, taking exception Press, 1996.
to that vision, left the organization to recreate the Singh, Robert. The Farrakhan Phenomenon: Race, Reaction, and
Nation of Islam, maintaining its original antiwhite the Paranoid Style in American Politics. Washington, DC:
ideology. The new offshoot under Farrakhan’s control, Georgetown University Press, 1997.
headquartered in Chicago, appealed to a growing urban
black underclass. His fiery rhetoric inspired alienated
black youth, including rap and hip-hop artists as well Federal Budget Defic it
as some gang leaders. How to best address chronic deficits, widely regarded
Farrakhan’s attitudes and comments regarding as the most conspicuous failure of the American budget
Jews, gays, and women have been reported extensively process, has been a highly divisive and recurring issue of
by the national media, arousing widespread protest and the culture wars. With the exception of 1998–2001, the
indignation. After presidential candidate Jesse Jackson U.S. federal government has experienced deficits every
made an anti-Jewish slur during the 1984 Democratic year since 1969. By 2008, the federal budget deficit was
primary campaign, Farrakhan came to the candidate’s $438 billion, the largest in history. The previous record
defense, publicly threatening the African-American of $413 billion occurred in 2004. During the George
journalist who reported the quote. On other occasions, W. Bush administration the national debt, the sum total
Farrakhan referred to Jews as “bloodsuckers” and to of unretired deficit spending, went from $5.7 trillion to
Judaism as a “gutter religion.” In 1991, the Nation $10 trillion.
published The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Historically, the belief that the federal government
charging Jews with fostering and profiting from the should balance its budget has been a dominant convic-
slave trade, a thesis repudiated by scholars. Over the tion in American politics. From the nation’s founding
years, Farrakhan has been equally hostile toward gays, until the 1930s, the balanced budget rule was usually
174 Federal B udge t Def ic it
adhered to, with the exception of times of war. Between See also: Clinton, Bill; Democratic Party; New Deal; Norquist,
1789 and 1930, government expenditures exceeded Grover; Perot, H. Ross; Reagan, Ronald; Republican Party;
revenues only about one in every three years. The large Social Security; Supply-Side Economics; Tax Reform; Welfare
and rapidly increasing federal budget deficits after 1970, Reform.
following about 180 years of balanced budgets (except
during periods of war or recession), are thus a relatively Further Reading
recent development in American history. Fisher, Patrick. Congressional Budgeting: A Representational Perspec-
Since the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, arguments about tive. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005.
the deficit have proceeded along partisan lines. Republi- Ippolito, Dennis S. Why Budgets Matter: Budget Policy and Ameri-
cans tend to insist that deficits are the result of excessive can Politics. University Park: Pennsylvania State University
federal spending. Many Democrats see attempts to cut Press, 2003.
taxes and move the budget toward deficits as a long- Kettl, Donald F. Deficit Politics. New York: Longman, 2003.
term strategy of Republicans to “starve” government Peterson, Peter G. Running on Empty. New York: Farrar, Straus
programs that benefit Democratic constituencies. In and Giroux, 2004.
the 1990s, Democrats sought the elimination of the Schick, Allen. The Capacity to Budget. Washington, DC: Urban
deficit in order to safeguard entitlement programs and Press, 1990.
restore the government’s credibility. It can be noted, for White, Joseph, and Aaron Wildavsky. The Deficit and the Public
example, that President Bill Clinton’s strong support Interest. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
for deficit reduction resulted in budget surpluses at
the end of his presidency. Yet by the end of President
George W. Bush’s first term, the deficit had reached
Federal Communications
historic proportions. Commission
Historically, the Republican Party was regarded as The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is
the party that placed greater emphasis on balancing the an independent U.S. agency responsible for regulating
budget. Conservatives strongly favored balanced budgets, radio and television, telephone, cable, and satellite.
going back to 1798, when Thomas Jefferson proposed a The FCC is both quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. After in that it develops policy, enforces regulations, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt endorsed the Keynesian concept issues broadcasting permits and licenses. Since its five
of short-term deficit spending in order to stimulate the commissioners are appointed by the president and
economy after he was elected president in 1932, the confirmed by the U.S. Senate, the FCC is a political
Democrats became the party associated with justifying body and thereby subject to partisanship and ideological
short-term deficits. Until 1981, Republicans largely manipulation. In the culture wars, the FCC has been
maintained a belief in balanced budgets. Beginning with variously criticized for overregulation and for not
the Ronald Reagan presidency, however, the emphasis regulating enough.
for many Republicans changed to cutting taxes rather The U.S. federal government has long declared the
than reducing the deficit. It has been estimated that the airways public property that must be leased prior to any
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 cost the federal use. In 1912, the Radio Communications Act required
government more than $2 trillion in lost revenue over the Department of Commerce and Labor to issue radio
the period 1982–1991. licenses. In 1927, at the request of broadcasters, the Radio
One rationale for cutting taxes even in the face of Act established the Federal Radio Communications (FRC)
large deficits is the supply-side argument that tax cuts to bring order to the airwaves for improving the quality
will more than pay for themselves by stimulating new of transmissions by reducing the crowded conditions.
economic activity. Another argument, one with an ideo- In 1934, the FRC and relevant offices of the Interstate
logical bent, is that smaller government, which is favored Commerce Commission and the Office of the Postmaster
by conservatives, requires “starving the beast.” Large General responsible for telephone and telegraph regula-
deficits increase the pressure for spending cuts. tions were consolidated, forming the FCC.
This represents a fundamental change in American
politics. Starting with the New Deal, to be “conservative” Red Scare Politics
on fiscal policy meant an aversion to deficits. Since 1981, As a New Deal creation, the FCC sought to promote
however, although conservatives still tend to support bud- competition among broadcasters and foster a free
getary balance in the abstract, Republicans are less willing marketplace of ideas by eliminating monopolistic control
to actually balance the budget. Democrats and liberals, by of the airwaves, reducing chain broadcasting, prohibiting
contrast, increased their support for deficit reduction as an newspaper ownership of stations, preventing broadcasters
important means in itself. from using their stations for partisan purposes, and
Patrick Fisher requiring the airing of dissenting views. This led to a
Federal Communic ation s Commission 175
conservative backlash, with New Deal foes depicting the that if air time was granted to a political candidate for
FCC as a sinister instrument of big government. Some campaign advertising, then equal time had to also be
opposed the 1943 breakup of the National Broadcasting offered to the opposing candidate. However, stations
Corporation (NBC) into two networks, NBC and were not required to invite lesser-known candidates to
the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In participate in televised debates.
addition, conservatives accused the FCC commissioners In 1987, the FCC chose to abolish the fairness doc-
of purposely awarding broadcasting licenses to liberals, trine even though the U.S. Supreme Court in Red Lion
some labeled “red.” At one point, Congressman Martin Broadcasting Company v. Federal Communications Commis-
Dies (D-TX) denigrated the FCC as “the nastiest nest of sion (1969) had ruled that the commission was legally
rats in the country,” implying communist affiliation. authorized to regulate content because of the “scarcity”
Political realignment on the FCC came when Presi- of available public frequencies. By the second half of
dent Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed John Doerfer and the 1980s, the FCC had determined that the scarcity
Robert Lee as commissioners. Both were allies of Sena- argument had been rendered invalid by the diversity
tor Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) and used their position to of media options. Congress in 1987 attempted to re-
target broadcasters deemed too liberal by Republican instate the fairness doctrine, but the bill was vetoed by
Party standards. To that end, the FCC developed a cozy President Ronald Reagan. Although primarily opposed
relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigations by political conservatives, the fairness doctrine was also
(FBI) in order to learn the backgrounds of controversial criticized by William O. Douglas, one of the most liberal
broadcasters. The stated fear was that a “red network” Supreme Court justices, who in 1973 argued, “The Fair-
of the airwaves, especially television, could be used by ness Doctrine . . . puts the head of the camel inside the
communists during a national emergency (such as a tent that enables administration after administration to
war between the United States and Soviet Union). In a toy with TV or radio in order to serve its sordid or its
highly publicized hearing spanning three years, the FCC benevolent ends.”
considered revoking the radio and television licenses of
Edward Lamb, a liberal Democrat, businessman, labor Telecommunications Act of 1996
attorney, and Soviet sympathizer. Lamb, a resident of In 1984, the U.S. Justice Department broke up AT&T
Toledo, Ohio, won his case in 1957 after several witnesses (“Ma Bell”) on the grounds that the telecommunications
for the prosecution recanted their testimony, which they giant was a monopoly. As a result, local and long-
claimed had been “coached” by FCC officials. distance phone services, as well as cable television, were
Some suggested that the FCC joined in the Red separated. Out of this process emerged the seven so-
Scare as a distraction from the task of regulating the air- called “Baby Bells,” each granted a regional monopoly.
waves. During the TV quiz show scandals of the 1950s, Upon passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,
for example, the FCC remained largely confined to the local telephone companies were required to open their
sidelines. In March 1960, FCC chairman Doerfer, long markets to competitors but were permitted to offer long-
regarded as a reluctant regulator, was forced to resign distance service. Then, in a decision critics characterized
following revelations that he had vacationed on a yacht as a return to monopolistic days, the FCC in December
owned by broadcaster George B. Storer. 2006 approved an $85 billion merger between Bell
South (one of the Baby Bells) and AT&T.
Fairness Doctrine Perhaps most controversial, the 1996 law loosened
One of the most debated FCC regulations was the so- broadcast ownership restrictions, enabling television
called fairness doctrine (1949–1987), which required corporations to increase their reach of the viewing public
broadcasters to devote “equal time” on the air to from 25 to 35 percent. In addition, radio groups were no
opposing viewpoints. Many broadcasters argued that longer limited to twenty AM and twenty FM stations.
“fairness” was an ambiguous standard and that any Thus, by 2000, Clear Channel Communications was in
requirement for equity of opinion was a violation of possession of 1,200 radio stations, constituting 9 percent
the First Amendment. In one dramatic instance, the of the American market. Critics viewed the corporate
FCC in July 1973 revoked the broadcast license of consolidation of the airwaves as a dangerous concentra-
fundamentalist preacher Carl McIntire (on radio station tion of power.
WXUR in Media, Pennsylvania) because of his refusal In another decision viewed by critics as too pro-
to comply with the fairness doctrine. Supporters of business, the FCC in 1997 chose to assign digital channels
the doctrine believed that it fostered democracy and without charge. U.S. senators Bob Dole (R-KS) and John
prevented stations from airing only one ideological McCain (R-AZ), among others, believed that broadcast-
perspective. Critics countered that the doctrine had a ers should be required to pay $70 billion to the federal
chilling effect by compelling broadcasters to avoid airing government for the assignment of spectrum for digital
controversial ideas. The fairness doctrine also required television.
176 Federal Communic ation s Commission
Indecency and Fines of sexual content and violence as established by the TV

Beginning with a 1946 report known as the Blue Book Parental Guidelines.
(officially titled Public Service Responsibility for Broadcast Roger Chapman
Licensees), the FCC has reminded broadcasters of their
commitment to public service. On May 9, 1961, in an See also: Censorship; Douglas, William O., Eisenhower,
address before the National Association of Broadcasters Dwight D.; McCarthyism; McIntire, Carl; Media Bias; New
Convention, FCC chairman Newton N. Minnow Deal; Reagan, Ronald; Republican Party; Shock Jocks; Stern,
denounced the quality of television programming, Howard.
describing it as “a vast wasteland.” The controversial
and often-quoted speech annoyed producer Sherwood Further Reading
Schwartz (among many others in the industry), who Brainard, Lori A. Television: The Limits of Deregulation. Boulder,
christened the castaway ship on the television sitcom CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004.
Gilligan’s Island (1964–1967) the S.S. Minnow. While Brinson, Susan L. The Red Scare, Politics, and the Federal Communica-
“public service” programming as originally defined tions Commission, 1941–1960. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
by the FCC referred to broadcasts with informational Einstein, Mara. Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership, and the
content, as entertainment became a greater part of FCC. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004.
broadcasting, the issue of indecency became central to Federal Communications Commission Web site. www.fcc.gov.
the debate over broadcaster responsibility. Zarkin, Kimberly A., and Michael J. Zarkin. The Federal Com-
In 1973, the comedian George Carlin tested the munications Commission: Front Line in the Culture and Regulation
FCC by delivering a radio monologue called “Seven Wars. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Words You Can Never Say on Television.” In the legal
battle that ensued, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately
ruled in FCC v. Pacifica (1978) that the FCC has a right
F e l t , W. M a r k
to impose decency standards on broadcasters because of On May 31, 2005, W. Mark Felt, the former number
considerations (such as the need to shield children from two official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
offensive material) beyond First Amendment protections. publicly announced that, despite decades of denial, he
The court added, however, that there is a “safe harbor” was indeed the person known as “Deep Throat,” the
when indecency standards are not in effect, from 10 p.m. confidential source who guided Washington Post reporters
to 6 a.m., when children should be in bed. By 1987, the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in investigating the
FCC expanded its definition of indecency from seven Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to the downfall
dirty words to include sexual innuendo, a decision largely of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. The identity
impacting radio “shock jocks” such as Howard Stern. of Deep Throat—a pseudonym taken from a 1972
Indecency fines imposed on broadcasters by the FCC pornographic movie of the same name—was confirmed
remained relatively small during the 1990s. By 2004, by Woodward after it was disclosed in a Vanity Fair
however, with the general public lodging 1.4 million magazine article. A national debate immediately erupted
complaints about indecency, the FCC issued fines totaling over Felt’s role as Watergate whistleblower, with some
$7.9 million. That same year, CBS inadvertently televised calling him a hero and others a villain.
the singer Janet Jackson exposing her breast during a William Mark Felt was born on August 17, 1913, in
Super Bowl halftime show, leading to a $550,000 FCC Twin Falls, Idaho. He attended the University of Idaho
fine. In an ironic legal twist, the U.S. Court of Appeals (BA, 1935) and George Washington University Law
for the Second Circuit ruled in June 2007 that FCC fines School (JD, 1940). His career in the FBI, which began
for the broadcasting of “fleeting expletives” are unlawful in 1942, included posts in Texas, Washington, Virginia,
since the same obscene words had been publicly blurted and Nevada. By 1971, he had risen to deputy associate
by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick director. Following the death of FBI director J. Edgar
Cheney. Hoover in May 1972 and his succession by L. Patrick
A provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 Gray, Felt was appointed associate director. In 1980,
required cable companies broadcasting “sexually-oriented Felt was convicted of authorizing, without first obtain-
programming” to either scramble those channels or to ing the necessary search warrants, the 1972 and 1973
limit their transmission during the “safe harbor” hours in FBI break-ins of homes of bombing suspects connected
order to protect children, but the Supreme Court in United with the Weather Underground; he was later pardoned
States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000) overturned by President Ronald Reagan.
that regulation as too restrictive. Also in 1996, Congress From his high-level perch inside the FBI, Felt wit-
mandated that television sets larger than thirteen inches nessed the attempt by Nixon administration officials to
(33 centimeters) be equipped with the V-chip, a blocking obstruct the federal investigation of the burglary of the
device capable of reading the program ratings in terms Democratic National Committee headquarters at the
Feminism, Second - Wave 177
Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington, reproductive rights, the ratification of the Equal Rights
D.C., which occurred on June 17, 1972. Three days later, Amendment (ERA), and the end of the patriarchal
Woodward phoned Felt, who advised the reporter that system. This movement is known as “second-wave
the Watergate matter would soon “heat up.” By June feminism” (the first wave referring to the battle for
23, President Nixon, citing national security concerns, women’s suffrage from the mid-nineteenth to the early
directed the Central Intelligence Agency to put a halt twentieth century). By the late 1970s, as second-wave
to or at least limit the FBI investigation on Watergate. feminism suffered dissension between traditionalists and
Later that summer, Felt began secretly corroborating radicals, social conservatives were leading a backlash in
information Woodward and Bernstein were digging up the name of family values.
about the scandal; he would eventually offer direction A major catalyst of second-wave feminism was the
on different aspects of the complicated case. During the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
course of 1972 and 1973, the Post investigation—and that (1963), which articulated female frustration with do-
of the Senate Watergate Committee chaired by Sam Er- mesticity and the stultifying expectation of mainstream
vin (D-NC) and Howard Baker (R-TN)—uncovered the society that a woman’s complete fulfillment should de-
involvement of the Committee to Re-elect the President rive from being a wife and mother. Friedan’s work was
in the burglary and of the Nixon administration itself in liberating in that it showed individual women (at least
the cover-up that followed. those of the middle class) that they were not alone in
A public debate ensued over Felt’s revelation in questioning the assumptions imposed upon their gen-
2005. Some portrayed him as a patriot, motivated to help der, and at the same time it helped alleviate the guilt
Woodward out of respect for the U.S. Constitution and a they felt for harboring career interests. In 1966, Friedan
desire to preserve the integrity of the FBI; others argued helped establish the National Organization for Women
that he acted improperly and perhaps out of spite because (NOW) for the stated purpose of “bring[ing] women into
Nixon did not appoint him FBI director. Former Nixon the mainstream of society . . . in truly equal partnership
aides Charles W. Colson, G. Gordon Liddy, and Patrick with men,” and in the following year NOW adopted a
Buchanan all denounced Felt for taking the information platform calling for the repeal of abortion laws and the
to a reporter rather than to the prosecutor conducting the passage of the ERA.
official investigation; they, in turn, were criticized for be- The demand for legal, safe, and available abortion
ing more indignant about the action of a whistleblower was one of the most controversial demands of second-
than the crimes the whistleblower helped expose. wave feminists. NOW’s official endorsement of abor-
Felt died on December 18, 2008. John D. O’Connor, tion made it the first national organization to take such
who co-wrote a book with Felt, said shortly afterwards, a stance, but it sought to not let that polarizing issue
“What I saw was a person that went from a divided person- overshadow the struggle for political and economic rights.
ality that carried around this heavy secret to a completely In 1969, Friedan and others formed a new group to deal
integrated and glowing personality over these past few exclusively with the abortion issue, the National Asso-
years once he let the secret out.” ciation for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. Abortion had
William T. Walker been criminalized in the United States beginning in the
late nineteenth century, yet the procedure had remained
See also: Buchanan, Pat; Bush Family; Colson, Chuck; Liddy, common, though hidden. It was possible to obtain a legal
G. Gordon; Nixon, Richard; Presidential Pardons; Reagan, abortion performed by a trained physician, yet often at
Ronald; Students for a Democratic Society; Watergate; Whis- high cost and requiring the woman to claim she could
tleblowers; Woodward, Bob. not mentally handle having a child. Otherwise, a woman
could seek an illegal, “back alley” abortion performed by
Further Reading an insufficiently trained individual, perhaps traveling a
Felt, Mark, and John D. O’Connor. A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, great distance to obtain the procedure, or dangerously
Being “Deep Throat,” and the Struggle for Honor in Washington. attempt to self-abort the fetus. Feminists demanded the
Washington, DC: PublicAffairs, 2006. legality of all abortions, arguing that criminalization did
Woodward, Bob. The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep not stop the practice, but just made it unsafe. Feminists
Throat. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005. also argued that criminalization of abortion impeded
Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. All the President’s Men. their constitutional rights. The Supreme Court agreed,
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. and with the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, abortion be-
came legal.
A less controversial, but still highly debated position
F e m i n i s m , S e c o n d - Wave was NOW’s support of the ERA. The amendment (with
During the 1960s and 1970s, a large sector of American the wording “Equality of rights under the law shall not be
women demanded better pay, more job opportunities, denied or abridged by the United States or by any state
178 Feminism, Second -Wave
on account of sex”) had first been conceived in 1923, but that a true feminist must choose to be romantically or
the issue did not gain traction until NOW became active. sexually involved only with another woman; otherwise,
Second-wave feminists, realizing that women’s suffrage she was a collaborator with the male system. Meanwhile,
rights alone were not enough for achieving gender equal- lesbians denounced the radicals for assuming that sexual
ity, supported ERA because it would provide a constitu- orientation is a choice and not something you are born
tional guarantee. After passing the House in 1971 and the with. Mainstream feminists, most notably Friedan, who
Senate in 1972, the ERA seemed headed for ratification warned of a “lavender menace” in the movement, saw
but after a decade it fell three states short. Opponents radical lesbians as harming the larger struggle to elimi-
of the ERA, largely social and religious conservatives nate gender discrimination.
(spearheaded by the antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly), argued Friedan’s fears were realized with the social conser-
that such an amendment would further disrupt gender vative backlash that materialized during the late 1970s
relations, mandate unisex bathrooms, outlaw the Girl and into the 1980s, as Republican politicians and anti-
Scouts and Boy Scouts, subject women to the military feminists pushed for a return to “family values,” usually
conscription, render unconstitutional state alimony laws, meaning a desire for women to return to housewifery and
and require gay and lesbian rights (because the wording remain submissive to men.
used in the ERA was “sex” and not “gender”). Alexandra DeMonte
The defeat of the ERA was in certain respects a
mainstream backlash against the feminist movement, See also: Abortion; Equal Rights Amendment; Family Values;
specifically its radical turn of the late 1960s. This more Friedan, Betty; Gender-Inclusive Language; Lesbians; Mil-
radical element, which came to be known as the “women’s lett, Kate; Morgan, Robin; Ms.; National Organization for
liberation movement,” had been actively involved in the Women; New Left; Schlafly, Phyllis; Steinem, Gloria.
civil rights movement and New Left organizations such as
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Further Reading
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) only to be Davis, Flora. Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in
frustrated by what was perceived as blatant sexism on the America Since 1960. New York: Touchstone Books, 1991.
part of the male leaders heading those organizations. The Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with
“women’s libbers,” so denigrated by the media, began the Mass Media. New York: Times Books, 1994.
challenging feminine beauty standards, gender roles, Echols, Alice. Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America,
violence against women, and sexual double standards. 1967–1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
To Friedan and other older feminists, the radical activists 1989.
were overly focused on “frivolous” issues (and nebulous Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Move-
concepts like “sexual liberation”) rather than pragmatic ment Changed America. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
matters such as education and employment. In addi-
tion, the traditional feminists (as well as Schlafly and
her followers) were disturbed by the women’s liberation F e m i n i s m , T h i r d - Wave
negativity toward males, motherhood, heterosexuality, Third-wave feminism (TWF), a social movement led
and tradition. largely by women reared during the women’s liberation
Like any social movement, second-wave feminism movement of the 1960s and 1970s, positioned itself as
was not monolithic. While liberal activists and organiza- the successor to the political activism of first- and second-
tions like NOW thought the best approach was work- wave feminism (SWF). The movement, which emerged
ing within the political system, radical groups such as in the 1990s and has continued into the twenty-first
the Redstockings (founded in 1969) were distrustful of century, has incited controversy by embracing voices that
established institutions due to entrenched patriarchy. SWF had previously rejected. Whereas SWF primarily
Perhaps most radical were adherents of Valerie Solanas’s focused on issues pertaining to gender inequality (and,
SCUM Manifesto (1968), which urged women to “over- prior to the 1920s, first-wave feminism rallied for voting
throw the government, eliminate the money system, rights), TWF focused on diversity within the women’s
institute complete automation and eliminate the male movement.
sex.” (SCUM stood for Society for Cutting Up Men. The theoretical roots of TWF lay in the post-struc-
Solanas, who in 1968 shot the pop artist Andy Warhol, tural literary criticism that emerged in academia during
nearly killing him, later claimed that her manifesto was the 1980s. TWF drew on diverse rhetorical traditions
simply a satire.) like ecofeminism, women-of-color consciousness, queer
Often radical groups splintered over differences in theory, and postcolonial theory to break down bifurca-
feminist philosophy pertaining to childbearing, men, tions that SWF had long assumed: male/female, black/
marriage, and especially sexuality. Some radicals, like white, bondage/liberation. Diverse thinkers and writers
The Feminists (founded in the early 1970s), insisted such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Cherríe Moraga, and
Fer raro, Geraldine 179
Toni Morrison added narrative sophistication to new Further Reading

lines of questioning. The term “TWF” came into public Baumgardner, Jennifer, and Amy Richards. Manifesta: Young
consciousness after feminist and author Rebecca Walker Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus
declared herself part of a “Third Wave” in a 1992 article and Giroux, 2000.
in Ms. Magazine. Henry, Astrid. Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and
TWF coalesced around two young editors at Ms., Jen- Third-Wave Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University
nifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. Their manifesto for Press, 2004.
the new movement, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and Heywood, Leslie, and Jennifer Drake, eds. Third Wave Agenda.
the Future (2000), sought not so much to repudiate SWF as Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
to rekindle its energy around an expanded set of feminist Walker, Rebecca, ed. To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing
goals. Like SWF, Manifesta decried sexual harassment, the Face of Feminism. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.
domestic abuse, and the wage gap, but added to them is-
sues of more recent, global concern: HIV/AIDS and STD
(sexually transmitted diseases) awareness, child sexual Fer raro, Geraldine
abuse, and equal access to technology. The book argued for As the first woman to be nominated on a major party
the liberation of female individuality—in sexual identity, ticket, 1984 Democratic vice-presidential candidate
above all—free from the constraints of SWF politics. Geraldine Ferraro was catapulted into the national
Despite their obvious points of commonality, SWF spotlight at a time of conservative backlash against
and TWF stood at profound odds with one another. women’s rights and advocacy. Her candidacy, advocating
Manifesta embraced the “girlie” culture of the 1990s, the cause of women, the working class, and the poor, was
refusing to condemn sexualized depictions in the media, therefore characterized by conservative opponents as an
which SWF had decried as objectification. SWF bristled act of ambition. A three-term U.S. representative from
at TWF’s casual use of words like slut, bitch, and dyke. In New York prior to her vice-presidential bid, Ferraro
2004, Richards’s leadership was called into question when later ran twice, unsuccessfully, for the U.S. Senate.
fellow feminists condemned her for speaking glibly about Geraldine Anne Ferraro was born on August 26,
her decision to abort two fetuses. To some feminists, TWF 1935, in Newburgh, New York, to an Italian immigrant
appeared morally bankrupt, a cloak for anarchy. father, who died when she was eight, and a seamstress
Even before Manifesta appeared, the long-term vital- mother. She attended Marymount Manhattan College
ity of TWF was very much in question. TWF’s diver- (BA, English, 1956) and Fordham University School
gence from SWF in matters of sexual politics prevented of Law (JD, 1960). After practicing law for more than
a wholesale alliance, thus divorcing TWF from powerful a decade, she served as assistant district attorney in
connections and potential funding. More disconcerting Queens County in the Special Victims Bureau, where
was the relationship between TWF and society at large. she became convinced that abortion was better than child
By embracing sexual liberation of all kinds, Manifesta abuse. From 1979 to 1985, she served three terms in the
could not speak for feminists with more conservative po- U.S. Congress, representing New York’s Ninth District
litical views, the very women whose vote swayed elections (Queens), compiling a moderately liberal voting record
in the early 2000s. TWF appealed more to well-educated and gaining a seat on the House Budget Committee. In
elites than the massive groundswell SWF had attracted, the run-up to the 1984 Democratic National Convention,
making widespread recruitment difficult. The movement the presumptive presidential nominee, Walter Mondale,
threatened to splinter before it had begun. selected Ferraro as his running mate.
Nevertheless, TWF remained a vital force for many The historic choice energized the Democratic Party
women in the first decade of the twenty-first century. and women’s groups across the country. Ferraro, said
Richards and Walker helped found the Third Wave Walter Mondale, represented the “classic American
Foundation, which raised money for educational pro- Dream.” Yet her selection was not universally popular,
grams initiated by young women and transgender activ- given the conservative tenor of the times and Ferraro’s
ists. An online journal, Feminista! A Journal of Feminist own liberalism, ethnicity, religion (Roman Catholic),
Construction, brought together intellectually inclined and gender. And her candidacy made waves in some
feminists. These and other resources, in a digital age, unexpected ways. Married to real estate developer John
put feminists in touch with one another, allowing them Zaccaro in 1960, she continued to use her maiden name
to create activist networks unavailable to feminists of in honor of her mother. As press coverage increased, the
past generations. New York Times and other publications began referring
Jed Woodworth to Ferraro as “Ms.” rather than “Mrs.,” a unique desig-
nation for married women at the time. Her support of
See also: Abortion; AIDS; Feminism, Second-Wave; Morrison, the Equal Rights Amendment, her pro-choice stance on
Toni; Ms. abortion (for which she was chided by the archbishop of
18 0 F lag Desec ration
New York), and alleged improprieties—including tax the unique national symbol of the United States. Those
evasion—on the part of Zaccaro, put her at the center opposing such an amendment argue that the flag stands
of controversy and made her the target of conservative for certain fundamental rights and freedoms, including
Republican reproach. the freedom to engage in forms of protest and expression
In a televised debate with Vice President George that others might find offensive.
H.W. Bush, Ferraro endured a series of patronizing While the American flag was adopted as the symbol
attacks against her knowledge of foreign policy. And, of the United States in 1777, it was not until the Civil
despite the agreed-upon honorific of “Congresswoman,” War that the Stars and Stripes—the flag of the North—
Bush inevitably began referring to her as “Mrs. Ferraro.” became a popular symbol of patriotism. The earliest
After a landslide defeat at the hands of the Reagan-Bush concerns about flag desecration came with its increasing
ticket in November, Ferraro sought the New York party use in commercial advertising during the post–Civil War
nomination for Senate in 1992 and 1998, losing both era. In 1890, the House of Representatives passed a bill
times. In the interim, she served as U.S. ambassador aimed primarily at curtailing such use. At the same time,
to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights there was a growing concern about the possible use of the
(1994–1995). Moving on to a career in law and business, flag for political protest by “radicals” and “subversives.”
she was an active supporter of another woman Democrat The American Flag Association was formed in 1897 to
from New York—Hillary Rodham Clinton—in the promote antidesecration legislation—a campaign soon
2008 Democratic presidential primary. Ferraro caused joined by groups such as the Daughters of the American
controversy at that time by attributing the success of Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution.
Barack Obama, Clinton’s rival, to his being black. That same year, three states passed flag-desecration laws.
Eventually, every other state except Alaska and Wyoming
Stephanie Chaban would follow suit.
The first challenge to flag-desecration laws consid-
See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Catholic Church; Democratic ered by the U.S. Supreme Court was Halter v. Nebraska
Party; Equal Rights Amendment; Marriage Names; Mondale, (1907). The plaintiffs were owners of “Stars and Stripes”
Walter; Ms.; New York Times, The; Obama, Barack; Reagan, beer, whose label included pictures of the American flag.
Ronald; Republican Party. The Nebraska law prohibiting depictions of the flag
in commercial advertising, they argued, violated their
Further Reading property rights. The high court ruled against the beer
Breslin, Rosemary, and John Hammer. Gerry! A Woman Making owners and upheld the Nebraska law on the grounds
History. New York: Pinnacle Books, 1984. that use of the flag in advertising degrades and cheapens
Ferraro, Geraldine A., with Linda Bird Francke. Ferraro: My it, and that a state can restrict property rights for the
Story. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2004. purpose of encouraging patriotism. The case was decided
Ferraro, Geraldine, with Catherine Whitney. Framing a Life: A purely on due-process (Fifth Amendment) grounds, not
Family Memoir. New York: Scribner, 1998. in relation to the First Amendment’s guarantee of free
Katz, Lee Michael. My Name Is Geraldine Ferraro: An Unauthor- speech. Nevertheless, the language of the ruling was so
ized Biography. New York: New American Library, 1984. sweeping that six decades were to pass before another
flag-desecration case came before the high court.
In 1968, Congress passed the Federal Flag Desecra-
Flag Desecration tion Law in response to an event in which peace activists
The term “flag desecration” refers to any intentional act burned American flags in protest against the Vietnam
of mistreating or dishonoring a flag, including burning; War. The new legislation banned any display that
tearing; dirtying; displaying upside down or in places “knowingly casts contempt upon any flag of the United
deemed inappropriate; defacing with messages, images, States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burn-
or symbols; and using as clothing, a rag, or other ing or trampling upon it.” In the case of Street v. New
inappropriate purpose. Two important U.S. Supreme York (1969), however, the Supreme Court found the
Court decisions that struck down flag-desecration laws law unconstitutional to the extent that it barred verbal
as violations of the First Amendment—Texas v. Johnson expression of contempt for the flag. Ten years later, in
(1989) and United States v. Eichman (1990)—set off an 1979, the high court struck down as unconstitutional
emotional national debate as to whether or not to amend all laws banning flag desecration, no matter what form
the U.S. Constitution to prohibit such activity. it takes, setting the stage for the national debate that
That debate, one of the most polarizing in postwar was to follow.
American history, continues to the present day. Those fa- During the 1984 Republican National Convention
voring a constitutional amendment argue passionately for in Dallas, Texas, a demonstrator named Gregory Johnson
the need to restore the government’s authority to protect soaked an American flag in kerosene and burned it in
F leiss, Heidi 181
front of the convention building to protest the polices of Further Reading

President Ronald Reagan. Arrested and convicted under a Goldstein, Robert Justin. Flag Burning and Free Speech: The
Texas law against intentionally or knowingly desecrating Case of Texas v. Johnson. Kent, OH: Kent State University
a state or national flag, Johnson was fined $2,000 and Press, 2000.
sentenced to one year in jail. Five years later, in Texas v. Welch, Michael R. Flag Burning: Moral Panic and the Criminaliza-
Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, for John- tion of Protest. Edison, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 2000.
son. The majority rejected the state’s claim that the law
was necessary to protect against breeches of the peace,
because “no disturbance to the peace actually occurred Fleiss, Heidi
or threatened to occur because of Johnson’s burning of Known as the “Hollywood Madam” for running a
the flag.” The justices also rejected Texas’s claim that prostitution ring that catered to the rich and famous,
the law upheld a legitimate state interest in “preserving Heidi Fleiss was convicted of several criminal charges
the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity.” associated with the operation. Her activities challenged
Writing for the majority, Justice William Brennan conventional thinking on the legality and morality of
argued that since the law stated that desecration is il- prostitution and raised questions about gender mores.
legal if “the actor knows it will seriously offend one or Advocates of legalized prostitution cited her operation
more persons,” Johnson’s guilt depended “on the likely as a model of equitable pay, humane treatment, and safe
communicative aspect of his expressive conduct.” This, working conditions.
Brennan continued, violates “a bedrock principle” of the Heidi Lynne Fleiss was born on December 30,
First Amendment: “that Government may not prohibit 1965, in Los Feliz, California. Her prostitution ring,
the expression of an idea simply because society finds the which she established as a high-priced call-girl service
idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” The principle that during the early 1990s, claimed some of the richest men
“the Government may not prohibit expression because in the world and some of the most prominent figures in
it disagrees with the message is not dependent on the the movie industry. Her arrest at her Benedict Canyon
particular mode in which one chooses to express an idea.” home in June 1993 caused a scandal that shook the
In other words, if Johnson were free to protest Reagan’s Hollywood community. Although her client list, alleg-
policies by writing an essay, then he was equally free to edly including the names of Hollywood’s top executives
protest them by burning a flag. and stars as well as members of the international elite,
The Johnson ruling unleashed a political firestorm was never made public, speculation regarding its con-
and prompted Congress quickly to pass the Flag Protec- tents continued for years. The call-girl operation was
tion Act of 1989, which provided penalties of up to one the subject of a 1999 documentary film, Heidi Fleiss:
year in jail and a $1,000 fine for anyone who “knowingly Hollywood Madam, by Nick Broomfield, and a 2004
mutilates, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the made-for-television movie, Call Me: The Rise and Fall
floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United of Heidi Fleiss.
States.” After the law took effect, thousands of people Fleiss, twenty-seven at the time of her arrest, was
around the country burned flags in protest, leading to charged with five counts of pandering and one count of
the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Eichman possession of narcotics. Her lawyers made a strong case
(1990). Brennan’s majority opinion in that case essen- for entrapment, which nearly resulted in a deadlocked
tially reaffirmed the Johnson decision, now regarding jury, but she was ultimately found guilty of three counts
federal legislation. of pandering.
Congress has made at least seven attempts to overrule Her defense attorneys then challenged the jury de-
the U.S. Supreme Court by considering a constitutional liberations and appealed the verdict. While she awaited
amendment making an exception to the First Amend- a retrial, federal charges were also levied against Fleiss.
ment that would allow the government to ban flag des- She was indicted on fourteen counts of conspiracy, in-
ecration. In 1990, when the amendment was first brought come tax evasion, and money laundering, and in 1997
up for vote, it failed to achieve the necessary two-thirds she was sentenced to three years in prison and 300 hours
majority in the House. After the Republicans gained a of community service. She was released from prison in
congressional majority in 1994, the measure consistently 1998 after serving twenty months.
passed the House but failed in the Senate. A more recent chapter in Fleiss’s controversial career
centered on her plans to open Heidi’s Stud Farm, the
Evan Charney first brothel in America that would employ male pros-
titutes and cater to female clients, some 80 miles (129
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; American Civil Re- kilometers) outside of Las Vegas. The proposed venture
ligion; Confederate Flag; Dukakis, Michael; Reagan, Ronald; immediately raised resistance from both sides of the
Vietnam War; War Protesters. liberal-conservative divide. Established brothel owners
182 F ly nt , L ar r y
in Nevada feared that Fleiss’s presence might attract un- Jerry Falwell, the televangelist and leader of the Moral
wanted attention to their industry and perhaps renew the Majority, for an ad parody in Hustler that portrayed the
battle to outlaw prostitution in the state. Fleiss suggested minister as a drunken hypocrite who had sex with his
that the enterprise would present a sexual discrimination mother in an outhouse.
challenge to existing legislation, since male prostitution Flynt’s defense against Falwell inspired a successful
would necessitate a rewording of relevant state statutes, and controversial film, The People v. Larry Flynt (1996),
all of which are female specific. directed by Milos Forman and co-produced by Oliver
Cynthia J. Miller Stone. Critics of the film, such as the feminist Gloria
Steinem, one of Hustler’s most prominent detractors,
See also: Hefner, Hugh; Relativism, Moral; Sexual R
evolution. argued that it glorified Flynt while downplaying the
misogyny and violence associated with his pornography.
Further Reading The defense of pornography as free speech often runs up
Fleiss, Heidi. Pandering. Los Angeles: One Hour Entertain- against degrading and offensive portrayals of women—in
ment, 2002. Hustler’s case, even the crude glorification or incitement
Friess, Steve. “Betting on the Studs.” Newsweek, December 12, of violence against women and children, as in the maga-
2005. zine’s long-running cartoon Chester the Molester, drawn by
Hursley, Timothy. Brothels of Nevada: Candid Views of America’s a convicted pedophile.
Legal Sex Industry. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, By Flynt’s own admission, Hustler does degrade
2004. women and is purposefully offensive—part of his editorial
Sheehan, Jack. Skin City: Uncovering the Las Vegas Sex Industry. policy is to be offensive to as many people as possible and
Las Vegas, NV: Stephens Press, 2004. to expose what he considers the hypocrisy of “political
correctness.” Perhaps the most offensive issue of Hustler
appeared in June 1978, featuring a picture of a woman
Flynt, Larry stuffed into a meat grinder, transformed into hamburger.
As the founder and publisher of Hustler magazine, Larry Beside the image was Flynt’s clearly printed declaration,
Flynt has been a central figure in the culture wars over “We will no longer hang up women like pieces of meat.”
pornography. Born Larry Claxton Flynt on November At the same time, Flynt has spent a sizable fortune in the
1, 1942, in Salyersville, Kentucky, he was raised in defense of the First Amendment.
poverty and joined the U.S. Army at age fifteen. After His political activism has gone beyond the protec-
leaving the military in 1964, he opened a strip club in tion of pornography. A perennial Democrat, he ran for
Dayton, Ohio, followed by others that carried the name the Republican presidential nomination in 1984 against
Hustler. In 1974, he founded Hustler magazine, the Ronald Reagan. In 1998, Flynt became a celebrated figure
flagship product of what would become a multimillion- during the impeachment proceeding against President
dollar, multimedia adult entertainment enterprise Bill Clinton when, in his effort to point out the hypocrisy
based in Los Angeles, Larry Flynt Publications (LFP). of congressional Republicans, Flynt offered a million dol-
Unlike the upscale Playboy and Penthouse, Hustler aimed lars to anyone who could verify his or her “illicit sexual
low, exploiting graphic sexual pictures of women and relationship with a U.S. congressman.” This information,
including unabashedly sexist, crude, and degrading published in a special magazine called The Flynt Report,
jokes and cartoons. The formula proved commercially led to the resignation of House Speaker–elect Robert
successful, bringing Flynt wealth, notoriety, and legal Livingston (R-LA) and helped shore up popular support
trouble. for the embattled president.
In 1977, Flynt was sentenced by a court in Cincin- An enigmatic personality, Flynt in 1977 announced
nati to seven to twenty-five years in prison for pandering that he had become a born-again Christian, led to con-
obscenity and “engaging in organized crime.” Although version by Ruth Carter Stapleton, the sister of President
the conviction was later overturned (Flynt spent only six Jimmy Carter. In his autobiography, Flynt claims to have
days in prison), the ordeal woke Flynt to the possibility had a vision of God while flying on his private jet. He
that a person could be imprisoned in the United States later rejected God after suffering extreme physical pain
for “tasteless” speech. This realization was pivotal in in the wake of the attempt on his life in March 1978 by
the formation of Flynt’s public identity as an advocate a white supremacist (who was offended by Hustler’s inter-
of free speech. That image was solidified a decade later racial photo spreads) that left Flynt partially paralyzed
in the landmark case Hustler v. Falwell (1988), in which and confined to a wheelchair. In 2003, describing himself
Flynt persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that as “a smut peddler who cares,” he appeared on the ballot
extreme and highly offensive parody is protected by for California governor in the recall of Gray Davis and
the First Amendment when directed at public officials received 17,458 votes.
or public persons. In that case, Flynt had been sued by Omar Swartz
Foc u s on the Family 183
See also: Clinton Impeachment; Falwell, Jerry; Hefner, Hugh; Po- Conference on Families. In 1981, he formed the lobbying
litical Correctness; Pornography; Reagan, Ronald; Sex Offend- group Family Research Council. And in 1982, he was
ers; Sexual Revolution; Steinem, Gloria; White Supremacists. appointed to the National Advisory Commission to the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Further Reading Focus has remained politically active into the twenty-
Flynt, Larry. Sex, Lies, and Politics: The Naked Truth. New York: first century, serving as a pressure group aligned with
Kensington, 2004. the Republican Party.
———. An Unseemly Man: My Life as a Pornographer, Pundit, Dobson’s belief about the family emphasizes sexual
and Social Outcast. Los Angeles: Dove Books, 1996. and gender identity as essential to establishing healthy
Kipnis, Laura. “(Male) Desire and (Female) Disgust: Read- self-awareness and communion with God. The efforts of
ing Hustler.” In Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Focus thus emphasize education on sexuality and gen-
Nelson Cary, and Paula A. Treichler, 373–91. New York: der, with specific concern for “saving” and “protecting”
Routledge, 1992. children from perceived antifamily social ills, such as
Smolla, Rodney A. Jerry Falwell v. Larry Flynt: The First Amend- feminism, pornography, infidelity, and homosexuality. In
ment on Trial. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. January 1989, hours before the execution of serial killer
Ted Bundy in Florida, Dobson was granted an interview
with the condemned and used the occasion to campaign
F o c u s o n t h e Fa m i l y against pornography (which Bundy blamed for “shaping
Concerned about the state of the American family, and molding” his violent compulsion).
evangelical Christian and child psychologist James In addition to its widespread media programs, Focus
Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1970. A on the Family works within its network of evangelical
nonprofit organization “dedicated to nurturing and churches by holding “Community Impact” seminars.
defending families worldwide,” Focus had modest These events focus on political and moral issues and typi-
beginnings with a half-hour weekly radio program cally end with appeals to the audience members to take a
broadcast locally from Arcadia, California, a film series more active role in their churches and communities. Focus
of Dobson’s seminar tapes, and a part-time secretary. It also hosts conferences called “Love and Respect Marriage”
eventually became one of the largest nonprofit Christian and “Love Won Out,” which emphasize traditional mar-
organizations in America, reaching an international riage and heterosexuality. The one-day “Love Won Out”
audience with daily radio broadcasts, several magazines, conferences, held across the nation, use the testimony of
and newsletters, books, and videos. As a major player of “experts,” pastors, and former gays to teach that there is
the Religious Right, Focus has been active in the culture a way out of the “bondage” of homosexuality.
wars for decades. The rhetoric of Focus on the Family is less overtly
Based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, since 1991, political than that of the Religious Right in general,
Focus has more than a thousand employees and annual allowing it to avoid wide-scale criticism. Nevertheless,
revenues exceeding $140 million. It is estimated that critics attack Focus for its overt reaction to feminism.
220 million people in more than 160 countries regu- Dobson’s success at reaching his largely female audience
larly listen to its daily radio programs. The message of has been his ability to recast feminist ideals in ways that
the organization is further disseminated by ten monthly allow women to feel empowered without subverting
magazines with a combined circulation of 2.3 million. patriarchal power. At the same time, Focus uses “counter-
Additionally, Focus has a network of more than fifteen memory” in order to create nostalgia for the 1950s (when
Web sites that provide information on specific spiritual, America was “good” and women were more “traditional”)
social, and political issues. With more than seventy af- and disdain for the 1960s (when America turned “im-
filiated organizations, Focus communicates its founder’s moral”). In its critique of the 1960s counterculture,
concerns by offering biblical guidance to help families Focus lists five “bad” legacies: drugs and rock music,
make a home based on Christian values. the sexual revolution, feminism, divorce, and “God is
Dobson is the author of Dare to Discipline (1970 dead” theology. Such views offer a distinct alternative
and 1996), a moral parenting guide for a generation of to the leftist version of history, which characterizes the
American parents—fundamentalist and nonfundamen- 1960s as a time when great strides were made for social
talist alike—that has sold more than 4.5 million copies. and racial equality.
Dobson’s work is a Christian counterpart to Benjamin Despite its “soft sell” approach, Focus on the Family
Spock’s more permissive Baby and Child Care (1945). has faced its share of controversy. In 1992, the organiza-
The reputation Dobson garnered from his book gained tion teamed with Promise Keepers to promote passage
him access to the White House, first under President of Amendment 2 in Colorado, a referendum to deny
Jimmy Carter and then under President Ronald Reagan. homosexual protections at the state and local levels. The
In 1979, he served as a delegate to the White House measure was passed by voters but struck down as uncon-
18 4 Fonda , Jane
stitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court four years later. film that spawned popular, sexy, comic book heroines in
And while Dobson was not as overt as Jerry Falwell, Pat her image. After 1968, Fonda threw herself into radical
Robertson, and other members of the Religious Right political activity, defending the beleaguered Black Pan-
in blaming specific groups in America for the terrorist thers, joining with Native American protesters, especially
attacks of September 11, he did emphasize consequences during the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, and
for America’s fall from righteousness, mentioning abor- encouraging GIs to desert. Perhaps the quintessential
tion and other manifestations of “immortality.” In 2002, liberated woman of the age, she lived out her generation’s
Dobson urged Christian parents to remove their children feminist and feminine fantasies.
from public schools in California, Connecticut, and Min- In 1972 during the Vietnam War, Fonda traveled
nesota because of their “godless and immoral curriculum.” to North Vietnam and posed for photographs atop
And in 2006, he joined other political conservatives in Soviet-made anti-aircraft guns. Segments of the radical
objecting to concerns about global warming. left applauded her boldness, but supporters of the war
Controversy has never hindered the efforts of Fo- denounced her as unpatriotic. Conservatives dubbed her
cus on the Family, which remains a prominent force in “Hanoi Jane,” and bumper stickers called her a traitor.
American culture. Although Dobson stepped down as the Fonda’s controversial role in the antiwar movement did
organization’s president in 2003, for the next five years not damage her film career, however.
he remained its central figure, continuing as chairman of Twice she won Oscars for best performance by an
its board of directors. actress: for her role as a small-town prostitute living on
Karma R. Chávez the edge in New York in Klute (1971) and for her por-
trayal of the wife of a Vietnam veteran—and the lover of
See also: Dobson, James; Family Values; Feminism, Second- another—in Coming Home (1978). She also appeared in a
Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Fundamentalism, Religious; string of distinctly political movies, from Julia (1977),
Gay Rights Movement; Pornography; Promise Keepers; Reli- in which she played the radical 1930s’ playwright Lillian
gious Right; Sex Education; Sexual Revolution; Spock, Ben- Hellman, to The China Syndrome (1979), which alerted
jamin; Stay-at-Home Mothers. audiences to the risk of a nuclear reactor meltdown. In
the 1980s, she produced a series of commercially success-
Further Reading ful exercise videotapes, beginning with the Jane Fonda
Burlein, Ann. Lift High the Cross: Where White Supremacy and Workout (1982), the highest-selling home video in history
the Christian Right Converge. Durham, NC: Duke University (more than 17 million copies), and wrote several best-
Press, 2002. selling exercise books.
Buss, Dale. Family Man: The Biography of Dr. James Dobson. Fonda’s wealth and fame helped elect husband Tom
Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2005. Hayden to the California State Assembly in 1982. Six
Focus on the Family Web site. www.family.org. years later, in a surprising TV appearance, she apologized
for her trip to North Vietnam and her insensitivity to
POWs, MIAs, and their families. During the 1990s, mar-
Fonda, Jane ried to Ted Turner, she reincarnated herself as corporate
Film star and political activist Jane Fonda, daughter of wife, though after their divorce she again staked out her
Hollywood icon Henry Fonda, grew up in a virulently own independence, writing My Life So Far (2005), an
anticommunist family as a privileged American autobiography that earned her respect as a writer. Her
“princess,” although her childhood was marred by book tour was marked by the kind of confrontation that
her mother’s suicide. As a young woman, she became had become a Jane Fonda trademark.
a movie icon and multimillionaire in her own right. Jonah Raskin
Married three times—to French film director Roger
Vadim, 1960s’ political reformer Tom Hayden, and See also: American Indian Movement; Baez, Joan; Black Panther
media mogul Ted Turner—she repeatedly reinvented Party; Feminism, Second-Wave; Hayden, Tom; Turner, Ted;
herself: as sex goddess, Vietnam War protester, and Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
queen of the physical fitness phenomenon.
Born Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda in New York Further Reading
on December 21, 1937, she attended Vassar College Andersen, Chris. Citizen Jane: The Turbulent Life of Jane Fonda.
(1956–1958), then studied art in Paris and became a New York: Henry Holt, 1990.
fashion model and cover girl for Vogue (1959). After an Burke, Carole. Camp All-American: Hanoi Jane and the High and
apprenticeship with Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio, Tight. Boston: Beacon, 2004.
she appeared on Broadway and in films to favorable re- Fonda, Jane. My Life So Far. New York: Random House, 2005.
views. Vadim (who had made Bridget Bardot a star) cast Hersberger, Mary. Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an
Fonda as a seductress in Barbarella (1968), a cartoonlike American Icon. New York: New Press, 2005.
Food and Dr ug Adminis tration 185
Actress Jane Fonda, meeting with a North Vietnamese government official in 1972, was regarded as a traitor among conser-
vatives for consorting with the enemy. Decades later, many still referred to her as “Hanoi Jane.” (STF/AFP/Getty Images)
F o o d a n d D r u g Ad m i n i s t r a t i o n 1940, the FDA was transferred from under the USDA

to the Federal Security Agency, which became the De-
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a U.S. partment of Health, Education, and Welfare (1953) and
federal agency responsible for protecting public health still later the Department of Health and Human Services
by monitoring the safety, efficacy, and security of human (1980).
and veterinary medicines, medical devices (from tongue
suppressors to heart defibrillators to breast implants), Reforms of 1938 and 1962
biologics (including vaccines, blood supplies, and gene Following the 107 poisoning deaths of mostly children
therapy), food (other than meat and poultry), livestock from a “wonder drug” elixir, Congress passed the Federal
feeds and pet foods, cosmetics, and machines that emit Food, Cosmetic, and Drug Act (1938), expanding
radiation (such as x-ray machines and microwave ovens). the FDA’s power to require safety testing prior to
For years the FDA has been in the spotlight of political the marketing of drugs and therapeutic devices. The
controversy, criticized for overly regulating or for not law also empowered the agency to inspect pertinent
regulating enough. factories. The following year the FDA issued its first
The FDA began in 1906 after President Theodore food regulations, establishing standards for tomatoes
Roosevelt signed into law the Food and Drug Act, pro- and related products. Concern in the early 1950s over
hibiting the sale of mislabeled and adulterated food, chemical safety in food and cosmetics led Congress to
beverages, and medicines. Enforcement was initially car- enact the Pesticide Chemical Amendments (1954) for
ried out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), determining acceptable levels of pesticide residue on raw
specifically its Bureau of Chemistry, which had been fruit and vegetables. The Food Additives Amendments
earlier commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln. A (1958) required manufacturers to prove the safety
reorganization in 1927 led to the creation of the Food, of their additives, and one provision of the law (the
Drug, and Insecticide Administration. Three years later Delaney Amendment) banned any that cause cancer.
it was renamed the Food and Drug Administration. In This was followed by the Color Additive Amendments
18 6 Food and Dr ug Adminis tration
(1960), requiring proof of safety for color additives in must meet FDA approval. In 1980, the agency began
food, drugs, and cosmetics. regulating infant formula.
In 1959 the antitrust subcommittee headed by Sena- This increase of mandates coincided with a growing
tor Estes Kefauver (D-TN) began holding hearings on the conservative backlash, heightened by the frustration of
questionable marketing practices of the pharmaceutical pharmaceutical companies over drug approval. President
industry. The result was the passage of the Drug Ef- Richard Nixon sought to remove Democrats from the
ficacy Amendment (1962), requiring drug manufactur- important positions within the FDA in order to “take
ers to prove not only the safety but the efficacy of their political control” and to replace them with personnel who
products. In addition, warning labels were required for know “the needs of business.” FDA critics complained of
drugs that produce side effects. From that point forward, a “drug lag” caused by an onerous drug-review process.
pharmaceutical companies were required to back claims Conservative pundits, arguing that the public was being
of a drug’s curative powers with scientific data rather denied the latest medical breakthroughs, complained,
than testimonials and anecdotes. “Americans are dying of red tape.” Although a 1980
An earlier draft of Kefauver’s bill had died in com- study by the General Accounting Office of Congress
mittee, but the issue was revived in response to public concluded that the largely exaggerated drug lag was due
outrage over birth defects caused by thalidomide, a to a thinly stretched FDA staff, the agency continued to
stomach and sedative drug made in Europe. A subsidiary suffer cutbacks—shrinking from 7,850 staffers to 7,500
of the Vick Chemical Company had sought to introduce under President Jimmy Carter, and from 7,500 to 6,800
this medicine to the American market, but the FDA in under President Ronald Reagan.
1960 blocked the application, citing the need for further Complaints about the drug lag eventually led to the
safety study. It later became known that fetal exposure passage of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (1992),
to thalidomide leads to birth defects such as the absence which enabled the FDA to collect revenue for hiring
of limbs. Since the drug had been limited to the testing more reviewers in order to expedite the approval process.
stage, there were only 17 known birth defects in the Skeptics of the drug lag note that between 1970 and 1992
United States. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy pre- the United States had a better track record than Europe in
sented the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal terms of shielding the public from unsafe drugs. During
Service to Frances Kelsey, the FDA reviewer who had that period the FDA pulled from the market nine drugs
flagged thalidomide. that turned out to be unsafe (three of which had been ap-
proved based on fraudulent information), whereas France
“Drug Lag” Controversy had to withdraw thirty-three and Britain thirty. By the
In order to comply with the 1962 law, efficacy tests mid-1990s new drug approvals were occurring at a faster
were conducted on the 4,000 drugs that had been rate in the United States than in Europe.
approved between 1938 and 1966. Short on staff (only
fourteen medical officers oversaw drug screening), the AIDS, Birth Control, and Unsafe Imports
FDA in June 1966 utilized the services of the American With the outbreak of AIDS in 1981 the FDA was once
Academy of Sciences and its National Research Council, again at the center of a crisis. The agency was criticized
enabling a complete drug review. It led to the Drug for waiting until March 1985 to require blood banks
Efficacy Study Implementation (1968), which removed to screen for the AIDS virus. The agency was under
worthless drugs from the market. enormous pressure to expedite the approval of drugs to
Other reform measures were passed, including the fight AIDS. One of these was AZT, which underwent
Drug Abuse Control Amendments (1965), to safeguard human testing beginning in 1985. Two years later it
against the abuse of prescriptions, and the Fair Packaging was approved, but the gay activist group AIDS Coalition
and Labeling Act (1966), to strengthen FDA mandates to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, thought there
pertaining to honest and informative labels for food, was foot-dragging. Its members began staging protests
drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices. During the 1970s along Wall Street as well as in front of FDA headquarters
some FDA responsibilities were transferred to newly in Rockville, Maryland, hanging or burning effigies of
created agencies such as the Environmental Protection Reagan and FDA commissioner Frank Young. The FDA
Agency, but this was offset by Congress’s requiring the finally approved parallel marketing and testing to get
FDA to regulate machines that emit radiation and to AIDS drugs to patients quicker.
take responsibility for biologics. In 1972, the FDA began David Kessler’s tenure as FDA commissioner
reviewing over-the-counter drugs for safety, efficacy, (1990–1997) brought the agency under fire by conserva-
and proper labeling. In 1976, following some failures tives, even though he was a Republican and originally
of heart pacemakers and some sterility incidents caused appointed by President George H.W. Bush. On health
by the Dalkon Shield (a birth-control device), Congress matters, Kessler turned out to be progressive. He cracked
mandated that all medical devices sold in the country down on companies that misled consumers with false
Ford , Gerald 187
food labels, such as those marketing concentrated orange in the United States, there was no consensus on what
juice as “fresh.” In implementing the Nutritional Label- steps should be taken.
ing and Education Act of 1990, he required food labels Roger Chapman
to list per-serving nutritional information. He began
the fourteen-year ban on silicone breast implants, due to See also: AIDS; Birth Control; China; Environmental Move-
health concerns, but in 2006 the FDA ruled the devices ment; Genetically Modified Foods; Health Care; Medical
safe. Declaring cigarettes “drug delivery devices,” Kessler Malpractice; Medical Marijuana; Obesity Epidemic; Science
suggested in 1995 that tobacco, because of its nicotine Wars; Smoking in Public.
content, should be regulated as a drug, triggering a pub-
lic debate on not only tobacco but the FDA itself. After Further Reading
Republicans took control of the House in 1995 the most Hawthorne, Fran. Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind
ideological gave consideration to abolishing the FDA, the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat. Hoboken, NJ: John
viewing it as an enemy of economic opportunity and hu- Wiley & Sons, 2005.
man liberty, but Kessler fought back, warning that such Hilts, Philip J. Protecting America’s Health: FDA, Business, and
action would be a return to the “dark ages.” One Hundred Years of Regulation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
The most controversial issue the FDA dealt with in 2003.
its long history was the approval of Plan B, an emergency Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences
contraceptive (often referred to as the “morning-after Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press,
pill”), as an over-the-counter drug. Plan B was originally 2002.
available in 1999 with a doctor’s prescription. In 2003, Pines, Wayne L., ed. FDA: A Century of Consumer Protection.
the maker of the contraceptive applied to have the FDA Washington, DC: Food and Drug Law Institute, 2006.
approve it for over-the-counter use. Abortion opponents U.S. Food and Drug Administration Web site. www.fda.gov.
have long contended that Plan B is a method of abor-
tion. The contraceptive consists of a synthetic hormone
in two pills, one taken 72 hours after sexual intercourse Ford, Gerald
and the other 12 hours later. The pills prevent ovulation Gerald R. Ford became the thirty-eighth president of
or fertilization, but may also prevent the implantation the United States (1974–1977) by virtue of the two
of a fertilized egg. In 2006, the FDA approved Plan B most controversial national events—and the attendant
as an over-the-counter contraceptive, but restricted it to culture wars—of his time: the Vietnam War and the
women eighteen years and older. Those critical of the Watergate scandal. Republican President Richard
FDA’s tarrying over this issue argue that science was held Nixon had expended the political capital needed to fight
hostage to politics and religion. communism abroad and students and Congress at home;
By the mid-2000s some 76 million Americans were his secret escalation of the war in Vietnam, campaign
annually sickened by the food they purchased, leading appeals to the “Silent Majority,” and impoundment of
to 300,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Although money from budgets approved by Congress, among
the portion of the FDA budget for food safety had shrunk other actions, deepened the divisions in American society
from about 50 percent in the early 1970s to 25 percent in and on Capitol Hill. After Vice President Spiro Agnew
2006, the public wanted more monitoring of the nation’s resigned in 1973 amid charges of bribery and income
food supply. In 2008, while Americans were importing tax violations, members of Congress insisted that, to
20 percent of food, 80 percent of drugs, and a majority fill the vacancy, Nixon appoint someone of integrity
of medical devices, the FDA was visiting few overseas and modesty who could work with both parties. Ford,
factories. That same year eighty-one Americans died due at that time Republican Minority Leader of the House
to contaminated heparin (a blood thinner) that had been of Representatives and a long-standing representative
manufactured in China. Reports at the time estimated from Michigan, was their first choice. When Nixon
that 10 percent of all drugs manufactured in China were himself resigned on August 9, 1974, as a result of the
contaminated. As a consequence of the budget squeeze the Watergate scandal, these qualities appeared as Ford’s
FDA was working under, it was estimated that it would greatest assets.
take fifty years for its inspectors to visit all of China’s Gerald Rudolph Ford, born Leslie King, Jr., on July
pharmaceutical plants and seventy years to visit the ones 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska, never won an election
producing medical equipment. In 2008, it would have outside Michigan’s Fifth Congressional District, but he
cost the FDA $524 million to inspect each of the nation’s entered the White House with a promise to be “president
65,500 food facilities at least once and $3.16 billion to of all the people.” Besides his long stint as a moderately
inspect the pertinent 189,000 food facilities overseas. conservative congressman (1949–1973), Ford was known
Although all agreed that the FDA had poor oversight of for his service on the Warren Commission investigating
the $1 trillion of imported food and drugs sold annually the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Before beginning
18 8 Ford , Gerald
his career in politics, he attended the University of and abortion. In the general election, Ford lost to Carter
Michigan at Ann Arbor (BA, 1935), where he was a star by 2 percentage points of the popular vote.
center on the football team; received a law degree at Yale Ford later described his presidency as “a time to heal.”
University (1941); served in the U.S. Navy (1942–1946) Although he did not end the culture wars over Vietnam
during World War II; and practiced law in Grand Rap- and Watergate, nor succeed in uniting his own party,
ids, Michigan. Ford did encourage an atmosphere in which the most
After assuming the presidency, he nominated Nel- divisive issues in America were contested less fiercely.
son Rockefeller, a favorite of the progressive wing of the He died at age ninety-three on December 26, 2006, and
GOP, as his vice president—a choice quickly confirmed was eulogized in a New York Times editorial for restoring
by both houses of Congress. To distinguish his policies “a measure of respect to the presidency.”
and practices from those of his predecessor, Ford opened
the Oval Office to a diversity of government officials David W. Veenstra
and interest groups, such as the Congressional Black
Caucus; began holding regular press conferences; and See also: Abortion; Affirmative Action; Busing, School; Carter,
inaugurated a clemency program for Vietnam War draft Jimmy; Chisholm, Shirley; Cold War; Equal Rights Amend-
evaders and deserters—all during his first month in office. ment; Nixon, Richard; Presidential Pardons; Reagan, Ron-
To complete the process of establishing a new direction, ald; Silent Majority; Vietnam War; Watergate.
Ford on September 8, 1974, granted Nixon a full and
complete pardon. Further Reading
Far from its intended result, the pardon perma- Cannon, James M. Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment
nently linked Ford’s presidency with that of Nixon with History. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
and exacerbated the polarization in American society. Ford, Gerald R. A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R.
Overnight, Ford’s approval rating dropped from 74 to Ford. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.
50 percent. Many Americans believed, as the New York Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Lawrence:
Times editorialized, that “in a time when the nation has University Press of Kansas, 1995.
been repeatedly dismayed by so many acts of corruption, Hartmann, Robert T. Palace Politics: An Inside Account of the Ford
intrigue and deceit, President Ford has signally failed to Years. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
provide courageous and impartial moral leadership . . . Mieczkowski, Yanek. Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s.
[and] moved secretly and suddenly to block the normal Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005.
workings of justice.” Democratic cooperation with the ad-
ministration suddenly ended, and the conservative wing
of the GOP, led by California governor Ronald Reagan, F o r e m a n , D ave
began openly accusing the president of abandoning the As founder of the militant environmental organization
party’s traditional principles by continuing policies such Earth First!, Dave Foreman played a major role in shaping
as détente with the Soviet Union. America’s environmental consciousness. Known for
Still, the tenor of public life seemed to improve promoting aggressive action to protect the environment,
during the Ford presidency. Unlike his predecessor, he Foreman and his fellow Earth First!ers often chained
did not conduct the presidency as an ongoing political themselves to trees, stormed Forest Service buildings, and
campaign. Indeed, he initiated several changes intended put spikes in trees to injure loggers. Such tactics made
to play down the symbolic significance of the office, such Foreman an iconic figure to radical environmentalists,
as asking that “Hail to the Chief” occasionally be replaced but a terrorist to many moderates and conservatives.
with the Michigan fight song. More significantly, he Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February
did not make his stance on such divisive issues as bus- 18, 1946, Foreman had an early life that pointed toward
ing, affirmative action, or abortion the central themes of anything but environmental radicalism. The son of a U.S.
his presidency. In other words, there was no “southern Air Force officer, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout,
strategy.” campaigned for conservative Republican Barry Goldwater
Because he did not make his position on key social in the 1964 presidential election, and supported the war
issues the main thrust of his administration, Ford in effect in Vietnam. His interest in the outdoors led him in 1973
had to run for the presidency in 1976 twice: first against to a job as a New Mexico field consultant at the Wilder-
Reagan for the Republican nomination, then against the ness Society, a mainstream environmental organization.
Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter. The race for the His views on the environment changed profoundly after
GOP nomination proved extremely close. Although Ford reading the work of anarchist environmental writer Ed-
ultimately won the party nod, Reagan was able to dictate ward Abbey. Promoting eco-sabotage to protect nature,
much of the platform; he insisted on adding planks that Abbey’s writings exalted wilderness ideals and were
called for constitutional amendments banning busing decidedly hostile toward the establishment. Of Abbey’s
Fores t s, Park land s, and Federal Wilder ness 18 9
Desert Solitaire (1968), Foreman said, “It was the first book Much a part of the contemporary culture wars, the
I’d ever read that I totally agreed with.” debate concerning the use and control of U.S. forests,
With inspiration from (and soon a friendship with) parks, and wilderness goes back to the early twentieth
Abbey, Foreman founded Earth First! in 1980. The century. In 1891, after more than a century of unbridled
organization’s slogan reflected its purpose: “No Com- expansion into the western United States, the federal
promise in the Defense of Mother Earth.” Foreman’s government began to set aside forest reserves. It was not
most famous environmental escapades with Earth First! until 1905, however, that President Theodore Roosevelt
include a funeral for the Colorado River on Lake Powell created the U.S. Forest Service to manage these new na-
during a presentation by Secretary of the Interior James tional forests in perpetuity for the good of the greatest
Watt in 1982, and a highly publicized “tree-sit” to save number of people. Veteran forester Gifford Pinchot was
old-growth trees in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest put in charge, which seemed to be a victory for conserva-
in 1983. After his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Inves- tionists. As it turned out, Pinchot believed in managing
tigation for complicity in an eco-terrorism case in 1987, the forests as an economic resource, whereas John Muir,
Foreman toned down his militant stance—though his founder of the Sierra Club, believed in preserving them as
radical ideas about the importance of wilderness have natural environment. These two views came to head in a
never ceased. In 2003, he called for the “rewilding” of seven-year battle in the early 1900s over whether to dam
the American Great Plains with bison, wolves, bears, and the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park’s Hetch
even cheetahs and elephants. Hetchy Valley. Pinchot urged the creation of a reservoir
While admired by some, Foreman and Earth First! to provide water to San Francisco; Muir regarded the plan
were perceived by many as the epitome of environ- as a betrayal of natural preservation. The environmental
mentalism gone wrong, and that included some of the interests led by Muir lost the debate.
movement’s own more moderate members. In 1984, the The damming of the Tuolumne, which began in
editor of Environmental Ethics characterized Earth First! 1913, galvanized those wishing to see part of the public
tactics as “paramilitary operations . . . closer to terrorism domain preserved for geologic monuments, biological
than civil disobedience,” while U.S. Representative Pat diversity, and natural solitude. In the course of previous
William (D-MT) stated, “These people are terrorists, decades, the U.S. government had set aside land at Yel-
plain and simple.” lowstone National Park in Wyoming (1872), Mackinac
Nicolaas Mink Island in Michigan (1875), Yosemite National Park in
California (1890), and Glacier National Park in Montana
See also: Boy Scouts of America; Earth Day; Ecoterrorism; En- (1910), but these merely foreshadowed the expansion
vironmental Movement; Goldwater, Barry; Hill, Julia “Butter- of the National Park system following passage of the
fly”; Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; Watt, James. National Park Service Act in 1916. In harmony with
Muir’s preservation philosophy, the federal government
Further Reading was to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic
Foreman, Dave. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Har- objects and the wildlife therein, and to provide for the
mony Books, 1991. enjoyment of the same.”
Nash, Roderick Frazier. The Rights of Nature: A History of En- Between 1916 and the end of the decade, Congress
vironmental Ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, created Hawaii Volcanoes, Denali, Zion, Grand Canyon,
1989. and Acadia national parks, which burgeoning tourism
Zakin, Susan. Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Envi- soon transformed into places of recreation more than
ronmental Movement. New York: Viking, 1993. preservation. At an alarming rate, roads began slicing
through the parklands to allow greater access to scenery,
and a variety of amenities were built to accommodate the
Forests, Parklands, and Federal visitors. The environmental preservationists deplored the
Wilderness unintended consequences of this growth.
Since their origins, the national forests, parklands, and
wilderness areas of the United States have represented Wilderness over Tourism
highly contested grounds on which the American In reaction to these developments, a cadre of forward-
people have fought deeply rooted cultural, economic, looking environmentalists that included Aldo Leopold,
and ideological battles. Far from being landscapes solely Robert Marshall, and Robert Sterling Yard founded the
for the purpose of harvesting timber or witnessing Wilderness Society in 1935 to protect parts of the public
natural beauty, these areas of the public domain are domain from the growing pressures of tourism. This
cultural creations that shed light on how Americans movement provided the institutional foundation for the
regard the natural environment and how they view the designation of official wilderness areas in which no roads
government’s role in such matters. would be built. After several decades of lobbying, the
19 0 Fores t s, Park land s, and Federal Wilder ness
president of the Wilderness Society, Howard Zahniser, the first of three lawsuits on behalf of the northern spot-
persuaded Congress to pass the Wilderness Act (1964). ted owl, contending that the owl’s rights as a threatened
This legislation set aside 9 million acres (3,642,170 species trumped the rights of loggers who wished to
hectares) of wilderness and provided guidelines to harvest timber in national forests. The Sierra Club and
protect more in the future. other environmental advocates, in this case comprised
The physical and cultural distinctions between for- largely of wealthy urbanites from California, wanted to
ests, parklands, and federal wilderness have never been suspend all logging near spotted owls and to carve new
clearly delineated. While they all remain part of the wilderness areas out of the national forests. The largely
public domain, the designation of a specific land area is blue-collar workforce of local communities contended
a political decision, determining what the government that this would destroy their livelihoods and towns. As
can and cannot do to it. Complicating matters is the fact one logger complained, “Try paying your bills with an
that many of these landscapes are adjacent to or inside owl.”
one another; some wilderness areas are inside national When President Bill Clinton in 1994 signed into
parks and forests, and certain national parks have been law the Northwest Forest Plan, which protected the
fashioned out of national forests. owl’s habitat in 24.5 million acres (9,414,798 hectares)
Also, forests, wilderness, and parks have been used in three states, Democrats and environmentalists praised
differently by diverse peoples with contradictory visions the move as an important step in protecting the nation’s
of how the lands should be used. The timber industry forestlands from money-hungry loggers. The political
prefers clear-cutting, but preservationists object to the right, however, contended that Clinton had exerted fed-
destruction of old-growth virgin stands (which are di- eral authority in an egregious way and at the same time
verse in species). Moreover, the federal government is drastically altered the original intentionality of national
sometimes seen as engaging in corporate welfare when it forests. In the tradition of Gifford Pinchot, they argued,
grants timber, mineral, oil and gas, and grazing rights at the government had the right to log national forests.
bargain prices. “Welfare cowboys” is what the late radi-
cal environmentalist Edward Abbey called ranchers who The Snowmobile Controversy
graze cattle on public lands. At the same time, state and The snowmobile controversy in Yellowstone National
local governments often are frustrated by land-use plan- Park also highlights ideological differences regarding
ning that is controlled far away in Washington. wilderness areas in the public domain. Although
Such differing conceptions of land use have led to snowmobiles had been used in Yellowstone since the
conflicts over oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National 1960s, their use increased exponentially during the
Wildlife Refuge, the destruction of cultural resources 1980s as a growing number of recreation enthusiasts
in wilderness areas from Florida to Wisconsin, the loss discovered the thrill of exploring the back country of the
of habitats for the northern spotted owl in the Pacific park at speeds of as much as 80 miles (129 kilometers)
Northwest, and the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone an hour. By the mid-1990s, nearly 75,000 snowmobiles
National Park. were traversing the park each winter.
The original National Park Service Act, which
Owls Versus Loggers charged the National Park Service with creating outdoor
The small bird known as the northern spotted owl recreation opportunities for Americans, provided a firm
(Strix occidentalis caurina) caused a large commotion in legal standing for those who enjoyed snowmobiling in
the 1980s when its habitat was threatened by logging. Yellowstone. But environmentalists began calling for
Environmentalists cried foul at the rapid increase in the elimination of snowmobiles from national parks on
old-growth harvests in national forests from central the grounds that they disturb wildlife and pollute the air
Washington State to northern California. For environ- and snow pack. Those concerns registered with Clinton,
mentalists, old-growth forests represent the peak of who called for the slow elimination of snowmobiling in
biodiversity in North America, providing a home for Yellowstone, thereby infuriating many political con-
thousands of species; for the federal government and servatives. As Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA)
the commercial logging companies, old-growth forests complained, “If environmental extremists continue to
represent potentially lucrative commodities to be ex- have their way, people will be looking at Yellowstone
ploited. Landowners in a position to profit from logging through a plate glass window.”
typically scoff at the “do-nothing cult” (environmental- Upon entering office in 2001, President George W.
ists) for acting as if trees live forever. Until the spotted Bush rolled back the Clinton-era rules, siding with the
owl became a candidate for protection under the Endan- snowmobilers. Bush’s decision sent the Yellowstone con-
gered Species Act, environmentalists appeared destined troversy into the judicial system, where new rulings on
to lose the battle to save these stands of ancient trees. whether to allow snowmobiles in the park came almost
In 1987, the Sierra Club legal defense team brought annually. In September 2008, for example, a judge at the
Fouc ault , Michel 191
Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., overturned he attended Jesuit-run schools and was an acolyte and
the Bush administration’s plan to increase daily snowmo- choirboy. Later he studied psychology, philosophy, phe-
bile access from 260 to 540 at Yellowstone and Grand nomenology, and Marxism at the Ecole Normale in Paris
Teton national parks, arguing that this would undermine (PhD, 1961). As a college student, while under the sway
the mandate to protect the public land. of the Marxist structuralist Louis Althusser, Foucault
Americans have conflicting views about the purpose briefly joined the Communist Party. After teaching
and use of national forests, parks, and wilderness areas, at various institutions in France, Sweden, Poland, and
which are variously seen as resources for industrial use, Tunisia, he taught psychology at the University of Paris-
as places for recreation, or as areas of undisturbed nature. Nanterre in Vincennes (1968–1970) and the history of
These sites are also drawn into the culture wars because of systems of thought at the College de France (1970–1984).
conflicting philosophies regarding the role of the federal Foucault died of AIDS in Paris on June 25, 1984.
government. Foucault’s writings span several disciplines, includ-
Nicolaas Mink ing history, philosophy, literary criticism, and politics.
Collectively, they examine the nature of power not as a
See also: Animal Rights; Arrow, Tre; Bush Family; Carson, possession of dominant groups but as a constantly shifting
Rachel; Cheney Family; Clinton, Bill; Corporate Welfare; set of relationships or discourses that constitute all per-
Earth Day; Endangered Species Act; Environmental Move- sons as subjects of power. This approach undermined the
ment; Foreman, Dave; Hill, Julia “Butterfly”; Leopold, Aldo; presuppositions of radical politics such as Marxism and
Watt, James. feminism, which have relied on theories of exploitation or
oppression by one group over another. Instead, Foucault’s
Further Reading texts look for power everywhere, including liberation
Chase, Alston. Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of discourses such as those regarding rights. He concluded
America’s First National Park. San Diego, CA: Harvest that power—as well as resistance—is constantly deployed
Books, 1987. in specific situations, often unconsciously. Foucault
Huber, Peter. Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the En- elaborated these arguments in such notable works as The
vironmentalists: A Conservative Manifesto. New York: Basic History of Madness in the Classical Age (1961), The Birth of
Books, 1999. the Clinic (1963), and Discipline and Punish (1975), which
Lewis, Michael L., ed. American Wilderness: A New History. New explore how the discourses of psychiatry, punishment,
York: Oxford University Press, 2007. education, and medicine produce power and resistance.
National Park Service Web site. www.nps.gov. Texts such as The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) and
Neely, William E., ed. Public Lands: Use and Misuse. New York: The Order of Things (1966) take on the history of Western
Nova Science Publishers, 2007. epistemology, uncovering the ways in which knowledge
Rothman, Hal. The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism is affected by relations of power.
in the United States Since 1945. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Scholarship on sexuality was most influenced by
Brace, 1998. Foucault’s unfinished series of texts under the title The
Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience. Lincoln: History of Sexuality. The discourse of sexuality, he main-
University of Nebraska Press, 1987. tained, is one of the most important repositories of power
Simpson, John Warfield. Dam! Water, Politics, and Preserva- in Western culture. Sex is not only a means of affecting
tion in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park. New York: human action via state action but also implicates medical
Pantheon, 2005. science, psychiatry, education, and religion in the produc-
tion of power. In the first volume of that work, published
in 1976, Foucault rejects the so-called repressive hypoth-
Foucault, Michel esis, which argued that human culture has frequently
The French philosopher and cultural historian Michel repressed natural sexual urges. Instead, he maintains,
Foucault, who challenged the received wisdom of the various practices that have sought to understand
Enlightenment humanism and rationality, is noted for and control sexuality have, in fact, invented new ways of
his theories on the interrelationship of knowledge and expressing sexuality. Foucault took particular interest in
the enforcement of moral norms, resistance to power, the emergence of the figure of “the homosexual” out of
the establishment of modern medicine and the social the nineteenth century’s sexual taboos. Subsequent vol-
sciences, and the politics of sexuality. His writings on umes, The Use of Pleasure (1984) and The Care of the Self
these and related topics have profoundly influenced (1984), examine sexual practices in antiquity. Foucault’s
American scholarship and cultural politics since the untimely death cut short his intention to complete two
1960s. more volumes in the series.
The son of a doctor, Paul-Michel Foucault was born Foucault’s work has been influential for a variety of
on June 15, 1926, in Portiers, France. Raised Catholic, scholars interested in power, and he remains widely read
192 Fouc ault , Michel
in the social sciences and humanities. In the United States, Further Reading
he has perhaps been most influential in the development Eribon, Didier. Michel Foucault. Translated by Betsy Wing.
of the academic discipline known as queer theory. Biog- Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
rapher David Halperin, in Saint Foucault (1995), traces Halperin, David. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography.
Foucault’s influence in shaping the study of the history New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
and politics of sexuality. For instance, despite generally Hoy, David Couzens, ed. Foucault: A Critical Reader. New York:
identifying himself as gay, Foucault and his emphasis on Basil Blackwell, 1986.
the fluidity and historicity of identity influenced queer Macey, David. The Lives of Michel Foucault. New York: Pantheon
scholars who sought to understand sexuality as a power Books, 1994.
relationship rather than as an innate or natural identity. Miller, James. The Passion of Michel Foucault. New York: Simon
His theory of power has been influential for American & Schuster, 1993.
queer scholars such as Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Reid, Roddey. “Foucault in America: Biography, ‘Culture War,’
Sedgwick and can be seen in the radical queer politics of and the New Consensus.” Cultural Critique 35 (Winter
groups like ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) 1996–1997): 179–211.
and Queer Nation.
If Foucault’s work has sparked political action on
the far left, it has also been controversial for many on F o u n d i n g Fa t h e r s
the left, including liberals, Marxists, and feminists, who The conflict over the meaning of American history and
argue that Foucault’s emphasis on the ubiquity of power public life has been a major part of the culture wars. It
does not allow for analyses of structural power and robs is not surprising, then, that the individuals who oversaw
political groups of grounds for meaningful action. Among the nation’s struggle for independence, drafted its
his most vociferous critics have been feminists who argue foundational documents, and filled its ruling positions
that Foucault’s theory of power ignores the systematic during its early years have been a central focus in the
violence suffered by particular groups such as women. rhetoric on both sides of the contemporary political
Some point to The History of Sexuality as a paradigmatic divide.
example of Foucault’s blindness to relationships of op- Although it is true that, in a sense, the United States
pression because of his minimal attention to the role of has not one but several sets of founders—Puritans in New
gendered power in shaping human sexuality. The posthu- England, Catholic families in the Chesapeake, Anglicans
mous translation of Foucault’s reflections on the Iranian in Virginia, Quakers and Dutch in the Middle Atlantic
Revolution, which reflect a somewhat positive view of colonies—the term “Founding Fathers” (or the gender-
events in Iran, has sparked interest in some of the weak- neutral “Founders”) generally refers to those persons
nesses of Foucault’s actual political analysis. Some have involved in establishing the United States as a political
argued that his emphasis on resistance to power without entity, especially such figures as George Washington,
specifying the form that resistance takes or offering a Thomas Jefferson, John and Samuel Adams, Benjamin
means to analyze normative effects of resistance, makes his Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, and John
work dangerous for activists and scholars on the left. Marshall. The founding period is generally considered to
Much attention also has been paid to The Passion of span the 1770s through the first decade of the nineteenth
Michel Foucault (1993), the biography by James Miller, century, including the resistance to British colonial
which explores his personal lifestyle involving drugs and authority; victory in the War of Independence; and rule
gay sadomasochistic eroticism while relating this aspect under the Articles of Confederation followed by the draft-
of Foucault with his scholarly “epistemological relativ- ing, ratification, and early years of national life under the
ism.” Some have vilified Foucault as a corrupter of youth U.S. Constitution.
and a willful transmitter of HIV as well as a nihilist and The competing political agendas into whose service
a fascist. Miller suggests that the French intellectual the memories of these Founding Fathers are enlisted, of
was living out nihilism in a quest for transcendence by course, differ sharply. Leaders of the Religious Right and
practicing Friedrich Nietzsche’s “will to power” to go other spokespersons for an orthodox cultural-political
“beyond good and evil.” Others caution that Foucault’s view tend to highlight concrete facts about the nation as
ideas should endure or fall on their own merits, irrespec- it existed at its inception: its small central government;
tive of the philosopher’s personal life. the friendly relationship between government and reli-
gion, especially evangelical Protestantism; the widespread
Claire E. Rasmussen predominance of traditional family arrangements and
gender roles; and so on. Liberals and progressives dismiss
See also: Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; the conservative view of the Founding Fathers as being
France; Gay Rights Movement; Marxism; Postmodernism; overly simplistic, noting that many of the leading figures
Structuralism and Post-Structuralism. of the American Revolution were deists and members of
Founding Fathers 193
the Masons, hardly evangelical Christians. They further religion” relies heavily on the examples of the Founding
note that the U.S. Constitution does not even mention Fathers, whom he sees as providing Americans with a
God. Even so, liberals focus less on concrete details of the civic faith that was capable of coexisting alongside tra-
Founding Fathers as eighteenth-century English Ameri- ditional Christianity and that gave the nation a moral
cans and more on the powerful emancipatory potential dimension crucial in times of national trial.
inherent in America’s founding documents. Of course, veneration of the Founding Fathers is not
Religious conservatives promote a worldview that universal; a number of figures on the Christian Right take
they consider in harmony with that of the Founding aim at Thomas Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation”
Fathers, portraying them as men who promoted religion phrase in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Asso-
as essential for the public interest. As Jerry Falwell, the ciation. The metaphor was invoked by the U.S. Supreme
Baptist leader and head of the Moral Majority, wrote in Court in its landmark 1947 ruling on the Establishment
1979, “America is a Christian nation. Our founding fa- Clause, Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ew-
thers had that in mind when they carved this nation out ing, et al. and has been used by many to justify a position
of the wilderness. . . . America was founded by godly men of governmental neutrality toward religion. But as many
who had in mind establishing a republic not only Chris- critics of that decision, and of the increasing marginaliza-
tian in nature, but a republic designed to propagate the tion of religion in the public sphere, note, Jefferson was
Gospel worldwide.” For such conservative activists, from not a drafter of the Constitution and was not even presi-
Pentecostal preacher and former presidential candidate dent when he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association;
Pat Robertson to Secretary of Education William Ben- nowhere does the phrase “wall of separation” appear in any
nett (under President Ronald Reagan), the founders were of the nation’s founding documents.
moral exemplars who never shrank from the opportunity More than 200 years after the Constitution’s rati-
to link Judeo-Christian piety and American national fication, the Founding Fathers continue to cast a long
identity. From this perspective, national moral decline shadow over American political and cultural life. The
coincides with an abandonment of the founders’ way of frequency with which they are invoked in cultural conflict
looking at the world. As Robertson lamented in 2004, and political debate provides testimony of their endur-
“Where we once worshipped and held in high esteem the ing significance for Americans with widely divergent
God of the Bible and His laws, we now worship another political views.
god—that is, the individual.” Such critics often draw Andrew R. Murphy
on originalist theories of constitutional interpretation
to bolster their claims, further cementing their contem- See also: American Civil Religion; American Exceptionalism;
porary political agenda with claims about the historical Bennett, William J.; Church and State; Clinton, Bill; Evan-
circumstances of the founding period. gelicalism; Falwell, Jerry; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Moral
In contrast, progressives claim that while the Found- Majority; Religious Right.
ing Fathers set an important political and philosophical
example, one should not expect that the exigencies Further Reading
of their historical era will always remain dispositive. Bellah, Robert N. “Civil Religion in America.” Daedalus 96:1
In his First Inaugural Address (1993), President Bill (Winter 1967): 1–21.
Clinton said that “[w]hen our founders boldly declared Bennett, William J. “Religious Belief and the Constitutional
America’s independence . . . they knew that America, to Order.” In Piety and Politics: Evangelicals and Fundamentalists
endure, would have to change.” This concept was earlier Confront the World, ed. Richard John Neuhaus and Michael
expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous “I Cromartie, 365–75. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public
Have a Dream” speech (1963): “When the architects of Policy Center / University Press of America, 1987.
Dreisbach, Daniel L. The Founders on God and Government. Lan-
our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Consti-
ham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
tution and the Declaration of Independence, they were
Eastland, Terry. “In Defense of Religious America.” Commentary,
signing a promissory note to which every American was June 1981.
to fall heir.” He added, “This note was a promise that all Falwell, Jerry. America Can Be Saved! Murfreesboro, TN: Sword
men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be of the Lord, 1979.
guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the Hamburger, Philip. Separation of Church and State. Cambridge,
pursuit of happiness, a check that declared that all men MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
were created equal.” King’s imagery of African Americans Kramnick, Isaac, and R. Laurence Moore. The Godless Constitu-
coming to Washington to cash this check entails a vision tion: The Case Against Religious Correctness. New York: W.W.
of the founders based not on the details of the era in which Norton, 1997.
the nation was founded, but on the logical implication of Whitten, Mark Weldon. The Myth of Christian America: What
the principles the founders set in motion. The historian You Need to Know About the Separation of Church and State.
Robert Bellah’s influential account of American “civil New York: Smith and Helwys, 1999.
19 4 France
France National policies and economies diverged more

France and the United States have enjoyed myriad as France recovered from wartime devastation. French
exchanges of people, goods, and culture dating back citizens, politicians, and intellectuals, for example, were
to the eighteenth century, but deep enmities arose more open to socialism and communism than Ameri-
after World War II over competition in the global cans. France’s withdrawal from NATO in 1966 greatly
marketplace, diplomacy, and international status. displeased U.S. officials. Decolonization in Indochina and
Lingering antagonisms between the two countries Algeria split French society, and although the United
reinforced cultural stereotypes and political and economic States seemed to favor freedom for the colonized, its
confrontations. involvement in Vietnam sent it down the same bloody
Even the early mutual admiration of revolutionary path of war. Even upheavals such as the May 1968 student
societies was tempered by competition. The Marquis de protests in France and “the sixties” in the United States
Lafayette brought aid to the American colonial struggle, had different localized social meanings.
but the XYZ Affair in 1797, involving attempted brib- As France became a leader in a united Europe and
ery, divided the allies. The United States negotiated with reclaimed its ties of language and heritage worldwide,
Napoleon’s government to acquire the Louisiana Purchase clashes intensified between France and the United States.
in 1803, doubling U.S. territory. In 1835 Alexis de Toc- Tempers flared in the 1990s over intervention in the
queville published a book praising American democracy, former Yugoslavia, and again in 2003, when France’s
and France donated the Statue of Liberty to celebrate President Jacques Chirac publicly opposed the U.S.
America’s centennial in 1876. French émigrés in the intervention in Iraq. French wines were poured out in
United States wielded authority in cuisine, fashion, and protests across the United States. Washington restau-
the arts, and Paris defined styles to which new American rants renamed French fries “freedom fries.” France was
capitalists might aspire, but some critics labeled them castigated as disloyal, cowardly, and immoral by Ameri-
feminine or immoral. can politicians and humorists on late-night television.
During World War I, France and the United States Meanwhile, French papers criticized the United States as
were allies, and France in the interwar period drew a bully and ridiculed President George W. Bush.
Americans such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Such controversies, however, evoke the intimacy of
Fitzgerald. In Jazz Age Paris, blacks like Josephine Baker American and French involvement. While the French
found acceptance denied them in segregated America. language faces competition from Spanish and other global
Wealthy Americans treated Mediterranean France as a languages in the United States, Americans have drawn on
playground, but others came to identify France with French cuisine, wines, and fashion to establish competitive
cultural excesses. positions. The impact of structuralism, postmodernism,
The United States and France became allies again in social historical concerns, deconstruction, and other French
World War II and in European and global reconstruction theories have stimulated American academic disciplines.
thereafter through the United Nations Security Council And however critical tourists and politicians in both
and involvement in NATO. But while the Marshall countries may become, they remain peculiarly fascinated
Plan helped rebuild France, American consumer goods by each other.
and Hollywood films threatened to inundate French Gary W. McDonogh
society. Meanwhile, American tourists were exposed to
French luxury goods and high culture. Postwar French See also: Anti-Semitism; Cold War; Communists and Com-
cinema and literature offered windows onto sex and munism; Counterculture; Deconstructionism; Israel; Ken-
freedom viewed as thrilling or scandalous, depending nedy Family; Postmodernism; September 11; Sexual Revolu-
on one’s views. Over the years, conservative Americans tion; Structuralism and Post-Structuralism; United Nations;
faulted France for its contributions to modern philo- Vietnam War.
sophical and cultural revolutions, including feminism,
existentialism, postmodernism, post-structuralism, and Further Reading
deconstructionism. Buchwald, Art. I’ll Always Have Paris. New York: G.P. Putnam,
In the 1960s, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy 1996.
charmed the French with her command of their language Levenstein, Harvey. We’ll Always Have Paris: American Tourists
and culture while introducing elements of French style in France Since 1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
to the White House and American culture. Yet the very 2004.
popularity of France as a tourist destination converted ir- Mathy, Jean-Philippe. French Resistance: The French-American
ritations of language and custom into stereotypes of rude, Culture Wars. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
dismissive French people and loud, uncultured “Ugly 2000.
Americans” (as chronicled by columnist Art Buchwald Ross, Kirsten. Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reor-
in the International Herald Tribune). dering of French Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
Franken, A l 195
F r a n k , B a r n ey a chauvinism witnessed firsthand when House Majority

A Democrat first elected to the U.S. House of Represen- leader Dick Armey (R-TX) referred to Frank as “Barney
tatives from Massachusetts’s Fourth Congressional Dis- Fag” in a 1995 radio interview. Frank supports the out-
trict in 1980, Barney Frank is noted for his outspoken ing of closeted Republicans who use their influence to
support for civil liberties, Bill Clinton’s embattled pres- circumscribe gay rights, a position known as “The Frank
idency, and Israel. Frank also gained considerable atten- Rule.”
tion as the nation’s first openly gay member of Congress, Robert Teigrob
and through revelations that a male friend had operated
See also: Catholic Church; Clinton, Bill; Clinton Impeach-
a prostitution ring out of Frank’s Capitol Hill apart-
ment; Democratic Party; Gay Rights Movement; Gays in
ment. Although the latter disclosure resulted in a rep-
Popular Culture; Gingrich, Newt; Israel; Outing; Republican
rimand in the House, Frank won subsequent elections
Party; Same-Sex Marriage; Washington Times, The.
by wide margins to become one of the most powerful
Democrats in Congress.
Barnett Frank was born to Jewish parents in Bayonne, Further Reading
Bollen, Peter. Frank Talk: The Wit and Wisdom of Barney Frank.
New Jersey, on March 31, 1940. Prior to becoming a
Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2006.
member of Congress, Frank was educated at Harvard
University (AB, 1962; JD, 1977), held positions as chief Frank, Barney. Speaking Frankly: What’s Wrong with the Democrats
of staff to Boston mayor Kevin White (1968–1971) and and How to Fix It. New York: Crown, 1992.
as staff assistant to Congressman Michael F. Harrington Toobin, Jeffrey. “Barney’s Great Adventure,” New Yorker, Janu-
(D-MA) (1971–1972), and served in the Massachusetts ary 12, 2009.
state legislature (1973–1980). Ironically, Frank’s as-
cendancy to Congress was aided by Pope John Paul II, F r a n ke n , A l
a noted opponent of gay rights, who demanded that all
priests resign from electoral politics in order to rein in As a comedian and political commentator, Al Franken
leftist activism among the clergy. That order forced the became one of the best-known liberal personalities in
Jesuit priest Robert F. Drinan, then representing Mas- the culture wars. He is particularly noteworthy for
sachusetts’s Fourth Congressional District, not to seek his efforts to counter the media tactics of influential
a sixth term. Since replacing Drinan on the Democratic conservative politicians and pundits.
Party ticket, Frank has faced no serious challenges to his Born Alan Stuart Franken on May 21, 1951, in New
incumbency. York City, he grew up in Minnesota and graduated from
Frank’s 1987 disclosure that he was gay became Harvard University (BA, general studies, 1973). As a
national news, though polls revealed that his own con- student, he experimented with political satire and the-
stituents were more concerned that this revelation would ater, and in 1975 he joined the original team of writers
hurt his effectiveness as a representative than they were for the television comedy show Saturday Night Live. He
about his sexual orientation in and of itself. The issue was associated with the show on and off for twenty years,
reemerged in 1989 when Stephen Gobie, a prostitute winning three Emmy Awards for television writing and
with a criminal record, told the Washington Times that production.
he had run a male escort service from Frank’s residence. Leaving Saturday Night Live in 1995, Franken turned
While the congressman subsequently admitted using his to political commentary that reflects his liberal politics
political influence to assist Gobie with legal and financial and wrote several best-sellers, including Rush Limbaugh
problems, he denied Gobie’s overall allegation. These Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations (1996), which
claims were accepted by the House Ethics Committee, roasted not just the radio and TV talk show host but
which called for a reprimand rather than a motion to other right-wing pundits as well. This made Franken a
censure as requested by Minority Whip Newt Gingrich target of conservatives.
(R-GA). When the latter became speaker in 1994, Frank In the late 1990s, Franken attempted to bring his
emerged as one of Gingrich’s most tenacious critics. In love of political commentary and media criticism to
1998, Frank was a prominent opponent of efforts, again television by creating and starring in the NBC program
spearheaded by Gingrich, to impeach President Bill Lateline, a parody of news magazines; the program was
Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. cancelled during its second season. His next project was
Frank’s legislative agenda is generally associated with a book, Why Not Me? The Inside Story Behind the Making
the Democratic left. However, he has condemned what and the Unmaking of the Franken Presidency (1999), a satire
he considers the left’s unwarranted harassment of Israel, on modern political campaigns.
calling that nation the Middle East’s best representative Franken raised conservative hackles again in 2003
of the values that progressives claim to defend. He is also with Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and
a leading critic of Republican intolerance toward gays, Balanced Look at the Right, in which he takes aim at right-
19 6 F rank l i n D elano Roosevelt Memor ial
wing pundits such as Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly as

well as the Fox News network. Fox sued Franken and his
publisher for infringing on its registered trademark, but
the lawsuit was unsuccessful—except in enhancing sales
of the book and the visibility of its author.
Franken entered the talk radio game in early 2004,
signing on to host The O’Franken Factor for the fledgling
Air America network, itself created as a counterpoint
to conservative talk radio. The show’s title was another
parody, this time of Bill O’Reilly’s TV show, but this
attempt at baiting the conservative commentator was
soon dropped, and Franken’s program was retitled The Al
Franken Show. He then became the first radio personality
to visit U.S. troops in Iraq, and he has joined several USO
tours. The documentary film Al Franken: God Spoke (2006)
traces two years of the politico-humorist’s endeavors,
including his interviews with Coulter and O’Reilly.
In 2005, Franken moved his radio show from New
York to his home state of Minnesota. He founded a
political action committee there called Midwest Values
PAC, which he later used to launch his 2008 senatorial
campaign under the banner of the Democratic-Farmer-
Labor Party. That race turned into the closest contest of
the 2008 election. Although the initial results showed
Franken losing by 215 votes out of 2.9 million ballots
cast, after the recount he emerged as the winner by 225
votes. The losing incumbent, Norm Coleman, took the
dispute to court, leaving the seat unfilled for eight months
while lawyers from both sides engaged in legal maneuver- A statue depicting Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a wheel-
chair—here visited by grandson James Roosevelt (right),
ings. In July 2009, Al Franken was declared the winner granddaughter Ann Roosevelt (left), and President Bill
by 312 votes out of 3 million ballots cast. Clinton—was added to the FDR Memorial at the behest of
disability advocates. (Stephen Jaffe/AFP/Getty Images)
Benjamin W. Cramer
monument was designed by landscape architect Lawrence
See also: Coulter, Ann; Democratic Party; Limbaugh, Rush; Halprin, incorporating trees, gardens, and waterfalls.
Media Bias; Neoconservatism; O’Reilly, Bill; Talk Radio; The site is divided into four sections by granite walls,
Wellstone, Paul. each featuring engraved quotes and bronze sculptures
depicting aspects of FDR’s four terms as the nation’s
Further Reading chief executive. President Bill Clinton dedicated the
Green, Joshua. “He’s Not Joking.” Atlantic Monthly, May monument in a public ceremony on May 2, 1997, and
2008. from the very first day it was the subject of controversy.
Official Al Franken Web site. www.al-franken.com. Liberals generally wrote glowingly of the monu-
Nichols, John. “Al Franken Seeks the Wellstone Seat.” Nation, ment honoring the man who led the country through
November 5, 2007. the Great Depression and created the many New Deal
Skorsi, Alan. Pants on Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and programs, including Social Security, that helped alleviate
Deceives. Nashville, TN: WMD Books, 2005. poverty and create the system of social benefits in mod-
Thompson, Stephen. “Al Franken.” Progressive, September 2005. ern America. Conservatives criticized not only various
aspects of the monument but also Roosevelt as the man
who ushered in the welfare state. Media commentator
F r a n k l i n D e l a n o R o o s eve l t Pat Buchanan opined that the “I hate war” quotation
Memorial displayed in the third chamber typifies FDR’s penchant
The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, honoring for deception because it gives the impression that FDR
the thirty-second president of the United States, is was an eyewitness to the Great War, when in fact he
located near the Washington Mall, next to the famous remained in Washington.
Cherry Tree Walk, in the nation’s capital. The sprawling Some of the controversies concerning the memorial
Freedom of Infor mation Ac t 197
had to do with issues of “political correctness.” For ex- because it makes them feel like they are in a “fish bowl”
ample, one of Roosevelt’s most famous quotations, “a day as outsiders second-guess policymaking. Supporters of
which will live in infamy,” referring to the Japanese at- the FOIA emphasize the importance of government
tack on Pearl Harbor, was not displayed on the monument transparency in maintaining accountability, arguing
because it might offend Japanese tourists. And bowing that the free flow of information protects against
to animal rights activists, Eleanor Roosevelt’s trademark abuse of power and brings to light incompetence and
fox stole was missing from her statue. FDR’s omnipresent mismanagement.
cigarette and holder were also removed. Specifically, the FOIA permits any person (citizen
The biggest controversy dealt with the president’s or noncitizen), business entity, or organization to re-
disability. Roosevelt, who had contracted polio (or pos- quest any information of any department or agency of
sibly Guillain-Barré Syndrome) in 1921, made use of the federal government. No explanation is necessary for
leg braces and a wheelchair during his presidency, but requesting information, representing a shift from the
nothing in the memorial clearly depicted him that way. doctrine of “need to know” to “right to know.” As long
A number of advocacy groups urged that the president’s as the information is considered public, then copies of the
disability be clearly shown so as to demonstrate his tri- material must be released. The FOIA stipulates nine ex-
umph over physical limitation. Others countered that it empted categories in which information must be denied:
would be more truthful to show FDR as he was publicly (1) classified materials pertaining to defense or foreign
known during his own time—standing at a podium or policy; (2) internal personnel procedures; (3) restricted
sitting in a conventional chair, but never in a wheelchair. data as stipulated by a particular law; (4) trade secrets;
President Bill Clinton recommended a bill to Congress to (5) certain memoranda and letters within and between
create a new statue depicting FDR in a wheelchair, and agencies; (6) personnel and medical records; (7) certain
one was added to the monument in 2001. investigatory records pertaining to law enforcement; (8)
certain materials related to regulating financial institu-
E. Michael Young tions; and (9) geophysical information, data, and maps
about wells. All FOIA inquiries are to be responded to
See also: Animal Rights; Buchanan, Pat; Japan; New Deal; in twenty business days, and there is an appeals process
Political Correctness; September 11 Memorial; Smoking in when requests are denied. Fees may be charged for send-
Public; Social Security; Twenty-Second Amendment; Viet- ing out materials.
nam Veterans Memorial; World War II Memorial. The original FOIA was reluctantly signed into law
by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, 1966. Bill
Further Reading Moyers, Johnson’s press secretary, later recalled, “LBJ
Conniff, Ruth. “FDR Scorned.” Progressive, July 1997. had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing
Dupré, Judith. Monuments: America’s History in Art and Memory. ceremony. He hated the very idea of the Freedom of Infor-
New York: Random House, 2007. mation Act; hated the thought of journalists rummaging
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Web site, National Park in government closets; hated them challenging the official
Service. www.nps.gov/fdrm. view of reality.” The legislation was the culmination
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “The FDR Memorial: Who of more than a decade of work by Representative John
Speaks from the Wheelchair?” Chronicle of Higher Education, Moss (D-CA), the chairman of the House Subcommittee
January 26, 2001. on Government Information. During the Eisenhower
Halprin, Lawrence. The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. San years, the first Republican administration since Her-
Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997. bert Hoover, Moss could not find any GOP supporters
Terzian, Philip. “Monumental Ignorance.” American Spectator, for his FOIA bill. Later, after Democrats regained the
July 1997. White House, Representative Donald Rumsfeld (R-
IL) emerged as a major co-sponsor, citing his concern
with the Johnson administration’s “managed news” and
F r e e d o m o f I n f o r m a t i o n Ac t “suppression of public information that the people are
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal entitled to have.”
law allowing public access to government records In the wake of Watergate, Congress in 1974 ap-
and documents. Critics of the legislation argue that it proved a bill to strengthen the FOIA, but it was vetoed
burdens the federal bureaucracy with extra work that by President Gerald Ford, who claimed that the changes
diverts time and energy from its primary duties. In would be “unconstitutional and unworkable.” Ford’s chief
addition, compliance with the FOIA adds to government of staff was Rumsfeld, who, along with assistant Dick
expenditures—the processing of the 459,044 FOIA Cheney, advised against the bill, expressing concern about
requests in 2006, for example, cost taxpayers $241.6 government leaks. Later, both houses overrode Ford’s
million. Career civil servants tend to dislike the FOIA veto. In 1984, Congress passed the Central Intelligence
19 8 Freedom of Infor mation Ac t
Agency Information Act, exempting the CIA from tion were ordered to be kept at the National Archives in
certain FOIA requirements. Two years later, Congress College Park, Maryland. In 1978, Congress passed the
again amended the FOIA, this time to exempt records Presidential Records Act (PRA), designating all records
pertaining to “sensitive law enforcement activities.” With and papers of future administrations as U.S. government
the passage of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act property and subjected to the FOIA five years after a
(1996), known as E-FOIA, federal agencies were required president leaves office. A provision allowed for sensitive
to put more government information online (with the records pertinent to national security to be kept sealed
hope of reducing FOIA caseloads—which it did not do). for twelve years. On November 1, 2001, however, as the
In 2007, a new law established a government-wide FOIA deadline for the release of all of Reagan’s papers drew
ombudsman to work at reducing the delays and the back- near, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order
log of 200,000 FOIA requests. That same law, to remove 13233, allowing for an extension. Critics viewed Bush’s
loopholes caused by privatization, placed government actions as violating the PRA; some speculated that he
contractors under the purview of the FOIA. sought to shield his father, George H.W. Bush, who was
Over the years, journalists, academics, public inter- vice president under Reagan, from further investigation
est groups, and ordinary citizens have fueled the culture into the Iran-Contra scandal. On January 21, 2009, one
wars by using the FOIA to obtain such information as day after becoming president, Barack Obama revoked
FBI dossiers on political activists and famous individu- Bush’s executive order.
als, CIA archives pertaining to Cold War–era covert Roger Chapman
activities, Pentagon documents on the surveillance of
civilian groups, environmental inspection reports, re- See also: Bush Family; Central Intelligence Agency; Cheney
cipient lists of agriculture farm subsidies and benefits, Family; Cold War; Ford, Gerald; Iran-Contra Affair; Johnson,
automobile safety statistics, e-mail correspondence Lyndon B.; Nader, Ralph; Nixon, Richard; Obama, Barack;
between department officials and partisan organiza- Privatization; Reagan, Ronald; Watergate.
tions, government research projects on human radia-
tion experiments, consumer affairs reports, and others. Further Reading
In 2006, after twenty-three years of legal wrangling, Davis, Charles N., and Sigman L. Splichal, eds. Access Denied:
historian Jon Wiener acquired the ten remaining FBI Freedom of Information in the Information Age. Ames: Iowa State
documents on John Lennon, pertaining to the singer’s University Press, 2000.
involvement in the antiwar movement. However, a ma- Nader, Ralph. “Knowledge Helps Citizens, Secrecy Helps
jority of FOIA requests are made by commercial interests Bureaucrats—The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).”
seeking information about government procurement, New Statesman, January 10, 1986.
contract bids, reports filed by regulatory agencies, and O’Reilly, James T. Federal Information Disclosure. St. Paul, MN:
other such materials for gaining a competitive edge or West Group, 2000.
preparing for litigation. Stuckey, Mary E. “Presidential Secrecy: Keeping Archives Open.”
In 1995, President Bill Clinton signed a declassifi- Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9:1 (Spring 2006): 138–44.
cation order to facilitate the public release of historical Weinstein, Barbara. “Let the Sunshine In: Government Records
documents kept by the National Archives and Records and Insecurities.” Perspectives: News Magazine of the American
Administration. Documents are now supposed to be Historical Association, April 2007.
declassified after twenty-five years unless there are com- Wiener, Jon. “The Last Lennon File.” Nation, December 20,
pelling reasons to continue keeping them secret. This 2006.
led to misgivings, followed by the decision to reclassify.
In 2001, for example, the CIA reclassified a publicly
released 1948 memorandum about a mission in which Friedan, Betty
balloons with propaganda pamphlets were floated over Feminist leader and a founder of the National
communist countries. Researchers denounced the CIA for Organization for Women (NOW), Betty Friedan was
announcing the reclassification since the information had the author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), a critique
already been published by the State Department. After of the confining experience of marriage and motherhood
the government reclassifies any document, researchers in modern America. The book was widely heralded as a
who have such materials in their personal files are legally founding text of second-wave feminism.
required to destroy them. Born Bettye Naomi Goldstein on February 4, 1921,
Following the resignation of Richard Nixon in in Peoria, Illinois, Friedan grew up watching her mother,
August 1974, Congress passed the Presidential Record- who prior to marriage had been the women’s page editor
ings and Materials Preservation Act to safeguard all of the local newspaper, display angry outbursts toward
Watergate-related documents (including audio record- her husband, a Russian immigrant and successful jeweler.
ings). In addition, all records of the Nixon administra- Years later, Friedan concluded that her mother was full
Fr iedman, Milton 19 9
of resentment over giving up her career in order to be a See also: Abortion; Brown, Helen Gurley; Equal Rights Amend-
housewife. Friedan studied psychology at Smith College, ment; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave;
graduating summa cum laude in 1942. She then became a LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; Lesbians; National Orga-
fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, studying nization for Women; Roe v. Wade (1973); Steinem, Gloria.
under the famed psychologist Erik Erikson. She mar-
ried Carl Friedan in 1947, and they moved to Rockland Further Reading
County, New York, had three children, and divorced Friedan, Betty. Life So Far. New York: Simon and Schuster,
twenty years later. 2000.
The Feminine Mystique, which sold over 1 million Hennessee, Judith. Betty Friedan: Her Life. New York: Random
copies in its first year in print, was based on a survey of House, 1999.
college-educated women that Friedan had conducted in Horowitz, Daniel. Betty Friedan and the Making of “The Feminine
1957. She was unsettled by the general dissatisfaction Mystique”: The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Femi-
reported by her respondents. Drawing on her own ex- nism. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.
periences as a mother, Friedan concluded that educated Oliver, Susan. Betty Freidan: The Personal Is Political. New York:
women were fulfilling less than their full potential in the Pearson Longman, 2008.
traditional role of parent and homemaker. Friedan labeled Sherman, Janann, ed. Interviews with Betty Friedan. Jackson:
the role imposed on women “the feminine mystique” University of Mississippi, 2002.
and wrote that it “has succeeded in burying millions of
American women alive.” As her book explained, “Each
suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the Fr iedman, Milton
beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, One of America’s most influential economists of the
ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauf- twentieth century, Milton Friedman championed the
feured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband free-market economy in absolutist terms, affirming
at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent the classic laissez-faire doctrine enunciated in Adam
question—‘Is this all?’” Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776). Friedman led a
Some critics saw Friedan’s challenge to the model of shift away from prevailing Keynesian theory, which,
middle-class suburban domesticity as an attack on house- based on the work of the British economist John
wives themselves. Others argued that she was simply Maynard Keynes, stressed the necessity for government
replacing the pressure to stay at home with an insistence to stimulate the economy through fiscal policies. John
that women go to work. Some feminists took issue with Kenneth Galbraith, Harvard economist and Friedman’s
Friedan’s focus on white, middle-class, heterosexual ideological rival, once observed with resignation, “The
women and her failure to acknowledge the constraints age of John Maynard Keynes gave way to the age of
facing working-class women who did not have the option Milton Friedman.”
to stay at home with their children. The son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Eu-
In 1966, Friedan co-founded the National Organi- rope, Milton Friedman was born on July 31, 1912, in
zation for Women, and in 1969 she helped launch the Brooklyn, New York. He studied economics at Rutgers
National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws University (AB, 1932), the University of Chicago (am,
(NARAL), which is now called Pro-Choice America. As 1933), and Columbia University (PhD, 1946). Other
president of NOW from its origin until 1970, she led than a stint with the federal government, including a
the organization in support of the doomed Equal Rights position at the tax research division of the U.S. Treasury
Amendment, but her goal of legalized abortion was suc- Department (1941–1943), Friedman devoted his career
cessfully realized by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in to academia, teaching at the University of Wisconsin at
Roe v. Wade (1973). Madison (1940–1941), the University of Minnesota at
Friedan’s negative view of lesbianism alienated Minneapolis (1945–1946), and finally the University of
many in the women’s movement. She described lesbian Chicago (1946–1982). In the 1970s, with the simulta-
feminists as the “lavender menace” and charged them neous rise of inflation and unemployment in the United
with undermining feminism by associating it with man- States, Friedman gained notoriety for having predicted
hating. Her aggressive stance caused rifts between Friedan that certain economic conditions would lead to the phe-
and some of her best-known associates, including Bella nomenon called “stagflation” (recession combined with
Abzug and Gloria Steinem. In 1981, Friedan published inflation). A recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics
The Second Stage, intending to shift the course of feminism (1976) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988),
back to an appreciation of traditional family life, but it Friedman produced such scholarly works as A Theory of
was not nearly as successful as her first book. Friedan died the Consumption Function (1957), A Program for Monetary
on February 4, 2006. Stability (1959), and A Monetary History of the United States,
Manon Parry 1867–1960 (with Anna J. Schwartz, 1963). In 1996, the
200 Fr iedman, Milton
Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation was established ployed and unemployed alike. His proposal inspired the
to advance education reform and school choice. Friedman earned-income tax credit, which gives monetary benefits
died on November 16, 2006. to low-income workers earning under a certain amount.
Controversially, Friedman blamed the Great Depres- Friedman believed that it was preferable to give money
sion on government intervention and asserted that New directly to the poor than have benefits dispensed to them
Deal policies actually prolonged the economic downturn. by a highly bureaucratized welfare system.
He likewise criticized the legacies of the New Deal, in- In 2008, brouhaha erupted at the University of
cluding the growth of the federal government, a position Chicago after over 100 professors there signed a petition
that energized conservative Republicans and gave intel- opposing plans to name a new campus economics research
lectual legitimacy to the views of Barry Goldwater and institute after Milton Friedman. Concern was raised that
Ronald Reagan. Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist such an honor would imply “massive support for the
and New York Times columnist, contends that Friedman economic and political doctrines” of the late economist
offered two accounts of the 1930s depression—one, the while harming faculty reputation with respect to “intel-
initial draft for scholars, which was carefully nuanced; and lectual and ideological diversity.”
the other, a looser version aimed at a popular audience,
which was “intellectually dishonest.” Roger Chapman
Friedman propagated his views on economics beyond
academe by writing a column for Newsweek magazine See also: Galbraith, John Kenneth; Goldwater, Barry; Kennedy
(1966–1984) and serving on President Reagan’s economic Family; Krugman, Paul; New Deal; Reagan, Ronald; School
policy advisory board (1981–1988). In addition, he served Vouchers; Social Security; Supply-Side Economics; War on
on the advisory board of the American Enterprise Insti- Drugs; Welfare Reform.
tute (1956–1979), a think tank devoted to unbridled
capitalism. Friedman’s writings for a popular audience, Further Reading
co-authored by his wife, Rose D. Friedman—among them Ebenstein, Alan O. Milton Friedman: A Biography. New York:
Capitalism and Freedom (1962); Free to Choose (1980), the Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
basis of a PBS television series; and Tyranny of the Status Friedman, Milton, and Rose Friedman. Free to Choose: A Personal
Quo (1983)—established him as a prominent figure in Statement. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.
the culture wars. Krugman, Paul. “Who Was Milton Friedman?” New York
A libertarian and advocate of “economic freedom,” Review of Books, February 15, 2007.
Friedman criticized Social Security and other entitlement Wood, John Cunningham, and Ronald W. Woods, eds. Mil-
programs; emphasized voluntary association, competi- ton Friedman: A Critical Assessment. New York: Routledge,
tion, and free trade; called for school choice (voucher 1990.
programs); urged deregulation of commerce and indus-
try as well as the lifting of environmental protections;
and even recommended the legalization of drugs. He F u n d a m e n t a l i s m , Re l i g i o u s
maintained that individual freedom is impossible in a Most often associated in America with right-wing
society without a free-market system. Governmental Christian Protestantism, fundamentalist views and
regulation, he argued, fosters cultural stagnation, curbs sentiments have also been present among Islamic,
technological innovation, and undermines individual Mormon, and Jewish groups. In the context of America’s
responsibility. Democracy, he insisted, can only be sus- culture wars, Protestant and Islamic fundamentalists
tained by capitalism. have been the most recognizable and public figures. But
In the preface to Capitalism and Freedom, the Fried- other fundamentalisms have had, and continue to have,
mans criticize John F. Kennedy’s famous inaugural- a prominent voice in America’s religious and political
address statement of 1961, “Ask not what your country discourse.
can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” The term “fundamentalist,” which originated in the
It was paternalistic in tone, they suggested, implying 1910s and 1920s, initially referred to conservative theo-
that the individual citizen is a ward of the state. The vital logians at Princeton Theological Seminary who objected
question, in their view is, “How can we keep the govern- to “modernist” trends in Protestant intellectual circles.
ment we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will Concerned about the proliferation of liberal theological
destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?” tenets, fundamentalists summarily rejected Darwinism
A monetarist, Friedman argued that the only role and German “higher criticism” of the Bible while pen-
government should play in the economic system is con- ning defenses of “traditional” Christian tenets. From 1909
trolling the money supply. He applied his monetarist to 1912, a group of conservative theologians published a
principles in devising the negative income tax, which twelve-volume set of treatises entitled The Fundamentals,
would have provided cash transfers to the poor, em- which consolidated conservative differences with “liberal”
Fundamentalism, Relig iou s 201
theology into a specific list of complaints. The most rights. Fundamentalist terror groups couple these tenets
prominent—and long-standing—of these complaints with the concept of jihad (“holy war”) against the West
were against liberal rejections or criticisms of biblical and Israel. Not all fundamentalists, however, necessarily
inerrancy, the Virgin Birth, Christ’s redeeming death support these groups’ violent means or ends.
and bodily resurrection, and the authenticity of miracles. Anti-Western Islamic polemicists first appeared in
Other scholars, such as B.B. Warfield, J. Gresham the context of European colonialism in the Middle East
Machen, and Cyrus Scofield, formulated defenses of fun- during the nineteenth century and early twentieth cen-
damentalist principles that, despite the embarrassment tury. Western economic and political involvement in the
of fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Middle East during the Cold War stirred concerns about
“Monkey” Trial in 1925, grew in esteem at seminaries the effects of secularization and bid’ah (“innovations”) on
across America; indeed, they served as justifications for Islam’s fundamental tenets. In the 1970s, Islamic funda-
the founding of separate schools like Westminster Theo- mentalism captured the attention of the American public
logical Seminary and Dallas Theological Seminary. Print after the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979, including the
and radio media also enabled fundamentalists to extend hostage-taking of U.S. Embassy personnel in Tehran, and
their reach and popularize defenses of what they regarded the defeat of the Soviets by mujahedeen during the Afghan-
as “the ole time religion.” istan war. Fundamentalist anger over U.S. sponsorship of
After World War II, Christian fundamentalists the Israeli state gave rise to the Palestinian terror group
differentiated themselves from other Protestants by a Hamas in 1987, while American military intervention
militant support for biblical inerrancy, creationism, in the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991 served as fodder
anticommunism, and moral vigilance. Fundamentalist for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization al-Qaeda.
disdain for the Reverend Billy Graham’s acceptance of Ten years later, bin Laden’s group orchestrated the Sep-
support from the liberal National Council of Churches tember 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in
for his 1957 New York City evangelist crusade sym- New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,
bolized their increasingly separatist and antagonistic sparking an American-led war against terror cells in the
approach toward conservative and mainline Protestants. Middle East and worldwide. A controversial effort, es-
The social revolutions of the 1960s sparked two decades pecially after the expansion of the war into Iraq in 2003,
of fundamentalist calls for political involvement rather the Bush administration’s response to radical Islamic
than cultural separatism. Grassroots fundamentalists— fundamentalism exacerbated ideological and political
whose interests were best embodied by figureheads conflicts already present in America over the nation’s
like the Reverend Jerry Falwell—successfully made twenty-first-century international identity.
antifeminist “family values” and “traditional Judeo- Less-well-known fundamentalist movements in
Christian values” a part of Republican electoral politics. America’s past and present can be found among Jewish
Also, during the 1980s, fundamentalists in the Southern and Mormon groups. Jewish fundamentalists assert the
Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomina- divine origins of Torah and argue for the adherence to
tion in America, orchestrated the removal of moderates all dietary and customary laws prescribed in it. While in
from denominational leadership and seminary positions. basic agreement on these points, Jewish fundamentalists
Premillennial dispensationalism, a theology of “end continue to debate the exact responsibility of adherents
times” that emphasizes the imminent return of Christ to rabbinical authority and Torah law. Unlike Islamic
and the rapture of the faithful, experienced a steady and Protestant fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists
rise in popularity in evangelical and fundamentalist typically have little interest in public policy or culture
circles, in part because of the efforts of writers like Hal war politics, preferring to observe their various visions
Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. Indeed, at the time of George of “true” Jewish customs in isolation. Similarly, Mormon
W. Bush’s election as president in 2000, fundamental- fundamentalists tend to pursue classical Mormonism in
ism remained one of the most influential impulses in small, separatist communities. Interested in the preserva-
Protestant America. tion of older, nineteenth-century practices and tenets—
Although it originated outside the United States, such as plural marriage, communalist living, and the
Islamic fundamentalism has shaped the culture wars in theological notion of Adam as divine—fundamentalists
America as distinctly as its Protestant counterpart has. In remain a small and marginal sect in Mormon America.
general, Islamic fundamentalists support literalist inter- Regardless, both Jewish and Mormon fundamentalist
pretations of the Koran, along with emphases on political groups betray an important reminder about fundamen-
activism, the development and preservation of theocratic talism in America. To be sure, the most preeminent
states, and the dissolution of Israel’s sovereignty. Most fundamentalists have engaged secular culture head-on and
fundamentalist Muslims also view Western nations as ir- influenced the course of the nation’s politics at home and
religious and repressive, sharing suspicion of democracy, abroad. Others have elected to withdraw from mainstream
moral laxity, secularization, globalization, and women’s America and its culture wars, pursuing their religious
202 Fur
goals in private rather than in public, continually search- were characterized as irrational, radical extremists—a
ing for what all fundamentalists desire: an unapologetic message that effectively boosted fur in both mainstream
return to the religious “fundamentals” that modernity and high-end fashion. Still, antifur sentiment came to a
seems to threaten with extinction. head in the 1980s, as animal rights groups counteracted
the surge in consumption with morally oriented adver-
Darren E. Grim tising and public relations campaigns of their own. Fur
sales in America plummeted to an all-time low. Antifur
See also: Christian Reconstructionism; Church and State; Cre- advocacy groups criticized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
ationism and Intelligent Design; Evangelicalism; Falwell, Service, among other groups, which they said profited
Jerry; LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; Muslim Americans; from the trapping and killing of predatory animals. More
Premillennial Dispensationalism; Religious Right; Schaeffer, broadly, however, the antifur movement targeted society
Francis; Secular Humanism; Southern Baptist Convention. at large, especially women, the primary consumers in the
fur industry. Advertisements typically depicted women
Further Reading who wear fur as vain, immoral, pretentious, and cruel.
Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God: A History of Fundamental- Some feminists faulted animal liberation groups
ism. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001. for failing to address the patriarchy and sexism that
Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and underlie the media and fashion industries, which bind
America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New women to “oppressive” standards of beauty. Especially
York: Basic Books, 1997. deplored by feminists were advertising campaigns by
Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture. 2nd organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment
ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. of Animals (PETA), which displayed naked and scant-
———. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. ily clad women in an effort to raise awareness about
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991. the fur industry. Combating the oppression of animals,
Milton-Edwards, Beverley. Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945. feminists argued, did not necessitate the oppression of
New York: Routledge, 2005. women as well.
Arguably, the most severe repercussions of the antifur
movement and the decline in fur sales have been suffered
Fur by indigenous groups such as the Inuit, who have relied
The controversy surrounding fur is a dispute between on hunting and trapping animals for fur for hundreds
animal welfare activists and the fur industry over the of years. Fur not only provides necessary warmth and
trapping, hunting, and farming of animals for fur protection as clothing, but the fur trade has been an
clothes and accessories. Other groups have been caught economic mainstay of many tribes for centuries. Those
in the crossfire, drawing the fashion industry, women’s who advocate on behalf of indigenous groups thus label
groups, the U.S. government, and indigenous cultures the antifur campaign of some animal liberation groups as
into this cultural battle. imperialistic. Antifur activists counter that indigenous
The history of the fur trade in North America dates trapping accounts for a mere fraction of the North Ameri-
to the 1500s, when early European explorers exchanged can fur industry. What they deplore, they say, is mass
goods with Native Americans for fur pelts. Yet it was not slaughter on behalf of corporate consumerism rather than
until the nineteenth century, which witnessed the most subsistence hunting and trading by groups who employ
widespread slaughter of wildlife in recorded history, that traditional methods.
the practice of wearing fur became controversial. Since Michelle Garvey
then, animal rights activists and conservationists have
worked to expose the harsh reality of the fur trade, from See also: Animal Rights; Ecoterrorism; Endangered Species
the steel-jaw traps that ensnare wildlife to the brutal Act; Environmental Movement; Factory Farms; Feminism,
conditions animals suffer at fur farms. Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; People for the Ethical
Responding to the negative portrayal of the fur in- Treatment of Animals.
dustry, the Fur Information and Fashion Council in the
1970s launched a multimillion-dollar crusade to combat Further Reading
what it deemed the misinformation and emotionalism Emberley, Julia B. The Cultural Politics of Fur. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
promoted by antifur activists. Animal rights activists University Press, 1997.
and economists generally regarded him as a popularizer
who contributed little to theory and modeling.
Gary Land
G a l b r a i t h , J o h n Ke n n e t h See also: Democratic Party; Friedman, Milton; Great Society;
From the late 1950s through the 1970s, the liberal Johnson, Lyndon B.; Kennedy Family; McCarthy, Eugene;
economist John Kenneth Galbraith was a major New Deal; New Left; Vietnam War; War on Poverty.
advocate of government regulation of corporate activity
and federal spending for the public good. An adviser Further Reading
to several Democratic leaders, he became a critic of Galbraith, John Kenneth, and Andrea D. Williams, eds. The
the Vietnam War and the administration of Lyndon B. Essential Galbraith. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Johnson. Hession, Charles H. John Kenneth Galbraith and His Critics. New
Born on a farm in Ontario, Canada, on October 15, York: New American Library, 1972.
1908, Galbraith studied agriculture at Ontario Agricul- Parker, Richard. John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His
tural College (BSci, 1931; MSci, 1933) and agricultural Economics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
economics at the University of California, Berkeley (PhD, Stanfield, J. Ron. John Kenneth Galbraith. New York: St. Martin’s
1934). Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard Univer- Press, 1996.
sity in 1949 he worked as an administrator in the U.S.
Office of Price Administration (1940–1943), served on
the editorial staff of Fortune magazine (1943–1948), and Gangs
conducted an economic assessment of the effects of Al- Gangs, predominately composed of male youth, have
lied bombing in Germany for the federal government shaped American urban life for centuries. Members
(1946). generally find social cohesion through shared symbols
In 1947, Galbraith helped found Americans for and territory, ethnic bonds, or marginal social status, and
Democratic Action, a liberal, anticommunist political the potential for violence. American examples include
organization, later serving as its president. He joined the New York’s immigrant gangs of the nineteenth century
economics faculty at Harvard in 1949 and taught there and the Latino “zoot suiters” in 1940s Los Angeles. In
until his retirement in 1975, except for stints of govern- postwar America, Puerto Rican youth gangs in New
ment service. In addition to advising Adlai Stevenson and York inspired the hit Broadway musical West Side Story
John F. Kennedy during their presidential races, he served (1956). Other types of gangs have ranged from African-
as U.S. ambassador to India (1961–1963). An influential American gangsta rappers to Asian-immigrant gangs.
figure in the development of President Johnson’s Great Although often associated with the lower socio-economic
Society program, he subsequently broke with the presi- classes of urban areas, gangs are also found among the
dent in sharp disagreement over the Vietnam War. middle class and in suburban as well as rural areas. Since
Galbraith came to general public notice with The the 1990s conflicts among gangs and between gangs
Affluent Society (1958), in which he argued that govern- and the police have become more violent, as drugs,
ment should move money from private investment to guns, and economic polarization have intensified illegal
public projects such as parks, highways, and education activities. More than ever, gangs are seen as threats to
and criticized the belief that increased material pro- social order, property, and life—to be feared, reformed,
duction signified social health. The book influenced punished, and eradicated.
President Kennedy’s War on Poverty. The New Industrial Youth gangs typically form among those who feel
State (1967) asserted that the decisive power in modern denied the opportunity for prosperity, including Latinos
society is exercised by the industrial bureaucracy, which in the Southwest, African Americans in inner cities, and
ultimately controls consumers and dictates what is under- some Asian immigrants since the 1960s. In the 1950s
stood to be the public interest. Galbraith published over and 1960s, such gangs challenged an optimistic postwar
thirty books, including two novels and a memoir, A Life society, spurring the first systematic analysis of gang
in Our Times (1981). He died on April 29, 2006. recruitment, structure, and activities. The pattern has
Galbraith’s ideas prompted criticism from many seemed constant over the years. About 80 to 90 percent
directions. Conservatives rejected his preference for gov- of gang members are male, ranging from late preteen
ernment regulation of expenditure over private choice, years to thirty years of age, and tend to form racially or
while members of the 1960s New Left thought that his ethnically homogeneous groups that are highly territorial
emphasis on bureaucratic organization underestimated and maintain loose networks of variable commitment.
the role of capitalism. Liberal economists frequently dis- Gangs may last for only a few months or years, although
agreed with his concepts of production and consumption, some have endured across generations.
203
20 4 Gangs
To reformers in the 1950s, young gang members In contrast, the suppression approach identifies gangs
were often considered juvenile delinquents, as parodied as a menace. While task forces typically focus on homi-
in the song “Gee, Officer Krupke” in West Side Story. cide statistics, law enforcement officials target “street
Analysts recognized the values of socialization, support, crime” that threatens outsiders—in both cases attention
and masculine identity built into gang membership and is concentrated on symptoms rather than the underlying
called into question simplistic definitions of gangs and causes. Incarceration of gang members invariably leads to
gang activity. Police and other law enforcement authori- gang activities behind bars, and a focus on arrest statistics
ties, by contrast, traditionally identified gang members invariably targets minority youth and contributes to their
by their actions—as criminals. sense of alienation. Prohibitions of gang activity—termed
While the Vietnam War and American social strug- “civil gang injunctions”—undermine civil liberties and
gles shifted attention away from gangs in the late 1960s, have proven to be less than effective, especially when
violence recaptured headlines thereafter as multinational gangs are categorized as “street terrorists.”
gangs became associated with smuggling, drug dealing, Amid these controversies, for decades television,
and turf battles in cities. Gang crimes, however, have movies, news coverage, and music have presented evolv-
most often involved graffiti, vandalism, extortion, and ing images of gangs, from the film Public Enemy (1931)
theft. In fact, most gangs lack the organizational expertise to the gangsta rap music of 50 Cent. When gang mem-
for systematic drug distribution. But in Los Angeles, the bership is made to seem exciting or attractive, media
Crips and Bloods, predominantly African American, cre- outlets and corporate sponsors often face complaints from
ated expanding associations of allied gangs. Their battles authorities who work to quell gang activity. For some,
over drug turf spread across the nation, troubling 123 gangs can seem a way to channel disillusionment with the
cities in 1992 alone. American dream and may embody deeply rooted images
Latino, Asian, and Russian immigrant gangs have of masculinity, rebellion, independence, and camaraderie.
been involved in vandalism, smuggling, and other illicit The myriad sources of attraction to gangs make it difficult
activities. Gangs have also participated in large-scale to imagine that either social programs or police suppres-
organized crime and transnational drug operations. Since sion can bring gangs under control anytime soon.
the 1990s, growing gang activities have troubled Native
American communities. The Aryan Brotherhood, origi- Gary W. McDonogh
nating among white inmates in California’s San Quentin
Prison in 1967, spread through prisons and to the street. See also: Dean, James; Graffiti; Gun Control; Multicultural-
Skinheads and bikers (motorcycle gangs) share some of the ism and Ethnic Studies; Rap Music; War on Drugs; White
characteristics of youth gangs in their marginalization, Supremacists; Zero Tolerance.
racialization, gender, and illicit activity.
Studies consistently show that victims of gang Further Reading
violence are usually the members of rival gangs—male Donahue, Sean, ed. Gangs: Stories of Life and Death from the Streets.
and of the same race and age as the perpetrators. These New York: Thunder Mouth, 2002.
same studies indicate that females, comprising about 10 Esbensen, Finn-Aage, Stephen G. Tibbets, and Larry Gaines,
percent of gang membership, identify females as allies eds. American Youth Gangs at the Millennium. Long Grove,
more than protagonists. Associations of delinquency, IL: Waveland, 2004.
truancy, promiscuity, and violence have spurred special Klein, Malcolm. American Street Gangs. Oxford, UK: Oxford
intervention to prevent females from joining gangs. In the University Press, 1997.
1990s, gangs were increasingly recognized as a problem Klein, Malcolm, and Cheryl Maxson. Street Gangs: Patterns and
in suburban and rural areas, places where parents had Processes. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006.
fled cities and their teenage children experienced alien-
ation while at the same time finding the media images
of gangs enticing. G ay C a p i t a l
The human cost of gang violence—terrorized neigh- The term “gay capital” refers to the growing clout
borhoods with accidental or drive-by shootings—is a enjoyed by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
daily reality in many parts of the nation where gangs (LGBT) individuals as a recognized market segment in
operate. Responses remain divided, however, amid the U.S. economy. Employers have increasingly courted
ambiguous data regarding what constitutes effective skilled LGBT workers by committing themselves
intervention. Many projects focus on direct engagement to corporate nondiscrimination policies and offering
with gangs, to alter values, offer mediation, and reduce domestic partner benefits, including health insurance.
violence. The long-term success of this method has been And LGBT consumers are increasingly courted as a
mixed, largely depending on the extent of active com- niche market with more disposable income than the
munity involvement. national norm. The concept of gay capital has had wide-
G ay R i g h t s M ove m e n t 205
ranging social and political consequences, especially by orientation or gender identity. The gay rights movement
increasing the visibility of gays and lesbians in various is not monolithic, however, and includes a diverse set of
public spheres since the 1990s. social and political organizations that pursue different
As a means of courting LGBT wealth, corporations goals and tactics. These organizations represent lesbian,
have begun sponsoring events such as gay pride marches, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals
even at the risk of alienating social conservatives. Media spanning all economic, racial, ethnic, and religious
companies have included gay and lesbian personalities strata of American society.
in prime-time television and in films, as in the hit series
Ellen (1994–1998) and Will & Grace (1998–2006). Al- Origins and Emergence
though earlier ignored or vilified in media depictions, The modern gay rights movement is rooted in social
gays and lesbians have come to be portrayed often as changes and events that took place over two centuries.
a well-adjusted, “normal” segment of society. Thus, it Individuals who engage in homosexual behavior
can be argued that gay capital has contributed to greater have long been regarded in many societies as sinners,
public tolerance of gays and along with that the promo- criminals, or both. In the late nineteenth century, with
tion of gay rights issues, such as same-sex marriage and the emergence of the field of psychiatry, such individuals
nondiscrimination laws pertaining to sexual orientation. were further stigmatized by a formal diagnosis of
Moreover, many workplaces offer benefits to same-sex mental disorder and were viewed as a distinct class of
domestic partners. human beings for whom sexual orientation defined
Opposition to these responses to gay capital has identity. Gradually, gays and lesbians internalized their
been voiced most strongly by the Religious Right. The differentiation from mainstream society and developed
Southern Baptist Convention and the American Family group identities around it.
Association, among others, have challenged media net- In big cities, homosexual subcultures could be ac-
works courting LGBT audiences and protested against commodated, but American society at large felt threat-
various companies offering domestic partner benefits. ened by anyone who deviated from sexual and gender
Both organizations initiated boycotts of the Walt Disney norms and engaged in nonprocreative sex outside mar-
Company in 1996 and 1997 to protest the company’s riage. Governments thus developed regulations to sup-
domestic partner provisions for employees, controversial press homosexuality. Every state passed sodomy laws that
films produced by Disney’s Miramax affiliate, and the made it a crime to engage in particular sex acts, such as
annual Gay Days hosted at Disney World in Orlando. In anal intercourse. Although the laws often applied to both
2005, however, both groups ended these boycotts without heterosexuals and homosexuals, they were enforced dis-
prompting changes at Disney. proportionately against the latter. During the twentieth
Some members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and century, the number of men arrested for sodomy and lesser
transgendered communities have expressed concern over offenses, like loitering, disorderly conduct, and lewd and
the concept of gay capital. They argue that embracing lascivious conduct, increased dramatically.
norms of respectability and possessing economic clout During World War II, large numbers of men and
should not be preconditions to equal treatment for them- women were inducted into the armed services and con-
selves and their families. centrated on army bases and naval ports in or near many
Phil Tiemeyer large cities. This brought together many young gays and
lesbians from around the country in same-sex segregated
See also: Family Values; Gay Rights Movement; Gays in Popu- environments, helping them overcome their former isola-
lar Culture; Lesbians; Same-Sex Marriage; Transgender Move- tion and develop group consciousness and personal rela-
ment; Walt Disney Company; Wildmon, Donald. tionships. While the Red Scare of the 1950s intensified
the persecution of gays and lesbians, who were branded as
Further Reading communist sympathizers and security risks, Alfred Kin-
Gluckman, Amy, and Betsy Reed. Homo Economics: Capitalism, Com- sey’s pathbreaking studies of human sexuality revealed
munity, and Lesbian and Gay Life. New York: Routledge, 1997. that a larger percentage of individuals had engaged in
Walters, Suzanna Danuta. All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility same-sex behavior than previously thought. In subsequent
in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. years, the civil rights and women’s movements inspired
Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the a generation of gays and lesbians to demand an end to
Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free Press, 1999. oppression. All these developments laid the foundation
for the gay rights movement.
Gay Rights Movement
The gay rights movement consists of groups and Development and Maturation
individuals linked by a set of broad political and cultural Historian John D’Emilio describes the gay rights
goals that reflect a shared identity based on their sexual movement as a cycle of “leaps and creeps”—periods of
20 6 Gay R ight s Movement
relative stability in which the movement made little or marriage, domestic partner benefits, adoption, military
no progress, punctuated by occasional bursts of rapid service, and making schools safer and more tolerant were
change. Two “homophile” organizations founded in added to the agenda.
the 1950s—the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles and The U.S. Supreme Court rejected gays’ demands to
Daughters of Bilitis in San Francisco—provided a place participate openly in private organizations like the Boy
for politically oriented gays and lesbians to meet. These Scouts (Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 2000) and the St.
early activists engaged in public education campaigns to Patrick’s Day Parade (Hurley v. Irish American Gay, Les-
encourage tolerance and understanding toward gays and bian and Bisexual Group of Boston, 1995). But the Court
lesbians, and they challenged discrimination in federal handed them a major victory in 2003 when it declared
employment and sodomy laws. unconstitutional laws that criminalize homosexual con-
The Stonewall Rebellion marked a watershed in the duct (Lawrence v. Texas).
history of the gay rights movement. In the early morning
hours of June 28, 1969, patrons of a New York City gay Assimilation Versus Liberation
nightclub answered police harassment with five nights Throughout the movement’s history, activists and
of civil disobedience and violent disturbances. Although observers have debated whether gays and lesbians should
the perception that Stonewall launched the gay rights seek to assimilate through normal political activities
movement is historically inaccurate, it remains a potent (litigating, lobbying, donating to campaigns, and
symbol—and historic landmark—of the gay commu- mobilizing voters) that focus on obtaining legal rights
nity’s resistance to mistreatment. Reflecting the temper and protections, or to transform the culture in a more
of the times, Stonewall signaled an embrace of cultural radical direction outside conventional forms of political
and political “liberation” and a more confrontational style participation. Efforts to gain protected status in civil
of politics. Thereafter, gay liberation rejected assimilation rights laws, marriage, and adoption and to lift the ban
and began using the norms of the heterosexual majority on serving openly in the military, for example, reflect
as a standard for the gay community. A wave of activism assimilationist goals. Liberationists, by contrast, reject
came on the heels of Stonewall that led the American conforming to heterosexual institutions and lifestyles
Psychiatric Association to take homosexuality off its list and view the role of gays and lesbians as breaking down
of mental disorders in 1973 and the federal Civil Service traditional gender roles and reducing class and racial
Commission to drop its ban on the employment of homo- inequalities.
sexuals in 1975. Many states repealed sodomy laws, and Liberationists stress increasing the visibility and posi-
antidiscrimination laws were passed in college towns and tive portrayal of gays and lesbians in the media, the safety
big cities that covered sexual orientation in employment, and acceptance of gays and lesbian youth in schools, and
housing, and public accommodations. the acceptance of gays and lesbians in professional and
Progress slowed by the late 1970s and early 1980s. ethnic organizations. The most effective strategy for reduc-
Divisions surfaced within the movement, based on race, ing oppression, they maintain, is for gays and lesbians to
ethnicity, and gender, as lesbians and people of color “come out of the closet”; when gays and lesbians increase
complained of a lack of representation in major gay their visibility, it becomes easier for them to gain public
rights organizations, which were dominated by white, policy victories but also makes such laws less necessary.
middle-class men. Religious and social conservatives Coming out makes it harder to ignore the demands of the
mobilized to repeal gay rights laws and won a major LGBT community, reduces homophobia, and increases
victory in 1986 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared positive feelings toward gays and lesbians. A number of
state sodomy laws constitutional in Bowers v. Hardwick. studies have shown that individuals who have gay family
Finally, the AIDS crisis taxed the movement’s resources members, friends, and co-workers are more likely to be
and confirmed stereotypes of gays as sexually promiscu- tolerant toward gays and support their political aims.
ous and irresponsible. The strategies, if not the goals, of the “insider” as-
Ironically, AIDS also benefited the gay rights move- similationists and the “outsider” liberationists are not
ment. Many people realized for the first time that they mutually exclusive. As some organizations work through
had gay friends, family members, and co-workers, and normal political channels to secure legal rights, others
the disease “outed” several celebrities. AIDS also led to try to change the culture by working at the grassroots
political mobilization and institution-building in the level and engaging in unconventional forms of participa-
gay community. As gays and lesbians became much tion. Organizations such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to
more visible in the media and society generally dur- Unleash Power) have employed both outsider and insider
ing the 1990s, they attained favorable legislation and tactics—for example, engaging in dramatic street protests
court decisions at the state and local levels. In 1992, the and negotiating with government agencies to make drugs
gay community helped elect the first president—Bill more readily available to AIDS patients.
Clinton—who appealed to it for votes. New issues like The contemporary gay rights movement consists of
Gays in Popular Culture 207
a large variety of national, state, and local organizations this ambiguous role, popular entertainment has histori-
that are loosely bound by a broad commitment to re- cally provided a venue in which queer men and women
ducing homophobia and discrimination based on sexual could test the limits of sexual freedom and visibility.
orientation and gender identity. The Human Rights Conversely, the presence of gay individuals and icons in
Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the movies, television, music, sports, and other popular
and Lambda Legal are large national, general-purpose culture genres has brought an outcry from social conser-
political organizations that lobby, litigate, conduct vatives. The question of who controls popular culture
research, and educate policymakers and citizens about and what should be censored has created intense contro-
gay rights issues. versy in America’s culture wars.
A number of social and political organizations have A major breakthrough came in April 1997 when
more specific agendas. The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight the popular comedian and television actress Ellen De-
Education Network (GLSEN) strives to develop respect Generes “came out” as a lesbian. At the time, the former
and acceptance for LGBT students in schools, partly by stand-up comic had her own weekly sitcom on the ABC
building gay-straight alliances among students. Parents, network, called Ellen. DeGeneres made her declara-
Family, and Friends of Gays and Lesbians (PFLAG) tion as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show, confirmed
promotes understanding and respect for gay, lesbian, by a cover article in Time magazine with the headline,
bisexual, and transgender persons by helping those close “Yep, I’m Gay.” Blurring the line between reality and
to them overcome their ignorance and fear and accept television, DeGeneres’s character on the sitcom, Ellen
their orientation. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Morgan, came out as well in an episode later that month.
Defamation (GLAAD) promotes fair, accurate, and in- The coming-out sparked unprecedented publicity and
clusive representation of sexual and gender identities in backlash. Religious and conservative leaders who felt the
the mass media. The Stonewall Democrats and the Log country was not ready for a homosexual lead character
Cabin Republicans are affiliates of the two major political attacked the network’s decision and applauded sponsors
parties. A number of gay organizations are geared to the who pulled their advertisements from the show. The
special needs of racial and ethnic groups or the specific American Family Association and Jerry Falwell led the
needs in particular local communities. charge, which included a boycott of the Walt Disney
Corporation, which owns ABC. The coming-out episode
Gary Mucciaroni ranked number one that week in the Nielsen ratings.
In addition to Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of the
See also: AIDS; Frank, Barney; Gay Capital; Gays in Popular Year award and other professional honors, DeGeneres
Culture; Gays in the Military; Hay, Harry; Lesbians; Milk, received civil rights awards from the Human Rights
Harvey; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Outing; Same- Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union of
Sex Marriage; Shepard, Matthew; Socarides, Charles; Sodomy Southern California.
Laws; Stonewall Rebellion; Transgender Movement. While DeGeneres’s announcement and the response
to it led to the cancellation of her show after the follow-
Further Reading ing season, it did not prevent the ever-increasing vis-
Adam, Barry D. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement. New ibility of gay men and lesbians in the media or end the
York: Twayne, 1995. portrayal of gay characters in popular culture. Celebrities
Button, James W., Barbara A. Rienzo, and Kenneth D. Wald. continued to come out—by choice or revelation—while
Private Lives, Public Conflicts: Battles over Gay Rights in Ameri- straight men and women unabashedly took on gay and
can Communities. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1997. lesbian roles on television and in the movies. The de-
D’Emilio, John. “Cycles of Change, Questions of Strategy: The cade after DeGeneres’s coming-out saw the production
Gay and Lesbian Movement After Fifty Years.” In The Politics of and popularity of such other gay-oriented TV shows as
Gay Rights, ed. Craig A. Rimmerman, Kenneth D. Wald, and Will & Grace (1998–2006), Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
Clyde Wilcox. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. (2003–2007), The L-Word (2004–2009), and Queer as
Rimmerman, Craig. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Folk (2000–2005). Moreover, along with the popularity
Gay Movements in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple of reality television, producers often cast members of the
University Press, 2002. gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ)
Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and community in these series. As gayness has become more
Lesbian Liberation. New York: Anchor Books, 1995. visible, some cultural critics have bemoaned the stereo-
typical depiction of sitcom gay characters, arguing that
such figures can exist only if they do not threaten the
G ay s i n P o p u l a r C u l t u r e heterosexual status quo.
Popular culture has the unique ability to reinforce the Before DeGeneres, a number of actors, artists, ath-
status quo as well as challenge traditional society. Given letes, writers, and singers had identified themselves as
20 8 Gays in Popular Culture
members of the GLBTQ community. Many of them, carries a red bag that could be interpreted as a woman’s
however, came out only near the end of their careers, purse; and because his antenna is shaped like an inverted
risking minimal professional consequences. In the 1950s, triangle, another symbol of gay pride. Representatives
celebrity magazines such as Confidential and Vice Squad of the show denied the attacks, insisting that any homo-
thrived on exposing the sexual secrets of Hollywood sexual imagery was purely coincidental.
stars, especially those purportedly involved in same-sex A similar controversy arose in January 2005 when
romances. In the political and moral climate of the 1950s, two Christian conservative groups, the American Family
to identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual would have been Association and Focus on the Family, accused the creators
career suicide. The macho Hollywood star Rock Hudson of the hit cartoon show SpongeBob SquarePants (1999– ) of
(born Leroy Harold Scherer, Jr.) was quickly married exposing children to homosexuality. The issue surrounded
off to his agent’s secretary in 1955 after the magazine a music video produced by the nonprofit group We Are
Confidential threatened to expose his homosexuality. At Family Foundation, in which the character SpongeBob
the time, Hudson was a contractual agent for Universal appeared along with other popular cartoon characters. The
Studios, which worried that a disclosure of its budding organization had been founded, and the video produced,
actor’s homosexuality would ruin his box office potential. to promote greater tolerance of multiculturalism after
In 1985, Hudson finally came out as it became clear the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Critics of the
that he was dying of AIDS. Initially, he had refused to cartoon based their accusations on the fact that the main
admit that he was gay and blamed the disease on blood character is inordinately effeminate and occasionally holds
transfusions he had received due to heart bypass surgery hands with his pink starfish friend, Patrick.
late in life. For the queer community, the proliferation of im-
The plight of gays in professional sports has been ages of gay men and lesbians in the media provides role
more problematic than in other areas of popular culture. models as well as evidence of their existence in society
Conservative groups worry that openly gay athletes could in general. Conservative groups, lamenting the visibility
make homosexuality appear more attractive to youth if of homosexuality in popular culture, continue to chal-
they are allowed to perform in the professional arena. lenge shows and movies that depict gays in a positive or
Athletes from individual noncontact sports such as golf, appealing light. For celebrity entertainers and athletes,
tennis, swimming, and ice skating have been more likely meanwhile, the decision to come out is not casual or
to come out than athletes who participate in full-contact incidental. Whatever the trends in recent years, it poses
team sports. A number of gay athletes, coaches, and of- a serious threat to their professional careers.
ficials have claimed that their sexuality resulted in firings,
trades, or discrimination. In 1988, Major League Baseball Elizabeth M. Matelski
umpire Dave Pallone contended that he was fired after he
privately came out to then National League President A. See also: AIDS; Falwell, Jerry; Focus on the Family; Gay Rights
Bartlett Giamatti. Other athletes and coaches are vocally Movement; Lesbians; Outing; Penn, Sean; September 11;
opposed to the participation of gays in professional sports. Walt Disney Company; White, Reggie; Wildmon, Donald.
In February 2007, Tim Hardaway, a retired point guard
in the National Basketball Association (NBA), made a Further Reading
series of antigay comments on a radio show concerning the Berube, Alan. Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men
coming-out of a former NBA player, John Amaechi. In and Women in World War II. New York: The Free Press,
March 2007, Tony Dungy, the head coach of the National 2000.
Football League’s Indianapolis Colts accepted an award Bronski, Michael. The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and
from the Indiana Family Institute, a right-wing group the Struggle for Gay Freedom. New York: St. Martin’s Press,
that works to fight against same-sex marriage. Because 1998.
of the stigma against gays in professional sports, many Gever, Martha. Entertaining Lesbians: Celebrity, Sexuality, and
athletes come out only after their careers have ended. Self-Invention. New York: Routledge, 2003.
The visibility of homosexual characters and imagery Walters, Suzanna Danuta. All the Rage: the Story of Gay Visibility
remains a volatile subject in American society. Popular in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
culture aimed at children has been particularly vulner-
able to critics of homosexuality. In February 1999, the
Reverend Jerry Falwell warned parents that one of the G ay s i n t h e M i l i t a r y
characters in the television show Teletubbies (1997–2001), In 1992, Bill Clinton pledged that if elected president, he
a BBC series aimed at preschool children, contained would end the ban on homosexuals in the U.S. military.
hidden homosexual symbols. Tinky Winky, one of the His plan ended up meeting stiff political resistance, in
four eponymous characters, came under fire because he particular from Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), chairman
is purple, a color associated with gay pride; because he of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Army
Gays in the Militar y 20 9
General Colin Powell, the departing chairman of the service.” Between 1980 and 1991, there were a total of
Joint Chiefs of Staff. This led to a policy formulation 16,919 discharges relating to homosexuality, represent-
referred to as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” ing 1.7 percent of all involuntary discharges. The annual
(1993), a compromise stipulating that recruits would monetary cost for replacing discharged personnel was
no longer be asked if they are homosexual and that gays an estimated $39.5 million. One factor in the increased
and lesbians would be able to serve in the armed forces number of gay discharges was the 1985 introduction of
provided they keep their sexual orientation private. Few HIV testing of military personnel. In the second half of
culture warriors were pleased: generally, conservatives 1980s, for instance, 3,336 individuals were discharged for
wanted to continue the ban, and liberals wanted open HIV-positive results. In 1988, Theodore R. Sarbin and
integration of gays. The debate over military policy Kenneth E. Karols, a sex psychologist and psychiatrist-
concerning sexual orientation raises questions about surgeon, wrote a Pentagon-sponsored report on the issue
military readiness, citizenship rights, and ultimately of homosexuals in the military, recommending that gays
society’s acceptance of homosexuality. Meanwhile, polls and lesbians not be excluded from service.
indicate growing public support of gays and lesbians Gay Democrats (called “Homocrats”) convinced
openly serving in the military—from 44 percent presidential candidate Clinton to support lifting the
(1993) to 75 percent (2008). By 2008, some 65,000 military ban on gays, even though the issue was not on
homosexuals were serving in the U.S. armed forces. the agenda of many in the gay rights movement. Critics
Homosexuality in the military has long been an within the gay and lesbian community did not regard
issue. During World War II, homosexuals were consid- the military as a suitable venue for advancing citizenship
ered inherently unsuited for military service. Following and equality. Many, in fact, were ambivalent or hostile
the publication of Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the toward the armed forces. Charles Moskos, a Northwestern
Human Male (1948), which reported that 37 percent of University sociologist, later advised President Clinton to
American males had experienced sexual relations with have the military stop asking enlistees about their sexual
other men, homosexuality came to be viewed as more orientation in order to spare gays and lesbians from having
widespread than previously thought. The following year, to lie. It was Moskos who went on to draft the Clinton
the Department of Defense (DOD) instituted a uniform administration’s compromise measure, originally worded
policy toward gays in all branches of the military that as “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t seek, don’t flaunt.”
labeled them a security risk due to the possibility of
blackmail. Between 1947 and 1950, there were 4,380
homosexuality-related terminations from the military—
of those, 470 were dishonorable discharges. At the time,
there were three homosexual classifications: Class I,
involving sexual assault or coercion; Class II, involving
actual or attempted homosexual acts; and Class III, in-
volving exhibited or admitted homosexual tendencies.
In 1957, the navy’s Crittenden Report recommended
the elimination of Class III and argued that homosexuals
were generally not security risks. (This document was
not made public until 1976.) By the early 1960s, the
rationale against homosexuals emphasized the “corro-
sive influence” and harm to the military’s “moral fiber.”
During the 1970s, with the advent of the gay rights
movement (which influenced the American Psychiatric
Association in 1973 to stop listing homosexuality as a
psychiatric abnormality), a number of gays challenged
the military ban in federal court—Berg v. Claytor (1977),
pertaining to navy; Matlovich v. Secretary of the Air Force
(1978); and Ben-Shalom v. Secretary of the Army (1980).
Although these legal challenges failed to overturn the
ban, the military did acknowledge that gays could be
effective service members.
Gay activists in New York City protest the “Don’t Ask, Don’t
In 1981, the DOD defined a homosexual as “a person Tell” policy regarding homosexuality in the U.S. armed forces,
. . . who engages in, desires to engage in, or intends to in effect since 1993. Gays and lesbians are allowed to serve
engage in homosexual acts.” In 1982, it was officially if they keep their sexual orientation private. (Timothy A. Clary/
stated that “homosexuality is incompatible with military AFP/Getty Images)
210 Gays in the Militar y
The argument supporting the integration of gays Further Reading

in the military has largely been framed around civil Belkin, Aaron, and Geoffrey Bateman, eds. Don’t Ask, Don’t
rights: since the military had earlier abandoned racial Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military. Boulder, CO:
segregation in the ranks, it should do the same for Lynne Rienner, 2003.
homosexuals. Colin Powell, an African American, was Lehring, Gary L. Officially Gay: The Political Construction of Sexu-
criticized for disfavoring gay rights in the service after ality by the U.S. Military. Philadelphia: Temple University
years of benefiting from the military’s racial equality. Press, 2003.
It was also argued that people who are willing to put Patterson, Robert “Buzz.” Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness
their lives on the line for their country should not have Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National
to hide their sexual orientation. Opponents of gays in Security. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2003.
the military emphasize the privacy rights of heterosexual Wolfe, Tom. Ambush at Fort Bragg. New York: Bantam Double-
service members, arguing that they should not have to day Dell Audio, 1997. Originally published in Rolling Stone,
share close quarters, including communal shower rooms, December 12 and 26, 1996.
with those of same-sex orientation. In addition, they
warn that unit cohesion of heterosexuals is undermined
by the presence of homosexuals. Such sentiments were G e n d e r - I n c l u s i ve L a n g u a g e
provocatively made by Tom Wolfe in the novella Ambush Gender-inclusive or gender-neutral language in profes-
at Fort Bragg (1996), a story about Army Rangers who sional and scholarly writing entails the removal of male
murder a fellow soldier because he is gay. In his book reference words that have traditionally been applied in
Dereliction of Duty (2003), Lieutenant Colonel Robert a generic sense and replacing them with gender-neutral
“Buzz” Patterson, the former Air Force White House ones. Advocates of gender-inclusive language regard it
aide, blames liberals, who he says dislike the military as an attempt to overcome “linguistic sexism” in public
and would never serve in uniform, for using the armed discourse. Opponents of such language reform have cas-
forces to conduct social engineering. tigated it as political correctness; some have gone so far
Under the Clinton policy, many gays and lesbians as to call it a form of totalitarian speech code.
have been forced out of the military—from 1994 to 2007 The debate on sexist language began in earnest
there were 12,342 homosexual-related discharges, ac- during the early 1970s as one of the concerns expressed
cording to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. by the women’s liberation movement. Significantly, the
From the onset the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force debut issue of Ms. Magazine in the spring of 1972 fea-
argued, “The closet isn’t a compromise.” Many universi- tured an article on gender-biased language. The Modern
ties and colleges, in particular those affiliated with the Language Association (MLA) took up the issue later in
Association of American Law Schools, protested the the decade, leading to the creation of special programs
discriminatory nature of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by baron language and sex at its 1978 annual convention.
ring military recruiters from campus job fairs. Congress The following year, MLA’s delegate assembly recom-
responded with the Solomon Amendment (1996, 1999, mended that the organization “affirm, in statements of
2001), which cuts off federal funding, including student editorial policy, a commitment to the use of nonsexist
financial aid, to any institution of higher learning that language in its publications and develop guidelines for
blocks equal access to recruiters. In the meantime, as the the use of nonsexist language.” Some members, un-
War on Terror placed a strain on military recruitment, supportive of that decision, argued that the MLA was
pragmatists began arguing that it did not make sense capitulating to “fashionable ideologies” at the expense
to discharge competent service members simply because of academic freedom. Other members maintained that
they were gay. Proponents of lifting the ban pointed to educated people could no longer ignore the built-in
America’s strong ally, Great Britain, noting that in 2000 gender bias of traditional language usage. During the
it began allowing gays to serve openly in its military. In 1980s, the MLA Commission on the Status of Women
2007, retired U.S. Army General John M. Shalikashvili, in the Profession worked at producing guidelines for
who had served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gender-inclusive language. In 1995, the Association of
from 1993 to 1997, publicly stated that it was time to American University Presses came out with Guidelines
lift the ban on gays in the military. for Bias-Free Writing.
Some applications of nonsexist language have re-
Roger Chapman placed the word mankind with humankind while changing
he to s/he or he/she. Some writers alternate between he and
See also: Clinton, Bill; Gay Rights Movement; Hay, Harry; she, using both pronouns in a generic manner. In the late
Kinsey, Alfred; Lesbians; Milk, Harvey; Socarides, Charles; 1970s, Robert Longwell of the University of Northern
Sodomy Laws; White, Reggie; Wolfe, Tom; Women in the Colorado recommended new genderless pronouns, such as
Military. hesh to replace he or she; hizer instead of his or her; hirm in
Generation s and Generational Conf lic t 211
lieu of him or her (and hirmself instead of himself or herself). Manhood and Womanhood in negative reaction to the
Some feminists have changed the spelling of woman to New International Version Inclusive Language Edition Bible,
womyn to eliminate any perceived lingering maleness. At prompting the publisher, Zondervan, to discontinue
the same time, there has been a tendency to emphasize the its plans for introducing it to the American market. In
feminine designation for titles, professions, and honorif- 2002, the same publisher, supported by biblical scholars
ics such as actress, congresswoman, and heiress. Some prefer favoring gender-inclusive translation of scripture, pub-
strictly neutral formulations, such as actor (for both male lished Today’s New International Version, a gender-neutral
and female performers) and chair (as opposed to chairman translation of the Bible.
or chairwoman). Roger Chapman
Critics of gender-inclusive language, such as Har-
vard linguistics professor Calvert Watkins, dismiss the See also: Academic Freedom; Feminism, Second-Wave; Femi-
concern as symptomatic of “pronoun envy,” a comment nism, Third-Wave; Marriage Names; Ms.; Political Correct-
people on the other side of the debate regarded as blatant ness; Speech Codes.
sexism. Traditionalists argue that it has been understood
for centuries that the word man (used in reference to Further Reading
mankind or human civilization) is generic, representing Carson, D.A. The Inclusive-Language Debate: A Plea for Realism.
both male and female. The awkwardness of writing in a Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998.
gender-neutral fashion has frustrated some writers. The Frank, Francine Wattman, and Paula A. Treichler. Language,
style manual for the American Psychological Association Gender, and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and
(APA) recommends rephrasing sentences to avoid the Guidelines for Nonsexist Usage. New York: Modern Language
generic he altogether. The APA manual prefers parenting Association of America, 1989.
over mothering; chairperson rather than chairman; postal Miller, Kate, and Casey Swift. “De-Sexing the English Lan-
worker instead of mailman. The name of a woman, the guage.” Ms. Magazine, Spring 1972.
APA manual states, should not be preceded by Mrs. when Osborne, Grant R. “Do Inclusive-Language Bibles Distort
marital status is an irrelevant detail. Scripture?” Christianity Today, October 27, 1997.
The historian Jacques Barzun rejects gender-inclusive
language in his work From Dawn to Decadence (2000), ex-
plaining that man derives from the Sanskrit (man, manu) Generations and Generational
and strictly denotes human being. The word woman, he Conf lict
writes, literally means “wife–human being.” Gender- Since the 1960s, many aspects of the American culture
inclusive language, he suggests, is a “sex-conscious wars have been viewed as reflections of generational
practice” that sidetracks from the substantive discussion divisions in the society at large. Commentators on
and, in the end, does not compel readers to increase their cultural conflict have referred to the “generation gap”
respect toward women if they are undisposed to anyway. and “intergenerational conflict,” even if it is frequently
Finally, Barzun argues, if writers must avoid the word man unclear what specifically constitutes a generation and
in reference to humans generally, fairness dictates that what distinct generations are discernible in American
they should also distinguish between adults, teenagers, society.
and children of the opposite sex. The modern concept of generations developed in the
The inclusive-language debate has crept into the reli- late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Accord-
gious realm as well, causing a split between traditionalists ing to the “cohort generation” approach, a generation is
and modernists. At stake is how to translate the Bible determined by a distinguishing social phenomenon rather
and how to address God. Modernists argue that the gen- than the age of its members. While a birth cohort may
der of God is neither male nor female (or perhaps both), refer to any group of people who are born in the same
and that the only reason the Bible uses male pronouns era, sociologist Karl Mannheim argued that generations
is because it was written in a patriarchal culture that is form only when individuals who are born during the
vastly different from contemporary society. Traditional- same time period in the same society also experience
ists, on the other hand, insist that how to address God “concrete historical problems.” Generations thus develop
is a matter of divinely inspired doctrine and not culture. as a meaningful social unit only when large-scale events
Less controversial, but nonetheless part of the debate, forge a group identity among people of the same birth
is whether or not to change the generic man to human, cohort.
change brethren to people, and change sons of God to children
of God. Thus, Bible translators generally fall into one of Types
two camps: formal equivalency (literal translation) and In their 1991 book Generations, William Strauss and
functional equivalency (dynamic translation). In 1997, Neil Howe combine the cohort generation concept with
a group of evangelicals formed the Council for Biblical the cyclical interpretation of American history made
212 Generation s and Generational Conf lic t
popular by historians such as Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., also calls into question the strength of generational co-
and his son, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. In the book, Strauss herence for Gen X.
and Howe recount the story of America as a continuing The Millennial Generation—sometimes called
succession of four generational archetypes: idealists/ Generation Y—is significantly larger than Generation
prophets, reactives/nomads, civics/heroes, and adaptives/ X, in part because it comprises the children of the vast
artists. Each generation type possesses a different Baby Boom cohort. Hence, they are sometimes referred
dominant worldview, and the character of American to as the “Boom Echo” or “Baby Boomlet.” Technologi-
society at any point in time reflects the location of each cal advancements are often cited as the unifying factor
type within the age hierarchy. Implicit in this approach in establishing generational identity for this group, but
is the idea that generational conflict is inevitable, as it is too early to conclude whether a strong sense of gen-
different generations are assumed to have fundamentally erational association will develop for this birth cohort.
contrasting value systems. Strauss and Howe have described this group as “the next
Historians generally recognize five generations born great generation.”
in the United States during the twentieth century: the
GI Generation (born 1901–1924), the Silent Generation Conflicts
(1925–1945), the Baby Boom Generation (1946–1964), While generational conflict can be documented
Generation X (1965–1981), and the Millennial Genera- throughout history, it became especially prominent in
tion (1982–2003). The spans for each generation are not American society during the culture wars of the 1960s.
definitive, but cutoffs generally differ by only a year or The civil rights and antiwar movements were largely
two. Some of these generations are clearly recognized as inspired and supported by members of the Baby Boom,
distinct social groupings, such as Baby Boomers, while many of whom at the time were in college or young
other have a less distinct identity. This is consistent with adults. The “establishment” against which protest
Mannheim’s claim that not all birth cohorts form strong activities were directed generally consisted of members
social bonds. of the GI Generation, who were the leaders of most
The GI Generation experienced the formative life civic, educational, and political institutions. The famous
experiences of the Great Depression and World War II admonition of free-speech activist Jack Weinberg in
as young adults. This group has always possessed a strong 1965, “Don’t trust anybody over thirty,” clearly defined
sense of generational association. Hailed as the “Great- generational lines of opposition. The “generation gap”
est Generation” by newscaster Tom Brokaw in his 1998 between these two groups was prominent through the
best-selling book, members of this group were active in 1970s, as the conflict over political issues transformed
public and social life through their later years. into moral debate over such issues as abortion. For
The Silent Generation, however, lacked such forma- example, in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade
tive historical experiences as children and young adults in (1973), both “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey) and her
the relatively stable era between the end of World War lawyer (Sarah Weddington) were Baby Boomers, while
II and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Dallas County district attorney Henry Wade was a
Born in a period of relatively high birth rates in member of the GI Generation.
the United States, the Baby Boom Generation is larger When the core of the Baby Boomers shifted from
than any other in the twentieth century. Its generational liberal experimenters to more conservative young, urban
identity was formed in the social unrest of the 1960s and professionals (called yuppies) in the 1980s, the cultural
1970s. Time magazine in 1966 named the generation its friction between the generations became less pronounced.
“Man of the Year.” The political and social influence of But Leonard Steinhorn’s The Greater Generation: In De-
the Baby Boomers has been rivaled only by that of the fense of the Baby Boom Legacy (2006) is a response to the
GI Generation, against whom the Boomers engaged in perception, as fostered by Tom Brokaw, that the Baby
the most intergenerational conflict. Boomers have not lived up to the standards set by the
Generation X, referred to by Strauss and Howe as GI Generation.
the “13th generation” because it is the thirteenth in Generational conflict was in evidence during the ear-
the United States since the nation’s founding, has been ly 1990s when the label “Generation X” was introduced.
somewhat stigmatized. Demographers have referred to Portrayals in popular media—both Time and Newsweek
the group as the Baby Bust, since the unusually high magazines had cover stories about the new “twentysome-
birth rates of the Baby Boom were followed by unusu- things” in 1990—claimed that the generation lacked
ally low birth rates. Generational identity for this group ambition, rejected the ideas of hard work and commit-
was most prominent in the early 1990s, but even then ment, and generally were poised for failure. A number of
resistance was expressed by members of the cohort to the young authors and activists rejected these labels as well as
idea of a generational identity. The lack of major world the assumption that the model established by the Baby
or national events experienced during young adulthood Boom was worthy of emulation. Others objected to the
Gene tic ally Modif ied Food s 213
core claim that young adults in the 1990s constituted a gineering has led to the modification of such food crops
meaningful social grouping. as corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, tomatoes, and strawber-
Through the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, ries for the purposes of increasing yield, strengthening
it has been unclear whether cultural conflicts are a reflec- resistance to drought or pestilence, and enabling growth
tion of generational conflict between Baby Boomers and with fewer fertilizer applications. Genetically altered
Generation X. While there are generational differences animals, which produce more meat or milk, include
in opinion about specific issues, such as Social Security, cows, goats, pigs, sheep, and even salmon. Ninety-
the national debt, and the environment, the differences nine percent of total global GMF are produced by six
are less pronounced than those between the GI and Baby countries: the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil,
Boom generations in the 1960s and 1970s. One factor China, and South Africa. In the American culture wars,
that may account for the diminished generational conflict critics of GMF argue that public and environmental
between Baby Boomers and Generation X is the general safety warrants greater federal oversight of the biotech
disinterest in politics expressed by members of Gen X. agricultural industry.
While the succession of the Millennial Generation The research underlying GMF dates to the 1950s,
into young adulthood during the 2010s may lead to a when scientists discovered chemical tools that could cut
reemergence of generational conflict, evidence suggests and duplicate pieces of DNA. Later, in 1977, a certain
that this cohort is unlikely to have a stronger sense of germ was discovered that could transfer short sections
generational identity than members of Generation X. A of DNA (genes) into the DNA of plant cells. Later, a
sense of collective identity does not seem to have devel- “gene gun” was invented that is capable of shooting
oped for this birth cohort around the terrorist attacks of tiny DNA-coated metal bullets into cells. During the
September 11, 2001, or the ensuing wars in Afghanistan 1980s, numerous organisms were genetically modified.
and Iraq. It may also be argued that the high level of racial The U.S. Patent Office announced in April 1988 that
and ethnic diversity in the Millennial Generation, result- “non-naturally occurring non-human multicellular living
ing from increases in immigration and intermarriage organisms, including animals,” are patentable, and by
since the 1960s, makes it less likely that a common birth 1990 some 5,000 researchers at seventy-five companies
period can provide a sufficient basis for group identity had spent more than $1 billion to develop genetically
for this, or any future, cohort, even in the wake of major altered crops and animals. In 1992, the Food and Drug
historical events. Administration ruled that GMF are safe and equivalent to
Seth Ovadia conventional food (and need no warning labels). Two years
later it gave approval to the first GMF product, the Flavr
See also: Brokaw, Tom; Civil Rights Movement; Counterculture; Savr tomato, which was designed for a longer shelf life. By
Environmental Movement; Roe v. Wade (1973); Schlesinger, Ar- 2002, 70 percent of packaged-food products sold in the
thur M., Jr.; September 11; Social Security; Speech Codes; Stu- United States contained GMF. That same year, Oregon
dents for a Democratic Society; Vietnam War; War Protesters. voters rejected a referendum that would have mandated
GMF labeling of food products; proponents lost the battle
Further Reading after the food industry mounted a $5.2 million advertis-
Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation. New York: Random ing campaign warning that labeling would dramatically
House, 1998. increase the price of food. In 2004, GMF constituted 18
Howe, Neil, and William Strauss. Millennials Rising: The Next percent of the world’s food harvest.
Great Generation. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Most GMF crops contain bacterium genes that make
Mannheim, Karl. “The Problem of Generations.” In Essays on plants resistant to insects or weed killer. For instance,
the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Paul Kecskemeti, 276–332. the Roundup Ready genetically altered soybean plant
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952. is resistant to herbicides. The farmer sprays the entire
Steinhorn, Leonard. The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby field, killing weeds without harming the soybean plants.
Boom Legacy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006. Critics point out that this leads to greater residue of toxic
Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. Generations: The History of chemicals on the plants (not to mention more chemicals
America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: William Mor- in the soil and waterways). The subsequent harvest, con-
row, 1991. taining the herbicide-resistant gene, becomes a part of
Wellner, Alison Stein. “Generational Divide.” American Demo- many processed foods, including bread, enriched flour,
graphics 22:10 (2000): 52–58. pasta, tofu, chips, cheese spread, soy sauce, fried foods,
chocolate, and ice cream. Since there are no labeling laws,
consumers are unaware of what specific products contain
Genetically Modified Foods the Roundup Ready soybeans. The agricultural company
Genetically modified foods (GMF) are made from the Monsanto sells both the Roundup Ready seed and the
manipulation of DNA in plants or animals. Genetic en- Roundup herbicide, prompting cynics to conclude that
214 Gene tic ally Modif ied Food s
biotech is being exploited as a handmaiden of the chemi- group Friends of the Earth conducted laboratory tests
cal industry. of Kraft Foods taco shells and traced the ingredients to
Americans also indirectly consume genetically modi- a genetically altered corn, Starlink, which had been ap-
fied food when they eat meat from pigs or cows that were proved only for cattle feed. The corn in question contains
fed with genetically altered corn, some of which is not a protein gene from bacterium that kills corn caterpil-
allowed to be sold for direct human consumption because lars but has the potential of causing allergic reactions
of proteins that cannot be readily digested. Moreover, to in humans. Consequently, some 50 million bushels of
increase milk productivity, cows are administered the ge- contaminated corn in the Midwest had to be destroyed.
netically altered growth hormone bovine somatotrophin The concern that GMF pose a risk of introducing al-
(BST). Since breast cancer has been linked to women who lergens in food that would not naturally contain them
have taken the female hormone estrogen, there is concern prompted Congress to pass the Food Allergen Labeling
that BST could pose a cancer risk to milk drinkers. For and Consumer Protection Act of 2004.
this reason, Europe, in contrast to the United States, bans Some observers have warned of “Pharmageddon,”
the sale of milk made with growth hormones. In 1996, a scenario in which genetically altered crops grown for
the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Vermont state law pharmaceutical purposes could accidentally be mixed
requiring special labeling of BST milk. with the food harvest. Indeed, in 2002 altered corn con-
Proponents of GMF argue that they hold the promise taining proteins used to treat pigs for diarrhea was mixed
of alleviating world hunger and helping the environment, with a soybean crop grown for human consumption. The
producing more for less. In addition, they suggest that incident took place in Aurora, Nebraska, attracting Green
GMF provide a healthier diet when crops are designed to Peace protesters who unfurled a banner on a grain elevator
have more vitamins or lower levels of saturated fat. In the that read, “This Is Your Food On Drugs!”
United States, the Biotechnology Industry Organization,
representing companies such as Monsanto and DuPont, Roger Chapman
has been a big promoter of GMF. Countering this group
is the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, founded by See also: Food and Drug Administration; Globalization; Na-
Ralph Nader, which dubs GMF “frankenfood.” Oppo- der, Ralph.
nents of GMF argue that tinkering with the blueprint
of life in plants and animals could lead to unintended Further Reading
consequences: decreasing biodiversity, disrupting the Fox, Michael W. Superpigs and Wondercorn: The Brave New World
ecological balance, unleashing virulent organisms, or of Biotechnology and Where It May Lead. New York: Lyons &
developing mutant plants such as killer weeds. The Burford, 1992.
Monarch butterfly, some researchers believe, has been Nichols, John. “The Three Mile Island of Biotech?” Nation,
harmed by a certain genetically altered corn plant that December 30, 2002.
produces insecticide pollen. Another concern is the viola- O’Leary, Denyse. “Unholy Harvest?” Christianity Today, May
tion of “species integrity” by the unnatural combination 22, 2000.
of DNA, such as when a human growth hormone gene Pampel, Fred C. Threats to Food Safety. New York: Facts On
is placed into a pig in order to produce a larger animal File, 2006.
for slaughter. Toke, Dave. The Politics of GM Food: A Comparative Study of the
Concerns about consumer safety have also been raised, UK, USA and EU. New York: Routledge, 2004.
since no studies have been conducted to determine the
long-term impact of GMF consumption. In Alliance for
Bio-Integrity, et al. v. Donna Shalala, et al. (2000), a U.S. Gibson, Mel
district court sided with the federal government’s policy The Australian-American movie actor, director, and
of not requiring GMF safety testing. In July 2004, how- producer Mel Gibson has played leading or supporting
ever, the National Academy of Sciences recommended roles in more than thirty motion-picture features, often
that the federal government begin conducting GMF cast as a martyred hero. In 2004, The Passion of the Christ,
trial studies. U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich (D- which Gibson co-wrote, directed, and produced, became
OH) proposed legislation for such testing, but his efforts one of the most controversial movies of the first decade
were tabled. The American public, meanwhile, has been of the twenty-first century for its realistic depiction
divided on the issue. According to a September 2004 of Jesus’s last hours. Press coverage and a massive
poll, 30 percent of Americans think GMF are safe, and advertising campaign targeted at conservative Christian
27 percent think they are unsafe. churches generated a gross of more than $370 million
With the introduction of genetically altered plants, in the United States and $611 million worldwide for
the integrity of the food supply has been occasionally the film, the eighth-highest in movie history and the
compromised. In September 2000, the environmental highest for any R-rated (for violence) film.
Gilmore, Gar y 215
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born on January See also: Abortion; Anti-Semitism; Birth Control; Buckley,
3, 1956, in Peekskill, New York. In 1968, the family William F., Jr.; Catholic Church; Feminism, Second-Wave;
moved to Australia, both to shield the five sons from the Gays in Popular Culture; Lapin, Daniel; Literature, Film, and
Vietnam War draft and to escape the permissiveness of Drama; Medved, Michael; Moore, Michael; Schiavo, Terri;
modern American culture. Gibson began his acting career Stem-Cell Research.
in Australia, making his breakthrough in Mad Max (1977);
the release of that film in the United States as The Road Further Reading
Warrior (1981) established him as an international star. By Boyer, Peter J. “The Jesus War: Mel Gibson’s Obsession.” New
1982, with The Year of Living Dangerously, Gibson became Yorker, September 15, 2003.
a movie sex symbol, and the first of his four Lethal Weapon DeAngelis, Michael. Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom: James
cop movies in 1987 established him as a superstar. Gibson Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves. Durham, NC: Duke
made his directorial debut in 1993 with The Man Without University Press, 2001.
a Face. He went on to receive Academy Awards for Best Oram, James. Reluctant Star: The Mel Gibson Story. London:
Picture and Best Director for Braveheart (1995), a historical Fontana, 1991.
drama about the Scottish epic hero Sir William Wallace.
Subsequent works have included The Patriot (2000), What
Women Want (2000), Signs (2002), and Apocalypto (2007). Gilmore, Gar y
Recounting the passion of Christ from a traditionalist The execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore
Catholic point of view, Gibson’s The Passion appealed to by the state of Utah in January 1977 marked the first
conservative Christians, for whom the extreme suffering use of capital punishment in the United States after
and blood violence dramatized the love of Jesus for sin- its reinstatement by the Supreme Court the previous
ners in need of atonement. Many Jews were offended by year. The death penalty had been challenged by the
what they regarded as a strong anti-Semitic theme in National Association for the Advancement of Colored
the film. Politically conservative Jewish spokesmen such People (NAACP), the American Civil Liberties Union
as film critic Michael Medved and Rabbi Daniel Lapin (ACLU), and other groups for being applied unfairly
disagreed. Gibson argued that Jews who did not like his to minorities, leading to the landmark Supreme Court
film had a dispute with the gospels, not with him. Al- decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972), which ruled capital
though violence and bloodshed have been trademarks of punishment unconstitutional because of its arbitrary
Gibson films, many reviewers criticized the quantity and implementation. After legislation addressing the Court’s
intensity in The Passion. Even William F. Buckley, Jr., concerns was adopted in a number of states, the death
like Gibson a traditional Catholic, thought the film “well penalty was reinstated in the case Gregg v. Georgia (1976),
intentioned . . . but unnecessarily bloated in blood.” preparing the way for Gilmore’s execution. Contributing
Gibson characterized his rise to stardom as stressful to the notoriety of the case was the fact that Gilmore
because he is a man who prizes his privacy, emphasizes expressed his desire to be executed and took no legal
family life (he has ten siblings and seven children), has action to prevent or postpone it.
conservative views on many issues, and tends to speak his The second of four sons, Gary Mark Gilmore was
mind. He has offended feminists by using offensive terms born on December 4, 1940, in rural Texas, and the family
for females and arguing that feminism was invented by settled in Portland, Oregon, in the early 1950s. By the
jilted women. He has been accused of being homophobic age of fifteen, he had dropped out of school and gained
for portraying gays in negative light and making antigay the attention of local police in connection with a number
comments. He is a devout Catholic but opposed to the of petty thefts. After conviction for car theft, he spent a
liberal reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s. Gibson’s father, year in Oregon’s MacLaren Reform School for Boys but,
Hutton Gibson, has been accused of being a Holocaust because of poor behavior, was transferred to the Oregon
denier, and his son has refused to comment on that issue. State Correctional Institution. This incarceration, which
In 2005, during an arrest for drunk driving, the actor was ended when Gilmore reached age twenty-one, was fol-
quoted as making several virulent anti-Semitic remarks, lowed by a series of others, mostly for robbery. Eighteen
for which he later apologized. Gibson has spoken out of his last twenty-one years were spent behind bars.
strongly against birth control, abortion, judicial opinions The events leading to Gilmore’s execution began in
regarding Terry Schiavo (a woman patient dependent on Orem, Utah, on July 19, 1976, when he robbed a gas sta-
a feeding tube for survival whose husband petitioned the tion and in the process murdered an employee, shooting
courts to remove the tube), and stem-cell research. On the him twice in the head. The next day, Gilmore robbed
other hand, Gibson opposed U.S. involvement in the Iraq the City Center Motel in Provo, Utah, where he shot and
War and praised Michael Moore’s antiwar documentary killed the manager, Ben Bushnell. Gilmore was tried and
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). convicted that October for the murder of Bushnell, and
Abraham D. Lavender the jury recommended the death penalty. Offered a choice
216 Ging r ich , New t
under state law, he chose death by firing squad rather than

by hanging. Preferring death to prison life, Gilmore twice
attempted suicide as he awaited execution.
After much public debate and legal attempts to
stop the execution by both the NAACP and the ACLU,
Gilmore was put to death by firing squad on January 17,
1977. His last words were “Let’s do it.” Norman Mailer’s
account of Gilmore’s life and death, The Executioner’s Song
(1979), won a Pulitzer Prize the following year and took a
central place in the national debates pertaining to capital
punishment and prison reform.
Anthony C. Gabrielli
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Capital Punishment;

Mailer, Norman; National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People; Prison Reform; Ryan, George.
Further Reading
“The Ballad of Gary Gilmore.” National Review, January 7,
Conservative congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA), being
1977. sworn in as speaker of the House in January 1995, led the
Edmundson, Mark. “Romantic Self-Creations: Mailer and so-called Republican Revolution in Congress. GOP gains in
Gilmore in The Executioner’s Song.” Contemporary Literature the 1994 elections ended forty years of Democratic majority
31:4 (Winter 1990): 434– 47. in the House. (Terry Ashe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Gilmore, Mikal. Shot in the Heart. New York: Anchor Books,
1994.
“Heard Round the World.” National Review, February 4, 1977. the boy. Newt grew up on U.S. Army bases in Kansas,
Mailer, Norman. The Executioner’s Song. Boston: Little, Brown, France, West Germany, and Georgia, later studying
1979. history at Emory University (BA, 1965) and Tulane
University (MA, 1968; PhD, 1971). After teaching his-
tory and environmental studies at West Georgia College
Ging r ich, New t (1970–1978), he was elected as the U.S. representative of
As speaker of the house during the 1990s, Newt Gingrich Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District (1979–1999). He
(R-GA) was the mastermind of the Contract with America, served the last four years as House speaker. At his politi-
a conservative political platform credited by some with cal peak in 1995, he was named “Man of the Year” by
enabling the Republican Party in 1994 to gain control Time magazine. Michael Barone of the U.S. News & World
of Congress for the first time since 1952. The contract Report, meanwhile, has characterized Gingrich as an ironic
was a pledge that the new Congress, if Republicans were figure—a critic of government and a staunch advocate of
in charge, would schedule votes in its first 100 days on privatization and yet, as former “military brat,” faculty
specific conservative reform measures. Under Gingrich’s member at a state college, and retired federal official, “a
watch Congress passed welfare reform, a balanced budget, creature of the public sector of the economy.” Since leav-
and tax cuts. An outspoken culture warrior, Gingrich has ing Congress in 1999, Gingrich has established a political
asserted that Democrats represent the “Liberal Welfare consulting firm, appeared as a political analyst on the
Society” and Republicans the “Conservative Opportunity Fox News Channel, and published (often co-authored)
Society.” He has also emphasized ethics in government political commentaries and historical novels.
and “traditional values,” but critics point to his alleged Despite his success in Congress, Gingrich did not
violations of House ethics rules and his own admission gain entry into that body until after he had lost two
that he was having an affair with a Capitol Hill staffer elections (1974 and 1976). When he finally did win
while his party was condemning President Bill Clinton’s his seat in 1978, it was on a platform of lower taxes and
sexual impropriety. opposition to the Panama Canal treaty. He also stopped
He was born Newton Leroy McPherson on June campaigning on environmental issues, having found
17, 1943, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His parents that it gained little traction with Georgia voters. Once
split after only three days of marriage—long enough to in office and in life after Congress, Gingrich remained
conceive a child. Three years later, his mother married interested in environmentalism, later co-authoring a book
an army infantry officer, Robert Gingrich, who adopted on the subject, A Contract with the Earth (2007).
Gin sberg , A llen 217
During the first Ronald Reagan administration in control in 2006. Gingrich blamed that setback on Karl
the early 1980s, Gingrich began strategizing ways that Rove, the campaign strategist for George W. Bush,
the Republicans might gain control of Congress, offering calling him “manically dumb” for reaching out almost
reform ideas in Window of Opportunity: Blueprint for the exclusively to the Republican conservative base. Since
Future (1985). He and other conservatives inflated their then, Gingrich has offered his party a strategy on voter
stature by giving “speeches” before C-SPAN television issues—co-authoring Real Change: From the World That
cameras, which provided continual coverage of Capitol Fails to the World That Works (2008), which builds on his
Hill; once in 1984 an infuriated House Speaker Thomas Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America
“Tip” O’Neill (D-MA) ordered that the cameras pan the (2005). In addition, he has reached out to the Religious
room so that viewers would realize that Gingrich was Right with Rediscovering God in America (2006). In 2008,
making a passionate appeal to an empty House chamber. he began promoting a “red, white, and blue platform,”
In 1989, Gingrich was instrumental in toppling House asserting that America is not truly divided between red
Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX), who was charged with states and blue states. Gingrich maintains that most
ethics violations. In 1990, Gingrich rejected President Americans support making English the official language,
George H.W. Bush’s tax increase, calling it a violation ending illegal immigration, reforming the tax code, al-
of conservatism and his own promises. lowing for optional privatized Social Security accounts,
For the 1994 campaign, Gingrich persuaded 130 building more nuclear power plants, allowing religious
“safe incumbent” House Republicans to help raise funds expressions and symbols in public spaces, and safeguard-
for a nationalized congressional campaign, building a ing the country from terrorism.
$6 million war chest. In the election, the Contract with Roger Chapman
America provided a unifying platform for the GOP
as well as a work plan for the early days of the 104th See also: American Civil Religion; Bush Family; Clinton, Bill;
Congress. The seventy-four Republican freshmen were Contract with America; English as the Official Language; En-
loyal to Gingrich, who also had a strong alliance with vironmental Movement; Immigration Policy; Red and Blue
the reelected junior members. This enabled him to wield States; Republican Party; Rove, Karl; Social Security; Tax Re-
strong party discipline, resulting in Republican unity form; Welfare Reform.
on 91 percent of the voting. Thus, the first session of
the 104th Congress was highly partisan—73 percent of Further Reading
voting was along party lines. Bernstein, Amy, and Peter W. Bernstein, eds. Quotations from
Gingrich’s goal was “to make the House co-equal Speaker Newt: The Little Red, White and Blue Book of the Re-
with the White House,” which meant strong opposition publican Revolution. New York: Workman, 1995.
to President Clinton. During the winter of 1995–1996, Gingrich, Newt, Vince Haley, and Rick Tyler. Real Change: From
he came into conflict with Bob Dole (R-KS), the Senate the World That Fails to the World That Works. Washington,
Republican leader, for refusing to compromise on the DC: Regnery, 2008.
federal budget, which led to a standoff with the Clinton Newt Gingrich Web site. www.newt.org.
administration and a temporary shutdown of the govern- Steely, Mel. The Gentleman from Georgia: The Biography of Newt
ment. Critics attributed the impasse to a slight Gingrich Gingrich. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000.
nursed against Clinton over not getting a good seat on U.S. Congress. House of Representatives. In the Matter of Repre-
Air Force One during an overseas trip; in his political sentative Newt Gingrich: Report on the Select Committee on Ethics.
memoir, Lessons Learned the Hard Way (1998), Gingrich Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1997.
blames the liberal media for distorting his account of that
incident. In the meantime, the House Ethics Committee
was investigating Gingrich on ethical issues pertaining to Ginsberg, Allen
the funding of a political action committee and a lucra- Controversial, charismatic, and deemed by many
tive book contract. The result was a $300,000 fine for a poetic genius, Allen Ginsberg was a founder and
the political use of tax-exempt foundations (1997), for leading member—with Jack Kerouac, William
which some in his party tried to oust him as speaker. In Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others—of the
the 1998 national elections, House Republicans retained Beat Generation literary movement. From the mid-
their majority, but lost five seats. Gingrich, who had 1950s until his death in the late 1990s, he took on the
predicted a GOP gain of twenty to thirty seats, was seen persona of the roving bard, defying authorities from
as a liability by many in his party. In December 1998 he New York to Moscow, and became a prominent voice of
announced his resignation from Congress, which retained the counterculture.
an eleven-seat Republican majority. Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New
Despite his earlier prediction that Republicans would Jersey, on June 3, 1926. His father was a poet and teacher,
rule the House for a generation, Democrats regained and his mother was a teacher and Communist Party mem-
218 Gin sberg , A llen
ber. He attended Columbia University and was published See also: Censorship; Chicago Seven; Counterculture; Gay
widely in the campus literary magazines. In 1949, when Rights Movement; Kerouac, Jack; New Age Movement;
he was arrested as an accessory to burglary, his professors Nuclear Age; Podhoretz, Norman; Reagan, Ronald; Sexual
persuaded the Manhattan district attorney to allow him Revolution; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
to serve his sentence at the New York State Psychiatric
Institute. Ginsberg’s eight months as a patient there Further Reading
transformed him from an Ivy League undergraduate to a Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems, 1947–1980. New York: Harper
cool hipster on a poetic mission. and Row, 1984.
Leaving New York in 1954, he traveled to Mexico Kramer, Jane. Allen Ginsberg in America. New York: Random
and then California, where he visited Neal Cassady, House, 1969.
his muse and the hero of Kerouac’s On the Road. In San Miles, Barry. Ginsberg: A Biography. London: Virgin, 2000.
Francisco, after intensive psychoanalysis, Ginsberg began Podhoretz, Norman. Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg,
to accept his homosexuality. In a burst of self-liberating Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt,
creativity, he wrote “Howl” (1956), a long confessional and Norman Mailer. New York: Free Press, 1999.
poem about the anxieties of his own generation and the Raskin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and
nuclear age that helped set the stage for the countercul- the Making of the Beat Generation. Berkeley: University of
ture movement of the 1960s. California Press, 2004.
Ferlinghetti, founder of San Francisco’s City Lights,
the first all-paperback bookstore in America as well as
a publishing company, published Howl and Other Poems G l o b a l Wa r m i n g
in 1956. The municipal district attorney, backed by “Global warming” is the now commonly used term for
the Catholic Church, then prosecuted Ferlinghetti for the rapid rise in the average temperature of the earth’s
obscenity. At the trial—an early battle in the culture surface, including air and ocean, for the past century
wars—conservatives clashed with liberals. After Judge or more. The increase is widely attributed to the
Clayton Horn found Ferlinghetti not guilty and ruled phenomenon known as “the greenhouse effect,” whereby
that Howl did have socially redeeming qualities, the poem the atmospheric buildup of excess concentrations of
became an international best-seller, with nearly a million carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and
copies in print. Translated into several dozen languages, nitrous oxide—known as greenhouse gases (GHGs)—
it inspired youth to rebel against communist regimes in prevents infrared energy from escaping and traps heat at
Eastern Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. the earth’s surface. Although there remains a minority of
Media coverage of the Howl trial made Ginsberg staunch skeptics, global warming is almost universally
world famous. Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary regarded as a fact in the scientific community and
magazine, helped make him notorious, and academic generally linked to human activity, in particular the
literary critics lambasted him. In 1968, already an icon, burning of fossil fuels. In the context of the culture
Ginsberg protested at the Democratic National Conven- wars, the debate over global warming has centered on
tion, and in 1969, as a witness for the defense, he testified the extent of the problem and whether or not a proactive
at the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven. Meanwhile, federal response, such as strict but costly regulations and
Ginsberg continued to develop as a poet, producing programs that subsidize clean-energy technologies over
such works as Kaddish (1961), an epic about his mother, carbon-based ones, is imminently needed.
Naomi, and Wichita Vortex Sutra (1966), a surrealistic The concern over GHGs accumulating in the atmo-
invective against the Vietnam War. sphere dates to the 1950s. In 1957, the American clima-
In the 1980s, in response to actions by the Reagan tologist Charles David Keeling presented indisputable
administration, Ginsberg poured out a series of angry, proof that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels
defiant poems. In the last decades of his life, he embarked accumulates in the atmosphere instead of, as originally
on an intense spiritual path and helped popularize Bud- thought, being absorbed in the oceans and forests. Keel-
dhism in America. By the time of his death on April 5, ing’s precise method of measurement led to a data set
1997, at the age of seventy, he had become widely an- known as the “Keeling Curve.” Decades later, in 1996,
thologized, though literary scholars, divided in two nearly Keeling presented data suggesting that the increasing
equal camps, debated his merits as a poet. Academics levels of GHGs in the northern hemisphere have led
such as Yale professor Harold Bloom excluded Ginsberg to earlier growing seasons, thus linking global warming
from the pantheon of American literature, former poet with atmospheric carbon dioxide. Prior to his death in
laureate Robert Pinsky hailed him as a genius, and fans 2005, Keeling was paid homage for his research by Vice
of his work debated whether “Howl” was a masterpiece President Al Gore (1996) and later President George W.
or merely an adolescent rant. Bush (2002).
Jonah Raskin In March 2006, the National Academy of Sci-
Global War ming 219
ences issued a report with the following conclusion: the United States and have found resistance weakening
“In the judgment of most climate scientists, Earth’s in the face of mounting evidence.
warming in recent decades has been caused primarily In 2006, Gore called on the U.S. Congress to pass
by human activities that have increased the amount legislation requiring the coal, oil, mining, and utility
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Greenhouse industries to significantly reduce their GHG emis-
gases have increased significantly since the Industrial sions. Opponents, including the Bush administration,
Revolution, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels argued that such an approach would put inordinate
for energy, industrial processes, and transportation.” stress on the economy. Many Democrats and some
The report went on to state, however, that there is a Republicans have responded to economic concerns by
“legitimate debate regarding how large, how fast, and suggesting financial incentives for reducing GHGs,
where these effects will be.” Culture warriors on both such as a market-based emissions trading system that
sides claimed victory by emphasizing key passages of the would spur the development of new technologies and
report—either that scientists agree that global warming simultaneously stimulate the economy by creating new
is indeed taking place or that the ramifications of the jobs to meet the demands of “green technologies.” In
phenomenon are unclear. the meantime, conservatives such as Vice President
Many climatologists believe that global warming Dick Cheney used the concern over GHGs to promote
has led to an increase in erratic weather patterns, includ- the development of a new generation of clean-burning
ing extreme drought, heat waves, and devastating hur- nuclear power plants.
ricanes, as well as a shrinking of the polar ice caps, the One contentious issue of global warming is the need
retreat of glaciers, and a rise in sea levels of 4 to 6 inches for a global response and how to achieve it. Since Ameri-
(10 to 15 centimeters) during the twentieth century. If cans have contributed significantly to the problem, pro-
GHGs continue to accumulate unabated, they warn, the ducing an estimated 25 percent of total GHGs, staunch
planet could be headed for dire ecocatastrophe. On the environmentalists believe that it is right and fair for the
other hand, experts agree that the multiple causal fac- United States to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions in
tors of weather and climate make projections pertaining proportion to its contribution to global warming. Oth-
to global warming a difficult and unreliable endeavor. ers have disagreed with that conclusion if it means that
Furthermore, projections based on computer models are developing nations such as China and India can continue
only as good as the input data, which can be flawed due to increase their levels of GHGs. The Kyoto Protocol
to erroneous assumptions regarding long-term effects. (1997), which was signed by President Bill Clinton and
Thus, forecasts of loss of biodiversity, rising sea levels, the leaders of some 180 countries, stipulated a higher
increase in disease-causing agents, pending economic reduction of GHGs by the world’s developed nations.
disasters, and the like are less than certain. For the same The U.S. Senate voted not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,
reasons, it remains unclear to what extent humans would however, and most other conservatives repudiated the
have to change their behavior in order to reverse the trend accord as unfair because it would require the United
of global warming. States to spend billons of dollars to reduce GHGs and
The debate on global warming has often been ac- make it more challenging for American companies to
cented along ideological lines, between conservatives compete in the global marketplace. On the other hand,
(often Republican) and moderates to liberals (often both liberals and conservatives have argued that the U.S.
Democratic). Usually, the approach of either side has been economy would actually prosper if the nation became a
to take advantage of the lack of scientific consensus by leader in the development of eco-technologies.
drawing on the findings of select favorite scientific stud-
ies in order to justify its particular political or economic Mahesh Ananth
viewpoint. Those like Al Gore, who in his Oscar-winning
documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (2006) warns of See also: Bush Family; China; Environmental Movement; Glo-
impending catastrophic environmental harm if global balization; Gore, Al; Kyoto Protocol; Nuclear Age; Science
warming is left unchecked, are typically dubbed Chicken Wars; Warren, Rick.
Littles by their opponents. Those like Senator James In-
hofe (R-OK), who in 2003 characterized warnings about Further Reading
global warming as “the greatest hoax ever perpetuated Bate, Roger, and Julian Morris. Global Warming: Apocalypse or
on the American people,” are often ridiculed as members Hot Air? Philadelphia: Coronet Books, 1994.
of the Flat Earth Society. Increasingly, however, activists Drake, Frances. Global Warming: The Science of Climate Change.
fighting global warming like Gore—who was awarded New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to “disseminate Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of
greater knowledge about man-made climate change”— Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Emmaus,
have outnumbered naysayers both internationally and in PA: Rodale Press, 2006.
220 Globali z ation
Lomborg, Bjørn. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the global markets; the movement of jobs from one country
Real State of the World. New York: Cambridge University to another; and who benefits and who suffers from the
Press, 2001. global migration of workers, the global spread of culture
Michaels, Patrick J. Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global (lifestyles, consumer goods, fashions, and trends in the
Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. Washington, arts), and the emergence of global movements (such as
DC: CATO Institute, 2004. human rights, environmental regulation, and religious
Ruddiman, William. Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans extremism).
Took Control of Climate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Because globalization involves important issues that
Press, 2005. affect pocketbooks, quality of life, styles of living, and
Singer, S. Fred. Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished threats of reactionary violence, debates on the issue can
Debate. Oakland: Independent Institute, 1998. become polarized, even leading to violence, with little
common ground between proponents and opponents.
This is what happened in Seattle, Washington, at the end
Globalization of November 1999, when arguments about globalization
Globalization is the process by which individuals, shifted from debate among economists and politicians to
organizations, and nations throughout the world become civil conflict. The “Battle of Seattle” began when a rou-
increasingly connected and interdependent economically, tine meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO),
politically, culturally, socially, and ecologically. The which regulates international trade, was interrupted and
term as currently employed refers specifically to the derailed by thousands of antiglobalization protestors from
post–World War II era, especially since the end of the a variety of countries. The City of Seattle declared a state
Cold War, which has been marked by a quickening in of emergency, and police responded to protesters with
the pace and a thickening in the density of international tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, and pepper spray.
communication networks; business transactions; and The protesters were a diverse group, including students,
political, economic, and cultural integration. Arguments anarchists, environmentalists, labor union members, in-
about the extent and consequences of globalization digenous rights activists from such countries as Tibet and
are part of a set of larger debates in the culture wars Mexico, small farmers, small business owners, antidebt
over values and meanings in contemporary societies, campaigners, and members of religious groups and other
including the place of the United States in the global organizations. They were united in their opposition to the
system, the consequences of globalization for American emerging global economic order and shared ideals about
citizens and society, and questions about who benefits the primacy of human rights over the economic bottom
and who suffers from globalization. line. Two days of confrontations between protesters and
the police ended in mass arrests, political controversy over
Culture War Beginnings the city’s preparation and handling of the protests, and
In his famous “culture wars speech” at the Republican the resignation of Seattle’s chief of police.
National Convention in 1992, the conservative standard
bearer and sometime presidential candidate Pat Buch- Optimists and Pessimists
anan argued that the United States was endangered on The Battle of Seattle highlighted two opposing
several fronts, including the loss of jobs due to outsourc- camps—optimists and pessimists—in the debate over
ing and the globalization of the economy. His remarks globalization. The former look favorably on globalization
echoed those of Ross Perot, founder of the Reform Party and see the future of the world as one in which people
and its presidential candidate in 1992 and 1996. Per- from all countries will become more integrated and
ot staunchly opposed the North American Free Trade more aware of common interests and shared humanity.
Agreement (NAFTA), which reduced economic bar- Global pessimists look skeptically on globalization and
riers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. see the future of the world as one in which people from
In 1992, Perot famously argued that if NAFTA were wealthy and powerful countries will control global
ratified (which it was in 1994), Americans would hear a economic, political, and social institutions that oppress
“giant sucking sound” of U.S. jobs flooding south across and exploit people from poorer countries—a world in
the border into Mexico. which the rich will get richer and the poor will work
In the years since these opening salvos, researchers harder but never rise out of poverty.
and political commentators have continued to debate Global optimists argue that global markets and the
whether current patterns of globalization are a benefit or movement of jobs across borders benefit everyone: corpo-
a liability for any individual country and for people living rations, workers, and consumers alike. Increased global
in different regions of the world. Since globalization has migration, they contend, means that individuals are free
had a major impact on economics and finance, debates to move where the best jobs are and that globalization
about the trend center on who gains and who loses from of communication allows individuals greater access to
Globali z ation 221
information and alternative points of view that inform large numbers of workers from countries with low
their migration and employment choices. For example, wage expectations—a problem exacerbated by the
Thomas Friedman, in his best-selling book The World Is vulnerability of undocumented workers, who have no
Flat (2005), points to the growing number of technical legal recourse against unfair employment practices.
jobs available in India, including technical and service The drivers of globalization generally are identi-
support operators, which has bolstered the middle class fied as the economies of Europe, East Asia, and North
in that country while sharpening competition for ef- America, with newcomers such as India and China vying
ficiency and consumer service among businesses around for membership. Critics of globalization argue that there
the world. Those in support of economic globalization is a “Global North” and “Global South” divide whereby
believe that NAFTA is only the beginning and envision a corporations and businesses located in the Northern
“NAFTA superhighway” that links all of North, Central, Hemisphere are extracting resources and cheap labor from
and South America. countries in the Southern Hemisphere. In contrast, global
Global pessimists disagree. In Globalization and optimists argue that the jobs and industries outsourced
Its Discontents (2002), Joseph Stiglitz argues that as from the Global North to the South benefit workers in
international capital moves into developing nations, poorer countries and benefit consumers in the more de-
the rich (countries and classes) get richer and the poor veloped world. Global pessimists believe that the spread
get poorer. Other critics of globalization focus on what of cheap consumer goods in both the North and South
author George Ritzer refers to as the “McDonaldization contribute to waste, an unsustainable global consumer
of the world,” a homogenization process through which culture, and environmental catastrophe as the climate
cultural diversity, local creativity, and national differ- changes and the earth warms. Naomi Klein, a Canadian
ences are sacrificed in the search for profit, efficiency, and journalist, author, and political activist, is at the forefront
predictability by transnational corporations competing of an antiglobalization movement that questions the
in a relatively unregulated international marketplace. benefits of a global consumer culture. Brand-oriented
This pessimistic vision likens globalization to a kind of consumer culture, she contends, hurts both consumers
twenty-first-century social Darwinism in which the weak and the environment. Global optimists tend to mini-
are eliminated and only the strongest will survive. As mize the potential environmental and economic risks of
Perot argued, however, even in strong countries like the globalization in favor of growth, progress, and a more
United States, there will be losers, such as those whose integrated world community.
jobs are exported into the global economy or whose skills Klein’s argument about the consequences of the
do not match available jobs. global economy for the environment represents another
flashpoint in the culture wars. As evidence of global
Global Migration, Inequality, warming has mounted, culture warriors have taken sides
Environment, and Culture in debates about the very existence of the phenomenon
The increased transnational migration of the world’s (though scientific evidence for it has been mounting),
population, whether for economic or political reasons, the environmental costs of economic production and
sparks debates among global optimists and pessimists. growth, and the nature and extent of policy changes to
Optimists argue that migration has opened employment combat it. In 1997, governments around the world re-
opportunities that had never existed for many workers. sponded to scientific warnings about global warming by
Women, for example, have been at the forefront of negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, in which industrialized
the international movement of labor more so than in nations committed to making substantial reductions in
previous migrations. Global optimists argue that this their emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012. Although
empowers women, who can earn their own living and 160 countries originally signed the Kyoto Protocol, two
support their families, and that these women improve of the world’s major per capita emitters of greenhouse
the gross national product (GNP) of their home countries gases—Australia and the United States— did not due
by sending back portions of their earnings in the form to objections over the economic costs, the looser restric-
of remittances. Global pessimists emphasize the ways in tions for developing countries such as China and India,
which this new migration exploits women’s labor and, and the lingering doubts of some that warming trends
without commensurate changes in gender ideology, do not conclusively point to human causes but may be
opens women to new forms of exploitation. The result part of the earth’s climate cycle. Australia finally agreed
in some cases, they point out, is that the children of to sign the protocol in December 2007.
migrant women are not as well cared for, that female Another controversial aspect of globalization
migrants receive lower wages than male migrants, and centers on advances in communication technologies.
that women and children are often misled or coerced Global optimists point out that increased ease of in-
into sexually exploitative work. Pessimists argue further ternational communication and the rise of the Internet
that wages are depressed in countries where there are have enhanced the ability of like-minded people to
222 Globali z ation
band together to address social problems and share Eitzen, D. Stanley, and Maxine Baca Zinn. Globalization: The
perspectives. One example is Jody Williams’s Inter- Transformation of Social Worlds. Belmont, CA: Thompson
national Campaign to Ban Landmines. Williams was Wadsworth, 2006.
able to reach thousands of others interested in the Friedman, Thomas. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the
issue throughout the world via e-mail. Other groups Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
concerned with public health and human rights have 2005.
employed similar communication strategies. The Inter- Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. Ethnicities and Global Multiculture:
national Labor Organization, for example, has been able Pants for an Octopus. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
to use global communications technologies to advance 2007.
its goal of improving the lives of all workers, not just Rapley, John. Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism’s Down-
those in the industrialized nations. Global pessimists are ward Spiral. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004.
skeptical of claims about the results of increased global Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks,
communication, noting that industrial nations control CA: Pine Forge Press, 1993.
the production of influential cultural media and materi- Steger, Manfred N. Globalism: The New Market Ideology. Lanham,
als such as movies, music, books, fashion, and style. The MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
result is an uneven flow of messages and influences from Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York:
the industrial world to the less developed world and a W.W. Norton, 2002.
domination of the Global South by the Global North.
Such a pattern of economic, political, and cultural
domination, they maintain, weakens local industries Goet z, Ber nhard
and overwhelms local cultures in less developed coun- A white, self-employed electronics repairman living
tries and creates a demand for consumer cultural goods in the Greenwich Village section of New York City,
that further impoverishes already poor countries. The Bernhard Goetz triggered intensive debates over crime,
marketing of American cigarettes in China and other gun legislation, race, and vigilantism in December 1984
less developed countries is an oft-cited example of a when he shot four black men who had confronted him
dangerous export—both the product (tobacco) and the for money in a Manhattan subway car. Goetz, dubbed
cultural images associated with it. the “Subway Vigilante” by the New York media, became
Optimists envision globalization as the erasure a hero to “tough-on-crime” conservatives; others viewed
of national boundaries and the emergence of a global his actions as opening the door to anarchy and increased
governing system protecting the interests of all. Global racial polarization.
pessimists see the opening of borders as a point of entry Bernhard Hugo Goetz, Jr., was born in Queens,
for migrants who work for less, speak foreign languages, New York, on November 7, 1947, and attended New
import alien cultures, and increase the risk of political York University (BS, electrical and nuclear engineering,
conflict and terrorism. How can countries protect their 1969). After earning his degree, he moved to Florida,
borders and national interests without building fences was married for a short time, then returned to New
and making their societies inhospitable to others? How York City and established an electronics business out of
much of the energy and creativity fostered by an open his apartment. Goetz had been mugged on two separate
society and open borders will be lost by efforts to erect occasions in New York, the last of which occurred in
walls against globalization or withdraw from the global 1981. After the previous incident, he began to carry a
system? Such questions may already be moot, however, handgun, even though he had been denied a permit to
since globalization is a powerful force for change that carry a concealed weapon.
is likely to be stopped only by some cataclysm, such as The incident that propelled Goetz into the culture
irreversible climate change. wars occurred after he entered the Fourteenth Street
subway station and boarded a car with roughly twenty
Mary E. Kelly and Joane Nagel passengers, among them four black teens, aged eighteen
to nineteen. The young men approached Goetz and
See also: Battle of Seattle; Buchanan, Pat; Canada; China; Cold demanded five dollars, though at trial questions arose
War; Global Warming; Immigration Policy; Japan; Klein, as to whether they intended to rob him or were simply
Naomi; Kyoto Protocol; Labor Unions; Marxism; Mexico; panhandling. Goetz asked them to repeat the request,
Perot, H. Ross. then rose and fired all five shots from his Smith & Wes-
son .38 caliber revolver, hitting each of the four men and
Further Reading leaving one of them, Darrell Cabey, a paraplegic. Goetz
Dorgan, Byron L. Take This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed fled the scene but finally turned himself in more than a
and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America. New York: week later to police in Concord, New Hampshire.
Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press, 2006. At the time of the shooting, rates of violent crime
Goldwater, B ar r y 223
were on the rise in both New York City and the United
States in general, as were perceptions that the rights of
criminals superseded those of their victims. As Goetz
was put on trial in 1985, analysts, activists, and inter-
est groups from a wide range of political perspectives
entered the fray. The Guardian Angels, a citizen polic-
ing organization created to patrol New York’s subways,
raised money for Goetz’s defense. The Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE), an organization best known
for its 1960s activism in support of black rights—but
one that had grown increasingly conservative under
the leadership of Roy Innis—publicly defended Goetz.
The Reverend Al Sharpton, a New York–based Baptist
minister and black social activist, became a national
figure over the incident, leading protests outside the
courthouse and demanding that Goetz be tried for at-
tempted murder.
A series of criminal trials and appeals ending in 1987
Although he lost the 1964 presidential election in a landslide
resulted in Goetz’s conviction for illegal possession of a to incumbent Lyndon Johnson, Republican senator Barry
weapon and acquittal on attempted murder and assault Goldwater of Arizona is credited as an ideological forebear
charges. Sharpton, the NAACP, and other black advo- of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s. (Nat Farbman/
cacy groups condemned the ruling, but Goetz and his Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
supporters have since claimed the incident contributed
to decreasing crime rates in New York City throughout years castigated fellow Republicans for courting the
the 1990s. In 1996, a jury in a civil suit awarded Darrell Religious Right and allowing political moralism to
Cabey $43 million for emotional distress, a verdict that define what is conservative.
led Goetz to file for bankruptcy. Born into a wealthy family in Phoenix, Arizona, on
January 1, 1909, Barry Morris Goldwater dropped out of
Robert Teigrob the University of Arizona at Tucson in 1928 following
the death of his father and began working in his family’s
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Guardian Angels; Gun Con- department store business (Goldwater, Inc.). During
trol; King, Rodney; National Association for the Advance- World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps
ment of Colored People; Race; Sharpton, Al; Vigilantism. (1941–1945), obtaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He retired from the Air Force Reserves in 1967 with the
Further Reading rank of major general. Following a stint on the Phoenix
Fletcher, George. A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the city council (1949–1952), he won a race for the U.S.
Law on Trial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Senate against Ernest W. McFarland, the Democratic
Lesley, Mark, and Charles Shuttleworth. Subway Gunman: A incumbent and Senate majority leader, whom Goldwater
Juror’s Account of the Bernhard Goetz Trial. Latham, NY: characterized as a “socialist.” Goldwater was a senator
British American, 1988. from 1953 to 1987.
A staunch Cold Warrior and proponent of limited
government, he won a tightly contested race for the GOP
G o l d w a t e r, B a r r y presidential nomination in August 1964. His resound-
Largely credited with spearheading America’s shift ing defeat by President Johnson, however, was one of the
toward the political right in the late twentieth century, largest in the history of U.S. presidential elections.
Barry Goldwater was a five-term U.S. senator (R-AZ) During the 1964 campaign, Goldwater attempted
who ran for the presidency against Lyndon B. Johnson to oust Johnson by warning voters of the dangers of
in 1964. Regarded as the most influential conservative a bloated federal bureaucracy, the legacy of the New
figure in American politics after Robert A. Taft and Deal, which he saw as undermining individual initiative
before Ronald Reagan, Goldwater inspired new political because of entitlement programs. In addition to calling
acolytes with his best-selling book The Conscience of a for an elimination of welfare and Social Security, he op-
Conservative (1960). He is remembered for his hard posed the minimum wage, urged more restrictions on
stance against world communism during the Cold War labor unions, and suggested tax relief for the wealthy by
and for his espousal of a smaller federal government. ending the graduated income tax. He also voted against
Often a critic of his own party, Goldwater in his later the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
224 Gon z ález , Elián
Goldwater’s acceptance speech at the Republican Cuba, however, the boy’s father, Juan Miguel González,
national convention defined his candidacy with one state- demanded Elián’s return and petitioned the U.S. govern-
ment: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” ment for his release. For five months, the Miami relatives
Although it rallied the faithful, moderate voters were pursued every legal means to keep Elián in America, con-
alienated. Goldwater billboards stated, “In your heart, vinced that the father was acting under the coercion of the
you know he’s right.” But opponents spoofed that slogan Castro regime. In fact, some claimed that days prior to the
with: “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.” Capitalizing shipwreck, the father had telephoned relatives in Florida
on Goldwater’s statement that the “price of freedom” asking them to take care of his ex-wife and son. Lázaro
might necessitate nuclear war, the Johnson campaign González, the boy’s uncle, applied for asylum on Elián’s
aired an anti-Goldwater television spot in which, as a behalf, while the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
little girl pulls petals from a daisy, her counting turns Service (INS) investigated the situation.
into a countdown to a nuclear detonation and a mush- In January 2000, the INS ruled that custody be-
room cloud. The message was simple: extremism could longed to the boy’s father and that he should be returned
have apocalyptic consequences. Johnson won reelection to Cuba by mid-month. Lázaro González, meanwhile,
by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent of the popular had filed for custody in Florida state court. The issue of
vote, and 486–52 in the Electoral College. Still, in many “father versus freedom”—a return to communist Cuba
respects, the 1964 election was the last hurrah of the and life with his father or life in America with relatives—
New Deal and the beginning of what would emerge as a was endlessly debated in the media and political circles.
conservative ascendancy. U.S. attorney general Janet Reno (a Florida native) finally
Credited with being an ideological father of the resur- announced on January 12 that the INS ruling should
gence of American conservatism during the 1980s, Gold- stand: Elián’s father had the right of custody and the
water was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President boy’s relatives should release him. The Miami family
Ronald Reagan. Goldwater died on May 29, 1998. disagreed, filed a lawsuit challenging the ruling, and
refused to hand over Elián.
Tom Lansburg and Roger Chapman At 5:15 a.m. on April 22, 2000, armed federal
agents forcefully entered a private home in the Little Ha-
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; Johnson, Lyndon vana section of Miami and seized the six-year-old Cuban
B.; Labor Unions; New Deal; Nuclear Age; Reagan, Ronald; émigré in order to return him to his father in Cuba.
Religious Right; Republican Party; Social Security; Taft, Conservative senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) deplored “the
Robert A.; Tax Reform; Welfare Reform. grotesque image of Elián González being forcibly taken
from the custody of family members in Miami” and de-
Further Reading clared that the boy “should be given real, tangible hope
Edwards, Lee. Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution. that he will live free of the shackles of the communist
Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995. dictatorship created by Fidel Castro.” Political analysts
Goldwater, Barry. With No Apologies. New York: William Mor- have suggested that the presidential election of 2000,
row, 1979. which was narrowly decided in Florida, might well have
Iverson, Peter. Barry Goldwater: Native Arizonian. Norman: been tipped toward Republican George W. Bush by the
University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. outraged Cuban community of Miami. His Democratic
Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Un- opponent, Al Gore, not only was the vice president
making of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang, during the González raid, but publicly approved of the
2002. decision. So did the majority of Americans.
In 2000, the house in Miami from which Elián
González was abducted by federal agents was converted
González, Elián into a museum called the Unidos en Casa Elián (United
The saga of Elián González—a six-year-old Cuban boy in the House of Elián). The boy’s story was dramatized in
found clinging to an inner tube off the coast of Florida on a television film and a documentary that aired on the Fox
Thanksgiving Day, 1999—placed in conflict American News Channel and PBS, respectively, in 2000 and 2001.
cultural values that seldom have been at odds: family In 2004, the Federal District Court in Miami dismissed
values, anticommunism, and freedom. the lawsuit by Elián’s relatives against the federal agents
The boy was rescued in the Caribbean Sea after who conducted the raid. Some members of the Cuban
surviving a shipwreck in which his mother had died in community in Miami have come to refer to the González
an attempt to reach U.S. shores and start a new life. In episode as “our September 11.” In retrospect, commen-
Miami, Elián was welcomed by aunts, uncles, cousins, and tators have characterized the incident as an epilogue of
the entire Cuban exile community, who sought to honor the Cold War.
the wishes of his mother and keep the boy in America. In Roger Chapman
Gore, A l 225
See also: Clinton, Bill; Cold War; Cuba; Election of 2000; he surprised his family—and, he said later, himself—by
Family Values; Gore, Al; Helms, Jesse; September 11; Waco dropping out of law school and running for his father’s
Siege. old congressional seat in Tennessee’s Fourth District.
After narrowly winning the Democratic nomination, he
Further Reading ran unopposed in the November election.
Banet-Weiser, Sarah. “Elian Gonzalez and ‘The Purpose of Congressman Gore joined the centrist Democratic
America’: Nation, Family, and the Child-Citizen.” American Leadership Council and portrayed himself as a “raging
Quarterly 55:2 (June 2003): 149–79. moderate.” In his four terms in the House (1977–1984)
Bardach, Ann Louise. Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in and two terms in the Senate (1985–1992), he was torn
Miami and Havana. New York: Random House, 2002. between his mostly liberal beliefs and his more conserva-
Schneider, William. “Elian Gonzalez Defeated Al Gore.” Na- tive instincts, demeanor, and Tennessee constituents. He
tional Review, April 28, 2001. quietly supported Democrats’ liberal positions, especially
on economic issues, but made his mark by focusing on
technical, nonideological matters: constituent service,
Gore, Al national security, congressional investigations (as of the
Albert Arnold “Al” Gore, Jr., a former U.S. congressman Love Canal chemical landfill disaster in upstate New
and senator (D-TN) and the forty-fifth vice president York), technology (including the Internet), and envi-
of the United States (1993–2001), has been a primary ronmental science. On abortion, his stance shifted from
target of conservatives in the culture wars, most notably pro-life to pro-choice, but he denied changing positions.
over the disputed presidential election of 2000 and his His eagerness to attract support from liberals and conser-
activism on the issue of global warming—for which he vatives led opponents to criticize him as a flip-flopper.
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Gore’s presidential ambitions were no secret, and his
Gore’s political ambitions were shaped by his early background, politics, intelligence, drive, upright image,
life. He was born on March 31, 1948, in Washington, and telegenic looks made him a legitimate contender. In
D.C., to Pauline LaFon Gore, a Vanderbilt law school 1988, he ran for the Democratic nomination as a cultural
graduate, and Albert Gore, Sr., also a Democratic rep- conservative, an image reinforced by his wife Tipper’s
resentative and senator from Tennessee. His father, of a public crusade against lurid lyrics in contemporary mu-
modest tobacco-farming background, was a New Deal sic. Gore’s loss in 1988 and the serious injuries sustained
Democrat who endorsed liberal economic policies, ac- in an automobile accident by his young son a year later
cepted racial desegregation, and opposed the Vietnam caused him to reexamine his political life. He eschewed
War. The latter stance cost him his 1970 Senate reelec- the 1992 presidential race and focused on his life’s pas-
tion bid, teaching his son to avoid being perceived as too sion, the environment—he published the best-selling
liberal. Although the Gores projected an upright image, book Earth in the Balance (1992)—but agreed to be the
both father and son received criticism for their dealings
with businessman Armand Hammer, a controversial
figure for his connections with the Soviet Union.
Young “Prince Albert” strove to meet his parents’
demanding expectations. Prone to formality and stuffi-
ness, in the view of some peers, he is also said to have a
good sense of humor, artistic sensibility, and an affable
personality in private—a dichotomy that Washington
observers noted later in his career. Gore grew up primarily
in Washington, attending private school, but spent sum-
mers working on his father’s tobacco farm in Tennessee.
He met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth “Tipper” Aitchen-
son, in high school. They married in 1970 and eventually
had four children. Gore attended Harvard University,
graduating cum laude (BA, 1969); Vanderbilt University
Graduate School of Religion (1971–1972); and Vander-
bilt University Law School (1974–1976). After Harvard,
Gore enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a military
After his defeat in the disputed 2000 presidential election, Al
journalist in Vietnam. Upon returning home, he worked Gore reentered public life—and the culture wars—with an in-
as an investigative reporter for the Nashville Tennessean ternational campaign against global warming. He is seen here
(1971–1976) while attending divinity school (he was a promoting his Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient
Southern Baptist with New Age sensibilities). In 1976, Truth (2006). (Samantha Sin/AFP/Getty Images)
226 Gore, A l
running mate of the Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton, Values; Global Warming; Globalization; Internet; Love Canal;
another young southern centrist. During the 1992 cam- New Age Movement; Record Warning Labels; Zappa, Frank.
paign, Republicans depicted Gore as an environmental
zealot, labeling him “Ozone Man.” Further Reading
Conservative Republicans attacked the Clinton-Gore Cockburn, Alexander, and Jeffrey St. Clair. Al Gore: A User’s
administration despite its generally moderate policies. As Manual. New York: Verso, 2000.
vice president, Gore typically avoided liberal causes like Maraniss, David, and Ellen Nakashima. The Prince of Tennessee:
the environment, concentrating instead on “reinventing” The Rise of Al Gore. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
government to make it more efficient, and advocated Milbank, Dana. Smashmouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore
centrist or conservative positions on the federal deficit, and George W. Bush. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
foreign trade, national defense, welfare, and “values.” Toobin, Jeffrey. Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to
Nevertheless, conservatives maligned him as a phony Decide the 2000 Election. New York: Random House, 2001.
who used a wholesome image to conceal his political Turque, Bill. Inventing Al Gore. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
ruthlessness, antibusiness environmental radicalism, New 2000.
Age psychobabble, and countercultural behavior (he had Zelnick, Bob. Gore: A Political Life. Washington, DC: Regnery,
admitted to smoking marijuana in the early 1970s). They 1999.
also castigated him for his part in the 1996 Clinton-Gore
campaign scandals and for supporting Clinton despite the
latter’s sexual misconduct. Graffiti
Conservative attacks on Gore increased when he ran “Graffiti” (from the Italian sgraffito, meaning “to scratch”)
for president in 2000. The George W. Bush campaign, refers to writing and drawings on walls and other public
late-night television talk show hosts, and even the main- surfaces, often directed at institutions, monuments, and
stream media made frequent jokes about his wooden authority. Postwar technology propelled the phenomenon,
image and tendency to exaggerate. On Election Day, as the tools of the graffiti artist included spray paint in
Gore narrowly won the popular vote but conceded the cans (invented in 1949) and felt-tip markers in a wide
election after the U.S. Supreme Court—the majority of range of vivid colors (available beginning in the 1960s).
whose members were Republican appointees—upheld In the 1970s intense social controversy erupted over
Bush’s narrow victory in the Florida balloting, assigned graffiti in American cities, pitting its creators—young
him the state’s Electoral College votes, and effectively urbanites, often outsiders—and their artistic defend-
declared him the winner of the national election. ers against those who viewed it as wanton defacing of
Gore remained a prominent figure in the culture property. While American graffiti has influenced artistic
wars during the course of the Bush administration. His expression on the streets and in art galleries worldwide, it
politics shifted conspicuously to the left as he publicly has often been considered a hindrance to urban revitaliza-
denounced Bush’s policies on the Iraq War, civil liberties, tion. Graffiti symbolizes continually shifting frontiers of
and the environment. Gore gained particular prominence urban neglect, conflict, and control.
for writing and starring in an influential feature film The proliferation of American graffiti after the 1970s
about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), was a consequence of the social dissent and individual
which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary expression of the 1960s’ counterculture movement. In
in 2007. And in December of that year, Gore accepted addition to signs and buildings, subway cars as iconic so-
the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, jointly with the cial connectors were favorite targets of graffiti artists. On
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by such surfaces, “tags” (inscriptions) became colorful and
Rajendra K. Pachauri, “for their efforts to build up and elaborate, defining competing artists, themes, and styles,
disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate and highlighting artists’ daring in “bombing” particular
change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that locations or challenging the police. Content emphasized
are needed to counteract such change.” Although he social confrontation, abstract design, aggressive sexual
declined any specific interest in elective office, citing displays, and ghetto youth culture. Graffiti artists, who
the crisis of global warming as his overriding concern, gained reknown by nicknames (such as Taki 183, Super
politicians and pundits from both major parties and at Kool 223, Cope 2, Asstro, and Reas), even formed loose
both ends of the ideological spectrum have speculated associations across cities. While culture critics lionized
that he might run for president again in the future. graffiti as the expression of voiceless youth, graffiti artists
like Jean Basquiat became mainstream, exhibiting in
George Rising museums and galleries.
Although the artists typically targeted institutions
See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Democratic and their inherent ideologies, neighborhood residents and
Party; Election of 2000; Environmental Movement; Family property owners, rich and poor alike, objected to graffiti
Graham , B illy 227
as vandalism that blighted the environment. Removing disliked being told what to think without being given
graffiti meant tiresome cleaning or repainting. Eventu- the opportunity to reason issues through on my own or
ally, police were instructed to treat graffiti as the product to look at other viewpoints.” Graham later graduated
of a crime rather than artistic expression, and mayors from the Florida Bible Institute in Tampa (1940) and
made it a target in cleaning up their cities. Highlighting Wheaton College (AB, anthropology, 1943), marrying
this conflict, the video Style Wars (1983) by Tony Silver Ruth Bell, a Wheaton classmate, in the latter year.
presents images of graffiti-covered New York and gives Ordained in 1939 by the Southern Baptist Conven-
voice to a range of perspectives. tion, Graham preached at the First Baptist Church in
During the 1980s, some city administrators tried Western Springs, Illinois (1943–1945), then served as
alternative controls. The Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Net- first vice president of Youth for Christ International
work, for example, channeled such artistic impulses into (1945–1948) and president of Northwestern College
murals throughout the city. Other municipal leaders, in Minneapolis (1947–1952). By 1950, he had become
however, continued to regard graffiti as a social problem a national figure and head of the Billy Graham Evan-
symptomatic of the community apathy that fosters urban gelism Association (BGEA).
decay. Thus, police in some cities imposed “zero tolerance” As a spokesman of the new evangelicals, a move-
policies that increased penalties and quickly eradicated ment that rejected fundamentalism for its failure to
graffiti in target areas. Graffiti tools, however, evolved. engage modernity, Graham eventually embraced an
Acid etchings, for example, became permanent markings ecumenical perspective while fostering a conservative
on subway cars. Graffiti continues to represent an ongoing Bible message. Such theological middle ground led to
war over space, voice, and presence in the city. his rejection by Protestants on the right and the left,
most significantly Bob Jones, Sr., the fundamentalist,
Gary W. McDonogh and Reinhold Niebuhr, the modernist. In 1956, Graham
founded the magazine Christianity Today, a counterpart
See also: Censorship; Counterculture; Gangs; Zero Tolerance. to the liberal Christian Century, with the aim of offering
evangelical commentary on current affairs distinct from
Further Reading fundamentalism.
Boykoff, Julius, and Kaia Sands. Landscapes of Dissent: Guerilla Graham became a household name during the 1949
Poetry and Public Space. Long Beach, CA: Palm Press, 2008. Christ for Greater Los Angeles Crusade. That eight-week
Ganz, Nicholas, and Tristan Manco. Graffiti World: Street Art revival was held in a large tent and received national
from Five Continents. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004. media attention after the newspaper publisher William
Golden, Jane, Robin Rice, and Monica Yant Kinney. Philadel- Randolph Hearst, a staunch anticommunist, ordered his
phia Murals and the Stories They Tell. Philadelphia: Temple reporters to “Puff Graham.” The revival coincided with
University Press, 2002. the news that Russia had obtained the atomic bomb, and
Kelling, George L., and Catherine Coles. Fixing Broken Windows. Graham wove that into his message, warning listeners
New York: Free Press, 1996. that LA was “rampant” with communists and that the
city was a major target “on the Soviet’s attack list.” He
concluded, “God is giving us a desperate choice . . .
Graham, Billy either revival or judgment.” In a 1954 essay in Mercury,
A popular Christian evangelist and spiritual adviser the Reverend Graham continued his Cold War theme:
to presidents, the Reverend Billy Graham offered his “Either Communism must die or Christianity must die,
brand of gospel from tent meetings to televised crusades because it is actually a battle between Christ and anti-
at outdoor coliseums across the United States and Christ.” In a later self-critique, he admitted to preaching
throughout the world. Beginning with a ministry in the “Americanism” during this period.
1940s and spanning the next six decades, he preached Although Graham throughout his career spoke dis-
to more than 210 million people worldwide. Graham’s approvingly of mixing religion and politics, he actively
participation in the American culture wars involved an sought the company of presidents and often played golf
early split from fundamentalism, Cold War preaching with members of Congress, rationalizing that it provided
that warned of the threat of atheistic communism, a an “open door” for the gospel. He was especially close to
close association with presidents from Harry S. Truman Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon, and he was
to the Bushes, and opposition to the Religious Right. known to exert influence in more than spiritual ways,
The son of a Presbyterian dairy farmer, William recommending campaign strategies and the choice of
Franklin “Billy” Graham, Jr., was born on November running mates and Supreme Court appointments. In
7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1936, he en- 1964 he fleetingly considered running for president; that
rolled at Bob Jones College, a fundamentalist school in same year he received hundreds of telegrams encouraging
Cleveland, Tennessee, but left after one term because “I him to endorse the Republican standard bearer Barry
228 Graham, B illy
Goldwater, which he never did. Nixon publicly credited he said would be his last crusade in Queens, New York,
Graham for persuading him to run for president in 1968. on June 26, 2005. The following March, he appeared
The subsequent Watergate scandal personally devastated with his son, Franklin Graham, at the Festival of Hope
Graham and tarnished his image because of his close as- in New Orleans.
sociation with Nixon. The evangelist seemed to never Roger Chapman
completely accept Nixon’s guilt, at one point blaming
the president’s ethical misjudgment on sleeping pills and See also: Bob Jones University; Communists and Commu-
demons. As the Religious Right movement got under way nism; Evangelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Niebuhr,
during the late 1970s, Graham advised against it, but he Reinhold; Nixon, Richard; Nuclear Age; Religious Right;
himself continued to meet with presidents. Secular Humanism; Southern Baptist Convention; Televan-
Some have criticized Graham, although he was gelism; Watergate.
a Democrat, for being a right-wing apologist. He is
faulted, among other things, for not participating in Further Reading
the civil rights movement and failing to denounce the Boyer, Peter J. “The Big Tent.” The New Yorker, August 22,
Vietnam War. Although as early as 1953 he refused 2005.
to hold revivals in southern cities that enforced racial Frady, Marshall. Billy Graham: A Parable of American Righteous-
segregation at public gatherings, he disagreed with the ness. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.
civil disobedience strategy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Frost, David. Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man.
and declined an invitation to speak at the 1963 March Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor, 1997.
on Washington in Washington, D.C. On Vietnam, Gra- Graham, Billy. Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham.
ham ambiguously warned, “The stakes are much higher New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
. . . than anybody realizes.” He criticized King’s outcry Martin, William. A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story.
against the war, saying it was an “affront” to the black New York: William Morrow, 1991.
soldiers serving in that conflict. In 1972, after being
asked by other evangelists to compel Nixon to halt the
Christmas bombing campaign in Vietnam, Graham Great Book s
refused, saying he was “a New Testament evangelist, The concept of “great books”—the so-called classics of
not an Old Testament prophet.” A decade later, during Western thought and literature, and teaching curricula
his first visit to Russia, Graham gave the same defense based on them—have been a source of contentious de-
after being criticized for not speaking out against the bate in America’s culture wars since the 1950s. Pitting
violations of human rights, including religious restric- traditionalists against multiculturalists, the controver-
tions, in the Soviet Union. sies have centered on whether or not cultural critics and
Graham’s sermons typically addressed individual educators should uphold a literary canon as represen-
behavior, not social reform. With the trademark tative of Western values and, by extension, American
phrase, “The Bible says,” his proposed solution for culture. Some have argued that insistence on a list of
social ills, whether the dissolution of the family, drug “must-read” books is an antiquated educational notion,
abuse, crime, pornography, racism, or greed, was for betraying a sense of hierarchy and patriarchy (the domi-
each individual to respond to the gospel message and nance of “dead white men”) that is in disharmony with
be “born again.” Graham eventually came to regard the enlargement of democracy. Others believe that read-
secular humanism as a greater threat to society than ing great books is essential to the educational process
communism. During a 1993 interview with David and for stimulating thought on great ideas, including
Frost, he lamented that in America there was “more democracy.
disregard of God than ever before.” He contrasted the The great books idea originated in nineteenth-
former Soviet Union (where they were “wanting teach- century England and gained prominence in the United
ers to come and teach the Bible in the schools”) to the States after Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., published
United States (where “you can’t even have Christmas its Great Books of the Western World collection in 1952.
carols in schools”). Other publishers, such as Modern Library, printed series
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Gra- based on the great books concept, but Britannica’s set—
ham was striking a gentler pose, an elderly man with edited by Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler—
hands shaking from the effects of Parkinson’s disease symbolized more than others an “authoritative Western
and emphasizing God’s love. Following the attacks of canon.” Both the idea and the set included fiction and
September 11, 2001, he was compelled by President nonfiction books ranging from ancient Greek classics to
George W. Bush, who years earlier had been converted the works of American writers, including notable texts
by the evangelist, to deliver a message of healing at the in science and math.
National Cathedral in Washington. Graham held what After peaking in the mid-1960s, the sales and
Great B ook s 229
to the use of great books in some fashion. Public recogni-

tion was reflected in brisk sales of the Proposal, favorable
reviews in national publications, and an interview with
Adler on William F. Buckley’s television show The Fir-
ing Line. Adler believed the Paideia concept was radically
democratic because of its focus on K–12 education, while
A Nation at Risk was elitist in its overriding concern for
college-bound students. Adler labeled other conservative
education reformers of the Reagan era, including Secre-
tary of Education William J. Bennett, elitists.
Great books–related controversies during the 1980s
brought other prominent voices into the dialogue.
Among these was E.D. Hirsch, Jr., who emphasized “cul-
tural literacy.” Arguing that reading and writing skills
are “content bound,” Hirsch contended that “shared,
canonical knowledge is inherently necessary to a literate
democracy.” He elaborated his thinking in his controver-
sial book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to
Know (1987). Adler remained silent on Hirsch’s efforts,
Members of the editorial and publishing board present the and Hirsch never promoted the use of any list of great
original fifty-four volumes of the Great Books series in 1952. books, but opponents of the canon categorized them as
Covering 3,000 years, the collection was deemed the canon conservative “core knowledge” promoters.
of Western civilization and reading them essential to a lib- By the late 1980s, Allan Bloom became the most
eral education. (Ralph Crane/Stringer/Time & Life Pictures/ polarizing figure in great books–related discussions.
Getty Images) His best-seller, The Closing of the American Mind (1987),
promoted the ancient classics (not great books) for col-
popularity of Britannica’s great books declined. Market lege students as an antidote to the closed-mindedness
saturation may have been partially to blame, but larger engendered by rampant conformism and intellectual
cultural and philosophical shifts were also at work. By homogenization on American campuses. Bloom argued
1970, the emergence of multiculturalism, as well as that these vices arose in the 1960s, particularly with the
black, ethnic, and feminist studies, on college campuses turn toward “cultural relativism” and multiculturalism.
displaced traditional and great books–based curricula. Adler castigated Bloom for believing that the great
The new generation of academics criticized old lists of books necessarily contained “the truth.” In a 1988 Firing
great books for excluding the works of women, people Line appearance, Adler stated, “I find more error in the
of color, and non-Western writers. great books than truth.” In Adler’s mind, Bloom and
At the same time, new critical philosophies emerged “his master, Leo Strauss” wished only to “indoctrinate”
in the 1960s and 1970s, such as literary postmodernism, students. Adler and his cohorts, on the other hand, saw
cultural Marxism, and the Frankfurt School’s critique themselves as teachers exposing students to the ongoing
of capitalist culture and society. Proponents of these Western dialectic about the great ideas.
perspectives argued that the great books approach per- Feminists, meanwhile, regarded Bloom’s arguments
petuated outdated cultural hierarchies. These academics as an attempt to buttress patriarchal authority. In a 1987
and their youthful followers regarded the great books as essay in Signs, for example, Margaret Andersen argued
structuring the thought of the power elite, or “the Es- that Bloom’s call for a return to the classical “rigor”
tablishment.” By the end of the 1970s, with these intel- implied that “women’s studies and black studies [were]
lectual movements gaining traction, Adler and Hutchins . . . intellectually weak and politically biased.” Indeed,
were all but forgotten. Bloom’s book contributed to the overall backlash against
In the next decade, however, concerns over declining feminism that occurred throughout the 1980s.
education standards and lower national test scores led to The canon controversy continued with the “Stanford
a renewed interest in the great books. The issue came to Debate” of 1988, triggered by the decision of Stanford
head with the landmark 1983 report of the Department University to revise its standard “Western Culture” un-
of Education, A Nation at Risk. At around the same time, dergraduate course into one called “Culture, Ideas, and
Adler created an education reform circle, called the “Pai- Values.” The original course was based on a traditional
deia Group,” that brought together liberals, moderates, reading list of great books, while the new one allowed for
and conservatives. In 1982, the group issued the Paideia more current and diverse works. The alteration touched
Proposal, a manifesto recommending that educators return off a nationwide discussion about the merits of studying
23 0 Great Soc ie t y
Western civilization and the use of great books in such Johnson outlined his vision of the Great Society in
courses. a commencement address at the University of Michigan
The last major salvo in the great books battles came on May 22, 1964. In his speech, he called on the wealthi-
in 1990 with Britannica’s release of the second edition of est nation in the world, in its most prosperous times, to
the Great Books of the Western World. Criticism of that set adopt the duty of caring for the neediest and providing
represented the final wave of the Stanford debate. After opportunity to all citizens. Guaranteeing “abundance
observing that few authors of color were included in the and liberty for all,” he declared, would improve the life
revised series, African-American scholar Henry Louis of everyone and thereby create a “great society.”
Gates, Jr., opined, “Obviously, there’s still a ‘whites only’ The Great Society comprised an impressive list of
sign on what precisely constitutes a great thinker.” He initiatives, including a major education bill, a broad
particularly lamented the exclusion of W.E.B. DuBois, housing program, health services to the poor (Medicaid)
calling him “the most important African-American intel- and elderly (Medicare), the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
lectual in history.” Others decried the omission of Toni and even a highway beautification program. At its heart
Morrison’s work, especially the novel Beloved (1987). The was the “War on Poverty,” which included the food stamp
issue continued to be debated by academics like Gates program, legal services for the poor, job training, and
and Lawrence Levine for the duration of the 1990s, but the Head Start program for underprivileged children.
the great books concept lost its most vigorous supporter The cabinet-level Department of Transportation and
with the death of Adler in 2001. Department of Housing and Urban Development were
Tim Lacy established, as well as a host of new independent agencies,
such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
See also: Adler, Mortimer J.; Bennett, William J.; Du Bois, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endow-
W.E.B.; Education Reform; Hutchins, Robert M.; Literature, ment for the Humanities, and Corporation for Public
Film, and Drama; Morrison, Toni; Multiculturalism and Eth- Broadcasting—adding up to a significant expansion of
nic Studies; Postmodernism; Revisionist History; Strauss, the federal government.
Leo; Women’s Studies. These initiatives, in conjunction with the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, caused a political and cultural back-
Further Reading lash. Conservatives, particularly in the South, opposed
Adler, Mortimer J. A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror. New federal intervention on such issues as civil rights and
York: Macmillan, 1992. voting rights, which they regarded as state matters. The
Andersen, Margaret L. “Changing the Curriculum in Higher community action and legal services programs, part of the
Education.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12, War on Poverty, further antagonized conservatives, who
no. 2 (1987): 222–54. argued that they fomented rebellion and class warfare.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars. In general, conservatives were alarmed by the expansion
New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. of government at a time—unlike the New Deal during
Hirsch, E.D., Jr. Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs the Great Depression—of economic prosperity.
to Know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. As spending on the Vietnam War increased in the
Levine, Lawrence. The Opening of the American Mind. Boston: latter part of the 1960s, the Great Society began to stall.
Beacon Press, 1996. During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan made its legacies a
primary target of his attacks on big government, arguing
that federal entitlement programs encourage dependency.
Great Society Conservatives in the 1990s followed Reagan’s example,
“The Great Society” is the term used to describe especially in their attacks on public funding of the arts and
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s domestic programs humanities. In contrast, during his first term as president
of 1965–1967. An ambitious agenda expanding the (1993–1997), Bill Clinton attempted to build on Johnson’s
federal government to increase opportunity and improve initiatives by establishing a program for national health
the quality of life for all Americans, the Great Society care. The debate continues, however, over programs like
divided Americans over the issue of the role and scope of those of Johnson’s Great Society and the proper role of the
the federal government. Liberals look back on the Great federal government.
Society and view it as an extension of the New Deal that Robert Bauman
helped those, especially minorities and the poor, who
had been left behind in American social, political, and See also: Civil Rights Movement; Health Care; Heritage Foun-
economic life. Conservatives condemn the Great Society dation; Johnson, Lyndon B.; National Endowment for the
as a primary example of government meddling in the Arts; National Endowment for the Humanities; New Deal;
lives of ordinary people, a waste of taxpayer money, and Reagan, Ronald; Vietnam War; Voting Rights Act; War on
a cause of, not a solution to, poverty. Poverty; Welfare Reform.
Gun Control 231
Further Reading Sliwa, who grew up in a working-class neighborhood

Andrew, John A., III. Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. of Brooklyn, has been a controversial figure, accused over
Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1998. the years of being a publicity hound while co-hosting a
Mileur, Jerome M. The Great Society and the High Tide of Liberal- conservative radio talk show program on WABC-AM in
ism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005. New York. He once admitted that he had exaggerated
Murray, Charles. Losing Ground. New York: Basic Books, 1984. his group’s anticrime accomplishments and even faked
Schulman, Bruce J. Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism. his own 1980 kidnapping. Ironically, on June 19, 1992,
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Sliwa was abducted in a taxicab in the East Village sec-
Schwartz, John E. America’s Hidden Success. New York: W.W. tion of New York and shot at point-blank range, suffering
Norton, 1983. wounds in the stomach, bladder, rectum, and both legs.
Federal prosecutors argued that John A. Gotti, Jr., an
alleged organized crime leader, had ordered the hit after
Guantánamo Bay Detention Center Sliwa called his late father, the convicted Mafia boss John
See Abu Ghraib and Gitmo Gotti, a drug dealer on the radio. In September 2006, after
three mistrials, Gotti went free.
Lee S. Polansky
Guardian Angels
A citizens’ crime control organization, the Guardian See also: Gangs; Goetz, Bernhard; Sex Offenders; Talk Radio;
Angels was founded in 1979 by Curtis Sliwa, a night- Vigilantism.
shift McDonald’s manager concerned about the crime
problem in New York City at a time when fiscal crisis Further Reading
required the city to cut the police force by one-third. With Guardian Angels Web site. www.guardianangels.org.
headquarters in the Hell’s Kitchen section of the city, Kadetsky, Elizabeth. “Racial Politics in New York.” Nation,
the thirteen founding members began patrolling Times November 30, 1992.
Square and a subway route known as “Muggers’ Express.” Pennell, Susan, Christine Curtis, and Joel Henderson. Guardian
In less than three decades, chapters of the Guardian Angels: An Assessment of Citizen Response to Crime. Vols. 1 and
Angels spread to fifteen states, as well as Canada, Puerto 2. San Diego, CA: San Diego Association of Government,
Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Brazil, England, Poland, 1985.
South Africa, and Japan. Early on, New York City
mayor Edward I. Koch dismissed the Guardian Angels
as vigilantes; many still do. Liberal critics have argued Gun Control
that the group diverts attention from the root causes of Passions run deep on the issue of gun control, indicating
crime: poverty and racism. Others see the organization as highly distinct and conflicting attitudes toward firearms
promoting safe neighborhoods and empowering citizens in American culture.
to take control of their environments; “Dare to Care” is The term “gun control” refers to any government
one of the group’s mottos. policy limiting the ownership and use of firearms. Gun
Often described as a paramilitary organization, pos- control policies can restrict the types of weapons and
sibly because of the red berets and jackets its members accessories that private individuals may legally possess
wear while on duty, the Guardian Angels is known for its or own. Such policies may prohibit firearm ownership
no-weapons policy. Although members on patrol do carry to those who are below a minimum age, have been con-
handcuffs for making citizen’s arrests when necessary, victed of a felony, or have been diagnosed with a mental
members try to avoid confrontation whenever possible disorder. Gun regulations also may restrict ownership of
and to resolve conflicts peacefully. Angels are trained in certain types of weapons and ammunition, from machine
CPR and first aid; self-defense tactics; and local, state, and guns and sawed-off shotguns to armor-piercing rounds
federal crime laws. The organization takes a grassroots ap- and hollow-point bullets. Another form of gun control,
proach to fighting crime by recruiting blacks, Hispanics, involving safety requirements, may include mandating
and whites, reflecting the racial composition of the neigh- proper storage of guns and trigger safety locks.
borhoods patrolled. In the 1990s, with the city’s crime Gun rights advocates object to almost every form
rate down and interest in the group waning, the Guardian of gun control, believing that the Second Amendment
Angels formed an Education Academy, offering seminars to the U.S. Constitution will otherwise be put at risk.
to schools and youth organizations on violence preven- That amendment reads, “A well-regulated Militia, being
tion, antibullying, gang recognition, Internet safety, and necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the
cultural diversity. In 1994, Sliwa formed CyberAngels, people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
one of the earliest online groups devoted to combating sex Whereas supporters of gun rights emphasize the latter
offenders who target children and teenagers. part of the amendment (arguing that it favors guns for
232 Gun Control
the 230 million or more firearms in the United States

and the more than 30,000 shooting deaths annually.
More than 80 percent of child gun fatalities worldwide
occur in America.
In the twentieth century, the use of firearms in
criminal activity presented a major rationale for limit-
ing ownership of firearms. The New York State Legis-
lature passed the Sullivan Dangerous Weapons Act in
1911, making it a felony to carry a concealed weapon in
public. In 1934, the U.S. Congress passed the National
Firearms Act, which limited the ownership of machine
guns and sawed-off shotguns, considered uniquely
suited for criminal activity. The Federal Firearms Act
of 1938 required firearms manufacturers, dealers, and
importers to obtain a license, and it prohibited the pos-
session of firearms by fugitives from justice as well as
anyone convicted of a felony. However, the law did not
require dealers to confirm that purchasers were eligible
to own a firearm.
Spurred by the assassinations of civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy,
Gun control activists Jim and Sarah Brady (right) visit the Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968. This law
White House in November 1993 for the signing of the Brady prohibited the interstate shipment of pistols to private
Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The law required a criminal individuals and provided for additional punishment for
background check on any prospective purchaser of a firearm. those convicted of using a firearm while violating a federal
(Dirck Halstead/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
law. However, firearms dealers still were not required to
check purchasers for possible past criminal activity.
private defense), those on the other side of the debate In the 1990s, James Brady, the former press secretary
emphasize the former part about the militia (arguing that to Ronald Reagan, who had been seriously wounded in
it favors guns for public defense). In District of Columbia a 1981 assassination attempt on the president, emerged
v. Heller (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that as a strong advocate of gun control, along with his wife,
the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right Sarah. Congress in 1993 passed the Brady Handgun Vio-
to possess firearms. This case, which overturned part of lence Prevention Act, which established the enforcement
a District of Columbia’s gun control ordinance, repre- mechanism that previous legislation lacked. The new law
sented the first time the Court made an interpretation initially mandated a five-day waiting period to allow local
on the Second Amendment. (This split decision will law enforcement agencies to run background checks on
undoubtedly remain controversial for years to come, as potential purchasers of firearms to check for any history
shortly afterwards two prominent conservative federal of criminality or mental instability. Although the U.S.
judges—Richard A. Posner and J. Harvey Wilkinson Supreme Court in Printz v. United States (1997) struck
III—argued that the ruling was ideologically motivated down the law’s requirement that local law enforcement
and represented judicial activism.) officers conduct background checks, by November 1998,
Supporters of gun control argue that firearms re- the national government had established a computerized
strictions are reasonable measures that reduce injury instant check system that bypassed reliance on local law
and death. Gun rights advocates view gun control as enforcement agencies.
the objective of extremists who wish to trample upon Gun rights groups, fearing that the instant-check
the Second Amendment. In an April 2006 article in process would lead to a de facto gun registration system,
American Rifleman, the magazine of the National Rifle insisted on a policy mandating that records of checks be
Association (NRA), James O.E. Norell writes that gun destroyed within twenty-four hours. Gun control advo-
control “in all its forms represents a loss of basic human cates responded that such a policy threatened national
dignity, and in its ultimate form—civil disarmament— security because it prevented officials from comparing
it represents the loss of the most fundamental human gun sales with terrorist watch lists.
right of all—self defense.” In contrast, groups such as In 1994, a Democratic-controlled Congress and a
the Children’s Defense Fund, Coalition to Stop Gun Democratic president, Bill Clinton, enacted an assault
Violence, and Mothers Against Violence view gun con- weapons ban. This legislation prohibited the sale to the
trol measures as necessary for public safety because of public of nineteen types of weapons and several replica
Guthr ie, Woody, and A rlo Guthr ie 233
models thought to be designed primarily for military G u t h r i e , Wo o d y, a n d A r l o

and law enforcement use. Gun rights interests thereafter Guthrie
devoted their energies and resources to campaigning for
Singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie, an icon of
the election of state and national officials friendly to their
American folk music, was born Woodrow Wilson
cause. In 2004, a Republican-controlled Congress and
Guthrie on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma. He
a Republican president, George W. Bush, declined to
is best known for “This Land Is Your Land” (1940), a
renew the assault weapons ban.
song he wrote in response to Irving Berlin’s “America
In addition, gun rights groups have persuaded
the Beautiful” (1938). The final verses are often
many states to enact right-to-carry laws, which limit
deleted from school texts and recordings because they
the authority of government officials to restrict the right
condemn private property and disparities of wealth in
of individuals to carry concealed weapons. Concerned
the United States:
about lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, gun
rights interests successfully lobbied Congress to pass the In the squares of the city—in the shadow of the steeple
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005), Near the relief office—I see my people.
which prohibits lawsuits against firearms manufactur- And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
ers and retailers consequent to the criminal use of their If this land’s still made for you and me.
products.
Researchers such as David Hemenway, profes- Other popular Guthrie songs are “Union Maid” (1940),
sor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public “Pastures of Plenty” (1941), “Roll On Columbia, Roll
Health, have focused on firearms as a consumer safety On” (1941), and “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)”
and health issue that public officials must address. (1948).
Noting the large number of people around the world During his adult life, Guthrie lived in Texas, Cali-
who are killed and injured every year by firearms, gun fornia, and New York and spent a great deal of time on
control advocates emphasize the dangers of the illegal the road. While living in New York City, he performed
firearms trade and advocate international limitations. with Pete Seeger, the Almanac Singers, and several other
Countering the call for increased control of the inter- musicians who fueled the folk music revival of the 1960s.
national arms trade, Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive Guthrie recorded his work with the help of folklorist
vice president, calls on gun rights supporters to oppose Alan Lomax, including the classic compilation Dust Bowl
what he considers the United Nations’ goal of banning Ballads (RCA Victor, 1940).
private ownership of firearms. The future of gun control In addition to composing songs—mainly lyrics to
policies depends on the persuasiveness of each side in existing melodies—Guthrie was also a prolific writer of
the debate as well as the relative political influence of prose. His “Woody Sez” columns, beginning in 1939, were
pro-gun and pro-control groups. popular fare in the leftist newspapers the Daily Worker and
People’s World. In 1943, he published his autobiography,
Glenn H. Utter Bound for Glory. Like many of his songs, his writings reflect
the concerns of the working class. Guthrie’s more radical
See also: Conspiracy Theories; Kennedy Family; King, Martin and socialist associations are often glossed over, recasting
Luther, Jr.; Militia Movement; National Rifle Association; his image as a less complex, pastoral patriot.
School Shootings; United Nations; Vigilantism. By the late 1940s, Guthrie was showing obvious
signs of Huntington’s Disease, a degenerative neurologi-
Further Reading cal disorder that required him to spend the final eleven
Diaz, Tom. Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America. years of his life in psychiatric institutions. He died on
New York: New Press, 1999. October 4, 1967, but not before witnessing the counter-
Hemenway, David. Private Guns, Public Health. Ann Arbor: culture’s folk revival that he helped inspire. His influence
University of Michigan Press, 2004. extended to performers such as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan,
LaPierre, Wayne. The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N. Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, and countless other musi-
Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights. Nashville, TN: Thomas cians of his and subsequent generations.
Nelson, 2006. In 1956, Woody wrote a song called “Goodnight,
Posner, Richard. “In Defense of Looseness.” New Republic, Au- Little Arlo” for his nine-year-old son. Born on July 10,
gust 27, 2008. 1947, in New York City, Arlo Guthrie became a popular
Rosenthal, Beth, ed. Gun Control. Farmington Hills, MI: Green- folk singer in his own right. He is best known for the hit
haven Press, 2007. “Alice’s Restaurant” (1967), an eighteen-minute talking
Wilson, Harry L. Guns, Gun Control, and Elections: The Politics blues song satirizing the Vietnam War and the military
and Policy of Firearms. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Little- draft. A movie version, in which Arlo played himself,
field, 2007. was released in 1969.
23 4 Guthr ie, Woody, and A rlo Guthr ie
The younger Guthrie performed at the Woodstock Further Reading

Music and Art Fair in August 1969, popularized Steve Cray, Ed. Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie.
Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” (1970), and collabo- New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.
rated extensively with Pete Seeger. In 1991, Arlo founded Garman, Bryan. A Race of Singers: Whitman’s Working-Class Hero
the Guthrie Center, an interfaith meeting center in Great from Guthrie to Springsteen. Chapel Hill: University of North
Barrington, Massachusetts. He continues to compose and Carolina Press, 2000.
perform, occasionally taking the stage with his daughter, Jackson, Mark Allan. “Is This Your Song Anymore? Revision-
Sarah Lee Guthrie. ing Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land.’” American
Mark Pedelty Music 20 (2002): 249–76.
Klein, Joe. Woody Guthrie: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
See also: Baez, Joan; Communists and Communism; Counter- 1980.
culture; Dylan, Bob; Labor Unions; Migrant Labor; Revision- Santelli, Robert, and Emily Davidson, eds. Hard Travelin’: The
ist History; Seeger, Pete; Springsteen, Bruce; Vietnam War; Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan
War Protesters; Wealth Gap. University Press, 1999.
Queen: The Story of an American Family (1993), based on
the life of Haley’s paternal grandmother. Queen, which
was co-authored with David Stevens, also became a televi-
sion miniseries, airing in 1993. Haley died on February
10, 1992, and is buried at his grandfather’s home site in
H a l ey, A l e x Henning, Tennessee, now the Alex Haley State Historic
African-American writer Alex Haley is best known for his Site and Museum.
book Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) and the Susan Pearce
popular Roots television miniseries (1977 and 1979) that
it inspired. Haley focused on black identity in American See also: Afrocentrism; Angelou, Maya; Civil Rights Move-
culture, affirming black pride while communicating to ment; Lee, Spike; Malcolm X; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
a general audience the legacies, struggles, and hopes of Studies; Muslim Americans; Nation of Islam; Revisionist
a people whose ancestors were slaves of African origin. History.
His works offered history from a black perspective and
stimulated debate on race relations. Further Reading
Alex Palmer Haley was born on August 11, 1921, Ferris, William R. “Alex Haley: Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1989.”
in Ithaca, New York, and grew up in Henning, Ten- Southern Cultures 14:3 (Fall 2008): 6–25.
nessee. After graduating from high school at age fifteen Gonzalez, Doreen. Alex Haley: Author of Roots. Hillside, NJ:
and studying briefly at Elizabeth City Teachers College Enslow, 1994.
in North Carolina (1937–1939), he served for twenty Haley, Alex. Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Garden City,
years in the U.S. Coast Guard (1939–1959), largely as NY: Doubleday, 1976.
a journalist. After his retirement as chief petty officer, Shirley, David. Alex Haley. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.
Haley worked as a full-time freelance writer, becom-
ing known for interviews that he conducted for Playboy
magazine. His interview with Malcolm X of the Nation Hall, Gus
of Islam became the basis of the best-selling and broadly Gus Hall was general secretary of the Communist Party
influential The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), which of the United States of America (CPUSA) from 1959
explained radical black politics in the context of Islam until his death on October 13, 2000. Eulogies in the
and showed how it contrasted with the tamer Christian mainstream media praised Hall’s idealism and tenacity
civil rights movement. to a lost and much vilified cause.
Continuing with his theme of black identity, Haley’s Born Arvo Kusta Halberg on October 8, 1910, in the
Roots was a novel based on stories about his own family Mesabi Iron Range of Minnesota, Hall grew up with radi-
that he had heard as a child and on subsequent research cal viewpoints instilled in him by his Finnish-immigrant
into his mother’s ancestry. The research led him to the parents. Hall, who at the urging of his father joined the
village of Juffure in Gambia, West Africa, where an oral CPUSA in 1927, studied at the Lenin Institute in Moscow
historian told him about the tribe of Kunta Kinte, Haley’s (1931–1933), a prestigious institution among leftists at
ancestor who had been taken into slavery at age sixteen. the time, where promising party members from foreign
Haley labeled Roots a work of “faction” for its mix of nations, especially developing ones, were trained in Soviet
fact and fiction. Within six months, the book sold more ideology, propaganda, and revolutionary struggle. (Many
than 1.6 million copies and won a National Book Award Vietnamese and Chinese communist leaders, for instance,
(1976) and a Pulitzer Prize (1977). The twelve-hour 1977 studied at the Lenin Institute during the first half of the
television miniseries on ABC captured an audience of 130 twentieth century.)
million, setting television viewing records. Roots: The Next Neither an inspiring speaker nor an original theorist,
Generations, a fourteen-hour sequel, aired in 1979. Hall was a strong union organizer who helped found the
Haley’s work inspired millions of Americans, both Steel Workers Organizing Committee and led the 1937
black and white, to research their family’s genealogy. It “Little Steel” strike in Warren and Youngstown, Ohio,
also fostered scholarly interest in the “Middle Passage,” contributing to the formation of the United Steelworkers
the crossing of slaves from Africa to the Americas, and of America in 1942. But the involvement of American
the preservation of culture in the African diaspora. communists like Hall was used by the business sector and
Haley’s reputation was sullied in 1978 after he the political right to discredit the labor movement.
admitted that Roots contained some unintentionally Hall was a machinist in the U.S. Navy during World
plagiarized passages from Harold Courlander’s novel The War II. In 1949, he and other party leaders (including
African (1968). He went on to produce other works of Eugene Dennis, William Z. Foster, and Benjamin Davis)
historical fiction, including A Different Kind of Christmas were prosecuted under the Alien Registration Act of 1940,
(1988), which chronicled the Underground Railroad, and popularly known as the Smith Act, which made it illegal
235
23 6 Hall , Gu s
for anyone in the United States to belong to a group advo- Hargis, Billy
cating the overthrow of the government. The trial resulted An archconservative evangelist and outspoken anti
in a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Dennis v. U.S. (1951), communist, Billy James Hargis railed against racial
that criminalized mere membership in the Communist integration and sex education while calling for the return
Party or any related organization. After briefly fleeing to of prayer and Bible studies in public schools. A precursor
Mexico, Hall was imprisoned for eight years. of televangelism, he helped pioneer the use of electronic
Hall helped rebuild the CPUSA after its decimation media in the 1950s. At the peak of his career, his
during the McCarthyism of the 1950s. From 1971 to impassioned attacks against “communism and its godless
1990 he reportedly received $40 million in support from allies” could be heard over 250 television stations and
the Soviet Union. He ran for U.S. president as the Com- 500 radio stations. His words reached millions of mostly
munist Party candidate on five occasions (1968, 1972, rural Americans, whom he called “lonely patriots.” Yet
1976, 1980, and 1984), with the black activist Angela his work would be overshadowed by a sex scandal.
Davis as his running mate in the last two campaigns. His Born on August 3, 1925, in Texarkana, Texas, Hargis
election totals proved dismal, however, peaking in 1976 was ordained through the Disciples of Christ at age sev-
at 58,992 votes. Ideology notwithstanding, Hall’s candi- enteen and began what would be a flamboyant ministry.
dacies suffered the problem of all third-party candidates, Steeped in the Red Scare of the 1950s, Hargis used his
failing to earn a place on the ballot in many states. pulpit as a political stump. He urged followers to support
Dogmatically Stalinist and unwilling to adapt to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist campaign,
changing political circumstances—such as the rise of and in 1953 he released over communist bloc countries
independent revolutionary movements in the developing hydrogen balloons inscribed with biblical quotations.
world and more nuanced attempts to reinvigorate domes- Hargis also organized the David Livingstone Mission-
tic leftist politics by young people disenchanted with the ary Foundation, which built hospitals and orphanages
establishment—Hall tried unsuccessfully to build alliances around the world, and created the Christian Crusade, an
with the New Left during the 1960s. This hurt the cred- interdenominational, anticommunist organization.
ibility of some New Left leaders, leading to upheaval in the His mixing of politics with religion led the Inter-
CPUSA itself in 1991, when progressive members like An- nal Revenue Service to revoke his tax-exempt status in
gela Davis and Herbert Aptheker, tired of chafing under the the early 1960s. Hargis continued to draw controversy,
CPUSA’s Stalinist culture and its disreputable reputation, claiming that John F. Kennedy’s assassination had been
broke ranks to form the Committees of Correspondence, an a communist plot. He also attacked feminists, homo-
alternative political party to the CPUSA that emphasized sexuals, and rock-and-roll music in his fiery, “bawl and
ideological pluralism and multiculturalism. jump” sermons.
Although he never achieved mainstream acceptance, In 1964, Hargis impugned the credentials of a journal-
Hall in the decades prior to his death was a frequent ist who had written a piece critical of Republican presi-
campus speaker and talk show guest. He was awarded dential candidate Barry Goldwater. The reporter asked the
the Order of Lenin in 1959 by the Soviet Union, and broadcasters for airtime to rebut Hargis but was refused.
in 1981 he was invited to address the party congress of In Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC (1969), the U.S. Supreme
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His books Court sided with the reporter, upholding the equal-time
include Imperialism Today (1972), Karl Marx: Beacon for allowance and codifying the Fairness Doctrine.
Our Times (1983), and Fighting Racism (1985). In 1971, Hargis founded the American Christian
College (ACC) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Then in 1976, two
Omar Swartz students there, one male and one female, claimed that
they had had sexual relations with Hargis. Although he
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; Communists denied the charges, he was forced out as president of the
and Communism; Hoover, J. Edgar; Labor Unions; Marxism; college and receded into relative obscurity. He relocated
McCarthyism; New Left; Revisionist History; Soviet Union to Neosho, Missouri, where he continued to preach in
and Russia; Vietnam War. person and over the airwaves, publishing a newspaper, the
Christian Crusade, and writing several books. The college
Further Reading closed in 1978. Hargis died on November 27, 2004, at
“Gus Hall.” Economist, October 28, 2000. a Tulsa nursing home.
Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr. In Denial: Historians, Daniel Melendrez
Communism, and Espionage. San Francisco: Encounter Books,
2005. See also: Christian Radio; Civil Rights Movement; Cold War;
Navasky, Victor. “Cold War Ghosts.” Nation, July 16, 2001. Communists and Communism; Evangelicalism; Federal Com-
Nehaus, Richard John. “Amused by Evil.” First Things: A munications Commission; Fundamentalism, Religious; Mc
Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, January 2001. Carthy, Joseph; Religious Right; School Prayer; Sex Education.
Har t , Gar y 237
Further Reading (DSA), which he co-chaired from 1982 to 1989, played

Andrew, John A., III. Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the significant roles in Democratic Party politics. During the
IRS from Kennedy to Nixon. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002. 1980s and 1990s, however, centrist Democrats, such as
“Billy James Hargis.” Economist, December 18, 2004. the Democratic Leadership Council, sought to move the
Jorstad, Erling. The Politics of Doomsday: Fundamentalists of the Democratic Party away from the influence of progressive
Far Right. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1970. “special interests” such as those represented by DSA.
Redekop, John Harold. The American Far Right: A Case Study Despite Harrington’s career as a political speaker
of Billy James Hargis and Christian Crusade. Grand Rapids, and organizer, his visibility among most Americans
MI: Erdmans, 1968. resulted from the influence of The Other America. The
book reminded “the affluent society” that large seg-
ments of the nation, rural and urban, had not benefited
Harr ing ton, Michael from the postwar economic boom. Harrington argued
The American socialist Michael Harrington took an that the lot of the poor in America was not a result of
active role in what became the culture wars on two laziness or moral failure, but an expression of a “culture
fronts. On the one hand, he contributed mightily to of poverty”—a societal, mutually reinforcing “web of
efforts to bridge the gap in the 1960s and 1970s between disabilities” that made it difficult if not impossible for
the “old left,” who came of age in the depression and the poor to lift themselves out of their destitution. Dur-
World War II era, and the “new left,” made up of ing the 1970s, Harrington labeled former leftists such
younger civil rights and anti–Vietnam War radicals, as Nathan Glazer and Irving Kristol “neoconservatives”
and to develop a coherent American socialist vision and for joining the political right in blaming government
agenda. On the other hand, beyond his leftist politics, programs for undermining individual responsibility
Harrington’s book The Other America (1962) shook necessary for overcoming poverty.
American consciousness by calling attention to the Harrington saw capitalism as being only in its
depth and breadth of American poverty, and is credited developing stages, and cautioned that the inculcation
with motivating President Lyndon Johnson’s War on of socialist humanist values in American society was a
Poverty programs. task for the long haul. His last book, Socialism: Past and
Born in St. Louis on February 24, 1928, Edward Future (1989), encourages commitment to a “visionary
Michael Harrington attended Holy Cross College (AB, gradualism” rather than faith in romantic overnight
1947), Yale Law School (1947–1948), and the University revolution.
of Chicago (MA, 1949). He worked for two years edit- Steve Young
ing Dorothy Day’s radical Catholic Worker newspaper
(1951–1953), but then left Catholicism and adopted See also: Democratic Party; Ehrenreich, Barbara; Great Soci-
a socialist creed of the stripe advocated by anti-Soviet ety; Hayden, Tom; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Kristol, Irving, and
social democrat Max Shachtman, committed to rigorous Bill Kristol; Labor Unions; Neoconservatism; New Left; So-
Marxist analysis but remaining democratic, reformist, viet Union and Russia; Students for a Democratic Society;
and vigorously anticommunist. Harrington was a re- War on Poverty.
searcher and consultant for the Fund for the Republic
(1954–1989); editor of New America (1961–1962); and Further Reading
a professor of political science at Queens College of the Gorman, Robert A. Michael Harrington: Speaking American. New
City University of New York (1972–1989). He died of York: Routledge, 1995.
cancer on July 31, 1989. Harrington, Michael. The Next Left: The History of a Future. New
Harrington fostered the vision that socialists could York: Henry Holt, 1986.
join liberals to work within the Democratic Party and ———. The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New
avoid the notorious ideological fragmentation that char- York: Macmillan, 1962.
acterized old-left politics. Harrington’s negative reaction Isserman, Maurice. The Other American: The Life of Michael Har-
to the Students for a Democratic Society’s founding Port rington. New York: Public Affairs, 2000.
Huron Statement in 1962 led to bad blood between the
two generations of radicals, which Harrington deeply
regretted. Additionally, Harrington’s classical socialist Hart, Gary
focus on class analysis delayed his awareness of the role the A former U.S. senator from Colorado, Gary Hart is
antiwar, women’s, and gay rights movements would play perhaps best remembered for the sex scandal that ended
in the American political left of the late twentieth century. his career in elective politics in 1987. Born Gary Warren
Nonetheless, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Com- Hartpence on November 28, 1936, in Ottawa, Kansas,
mittee (DSOC), which he founded and chaired from 1973 he studied at Bethany Nazarene College (BA, 1958) and
to 1982, as well as the Democratic Socialists of America Yale University (BD, 1961; JD, 1964), changing his
23 8 Har t , Gar y
last name to Hart in 1961. After working as an attorney of Our Convictions: A Manifesto for Democrats (2006)—and
at the Department of Justice and the Department of the late in life completed a doctorate in politics at Oxford
Interior (1964–1967), he entered private law practice in University (2001). Since 2006 he has taught at the Uni-
Denver, Colorado. versity of Colorado.
Hart served as campaign manager for Democratic Benjamin W. Cramer
presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972,
revolutionizing primary election strategy by focusing See also: Clinton, Bill; Clinton Impeachment; Democratic
on the formerly unimportant Iowa caucuses. A successful Party; Dukakis, Michael; McGovern, George; Media Bias;
showing there gave McGovern the momentum to win the Mondale; Walter; Reagan, Ronald; September 11.
Democratic nomination, though he would lose to Richard
M. Nixon in the general election that November. Every Further Reading
successful Democratic campaign since 1972 has invested Blake, R. Roy. The Gary Hart Set-Up. Aurora, CO: Laramide,
considerable time and money in Iowa. 1992.
Hart was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974 and Buckley, William F., Jr., “Hart’s Problem & Ours.” National
reelected in 1980. In February 1983, he announced his Review, June 5, 1987.
intention to run for president of the United States. He Hart, Gary. The Good Fight: The Education of an American Reformer.
began the campaign with little name recognition but New York: Random House, 1993.
became a serious contender behind the Democratic front ———. Right from the Start: A Chronicle of the McGovern Cam-
runner, former vice president Walter Mondale, by using paign. New York: Quadrangle, 1973.
the strategies that he had developed with McGovern. Hart Von Hoffman, Nicholas. “Should the Press Play Vice Cop?”
won several important primaries in 1984 but eventually Nation, June 20, 1987.
lost the party nomination to Mondale, who in turn was
defeated by incumbent President Ronald Reagan.
When Hart began his campaign for the next presi- H a r vey, P a u l
dential election, he was acknowledged as the Democratic Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, a social conservative,
front runner but was beset by rumors of an extramarital constructed his programs around news commentary,
affair. Hart denied the allegations and challenged the morality tales, history, and a general celebration of the
press to follow him around. Two reporters from the Mi- United States.
ami Herald accepted the dare, and in early May 1987 the Born Paul Harvey Aurandt in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on
paper published a story that a young woman had been September 4, 1918, he described his upbringing as “pre-
seen leaving Hart’s Washington residence. The candidate ponderantly conservative.” Introduced to radio in high
denied wrongdoing, but the paper then reported that he school, Harvey spent a year at the University of Tulsa
had been seen carousing on a sailboat called Monkey Busi- before dropping out.
ness with model Donna Rice. Photos of the two together Moving to St. Louis in 1939, Harvey met his future
were subsequently published in the National Enquirer. wife, collaborator, and business manager, Lynne “Angel”
Less than a week after the story surfaced in the press, Cooper, while both worked at KXOK-AM. Married in
Hart dropped out of the race. He returned to the cam- 1940, they moved in 1944 to Chicago, where, at WENR-
paign trail in December, criticizing the media for its focus AM, the couple created Paul Harvey News. With his posi-
on scandal rather than on substantive issues. But after tive ratings, the American Broadcast Company (ABC)
poor showings in the primaries, he dropped out again the syndicated Harvey in 1951. The show was eventually
following spring. The Democratic nomination eventually retitled Paul Harvey News and Comment. Harvey’s son,
went to Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Paul, joined in 1976 to write The Rest of the Story.
Hart resumed his legal practice and remained ac- In the mid-1970s, the daily morning and midday
tive in political circles as a policy expert on terrorism programs (five and fifteen minutes, respectively) had
and defense. In 1998, he was appointed by President around 4 million listeners. By 2002, the ABC show
Bill Clinton to the bipartisan National Committee on numbered 1,100 station affiliates and 18 million listeners
Terrorism, commonly referred to as the Hart-Rudman and was broadcast on 400 Armed Forces Radio Network
Committee. The body issued a number of important stations. Harvey also produced a syndicated column and
recommendations on homeland security, not taken seri- television program. The column ran from 1955 to 1996
ously by policymakers until after the terrorist attacks of and at its height was printed in 300 newspapers. The
September 11, 2001. Hart has written numerous books— Radio Hall of Fame inducted Harvey in 1990, and later
including The Minuteman: Restoring an Army of the People his wife (1997) and son (2002).
(1998), Restoration of the Republic: The Jeffersonian Ideal in Emphasizing his program’s commentary nature,
21st-Century America (2002), God and Caesar in America: Harvey once said, “It just seems more honest to me not
An Essay on Religion and Politics (2005), and The Courage to pretend objectivity.” The show’s human interest stories
Hate Cr imes 23 9
focused on news oddities, social science findings, history, Hate or bias crimes refer to criminal acts in which
trivia, and health care. Harvey’s opening and sign-off were the victim is targeted because of his or her affiliation in
well known: “Hello America. This is Paul Harvey. Stand a particular social group. Although hate crimes often
by . . . for news” and “Good day,” respectively. conjure up images of the most highly publicized acts of
Initially, Harvey displayed an interest in far-right violence, the vast majority of hate crimes involve common
issues, identifying with anticommunists like Senator Jo- forms of criminal victimization, ranging from vandal-
seph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. In the early 1950s, ism and harassment to more serious forms of assault and
he climbed the Argonne National Laboratory’s fence battery. The concept of hate crime implies that offenses
to demonstrate lax security, and he blasted New York motivated by bias toward the victim’s social group are
City’s immorality and crude media programs. By the qualitatively distinct from nonbias crimes. According to
early 1970s, however, he had mellowed into a moderate the FBI, in 2007 there were 7,624 hate crimes committed
conservative. Although an early Vietnam War hawk, he nationwide—of those, 51 percent pertained to race and
eventually opposed the war (his son was a conscientious another 15 percent to sexual orientation.
objector). Harvey famously condemned President Richard The legal precedent for modern U.S. hate crime
M. Nixon on Vietnam in 1970, stating, “Mr. President, laws can be traced to post–Civil War legislative efforts
I love you—but you are wrong!” to protect the civil rights of newly freed slaves. Many
In the 1980s, Harvey’s moderation included sup- argued that these laws provided insufficient protection for
porting the Equal Rights Amendment and opposing U.S. minorities. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, civil rights
involvement in El Salvador. But Harvey’s disdain for wel- groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith
fare and suspicion of labor unions correlated with that of and the Southern Poverty Law Center lobbied states and
Reagan Republicans. In 2005, President George W. Bush the U.S. Congress to enact specific laws to prosecute of-
awarded Harvey the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Paul fenders who engage in bias-motivated crime.
Harvey died on February 28, 2009. A majority of states eventually adopted some form
Tim Lacy of hate crime legislation. Some laws increase the penalty
for crimes—sometimes quite substantially—if a bias
See also: Cold War; Equal Rights Amendment; Labor Unions; motive is established. Others create an additional crime
Limbaugh, Rush; McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; Media for which an offender can be convicted in conjunction
Bias; Nixon, Richard; Talk Radio; Vietnam War; Welfare with the underlying criminal offense. The laws mean
Reform. that offenders face more severe punishment for commit-
ting hate crimes than similar nonbias crimes. Although
Further Reading lobbying efforts have been less successful at the federal
DiSanto, Joseph. “A Lover’s Quarrel with Ronald Reagan.” level, Congress did pass the Hate Crime Statistics Act
National Review, February 24, 1984. in 1990, mandating the attorney general to collect data
Hall, Lee. “The Rest of the Story.” Electronic Media, June 8, on crimes motivated by prejudice.
1998. Despite the rapid success of state hate crime legis-
Harvey, Paul, Jr., ed. Paul Harvey’s for What It’s Worth. New lation, few laws have generated such polarized debate.
York: Bantam Books, 1991. Although individual incidents may stir controversy,
Kogan, Rick. “Good Days for Paul Harvey.” Chicago Tribune most of the disagreement centers on whether there is a
Magazine, August 4, 2002. need for specific hate crime legislation above and beyond
existing criminal law. Compelling arguments have been
presented on both sides.
Hate Cr imes Proponents of hate crime legislation argue that hate
In June 1998, a forty-nine-year-old African American crimes deserve special distinction from nonbias crimes
named James Byrd, Jr., was dragged to his death behind because they have especially pernicious consequences.
the truck of three white men in Jasper, Texas. In October Hate crimes, it is argued, cause greater physical and psy-
of that same year, Matthew Shepard, a twenty-two-year- chological harm to individuals. Furthermore, hate crimes
old gay college student, was brutally murdered by two are said to send a message of intolerance to the victim’s
white young men near Laramie, Wyoming. After the social group, thereby targeting whole communities rather
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, reports of anti- than just individual victims. Proponents further argue
Muslim and anti-Arab attacks increased dramatically that such crimes have the potential to exacerbate long-
in cities across the United States. These incidents, and standing intergroup tensions and divisions in society
countless others like them, are examples of a specific and to provoke retaliatory unrest among groups. They
kind of criminal offense called “hate crime.” This special also contend that the harm of hate crime is compounded
categorization has been a point of contention in the by historical legacies of violence and discrimination
culture wars. against marginalized groups, sometimes at the hands
24 0 Hate Cr imes
of law enforcement. Supporters hope that hate crime See also: Anti-Semitism; Diversity Training; Helms, Jesse;
legislation will help deter potential offenders and send a Human Rights; Judicial Wars; Lynching; Multiculturalism
strong message that violence against minority groups is and Ethnic Studies; Muslim Americans; Political Correctness;
no longer tolerated. Race; Shepard, Matthew; White Supremacists.
Opponents take issue with all of these claims. They
argue that distinguishing a hate crime from an otherwise Further Reading
similar crime is a subjective exercise. The very founda- Gerstenfeld, Phyllis B. Hate Crimes: Causes, Controls, and Con-
tions of the concept of hate crime, they contend, are dubi- troversies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004.
ous. Furthermore, critics assert that hate crime laws are Iganski, Paul. The Hate Debate: Should Hate Be Punished as a
impractically ambiguous and unnecessary given existing Crime? London: Profile Books, 2002.
laws. In light of what many view as an already excessively Jacobs, James, and Kimberly Potter. Hate Crimes: Criminal
punitive criminal justice system, some question the ad- Law and Identity Politics. New York: Cambridge University
ditional deterrent value of punishing hate crimes more Press, 1998.
than conventional crimes. Jenness, Valerie, and Ryken Grattet. Making Hate a Crime: From
Perhaps the most serious challenges to hate crime Social Movement to Law Enforcement. New York: Russell Sage
laws are made on constitutional grounds. Some argue that Foundation, 2001.
the laws violate the First Amendment, which guarantees Levin, Brian. “From Slavery to Hate Crime Laws: The Emer-
freedom of thought, including the freedom to hold and gence of Race and Status-Based Protection in American
express prejudiced beliefs. Prosecution for most laws re- Criminal Law.” Journal of Social Issues 58 (2002): 227–45.
quires establishing criminal intent, and hate crime laws
require proof of an additional element—a bias motive or
prejudice against the victim’s social group. Numerous H a u e r w a s , S t a n l ey
scholars and at least two state supreme courts have argued Explaining its choice of Stanley Hauerwas as “America’s
that because prejudiced beliefs separate hate crimes from Best Theologian” in 2001, Time magazine described
nonbias crimes, punishing the former more severely than the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at
the latter amounts to punishing thought, in violation of Duke University as “contemporary theology’s foremost
the Constitution. Others argue that hate crime laws also intellectual provocateur.” Indeed, his impolite questions
violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth and acerbic arguments have enabled Hauerwas to irritate
Amendment because they give special protection to liberals and conservatives alike on issues ranging from
certain groups and not others. foreign policy, social theory, and medicine to history,
Although many critics and judges continue to debate sexuality, and literary criticism. Tying these disparate
hate crime laws, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993 upheld forays together, however, is Hauerwas’s principal query:
their constitutionality in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, arguing “How do Christian disciples faithfully practice their
that such laws punish behavior, not thoughts. Like other scandalous vocation in the midst of unavoidably hostile
relatively new legal constructs, the concept of hate crime cultures?”
has become less ambiguous as judges converge around Born on July 24, 1940, into a working-class Meth-
common interpretations and responses to constitutional odist family in Dallas, Texas, Stanley Martin Hauerwas
challenges. as an adolescent learned the bricklaying trade from his
Even where hate crime laws are deemed necessary and father. After religious studies at Southwestern Uni-
constitutional, proponents often disagree on which groups versity (BA, 1962) and Yale University (BD, 1965;
should be protected. All hate crime laws enumerate race, PhD, 1968), he immediately began his teaching career
ethnicity, and religion as protected constituencies; fewer at Augustana College. In 1970, he joined the ethics
laws cover groups defined by such variables as sexual faculty of Notre Dame University. Around this time
orientation, gender, disability, political orientation, and he also encountered the work of the Mennonite biblical
age. Debates surrounding sexual orientation and gender scholar and ethicist John Howard Yoder, who chal-
are perhaps the most contentious. For example, when lenged Hauerwas to wrestle with the “nonviolent Jesus.”
Congress considered hate crime legislation, conservative Since 1984, Hauerwas has served on the faculty of Duke
Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) warned that including gays University. In 2001, he served as the Gifford Lecturer
and lesbians would put the government on a slippery at Scotland’s St. Andrews University—the first time in
slope toward “condoning” homosexuality. Others claimed forty years that an American theologian held that honor.
that failure to include some categories in legislation while His essay collections include Visions and Virtue (1974)
excluding others sends an implicit message that violence and A Better Hope (2000).
against certain classes of people is tolerable. Although the culture wars often pit liberals against
conservatives in a two-hued contest, Hauerwas represents
Christopher J. Lyons a third alternative as a radical. Like members of the
Hay, Har r y 241
sixteenth-century Radical Reformation (or Anabaptists), cident at a copper mine in Chile, the family moved to
historic radicals seek neither to conserve nor to improve California in 1919. Hay was raised as a Catholic and
the cultural norm, but to return to the radix, or root, attended Stanford University (1930–1932) before drop-
for their exclusive authority. Because cultural standards ping out due to financial hardship. In the succeeding
bear no authority for Christians, Hauerwas argues, dis- years, he performed in Hollywood plays; had affairs with
ciples commit to lives as “resident aliens” or “pilgrims” several men, including the actor Will Greer; participated
informed by a strange (unnatural) reality called “the Gos- in labor strikes and other politically progressive causes;
pel.” Their alternative community, the Church, is their and visited a therapist who advised him to quit his ho-
polis; it exists as a counterpoint, contrast, or contradiction mosexual lifestyle. In 1938, Hay formalized his ties with
of all other cultures and nation-states. the Communist Party and married one of its members,
Not only does Hauerwas denounce patriotism as Anita Plantky. The following year the couple moved to
idolatrous, he urges Christians to avoid the reins of New York City, where they supported the radical leftist
power that would enable them to guide society to- Popular Front. In 1941, then part of a leftist theater group
ward the political “good” of either the right or left. in Chicago, Hay was interviewed by Indiana University
Instead, Christians are to live powerlessly on society’s researcher Alfred Kinsey, who was conducting a sex sur-
margins. vey. Later that year, Hay began a seven-month clandestine
Christians are to be pacifists not because nonviolence affair with a male architect.
is a useful means to desired political ends, but because The publication of Kinsey’s groundbreaking Sexual
pacifism is faithful to the commission and character of Behavior in the Human Male (1948), which reported that
discipleship. Far from an escapist withdrawal, this paci- 10 percent of males were actively engaged in homosexual
fism is an antagonistic resistance to those “principalities relations, convinced Hay that there were enough gays in
and powers” that maintain order through coercion and American society to launch a mass movement. By late
violence. Such nonviolent subversion requires a com- 1950, Hay and four others in Los Angeles began orga-
munity of discernment, support, and accountability, nizing the Mattachine Society, named after the French
which is the mission of the Church. Mattachines (“Dance of Fools” actors of the Renais-
sance era), who wore masks to conceal their identities.
Richard C. Goode The following year, with the secret society formally
founded, Hay divorced his wife and quit the Commu-
See also: American Civil Religion; Campolo, Anthony “Tony”; nist Party. The purpose behind the Mattachine Society
Fundamentalism, Religious; Niebuhr, Reinhold; Progressive was to promote the view that gays are normal people.
Christians Uniting; Sider, Ron; Wallis, Jim. By 1953, when the organization had 100 chapters and
reportedly some 5,000 members, it was determined that
Further Reading openness was a better guarantee of its survival during
Hauerwas, Stanley. The Hauerwas Reader. Durham, NC: Duke the McCarthy era. The same fears led to the ousting
University Press, 2001. from the organization of former communists and left-
———. With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and ists, including Hay. Ironically, Hay was subpoenaed to
Natural Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2001. appear before the House Committee on Un-American
Hauerwas, Stanley, and William Willimon. Resident Aliens: Life Activities in 1955.
in the Christian Colony. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1989. Hay’s dismissal from the Mattachine Society was in
Oppenheimer, Mark. “For God, Not Country.” Lingua Franca, part a response to his rejection of gay assimilation, be-
September 2001. lieving that it was futile and less than genuine for gays
to try to fit the mold of the nuclear, heterosexual family.
He went on to develop theories on gay cultural identity,
H ay, H a r r y publishing the gay magazine ONE and helping form
A founder of the gay rights movement in America, Harry the Gay Liberation Front in Los Angeles (1969) and the
Hay was one of the first to argue that homosexuals are Radical Faeries (1978). Most controversially, he was an
“an oppressed cultural minority.” Applying doctrines active defender of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy
and organizational skills of the Communist Party, Hay Love Association), as he did not regard sex between an
in 1951 helped establish the Mattachine Society, a adult male and a minor boy as being child molestation.
secret homophile organization originally based in Los Hay died on October 24, 2002.
Angeles. Throughout his long life, he was frequently at Roger Chapman
odds with mainstream gay activists, whom he ridiculed
as belonging to “the Gay WASP Society.” See also: Communists and Communism; Gay Rights Move-
Henry “Harry” Hay, Jr., was born on April 7, 1912, ment; Kinsey, Alfred; McCarthyism; Milk, Harvey; Same-Sex
in Worthing, England. After his father suffered an ac- Marriage; Socarides, Charles; Stonewall Rebellion.
242 Hayden, Tom
Further Reading The Port Huron Statement, from its opening

Hay, Harry. Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of Its passage—“We are people of this generation, bred in at
Founder. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking
Timmons, Stuart. The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the uncomfortably to a world we inherit”—to its concluding
Modern Gay Movement. Boston: Allyson, 1996. platform of a “new left” movement inclusive of liberals
and socialists, called on students of the middle class to
use the resources of the university for creating “partici-
H ayd e n , To m patory democracy.” The SDS was criticized by New Left
A leader of the New Left movement of the 1960s and leader Michael Harrington for refusing to take a firm
early 1970s, Tom Hayden called for “participatory stand against communism and the Soviet Union. Some
democracy” in the Port Huron Statement (1962), the blamed Hayden for leadership failings that allowed the
manifesto he drafted for the Students for a Democratic SDS to implode and spawn the terrorist splinter group the
Society (SDS); made controversial visits to Hanoi during Weather Underground. The leftist-turned-conservative
the Vietnam War (1965, 1967, 1974); and was one of David Horowitz later vilified the SDS manifesto as to-
the Chicago Seven tried for inciting riot during the 1968 talitarian and Marxist in essence.
Democratic National Convention. Some considered During the fall of Saigon in April 1975, Hayden in-
Hayden’s subsequent involvement in California sisted that the event was not a communist takeover. Four
legislative politics as bowing to “the establishment,” years later, when between 150,000 and 400,000 politi-
but his campaign slogan “The radicalism of the sixties is cal prisoners were being held in concentration camps in
the common sense of the seventies,” combined with his Vietnam, Hayden and Fonda refused to join Joan Baez,
marriage to the actress and antiwar activist Jane Fonda, Allen Ginsberg, and other former peace activists in sign-
convinced conservatives otherwise. In 1977, Hayden ing an open letter condemning the Hanoi government
organized the Campaign for Economic Democracy for its “brutal disregard of human rights.” By that time,
(renamed Campaign California in the mid-1980s) to Hayden and Fonda were conducting a nationwide tour
advance a mainstream form of participatory democracy, to bring attention to the danger of nuclear power, an
emphasizing tax reform, corporate responsibility, and interest that coincided with the release of Fonda’s film
environmentalism. The China Syndrome (1979) about the near meltdown
Thomas Emmett “Tom” Hayden was born into a of a nuclear power plant, and an actual accident at the
working-class Irish Catholic family on December 11, Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania.
1939, in Royal Oak, Michigan. He later attended the
University of Michigan (BA, 1960), where he was the Roger Chapman
editor of the student newspaper. In 1961, Hayden vol-
unteered for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com- See also: Chicago Seven; Fonda, Jane; Harrington, Michael;
mittee (SNCC), registering black voters in Mississippi Horowitz, David; Human Rights; New Left; Nuclear Age;
and Georgia. From 1962 to 1963, he was the founding Soviet Union and Russia; Students for a Democratic Society;
president of SDS. Until the outbreak of race riots in the Three Mile Island Accident; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
summer of 1967, he headed the SDS-affiliated Economic
Research and Action Project in Newark, New Jersey Further Reading
(1965–1967), spreading his concept of participatory Hayden, Tom. Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden
democracy beyond the campus to address urban poverty Reader. San Francisco: City Lights, 2008.
and community development. In the late 1960s and Hayden, Tom, and Dick Flacks. “The Port Huron Statement at
early 1970s, he was a leader of the National Mobilization 40.” Nation, August 5, 2002.
Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Horowitz, David. “Port Huron and the War on Terror.” In Left
After the war, Hayden channeled his energies into Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey, 376–83. Dallas: Spence,
legislative politics, winning election to the California 2003.
state assembly (1982–1991) and state senate (1992– Lynch, Kevin. “Port Huron to Santa Barbara.” New Republic,
2000), but running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate September 30, 1977.
(1976), the governorship of California (1994), and other
offices. Hayden has taught at the University of Southern
California, Pitzer College, and Immaculate Heart Col- Health Care
lege. His writings include Vietnam: The Struggle for Peace As a recurring issue in the culture wars, health care was
(1973); The American Future: New Visions Beyond Old originally a struggle between pro– and anti–New Deal
Frontiers (1980); The Lost Gospel of the Earth: A Call for factions. Indeed, in the decades since World War II, the
Renewing Nature, Spirit, and Politics (1996); and Rebel: A issue has epitomized the divide between conservatives
Personal History of the 1960s (2003). and liberals regarding the role of the national govern-
Health C are 243
ment, with the former emphasizing the free market and Although committee hearings were conducted on
the latter emphasizing the need for a stronger safety net. Wagner-Murray-Dingell, no formal vote was taken. At
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, President President Truman’s request, the legislation was rein-
Harry S. Truman advocated for a national health care troduced during the next session of Congress, but the
system, but his proposal met vigorous opposition from measure never progressed beyond the hearing stage. With
the American Medical Association (AMA). In the 1960s, the Cold War under way, it was a political liability for
Medicare and Medicaid—supported by unions and not any member of Congress to be viewed as a supporter of
as vigorously opposed by the AMA—were enacted to “socialized medicine.” Nor did it help that labor unions,
provide government health insurance for the elderly, responsible for a number of strikes in the years after the
poor, and disabled. Further attempts for national health war, were strong backers of national health care. In the
care programs were pursued, unsuccessfully, in the late meantime, leaders in southern states perceived national
1960s and early 1970s, and President Bill Clinton was health insurance as a surreptitious way of promoting
unsuccessful in garnering congressional and public sup- desegregation since the benefits would be extended to
port for a national health care system. members of all races.
President Truman vs. the AMA Medicare and Medicaid
In his Fair Deal domestic policy program of 1949–1953, Although the AMA won the first battle against
Truman focused on goals for postwar adjustment in the national health insurance, the tide changed during the
United States, including an economic bill of rights with 1960s. In the presidential campaign of that year, each
health security for all Americans. His call for universal candidate offered a health care plan. Richard Nixon,
government health insurance became a centerpiece of the Republican candidate, argued against allowing the
the Democratic agenda, whereby all American citizens, national government to control health insurance. Instead,
regardless of social class, would receive equal health he favored a federal subsidy approach administered by
care benefits. The proposal led to introduction of the the states that would lower insurance premiums for the
Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill in 1946, which had the elderly. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate,
support of labor unions and the Physicians’ Forum, a favored a plan that emphasized federal control, whereby
group of approximately 1,000 doctors who advocated health insurance would be funded by increasing Social
national health insurance. Some supporters of universal Security payroll taxes. Both proposals came for a floor
government health insurance criticized the final vote in the U.S. Senate on August 23, 1960, and both
version of Wagner-Murray-Dingell, which had been were defeated—the Republican subsidy approach by a
weakened in legislative drafting for political support in vote of 67–28 along strict party lines, and the Democratic
Congress. The revised measure, for example, exempted Social Security plan by a 51–44 margin, with several
government employees, religious workers, college Democrats joining Republicans in opposition. By way
students, and unpaid employees from the program. U.S. of an alternative, senators Robert Kerr (D-OK) and
Surgeon General Thomas Parran and the leaders of the Wilbur Mills (D-AR) introduced a bill that called for
Children’s Bureau vigorously criticized the changes to a modest increase in federal funding for medical vendor
the bill, arguing that it no longer provided universal payments for state-run public assistance programs.
health care. Passed by wide margins in both the Senate (91–2) and
Immediately upon the announcement of Truman’s the House (369–17), the Kerr-Mills bill was signed into
plan, the AMA mounted vehement opposition. In its law in 1960. Many backers of national health insurance,
attack on Wagner-Murray-Dingell and other such pro- however, did not think the measure went far enough
posals, the AMA assessed each of its members $25 to to address the public need. Kennedy promised that, if
establish the National Education Campaign and hire a elected, he would push for a full-fledged government
professional public relations firm to undermine public insurance plan for the elderly. It was at this time that
support. In addition, officials at the national headquarters the term Medicare was first used in reference to national
of the AMA mobilized state medical societies to organize health insurance. Even Nixon agreed that Kerrs-Mill
county societies to campaign against the bill. Doctors not was not sufficient and promised to take up the issue if
following the AMA party line risked possible expulsion, elected.
which could mean loss of hospital access and referrals. In Meanwhile, groups such as the National Council of
its editorials in the Journal of the American Medical Asso- Senior Citizens (NCSC) began attacking the AMA for
ciation, the organization argued that passage of Wagner- opposing national health insurance. According to the
Murray-Dingell would triple the cost of health care, make NCSC, the AMA was simply not interested in guaran-
doctors subservient to federal bureaucracy, lower the teeing medical coverage for all Americans. The unions
quality of medicine by imposing “assembly line” health represented by the AFL-CIO joined in the anti-AMA
care, and jeopardize the patient-doctor relationship. rhetoric, deploring its “cynical campaign with a massive
24 4 Health C are
onslaught of distortion, misrepresentation and beguiling House (307–116) and Senate (70–24) and, in a special
promises of something better.” An undaunted AMA ceremony at the Truman Presidential Library—with Tru-
continued its active opposition to national health care, man present—was signed into law by President Johnson
as it had during the Truman years, but a majority of the on July 30, 1965. The Medicare program went into effect
general public—an estimated 62 percent by 1962—had the following year. The AMA announced that it would
decided that Medicare was necessary. At a May 1962 support Medicare, but many of its member physicians
rally of senior citizens at Madison Square Garden in openly criticized the program and vowed that they would
New York City, broadcast by all three national television not treat Medicare patients.
networks, President Kennedy tried to capitalize on this
public support by urging Congress to take action and Post-Medicare Attempts at National
approve Medicare. Hours later, AMA president Edward Health Insurance
R. Annis offered a televised rebuttal from the same loca- In 1968, Walter Reuther, the president of the United
tion (after the senior citizens had left). Two Medicare Automobile Workers (UAW), spoke before the Ameri-
proposals soon died in Congress, but the AMA victory can Public Health Association to advocate for a full na-
would prove short-lived. tional health insurance plan. Although the major unions
In the wake of Kennedy’s assassination in November through the AFL-CIO were proud of their accomplish-
1963, the cause of Medicare found a new champion and a ments with Medicare, Reuther was unconvinced that
new wave of support. In 1965, following election in his collective bargaining was the best way for workers to
own right, President Lyndon Johnson urged in his State achieve health care benefits. He preferred a public system
of the Union address that Medicare be made a legislative with the backing of the federal government. In 1968,
priority. “We must provide hospital insurance for our Reuther organized the Committee of 100 for National
older citizens,” he said, to be “financed by every worker Health Insurance, comprising unionists, social activists,
and his employer under Social Security, contributing no academics, physicians, and elected officials. In 1969, the
more than $1 a month during the employee’s working committee drafted a bill for national health insurance
career to protect him in his old age in a dignified man- called Health Security, which would provide incen-
ner without cost to the Treasury, against the devastating tives for physicians to create prepaid group practices. It
hardship of prolonged or repeated illness.” Earlier, in also sought to require physicians and hospitals to func-
1962, Robert Ball of the Social Security Administration tion within a national health budget. To avoid many of
had convinced the American Hospital Association to back the criticisms of national health insurance, committee
Medicare, a significant development in that it represented members were careful to explain that the proposal was
a defection from one of the AMA’s biggest allies. Also, not socialized medicine. One of the backers of the bill
by this time, many private insurance providers began to was Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA).
support Medicare because the elderly were an unprofit- To avoid another defeat after Medicare, the AMA this
able part of their business, forcing them to raise rates on time proposed its own version, called Medicredit. The
other paying customers. Thus, in 1965, Congress once plan would provide vouchers to low-income individuals to
again took up proposed Medicare legislation. purchase health insurance, tax credits to middle-income
The AMA responded to the new threat by propos- individuals for their paid insurance premiums, and fed-
ing an alternative bill, Eldercare, which would have only eral grants to states to help with insurance coverage for
slightly modified Kerrs-Mill by providing extra federal the extremely poor. However, the AMA was unable to
funding to offset the increasing costs of health insurance garner support from either the hospital industry (which
for the poor elderly. For its part, the insurance company supported expanding Medicare into a national health
Aetna proposed Bettercare, a federal subsidy program insurance plan) or the insurance industry (which proposed
for the elderly to offset the purchase of private health its own bill). In the meantime, President Nixon proposed
insurance. Senator Mills, the chairman of the Ways and the National Health Insurance Partnership Act, which
Means Committee, ultimately fashioned a Medicare bill favored the private insurance industry and included
that incorporated aspects of the original Medicare plan, funding and other support for prepaid group practices
Eldercare, and Bettercare. The final product consisted of known as health maintenance organizations (HMOs).
Medicare Part A (paying for hospital care and limited Senator Kennedy vehemently opposed Nixon’s plan, and
nursing care), Medicare Part B (an optional program Congress did not vote on any of the proposals. However,
paying for physicians’ services), and Medicaid (a program an experimental HMO program was passed as part of
of health insurance for those with low incomes, includ- the Health Maintenance Organization and Resources
ing the elderly and disabled). Although the AFL-CIO Development Act of 1973, even though the AMA fought
was somewhat disappointed with this modified version, strongly against it; the HMO approach (prepaid group
President Johnson was satisfied because it had the ac- practices) directly competed with the AMA’s Medicredit
tive support of the NCSC. The Medicare bill passed the proposal.
Heav y Me tal 245
Clinton and Health Security part of the year. Still, national health care was firmly
As part of his 1992 presidential campaign, Democratic opposed by the Republican administration and Congress.
candidate Bill Clinton championed universal health Although a group called Physicians for a National Health
coverage. Shortly after entering the White House, he Program advocated for universal health insurance, it was
proposed a national health insurance plan called Health simply not a topic of interest during the Bush years.
Security. First Lady Hillary Clinton, an experienced Among the health care proposals that were discussed—
attorney, was appointed to head a task force to flesh but not enacted—the focus was on such alternatives as
out the details of the plan. The Health Security reform employer mandates, expanded access to Medicaid, and
proposal incorporated many of the ideas offered by increased tax credits.
an interdisciplinary group of business leaders and Calls for universal health care in America were renewed
policy experts collectively known as the Jackson Hole in the Democratic presidential primary campaign of 2008,
group. President Clinton borrowed many of their with the two leading candidates—Senator Hillary Clinton
recommendations but differed from the group in that of New York and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois—
he also sought a national health board to establish limits proposing similar plans. The chief difference was that
on spending and on insurance premiums. Clinton’s plan proposed mandatory participation, while
The Health Insurance Association of America Obama’s proposed optional participation in a program
(HIAA) campaigned against the Clinton proposal, focus- that would be affordable to all Americans. Soon after
ing its opposition on government involvement in health winning the Democratic nomination Obama criticized
care rather than the specific merits of the plan itself. the Republican challenger, Senator John McCain (R-AZ),
Hillary Clinton attacked the health insurance industry for not having a plan that would enable all Americans to
for “price gouging, cost shifting, and unconscionable obtain health coverage.
profiteering” while arguing that insurance companies Joshua Fogel
have “brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.”
The HIAA became more aggressive and hired public See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Great
relations consultants who created the so-called “Harry Society; Kennedy Family; Labor Unions; New Deal; Nixon,
and Louise” television commercials, which helped gal- Richard; Social Security; Truman, Harry S.; Welfare Reform.
vanize public opposition to the Clinton proposal. In this
series of ads, a middle-class couple worryingly discusses Further Reading
the Clinton plan, questioning its bureaucratic approach Cohn, Jonathan. Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health
while encouraging viewers to register their disapproval Care Crisis—And the People Who Pay the Price. New York:
with members of Congress. The HIAA also organized HarperCollins, 2007.
the Coalition for Health Insurance Choices to involve Derickson, Alan. Health Security for All: Dreams of Universal
local businesses in opposition to the Clinton plan. In Health Care in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
addition, the Alliance for Managed Competition, made Press, 2005.
up of such major insurance companies as Aetna, MetLife, Meara, Ellen, Meredith Rosenthal, and Anna Sinaiko. Compar-
Cigna, Prudential, and Travelers, expressed particular ing the Effects of Health Insurance Proposals: Employer Mandates,
skepticism about the proposed national health board. Medicaid Expansions, and Tax Credits. Washington, DC:
Pharmaceutical companies opposed the plan because of Employment Policies Institute, February 2007.
the possibility of drug price regulation. In a shift from Mechanic, David. Policy Challenges in Modern Health Care. New
the past, the AMA did not actively oppose the Clinton Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
plan, even initially endorsing it as long as there were not Quadagno, Jill S. One Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No
to be strict controls promoting managed care. Physicians National Health Insurance. New York: Oxford University
were mixed, with some professional groups (such as the Press, 2005.
American Academy of Pediatrics) supporting the plan and
others (including the American College of Surgeons) op-
posing it. The Center for Public Integrity estimated that H e av y M e t a l
650 organizations spent at least $100 million to oppose Heavy metal, a form of rock music that originated in
Health Security, while supporters raised only about $15 the late 1960s and peaked in popularity during the
million. In 1994, the Senate Finance Committee voted 1980s and early 1990s, has been variously celebrated
for a compromise plan that was not even brought up for and condemned for its flagrant violation of social
full consideration on the floor of Congress. The Clintons convention, often sexually graphic and violent lyrics,
realized that Health Security was not politically viable. and sometimes satanic and occult imagery. Heavy metal
In 2006, during the George W. Bush administration, is associated with extremely amplified electric guitars,
a reported 54.5 million Americans (18.6 percent of the loud acoustics, barking and hoarse vocals, and often
population) were without health insurance for at least long-haired performers dressed in black leather with
24 6 Heav y Me tal
studs. Wild stage shows may feature strobe lights, of the plaintiffs, argued that the song had a subliminal
smoke bombs, fire, and animal blood. Although heavy message—“get the gun and shoot it”—during the guitar
metal developed out of the sound of American hard solo. In 1991, the same attorney argued in a Nevada court
rock and psychedelic rock, and was inspired in part by that the album Stained Glass (1978) by Judas Priest had
the guitarist Jimi Hendrix, the first major bands were also inspired suicide. The defendants prevailed in both
British, namely Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep cases, but notions lingered among many fundamentalist
Purple. Popular American heavy metal bands over the Christians that heavy metal music is fraught with hidden
years have included Blue Oyster Cult, Grand Funk spells, subliminal messages, and backmasking (embedded
Railroad, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Kiss, Quiet Riot, messages recorded backwards). During the 1980s, for
Metallica, and Guns N’ Roses. example, some conservative Christians argued that Led
While “heavy metal” connotes music with mood Zeppelin’s rock classic “Stairway to Heaven” (from the
(heavy) and strength (metal), the term has been associated 1971 album Led Zeppelin IV) was infused with subliminal
with the theme of radioactivity and the character “Ura- satanic messages (such as references to “sweet Satan” and
nium Willy, the heavy metal kid” from the novel Nova “666”), despite the song’s antidrug theme. In the 1990s,
Express (1964) by the Beat writer William S. Burroughs. some social critics blamed heavy metal as a major factor
Another possible origin is a reference to “heavy metal in school shootings.
thunder” in the Steppenwolf hit single “Born to Be Wild” Roger Chapman
(1968), alluding to the roar of motorcycles. Wherever the
name comes from, heavy metal has evolved over the years See also: Biafra, Jello; Evangelicalism; Fundamentalism, Re-
into distinctive subgenres, defying overall categoriza- ligious; Gore, Al; Manson, Marilyn; Punk Rock; Record
tion: hard rock (1970s), new wave British (1978–1982), Warning Labels; Rock and Roll; School Shootings; Wal-Mart;
classic metal (1983–1987), power metal (1982–1985), White Supremacists; Zappa, Frank.
thrash metal (1985–1988), glam metal (1987–1992),
death metal (1988–1994), alternative metal and grunge Further Reading
(1989–1993), black metal (1989–1993), and nu metal Christe, Ian. Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History
(1996–). Some black metal underground groups have of Heavy Metal. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
been controversial for racist and neo-Nazi themes. On the Luhr, Eileen. “Metal Missionaries to the Nation: Christian
other hand, a pro-Christian message has been advanced Heavy Metal Music, ‘Family Values,’ and Youth Culture,
by evangelical metal bands such as Vengeance (later 1984–1994.” American Quarterly 57:1 (March 2005):
Vengeance Rising), Gardian (later Guardian), RECON, 103–28.
Stryken, Stryper, Eternal Ryte, and Holy Soldier. Purcell, Natalie J. Death Metal Music: The Passion and Politics of
During the mid-1980s, Tipper Gore and Susan Bak- a Subculture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003.
er, the wives of U.S. senators, formed the Parents’ Music Walser, Robert. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Mad-
Resource Center (PMRC) in reaction to rock groups that ness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover, NH: University Press
“advocate aggressive and hostile rebellion, the abuse of of New England, 1995.
drugs and alcohol, irresponsible sexuality, sexual perver- Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. Rev.
sions, violence and involvement in the occult.” Singled ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 2000.
out for criticism were some heavy metal bands—labeled
“porn rock” by the PMRC—including AC/DC, Black
Sabbath, Judas Priests, Mötley Crüe, and W.A.S.P. The H e f n e r, H u g h
PMRC argued for a labeling system like the one used Beginning in 1953 with his founding of Playboy, a men’s
for rating movies. On September 19, 1985, the Senate lifestyle magazine featuring photographs of nude women,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Hugh Hefner was a catalyst of the sexual revolution and
held a hearing on this proposal in which several musi- social counterculture. As he later explained, “A great
cians, including the heavy metal performer Dee Snider, many of the traditional and moral values of our society
presented opposing testimony. In the end, the recording were changing, and Playboy was the first publication to
industry agreed to implement voluntary labeling. By reflect those changes.” From the outset, he characterized
1990, Parental Advisory Warning labels were appearing his magazine as liberating and healthy, a counter to
on potentially offensive releases. Wal-Mart, the single religious oppression: “If you had to sum up the idea of
largest retailer of recorded music in America, promptly Playboy, it is anti-Puritanism.” Over the years, Playboy
made it a policy not to sell such recordings. came to be condemned by social conservatives, religious
In 1988, Ozzy Osbourne (formerly of Black Sabbath) leaders, and feminists on one hand, and defended by
was sued by the parents of a California boy who had com- civil libertarians, First Amendment advocates, and male
mitted suicide after listening to Osbourne’s song “Sui- subscribers on the other.
cide Solution” (1980). Kenneth McKenna, the attorney The son of an accountant, Hugh Marston Hefner was
Heller, Joseph 247
born on April 9, 1926, in Chicago. After serving in the ministration of President Ronald Reagan, the Attorney
U.S. Army in World War II and later graduating from General’s Commission on Pornography issued a report
the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (BA, suggesting a “causal” relationship between pornography
psychology, 1949), he worked as a circulation manager and criminal sexual violence against women. This spurred
for publication companies in Chicago, including the a renewed attack on Playboy, as well as on newer com-
magazine Children’s Activities. petitors such as Penthouse and Hustler, uniting religious
Borrowing $600, Hefner launched Playboy in Octo- political groups such as the Moral Majority with radical
ber 1953 from his Chicago apartment, wishing to produce feminists, namely Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea
an uncensored version of Esquire magazine aimed at the Dworkin. In response to the controversy, 7-11 and other
urban male interested in “the good life” of pleasure and convenience stores quit selling Playboy and other pornog-
status. The first issue, forty-eight pages in length and raphy magazines.
featuring a nude color centerfold of the actress Marilyn Roger Chapman
Monroe, sold 53,991 copies. By December 1955, the
magazine was selling 800,000 copies at the newsstand, See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Censorship; Countercul-
with 1,000 subscribers being added daily. Circulation ture; Dworkin, Andrea; Flynt, Larry; MacKinnon, Catharine;
peaked at 7 million in 1972. As the magazine evolved, it Moral Majority; Pornography; Sex Education; Sex Offenders;
supplemented the photographs of nude “Playmates of the Sexual Revolution.
Month” with original fiction by leading writers, in-depth
interviews of important figures, investigative journalism Further Reading
pieces, book and music reviews, risqué cartoons, and fea- Brady, Frank. Hefner. New York: Macmillan, 1974.
tures such as the “Playboy Advisor” and “Playboy Forum.” Hefner, Hugh M., ed. The New Bedside Playboy: A Half Century
Hefner explained that the Playboy icon of a rabbit in a of Amusement, Diversion & Entertainment. Chicago: Playboy
tuxedo was chosen because “Rabbits are the playboys of Press, 2006.
the animal world and they have a sexy reputation.” Plimpton, George. “Checking in with Hugh Hefner.” Esquire,
During his many years as publisher and editor-in- January 1992.
chief of the magazine (1953–1990), Hefner cast himself
in the Playboy image, hosting parties at his mansions and
posing for photographs with pipe in hand and wearing H e l l e r, J o s e p h
silk pajamas while surrounded by attractive women. The novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist Joseph
Between 1962 and 1963, Hefner wrote and published Heller satirized American society, hypocrisy, and the
twenty-five installments of a column titled “Playboy military establishment in numerous works of fiction. His
Philosophy” (250,000 words in all), setting out his thesis most notable work was his first novel Catch-22 (1961),
that American society has suffered from the oppression of which drew on his experiences in the U.S. Air Force
“healthy heterosexuality.” The treatise covered a number during World War II to paint a pessimistic portrait
of controversial topics, including censorship, sex laws, di- of life and moral choice in the armed forces. A literary
vorce, abortion, birth control, sex education, and drugs. darling of the 1960s counterculture generation, Heller
In response to feminist critics, Hefner argued that also engaged such themes as liberalism, capitalism, class
his magazine was helping the cause of women by “under- struggle, the administration of President Richard M.
mining the surviving social attitudes that there are only Nixon, and the rebelliousness of the Vietnam era. His
virgins and nonvirgins, good girls and bad girls.” The status as an Air Force veteran offered further intrigue to
“girl next door” motif of his Playboy bunnies, he argued, his controversial outlook on these topics. Other works,
fosters the view that a woman can be simultaneously while less known than Catch-22, contribute to Heller’s
nice and naughty, not one or the other. He lashed out at reputation as one of America’s foremost post–World War
the “female emancipators” who were not persuaded by II authors: the plays We Bombed New Haven (1967) and
this logic, arguing that “a large number of competitive Clevinger’s Trial (1973); the novels Something Happened
females . . . are trying to castrate the guys they come in (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984), Picture
contact with” and are responsible for creating “a hostile This (1988), Closing Time (1994), and Portrait of an Artist,
war of the sexes.” as an Old Man (2000); and the short-story collection
By 1981, Playboy Enterprises, Inc., which included Catch as Catch Can (2003).
publications, video, cable, casinos, resort properties, Born on May 1, 1923, in the Coney Island section
and merchandising, earned $13.7 million on revenues of Brooklyn, New York, Heller was the son of working-
of $221.5 million. In 1988, Christie Hefner, Hefner’s class Jewish immigrant parents. After graduating from
daughter from the first of two marriages, became the Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, he joined the Air
company CEO. Force and was deployed to Corsica, where he flew sixty
In 1986, meanwhile, during the conservative ad- combat missions as a B-25 bombardier during World
24 8 Helm s, Jesse
War II. Upon returning to the United States, he focused strong stances against affirmative action, gay rights, the
on academic pursuits, earning a bachelor’s degree from United Nations, communism, and “liberal spending.”
New York University in 1948 and a master’s degree in An outspoken and controversial figure in the culture
English from Columbia University in 1949; he also spent wars, he once warned that President Bill Clinton would
a year as a Fulbright Scholar studying at Oxford Univer- not be safe if he visited North Carolina. According to
sity in England. Although he worked as a magazine and the Weekly Standard, the man nicknamed “Senator No”
advertising copywriter, Heller’s primary goal was to be a was one of the most influential conservative figures since
writer; early short stories were published in such leading the 1980s and helped shift the national public debate to
magazines as Esquire and Atlantic Monthly. the right.
Catch-22, which took Heller eight years to write, ini- Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr., was born on October 18,
tially received poor reviews. Primarily on the strength of 1921, in Monroe, North Carolina. He attended Wingate
word-of-mouth recommendations, the novel developed a Junior College (1938–1939) and Wake Forest University
cult following among young Americans dissatisfied with, (1939–1940), served in the U.S. Navy during World War
among other things, the Cold War and U.S. involve- II (1942–1945), worked as the administrative assistant
ment in Vietnam. Catch-22 went on to sell more than 10 to U.S. Senator Willis Smith (D-NC; 1950–1953), and
million copies. Although it is set in World War II, the sat on the Raleigh, North Carolina, city council (1957–
novel found an attentive audience among 1960s Vietnam 1961). Helms’s professional career included newspaper
War protesters and became a seminal text of that era’s reporting, broadcast journalism, and banking. He was a
peace movement. The protagonist, a B-25 bombardier Democrat until 1970.
named Captain John Yossarian, is a cowardly antihero A harsh opponent of the civil rights movement,
who seeks a military discharge by any means neces- Helms characterized the advancement of minority rights
sary. Thus, he feigns insanity by volunteering to go on as a “new form of bigotry” that undermines the freedom
dangerous flight missions; seeking to avoid combat, he of the majority. He also opposed affirmative action, as was
reasons, would prove his sanity. This kind of double-bind made clear in the infamous “Hands” television commer-
situation, exemplified throughout the novel, is called a cial run against opponent Harvey Gantt during the 1990
“Catch-22” (based on a nonsensical military regulation election campaign. The ad, showing a pair of white hands
of the same name). crumpling a rejection letter, stated, “You needed that job
“Catch-22” became a universal metaphor not only and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it
for the insanity of war, but for double-bind situations to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?
in all aspects of life. In subsequent writing, Heller ad- Harvey Gantt says it is.” Helms was also against establish-
dressed similar lose-lose predicaments in the context of ing a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
corporate bureaucracies, war, and society at large. Dur- Helms’s insensitivity toward the AIDS crisis was
ing the 1960s, Heller taught English at Yale University the consequence of his opposition to homosexuality—he
and toured college campuses speaking out against the linked the disease with sodomy. Later, after being per-
Vietnam War. He died on December 12, 1999. suaded by a biblical argument presented by U2 singer
Bono, he stopped describing foreign AIDS programs as
Nick Malinowski equivalent to throwing tax dollars down “rat holes.” Even
so, he continued to view AIDS as a moral problem and
See also: Cold War; Counterculture; Kubrick, Stanley; Litera- believed that programs aimed at alleviating the suffering
ture, Film, and Drama; Vietnam War. from it were helping to spread the disease.
A fiscal conservative, though he supported federal
Further Reading subsidies for North Carolina peanut farmers, Helms often
Heller, Joseph. Conversations with Joseph Heller. Jackson: Univer- used arguments for budgetary restraint to target programs
sity Press of Mississippi, 1993. he did not like. After federal money indirectly financed
———. Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here. New York: the display of homoerotic works by photographer Robert
Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Mapplethorpe, in 1989 he proposed that the National En-
Potts, Stephen W. From Here to Absurdity: The Moral Battlefields dowment for the Arts be prevented from funding “obscene
of Joseph Heller. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1995. art.” A critic of the United Nations, in January 2000 he
Ruderman, Judith. Joseph Heller. New York: Continuum, sought guarantees pertaining to U.S. sovereignty in UN-
1991. sanctioned military operations in exchange for continued
payment of U.S. membership dues. That concession by the
UN spurred the U.S. Senate to unanimously agree to pay
Helms, Jesse more than $500,000 in back dues.
A five-term conservative Republican Senator from North After the Cold War, Helms proposed scaling back
Carolina (1973–2003), Jesse Helms is remembered for his America’s involvement in foreign affairs, though he de-
Her itage Foundation 24 9
market principles, a limited welfare state, individual

responsibility, and a strong national defense. Unlike
many other established think tanks, it does aggressive
fundraising; markets policy ideas in a deliberate, public-
relations manner; works closely with congressional
staffers to shape as well as draft policy; and advises the
development of state-level think tanks.
Often cited as the most visible of all think tanks
in print and broadcast media, the organization issues
press releases, hosts conferences, funds book research,
and issues timely policy briefs on hot-button issues to
congressional and state-level politicians. Its 2006 operat-
A political cartoon in 1992 parodies the campaign of ultra- ing budget exceeded $40.5 million and was sustained by
conservative senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) to cut federal individual contributions ($25 million) as well as dona-
funding for the Public Broadcasting System and the National
Endowment for the Arts. (OLIPHANT ©1992 UNIVERSAL
tions from foundations ($13.1 million) and corporations
PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights ($1.5 million).
reserved.) Analysts at the foundation hold titles such as “fel-
low” and “distinguished scholar” typically reserved for
academic settings, although they are not required to have
nounced China’s human rights record, promoted economic academic credentials or postgraduate degrees, do not have
sanctions against Cuba, and opposed the international teaching duties, and do not subject their research to peer
treaty banning chemical and biological weapons. Helms is review. Many of the analysts go on to serve in the fed-
the author of “When Free Men Shall Stand”: A Sobering Look at eral government or are retired from government service.
the Supertaxing, Superspending Superbureaucracy in Washington Former Heritage Foundation staffers Elaine Chao and L.
(1976) and Here’s Where I Stand: A Memoir (2005). Helms Paul Bremer, for example, worked in the administration
died on July 4, 2008. of George W. Bush; Edwin Meese, who served as attor-
Solomon Davidoff ney general under President Ronald Reagan, has been a
longtime distinguished fellow.
See also: Affirmative Action; AIDS; Bono; China; Civil Rights In the 1980s, pressured by emerging social conserva-
Movement; Communists and Communism; Cuba; Gay tives in Washington to adopt a more aggressive approach
Rights Movement; National Endowment for the Arts; United on cultural issues, the foundation hired staff to comment
Nations. on the media, family values, churches, and schools, with
a broader emphasis on foreign and economic policy. The
Further Reading Heritage Foundation was especially active during the
Black, Charlie. “Jesse Helms.” Time, July 21, 2008. Reagan presidency, issuing more than a thousand policy
Dodd, John, with David Tyson. And the World Came His Way: analyses even before the administration entered office in
Jesse Helms’ Contributions to Freedom. Wingate, NC: Jesse 1981. Among its recommendations were reduced spend-
Helms Center Foundation, 2002. ing for social services, the implementation of supply-side
Furgurson, Ernest B. Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms. New economics, and military intervention in rogue states. A
York: W.W. Norton, 1986. report one year later found that the administration had
Helms, Jesse. Here’s Where I Stand: A Memoir. New York: Ran- implemented 60 percent of the organization’s recom-
dom House, 2005. mendations. The Heritage Foundation followed a similar
Link, William A. Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of course of policy analysis in Reagan’s second term and
Modern Conservatism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. George H.W. Bush’s administration in 1989. Congres-
sional reforms outlined in Republican Representative
from Georgia Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America in
Her itage Foundation 1994 appeared two years earlier in a Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973 with seed study of Congress. Also in 1994, the Heritage Founda-
money by millionaires with a conservative agenda— tion began holding an orientation for new members of
namely newspaper publisher and Mellon family heir Congress to counter the traditional program conducted by
Richard Mellon Scaife (a donation of $900,000) and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
beer baron Joseph Coors (a donation of $250,000)—is A frequent commentator on cultural issues, the
the premier conservative think tank in America. The Heritage Foundation has associated inner-city criminal
Heritage Foundation, headquartered in Washington, activities with the development of a welfare state and
D.C., disseminates policy analysis in favor of free- has argued that the court system is stacked with liberal-
25 0 Her itage Foundation
minded judges who undermine the tenets of the U.S. Stefancic, Jean, and Richard Delgado. No Mercy: How Conservative
Constitution. The organization favors a reduction in Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America’s Social Agenda.
public school funding and the use of vouchers for private Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
schools.
Robert Rector, the domestic policy analyst on such
issues as welfare reform, Social Security, Medicare, and H i g h t o we r, J i m
immigration, regularly appears before Congress and the Billed on his book jackets as “America’s most popular
media. Regarded as the architect of the 1996 welfare populist,” Jim Hightower has employed his folksy wit to
reform law, Rector estimated that a total of $5.4 trillion comment on globalization, organic agriculture, campaign
had been spent on welfare since the advent of President financing, corporate corruption, fossil-fuel dependency,
Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. Although the and the value of grassroots activism to the health of Amer-
amount was later found to be grossly misleading, it was ican democracy. As an author, public speaker, and radio
frequently cited in the media, and Rector used that figure personality, he has achieved a high profile as a progressive
to discredit the effectiveness of welfare programs. He also humorist-activist in the same vein as Michael Moore, Al
contended that welfare spending was the primary cause of Franken, and fellow Texan the late Molly Ivins.
births to unwed young women. He argued that marriage James Allen Hightower was born on January 11,
and a lifetime limit on public assistance would reverse 1943, in Denison, Texas, and educated at the University
welfare’s negative results. of North Texas (BA, government, 1965) and Columbia
The organization has been instrumental in develop- University (graduate work in international affairs, no
ing a conservative policy network consisting of private degree). He entered politics in the late 1960s as an aide
foundations and think tanks. As president since 1977, to U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough, a liberal Democrat
Edwin J. Feulner has been a trustee of influential foun- from Texas. Hightower first ran for office in 1980, with
dations that have made the Heritage Foundation a large an unsuccessful bid for the Texas Railroad Commission,
recipient. As a result, foundations not only have gener- the regulatory board that oversees the state’s oil industry.
ously funded the Heritage Foundation and other conserva- Later, he won two terms as the state agricultural com-
tive think thanks engaged in similar policy analysis but missioner (1983–1991), spending his tenure promoting
have instituted a funding practice unlike the traditional organic farming, self-marketing strategies for small farm-
support mechanisms of mainstream foundations, which ers, alternative crops, and other innovations. Hightower
are usually project-specific grants. The new approach was unseated by Rick Perry, the future governor, in a
has involved large sums of money for general operat- campaign organized by Karl Rove, who later became the
ing expenses, permitting the Heritage Foundation and chief political adviser to George W. Bush.
other conservative think tanks to engage in a wide array Out of office, Hightower rose to prominence as an
of activities and policy analyses that are not contingent activist knowledgeable about the various uses of the me-
on deadlines and reporting features required in project- dia. He challenged the dominance of the political right
specific grants. on talk radio through a program of his own, the Chat and
Sergio Romero Chew, and he published the Hightower Lowdown newslet-
ter, wrote a syndicated column for alternative weeklies,
See also: Bush Family; Contract with America; Education Re- and established his own Web site (www.jimhightower.
form; Immigration Policy; Judicial Wars; Media Bias; Rea- com). In the 1990s, Hightower accused President Bill
gan, Ronald; School Vouchers; Social Security; Think Tanks; Clinton of being too enamored of corporate campaign
War on Poverty; Welfare Reform. donations known as “soft money.” His disaffection with
the pro-business New Democrats led him to the Green
Further Reading Party in 2000, where he sat on Ralph Nader’s presidential
Berkowitz, Bill. “The Heritage Foundation Soars.” Z Magazine, election campaign board.
June 2001. Hightower continued promoting his renegade popu-
Covington, Sally. Moving a Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic lism with the Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy
Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations. Washington, DC: Tour in 2003, which brought together Michael Moore,
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, 1997. Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Molly Ivins in an attempt to
Heritage Foundation Web site. www.heritage.org. promote a twenty-first-century Chautauqua movement.
Rendall, Steve, and Jill Steinberg. “Heritage of Extremism: Some Like Nader, Hightower assailed corporate influence on
of the Think Tank’s Leading Figures—Past and Present.” public policy and called on the Democratic Party to return
Extra!, July/August 1996. to its working-class base. He theorizes that America is
Solomon, Norman. “The Media’s Favorite Think Tank: How divided primarily not by left and right, but by top and
the Heritage Foundation Turns Money into Media.” Extra!, bottom, the social stratum of class. Like many Demo-
July/August 1996. crats who supported Nader in 2000, he endorsed John
Hill , A nita 251
Kerry in 2004. He endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008

presidential election.
Hightower is perhaps best known through his books,
including There’s Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yel-
low Stripes and Dead Armadillos (1997), If the Gods Had
Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates
(2001), Thieves in High Places (2003), Let’s Stop Beating
Around the Bush (2004), and Swim Against the Current
(2008). In these works, he calls for progressives to seek
an audience not only with the “bean sprout eaters” but
also with the “snuff-dippers.” His voice, with its native
Texas accent, is a reproach to conservative claims that
the country’s liberals come solely from the East and
West coasts.
Jason Mellard
See also: Campaign Finance Reform; Corporate Welfare; En-

vironmental Movement; Executive Compensation; Factory
Farms; Franken, Al; Genetically Modified Foods; Globaliza-
tion; Moore, Michael; Nader, Ralph; Red and Blue States.
Further Reading
Kelly, K. “Jim Hightower: A Farmer’s Friend Who Goes Against
the Grain.” Business Week, November 6, 1989.
Motavalli, Jim. “Jim Hightower.” E Magazine: the Environmental
Anita Hill testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee that
Magazine, January/February 1995.
she had been sexually harassed by former boss Clarence
“Rolling Thunder.” New Internationalist, November 2002. Thomas, who was before the committee as a nominee to the
Rothschild, Matthew. “Jim Hightower.” Progressive, November U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas called the 1991 televised hear-
2003. ings a “high-tech lynching.” (Brad Markel/Getty Images)
conservativism, the confirmation process was proceeding

Hill, Anita in a pro forma fashion until National Public Radio and
Anita Hill, an African-American professor of law and Newsday broke the story concerning Hill’s allegations
former government official, entered the tumult of the of sexual harassment. Leaders of the Senate Judiciary
culture wars in 1991 when she accused Clarence Thomas, Committee initially ignored her charge, but after it was
a conservative nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court and leaked to the press Democrats demanded a public inquiry.
also an African American, of sexual harassment. This set the stage for the televised hearings beginning
Anita Faye Hill was born on July 30, 1956, in on October 11, 1991.
Morris, Oklahoma, and raised as a devout Baptist. In her testimony before the committee, made up
After attending Oklahoma State University (BS, psy- entirely of white males, Hill asserted that, as her boss,
chology, 1977) and Yale Law School (JD, 1980), she Thomas had persistently sought a relationship with her,
practiced law at the firm of Ward, Harkrader & Ross in made sexual advances, conversed about pornographic
Washington, D.C. (1980–1981). From 1981 to 1983, films, and talked in sexually crude terms in her presence.
Hill served as Thomas’s personal assistant, first at the Thomas vigorously denied the accusations and character-
U.S. Department of Education and later at the Equal ized the televised proceedings as “a high-tech lynching.”
Employment Opportunity Commission. After leav- Without any hard evidence, the hearings thus boiled
ing federal service—by her account due to Thomas’s down to a “he said, she said” situation. Some questioned
harassment—she taught at Oral Roberts University why Hill did not file a complaint at the time of Thomas’s
School of Law in Tulsa (1983–1986), the University of alleged behavior; others retorted that it was not until
Oklahoma School of Law (1986–1996), and Brandeis 1986 that sexual harassment was legally classified as
University (1997–). employment discrimination. The Judiciary Committee
Although the National Association for the Advance- sent the nomination to the full Senate without a recom-
ment of Colored People, the People for the American mendation, but Thomas narrowly won confirmation, by
Way, and other organizations opposed President George a 52–48 floor vote, on October 15, 1991.
H.W. Bush’s selection of Thomas because of his political The Hill-Thomas controversy provoked a national
252 Hill , A nita
discussion on sexual harassment. The women’s magazine Hill, Julia “Butter f ly ”

Glamour designated Hill as its “Woman of the Year” for Environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill became
1991. Public opinion polls indicated a majority of African- America’s most famous “tree hugger” in the late 1990s,
American women actually disbelieved Hill, while others after living for 738 days on a six-by-eight-foot (1.8-by-
felt that the hearing underscored the “double minority” 2.4-meter) platform 180 feet (55 meters) high in the
status of black females in American society. Supporters branches of a giant California redwood tree, nicknamed
of Thomas and his judicial philosophy believed that the Luna, to keep it from being cut down by loggers. Some
liberal concern about sexual harassment was a hypocritical dubbed her “the Rosa Parks of the environmental
attempt to derail the appointment to the high court of movement,” while others criticized her for trespassing on
someone opposed to abortion rights and affirmative action. private property and interfering with free enterprise.
Cornel West, then a professor of African American Studies Hill, the daughter of an evangelical preacher, was
at Harvard, wrote in Race Matters (1993) that black leaders born on February 18, 1974, in Mt. Vernon, Missouri.
displayed “a failure of nerve” for not denouncing both Hill She was nicknamed Butterfly during childhood, though
and Thomas as conservative elites guilty of supporting the moniker became appropriate to her high-altitude
policies detrimental to the welfare of fellow blacks. adventure in environmental civil disobedience from 1997
The lingering stigma of the confirmation hearings to 1999. Initially unaffiliated with any environmental
angered Thomas and his backers. In The Real Anita organization, she began her crusade during a spiritual
Hill (1993), then-conservative journalist David Brock journey after a near-fatal car accident in August 1996.
vilified the accuser; later, the same author, in “I Was a During a visit to northern California, she came in con-
Right-Wing Hit Man” (Esquire, July 1997) and Blinded tact with radical environmentalists, including members
by the Right (2002), dramatically disavowed his damning of Earth First!, who were carrying out “tree-sits” in an
portrait of her and confessed that he was part of a Repub- attempt to thwart logging operations on the last tract of
lican disinformation campaign. In Strange Justice (1994), unprotected wilderness redwood forest.
the product of a postmortem investigation (including The land, located near Stafford, California, and
interviews of other women), Wall Street Journal reporters owned by the Pacific Lumber Company, constituted the
Jane Mayer and Jill Abrahamson concluded that it was 60,000-acre (24,000-hectare) Headwaters Forest in Hum-
Thomas who had lied. Shortly after the hearings, Hill boldt County. Since its 1985 takeover by the Maxxam
supporters announced plans for endowing a chair in her Corporation, according to critics, the logging company
honor for the study of sexual harassment at the University had nearly tripled its forest cutting. In addition, Pacific
of Oklahoma. Efforts to appoint Hill to the position were Lumber was blamed for forestry mismanagement leading
blocked by state representatives, however, some of whom to mud slides. In November 1997, Hill took a brief turn
made analogies comparing her to Hitler and the serial sitting in the 200-foot (60-meter) Luna to keep loggers
killer Jeffrey Dahmer. at bay. Although the lumber camp was breaking up
Roger Chapman for winter, she decided to climb back up the thousand-
year-old tree, fearing that it might otherwise be hastily
See also: Affirmative Action; Brock, David; Bush Family; Ju- cut down. Her tree-sit vigil lasted from December 10,
dicial Wars; National Association for the Advancement of 1997, to December 18, 1999, ending only after Pacific
Colored People; Sexual Harassment; Thomas, Clarence; Vic- Lumber agreed to sell Luna and a surrounding three-acre
timhood; West, Cornel. (1.2-hectare) buffer to Hill and the land trust Sanctuary
Forest for $50,000.
Further Reading Hill became a media celebrity by using her cell phone
Hill, Anita F. Speaking Truth to Power. New York: Doubleday, to keep in contact with reporters throughout the tree-sit.
1997. Young, idealistic, humorous, and mystical, she fascinated
Hill, Anita Faye, and Emma Coleman Jordan. Race, Gender, and the public. Photographs of her in the tree with a sign
Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings. New that read “RESPECT YOUR ELDERS” appeared in news
York: Oxford University Press, 1995. outlets worldwide. At the end of her protest, she kissed
Mansbridge, Jane, and Katharine Tate. “Race Trumps Gender: Luna and acknowledged that many would regard her as
The Thomas Nomination in the Black Community.” PS: “a dirty, tree-hugging hippie.” Later, in 2001, unknown
Political Science & Politics 25:3 (September 1992): 488–92. individuals cut more than halfway through the trunk
Mayer, Jane, and Jill Abrahamson. Strange Justice: The Selling of of the tree; Pacific Lumber helped brace it with metal
Clarence Thomas. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. brackets and steel cables, enabling it to survive.
Smitherman, Geneva, ed. African American Women Speak Out In the book The Legacy of Luna (2000), an account
on Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas. Detroit, MI: Wayne State of her tree-sitting, Hill tells of surviving intimidating
University Press, 1995. tactics on the part of security forces, including napalm
West, Cornel. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. smoke and helicopter attacks, as well as storms and
Hiroshima and Naga sak i 253
bitter cold. She also distances herself from Earth First!, In October 1999, the campus was rocked by scandal
perhaps to disassociate herself from ecoterrorism. At her following the suicide of Rouche’s daughter-in-law, who
insistence, the book was published on recycled paper and for many years was the managing editor of Imprimis.
printed with soy-based ink. Rouche, the fifth-highest paid college president in
In 1999, Hill founded Circle of Life, an organization America, abruptly resigned, and campus officials refused
based in Oakland, California, that promotes ecological to provide details, citing his privacy. Reports in the
sustainability and preservation. Her second book, One mainstream media, as well as the conservative journals
Makes the Difference (2002), offers everyday advice for the Weekly Standard and National Review, indicated that
ecologically minded. the president and the deceased had been involved in
Roger Chapman a long-term affair. The lack of candor by the board of
trustees was seen as hypocrisy by critics, who noted that
See also: Arrow, Tre; Ecoterrorism; Environmental Movement; it was conservatives who had earlier shined a spotlight
Foreman, Dave; Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness. on President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House
intern Monica Lewinsky. Although Buckley urged all
Further Reading “fellow Christians” to stand by Hillsdale during the
Circle of Life Web site. www.circleoflifefoundation.org. crisis, former secretary of education William J. Bennett
FitzGerald, Dawn. Julia Butterfly Hill: Saving the Redwoods. protested the evasiveness of the board by resigning from
Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press, 2002. the committee searching for a new Hillsdale president.
Hill, Julia Butterfly. The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Woman, Rouche died on May 5, 2006.
a Tree, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods. San Francisco: Roger Chapman
HarperCollins, 2000.
———. One Makes the Difference: Inspiring Actions That Change See also: Academic Freedom; Affirmative Action; Bennett,
Our World. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2002. William J.; Buckley, William F., Jr.; Clinton Impeachment;
Great Books; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; National
Review; Neoconservatism; Political Correctness; Weekly Stan-
Hillsdale College dard, The.
Located in Hillsdale, Michigan, two hours west of
Detroit, Hillsdale College is a small, private liberal arts Further Reading
school that William F. Buckley once hailed as America’s Chamberlain, John. Freedom and Independence: The Hillsdale Story.
most conservative college. Founded in 1844 by Freewill Forewords by William F. Buckley and William E. Simon.
Baptists, Hillsdale has been a strident player in the Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 1979.
culture wars, spurning all forms of federal funding in “George C. Rouche III.” Imprimis, June 2006.
order to avoid compliance with antidiscrimination laws Jeffrey, Douglas A. Educating for Liberty: The Best of Imprimis,
in hiring and admissions, offering a curriculum that 1972–2002. Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2002.
emphasizes the Western canon, and providing a forum Rouche, George C., III The Fall of the Ivory Tower. Washington,
for conservatives. DC: Regnery, 1994.
The tenure of George C. Rouche, III, as Hillsdale’s Van Der Werf, Martin. “A Scandal and a Suicide Leave a Col-
president (1971–1999) increased the school’s reputa- lege Reeling.” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 19,
tion as a bastion of politically and socially conservative 1999.
values, although in 1988 the American Association of Wolfe, Alan. “The Hillsdale Tragedy Holds Lessons for Col-
University Professors censured the school for violating leges Everywhere.” Chronicle of Higher Education, December
principles of academic freedom and tenure. Under his 3, 1999.
watch, the newsletter Imprimis (Latin for “in the first
place”) was launched in 1972, publishing for wide dis-
semination a digest of speeches delivered on campus by Hip-Hop
conservative speakers. By 1999, Imprimis reportedly had See Rap Music
an unpaid circulation of 620,000, promoting Judeo-
Christian values, the free market, and individual liberty,
while criticizing secular humanism, liberal concepts of Hiroshima and Nagasak i
social justice, political correctness, and multicultural- The United States is the only nation ever to detonate
ism. Using Imprimis as a promotional tool, Rouche atomic bombs against an enemy in warfare, dropping
raised $325 million for the school’s endowment in order two on Japan in World War II—the first on the city
to compensate for the loss of federal funds due to the of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the second on
school’s refusal to document its hiring and enrollment Nagasaki three days later. The two devices were referred
practices concerning race and gender. to by innocent-sounding nicknames—“Little Boy” and
25 4 Hiroshima and Naga sak i
“Fat Man,” respectively, because of their shapes—that ter destruction,” actually forced the Japanese to continue
belied the destruction they caused and the intensity of fighting as a matter of honor. The U.S. Military Strategic
the debate that ensued over the decision to end the war Bombing Survey, made public in July 1946, concluded
in this manner. that “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all
While no exact figure has been determined regard- probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would
ing the deaths resulting from the explosions, the Avalon have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been
Project at Yale University has estimated that 199,000 dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even
Japanese were direct casualties—not including people if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
who died later because of radiation sickness. At Hiro- The skepticism raised by top military commanders
shima, some 60 percent of the deaths were believed to prompted historians such as Gar Alperovitz to argue that
be caused by burns, with another 30 percent caused by the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Japan
falling debris. At Nagasaki, an estimated 95 percent of in order to flex muscle at the Soviet Union, which it rec-
the total deaths resulted from burns. ognized as a prospective postwar rival. According to this
Physicists working for the Manhattan Project under view, the bombing of Nagasaki, in particular, had little
the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer completed devel- strategic value and was intended to intimidate Soviet
opment of the atomic bomb in early summer 1945, after leader Joseph Stalin—thus marking the start of the Cold
four years of effort and an estimated $1 billion in cost. War. More recently, historian Ronald Takaki has offered
The project was based at Los Alamos, New Mexico, near another perspective on Truman’s decision, emphasizing
which the first test explosion was conducted on July 16. the role of race; such a weapon, he maintains, would not
In private papers, President Harry Truman observed that have been used on white Europeans.
human morals were trailing technological development. Defenders of Truman argue that revisionist historians
Publicly, Truman showed no qualms about using the have forgotten how brutal warfare in the Pacific Theater
weapons to end the war. After the bombing of Hiroshima, had been during the “island hopping” campaign and have
he issued a statement warning that if Japan did not sur- lost a clear sense of the resolve American forces would have
render, the United States would launch “a rain of ruin faced in any invasion of Japan. The stiff Japanese resistance
from the air, the like of which has never been seen on at Okinawa in April–June 1945, for example, led to the
this earth.” Implying that there were many such bombs deaths of some 130,000 Japanese troops, between 70,000
in the American arsenal (there was only one more), Tru- and 160,000 civilians, and more than 12,000 American
man declared that the U.S. armed forces were “prepared military personnel; in addition, thirty-six U.S. Navy ships
to obliterate . . . every productive enterprise the Japanese were sunk by kamikaze pilots. According to Truman’s
have above ground in any city” in order to “destroy Japan’s supporters, the Allied firebombings of both Europe and
power to make war.” With no surrender forthcoming, half Japan, including the cities of Dresden and Tokyo, indi-
the city of Nagasaki was destroyed on August 9. cated a progression of ruthlessness that made the atomic
Not until August 31, 1946, with the publication bomb a logical, albeit tragic, solution. Moreover, it is
of John Hersey’s essay “Hiroshima” in The New Yorker pointed out, some Japanese officials admitted afterward
magazine, did most Americans have an account of the that they, too, would have used the atomic bomb had it
attacks from the victims’ point of view. Hersey’s article, been at their disposal.
later published as a book, graphically detailed what six Charles Carter
survivors experienced in the immediate aftermath of the
bombing. The description touched off a wave of national See also: Cold War; Enola Gay Exhibit; Japan; Nuclear Age;
introspection, inducing a new level of moral uncertainty Oppenheimer, J. Robert; Revisionist History; Soviet Union
among the American people. Navy Admiral William and Russia; Truman, Harry S.
Halsey, the commander of the Third Fleet, publicly
blamed the physicists for a lack of conscience: “They had Further Reading
a toy and they wanted to try it out.” Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam: The
Most Americans, however, accepted Truman’s ex- Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with
planation that atomic bombs were used to end the war as Soviet Power. New York: Penguin, 1985.
quickly as possible and to save lives by avoiding an inva- DeGroot, Gerard J. The Atomic Bomb: A Life. Cambridge, MA:
sion of the Japanese homeland. That argument has contin- Harvard University Press, 2005.
ued to be invoked to the present day, though the number Gaddis, John Lewis. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War,
of spared lives has been put as high as one million—a 1941–1947. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972.
figure most historians regard as exaggerated. Some critics Stimson, Henry. “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.”
of U.S. policy have suggested that the Potsdam Declara- Harper’s, February 1947.
tion of July 26, 1945, in which Truman demanded that Takaki, Ronald. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic
Japan surrender unconditionally or face “prompt and ut- Bomb. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
Hispanic A mer ic an s 255
Hispanic Americans who have existed on the periphery of the national com-
Perhaps no other group in the United States is as diverse munity as a manual labor force consigned to unskilled
in culture, nationality, phenotype, tradition, political or semi-skilled occupations.
sophistication, ethos, migration trends, acculturation With limited economic freedom, Hispanics histori-
rate, and even language as Hispanics, or Latinos. Yet, cally have been paid less than their Anglo counterparts
as America’s fastest-growing population—numbering for the same work, while often being relegated to the
32.8 million in 2000, representing 12 percent of most dangerous and difficult jobs. The concentration of
the total U.S. population—they generally share a Hispanics in both low-paying, working-class jobs and
historical experience that is wrought with patterns segregated residential neighborhoods created higher
of societal exclusion, economic exploitation, and rates of poverty, resulting in fewer opportunities for
varying degrees of second-class citizenship. Moreover, advancement than the general population. Generational
members of various Hispanic subgroup communities, injustice in the U.S. labor force, coupled with a south-
most of whom are not voluntary immigrants to western variant of Jim Crow–style segregation impact-
the United States, are united by unique settlement ing both public and private spaces, prompted many
histories. Mexican Americans, as the largest and Hispanics throughout post–World War II America to
oldest of Hispanic subgroups, for instance, entered oppose unequal access to communal accommodations.
American society as a subjugated people following the This escalating culture war has been complicated by the
U.S.-Mexican War (1846–1848). Today, of course, the indeterminate but growing number of Hispanics who
ethnic Mexican population has not only long-standing attend separate and poorly funded schools, live in less
residence, but ongoing international migration within desirable neighborhoods than those of whites, and have
the community. little or no formal representation in elected government
Puerto Ricans gained the attention of the United or the judicial system. In addition, deeply ingrained
States when their island homeland was established as a stereotypes, attitudes, and cultural assumptions about
U.S. colony after the Spanish-American War of 1898. the inherent inferiority of Hispanics not only degrade
Under pressure to clarify the relationship between and dehumanize them, but also serve to justify and foster
Puerto Rico and America, Congress passed the Jones the system of inequality.
Act in 1917, defining Puerto Ricans as U.S. citizens. The rising levels of de facto, and at times de jure,
Although under a different set of circumstances, ethnic segregation after World War II were especially unsettling
Cubans are not voluntary immigrants, either. Many to the Hispanic community in light of the hundreds of
who have come to the United States since the Cuban thousands of men and women who volunteered their
Revolution of 1959 are unwilling political exiles. His- services in the U.S. armed forces; nearly half a million
panics of Dominican heritage came to America mostly Mexican Americans alone enlisted to fight. Hispanics suf-
as refugees during the mid-1960s due to the unresolved fered a higher casualty rate than any other ethnic group
conflicts of the April 1965 revolution. Similarly, dur- during World War II, a pattern that continued in the
ing the late 1950s and early 1960s, many Hispanics of Vietnam War. The display of patriotism for a country
Ecuadorian ancestry—once intent on returning home that failed to treat them as full and equal citizens trig-
to buy land, build new homes, and give their families gered Hispanic leaders to launch organizations such as
a better life—decided to remain in the United States. the American GI Forum, a Mexican-American veterans’
Scores of other Central and South American peoples advocacy group.
came to the United States because of political insta- Arguably, Hispanics were most troubled during the
bility, economic hardships, and increasing national middle decades of the twentieth century by inadequate
violence in their native lands. educational institutions. As a result of class bias; racial
Whether among Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guate- prejudice; inadequate resources; exclusionary curricu-
malans, or Colombians, large-scale Hispanic immigra- lum practices; insensitive administrators, teachers, and
tion settlement patterns have not developed in isolation. counselors; and their overall subordinate status in soci-
They have been forged, at least in part, by U.S. foreign ety, the education provided for Hispanics throughout
policies that translated into military and financial in- much of the twentieth century was substandard and
tervention. In conjunction with Hispanic integration unsatisfactory to meet their diverse needs. The first suc-
into an American society historically characterized by cessful constitutional challenge to segregation occurred
bipolar racial categories (blacks and whites), identity in Orange County, California, after World War II. With
formation and understanding the qualifications and assistance from the League of United Latin American
entitlements to citizenship have posed challenges for Citizens (LULAC), a federal class-action lawsuit was filed
Hispanics throughout much of the twentieth century. on behalf of more than 5,000 Hispanic students. In that
Undeniably, the binary black-white construction of race case, known as Méndez v. Westminster (1946), the U.S.
has contributed to the marginalization of Hispanics, Circuit Court for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the rights
25 6 Hiss, A lger
of Hispanic students were being violated under the equal and served forty-four months in prison. He continued to
protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. More be a cause célèbre during the decades of the Cold War.
broadly, the Méndez case laid important groundwork for For years afterwards, many liberals continued to believe
the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board in Hiss’s innocence.
of Education (1954), which reversed the long-standing The son of a small but prosperous business owner
legal justification of segregation known as the “separate and his wife, Alger Hiss was born on November 11,
but equal” doctrine. 1904, in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Maryland
In addition to using the legal system to draw atten- Institute of Art (1921–1922), Johns Hopkins University
tion to repressive conditions, Hispanics sought reform (AB, 1926), and Harvard University Law School (LLB,
through political participation and social activism. That 1929). At Harvard, Hiss became a friend of Felix Frank-
movement peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, as Hispanics furter, who arranged for Hiss to serve as a law clerk for
challenged the standard for measuring acceptability and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
cultural worth, while separating from Anglo-American (1929). Between 1933 and 1936, Hiss worked in the Ag-
identity. Members of the Mexican-American community, riculture and Justice Departments during the presidency
for example, established organizations such as the United of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1936, he began working
Farm Workers, Crusade for Justice, Federal Alliance of at the State Department and advanced in responsibility
Land Grants, Brown Berets, La Raza Unida Party, and El during the remainder of the Roosevelt administration
Movimiento Estudiantíl Chicano de Aztlán (MECHA) to and the first two years of the administration of Harry
obtain the rights to which they felt entitled. Eventually, S. Truman.
other Hispanic subgroups, namely Puerto Ricans, formed In 1945, under President Truman, Hiss led the San
organizations like the Young Lord Party and ASPIRA, Francisco Conference at the inauguration of the United
which championed change as well. Leaders like César Nations, serving as the temporary secretary-general of
Chávez, Reies López Tijerina, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, the UN. Two years later, Hiss left government service
José Ángel Gutiérrez, and Felipe Luciano created not to accept the position of president of the Carnegie En-
only a more pluralistic society, but changed America’s dowment for World Peace. His professional career was
perceptions of Hispanic culture and life. interrupted in 1948, when Chambers accused him of
serving in an “underground cell” of communists who had
Darius V. Echeverría spied for the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Chambers
advanced the charges on a radio program, Meet the Press,
See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Chávez, César; and later before Congress. Hiss denied the accusations
Cuba; English as the Official Language; González, Elián; and appeared voluntarily before the House Committee
Immigration Policy; La Raza Unida; Migrant Labor; Multi on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to refute them. He
culturalism and Ethnic Studies; Race. could not be charged with espionage because the statute
of limitations had run out, and his first trial on perjury
Further Reading charges ended in a hung jury. In the January 1950 retrial,
DeFreitas, Gregory. Inequality at Work: Hispanics in the U.S. Labor he was convicted.
Force. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. After his release from prison, Hiss wrote In the Court
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. of Public Opinion (1957), in which he denied all allega-
New York: Viking Penguin, 2000. tions against him. For the rest of his life he maintained
Kanellos, Nicolas. Thirty Million Strong: Reclaiming the Hispanic his innocence and won the support of many who believed
Image in American Culture. New York: Fulcrum, 1998. he had been a victim of right-wing hysteria. In his auto-
Oboler, Suzanne. Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the biography Recollections of a Life (1988), Hiss argued that
Politics of (Re)Presentation in the U.S. Minneapolis: University the evidence against him had been forged. He died on
of Minnesota Press, 1995. November 15, 1996.
Shorris, Earl. Latinos: A Biography of the People. New York: W.W. After the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), in-
Norton, 1992. formation found in Moscow’s archives suggested that
Hiss had been connected to the Soviet spy system. Many
authorities have concluded that he had indeed passed
Hiss, Alger along classified materials to Soviet authorities.
New Deal administrator, lawyer, U.S. diplomat, and
United Nations official, Alger Hiss emerged as a national William T. Walker
figure in the culture wars in 1948 when he was accused
by journalist and confessed communist agent Whittaker See also: Chambers, Whittaker; Cold War; Communists and
Chambers of being a former Soviet spy. Hiss was found Communism; McCarthyism; New Deal; Soviet Union and
guilty of perjury in connection with the case in 1950 Russia; United Nations.
Holly wood Ten 257
Further Reading the jury and compared Judge Julius Hoffman to Jews
Hiss, Alger. Recollections of a Life. New York: Henry Holt, who cooperated with Nazis during World War II. In
1988. February 1970, a jury acquitted all defendants of the
Hiss, Tony. The View from Alger’s Window: A Son’s Memoir. New conspiracy charges but found five of them, including
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Hoffman, guilty of crossing state lines to incite riot-
Lowenthal, John. “Venona and Alger Hiss.” Intelligence and ing. A federal appeals court overturned the convictions
National Security 15 (Autumn 2000): 98–130. two years later.
Ruddy, T. Michael. The Alger Hiss Espionage Case. Belmont, CA: Hoffman wrote several popular books, including
Wadsworth, 2005. Revolution for the Hell of It (1968), Woodstock Nation (1969),
Swan, Patrick, ed. Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Schism and Steal This Book (1971). His writings often attacked
in the American Soul. Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Stud- corporate co-optation of the counterculture. In the 1970s,
ies Institute, 2003. as the counterculture abated, Hoffman became a cocaine
Weinstein, Allen. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. New York: smuggler and dealer. Undercover police arrested him in
Random House, 1997. 1973. Skipping bail, he went underground, created an
identity as “Barry Freed,” and became an environmental
activist. Surrendering to authorities in 1980, he then
Hoffman, Abbie took on Jerry Rubin, who had gone to Wall Street, in
A master of guerrilla theater, co-founder of the Youth the so-called Yuppie/Yippie debates.
International Party, or “Yippies,” and member of the Hoffman committed suicide by taking an overdose
Chicago Seven, Abbie Hoffman brought irreverence and of barbiturates on April 12, 1989. In death, he became
iconoclasm to the radicalism of the 1960s. At antiwar a global icon of cultural revolution. Actor Vincent
demonstrations, he invited crowds to laugh and incited D’Onofrio portrayed Hoffman in Robert Greenwald’s
them to riot. He was born Abbott Howard Hoffman to a biopic Steal This Movie! (2000), giving the Yippie legend
conservative Jewish family in Worcester, Massachusetts, renewed life at the start of the twenty-first century.
on November 30, 1936, and he attended Brandeis
University (BA, 1959) and the University of California, Jonah Raskin
Berkeley (no degree, 1960).
In California, he protested capital punishment at See also: Capital Punishment; Chicago Seven; Civil Rights
San Quentin Prison and called for an end to the House Movement; Communists and Communism; Counterculture;
Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in- Drug Testing; Environmental Movement; Flag Desecration;
vestigating communism. Back home in Massachusetts, McCarthyism; Vietnam War; War on Drugs; War Protesters.
he married in 1960, began a family, and joined the
burgeoning civil rights movement. In 1964, he went Further Reading
to work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com- Hoffman, Abbie. The Best of Abbie Hoffman. Ed. Daniel Simon.
mittee (SNCC) in Mississippi, teaching at a black school New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1989.
for two years. Raskin, Jonah. For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoff-
In 1966, settled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, man. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Hoffman undertook a campaign to radicalize apolitical
hippies. Polarization became his watchword. Armed
with bad manners, a foul mouth, and a smile on his H o l l y wo o d Te n
face, he provoked nearly everyone: police, publishers, The Hollywood Ten were ten members of the film
and members of Congress. At the New York Stock Ex- industry called to testify before the House Committee
change, he tossed dollar bills to the floor and watched on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in October 1947
brokers scramble madly for the money. At HUAC hear- about their alleged membership in the Communist
ings in Washington, D.C., he wore a shirt made from an Party and activities at the beginning of the Cold War
American flag and was promptly arrested. Along with era. All ten were called as “unfriendly” witnesses, refused
sidekick and rival Jerry Rubin, he founded the Yippies to testify, served prison sentences, and were blacklisted
in 1967 and staged the “Festival of Life” in Chicago to by the film industry.
protest against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic The Hollywood Ten included director Edward
National Convention. Dmytryk, screenwriter and director Herbert J. Bib-
Arrested and charged with conspiracy and inciting erman, and screenwriters Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole,
to riot in Chicago, Hoffman achieved fame and noto- Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz,
riety as the most consistently flamboyant of the eight, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. On
later seven, defendants on trial (dubbed the Chicago November 24, 1947, after all ten had invoked their
Seven). In the federal courtroom, he blew kisses to Fifth Amendment rights in declining to testify, Con-
25 8 Holly wood Ten
gress voted overwhelmingly to cite them for contempt. Holocaust

Convicted the following year, they served prison sen- The Holocaust refers to the systematic murder of
tences of six months to one year. Most never worked in persons deemed undesirable by Nazi Germany during
Hollywood again. Some submitted scripts anonymously World War II. Known as Hitler’s “Final Solution,” this
or under pseudonyms. Dmytryk returned before the genocide campaign was responsible for the death of more
committee to supply information and went on to a suc- than 6 million Jews, the single largest targeted group.
cessful film career. In the postwar aftermath and to this day, the Holocaust
Shortly after the Hollywood Ten refused to testify, has been a topic of debate that has included discussions
film executives convened a meeting at the Waldorf- of moral and political culpability, the founding of Israel,
Astoria Hotel in New York City to design a policy that the prosecution of war criminals, restitution for victims,
would allow the industry to police itself, rather than and revisionist history.
be subject to constant external scrutiny. The Waldorf Critics of President Franklin D. Roosevelt argue
Statement disavowed the Ten’s actions and ostracized that he failed to respond effectively to the Holocaust and
them from the industry until they denied communist turned a blind eye to the plight of European Jews. They
affiliation under oath. The document further declared contend that the president should have heeded the advice
that Hollywood executives “will not knowingly employ of some of his advisers, including his wife, Eleanor, to
a Communist.” Thus began the practice of “blacklisting,” increase the quota for Jewish immigrants to the United
which ultimately put more than 300 actors, writers, States despite anti-Semitism and opposition from the
directors, and producers out of work. Although there State Department. Others charge that the Allies should
was little evidence to support HUAC allegations that have bombed concentration camps and transportation
subversive messages were embedded in films being cre- routes to the camps. Defenders of Roosevelt insist that
ated for mass consumption, producers shied away from he saw defeating Germany as the best means of stopping
making movies about social problems, instead producing the Holocaust.
some forty anticommunist propaganda films in the next During the final stages of the war and afterward, U.S.
seven years. intelligence and military services transferred a number of
The Hollywood Ten came to exemplify resistance German scientists to the United States to work on aero-
to government attempts to create a new postwar na- dynamics and chemical weapons, developing Cold War
tional unity at a time of fear and uncertainty through weapons and technologies. Critics argue that the United
the persecution and imprisonment of suspected com- States shielded known Nazi criminals from justice. It
munists. Political upheaval in China, Czechoslovakia, was revealed that many of NASA’s leading engineers,
and Germany made it easy to rally public support for an including the first director, Wernher von Braun, had been
anticommunist program both at home and abroad. While members of the Nazi Party during the war. Moreover,
the government took a multifaceted approach to contain some of these men working in Germany during the war
and repel communism abroad through policies such as had utilized slave labor from the concentration camps.
the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, the thrust of
these activities at home was to diminish the influence of Jewish Homeland and Restitution
the Communist Party through loyalty oaths, the Internal Under intense pressure to secure a homeland for Jewish
Security Act of 1950, and McCarthyism. refugees, the United Nations in November 1947 voted
to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two
Cynthia J. Miller independent states—one Arab and the other Jewish.
Implementation of the partition sparked intense
See also: Censorship; Cold War; Communists and Com- international discussion. As the world community
munism; Literature, Film, and Drama; McCarthy, Joseph; debated, Jewish militias in Palestine waged war for a
McCarthyism; Motion Picture Association of America; Soviet permanent homeland. On May 14, 1948, the newly
Union and Russia. constituted provisional government of Israel declared
the country’s independence. The following day, the
Further Reading United States gave the new nation formal recognition.
Bernstein, Matthew. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and To this day, there are critics, in the United States and
Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers abroad, who suggest that America’s support for Israel
University Press, 1999. is based largely on a lingering sense of guilt over the
Rouverol, Jean. Refugees from Hollywood: A Journal of the Black- Holocaust.
list Years. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, The issue of restitution for Holocaust victims,
2000. although addressed in the early years after the war,
Wagner, David. Blacklisted: The Film Lover’s Guide to the Holly reemerged following the Cold War and new revela-
wood Blacklist. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. tions about Swiss bank accounts and corporate collusion
Holoc au s t 25 9
with the Nazis. In the early 1950s, following a meeting degree. In contrast, Lipstadt earned her PhD at Brandeis
between Israeli and West German officials and the Con- University and for years has served as the Dorot Profes-
ference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, it sor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory
was agreed that remuneration should be based solely on University. Prior to the suit, Lipstadt called Irving a
material losses. The claims conference and the World Holocaust denier because of the apologetic tone regard-
Jewish Restitution Organization began negotiations with ing Nazi Germany and Hitler in his work, his association
the newly reunified Germany in 1990, as well as with with radical groups, and controversial statements he made
German industry, Swiss banks, insurance agencies, and in public. Irving sued Lipstadt in a British court. Lipstadt
other European countries, for additional reparations and and her attorneys were forced to prove not only that her
compensation to Jewish victims. allegations were substantiated but that the Holocaust
In the United States, American companies such as was a factual event. In 2000, Lipstadt’s attorneys were
International Business Machines (IBM), General Mo- successful in their efforts, and Holocaust denial suffered
tors, DaimlerChrysler (acting as Daimler-Benz, and a major setback in international circles.
now known simply as Daimler), Siemens, and Ford The American linguistics scholar and social activist
Corporation were implicated in profiting from the Nazi Noam Chomsky drew sharp criticism from the academic
war machine. It was shown, for example, that IBM community during the 1990s, when he supported, on
punch-card tabulators enabled the brutal efficiency of the grounds of academic freedom, French professor of
the Nazi regime in carrying out the Holocaust. Many literature and Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. Critics
companies, wishing to minimize the public relations charged that Chomsky’s response gave credence to Fau-
quandary, agreed to out-of-court settlements and in risson’s denial of the Holocaust. In 2006, Iran hosted a
some cases provided large contributions to Holocaust- revisionist conference on the Holocaust, an event that was
survivor organizations. attended by Faurisson as well as David Duke, a former
leader of the Ku Klux Klan who for years has argued that
Holocaust Studies the Holocaust never occurred.
Academic studies of the Holocaust began in earnest In 1993, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
during the 1960s, leading to detailed analyses on the in Washington, D.C., was dedicated to commemorate
origins of anti-Semitism, the rise of the Nazi Party, and victims of the Holocaust, foster education, document
the methodical murder of millions of innocent victims intolerance, and promote human rights. Supporters of
in concentration camps. Many accounts of the Holocaust the institution applaud the museum’s poignant docu-
are direct testimonials from survivors. The first mentation of the events, while critics argue that the
scholarly conferences focusing on the Holocaust began museum commercializes one of the darkest periods in
in the 1970s. Holocaust scholarship entered a period of human history.
intense controversy in the 1980s, as scholars known as Melanie Kirkland
“intentionalists” and “functionalists” debated the course
of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Intentionalists See also: Anti-Semitism; Aryan Nations; Buchanan, Pat;
argued that the Final Solution was a structured plan Chomsky, Noam; Conspiracy Theories; Demjanjuk, John;
to kill European Jews; functionalists argued that it Duke, David; Human Rights; Israel; Revisionist History;
arose from no set plan but was the result of an evolving Rudolph, Eric; United Nations.
system.
In recent decades, anti-Semitic movements have Further Reading
emerged to attempt to deny or minimize the historical Bazyler, Michael J., ed. Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the
validity of the Holocaust. These movements publish Litigation and Its Legacy. New York: New York University
editorial-style advertisements in college newspapers Press, 2006.
and call for an open debate on matters pertaining to the Black, Edwin. IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance
Holocaust. Often referred to as “Holocaust deniers,” Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corp. New
these individuals and movements frequently couch their York: Three Rivers Press, 2002.
claims as “historical revisionism,” or interpretations of the Dawidowicz, Lucy S. War Against the Jews, 1933–1945. New
historical record. They charge that Holocaust survivors York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.
are overwhelmingly charlatans who exploit the issue for Eisenstat, Stuart E. Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor,
monetary gain. and the Unfinished Business of World War II. New York:
A 1996 libel suit brought against Holocaust his- Perseus, 2003.
torian Deborah E. Lipstadt by military historian David Guttenplan, D.D. The Holocaust on Trial. New York: W.W.
Irving provided the most publicized confrontation be- Norton, 2002.
tween academic scholarship and Holocaust denial. Irving Lipstadt, Deborah E. History on Trial: My Day in Court with a
attended the University of London, but holds no academic Holocaust Denier. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.
26 0 Homeschooling
Homeschooling Agers, object to what they call the “values curriculum”

The homeschool movement, involving approximately of public schools. Many Christian fundamentalists and
2 percent of America’s school-age children—or about evangelicals, for example, oppose the teaching of evolu-
1.1 million in 2003, according to the Department of tion and do not approve of sex education that presupposes
Education—is led by parents who for various reasons premarital sex. New Agers who homeschool primarily do
have rejected public schools as well as private ones. A so to provide their children with a learning environment
battlefront of the culture wars, as it pertains to education that is supportive of holistic spirituality and the unique-
reform, race and social class, socialization, church and ness of the individual. The liberal counterculture types
state, and family values, homeschooling is part of a negatively view the school system as imposing conformity
larger debate exposing the ideological rift between the for indoctrinating young people for the workforce. The
particular (local community and family unit) and the pedagogues are not against the concept of public educa-
universal (state and national). tion, but believe homeschooling affords qualitative learn-
Advocates of homeschooling tout it as part of an ing free from bureaucratic and regimented procedures.
American tradition, emphasizing that this is how George A popular work offering the pedagogical argument is
Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and oth- Family Matters (1992) by David Guterson, a high school
er founders of the nation were educated. Such a viewpoint English teacher and later novelist whose three children
has been criticized as selective romanticism because in the were homeschooled.
colonial era and early republic there were also private tu- According to the Department of Education’s Na-
tors, boarding schools, and apprenticeship training. Not tional Household Education Survey (2003), a tally of
until 1918 was there nationwide compulsory universal self-reported motivations for homeschooling, 31.2 per-
education, although many children stopped attending cent of parents cite the public school environment (issues
school after the eighth grade. As high school became of safety, drugs, and peer pressure) as their top concern.
mandatory, the Amish resisted, taking their complaint Due to concerns about the school environment, after the
to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Wisconsin v. April 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in
Yoder (1972) that parents, based on religious freedom, Littleton, Colorado, homeschooling in that state increased
have rights involving the education of their children. by 10 percent. The other top reported reasons for home-
The modern manifestation of homeschooling schooling are the desire for religion and morals to be part
originated during the 1960s and was rooted in the of academic learning (29.8 percent) and dissatisfaction
anti-establishment sentiments of the counterculture with public school instruction (16.5 percent).
movement. John Holt, the author of How Children Fail Critics of homeschooling suggest that it isolates
(1964), How Children Learn (1967), and Instead of Educa- children by their race and socioeconomic class—the
tion (1976), was a leading figure of this contingent, argu- demographic of homeschool families tends to be that
ing that conventional schooling was a hindrance to the of the white, middle class, and of those households, 60
natural learning process. Holt and other such critics were percent have one parent who does not work outside of the
emboldened by the studies of the 1970s that reported home, a situation representative of only 30 percent of the
declining academic achievement in public schools. In overall population. Although arguments have been made
1977, Holt founded the first magazine for homeschoolers, that children who do not have a traditional classroom
Growing Without Schooling. experience are less socialized, anecdotal evidence indi-
Certain white families withdrew from public schools cates no disadvantage. Advocates of public schools argue
after the federal government imposed school desegrega- that homeschoolers miss out on the definitive American
tion and along with it forced busing. This “white flight” experience that fosters citizenship and democracy in a
from integrated public schools contributed to the growth pluralistic society. At its 1988 annual convention, the
of private religious schools. During the 1970s and 1980s, National Education Association passed a resolution stat-
however, a number of parochial schools closed after the ing that homeschooling fails to offer “a comprehensive
Internal Revenue Service revoked their tax exemption education experience.”
status due to their policies of denying admission to blacks. Over the years, laws regulating homeschooling have
Meanwhile, leaders of the Religious Right began encour- generally been loosened or rescinded, chiefly due to
aging their followers to homeschool in order to avoid the the efforts of the Home School Legal Defense Associa-
“secular humanism” and “moral relativism” taught at tion (HSLDA), headquartered in Purcellville, Virginia.
the public schools. In response, Bob Jones University, a Founded in 1983 by Michael Farris, an attorney, Baptist
fundamentalist institution, emerged as a major publisher minister, and father of ten homeschoolers, the HSLDA
of curriculum material for religious homeschoolers. has advanced the legal cause of homeschooling on ar-
Generally, there are two categories of homeschool- guments based on the free exercise of religion, equal
ers: ideologues and pedagogues. The ideologues, ranging protection under the law, and privacy rights. Important
from conservative Christians to Jews and Muslims to New legal battles in Michigan (1993) and California (2008)
hook s, bell 261
have thwarted state legislators from requiring parents social structure. Influenced by postmodernist theories,
who homeschool to obtain teacher certification. In 1994, her writings explore the politics of feminism; the
the HSLDA exercised political muscle by successfully dynamics of power in a patriarchal, white-dominated
orchestrating a lobbying campaign to block an amend- society; sexism in the black liberation movement;
ment to a federal education bill that would have required stereotypes in mass media; and power structures in
all the nation’s teachers, including homeschool parents, pedagogy. Her works often provoke controversy—as
to be certified. As of 2008, one out of five states had no does her name itself, a pseudonym (spelled all in
oversight laws pertaining to homeschooling—they were lowercase letters) chosen to honor her maternal great
Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, grandmother (“a sharp-tongued woman, a woman who
Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Alaska, and the Dis- spoke her mind”).
trict of Columbia. The daughter of a janitor, hooks was born Gloria
Patrick Henry College, established in 2000 and lo- Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952, in Hopkinsville,
cated in Purcellville, Virginia, has emerged as a popular Kentucky. She studied English at Stanford University
institution of higher learning for homeschoolers of a (BA, 1973), the University of Wisconsin–Madison (MA,
fundamentalist persuasion. Farris, the founding president, 1976), and the University of California at Santa Cruz
envisioned the school as preparing “Christian men and (PhD, 1983). She adopted her pseudonym upon complet-
women who will lead our nation and shape our culture ing her first book-length work of cultural criticism, Ain’t
with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), which she
of the American founding.” The school has struggled had begun writing at age nineteen. While completing
to gain accreditation, and in 2006 nearly one-third of her doctorate and the book, she taught English at several
its faculty resigned in a dispute over academic freedom. universities in Southern California.
Patrick Henry students have been successful at obtaining Ain’t I a Woman challenged assumptions about the
internships in Washington, D.C., working for conserva- experience of black women in terms of race and gender.
tive Republican officials. Criticizing the definition of womanhood presented by
Roger Chapman feminists such as Kate Millet and Susan Brownmiller,
hooks argued that white women are guilty of unconscious
See also: Bob Jones University; Busing, School; Church and racist assumptions. At the same time, she lambasted
State; Creationism and Intelligent Design; Education Re- popular black women writers, such as Michelle Wallace,
form; New Age Movement; Privacy Rights; Religious Right; for not recognizing or asserting a distinctive feminist
School Prayer; School Shootings; Secular Humanism; Sex consciousness. In addition, hooks attacked the black
Education. liberation movement—most notably the novelist Richard
Wright, whose writings inspired black revolutionaries
Further Reading of the 1960s—arguing that by prioritizing equality for
Cooper, Bruce S., ed. Home Schooling in Full View: A Reader. black men, they reaffirmed patriarchal power structures
Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 2005. while demeaning and objectifying the women who sup-
Farris, Michael. The Future of Homeschooling: A New Direction for ported them.
Home Education. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1997. The criticism offered by hooks in over thirty books
Guterson, David. Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense. has unsettled some intellectuals but established her as a
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. prominent black feminist theorist. Works such as Feminist
Knowles, J. Gary, Stacey E. Marlowe, and James A. Muchmore. Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Talking Back: Think-
“From Pedagogy to Ideology: Origins and Phases of Home ing Feminist, Thinking Black (1989), and Feminism is for Ev-
Education in the United States, 1970–1990.” American Jour- erybody: Passionate Politics (2000) explore issues of feminism
nal of Education 11:2 (February 1992): 195–235. and female identity. Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations
Rosin, Hanna. God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission (1994), Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995), and Reel to Real:
to Save America. New York: Harcourt, 2007. Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies (1996) examine paradigms
of power in American culture. Still other texts, such as We
Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (2004), explore issues
hook s, bell of patriarchy and masculinity.
The outspoken African-American social critic, feminist A professor of English at several institutions, in-
scholar, and poet bell hooks examines the complex cluding the University of Southern California, Oberlin
nature of racism and sexism in America. Unlike other College, Yale University, City College of New York, and
intellectuals who treat race, class, and gender as distinct Berea College, hooks has also written works committed
components of cultural identity, hooks emphasizes their to reshaping education. Among these are Teaching to
interrelatedness, suggesting that identifying a group Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994) and
exclusively in those terms perpetuates an oppressive Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003).
262 Hoover, J. Edgar
While many of her texts are written for academic “Palmer Raids.” From 1921 to 1924, Hoover served as
audiences, hooks endeavored to reach a general audience assistant director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), as
with such works as the autobiographical Bone Black: the predecessor of the FBI was called. He was appointed
Memories of Girlhood (1996), which explores the forma- director in 1924 and remained in that position until his
tion of cultural identity. She has also collaborated on less death on May 2, 1972.
formal writings, including the dialogue Homegrown: En- As FBI director, Hoover ended political appoint-
gaged Cultural Criticism (with Amalia Mesa-Bains, 2006), ments, recruited college graduates, created a national
which explores the role of community in shaping cultural fingerprint database and a crime laboratory, established
stereotypes about race, ethnicity, and gender. an academy for training federal agents, and imposed a
conservative code of conduct on all agency personnel.
Marilyn Morgan During the Hoover years, the FBI dealt with gangsters
and kidnappers in the 1920s and 1930s, fascist radicals
See also: Millet, Kate; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; and German spies in the 1940s, communists and Klans-
Postmodernism; Race. men from the 1940s through the 1960s, and student
protesters and New Left activists in the the 1960s and
Further Reading 1970s. From his testimony before the House Committee
Florence, Namulundah. bell hooks’ Engaged Pedagogy: A Transgres- on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1947 to published
sive Education for Critical Consciousness. Westport, CT: Bergin works such as Masters of Deceit (1958) and The Study of
& Garvey, 1998. Communism (1962), Hoover largely shaped public opinion
hooks, bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: on communism in America.
South End Press, 1981. Hoover came to link the civil rights movement to
———. Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life. New York: Henry communism, a viewpoint that was openly challenged in
Holt, 1997. 1970 by William C. Sullivan, a top-level FBI official.
Valdivia, Angharad N. “bell hooks: Ethics from the Margins.” The following year, Sullivan was forced into retirement.
Qualitative Inquiry 8:4 (2002): 429–47. In the late 1960s, Sullivan had contradicted Hoover by
arguing that the Ku Klux Klan, not the communist
movement, was the number one domestic threat. Some
H o ove r, J . E d g a r accused Hoover of racism, noting that out of the 8,500
The top law enforcement officer of the nation for nearly FBI special agents in 1971, only 135 were minorities.
half a century (1924–1972), J. Edgar Hoover headed The FBI chief once called the Reverend Martin Luther
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), from which King, Jr., “the most notorious liar in the country” be-
he directed the surveillance of communists, civil rights cause the civil rights leader had remarked that many FBI
activists, political dissenters, Earth Day celebrants, agents stationed in Albany, Georgia, were products of the
writers and artists, and even elected officials. Some of white South. (In fact, most were from the North.) With
this domestic spying was part of the FBI’s five secret permission from U.S. attorney general Robert F. Ken-
counterintelligence programs (COINTELPRO), oper- nedy, Hoover conducted wiretaps of King in an attempt
ating between 1956 and 1971 and at times involving to establish a communist connection. Instead, Hoover
illegal wiretaps and searches. Admirers credit Hoover exposed the civil rights leader’s extramarital sex life.
with modernizing the FBI, but detractors look back on Following Hoover’s death, his body lay in the Capitol
his tenure as a sinister abuse of power. In 2002, follow- Rotunda, the first civil servant to be so honored. During
ing the release of documentation indicating that Hoover the funeral, President Richard Nixon delivered the eulogy.
allowed an innocent man to be wrongfully convicted of In a true culture wars speech, Nixon praised the late FBI
murder in order to protect Mafia figures who were also director for helping reverse “the trend of permissiveness.”
FBI informants, Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) called The president added, “The American people today are
for removing Hoover’s name from the FBI headquarters tired of disorder, disruption, and disrespect for the law.”
building in Washington, D.C. In the meantime, Benjamin Spock, the famed pediatri-
The son of a low-level federal bureaucrat, John Edgar cian and antiwar activist, called Hoover’s death “a great
Hoover was born in Washington, D.C., on January 1, relief.” Vilifying Hoover as “a servant of racism, reaction,
1895. After studying law at George Washington Univer- and repression,” the head of the Communist Party of the
sity (LLB, 1916; LLM, 1917) and working at the Library USA, Gus Hall, charged that while the FBI director for
of Congress, Hoover joined the U.S. Department of Jus- years persecuted communists, he made no effort to bring
tice as a staff attorney in 1917. Later, as special assistant “a single lyncher of 5,000 American blacks” to justice.
to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (1919–1921), he Congress almost at once began investigating how
maintained files on 450,000 “radicals” and orchestrated Hoover conducted himself as FBI director. First, there
the roundup of thousands in the Red Scare known as the was alarm over the destruction of his personal papers by
Hoover, J. Edgar 263
The powerful, longtime FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (center) targeted organized crime, communists, civil rights activists,
political dissenters, and even the Kennedys. He is known to have resorted to extralegal means against any and all enemies.
(Keystone/Stringer/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Hoover’s secretary. Later, secret files—dubbed “drawers lifelong bachelor, he had a close relationship with the
full of political cancer”—were uncovered, containing associate director of the FBI, Clyde A. Tolson, who was
derogatory information on public officials and journal- also a bachelor. The two men lunched and dined together
ists. Among them, for example, were dossiers on John six days a week, commuted back and forth from work in
F. Kennedy’s sexual liaisons, allegations pertaining to the same bulletproof car, and accompanied each other on
homosexual conduct by a number of government of- vacation. Hoover bequeathed his entire $551,500 estate
ficials beginning in the 1940s, and files indicating that to Tolson. The respected historian Richard Gid Powers,
presidents on occasion had personally directed politically in the 1996 film documentary J. Edgar Hoover: Private
inspired wiretaps. Also, Hoover involved himself in aid- and Confidential, described the relationship as having
ing politicians he sided with, such as when he secretly “the appearance of being some sort of male marriage.”
passed information to Thomas Dewey, the Republican Critics of Hoover who are convinced that he was gay ac-
challenger who ran against President Harry Truman in cuse the former FBI director of hypocrisy, since he often
the 1948 election. President Lyndon B. Johnson, the files condemned homosexuality as morally reprehensible.
show, sent the FBI on errands to investigate newspapers
that published unfavorable reports or negative editorial Roger Chapman
cartoons. Observers generally conceded that Hoover’s use
of government power overstepped official boundaries and See also: Civil Rights Movement; Communists and Commu-
that a number of presidents had made improper requests nism; Earth Day; Felt, W. Mark; Freedom of Information
of the director. It is generally believed that presidents Act; Hall, Gus; Kennedy Family; King, Martin Luther, Jr.;
never tried replacing Hoover, even after he reached the McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; New Left; Nixon, Richard;
retirement age of seventy, out of fear he possessed infor- Outing; Truman, Harry S.
mation that could be used against them.
At the same time, the secret files contained reports Further Reading
of gossip about Hoover’s own sexual orientation. Many Curt, Gentry. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New
speculated that Hoover was a closet homosexual. A York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
26 4 Horow it z , Dav id
Kelly, William W. The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and his Academic Bill of Rights “to end the political abuse”
Fall of a Domestic Intelligence State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton being perpetrated by universities. In Unholy Alliance:
University Press, 1989. Radical Islam and the American Left (2004), he argues that
O’Reilly, Kenneth. Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, leftist criticism of U.S. foreign policy constitutes an alli-
HUAC, and the Red Menace. Philadelphia: Temple University ance with terrorism. And in The Professors: The 101 Most
Press, 1983. Dangerous Academics in America (2006), Horowitz identi-
Potter, Claire Bond. “Queer Hoover: Sex, Lies, and Political fies professors he believes are leftists guilty of abusing
History.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 15:3 (September academic freedom. Critics have denounced his attack on
2006): 355–81. academia as a form of McCarthyism.
Powers, Richard Gid. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar
Hoover. New York: Free Press, 1987. Andrew J. Waskey and Roger Chapman
See also: Academic Bill of Rights; Academic Freedom; Black Pan-

H o r o w i t z , D av i d ther Party; Cold War; Communists and Communism; Counter-
A leftist turned conservative activist and writer, David culture; Marxism; McCarthyism; New Left; S eptember 11.
Horowitz has been a strident player in the culture wars
by publicly condemning 1960s radicalism and “liberal” Further Reading
professors. Critics ridicule him as a political extremist Freedom Center Web site. www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org.
who quit the “Lunatic Left” to join the “Ridiculous Horowitz, David. Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey. New York:
Right.” Simon & Schuster, 1997.
The son of Jewish school teachers and active commu- Ivie, Robert L. “Academic Freedom and Antiwar Dissent in
nists, David Joel Horowitz was born on January 10, 1939, a Democratic Idiom.” College Literature 33:4 (Fall 2006):
in New York City. He attended Columbia University 76–92.
(AB, 1959), the University of California at Berkeley (MA, Lambrose, R.J. “The Abusable Past.” Radical History Review 96
English literature, 1961), and the London School of Eco- (Fall 2006): 151–54.
nomics and Political Science (1964), becoming actively Sherman, Scott. “David Horowitz’s Long March.” Nation, July
involved in the New Left upon his return. Although a 3, 2000.
Marxist, Horowitz rejected the Communist Party because
of its ties to the Soviet Union, which he loathed for the
excesses of Stalinism. During this period, Horowitz edited Hor ton, Willie
the New Left magazine Ramparts (1969–1974) and wrote Willie Horton was a convicted felon featured in a television
liberal works such as Corporations and the Cold War (1970) campaign ad on behalf of 1988 Republican presidential
and The Free World Colossus; A Critique of American Foreign candidate George H.W. Bush to criticize his Democratic
Policy in the Cold War (1971). opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis,
In accounts of his turn to conservatism, Horowitz for his state’s prison furlough program. Critics of the
points to the murder of a friend who worked as a bookkeeper commercial argued that it exploited racial stereotypes,
for the Black Panthers, Betty Van Patter, who disappeared featuring a menacing Horton, who is black. Defenders of
after leaving a San Francisco tavern on December 13, 1974. the spot argued that it raised legitimate concerns about
Horowitz argues that the Black Panthers killed Van Patter problems in the Massachusetts prison system—Horton
to stop her from reporting its mishandling of a federal grant. committed rape and armed robbery while on furlough—
This led Horowitz to question the moral underpinnings and Dukakis’s role in administering it.
of leftist ideology in general, connecting it with larger William Robert Horton, born on August 12, 1951,
atrocities such as Stalinist crimes and the Khmer Rouge in Chesterfield, South Carolina, was sentenced to life in
genocide in Cambodia. In 1986, he hosted with Peter Col- prison without parole for the 1974 stabbing death of
lier “Second Thoughts” conferences for rethinking leftist a gas station attendant in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In
ideology. Horowitz and Collier went on to write Destructive June 1986, while serving his sentence at the Northeast
Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (1989). Correctional Center in Concord, Massachusetts, Horton
In 1988, Horowitz founded the Center for the Study escaped during a weekend furlough. Ten months later,
of Popular Culture (later renamed the Freedom Center), he burglarized a house in Oxon Hill, Maryland, taking
which publishes the conservative online magazine Front- the residents hostage, assaulting a man, and raping his
PageMag.com. With the establishment of Students for fiancée. Captured by police shortly afterwards, he was
Academic Freedom, the center became a venue for op- eventually sentenced to consecutive life terms in the
posing liberal academics, who Horowitz claimed were Maryland prison system.
bullying conservative students. Following the terrorist at- Horton’s case was featured in a Pulitzer Prize–winning
tacks of September 11, 2001, Horowitz began promoting series on the prison furlough program by the Lawrence
Human R ight s 265
(Mass.) Eagle-Tribune. Shortly after the series ran, activists of civil rights, assertions on the part of the federal
in Massachusetts succeeded in their campaign to make in- government in state and local affairs. Debates have
mates serving life sentences ineligible for furloughs. It was ensued over attempts to expand the definition of human
Al Gore, during a debate before the New York Democratic rights to include labor rights, women’s rights, gay rights,
primary in April 1988, who first made prison furloughs abortion rights, the rights of the unborn, children’s
an issue in the presidential campaign. Gore criticized rights, universal health care, the right to die, laws
Dukakis for granting furloughs to murderers and others against hate crimes, the banning of capital punishment,
serving life sentences, but he did not mention Horton and habeas corpus for terror suspects, among others.
specifically. Dukakis had not initiated the Massachusetts The postwar human rights movement is linked to
furlough system but had supported it. President Franklin Roosevelt and his announcement of
Vice President George H.W. Bush, the Republican the Four Freedoms in a speech to Congress on January 6,
nominee, began criticizing the furlough program in June 1941. Offering his vision of the world after World War
1988. By the end of the month, he began referring to II, Roosevelt stressed four essential human freedoms: free-
Horton by name. The July issue of Reader’s Digest ran an dom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want,
article on the program that discussed the Horton case. and freedom from fear. The assertion of these freedoms
The political attack ad by the National Security Po- was to put totalitarian regimes and imperialist nations
litical Action Committee (NSPAC) aired in September, on notice. Accordingly, the American Cold War policy
making Willie Horton a household name. Framed as a of containment was to stop the spread of communism
comparison of the two candidates’ positions on crime, the and promote freedom.
thirty-second spot featured Horton’s mug shot and a de- Perhaps the single most important human rights
scription of the crimes that he committed after escaping. document, at least in terms of raising awareness, is the
The commercial concluded with the phrase “Weekend Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and
prison passes: Dukakis on crime.” proclaimed by the United Nations (UN) on December 10,
At about the same time, conservative media specialist 1948. The declaration, which has a direct line of descent
Roger Ailes (who would later head Fox News) produced from the Four Freedoms through the work of Eleanor
a commercial for the Bush campaign showing prisoners Roosevelt, asserts that “the equal and inalienable rights
walking through a revolving door as a narrator criticized of all members of the human family is the foundation of
Dukakis for his state’s prison furlough program, without freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Article 2 makes
specifically mentioning Horton. While not formally af- explicit the universality of human rights: “Everyone is
filiated with the Bush campaign, NSPAC became the entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
subject of controversy because of how closely it had coor- Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as
dinated its activities with the Bush campaign. Later, Bush race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other
campaign manager Lee Atwater spoke with satisfaction opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
about his success in linking Dukakis and Horton in the status.” Although national governments may ratify the
public mind. declaration, there is no mechanism for ensuring that its
Thomas C. Ellington articles are adhered to. Indeed, the rights to social security
(Article 22), to just and favorable remuneration worthy
See also: Atwater, Lee; Bush Family; Dukakis, Michael; Gore, of human dignity (Article 23), and to rest and leisure (Ar-
Al; Prison Reform. ticle 23) are largely ignored even by liberal democracies
that do not view themselves as “rights violators.” As the
Further Reading herald of universal human rights, the UN has been the
Anderson, David C. Crime and the Politics of Hysteria: How the target of criticism from both liberals and conservatives.
Willie Horton Story Changed American Justice. New York: While the left has condemned the UN for its inability
Times Books, 1995. to ensure human rights, the right has viewed the body
Mendelberg, Tali. “Executing Hortons: Racial Crime in the as a mechanism of foreign control and an intrusion on
1988 Presidential Campaign.” Public Opinion Quarterly 61:1 U.S. sovereignty.
(Spring 1997): 134–57. Since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century,
Schram, Martin. “The Making of Willie Horton.” New Republic, the concept of rights has become the frame through
May 28, 1990. which individuals understand their relationship to the
state as well as to each other. The assertion of rights has
provided both the goal of social and political movements
Human Rights as well as the vehicle through which their activism and
The issue of human rights has been a recurring source organizing are pursued. The American civil rights move-
of volatility in the culture wars, alternately pertaining ment of the 1950s and 1960s stands as an exemplary case
to U.S. initiatives in foreign affairs and, in the context of a social movement effectively appealing to human
26 6 Human R ight s
rights as a means of mobilizing support, gaining allies, including civil society organizations such as Amnesty
and affirming the worthiness of their cause. The social International and Human Rights Watch, have made ef-
movements on behalf of women, gays and lesbians, and fective use of individual human rights claims. At the same
indigenous peoples that have emerged since the 1960s time, critics have suggested that countries like the United
have all made effective human rights claims a feature of States, while claiming to be at the forefront of promoting
their organizing strategies. human rights, often turn a blind eye to the regimes that
In the early twenty-first century, critics of corporate violate them when it is beneficial to U.S. economic or
globalization, rejecting the argument that free trade strategic interests. In the War on Terror, for example,
leads to the expansion of human rights, have appealed the American government has been accused of violating
to global human rights and justice for improving work- human rights with its secret trials, detentions, and coer-
ing conditions and salaries. The critics of globalization cive interrogation of terrorist suspects. Critics have also
argue that there has actually been a decline in human pointed to the sanctioning of human rights violations
rights wherever trade liberalization has expanded (such against U.S. citizens, including domestic surveillance as
as Zambia, Zimbabwe, Russia, and Mexico). At the authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act (2001).
same time, progressive and antiwar movements have
opposed U.S. foreign policy hawks (neoconservatives) Jeff Shantz
who have argued for the use of force as a means to “bring
democracy” and human rights to other parts of the globe. See also: Abortion; Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Capital Pun-
Opponents point out that such “democratization” plans ishment; China; Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; Equal
have typically targeted countries that stand in the way Rights Amendment; Gay Rights Movement; Globalization;
of American corporate interests (such as Cuba, Grenada, Racial Profiling; Saudi Arabia; USA PATRIOT Act; Voting
and Nicaragua) while ignoring oppressive regimes that Rights Act.
are friendly to the United States (such as Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia). Further Reading
Debates have also arisen over the very nature of hu- Chatterjee, Dean K., ed. Democracy in a Global World: Human
man rights, and there are widely differing views of their Rights and Political Participation in the 21st Century. Lanham,
ultimate source. are rights properly understood as claims, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
benefits, privileges, or entitlements? Do they derive from Clapham, Andrew. Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction. New
nature, divinity, or a social contract? Some have even sug- York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
gested that human rights should be extended to potential Hunt, Lynn. Inventing Human Rights: A History. New York:
humans, as in the case of debates over abortion and the W.W. Norton, 2007.
status of human fetuses; or to future humans, as in debates Perry, Michael J. Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law,
over the obligation of current generations to preserve the Courts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
ecosystem for the survival of future generations. Different
perspectives on such expanded notions of rights thus have
given rise to heated, sometimes violent, disagreements H u m p h r ey, H u b e r t H .
over deep-seated cultural values or articles of faith. The trajectory of Hubert Humphrey’s political career
Discussions of rights distinguish between positive follows the rise and dissolution of a post–World
freedom and negative freedom. Positive freedom pre- War II center-left coalition that culminated in the
supposes claims on some other person or organization to avalanche of Great Society legislation during the
provide something, such as the guarantees of “freedom Lyndon Johnson administration, only to splinter over
from want,” universal health care, or other entitlements. the issue of the Vietnam War. Humphrey stepped into
Negative freedom asserts the right of individuals to oper- the national scene at the 1948 Democratic Convention
ate without external interference, such as freedom from in Philadelphia, where he challenged the party to “get
torture, the right to assembly, and the right to free speech. out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly
Conservatives generally oppose positive freedom, viewing in the bright sunshine of human rights,” triggering the
it as an extension of the state into the private sphere while walkout by Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats. The issue of
privileging specific groups over others. Liberals suggest civil rights would split the Democrats again in 1968,
that such a view both overlooks historical and systemic when segregationist leader George Wallace bolted to
relations of inequality, while serving to perpetuate op- run as an independent candidate for president against
pression and hinder genuine equal opportunity. Vice President Humphrey and the Republican nominee,
Proponents of human rights as individual rights Richard Nixon.
argue that they have played an important part in challeng- The son of a small-town pharmacist, Hubert
ing a range of abuses from unjust treatment and impris- Horatio Humphrey, Jr., was born on May 27, 1911, in
onment to torture and murder. Worldwide movements, Wallace, South Dakota. He graduated from the Capitol
Humphrey, Huber t H . 267
College of Pharmacy in Denver (1933), the University of race in March 1968, the swelling antiwar fervor among
Minnesota (BA, 1939), and Louisiana State University Democrats made Humphrey’s hawkish record on Vietnam
(MA, 1940). He later taught political science at the a barrier to a run for the party’s nomination. Fortunes
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (1940–1941), shifted again following the assassinations of Martin
worked for the War Production Board and the War Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy in April
Manpower Progress Commission (1942–1943), and and June 1968, respectively. Senator Eugene McCarthy’s
taught in the Army Air Force Training Program at marginalized campaign could not regroup in the vacuum
Macalester College (1943–1944). He entered politics between June and the Chicago convention in August.
with the end of World War II, serving as mayor of By the time of the infamous Chicago police riot, as a
Minneapolis (1945–1948) and then moving on to the national commission dubbed Mayor Richard Daley’s
U.S. Senate as a Democrat (1949–1964, 1971–1978). response to peace activists encamped about the city, the
He also served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations transformation of Humphrey’s reputation was complete.
(1956–1957) and as vice president of the United States Two decades earlier, he represented the insurgent forces
(1965–1968). After his failed presidential bid in 1968, of civil rights and triggered a buckling of the party. By
he briefly taught at the University of Minnesota before August 1968, he personified the failed policies of the
gaining reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1970. Hubert establishment.
H. Humphrey died of cancer on January 13, 1978, Heated issues facing the country generated ample
while still in office. fodder for pundits and comedians. Humphrey’s staccato
Schooled in the populism of the South Dakota and tenor and unrelenting cheerfulness provided imperson-
Minnesota plains, Humphrey became one of the nation’s ators like David Frye and Rich Little with material for
youngest mayors when elected by Minneapolis voters to appearances on television favorites like the Smothers Broth-
the first of two terms in 1945. His strong anticommunist ers Comedy Hour and the mainstream Ed Sullivan Show.
stance united Minnesota’s rival liberal-progressive fac- Laughter still came hard for the antiwar left, and the real
tions into the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, propelling power of television resided in the nightly reporting of
Humphrey to the U.S. Senate in 1948. Joining him as carnage in Vietnam. Despite the thin margin of Nixon’s
a freshman senator was Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas, plurality in the popular vote, Humphrey found himself
soon to become the fabled majority leader. Despite sharp isolated and politically damaged as a traumatic political
contrasts in personal style, Johnson found Humphrey to season ended.
be a man who thrived on political chess as much as the By January 1971, Humphrey was back in the Senate,
Texan did, and one who offered an indispensable link allying himself with many who had distanced themselves
to midwestern and northeastern liberals. Humphrey from him a few years earlier. The Senate operated much
enjoyed strong support from organized labor during a differently in the 1970s than in the 1950s. The liberal
time when the AFL-CIO, the United Auto Workers, and vision that seemed within reach not so long before now
other major unions could deliver money and votes. This faded in the face of a conservative backlash. The last sig-
solid base of support led to Humphrey’s presidential bid nificant bill he sponsored was the Humphrey-Hawkins
in 1960, although he withdrew after losing the crucial Full Employment Act of 1978, a textbook example of
West Virginia primary to Massachusetts rival John F. watered-down legislation that barely pacified Democratic
Kennedy. Four years later, when President Johnson activists while providing ammunition to conservative
needed a running mate, the Minnesota liberal suited his critics. A final run for the Democratic nomination in
needs perfectly. 1976 ended as Jimmy Carter captured the imagination
Satirist Tom Lehrer recorded a song in 1965 called of the vestiges of the populist tradition.
“Whatever Became of Hubert?” mocking the degree to
which Johnson overshadowed Humphrey during the four Robert H. Duke
years of their administration. Humphrey’s own stories of
the partnership, as told in his autobiography The Educa- See also: Americans with Disabilities Act; Chicago Seven;
tion of a Public Man (1976), supplement a ready supply of Civil Rights Movement; Communists and Communism;
anecdotes coming out of the notoriously abusive Johnson Democratic Party; Great Society; Johnson, Lyndon B.; La-
White House. During the headiest months of the wave bor Unions; McCarthy, Eugene; Nixon, Richard; Thurmond,
of Great Society legislation in 1965 and 1966, however, Strom; Vietnam War; Wallace, George.
Humphrey served as a key lieutenant on a host of civil
rights, antipoverty, and education bills. As domestic op- Further Reading
position to the Vietnam War forced other priorities aside, Berman, William C. America’s Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton.
longtime congressional allies questioned how Humphrey Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
could be so loyal to Johnson. Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life
By the time LBJ withdrew from the presidential and Politics. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1976.
26 8 Hunter, James Dav ison
Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Hum- dominant “biblical culture” beginning in the latter years
phrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. New York: of the twentieth century. In Culture Wars, he offers an
Columbia University Press, 1999. analysis that extends the findings of Robert Wuthnow’s
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President, 1968. New The Restructuring of American Religion (1988). Wuthnow’s
York: Atheneum, 1969. book offers evidence showing the declining importance
of denominationalism in the United States, as well as a
cultural cleavage between religious conservatives and
H u n t e r, J a m e s D av i s o n liberals within the same denominations. Traditionalist
The social theorist and author James Davison Hunter, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews, for example,
who has published widely on topics related to American often have more in common with each other than with
evangelicalism, American public life, and the search for liberal or progressive members of their own denomina-
meaning and moral order in times of change, is best tions. Consequently, political alliances between culturally
known for his prize-winning book Culture Wars: The conservative Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants
Struggle to Define America (1991). (two groups with a history of distrust, to say the least)
Born on May 18, 1955, in Wilmington, Delaware, illustrate the decreasing salience of denominational
Hunter studied sociology at Gordon College (BA, 1977) loyalties and the increasing salience of extra-church and
and Rutgers University (MA, 1979; PhD, 1981). A special-agenda (or single-issue) organizations. The same
professor of religion, culture, and social theory at the can be said for coalitions of religious progressives fighting
University of Virginia since 1983, Hunter uses the term the death penalty or on issues of welfare and race.
“culture wars” to refer to societal disputes involving two Hunter’s culture wars thesis has proven controversial.
fundamentally opposing “moral visions.” Morris Fiorina, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,
In the first vision, Americans holding “orthodox” argues that since the survey data fail to show a significant
views tend to see truth, morality, and their political and cultural gap within the American electorate, then it
social corollaries in fixed terms. They tend to occupy stands to reason that any culture war, if it exists at all, is
tightly bounded communities that locate the sources merely a dispute among elites. Similarly, Alan Wolfe in
of moral authority in a transcendent (religious) essence, One Nation After All (1998) has argued that the American
which is regarded as timeless and constant regardless people are largely moderate and accept neither the ortho-
of scientific or technological progress. Thus, moral ob- dox nor progressive position in toto. With the important
ligations tend to be regarded as concrete, unchanging, exception of homosexuality, he asserts, Americans are
and inflexible. A nexus of positions on social issues— basically “one nation, after all.”
opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, support Since the publication of Culture Wars, Hunter has
for public school prayer, and adherence to traditional continued to write on issues of cultural and moral conflict
gender roles—reflects the orthodox perspective. Gener- in American society. He followed his 1991 work with Be-
ally, people who adhere to this moral vision believe that fore the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in America’s
government is obligated to foster a particular type of Culture War (1991); The Death of Character: Moral Educa-
morally based politics. tion in an Age without Good or Evil (2000); and Is There
In the second vision, Americans holding “progres- a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public
sive” views tend to understand moral obligation and Life (2007), co-authored with Alan Wolfe. In addition to
commitment as requiring a sensibility to historical or his published work, Hunter has served on the National
situational context. They view ethical obligations as Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities
unfolding and evolutionary in nature. The progressive since 2004, and on the advisory board of the Pew Program
position also places a high value on maximizing autono- on Religion and Public Life (2001–2004).
mous individual choices—leading to support of abortion
rights and same-sex marriage, opposition to public school Andrew R. Murphy
prayer, and resistance to the traditional view that women
should undertake primary roles in childrearing and See also: Abortion; Catholic Church; Evangelicalism; Funda-
housework. Generally, people who adhere to this moral mentalism, Religious; Gay Rights Movement; Progressive
vision believe that government is obligated to safeguard Christians Uniting; Religious Right; Same-Sex Marriage;
individual liberty and to protect against the tyranny of School Prayer; Secular Humanism; Stay-at-Home Mothers.
the majority, including a religious one.
Cultural conflict—“political and social hostility Further Reading
rooted in different systems of moral understanding,” Fiorina, Morris P. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America.
in Hunter’s words—is not new in the United States. New York: Longman, 2004.
What Hunter sees as new and different is the way in Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define
which such conflict has exploded within and outside the America. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
Hur r ic ane Katr ina 26 9
Wolfe, Alan. One Nation After All: What Middle-Class Americans Hindu; and Russian/Orthodox—he emphasized that
Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Im- not all embrace Western ideology to the degree that
migration, Homosexuality, Work, the Right, the Left, and Each Fukuyama imagines and that the “fault lines between
Other. New York: Viking, 1998. civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” Critics
Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion. Prince have faulted Huntington’s paradigm for deemphasizing
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. the importance of nation-states and for overlooking the
point that cultural civilizations, such as the Muslim
world, are diverse and hardly monolithic. Edward Said
H u n t i n g t o n , S a m u e l P. castigated Huntington’s thesis as “The Clash of Igno-
A political scientist with research interests in rance.” Others believe that the events of September 11
international affairs and comparative politics, Samuel P. proved Huntington prophetic.
Huntington has been a part of the culture wars for his In what could be interpreted as a companion piece,
views pertaining to world events as well as American Huntington’s Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s Na-
national identity. Following the attacks of September tional Identity (2004) advances a nativist agenda, warning
11, his name became known outside academic circles as that the influx of Latinos (especially Catholic Mexicans)
pundits and the general public discussed and debated his will adversely alter the cultural landscape of the United
“clash of civilizations” thesis. This was followed by his States, leading to two languages and two cultures, and
argument that immigration trends have the potential to ultimately undermine America’s national greatness at a
weaken American culture. time when it will be challenged by the global “clash of
Born on April 18, 1927, in New York City, Samuel civilizations.” In this work, multiculturalism is deplored
Phillips Huntington was raised in a middle-class family. for undermining national unity and patriotic resolve. For
After attending Yale University (BA, 1946) and serving Huntington, who favored the Anglo-Protestant tradi-
a hitch in the U.S. Army (1946–1947), Huntington com- tions, cultural assimilation was imperative.
pleted his education at the University of Chicago (MA,
1948) and Harvard University (PhD, 1951). He taught at Roger Chapman
Harvard beginning in 1950, and excluding a short stint at
Columbia University (1959–1962) was for years associated See also: American Civil Religion; Buchanan, Pat; Cold War;
with two Harvard-based think tanks: the Center for Inter- Hispanic Americans; Immigration Policy; Lewis, Bernard;
national Affairs (associate director, 1973–1978; director, Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Neoconservatism; Said,
1978–1989) and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Edward; September 11.
Studies (director, 1989–2000). In 1970, he founded the
quarterly journal Foreign Affairs, serving as co-editor its Further Reading
first seven years. As a consultant to the Office of the Secre- Hunt, Michael H. “In the Wake of September 11: The Clash
tary of Defense (1963–1968), Huntington controversially of What?” Journal of American History 89:2 (September
supported the “forced urbanization and modernization” of 2002): 416–25.
rural villagers of South Vietnam. Under President Jimmy Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
Carter he was the White House coordinator of security of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
planning for the National Security Council (1977–1978). ———. Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National
Huntington died on December 24, 2008. Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Huntington wrote some seventeen books. His Soldier Kaplan, Robert D. “Looking the World in the Eye.” Atlantic,
and the State (1957), a reflection on the political impli- December 2001.
cations of President Harry Truman’s firing of General Said, Edward W. “The Clash of Ignorance.” Nation, October
Douglas MacArthur, triggered criticism from both the 22, 2001.
left and the right. Probably his most controversial work
was The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order (1996), an expanded version of a 1993 Foreign Af- Hurr icane Katr ina
fairs article that refuted Francis Fukuyama’s The End of On the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane
History and the Last Man (1993), an optimistic neocon- Katrina, having gathered strength moving westward
servative treatise interpreting the end of the Cold War as and northward across the Gulf of Mexico, made landfall
a universal consensus toward western liberal democracy on the southern coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi.
and free-market economics. Huntington instead offered At one time a Category 5 storm, characterized by
a pessimistic forecast of global instability. Dividing the sustained winds of more than 156 miles per hour (251
world into eight civilizations—Western (including the kilometers), Katrina actually decreased in intensity to a
United States and Europe); Chinese/Confucian; Muslim; Category 3 storm by the time it reached the residential
African; Latin American; Japanese/Buddhist; Indian/ communities of the Gulf Coast. Despite the drop in
270 Hur r ic ane Katr ina
wind speed, however, Katrina’s combination of size

(over a hundred miles [161 kilometers] in diameter)
and intensity (the third-strongest ever to make landfall)
made it the most destructive hurricane in modern
American history, killing more than 1,600 people and
causing approximately $75 billion in damage.
The initial trajectory of Katrina had the eye of the
storm passing directly over the city of New Orleans,
prompting speculation that this could be the long-feared
storm that would decimate the region. In the hours
before landfall, however, Katrina shifted course slightly
eastward, sparing New Orleans and overwhelming the
Mississippi coast. The resulting storm surge caused much
of the physical destruction and loss of life in communities
such as Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, and Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana. Critics of the George W. Bush administration blamed lack
Despite the apparent good fortune that seemed to of concern for minorities and the poor for the failure of the
federal government to provide timely emergency aid to the
spare New Orleans, flooding of the Mississippi River
victims of Hurricane Katrina in August–September 2005.
soon caused the second disaster: a breaching of the city’s (Mario Tama/Staff/Getty Images)
levees. The century-old structures faltered in several key
places, flooding approximately 80 percent of the New
Orleans area. The Ninth Ward, the historically lower- After three full days, New Orleans residents finally
class African-American and Creole section of the city, was saw the arrival of military aid and buses for transporta-
destroyed in its entirety, while landmark sites such as the tion to shelters in cities across the South. Critics argued
French Quarter and Uptown proved salvageable. that the delay would not have occurred if those in peril
Media images of the tragedy sparked passionate debate had not been racial minorities or the socioeconomic
regarding both the visibility of poor people in the South lower classes of American society. Policy analysts sug-
and racial minorities’ access to government services and gested that the delay had resulted from the increased
assistance. Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco and New bureaucratic inefficiency that plagued FEMA since it
Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, both Democrats, had ordered had been subsumed by the Department of Homeland
a mandatory evacuation of the city approximately forty- Security, established after the terrorist attacks of Sep-
eight hours before Katrina made landfall. The Superdome, tember 11, 2001.
home of the New Orleans Saints professional football Local and national charitable organizations donated
franchise, was designated as the shelter of last resort for immeasurable aid to the victims of Katrina. Many people
those who did not have the means or the desire to leave across the country opened their homes to displaced survi-
their homes. But many of the city’s most underprivileged vors, prompting observers to celebrate the generosity of
citizens remained trapped in their homes, unable to leave the American people. In Mississippi, Alabama, and Loui-
behind their pets, medication, or elderly family members. siana, families searched for missing relatives by posting
Images of Americans waiting, some for several days, on contact information, including shelter locations, on Web
their rooftops to be rescued by U.S. Coast Guard helicop- sites and message boards created by news organizations
ters caused onlookers to question the nation’s emergency and outreach groups such as the Red Cross.
preparedness. Some conservative pundits blamed the vic- In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, new debates
tims for not taking personal responsibility and evacuating regarding the effects of global warming also surfaced.
when the storm warning was first issued. Conservation and coastal erosion experts petitioned for
Criticism of President George W. Bush and the greater federal funding of environmental protection
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in- programs. U.S. dependence on oil refineries in the Gulf
tensified as New Orleans residents continued to wait for region was questioned. And the director of FEMA, Mi-
aid. The Superdome and the New Orleans Convention chael Brown, resigned as criticism of the government
Center became sites of violence, starvation, and rioting as rescue and recovery efforts reached unprecedented levels.
conditions became unbearable. Lack of food, water, and Months later, most communities in the affected areas
medicine, combined with the heat and the crowds, made were still without adequate shelter and years removed
a terrible situation worse. Images of African Americans from economic revitalization, while thousands of citizens
begging for assistance as children and elderly citizens remained displaced.
suffered, in some cases dying, sparked outrage. Many
asked how this could happen in America. Angie Maxwell
Hutchin s, Rober t M . 271
See also: Bush Family; Compassionate Conservatism; Envi- notably, he implemented undergraduate curriculum
ronmental Movement; Global Warming; Race; Republican reforms that offered a liberal education through study
Party; September 11; Springsteen, Bruce; Victimhood. of the “great books” of Western civilization. As chair-
man of the board of directors of Encyclopedia Britannica
Further Reading (1943–1974), Hutchins collaborated with Mortimer
Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Adler on publication of The Great Books of the Western
Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York: William World series.
Morrow, 2006. After taking over the Ford Foundation’s Fund for
Brown, D.M. Hurricane Katrina: The First Seven Days of America’s the Republic, Hutchins used the organization to criti-
Worst Natural Disaster. Napa, CA: Lulu, 2005. cally assess McCarthyism, gaining the attention of the
Dyson, Michael Eric. Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1959,
and the Color of Disaster. New York: Perseus, 2006. he reconstituted the Fund for the Republic as the Center
Van Heerden, Ivor, and Mike Bryan. The Storm: What Went for the Study of Democratic Institutions, a liberal think
Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina. New York: tank that sponsored the international peace convocations
Viking, 2006. Pacem in Terris (1965) and Pacem in Terris II (1967) and
promoted ending the Cold War.
Hutchins’s confidence in the universal power of rea-
Hutchins, Rober t M . son underlay his belief in democratic institutions and the
A prominent educator—serving as the longtime possibilities for international understanding and world
president and chancellor of the University of Chicago government—ideas that ran counter to the times. His
(1928–1951)—Robert Maynard Hutchins was a educational views were in opposition to the “relevance”
political progressive and educational innovator known dictum that dominated public education in America by
for advocating a core curriculum of great literary works. 1950 and swept higher education after 1960. His empha-
In his later years, he headed a think tank that studied sis on reason and the possibility of truth were questioned
democracy and advocated an end to the Cold War. by sociological and postmodern approaches to knowledge,
Hutchins was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, while neoconservative intellectuals and cultural elitists
New York, and attended Oberlin College (1915–1917). challenged Hutchins’s democratic principles.
After serving in World War I, he completed his education
at Yale University, earning the AB, MA, and LLB degrees Keith Swigger
(1921–1925). A short stint as dean of the Yale Law School
was followed by his long tenure as president and chancel- See also: Alder, Mortimer J.; Cold War; Education Reform;
lor of the University of Chicago. Hutchins was also an Great Books; McCarthyism; Neoconservatism; Nuclear Age;
executive at the Ford Foundation (1951–1959) and chief Postmodernism; Think Tanks.
executive officer of the Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions (1959–1977). He died on May 17, 1977. Further Reading
At the University of Chicago, Hutchins emphasized Ashmore, Harry S. Unseasonable Truths: The Life of Robert May-
the cultivation of reason as the primary tool for distin- nard Hutchins. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.
guishing truth from falsity and for reforming society’s Hutchins, Robert Maynard. The Higher Learning in America.
institutions. At the same time, he opposed using educa- New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1936.
tion to inculcate values or morals. Believing the proper McNeil, William H. Hutchins’ University: A Memoir of the Uni-
function of a university to be entirely intellectual, he versity of Chicago, 1929–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago
withdrew Chicago from Big Ten sports. Perhaps most Press, 1991.
migration has to do with law and order. The emphasis on
law argues that “illegal aliens” are precisely what the name
implies—people who have done something illegal. Con-
sequently, it is thought that an illegal immigrant should
be treated like any other criminal and punished accord-
Illegal Immigrants ingly, through either detention or deportation. People on
For decades, illegal immigration has been a contentious this side of the debate tend to blame the government for
issue in America’s culture wars. Despite passage of ineffective policing of the border. Thus, in 2004, Chris
the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Simcox and James Gilchrist founded the Minuteman Civil
designed to rid the U.S. labor market of undocumented Defense Corps for citizen volunteers to patrol the Mexican
workers, there were an estimated 11–12 million illegal and Canadian borders and enforce immigration laws that
immigrants living in the United States in 2006. the government has been unable to enforce. In response to
Americans have remained divided over how to address such political pressure, Congress passed the Secure Fence
this problem. Act (2006) to construct a 700-mile (1,100-kilometer)
Illegal immigrants are sometimes called “illegal fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. At the same time,
aliens,” a highly contested descriptive, with some arguing there has been a movement afoot to deny citizenship to
that it inappropriately implies criminality. “Undocu- U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
mented worker,” an alternative term, is viewed by others For others, illegal immigration demands a moral
as a phony euphemism. Simply defined, an illegal immi- response, one emphasizing charity and assistance in order
grant is a noncitizen who resides in a country without a to welcome such people in the communities where they
valid visa. This occurs either because the visa has expired are working. This viewpoint, often shared by liberal re-
or because the person originally entered the country ligious groups, regards illegal immigrants as economic
without one. Some would extend the definition of illegal refugees, people escaping Third World poverty and try-
immigrant to any child born in the United States whose ing desperately to support their families. This argument
mother was at the time “undocumented.” was poignantly highlighted in the film El Norte (1983),
Mexicans comprise the largest group of illegal im- which portrays the humanity of two Guatemalans who
migrants in the United States, followed by those from sneak across the border to find work in Los Angeles. In
El Salvador and Guatemala. Beginning in 1942, the 1994, however, at a time when it was estimated that
federal Bracero Program authorized temporary guest 10 percent of the state budget was spent on illegal im-
workers from Mexico to enter the United States to per- migrants, California voters approved Proposition 187,
form agriculture tasks, but contract violations and other which prohibits illegal immigrants from obtaining social
problems prompted Mexico to stop sending guest workers services, including public-supported medical care and
to Texas. Consequently, between 1944 and 1954, there public schooling.
was a 6,000 percent increase in Mexican undocumented Although Proposition 187 was later overturned in
workers in the United States. In response to the more court, the sentiments behind it lingered, especially among
than 1 million workers who had illegally crossed the conservatives. According to a 2006 survey by the Pew
border, the federal government in 1954 launched Op- Research Center, 83 percent of conservative Republicans
eration Wetback, deporting thousands and providing a were not in favor of providing social services to illegal im-
show of force in the border region to discourage illegal migrants. On the other hand, Linda Chavez, a republican
entry. Termination of the Bracero Program in 1964 was and president of the think tank Center for Equal Oppor-
followed by a significant spike in illegal immigration. In tunity (founded in 1995) argued that illegal immigrants
response, Michelle Dallacroce founded Mothers Against should be offered a path to citizenship, a position that
Illegal Aliens in 1968, warning that Hispanics were try- was supported by President George W. Bush.
ing to “reconquer” the Southwest. Probably the most contested area of the debate has
The wide range of positions on illegal immigra- to do with the economic consequences of illegal immi-
tion cannot be neatly divided into the usual political gration. The free-market emphasis supports illegal im-
categories, such as left-right, liberal-conservative, or migrants, arguing that they do the jobs that American
Democrat-Republican. Indeed, the issue has sharply workers will not do; contribute to the overall productivity
divided the Republican Party itself. Some members of of the American economy; and pay into Social Security
the GOP, including President George W. Bush, have even though they will not be able to enjoy its benefits.
been sympathetic to illegal immigrants, while others According to the Pew Hispanic Center in 2006, the
have not. Because this issue has so many dimensions— occupation sectors with the largest number of illegal
legal, economic, and moral—there has been much immigrants were farming (24 percent), custodial (17
heated debate. percent), and construction (14 percent).
For some, the main issue pertaining to illegal im- An opposing economic argument points out that il-
272
Immig ration Polic y 273
legal immigrants are heavy users of public services while the late 1800s to the removal of weapons from German-
giving too little in return. Even the liberal economist American homes during World War I and the internment
Paul Krugman contends that the net benefit to the U.S. of Japanese-American families during World War II,
economy from illegal immigration is small. Furthermore, the nation has struggled with the cultural and social
many dispute the claim that illegal aliens take jobs that implications of immigration. The immigration debate
would otherwise go unfilled. Illegal immigrants are of the twenty-first century has been complicated by
seen as causing a “race to the bottom” by increasing the the problem of illegal immigration and concerns about
supply of low-skilled workers and driving down wages, border security, but legal immigration continues to be
especially for blacks. According to a 2005 study by Har- a divisive issue.
vard economists George Borjas and Lawrence Katz, from The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and
1980 to 2000 unskilled immigrants were responsible for its amendments, passed in 1965 and 1990, govern cur-
depressing the wages of unskilled labor by 8 percent. rent immigration and naturalization procedures. Legal
Finally, some charge that there is an undertone of immigrants enter the United States via several different
racism in discussions about illegal immigrants. The visa categories and, after a probationary period, may be
strongest criticism of illegal immigrants is primarily granted permanent residency status, receiving a “green
from communities with significant numbers of foreign card.” Most legal immigrants enter the country as family-
nationals. These communities see themselves as being sponsored immigrants; this means that they have direct
overwhelmed by people who are culturally and linguisti- family ties with current U.S. citizens or legal permanent
cally different (primarily Hispanic) and who seem to have residents. Legal immigrants may also obtain permanent
no desire to adopt the American way of life and cultural residency status through employment as qualified work-
identity. Already states like Texas, Arizona, and New ers with needed skills; through the diversity visa lottery
Mexico have nonwhite majority populations. Conserva- program (in which 50,000 visas are awarded through
tives such as Pat Buchanan and Samuel P. Huntington random selection each year to applicants from countries
argue that the future of America is in peril because of the with low immigration rates to the United States); as ce-
influx of aliens from non-European lands.
Serena Parekh and Roger Chapman
See also: Buchanan, Pat; Bush Family; Chávez, César; Globaliza-

tion; Guthrie, Woody, and Arlo Guthrie; Hispanic Americans;
Huntington, Samuel P.; Immigration Policy; Krugman, Paul;
Mexico; Migrant Labor; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies.
Further Reading
Becker, Cynthia S. Immigration and Illegal Aliens: Burden or Bless-
ing? Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 2006.
Buchanan, Patrick. The Death of the West: How Dying Populations
and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.
New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002.
Garcia, Juan Ramon. Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation
of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1980.
Haerens, Margaret, ed. Illegal Immigration. Detroit, MI: Green-
haven Press, 2006.
Tancredo, Thomas G. In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s
Border and Security. Nashville, TN: WND Books, 2006.
Immigration Polic y
Hailed as a “nation of immigrants,” the United States
has long sought a balance of fair and logical immigration
Supporters of amnesty for illegal immigrants take to the
laws. The balance has been historically difficult to streets of Los Angeles in spring 2006. Immigration policy
achieve, prompting impassioned reactions from both and the treatment of aliens have been volatile issues in
pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant factions. From the American society for well over a century. (David McNew/Staff/
“No Irish Need Apply” signs posted in storefronts in Getty Images)
274 Immig ration Polic y
lebrities or wealthy investors; through adoption by U.S. jobs that American citizens could otherwise do and at
citizens; through applications for asylum, refugee status, the same time pull down wages.
or other compassionate requests; and to a lesser extent Critics are also concerned that legal immigrants
through country-specific adjustment acts. may weigh heavily on social welfare programs. But im-
Legal immigrants who enter the United States with migrants who are approved to enter because of family
an immigrant visa apply for permanent residency by connections must have sponsors who maintain financial
filling out extensive paperwork and paying fees to the responsibility for the immigrants if they cannot earn
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services their own income. Immigrants who obtain visas based
(USCIS)—formerly the Immigration and Naturalization on work and skills, or those based on celebrity or inves-
Service (INS). After a significant amount of time rang- tor categories, are unlikely to pose a financial risk. Some
ing from several months to several years, during which environmentalists oppose immigration, however, on the
the applicant may be granted work privileges and other grounds that as the U.S. population grows, environmental
temporary rights, the case is reviewed by USCIS officials problems and resource consumption levels increase.
and the person may be approved for permanent residency. Proponents of legal immigration value the diversity
After permanent residency is granted, the immigrant in culture and life experience that immigrants bring to
must wait five years before applying for U.S. citizenship. America. They believe that, like European immigrants
Although many legal immigrants eventually become in the 1800s and early 1900s, new legal immigrants,
naturalized citizens, naturalization is not mandatory; regardless of racial or ethnic background, will make posi-
having obtained permanent residency, legal immigrants tive contributions to American culture. Although some
may live their entire lives in the United States without ethnic enclaves may exist in large cities, most studies
applying for citizenship. on legal immigrants show that, by the second genera-
Some Americans oppose immigration, for reasons tion, immigrant families have easily assimilated into the
ranging from racism, ethnocentrism, and fear of religious dominant American culture, and that children of legal
diversity to concerns about overpopulation. Some have immigrants tend to be more fluent in English than in
argued against the diversity visa lottery because it is based another language. Some studies show that children of
on luck rather than skills-based immigration criteria and legal immigrants score higher in math and science than
because many of the winners are from African, Asian, and children of U.S.-born citizens.
predominantly Middle Eastern countries. Some nativist Supporters of legal immigration also emphasize that
critics, such as the conservative commentator Pat Bu- promoting employment-based immigration strengthens
chanan, claim that the white majority in America will America’s standing in technological and scientific fields
diminish as new immigrants, legal and illegal, enter the as well as in academics and literature. They argue further
country. They are concerned that an inordinate number that immigration provides U.S. businesses, universities,
of legal immigrants may come from nonwhite, impov- and research organizations with unrestricted access to
erished regions of the world, such as Africa, Asia, the some of the brightest minds in the world.
Middle East, and Latin America, and that, having arrived
in the United States, they will bring others from these Tanya Hedges Duroy
regions through family-sponsored visas. Nativists see this
See also: Buchanan, Pat; Civil Rights Movement; English as
as a threat to the American “way of life,” fearing that im-
the Official Language; Hispanic Americans; Huntington,
migration will lead to radical changes in American society
Samuel P.; Illegal Immigrants; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
and that white Protestant culture may lose dominance.
Studies; Muslim Americans; Reparations, Japanese Intern-
Such concerns echo the critiques of nativists during the
ment; Schaeffer, Francis.
late 1800s and early 1900s, when there was substantial
fear that Chinese, Irish, and south European immigrants Further Reading
posed a threat to the dominant cultural values. Beck, Roy. The Case Against Immigration. New York: W.W.
Some critics worry that legal immigrants will not Norton, 1996.
fully assimilate into U.S. culture and will not speak fluent Buchanan, Patrick J. The Death of the West: How Dying Populations
English, resulting in ethnic enclaves outside the predomi- and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.
nant culture. Their fear is that immigrants who do not New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002.
mix with the rest of the U.S. population will not share Isbister, John. The Immigration Debate: Remaking America. West
values and mores associated with the larger “American” Hartford, CT: Kumarian, 1996.
culture. They worry that language and cultural barriers
will lead to higher rates of poverty and a more fragmented
American population. Other opponents of immigration Indian Casinos
rally against employment-based and family-sponsored Indian casinos are legal, multibillion-dollar gambling
immigration because they believe that immigrants fill facilities that operate on the lands of federally recognized,
Indian C a sinos 275
sovereign, Native American nations. Perhaps few bursements has brought people out of the woodwork who
developments among Indian tribes in the past century claim to have tribal ancestry, giving rise to phrases such
have so divided the American public as the explosive as “casino tribes” and “casino Indians.”
growth of the estimated 410 casinos in 28 states since Although Indian casinos are not required to pay
the late 1980s. taxes on gaming earnings, most casinos have negotiated
Critics of the casinos argue that the Indian gaming contracts that return a portion of the casino’s revenue
industry is inherently corrupt and the federal legislation to the host state to fund vital programs. The Mohegan
that allows it is ineffective at a variety of levels. Revenues, Nation, for example, made a deal with Connecticut
they claim, might line the pockets of a few successful to return 25 percent of the slot machine proceeds at
tribes but largely fail to benefit the tens of thousands of Mohegan Sun to the state. In 2005, this amounted to
American Indians across the country who live below the more than $250 million donated to Connecticut; since
poverty level. Furthermore, Indian casinos are usually the opening of Mohegan Sun in 1996, Connecticut has
lobbied for and funded by non-Indian corporate financers received almost $1.5 billion from the facility. Although
who spend large amounts of money to woo tribes, hire not all states at present have such a comfortable agree-
top lawyers and lobbyists in Washington, and build and ment with Indian casinos, many are trying to increase
manage the casinos, all while conveniently pocketing up their “fair share” proceeds. California governor Arnold
to 40 percent of the gambling proceeds—money that Schwartzenegger, for example, in 2004 tried to negoti-
should be going to the government. ate higher shared proceeds with the five largest gaming
On the other hand, supporters of the casinos argue tribes in the state.
that, after 400 years of oppression, forced removal, and Indian casinos have had mixed success. Not every
discrimination by white Americans, native tribes are tribe has been granted federal recognition, not every
finally getting what they deserve—recognition of their federally recognized tribe can afford to open a casino,
sovereignty and an opportunity to create a financially and not every casino is operated successfully. Even when
secure present and future. The Indian gaming industry, casinos do turn a profit, critics maintain that proceeds
supporters point out, is hardly different from any other do not benefit tribal members equally. Tribes often have
corporate, for-profit business enterprise in the non-Indian two groups—the official, federally recognized “in” group
world with its political dealings and unequal distribution that operates the casino, and the “out” group that does
of revenues. Furthermore, Indian casinos have demonstra- not qualify for federal recognition or has been ostracized
bly bolstered local economies by creating thousands of in some other way through the process of recognition and
new jobs and guaranteeing a steady flow of tourism. Some casino building. Since most tribes cut regular earnings
see in the reversal of fortunes a poetic justice. checks to official tribal members, being “in” or “out”
The most recent Indian casino-building trend dates can mean the difference between poverty and plenty,
back to 1988, when Congress passed the Indian Gaming with potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in ca-
Regulatory Act (IGRA), which effectively opened the sino based annual income. The Table Mountain Indians
door for federally recognized tribes to build and operate near Fresno, California, are perhaps the most extreme
gambling casinos on their lands. Long before IGRA, case of this insider-outsider economic disparity, which
however, many tribes throughout the country operated often cuts across family lines. Nonetheless, many gam-
bingo halls and card rooms on their reservations, most ing tribes insist that they spread the wealth around by
famously the Seminoles in Florida. Although previous donating money to nongaming tribes, pouring funding
bingo halls had provoked local criticism, it is the un- into local and state programs, and sponsoring cultural
precedented scale and profitability of the post-IGRA museums like the Museum of the American Indian in
Indian gaming industry that has led to widespread op- Washington, D.C.
position. At the core of the controversy are the untaxed Linford D. Fisher
billions—perhaps as much as $15 billion nationwide each
year—raked in by the successful casinos, and the sizable See also: American Indian Movement; Reed, Ralph.
personal disbursements that trickle down to officially
recognized tribal members. Further Reading
The most successful—and most criticized—Indian Benedict, Jeff. Without Reservation: The Making of America’s Most
casino is undoubtedly Foxwoods, the casino of the Mas- Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods, the World’s Largest Casino.
huntucket Pequot in Connecticut, whose annual revenue New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
exceeds $1.5 billion. Several best-selling investigative Light, Steven Andrew, and Kathryn R.L. Rand. Indian Gam-
exposés have fueled popular debate by casting doubt on ing and Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise. Lawrence:
the legitimacy of the tribe, the reservation, the casino, University Press of Kansas, 2005.
and—by implication—other Indian casinos. In many Mason, W. Dale. Indian Gaming: Tribal Sovereignty and American
popular versions of the story, the lure of lucrative dis- Politics. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
276 Indian Spor t Ma scot s
Mullis, Angela, and David Kamper. Indian Gaming: Who ing the United Methodist Church, the National Educa-
Wins? Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, tion Association, and the American Anthropological
2000. Association. In 2001, the United States Commission on
Valley, David J., and Diana Lindsay. Jackpot Trail: Indian Gaming Civil Rights issued a strongly worded statement against
in Southern California. San Diego, CA: Sunbelt, 2003. Indian mascots. In August 2005, the NCAA (National
Collegiate Athletic Association) announced a policy
prohibiting its member teams from using “‘hostile and
Indian Spor t Mascots abusive racial/ethnic/national origin mascots, nicknames
With the rise of modern sports in American culture has or imagery” at any postseason tournaments, effective in
come the use of nicknames, symbols, and metaphors, 2008. The announcement identified eighteen teams that
including Native American mascots, to represent were not in compliance with the policy. Some of these
athletic teams and the perceived masculine values— schools won appeals to retain their mascot logos because
such as bravery, ferocity, and toughness—at the heart the representative Indian tribe gave its permission—for
of physical competition. While a source of traditional example, Catawba College (Catawba Indians), Central
pride, unity, and identity, Indian mascots have been Michigan University (Chippewa), Florida State Univer-
the subject of acrimonious debate and protest over sity (Seminoles), Mississippi College (Choctaws), and
the issue of racism. Despite complaints of political University of Utah (Utes). The University of Illinois lost
correctness, hundreds of school Indian sport mascots its appeal to the NCAA, even though the Illini Indians
have been replaced or revised since the 1970s. A are an extinct tribe.
number of professional sport franchises have withstood
activist complaints, however, and have retained their C. Richard King and Roger Chapman
questionable mascots, in particular the Cleveland
Indians and Atlanta Braves baseball teams and the See also: American Indian Movement; Multiculturalism and
Washington Redskins football team. Ethnic Studies; Political Correctness; Race.
Beginning in the late 1960s, activists and academics
at college campuses started challenging the use of Indian Further Reading
imagery in sports, which led to changes at the University King, C. Richard, and Charles Fruehling Springwood. Beyond
of Oklahoma (Little Red to Sooners), Stanford University the Cheers: Race as Spectacle in College Sports. Albany: State
(Prince Lightfoot to the Cardinal), and Dartmouth Col- University of New York Press, 2001.
lege (Indians to Big Green). Most other schools opted ———, eds. Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Contro-
to keep their Native American mascots, prompting the versy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
American Indian Movement (AIM) to take up the cause Spindel, Carol. Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy over
in the 1980s. A second wave of political action arose by American Indian Mascots. New York: New York University
the end of the decade and continued through the 1990s, Press, 2000.
perhaps most prominently at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, where Charlene Teters, a Spokane
Indian graduate student, campaigned against the Chief Indiv iduals with Disabilities
Illiniwek mascot (the subject of Jay Rosenstein’s 1997 E d u c a t i o n Ac t
documentary In Whose Honor?). Under the Education for All Handicapped Children
As the national movement gained momentum, a Act of 1975, the U.S. government directed that public
unified argument took shape and gained widespread school systems seek out and educate all children,
adherence: (1) mascot imagery generally presents the regardless of any disability. The measure was renamed
American Indian as a figure of the past while falsely the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
communicating that there is a singular indigenous during reauthorization proceedings in 1990. From the
culture; (2) the use of sacred symbols such as eagle feath- outset, the legislation has mandated that children with
ers and paint by mascot performers is sacrilegious and disabilities be provided with an “appropriate education”
disrespectful; (3) the mascot logos and trademarks are in the “least restrictive environment” possible.
typically racist and demeaning; (4) such appropriation IDEA proponents view the legislation as part of a
of the Indian image by mainstream society is a form continuum of education-related civil rights legislation
of symbolic violence rooted in the conquest of Native and court actions since the 1954 Supreme Court deci-
Americans by the U.S. government. sion in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended racial
Although many sports fans continued to defend Na- segregation in schools. Previously, segregation of schools
tive American mascots as honorable and appropriate, the had been defended by the argument that “separate but
movement against them won important support from equal” public facilities were acceptable. The Brown case
religious groups and professional organizations, includ- demonstrated that separate was frequently not equal.
Inter ne t 277
Prior to passage of the IDEA, children with disabilities Further Reading

were routinely placed in academically inferior programs Bowe, Frank. Equal Rights for Americans with Disabilities. New
or denied an education altogether. In addition, “special York: Franklin Watts, 1992.
education” programs often functioned as a way for newly Fleischer, Doris Zames, and Freida Fleischer. The Disability
desegregated schools to establish internal segregation Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation. Philadelphia:
on the basis of race, categorizing minority students as Temple University Press, 2001.
mentally deficient. Several lawsuits in the 1970s drew Johnson, Mary. Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher
attention to the improper assessment of children for Reeve, and the Case Against Disability Rights. Louisville, KY:
placement in special education programs. Avocado, 2003.
Implementation of the IDEA has proved contro-
versial. Many disability rights advocates emphasize the
requirement of “least restrictive setting,” while some Intelligent Design
opponents argue that “appropriate education” means See Creationism and Intelligent Design
that spending should be commensurate with a child’s
potential productivity. The least restrictive setting
stipulation, coupled with the act’s mandate to give each Inter net
child an appropriate education, gives parents the right The Internet is a global system of distributed computer
to demand mainstreaming of their children in regular networks that use “packet switch” technologies for
classes. The degree of inclusion would be based on a information and service exchange. It provides numerous
student’s “individual education plan.” Resistant school communication services such as e-mail, text and voice
districts argue that costs are prohibitive and that the chat, bulletin boards, file sharing and transmission,
needs of disabled students are best met in settings other streaming audio and video, and hyperlinked World
than the mainstream classes. Parents are generally di- Wide Web documents. The size, speed, and scalability
vided on the issue. Some complain that the presence of of the Internet have made it the most important new
disabled children in classrooms is disruptive; others are communication technology of the past several decades.
concerned that school districts look for excuses to retain It has also become a major arena of the culture wars.
educational segregation. The Internet’s infrastructure was developed by a
Because Congress provided no enforcement mecha- loose-knit group of American academic and private-sector
nism other than individual lawsuits, parents have had computer scientists interested in network technology,
to turn to the courts to seek redress under the IDEA. and it was primarily funded by the U.S. military. The
Disability rights proponents decry the reliance on indi- idea for the system appeared in a series of memos writ-
vidual lawsuits. Many of the cases are narrow in scope, ten by J.C.R. Licklider in 1962, which envisioned a
affecting only the child for whom the case is brought. “Galactic Network” of interconnected computers that
Moreover, only parents with the resources, education, would advance human reasoning through “man-computer
and determination to pursue litigation are able to chal- symbiosis.” After Licklider became the head of the De-
lenge local administrators. As no class-action suits have fense Department’s computer research program, he was
been brought, courts have not ordered any changes to the instrumental in securing funds for a team of computer
education system. Furthermore, enormous variations in scientists to construct his vision. The first node was
the rulings of the several federal courts have left parents installed at the University of California at Los Angeles
and school districts without clear guidelines. in 1969, split into military and academic sides in 1983,
Critics also charge that the IDEA unfairly diverts and opened to commercial use in 1991.
educational resources from average students to “special The Mosaic commercial Web browser gave the gen-
needs” children. As more children have been diagnosed eral public a user-friendly interface that contributed to
with learning and developmental disabilities, charges have the Internet’s ubiquity. By the mid-1990s, “Internet”
been levied that parents have sought out unfounded diag- and “Web” were part of the popular cultural lexicon.
noses in order to demand special services from the public In the partisan battles of the 2000 presidential election
schools. Opponents of the IDEA also point out that the act campaign, right-wing pundits assailed the Democratic
is an unfunded federal mandate. Controversy surrounding candidate, Vice President Al Gore, for allegedly claim-
the IDEA stems in part from the failure of Congress to ing to have “invented the Internet.” Gore, whose more
fully underwrite the costs of implementation. ambiguous comment was that he had “taken the initiative
in creating the Internet,” was in fact an early supporter of
Laura Hague the technology. As a U.S. senator (D-TN) in the 1980s
and early 1990s, Gore had sponsored legislation that
See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Civil Rights supported linking universities and libraries through the
Movement. system, as well as using the Internet for commerce.
278 Inter ne t
The Internet has also been drawn into the culture Political campaign managers hire companies to col-
wars over the issue of users’ privacy. Legislation has at- lect information on voters’ political preferences in order
tempted to limit the monitoring of online activity by to “narrowcast” a candidate’s message on the Web. Grass-
law enforcement and employers, specify how sensitive roots groups use online resources for mobilizing members.
personal and financial information can be collected, cur- Blogs, short for “Web logs,” are online diaries that let
tail “spam” or junk mail, and prosecute identity theft. citizens express their opinions on the issues of the day.
Privacy advocates have become especially worried in the
post-9/11 era, particularly after the 2001 USA PATRIOT Steve G. Hoffman
Act expanded the U.S. government’s ability to conduct
Internet surveillance and data mining. See also: Censorship; Clinton Impeachment; Culture Jam-
The Internet has become a focal point of controversies ming; Dean, Howard; Drudge Report; Gore, Al; Pornography;
concerning both access and content. As communication Privacy Rights; September 11.
technologies have become a central feature of the “informa-
tion economy,” a “digital divide” separates those who have Further Reading
the access and skills to use the Internet effectively and those Chadwick, Andrew. Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New
who do not, which has exacerbated social inequalities. Other Communication Technologies. New York: Oxford University
controversies involve attempts to restrict content, particu- Press, 2006.
larly material considered obscene or dangerous to national DiMaggio, Paul, Eszter Hargittai, W. Russell Neuman, and
security, such as bomb recipes and terrorist recruitment. John P. Robinson. “The Social Implications of the Internet.”
Attempts to regulate obscenity have proved contentious Annual Review of Sociology 27 (2001): 307–36.
and constitutionally problematic. The 1996 Communica- Howard, Philip. New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen.
tions Decency Act and the 1998 Child Online Protection New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Act were mostly dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court Wallace, Jonathan, and Mark Mangan. Sex, Laws, and Cyberspace.
because of First Amendment concerns. Only the 2000 New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Children’s Internet Protection Act survived constitutional
challenge; its relatively modest provisions regulate obscen-
ity at federally funded schools and libraries. Iran- Contra Affair
Internet pornography illustrates why content regula- Secret U.S. arms shipments to Iran and Central America
tion can be difficult. U.S. law since the Supreme Court during the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s
ruling in Miller v. California (1973) relies on local or led to the political controversy known as the Iran-
community standards for determining obscenity. Free- Contra Affair and acrimonious debate over whether the
speech proponents suggest that it is absurd for the cultural president willfully ignored federal law.
standards of a small, conservative community to determine The roots of the scandal lay in a series of U.S. foreign
what is obscene in cities like Las Vegas. Nonetheless, sev- policy setbacks, including the 1979 Islamic revolution
eral Internet pornography providers have been convicted in Iran and the Iranian sponsorship of terrorist groups
for interstate trafficking of obscenity based on the com- in Lebanon that kidnapped U.S. citizens and held them
munity standards rule. This also raises the difficulty of hostage. Also in 1979, the leftist Sandinistas came to
regulating content distributed across a global network. For power in Nicaragua.
example, the age of consent for nude modeling is higher in Early in Reagan’s presidency, his administration
the United States than in many European countries. The began funding and equipping Nicaraguan antileftist
British model Linsey Dawn McKenzie caused a stir when guerrillas known as the Contras. The administration
nude photos of her as a minor intermixed with American also provided strong support to a right-wing regime in
photos taken of her after she turned eighteen. nearby El Salvador against communist insurgents. In
The Internet has become a nexus for political as well as 1983, however, human rights abuses committed by U.S.
cultural controversies. In 1998, Matt Drudge, editor of an allies in Central America prompted Congress to pass the
online muckraking site, reported that Newsweek magazine Boland Amendment, which prohibited federal agencies
pulled a story about a twenty-one-year-old White House from funding the Nicaraguan insurgency.
intern’s affair with President Bill Clinton. The political Despite the ban, the National Security Council
storm that followed the story resulted in the impeach- (NSC), first under Robert McFarlane (1983–1985) and
ment of Clinton for perjury. In the 2004 presidential then under John Poindexter (1985–1986), devised a
primaries, Howard Dean became an early front runner for complex plan to sell weapons to Iran, to generate the
the Democratic nomination largely by using the Internet goodwill required for Iran to act on behalf of American
for grassroots fundraising, but it later contributed to his hostages held in Lebanon, and in turn divert the profits
downfall when unflattering video clips of him screaming from the arms sales secretly to the Contras in Nicaragua.
at a campaign rally spread across cyberspace. The charade was overseen by Oliver North, a U.S. Ma-
Ir v ine, Reed 279
rines lieutenant colonel working from an office in the in the news media, targeting the New York Times and the
White House. Washington Post, the major television networks, National
The scandal broke when a Lebanese newspaper Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting System
exposed the secret arms shipments, leading Reagan on (PBS), and the syndicated columnist Jack Anderson,
November 13, 1986, to appear on national television among others. “Journalists,” he charged, “are blurring
to confirm the story while denying that he was trading the line between reporting and advocacy.”
arms for hostages. This was followed twelve days later by Reed John Irvine was born into a Mormon family on
a White House statement revealing that proceeds from September 29, 1922, in Salt Lake City, Utah. After gradu-
the sales (between $10 million and $30 million) went ating from the University of Utah (BS, 1942), serving in
to the Contras. On March 4, 1987, Reagan announced, the U.S. Marines during World War II, and completing
“A few months ago I told the American people I did not his education at Oxford University (MA, economics,
trade arms for hostages. My heart and best intentions 1951), Irvine worked as an economist for the Federal
tell me that is true, but the facts and evidence tell me Reserve Board (1951–1977). He died on November 16,
it is not.” 2004, in Rockville, Maryland.
Apologists for Reagan blamed subordinates and Irvine founded AIM in reaction to the 1968 Demo-
pointed out that the Boland Amendment did not ex- cratic Convention in Chicago (which he felt was covered
pressly list the NSC. They also emphasized the worthy by journalists who were overtly sympathetic with the
causes being served: freeing Americans and fighting war protesters) and the Tet Offensive (which he thought
communism. Critics viewed the incident as worthy of the American media had exaggerated, giving a psycho-
impeachment because of the willful violation of the logical boost to the Vietcong). A regular attendee of the
law. A presidential commission, various congressional “McDowell luncheon”—named for Arthur McDowell,
committees, and an independent counsel conducted the founder of the Council Against Communist Aggres-
investigations. sion—Irvine was inspired to form AIM after one such
In the end, McFarlane, Poindexter, North, and meeting in which the group discussed the “problem” of
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger were found com- the news media. That discussion was part of a national
plicit in the scheme. Reagan and Vice President George debate initiated by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who
H.W. Bush were never directly tied to the scandal, had publicly scorned the press corps as “nattering nabobs
though they were blamed for improper oversight. Bush of negativism.”
was elected president in 1988 and eventually pardoned In monitoring the press corps and television and radio
Weinberger and five others convicted in the scandal. networks for accuracy and fairness in news programming,
In 1994, when North ran unsuccessfully for the Senate Irvine produced a bimonthly newsletter (The AIM Report),
in Virginia, he caused an uproar when he said Reagan a daily radio program (Media Monitor), and a weekly col-
“knew everything” from the beginning about the diver- umn (syndicated in 100 newspapers). He also wrote letters
sion of funds to the Contras. to the editor and published advertisements in offending
newspapers in order to “correct” their news reports. He
Philippe R. Girard sought to influence editorial policies by buying shares in
media corporations and raising issues during stockholder
See also: Bush Family; Cold War; Communists and Com- meetings. Top media executives occasionally met with
munism; Conspiracy Theories; Freedom of Information Act; him to hear his concerns. AIM was at the height of its
Human Rights; North, Oliver; Presidential Pardons; Reagan, power and influence during the Reagan era in the 1980s,
Ronald; Soviet Union and Russia; War Powers Act. with reportedly 40,000 paid members and an operating
budget of $1.5 million.
Further Reading Irvine and his supporters felt that the mainstream
Draper, Theodore. A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs. news media were more critical of capitalism than com-
New York: Hill and Wang, 1991. munism and tended to be hostile toward the American
North, Oliver. Under Fire: An American Story. New York: military and its national security organizations. With
HarperCollins, 1991. that in mind, Irvine wrote the preface to James L. Tyson’s
Walsh, Lawrence. Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover- Target America: The Influence of Communist Propaganda on
Up. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. U.S. Media (1981), a polemical book heavily promoted
by AIM. Irvine frequently accused the news media of
focusing more attention on human rights abuses in
Ir v ine, Reed right-wing dictatorships such as Chile than on abuses
The founder of the watchdog group Accuracy in Media by communist governments. He was especially critical
(AIM) in 1969, former economist Reed Irvine devoted of reports on the lasting effects of Agent Orange, the
himself to exposing what he claimed was a liberal bias chemical herbicide used by the U.S. military during the
28 0 Israel
Vietnam War. Irvine also blamed the American media for S. Truman extended American diplomatic recognition
the communist victory in Vietnam. After charging that to the newly declared Jewish state in Palestine. It is
the PBS documentary series Vietnam: A Television History estimated that from 1949 to 2008 the United States has
(1983) was too sympathetic toward the communists, AIM given $114 billion to Israel in military and economic aid.
was permitted to air its own rebuttal on PBS, Television’s Some commentators have called into question the extent
Vietnam: The Real Story (1985). to which American foreign policy is truly supportive of
In 1985, AIM extended its mission to the college Israel, believing that it has contributed to the overall
classroom, forming the subgroup Accuracy in Academia volatility of the Middle East and, thereby, to the ongoing
(AIA). Utilizing student volunteers to anonymously threat to Israel. Others, however, agree with Ronald
monitor the lectures and comments of professors, a tactic Reagan, who after serving as U.S. president, stated, “I’ve
that detractors likened to McCarthyism, AIA garnered believed in many things in my life, but no conviction
a few headlines arguing that certain professors were im- I’ve ever held has been stronger than my belief that the
posing political correctness in the classroom. The AIA United States must ensure the survival of Israel.”
monthly newsletter, Campus Report, focused critical at- The modern state of Israel declared its independence
tention on campus speech codes, diversity training, and following the termination of the British Mandate of
women’s studies. Palestine and the subsequent United Nations’ land-
Critics of AIM, such as a.m. Rosenthal, executive partitioning resolution of November 1947. This was
editor of the New York Times, accused the organization of followed by the Arab-Jewish War (1947–1948), which
resorting to the same “agit prop” tactics as the communists, Israel won against Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq.
but for promoting a conservative ideology. In describing This set the stage for decades of conflict and warfare
AIM, Irvine admitted, “We are ideological,” adding, “We between Israel and its neighbors. The new state was con-
are concerned about defending our free economic system sidered a place of refuge for Jews from all over the world,
from enemies in this country and abroad.” Ben Bradlee, especially those who had survived the Holocaust. From
managing editor of the Washington Post, crudely described the Arab perspective, however, it was less than just that
Irvine as a “miserable, carping, retromingent vigilante” (a the Western powers and Jews would annex Palestinian
vigilante who urinates backwards, or is cowardly). Activists land, since the Holocaust had occurred in Europe and not
on both the right and the left followed Irvine’s footsteps the Middle East. To this day, most Arab countries refuse
in forming media watchdog organizations, including to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
the liberal Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR, Most Jews in the United States welcomed the estab-
founded in 1986) and the conservative Media Research lishment of a Jewish homeland and supported it, though
Center (1987). there were some vocal anti-Zionists among Ultra-Ortho-
Roger Chapman dox Jews. A small group of Christian fundamentalists also
welcomed the establishment of Israel because, in their
See also: Academic Freedom; Agnew, Spiro T.; Communists and reading of the prophecies in the book of Revelations,
Communism; Diversity Training; McCarthyism; Media Bias; the establishment of a Jewish state was a step toward
National Public Radio; New York Times, The; Public Broadcast- the Second Coming of Christ. The large majority of the
ing Service; Speech Codes; Vietnam War; Women’s Studies. population, however, was neither particularly hostile to
Israel nor strongly supportive of it.
Further Reading The U.S. government had been divided on a policy
D’Souza, Dinesh. “Accuracy in Media.” National Review, No- toward Israel during its early days, remaining neutral
vember 2, 1984. during the early attacks by Arab neighbors. Events dur-
Irvine, Reed. Media Mischief and Misdeeds. Chicago: Regnery ing the 1950s, however, helped establish a strong and
Gateway, 1984. long-lasting alliance. The Cold War between the United
Irvine, Reed, and Cliff Kincaid. How the News Media Are Deceiv- States and the Soviet Union was at its height, and when
ing the American People. Smithtown, NY: Book Distributors, the Soviets began supporting and supplying the Islamic
1990. states with war materials in their battle against Israel,
Massing, Michael. “The Rise and Decline of Accuracy in Media.” the United States came to Israel’s defense. Israel was seen
Nation, September 13, 1986. as a like-minded ally in the Middle East, deserving U.S.
Wolfe, Alan. “The Real Aim Is Ideological.” Nation, September support, especially in the United Nations. Support for
13, 1986. Israel increased as hundreds of thousands of displaced
Jews from Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe escaped their
countries and sought Israeli citizenship.
Israel During the early 1960s, relations between Egypt
The special relationship between the United States and and Israel frayed once again over control of the Sinai
Israel dates back to May 1948, when President Harry Peninsula. Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and
Israel 281
his allies threatened to drive Israel from the Sinai and Nevertheless, there have been moments of diplomatic
invade its borders. In response, Israel mounted a powerful strain between Washington and Israel. On a number of
preemptive attack in June 1967 under the leadership of occasions, Israeli spies have been caught operating in
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. The Israelis drove the the United States. One incident frequently brought up
Arab states out of all the territories they had occupied by conspiracy theorists is the Israeli attack on the USS
previously, including the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship operating in
the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Many Americans international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. On June
applauded Israel’s victory, but members of the New Left, 8, 1967, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats bombed the
a radical movement opposed to the Vietnam War and ship, killing thirty-four Americans. Despite ten official
other “imperialist” actions of the United States, were U.S. federal investigations and three Israeli ones, all of
sympathetic to the cause of displaced Palestinians and which determined that the attack was a case of target
their Arab allies. They regarded Israel in much the same misidentification, some continue to argue that there was a
way they saw the United States, as an imperialist Western cover-up by U.S. government officials, who did not want
nation. This view persisted among some liberal groups, to be seen criticizing Israel.
and even among some American Jews, but had limited In more recent times, there has been a vigorous
influence on U.S. policy. Former president Jimmy Carter debate over the so-called Israel lobby and its influence
stirred considerable controversy when he published Pal- of Washington policymakers. This was precipitated
estine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006), a work that is largely by the publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
condemning of Israel’s “colonization” of Palestine. Policy (2007), by University of Chicago professor John
Others opposed to Israel included the growing J. Mearsheimer and Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt.
Arab-American community, some African Americans References to the “Israel lobby” or “Jewish lobby” are of-
who saw Palestinians in Israel as oppressed and lacking fensive to some because they perpetuate the stereotype of
civil rights, small groups of anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox the anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a
Jews, and a few anti-Semitic Christian Identity groups. text dating back to czarist Russia and purporting a Jewish
Support for Israel increased after September 11, 2001, worldwide conspiracy.
when Americans began to suspect that many Arabs and Roger Chapman
other Muslims were terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.
Israel itself had been victimized in the late 1980s and the See also: Anti-Semitism; Holocaust; Lapin, Daniel; Premillen-
1990s by attacks of Palestinian terrorists. nial Dispensationalism.
Through all shifts in public opinion, the U.S. gov-
ernment has remained steadfast in support of Israel. Further Reading
On the Democratic side, Jewish Americans remain an Cristol, A. Jay. The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the
influential pressure group, urging support of the Jew- U.S. Navy Spy Ship. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2002.
ish state. They are assisted by a strong lobbying effort Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Israel. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
by Israel itself. Among Republicans, support for Israel & Sons, 2003.
has more often been based on world and Middle Eastern Foxman, Abraham H. The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and
politics. Conservative groups express admiration for the Myth of Jewish Control. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
Israel’s army and the country’s emphasis on prepared- 2007.
ness against attacks. Some evangelical Christians also Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby
strengthened their support of Israel based on a millenar- and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
ian view of the role of Israel in the Second Coming. Left 2007.
Behind, a popular series of Christian apocalyptic novels Schwartz, Stephen. Is It Good for the Jews? The Crisis of America’s
by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins published begin- Israel Lobby. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
ning in the 1990s, helped advance a pro-Israel stance Simon, Merrill. Jerry Falwell and the Jews. New York: Jonathan
among the Religious Right. David, 1984.
King’s less than successful 1966 march in Chicago for
open housing. As leader of Operation Breadbasket, Jack-
son organized economic boycotts to pressure businesses
operating in African-American communities to hire
more blacks. Although some business leaders called him
Jack son, Jesse an “extortionist,” Jackson was largely successful in that
A civil rights activist and Baptist preacher, Jesse Jackson campaign. While the grocery chain Red Rooster folded
twice ran for president of the United States during the because it refused to capitulate to the group’s demands,
1980s, stating that he wished to introduce the “moral A&P hired new black store managers and for the first time
vision” of the civil rights movement into mainstream stocked black-made products such as Joe Louis milk, Staff
politics. His “I am somebody” and “Keep hope alive” of Life bread, and Grove Fresh orange juice.
slogans of black empowerment were then applied to a In 1968, Jackson was in Memphis, Tennessee, when
wider populist cause. King was assassinated. Soon after the shooting, Jackson
After losing the 1984 Democratic nomination as a was wearing a bloodstained shirt, making the claim that
largely perceived black-interest candidate, the Reverend he cradled the dying figure’s head in his arms. Witnesses
Jackson two years later regrouped and formed the Na- disputed this account, and Jackson’s relations with the
tional Rainbow Coalition, an effort to broaden his con- SCLC deteriorated over a variety of issues. In December
stituency to include not just blacks but also working-class 1971, after the SCLC executive committee suspended
families, liberal urbanites, Hispanics, feminists, and peace him for “repeated organizational improprieties,” Jackson
activists. Jackson described America as “a great quilt” quit Operation Breadbasket to found Operation PUSH
with “different-colored patches” representing urban and (for People United to Save [later Serve] Humanity). In
rural, made whole by “common threads” of justice and 1976, Jackson announced Operation PUSH-Excel, call-
equal opportunity. For those who called him a radical ing on minority youth to “get the dope out of your veins
leftist—his program was liberal—he insisted that he and hope in your brains,” as he promoted a campaign
represented “the moral center.” Although in 1988 he for excellence in education. Following his presidential
again fell short of becoming the Democratic presidential races and tenure as a “shadow senator” for the District
standard bearer, coming in second to Michael Dukakis, of Columbia (1991–1996), Jackson merged his groups,
he garnered 6.9 million votes and one-fourth of party forming the Rainbow PUSH Action Network (1996).
delegates. Until Barack Obama emerged on the political In 1997, President Bill Clinton designated Jackson as
scene two decades later, Jackson was the most successful special envoy to promote democracy in Africa. That
black candidate to run for the nation’s highest office. same year, Jackson founded the Wall Street Project to
The child of an unwed teenage mother, Jackson was mobilize black stockholders to pressure corporations to
born Jesse Louis Burns in Greenville, South Carolina, increase opportunities for minorities. Prior to leaving
on October 18, 1941, later receiving the surname of office, Clinton presented Jackson with the Presidential
his stepfather. He attended the University of Illinois at Medal of Freedom (2000).
Urbana-Champaign for one year and then transferred to Over the years, Jackson has been depicted as semi-
the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College radical (an amalgamation of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
in Greensboro, where he played football and studied and a Black Panther) as well as conservative (a “Booker
sociology (BA, 1964). It was there that he had his debut T. Washington in bellbottoms”). Liberal blacks have
in the civil rights movement, leading marches and sit- been his worst critics, dismissing his efforts as chiefly
ins to protest the town’s racial segregation. In 1964, he aiding black elites and promoting a variant of trickle-
became a field representative for the Congress of Racial down economics. Jackson was accused of modifying
Equality (CORE). On a Rockefeller grant, he attended the his politics to the conservative winds of change when
Chicago Theological Seminary (1964–1966), but put off he joined the war on drugs. The Chicago newspaper
graduation for many years (MDiv, 2000) to devote time columnist Mike Royko dubbed him “Jesse Jetstream”
to political activism. for his traveling from one public controversy to the
Jackson spent his early Chicago days volunteering next. Jackson caused outrage in 1979 when he visited
for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee the Middle East and hugged Palestinian Liberation
(SNCC) and became associated with the Southern Chris- Organization leader Yassir Arafat. On several occa-
tian Leadership Conference (SCLC) after participating in sions he has intervened in international affairs to gain
the 1965 voting-rights march in Selma, Alabama, where the release of captives—persuading Syria to release an
he met Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson soon emerged as American fighter pilot (December 1983), convincing
King’s representative heading the SCLC’s Chicago branch Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to allow the evacuation
of Operation Breadbasket (1966–1967), later serving of hundreds of stranded foreign nationals from Kuwait
as national director (1967–1971). He also coordinated (September 1991), and convincing Serbian president
282
Jack son, Michael 283
Slobodan Milosevic to free three American POWs dur- detractors—dubbing him “Wacko Jacko”—claimed
ing the Kosovo War (April–May 1999)—but these ef- that these characteristics substantially displaced his
forts were typically viewed as self-promotion. When the status as a musician.
minister admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock Jackson began his professional singing career in
with a staff person in 2001, ribald jokes made light of 1968, recording with the Jackson 5 under the Motown
the fact that Jackson was Bill Clinton’s spiritual coun- Record label. By late 1970, the group had released four
selor during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. number-one songs. Near the end of the 1970s, Jackson
Jackson has often been in the news for making ill- turned mainly solo but continued to follow the strategy
conceived statements, such as during his 1984 presi- of Motown to appeal beyond an African-American audi-
dential campaign when he referred to New York City ence. From 1972 to 1995, he charted thirteen top hits in
as “Hymie-town” (an anti-Semitic remark) or later in the United States, including “Ben” (1972), “Billie Jean”
2008 when a Fox News television microphone picked (1983), “Bad” (1987), and “Black or White” (1991).
up his offhand remark, with coarse language, in which Jackson’s work as a solo artist mainly involved an
he accused presidential candidate Barack Obama of eclectic combination of pop, funk, ballads, soul, and rock.
“talking down” to blacks. This last incident ended with This led to his first important solo album as an adult, Off the
Jackson making a public apology, followed by his son, Wall (1979). The most successful album in history, Thriller
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., an Obama campaign (1982), sold more than 51 million copies worldwide. His
adviser, issuing his own statement: “I’m deeply outraged elaborate video and stage performances featured dance,
and disappointed in Reverend Jackson’s reckless state- including the “moonwalk,” and wearing a white-sequined
ments. . . . [he] is my dad and I’ll always love him. He glove on one hand. Jackson also broke down MTV’s early
should . . . keep hope alive and any personal attacks and resistance to programming African-American artists, and
insults to himself.” he co-wrote USA for Africa’s charity ballad “We Are the
Roger Chapman World” (1985). His subsequent two albums, Bad (1987)
and Dangerous (1992), largely continued the dance-rock/
See also: Anti-Semitism; Black Panther Party; Civil Rights ballad/video pattern of Thriller. Jackson’s music often
Movement; Clinton, Bill; Democratic Party; Dukakis, involved calculated collaborations with African-American
Michael; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Obama, Barack; Sharpton, colleagues and with white performers.
Al; Supply-Side Economics. After the onslaught of alternative/grunge rock in the
early 1990s, Jackson’s popularity waned. Later albums,
Further Reading such as the egomaniacal double-CD HIStory (1995) and
Frady, Marshall. The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson. New Invincible (2001), slumped in sales, paralleling Jackson’s
York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. increasingly unusual behavior. In 1993, Pepsi-Cola
Hatch, Roger D. “Jesse L. Jackson: More Than an Opportun- cancelled a long-standing contract after he admitted an
ist.” Journal of Religious Thought 42:2 (Fall 1985/Winter addiction to painkillers. He attributed his gradual loss
1986): 73–84. of skin pigmentation to a disorder called vitiligo, but his
Jackson, Jesse L., Jr., with Frank E. Watkins. A More Perfect various cosmetic surgeries (including a botched nose job)
Union: Advancing New American Rights. New York: Welcome called this into question.
Rain, 2001. Other Jackson eccentricities included his seemingly
Kopkind, Andrew. “Black Power in the Age of Jackson.” Nation, androgynous personality, a childlike voice rumored to
November 26, 1983. have been affected by hormone treatments, and his child-
Rainbow PUSH Coalition Web site. www.rainbowpush.org. themed California mansion, Neverland Ranch (named
Timmerman, Kenneth. Shakedown! Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson. from Peter Pan), which had been the venue for various
Washington, DC: Regnery, 2002. child-guest “sleepovers.” He also drew attention because
of two unsuccessful marriages, the first to Elvis Presley’s
daughter, Lisa Marie. He was spotlighted in the media for
Jack son, Michael dangling a child over a hotel balcony railing and for an
Michael Jackson, born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, awards ceremony appearance dressed as a Messiah. Child-
Indiana, was the most successful popular music abuse accusations arose in 1993–1995 and 2003–2005,
star of the 1980s, as well as one of America’s most allegedly involving pornography and alcohol. Although
controversial figures of the 1990s and early 2000s. Jackson’s fascination with children and fantasy may
Jackson’s fans—of which many referred to him as the pertain to his rise to pop stardom while still a preteen,
“King of Pop”—regarded him as a misunderstood his public image remained tarnished up until his sudden
genius and argued that his personal eccentricities (such death from cardiac arrest on June 25, 2009.
as his changing appearance) and unusual behavior (often
involving children) did not cross ethical lines. Jackson’s Durrell Bowman
28 4 Japan
See also: Androgyny; Pornography; Rock and Roll; Sex GNP was spent on its military) when Tokyo was giving
Offenders. its microchip producers an unfair competitive advantage
through government subsidies. In the 1980s, Japanese
Further Reading investors began purchasing American companies and
Cadman, Chris, and Halstead Craig. Michael Jackson: The Early real estate, which led to some negative rhetoric about a
Years. Hertford, UK: Authors on Line, 2002. “foreign takeover.”
Chandler, Raymond. All That Glitters: The Crime and the Cover- As Japan’s industrial and technological expansion
Up. Las Vegas, NV: Windsong Press, 2004. coincided with the energy crisis of the 1970s, some
Dimond, Diane. Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael American consumers chose to purchase Japan’s smaller,
Jackson Case. New York: Atria, 2005. more fuel-efficient vehicles over U.S. automobiles. From
Jefferson, Margo. On Michael Jackson. New York: Pantheon, 1978 to 1981, Japan’s share in the American auto mar-
2006. ket rose 50 percent. Protectionists bemoaned the loss of
American jobs, but others faulted American automakers
for failing to compete. In 2006, Toyota was the second
Japan top-selling auto company in the United States, surpass-
Despite being America’s enemy during World War II, ing Ford but trailing General Motors. By 2008, during a
Japan was an important U.S. ally throughout the Cold severe global financial crisis, Toyota become the world’s
War and has remained so. However, Americans have at largest automobile manufacturer, surpassing GM, which
times resented Japan’s economic success and its impact was gloomily marking its 100th anniversary while barely
on the U.S. economy. staving off bankruptcy.
Postwar planners in Washington sought to create an Tension between the two nations was highlighted
ally of this former enemy, replacing Japan’s authoritarian when Japan asked the Smithsonian National Air and
government with a democracy that would help contain Space Museum to change its Enola Gay exhibit—orga-
communism. The goal was complicated, not simply nized to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of
because of Japan’s retention of the emperor, but also be- Hiroshima and including the fuselage of the plane that
cause of Americans’ lingering bitterness about Japanese dropped it—to focus attention on how the Japanese
treatment of POWs. Public animosity was partly offset people suffered from the atomic bombings.
by John Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946), a chilling account U.S.-Japanese relations have also been strained be-
of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of that city in cause of abuses by U.S. forces stationed in Okinawa. More
August 1945. U.S. armed forces occupied Japan from recently, Americans have criticized Japan’s veneration of
the end of World War II through April 1952, putting the gravesites of its World War II leaders and its history
in place a limited democracy. More than half a century books that leave out Japanese war atrocities.
later, neoconservatives would defend President George
W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent A.W.R. Hawkins and Roger Chapman
occupation by citing Japan as a positive case study of
nation building. See also: China; Cold War; Enola Gay Exhibit; Globalization;
With its national security protected by American Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Neoconservatism; Nuclear Age;
defense spending, Japan by the end of the 1960s had Reparations, Japanese Internment.
emerged as one of the world’s greatest economic powers,
specializing in the export of electronics, automobiles, Further Reading
and steel. But the manner in which Japanese goods Hall, Ivan P. Bamboozled! How America Loses the Intellectual Game
were traded on the world market drew the ire of many with Japan and Its Implications for Our Future in Asia. Armonk,
Americans. The phrase “Made in Japan” was often met NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
with derision, but American consumers, despite bumper Schodt, Frederick L. America and the Four Japans: Friend, Foe,
stickers advising “Buy American,” continued to purchase Model, Mirror. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge, 1994.
products that were lower in price than those made in
the United States. The U.S. trade deficit with Japan was
sarcastically viewed as Tokyo’s revenge for the atomic J e h ov a h ’s W i t n e s s e s
bombings. American business leaders complained about Although Jehovah’s Witnesses identify themselves as
unfair trade restrictions that made the export of U.S. comprising a Christian denomination, other groups
goods to Japan overly difficult, criticized the Japanese regard them as a cult that stands outside orthodox
propensity to build on the innovations of other coun- Christianity. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’s emphasis on
tries’ research and development, and questioned why separation from society has frequently brought them
the U.S. government was giving Japan a “free ride” on into conflict with the government.
defense (in the early 1980s only 1 percent of Japan’s The origins of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are found in
Jesu s People Movement 285
the teachings of Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s. A sional or applied higher education and deemed that
believer in home study of the Bible, which he held to be alternative national service was acceptable in certain
the true Word of God, Russell rejected doctrines such circumstances. With their predictions of the end of the
as the Trinity, natural immortality, and hell, and taught world in 1914 and 1975 having failed to come true, they
that Armageddon would take place in 1914. After Rus- stated in 1995 that there was no definite date for the “last
sell’s death in 1916—and the failure of his apocalyptic generation.” In response to a slowing rate of membership
vision—Joseph Franklin Rutherford became president of growth, the society in 2001 reorganized its structure, at-
Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society, which Russell had tempting to become less hierarchical and more flexible.
established in 1884 as the nonprofit legal entity of the
Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. Arrested and sent to prison Gary Land
for several months for his pacifism and opposition to
U.S. involvement in World War I, Rutherford thereafter See also: American Civil Religion; Church and State; Evan-
took an oppositional view toward secular government gelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Sex Offenders.
and established a hierarchical governing structure for the
organization. Nathan Homer Knorr, who succeeded Ru- Further Reading
therford as president in 1942, expanded the evangelizing Bowman, Robert M., Jr. Understanding Jehovah’s Witnesses: Why
activity of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, from 54 countries in They Read the Bible the Way They Do. Grand Rapids, MI:
1942 to 207 in 1971. Knorr oversaw the publication of Baker, 1991.
several doctrinal books and promoted work on the New Holden, Andrew. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary
World Translation of the Bible, completed in 1961. Religious Movement. London: Routledge, 2002.
Jehovah’s Witnesses seek to maintain purity by Penton, M. James. Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Wit-
separating themselves from many of the larger society’s nesses. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
activities and practices. They do not observe religious
or national holidays and birthdays, and they discourage
the pursuit of higher education. Jehovah’s Witnesses do J e s u s P e o p l e M ove m e n t
not vote or participate in political pressure groups, and The Jesus People movement was a conservative
they refuse jury and military service. They oppose sexual evangelical youth movement that originated within
activity outside marriage, and they regard homosexual- the counterculture in the late 1960s. Adapting rock
ity as a perversion. Since 1945, they have rejected blood music and popular culture to a revivalist context and
transfusion on the grounds that it is morally and physi- retaining hippie preferences for long hair and casual
cally polluting. fashions, the movement garnered widespread coverage
Beginning in the 1970s, the Jehovah’s Witnesses during the early 1970s. Although it receded after the
experienced some internal conflicts. In 1980, doctrinal mid-1970s, the Jesus People movement nonetheless had
disputes resulted in the expulsion of a number of workers, a tremendous impact on the direction of conservative
among them Raymond Franz, a member of the governing Protestant youth culture and a generation of maturing
body, who later wrote a book about his experiences in young evangelicals.
the faith and its institutions, Crisis of Conscience (1984). The first “street Christians” appeared in the midst
Attorneys in child custody cases began using former of the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco’s Haight-
members to support claims that the faith’s behavioral Ashbury district. The movement soon spread to Southern
restrictions were damaging to children’s mental health. California, and, by the end of decade, dozens of communal
In 2001, several individuals filed lawsuits charging that houses, coffeehouses, and Jesus People–friendly churches
the sect had protected child molesters. dotted the state landscape from Santa Barbara south to
Historically, the Jehovah’s Witnesses had come into San Diego. Meanwhile, the movement cropped up within
conflict with legal authorities over such issues as military urban countercultural centers in such far-flung cities as
service and refusal to recite the pledge of allegiance to the Seattle, Detroit, Buffalo, Atlanta, and Cincinnati.
flag, but by the 1970s many of their disputes involved Following a spate of religious-themed pop music
blood transfusions. Members sought restraining orders hits and the phenomenal success of the rock opera Jesus
and injunctions against doctors and hospitals to prevent Christ Superstar (album 1970, Broadway 1971), the Jesus
transfusions; they also sued for damages in several cases. People began to attract national media attention in 1971.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses attempted to aid their members Dozens of books about, by, and for the Jesus People be-
through establishment of the Hospital Liaison Commit- gan to flood the marketplace, and by summertime the
tee in 1979 and publicly explained their position in the movement was on the cover of Time magazine. Despite
Journal of the American Medical Association in 1981. some criticism from older evangelicals, the movement
Some of their positions softened during the 1990s. was largely hailed by evangelical leaders, including the
Jehovah’s Witnesses became more accepting of profes- Reverend Billy Graham, as a sign of impending national
28 6 John B irch Soc ie t y
revival. Its “Jesus Rock” music, styles, and persona were end of 1961. The society’s membership and influence
enthusiastically adopted by teenage evangelical churchgo- peaked around the time of Barry Goldwater’s presidential
ers across the country. campaign in 1964. In addition to issue campaigns, it
Although the movement soon faded and many young ran a publishing house, a speaker’s bureau, and a chain
Jesus People turned their focus to education, career, and of bookstores.
family, it nonetheless made a significant impact on the One of the earliest campaigns undertaken by the
shape and direction of the larger evangelical movement. society was an effort to get the United States to withdraw
Out of its coffeehouses and communes, the “Contem- from the United Nations, which the group said was part
porary Christian Music” industry was born. The two of an effort to subvert American sovereignty and create
largest evangelical denominational movements of the a socialist, one-world government. Another goal was the
postwar period—Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard Chris- impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. The organi-
tian Fellowship—both traced their origins to the Jesus zation’s “Support Your Local Police” campaign opposed
People. More important, in the wake of the movement, the use of federal law enforcement officers to enforce
the relationship of the larger evangelical subculture with civil rights laws. The John Birch Society opposed the
the surrounding youth and popular cultures—two realms civil rights movement more broadly, claiming that the
previously kept at arm’s length—was revolutionized. Fi- movement was controlled by communists.
nally, for many baby boomers, the coming of the “Jesus Critics charged that the group’s conspiratorial
Revolution” proved an important bridge between the worldview amounted to paranoia, a charge that gained
allures of teen culture and their conventional religious increasing acceptance as Welch alleged that President
upbringing. The Jesus People movement arguably held Dwight D. Eisenhower was a willing agent of the com-
many younger Americans to their evangelical loyalties in munist conspiracy and that communists were part of
the 1970s, thereby strengthening the emerging Religious a broader global conspiracy dating back to at least the
Right of the 1980s and 1990s. 1700s, connected to the Bavarian Illuminati and con-
Larry Eskridge trolled by a group Welch referred to as the “Insiders.” By
1965, William F. Buckley and his National Review were
See also: Contemporary Christian Music; Counterculture; warning that the John Birch Society was a threat to the
Evangelicalism; Generations and Generational Conflict; Gra- conservative movement. The group was also criticized for
ham, Billy; Religious Right. its opposition to the civil rights movement.
Ironically, the chair of the John Birch Society, Rep-
Further Reading resentative Lawrence P. McDonald (D-GA), was among
Di Sabatino, David. The Jesus People: An Annotated Bibliography the passengers who died when Korean Airlines Flight
and General Resource. 2nd ed. Lake Forest, CA: Jester Media, 007 was shot down by Soviet fighter planes over Sakhalin
2004. Island on September 1, 1983. Welch died some sixteen
Ellwood, Robert S., Jr. One Way: The Jesus People Movement and months later, on January 6, 1985. While the period of
Its Meaning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. its greatest influence has passed, the John Birch Society
Eskridge, Larry. “One Way: Billy Graham, the ‘Jesus Genera- served as a training ground and inspiration for members of
tion’ and the Idea of an Evangelical Youth Culture.” Church the New Right and Religious Right movements, and its
History 67:1 (1998): 83–106. concerns about a global conspiracy to create a tyrannical
world government continue to be reflected in the rhetoric
of the militia movement. The John Birch Society is still
John Birch Society an active group, publishing a biweekly magazine called
The John Birch Society, founded by Robert W. Welch, the New American and continuing its campaign against
Jr., on December 9, 1958, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the United Nations.
regarded communism as the single greatest threat to Thomas C. Ellington
the United States.
Welch, a retired candy manufacturer and former See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Civil Rights Movement;
board member of the National Association of Manufactur- Cold War; Communists and Communism; Conspiracy The-
ers, named his organization after John Morrison Birch, a ories; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly
Baptist missionary and U.S. intelligence officer who was LaHaye; Militia Movement; Occupational Safety; Religious
killed by communist forces in China shortly after V-J Right; Soviet Union and Russia; United Nations; Warren,
Day in 1945. Welch considered Birch the first casualty Earl.
of the Cold War.
The John Birch Society grew rapidly in its early Further Reading
years, from 1,500 members in January 1960 to as many Bertlet, Chip, and Matthew N. Lyons. Right-Wing Populism in
as 100,000 members across the United States by the America: Too Close for Comfort. New York: Guilford, 2000.
John son, Ly ndon B . 287
Epstein, Benjamin R., and Arnold Forster. The Radical Right: and claiming to serve the vision of President Kennedy,
Report on the John Birch Society and Its Allies. New York: he launched an impressive series of legislative initiatives
Random House, 1967. early in his administration: the Elementary and Second-
John Birch Society Web site. www.jbs.org. ary Education Act, the National Endowment for the
Schomp, Gerald. Birchism Was My Business. New York: Mac- Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, Medi-
millan, 1970. care, the Child Nutrition Act, the War on Poverty, the
Welch, Robert H.W., Jr. The Blue Book of the John Birch Society. Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of
Belmont, MA: John Birch Society, 1961. 1965. His liberalism focused on two primary objectives:
———. The Life of John Birch. Boston: Western Islands, 1965. expanding opportunity for the most needy in America
(the elderly, children, and minorities) and improving the
quality of life for all citizens. These measures also greatly
J o h n s o n , Ly n d o n B . increased the role of the federal government in American
The presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, from 1963 to society, leading to much controversy and backlash over
1969, has remained central to the culture wars of the the years.
past several decades because of the divisions that it While his domestic programs, particularly his civil
fostered between liberals and conservatives. Liberals have rights legislation and War on Poverty, exacerbated po-
applauded Johnson’s Great Society programs, including litical and cultural divisions that endured for decades, it
civil rights legislation, Medicare, and the War on was his handling of policy in Vietnam that led to more
Poverty as expanding the social, political, and economic serious discord at the time. In 1965, with the start of a
opportunities available to racial and ethnic minorities and massive bombing campaign called Operation Rolling
the poor. Conservatives have attacked Johnson’s domestic Thunder and the decision to vastly increase U.S. troop
programs as a government boondoggle, an overreaching deployments, Johnson made a fateful national commit-
expansion of government interference in American life, ment to the war effort. By early 1968, at the peak of
and as causing more poverty rather than less. U.S. involvement, more than 500,000 U.S. troops were
The conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s in Vietnam.
was in part a backlash against the legacies of the Johnson Johnson’s escalation led to a growing antiwar
presidency. His foreign policy, particularly the conduct of movement at home. When North Vietnamese forces
the Vietnam War, has been the center of a long political launched the massive Tet Offensive in January 1968,
and cultural debate. Liberals deplored his handling of the the American public was shocked. The protest move-
conflict in Southeast Asia, particularly the U.S. escalation ment gained significant momentum as many Americans
in 1965. Conservatives supported the U.S. response, and became convinced that the war was unwinnable. The
many wish he had committed the United States and its Vietnam War thus became the central issue of the 1968
military resources even more aggressively. presidential election, and the political toll on the presi-
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, dent led him to announce on March 31 that he would
near the Pedernales River in central Texas. Although his not run for reelection. His domestic and foreign policy
family was not poor, he grew up in an impoverished area, agendas under attack, Johnson left office in 1969. He
and that experience influenced his ideology. He attended died four years later, on January 22, 1973, at his ranch
the Southwest Texas State Teachers College (BS, 1920), in Stonewall, Texas.
and did some graduate study at Georgetown University The presidency of Lyndon Johnson has remained
(1935–1936). An avid supporter of President Franklin controversial. Conservative presidents, particularly Ron-
D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, Johnson served as state ald Reagan in the 1980s, have attacked and attempted to
director of the National Youth Administration before dismantle remaining Great Society and War on Poverty
his election to the House of Representatives in 1937. programs, while liberals have attempted to defend or
Johnson believed fundamentally in the beneficent powers expand them. America’s involvement in Vietnam was
of the federal government and as congressman became a divisive topic during the 2004 presidential campaign
known as a champion of public works, reclamation, and between John Kerry (a veteran of the war who became a
public power programs. He narrowly won election to the prominent spokesman against it) and George W. Bush
U.S. Senate in 1948, rising to the position of minority (who served in the Texas Air National Guard during
leader and then majority leader, until his election as vice the war but neither saw combat nor sided with the
president on the Democratic Party ticket with John F. protesters). Johnson’s presidency and its legacy remain
Kennedy in 1960. After Kennedy’s assassination in Dal- central to ongoing cultural debates about the role of
las, Texas, on November 22, 1963, Johnson was elevated government in American society and the role of the
to the presidency. United States in global affairs.
Johnson’s term in office reflected both his personality
and his political ideology. Intending to “out-FDR FDR” Robert Bauman
28 8 Jorgen sen, C hr is tine
See also: Freedom of Information Act; Great Society; Har- Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party.” In 1956,
rington, Michael; Health Care; Kennedy Family; McCarthy, the conservative newspaper columnist Walter Winchell
Eugene; New Deal; Norquist, Grover; Reagan, Ronald; Viet- suggested that “a vote for Adlai Stevenson is a vote for
nam War; War on Poverty; War Protesters; Welfare Reform. Christine Jorgensen.”
Although twice engaged, Jorgensen never married;
Further Reading on one occasion she was denied a marriage license because
Califano, Joseph A., Jr. The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon John- she was legally classified as a male. Her autobiography,
son. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography (1967), sold
Dallek, Robert. Lone Star Rising. New York: Oxford University nearly 450,000 copies and inspired a film, The Christine
Press, 1991. Jorgensen Story (1970). She was a frequent speaker on
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. college campuses during the 1970s and early 1980s,
New York: Signet, 1976. championing the rights of transsexuals. The New York
Schulman, Bruce J. Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism. play Christine Jorgensen Reveals (2006) presented her views
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. on human sexuality. Her death, from cancer on May 3,
1989, in San Clemente, California, was attributed in part
to the female hormones she took.
Jorgensen, Christine
Christine Jorgensen, born a male, became known as Andrew J. Waskey and Roger Chapman
the first American to have sex reassignment surgery.
The procedure, carried out in Denmark in 1952, was See also: Agnew, Spiro T.; McCloskey, Deirdre; Sexual Revolu-
announced in the New York Daily News under a front- tion; Transgender Movement.
page headline on December 1: “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde
Beauty.” Further Reading
The story became a media sensation, treated at the Califia, Patrick. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. 2nd
time as a pornographic scandal. Critics were harsh toward ed. San Francisco: Cleis, 2003.
Jorgensen when it became known that the surgery was Meyerowitz, Joanne. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexual-
not to “correct” a physical abnormality but to alter the ity in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
body to conform to a psychological disposition. Press, 2002.
George William Jorgensen, Jr., the son of Danish Stein, Marc Robert. “Christine Jorgensen and the Cold
immigrants, was born in New York City on May 20, War Closet.” Radical History Review 62 (Spring 1995):
1926. As a “frail, tow-head, introverted” boy, in his 136–65.
own words, he harbored secret feelings of being female.
In 1950, after clerking in the U.S. Army and launch-
ing his career as a photographer, Jorgensen traveled J u d i c i a l Wa r s
to Scandinavia to meet with gender-transformation The so-called judicial wars in postwar America have
pioneers. The Danish physician Christian Hamburger been characterized by political and ideological battles
oversaw Jorgensen’s case, which involved psychiatric over the appointment and confirmation of federal judges,
consultations, hormone replacement treatments, and especially U.S. Supreme Court justices. At stake in these
reconstructive surgery. battles is who will preside as the final arbiters in the
In March 1953, after Jorgensen’s return home, the polarizing debates over contentious social issues of the
Scandinavian Societies of Greater New York presented culture wars. Underlying these conflicts is an ideological
her with the “Woman of the Year” award for her “con- controversy over judicial review—the power of courts
tribution to medical science.” However, when it became to nullify any action of federal and state governments
clear to the American press that Jorgensen was not born deemed unconstitutional—and, more specifically, how
a hermaphrodite but was, as Newsweek reported that May, the Constitution is interpreted in court rulings.
“a castrated male,” she was looked on as a transvestite
and “homosexual deviant.” Criticism continued when Controversial Rulings
she became a Las Vegas nightclub performer, dressing The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly served as a
up as Wonder Woman and singing “I Enjoy Being a catalyst of the culture wars by ruling on controversial
Woman.” Her road show was banned in Boston as well social issues such as the separation between church and
as on military bases. state, school segregation, and privacy rights. In Everson
Among the politically and socially conservative, the v. Board of Education (1947), the justices reasoned that
name Jorgensen was used to denigrate liberals. Spiro T. the First Amendment implies a “wall of separation”
Agnew castigated Senator Charles Goodell (R-NY), a between government and religion. This was followed by
leading figure of the liberal wing of the GOP, as “the Engel v. Vitale (1962), which banned organized school
Judic ial Wars 28 9
es of government and upholding precedents established

by previous courts (unless a past ruling is regarded as
representing judicial activism).
Selecting Judges
The political significance of the rhetorical debate
between judicial activism and judicial restraint is plainly
illustrated in the selection of new justices and judges.
For example, during the 2004 presidential debates
against Democratic challenger John Kerry, Republican
incumbent George W. Bush stated, “Legislators make
law; judges interpret the Constitution. . . . And that’s
the kind of judge I’m going to put on there. I would
pick somebody who would not allow their personal
opinion to get in the way of the law.” In the same debate,
The appointment of conservative legal scholar and U.S. Cir- Bush also indicated that he “would pick somebody who
cuit Court Judge Robert Bork (left) to the Supreme Court would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United
by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 was a flashpoint in States.”
the judicial wars. The Senate rejected Bork’s nomination “Strict interpretation” is a highly charged term
on ideological grounds. (Diana Walker/Time & Life Pictures/ that alludes to a nuanced dispute regarding the ways
Getty Images)
in which Supreme Court justices interpret the meaning
of the Constitution. “Strict constructionists” are said to
prayer. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) outlawed racial interpret the Constitution strictly according to the words
segregation in schools by overturning the “separate but used in the document and to the original intent of the
equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), by extension framers. By contrast, advocates of the “living Constitu-
nullifying all state laws mandating Jim Crow. In tion” approach, also known as “loose constructionist,”
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the high court ruled that argue that the Constitution is a living document and that
since the Bill of Rights implies the right to privacy, its interpretation should be flexible enough to consider
laws restricting the sale and use of contraceptives are changes in society. Proponents of this judicial philosophy
unconstitutional. Similarly, in Roe v. Wade (1973), the seek to clarify the principles that underlie the text, rather
justices legalized abortion, extending implied privacy than limiting interpretations to a literal reading of the
rights to a pregnant woman’s right to choose whether text itself. Justices of the living Constitution approach
or not to carry a fetus to full term. Two decades later, contend that the framers could not possibly have foreseen
in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Supreme Court upheld the future and that the document must be understood
sexual privacy for all individuals by declaring a state within the context in which it is applied. Failure to do
antisodomy law unconstitutional. that, they maintain, restricts the ability of justices to
The Supreme Court’s rolling back of religion in the arrive at fair and just decisions and stands as a roadblock
public square, overturning of state laws pertaining to to social progress. For example, advocates claim that only
school segregation, and recognition of constitutional the living Constitution approach allowed the Supreme
protections for abortion and gay rights served to inflame Court to act as a protector of minority rights in the Brown
the culture wars with each major ruling. Equating ju- decision and others.
dicial review on matters concerning controversial social The confrontation over judicial philosophy, pitting
issues to policymaking, conservatives argued that the strict constructionists against advocates of a living Consti-
courts should exercise “judicial restraint.” By using tution, was spurred by the aforementioned privacy rights
judicial review to trump the power of elected representa- cases. Specifically, the Supreme Court relied on the right
tives, the Supreme Court was viewed by conservatives to privacy to justify contentious decisions on social issues
as “legislating from the bench” and therefore exercising despite the absence of language in the Constitution or
“judicial activism.” the Bill of Rights that explicitly guarantees such a right.
Since no member of a court claims to be a “judicial Social conservatives who disagreed with the constitutional
activist,” the term is simply pejorative, used by social protection of reproduction, abortion, and gay rights took
conservatives to suggest that liberal rulings represent a issue with the loose constructionist approach of the Court,
blatant misreading of the Constitution based purely on arguing that the justices improperly construed the right
ideology. By advocating “judicial restraint,” an equally to privacy itself.
politicized term, conservatives insist that justices restrict The competing approaches to jurisprudence, and
the use of judicial review, deferring to the elected branch- their implications for real cases and real social issues,
29 0 Judic ial Wars
thus have made the decision of who gets to sit on the option,” which would effectively change a 150-year-old
bench highly charged and often politically polarizing. rule of the Senate by eliminating the option to filibuster
Supreme Court justices and federal court judges are not floor votes on judicial nominees. Like previous clashes
elected but appointed for life after being nominated over the confirmations of Bork and Thomas, the battle
by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The over the filibuster and the nuclear option was fought
confirmation process is no longer strictly a matter of with all the publicity and ferocity of a political cam-
determining whether or not an individual appointee paign. Supported by liberal groups such as the Alliance
is professionally qualified to serve. Instead, much time for Justice, People for the American Way, and MoveOn.
and effort is devoted to ascertaining his or her judicial org, the Democrats held their ground, arguing that the
philosophy. Such was the case in 1987 with the con- Republicans sought to change the rules in the middle of
troversial rejection of Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court the game. The GOP, for its part, used the opportunity to
nominee, the conservative U.S. Circuit Court judge remind socially conservative supporters what was at stake
Robert Bork, by a Democratic Senate majority. Bork’s in the contest—it was not just a procedural struggle, they
Democratic opponents publicly portrayed him as a argued, but a moral one. Tony Perkins’s Family Research
dangerous extremist who would not protect the civil Council and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family sought
rights and liberties of the American people. Waged like to mobilize public support with a series of events called
a political campaign, the attack on Bork involved tele- “Justice Sunday,” organized by the Religious Right for
vision advertisements and the efforts of well-financed the purpose of “stopping the filibuster against people of
special-interest groups, such as the American Civil faith” (i.e., people against abortion).
Liberties Union (ACLU). Ultimately, a bipartisan group of moderate senators,
The confirmation hearings of conservative Clar- the so-called Gang of 14, formed to defuse the situation
ence Thomas, nominated in 1991 by President George with a compromise: the Senate would not change its
H.W. Bush from the same federal appeals court as rules, and judicial nominees would not be filibustered,
Bork, were likewise highly politicized. Rather than except under “extraordinary circumstances.” This out-
focus on Thomas’s qualifications, those who opposed come established the ground rules for two impending
his nomination emphasized his judicial philosophy. In confirmation battles over Supreme Court nominees,
addition, much attention was focused on the allegation brought about by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day
that he had sexually harassed a former colleague, law O’Connor (announced on July 1, 2005) and the death
school professor Anita Hill. Unlike Bork, Thomas won of Chief Justice William Rehnquist (on September 3,
Senate confirmation, if by one of the narrowest margins 2005).
in U.S. history. The judicial wars raged on during the subsequent
confirmation hearings of Bush’s nominees for chief jus-
The “Nuclear Option” tice, John Roberts, and associate justice, Samuel Alito.
The judicial wars heated up again in early 2005 with the While both were ultimately confirmed, the former in
recognition that President George W. Bush’s reelection September 2005 and the latter in January 2006, their
would likely place him in a position to nominate at hearings were marked by the kind (if not the intensity)
least one Supreme Court justice. At the time, Bush of politicization and social polarization witnessed in the
nominated a handful of controversial judges for federal cases of Bork and Thomas. NARAL Pro-Choice America
appeals court positions, which Senate Republicans financed a controversial television advertisement falsely
and Democrats treated as test cases to determine how alleging that Roberts had “filed court briefs supporting
much ground the other party was willing to give in violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.”
the anticipated Supreme Court battle. Although the On the other side, Donald Wildmon’s American Family
Republicans held a 55–45 majority over Democrats Association gathered signatures for a petition to pressure
(including one Independent), the minority party the Senate into confirming Roberts with an up-or-down
effectively used the filibuster to prevent a floor vote on vote. Likewise, Alito’s confirmation was passionately and
Bush’s nominees. From the Democratic perspective, this publicly supported by such groups as Focus on the Family,
was fair recompense for Republicans who had blocked Gary Bauer’s American Values Coalition, Pat Robertson’s
many of President Bill Clinton’s judicial nominees. Christian Coalition of America, and other organizations
With Bush in the White House, however, Republicans representing the socially conservative Religious Right.
were demanding an up-or-down vote on the president’s The ACLU formally opposed Alito’s confirmation and
nominees, knowing full well that they would win in was joined by liberal groups such as Planned Parent-
such a case. hood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and People for the
To force just such an outcome, Senate Majority American Way.
Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) threatened to use the “nuclear Richard Gibbons Holtzman
Judic ial Wars 291
See also: Abortion; American Civil Liberties Union; Birth Con- Epstein, Lee, and Jeffrey Segal. Advice and Consent: The Politics
trol; Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Christian Coalition; of Judicial Appointments. New York: Oxford University Press,
Dobson, James; Douglas, William O.; Gun Control; Hill, Ani- 2007.
ta; Privacy Rights; Religious Right; Roe v. Wade (1973); School Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of
Prayer; Sodomy Laws; Thomas, Clarence; Wildmon, Donald. the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court. New
York: Penguin Press, 2007.
Further Reading Wittes, Benjamin. Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent
Bronner, Ethan. Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook Courts in Angry Times. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
America. New York: Union Square Press, 2007. 2006.
destroyer in the South Pacific. Kennedy’s exploits
in saving his crew made him a war hero. Returning
to Massachusetts after the war, Kennedy began his
political career. With Joe Kennedy acting as a strategist
and chief financier—producing the first of a litany of
K a c z y n s k i , Te d accusations that the family was parlaying its fortune to
See Unabomber. buy political power—JFK was elected to the U.S. House
of Representatives in 1946. After three undistinguished
terms in Congress (1947–1953), Kennedy served two
Ke n n e d y Fa m i l y terms in the Senate (1953–1960), where a top priority
The most prominent, influential, and controversial was elevating his national profile in preparation for a
political family in modern U.S. history, the Kennedys presidential run. Urged on by his father, Kennedy
of Massachusetts have been increasingly associated declared his candidacy in 1960 and went on to eke out
with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party since a razor-thin victory over his Republican opponent, Vice
the end of World War II. The best-known members of President Richard Nixon. The triumph was diminished,
the family are the three brothers: John Kennedy, U.S. however, by whispers of vote buying and fixing funded
senator from Massachusetts and president of the United by Joe Kennedy.
States; Robert, U.S. attorney general and U.S. senator Kennedy’s record of accomplishment as president was
from New York; and Edward, longtime U.S. senator decidedly mixed. He is credited with securing a substan-
from Massachusetts. Revered by some as America’s tial tax cut that stimulated economic growth; he avoided
“royal family” and a quintessential American success nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cuban
story, they have been disparaged by others as imperious, Missile Crisis in October 1962; he set the ambitious goal
corrupt, and hypocritical. Whatever one thinks of the of putting a man on the moon; he backed legislation that
Kennedys, few can deny that they have left an indelible, eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and he
albeit polarizing, mark on postwar America. established the Peace Corps in 1961. However, he also
The family’s roots in America go back to the mid- presided over the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the failed attempt
nineteenth century, but the driving force in the emer- in April 1961 to topple the Cuban government of Fidel
gence of the Kennedy dynasty in the twentieth century Castro; he deepened America’s involvement in Vietnam;
was family patriarch Joseph Patrick “Joe” Kennedy. Born he was slow to respond to the burgeoning civil rights
in Boston in 1888, Kennedy possessed a business acu- movement; and he did nothing to stop the Soviets from
men exceeded only by his desire for a career in politics. constructing the Berlin Wall.
After amassing a fortune through hard work, shrewd Still, disputes over the Kennedy legacy transcend
investments, and aggressive—though at the time, legal— policy matters. At his inauguration in January 1961,
manipulations of equities markets, Kennedy hoped to Kennedy delivered what is widely regarded as one of the
use his wealth and the network of connections he had most eloquent inaugural addresses in American history.
forged with the nation’s top power brokers to facilitate A generation of Americans was said to have been inspired
an entry into politics. He began well, securing several to heed the call to public service when Kennedy declared,
high-level appointments in the administration of Presi- “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what
dent Franklin Roosevelt. His ambitions were thwarted, you can do for your country.” The uplifting idealism of
however, when, as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, he the speech, which set the tone for his administration,
provoked a firestorm of criticism by expressing support was complemented by the carefully cultivated image of
for the appeasement of Hitler and then issuing defeat- a First Family that was simultaneously stylish, urbane,
ist proclamations about England. His political viability and charming. Such impressions, contrasted with the
diminished, Kennedy projected his aspirations for higher shocking spectacle of Kennedy’s assassination on No-
office onto his sons. vember 22, 1963, helped give rise to an association of
the Kennedy era with the legend of Camelot. Given the
JFK tenacity of this myth, it is not surprising that, at least in
When Kennedy’s oldest son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr., popular polls, JFK consistently ranks among the country’s
was killed in service during World War II, the mantle top presidents.
of heir apparent was shifted to the next oldest son, John More damning were revelations that emerged after
Fitzgerald Kennedy. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy’s death that he had conducted numerous extra-
on May 29, 1917, John graduated from Harvard (BA, marital affairs while in office, including occasional trysts
government, 1940). During World War II, he served in in the White House itself. One relationship is said to have
the U.S. Navy (1941–1945), commanding the ill-fated involved Judith Campbell Exner, simultaneously linked
PT-109, which sank after being rammed by a Japanese to Chicago mobster Sam Giancana, inviting speculation
292
Kennedy Family 293
that Kennedy’s promiscuity may have recklessly exposed of President Johnson. Moments after claiming victory in
him to mob blackmail or even led to his death. Plainly, the California primary, Kennedy was shot by Palestinian-
Kennedy’s private life stood in marked contrast to his born Sirhan Sirhan, who was unhappy with Kennedy’s
public image as a family man. Nor did the public know support for Israel. He died on June 6, 1968.
about the health issues that plagued him throughout
his presidency, which, like his liaisons, were carefully Ted
concealed. This penchant for secrecy and the glaring The youngest of the three famous brothers, Edward
disparity between the wholesome public image and the Moore “Ted” Kennedy, was born in Boston on February
tawdry private affairs of John Kennedy have provided 22, 1932. He attended Harvard but was expelled in
significant fodder for critics of the Kennedy family. 1951 for cheating. He served two years in the U.S. Army
(1951–1953) before being readmitted to Harvard, from
RFK which he eventually graduated (BA, government, 1956);
Robert Francis Kennedy, best known as Bobby, was born he went on to earn a law degree from the University
in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925. of Virginia (LLB, 1959). In 1962, Kennedy ran in a
After brief service in the U.S. Navy immediately after special election to fill the Senate seat his brother John
World War II, he studied at Harvard (BA, government, had vacated, winning what would be the first of many
1948) and the University of Virginia (LLB, 1951). Dur- landslide victories. He died of brain cancer on August
ing the 1950s, he held several minor posts in the federal 15, 2009, after being elected to eight full terms.
government, including counsel to the infamous Senate Kennedy was seen by supporters and critics as the
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired great liberal lion of the Senate, advocating stronger
by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Later, as chief counsel of government policies in areas such as health care, educa-
the Senate Labor “Rackets Committee“ (1957–1959), tion, immigration reform, gun control, and civil rights.
he garnered national attention by investigating ties be- At the same time, his embrace of strong government
tween organized crime and the labor movement. Ken- involvement in the economy and society earned him
nedy also served as manager of his brother’s 1952 Senate the scorn of conservatives. At times, Kennedy was also
and 1960 presidential campaigns, in which capacity he sharply criticized in Massachusetts, as during the contro-
solidified his reputation as a ruthless competitor. versy over busing in Boston schools in the 1970s; at one
When his brother was elected president, Robert, at point, he was hounded by a mob because of his support
his father’s insistence, was named U.S. attorney general. for busing.
The appointment drew charges of nepotism, but Kennedy In 1980, Kennedy challenged the incumbent, Jimmy
proved to be a remarkably adept administrator, earning Carter, for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomina-
considerable praise for his stewardship of the Justice De- tion. He ran what was widely seen as an ineffective and
partment. In addition, Robert was John’s closest adviser, lackluster campaign, and he continued to be dogged by
counseling him on every significant issue. He is regarded a notorious incident that took place in the summer of
as an important restraining influence during the Cuban 1969 at Chappaquiddick Island, on Martha’s Vineyard.
Missile Crisis and has been praised for having urged his A young female aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, who was riding
brother, however belatedly, to move more aggressively in the car that Kennedy was driving after a party, died
on the issue of civil rights. At the same time, he has been after the car went off a bridge and overturned into the
criticized for scheming to find a way to overthrow Castro water. Kennedy managed to get out of the car; Kopechne
(apparently even considering assassination), for authoriz- did not. Kennedy insisted that he attempted in vain to
ing FBI wiretaps of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., retrieve Kopechne, but he eventually left the scene and
and for covering his brother’s marital indiscretions. waited until the next morning to report the incident.
Following John Kennedy’s assassination, Bobby Questions about Kennedy’s conduct in the matter
continued as attorney general under President Lyndon plagued him thereafter.
Johnson for another year, before running for a seat in the Kennedy also earned praise and condemnation for
U.S. Senate from New York in 1964. He defeated the his role in the highly contentious confirmation hearings
Republican incumbent, Kenneth Keating, who famously on Robert Bork, who had been nominated by President
accused Kennedy of being a carpetbagger. As a senator, Ronald Reagan for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in
Kennedy focused increasingly on the plight of the poor 1987. The nomination was widely praised by conserva-
and the marginalized in society, concerns that would form tives, but Kennedy led the liberal charge in opposition,
the cornerstone of his brief run for the presidency in 1968. famously warning that if Bork was seated on the high
As with his senatorial campaign, however, controversy court, the country would revert to the days of segrega-
surrounded Kennedy’s White House bid. He was accused tion, back-alley abortions, and unfettered police powers.
of opportunism for delaying his entry into the race until Ultimately, Bork was rejected by the Senate, earning
the New Hampshire primary revealed the vulnerabilities Kennedy the enduring enmity of conservatives. Many
29 4 Kennedy Family
court watchers have traced the increasingly contentious politics—and remain a source of controversy—for many
nature of confirmation hearings back to this episode. years to come.
Despite the controversies, even the critics of Ted Ken- Sven Dubie
nedy concede that he was an effective dealmaker. Some of
his great legislative triumphs came about as a result of his See also: Busing, School; Civil Rights Movement; Cold War;
ability to reach across the aisle and work with ideological Conspiracy Theories; Cuba; Democratic Party; Education
adversaries, sometimes to the chagrin of both his allies and Reform; Gun Control; Health Care; Hoover, J. Edgar; Israel;
his enemies. Significantly, Time magazine in 2006 named Johnson, Lyndon B.; Judicial Wars; Soviet Union and Russia;
Kennedy as one of “America’s Ten Best Senators.” In June Vietnam War.
2008, Ted Kennedy underwent surgery to combat an ag-
gressive form of brain cancer (malignant glioma). Further Reading
Clymer, Adam. Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. Boston:
Lauded and Criticized Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
As a family, the Kennedys have been lauded for their Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. The Kennedys: An American
commitment to public service, their instinctive defense Drama. New York: Summit Books, 1984.
of working-class interests, and their charitable work on Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963.
behalf of people with disabilities, most notably through Boston: Little, Brown, 2003.
the creation of and support for the Special Olympics. Hersh, Seymour M. The Dark Side of Camelot. Boston: Little,
Criticism of the Kennedys has centered on the intense Brown, 1997.
clannishness of the family, the perception that family Palermo, Joseph A. Robert F. Kennedy and the Death of American
members play according to their own set of rules, and Idealism. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.
that family money can always be used to skirt the law. Schwarz, Ted. Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the States-
Some have also disparaged what they call the Kennedy man, and the Making of an American Myth. Hoboken, NJ:
“political machine” and its ruthless pursuit of power, John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
while others have dismissed the family as “limousine Strauss, Steven D. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kennedys.
liberals” who are out of touch with those whose interests Indianapolis, IN: Macmillan USA, 2000.
they champion.
While the luster of the Kennedy name may have
diminished somewhat in the past quarter century, the Ke r o u a c , J a c k
family remains a source of fascination and controversy for Novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, a central figure in the
Americans, as evidenced by the publicity surrounding the Beat Generation of writers of the 1950s, was a progenitor
1991 trial and acquittal of one of Ted’s nephews, William of the political and social counterculture of the next
Kennedy Smith, for rape; by the outpouring of sympathy decade. His spontaneous, confessional writings, many of
at the passing of John’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onas- them composed under the influence of amphetamines,
sis, in 1994; and by the response to the tragic death of offered an alternative vision to the social conformity
their son, John Jr., in the 1999 crash of a plane that he was of the postwar era, depicting young people purposely
piloting. Several next-generation Kennedys have served in living on the margins of society in search of their own
high levels of government, among them Joseph Kennedy, sense of authenticity through adventurous travel, sexual
II, a son of RFK who was elected to six terms in Congress freedom, recreational drug usage, self-expression, and
from Massachusetts (1987–1998); Patrick Kennedy, the spiritual quest.
son of Ted Kennedy, who first won election as a congress- The son of working-class French Canadians, Jean-
man (1995–) from Rhode Island at age twenty-one; and Louis Lebris de Kérouac was born on March 12, 1922, in
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who served as lieutenant Lowell, Massachusetts. After graduating from the Horace
governor of Maryland (1995–2003). Mann Preparatory School (1940) in New York City, he
The family and its political influence was cast into attended Columbia University on a football scholarship
light again during the 2008 Democratic primary season, (1940–1942). Although a broken leg and a dispute
when Senator Ted Kennedy, Congressman Patrick Ken- with the coach ended his sports career at Columbia, and
nedy, and Caroline Kennedy (the daughter of John F. boredom with the curriculum compelled him to drop
Kennedy) endorsed and campaigned on behalf of Senator out, Kerouac worked on crafting his writing in fellow-
Barack Obama; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and other ship with the budding poet Allen Ginsberg and future
members of the extended clan voiced support for the novelist William S. Burroughs. During World War II,
nomination of Senator Hillary Clinton. It remained clear Kerouac served a stint with the U.S. Merchant Marine
that, regardless of differences in the family and regardless (1942–1943). He also joined the U.S. Naval Air Force,
of how public sentiment about the family may shift, the but received a psychiatric discharge after only three
Kennedys are likely to retain an active role in American months of active duty (1943).
Ker r y, John 295
The author of two dozen books—including The of the town of Lowell for its 1988 dedication of a park
Town and the City (1950), On the Road (1957), The Dharma in Kerouac’s memory, the columnist George F. Will
Bums (1958), The Subterraneans (1958), Doctor Sax (1959), reported it as “one more sign that America is making a
Maggie Cassidy: A Love Story (1959), Big Sur (1962), and cottage industry out of recycled radicalisms.”
Desolation Angels (1965)—Kerouac sought to write with Ironically, Kerouac was in some respects politically
the same improvisational energy found in the music of conservative; he enjoyed reading the National Review.
the jazz player Charlie Parker, his artistic hero. The novel Although never an activist, he once expressed support
that made Kerouac an overnight success was On the Road, for the three-time presidential candidate Robert A. Taft,
which he typed on a roll of teletype paper in April 1951. otherwise known as “Mr. Republican.” To the chagrin
The novel is a fictionalized travel narrative, with the feel of his Beat friends, Kerouac also defended McCarthyism.
of jazz, of two young men—Dean Moriarty (based on Ker- He and the LSD guru Timothy Leary shared a mutual
ouac’s friend Neal Cassady) and his alter ego, Sal Paradise loathing due to ideological differences. And once, during
(based on Kerouac)—who drive across the United States in a party, Kerouac took an American flag out of the hands
a speeding sedan in search of “kicks.” A favorable review of Allen Ginsberg, who he thought was treating it with
in the New York Times gave the novel a boost, but most disrespect. The novelist-poet did not care to bow before
other reviewers were negative. The popular appeal of On authority, yet was very much a nationalist. Kerouac’s
the Road coincided with the period’s cinematic portrayals personal life, prominently featured in his writings, was
of alienated youth, as by Marlon Brando in The Wild One characterized by excessive drinking, drug abuse, and
(1953) and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). sexual promiscuity, including homosexual liaisons; this,
Kerouac was a shy rebel who valued individual free- along with his overall nonconformist message, made him
dom and shared the artistic sensitivities of the poet Walt an easy target of the right wing. Kerouac died on October
Whitman and novelist Thomas Wolfe. Although elements 21, 1969, in St. Petersburg, Florida, from a hemorrhage
of his writings are hedonistic, a strand of otherworldliness related to his alcoholism.
also can be found, some of it based on the haunting memory Roger Chapman
of the death of his older brother, Gerard, when Jack was
four years old. Kerouac, while maintaining a nominal See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Cold War; Counterculture;
Roman Catholic identity, added Buddhist elements into Dean, James; Ginsberg, Allen; Hoover, J. Edgar; Leary, Tim-
his writings. He is credited with coining the term “Beat,” othy; Mailer, Norman; McCarthyism; National Review; Pod
conjuring the concept of beatitude, the feeling of being horetz, Norman; Sexual Revolution; Taft, Robert A.; Vietnam
beat and empty, and an individual open to new experiences. War; Will, George.
Herb Caen, the San Francisco Examiner humor columnist,
termed the movement “beatnik” because he thought it was Further Reading
as “far out” as Sputnik, the Soviet satellite. In the essay “The Amburn, Ellis. Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack
White Negro” (1957), Norman Mailer perpetuated the Kerouac. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
sinister stereotype of the Beat as a violent antihero hipster. Kauffman, Bill. America First! Its History, Culture, and Politics.
Kerouac took offense at this negative imagery, arguing that Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995.
Beats, seeking joy, peace, and harmony, were “basically a Kerouac, Jack. “The Origins of the Beat Movement.” Playboy,
religious generation.” Unconvinced, FBI director J. Edgar June 1959.
Hoover in 1961 rated beatniks and their lifestyle as one of Maher, Paul, Jr. Kerouac: The Definitive Biography. Lanham, MD:
the top three threats to American society. Taylor Trade, 2004.
The critics of Kerouac have been legion over the years. Nicosia, Gerald. Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Ker-
Novelist Truman Capote scoffed at On the Road, famously ouac. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
dismissing it as mere “type writing.” Norman Podhoretz,
in Doings and Undoings (1964), summarized Kerouac’s
overall message as “Kill the intellectuals who can talk Ke r r y, J o h n
coherently.” William F. Buckley, Jr., who in 1968 had A U.S. Senator from Massachusetts since 1985, Vietnam
Kerouac as a guest on his television interview show Fir- War veteran, and prominent antiwar activist upon his
ing Line, was simultaneously baffled and disgusted by the return home, John Kerry was the 2004 Democratic
author, who voiced opposition to the Vietnam War and nominee for president of the United States, losing a
regarded hippies as “good kids,” yet expressed support for close election to incumbent George W. Bush. Although
U.S. troops and said he was against communism. Rock President Bush won 51 percent of the popular vote
musician Natalie Merchant, when she recorded with the and 286 electoral votes, to Kerry’s 48 percent and 252
band 10,000 Maniacs, belittled the Beat novelist in the electoral votes, pundits have argued over whether or not
single “Hey, Jack Kerouac” (1987), which depicts Ker- “values voters” were the ones who decided the outcome.
ouac as a boy who never grew up. Writing disparagingly Some have charged that in Ohio (where Bush won by
29 6 Ker r y, John
2 percent of the popular vote) election “irregularities”

(including faulty electronic voting machines) tipped the
election to Bush.
John Forbes Kerry was born on December 11, 1943,
in Denver, Colorado, and grew up in Massachusetts.
Raised in a Catholic family—his father a Foreign Service
officer and government attorney—Kerry spent part of his
youth in Europe and attended prestigious preparatory
schools in New England. After graduating from Yale
University (BA, 1966), he served as an officer in the U.S.
Navy (1966–1970), including two years in Vietnam.
Upon his discharge, Kerry twice ran unsuccessfully for
Congress (1970 and 1972) and in 1971 helped organize
the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Fol-
lowing graduation from law school at Boston College
(JD, 1976), he served as an assistant district attorney of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry greets crew-
Middlesex County in Massachusetts (1976–1979) and was mates of his Vietnam War swift boat during the party conven-
a partner in a two-man private law firm (1979–1982). He tion in 2004. Political opponents accused Kerry of distorting
his war record—a campaign smear tactic that came to be
was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982 called “swiftboating.” (Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images)
(under Governor Michael Dukakis) and two years later
won a U.S. Senate seat in the same state. He won reelec-
tion to the Senate in 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008. Later, Kerry worked with his Senate colleague and fellow
During the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry Vietnam veteran John McCain (R-AZ) to investigate
charged Bush with incompetence as commander in chief missing soldiers in Vietnam and to establish diplomatic
in the War on Terror, stating that the president had di- relations with that country. During the 2004 campaign,
verted military resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, “out- however, Kerry came under attack by a partisan group
sourced” the hunt for Osama bin Laden to Afghan forces, called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that cast aspersions
and thereby enabled the mastermind of the September 11 on the senator’s war record and vilified him as unpatriotic
attacks to bribe his way on the battlefield at Tora Bora because of his past activity with the VVAW. The attack,
and escape a military dragnet. Bush retorted that Senator which consisted of ruthless television ads, reopened the
Kerry had authorized the president to go to war against bitterness of the Vietnam War era and was a key factor in
Iraq. Throughout the contest, Bush presented himself as a Kerry’s defeat for president. From it came the term for a
leader guided by principles and genuine conviction while new kind of political smear, called “swiftboating.”
contrasting Kerry as a “waffler.” As he attacked Kerry’s The 2004 presidential race was decided in Ohio
“inconsistent” voting record, Bush employed a statement where so-called values voters came out in great num-
he often used when referring to bin Laden: “He can run, bers to approve Issue 1, a ballot measure authorizing
but he cannot hide.” an amendment to the state constitution that defines
In the course of the campaign, Kerry attempted to marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The
showcase his military service in Vietnam and to contrast issue was triggered by a 2003 Massachusetts court rul-
it with Bush, who some believe joined the Air National ing that legalized gay marriage due to the vagueness
Guard to avoid war service. Although personal connec- of that state’s constitution. One particular exit poll in
tions could have kept him out of the war, Kerry volun- Ohio reported that 22 percent of the voters rated “moral
teered for active duty and even requested an assignment values” as their number one political concern, and voters
to Vietnam. From November 1968 to March 1969, he against same-sex marriage were viewed as far more likely
was in charge of a swift boat patrolling rivers in enemy to support Bush over Kerry. Adding to the controversy
territory. He sustained combat injuries and was awarded were reports of several balloting issues in Ohio, includ-
a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. ing a shortage of voting machines in highly Democratic
After completing his active duty, Kerry helped organize precincts, malfunctioning machines, and exit polls that
the VVAW and quickly became a leader of the grow- were inconsistent with the official tally.
ing antiwar movement at home. On April 22, 1971, he
became the first Vietnam veteran to testify against the Abraham D. Lavender and Roger Chapman
war before Congress, arguing that the conflict was a civil
war that posed no threat to U.S. national security. Most See also: Bush Family; Democratic Party; Dukakis, Michael;
controversially, he highlighted a study that reported McCain, John; Republican Party; Same-Sex Marriage; Viet-
that some American soldiers had committed war crimes. nam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam War.
Kevork ian, Jack 297
Further Reading back of a Volkswagen van at a public park in Michigan.

Freeman, Steven F. Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit More deaths followed, prompting Michigan in 1992 to
Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count. New York: Seven pass its first law making assisted suicide a felony offense.
Stories Press, 2006. Kevorkian was five times tried in court, the first four cases
Kranish, Michael, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton. John ending in three acquittals and one mistrial.
F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Opponents of physician-assisted suicide argue that
Who Know Him Best. New York: Public Affairs, 2004. the role of the doctor is to relieve the patient’s suffering,
O’Neill, John E., and Jerome L. Corsi. Unfit for Command: Swift not to kill or assist in killing. Critics further argue that
Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. Washington, DC: physician-assisted suicide goes beyond passive euthana-
Regnery, 2004. sia (based on the withdrawing or withholding of drugs or
Sabato, Larry J., ed. Divided States of America: The Slash and Burn technology) to active euthanasia (based on the utilizing of
Politics of the 2004 Presidential Election. New York: Pearson drugs or technology). They argue that hospice care, which
Longman, 2006. helps manage pain, is a humane alternative to euthanasia.
Concerns have also been raised that legalizing euthanasia
will make the terminally ill feel that it is their duty to
Kevo r k i a n , J a c k hasten their own death. From Kevorkian’s perspective,
A self-described “obitiatrist” (practitioner of medical attorneys and medical professionals have opposed his ef-
killing), retired pathologist Jack Kevorkian forced forts out of financial motives, fearing that their services
a national debate during the 1990s on the issues of could be bypassed.
physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in general. Critics have questioned Kevorkian’s screening process,
Offering the terminally ill a “painless, dignified as he seldom consulted with the patient’s physician or
alternative” to drawn-out dying, Kevorkian by his own sought a second opinion. A study by the medical examiner
count helped 130 people commit suicide. In March of Oakland County in Michigan found that of fifty-three
1999, a Michigan jury found him guilty of second- autopsies of people who had died with Kevorkian’s help,
degree murder, and he received a prison sentence of only fourteen had been terminally ill or less than eight
10–25 years. Kevorkian was paroled in June 2007 after months away from dying. In a 1992 speech before the
pledging that he would no longer engage in assisted National Press Club, Kevorkian vaguely defined terminal
suicide or euthanasia. illness as “any disease that curtails life even for a day.” In
The son of Armenian refugees from Turkey, Kevorkian 1993, after rummaging through Kevorkian’s trash, an
was born on May 26, 1928, in Pontiac, Michigan. He activist with the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue
later became a pathologist after earning degrees from the announced the uncovering of a written document indicat-
University of Michigan (BS, 1949; MD, 1952). During ing, in at least one instance, that Kevorkian had ignored a
his residency, Kevorkian acquired the nickname “Doctor patient’s change of mind about committing suicide.
Death” for his research in photographing the retinas of In September 1998, Kevorkian presided over the
dying patients. He also stirred controversy by advocating death of fifty-two-year-old Thomas Youk, who had been
medical experimentation on death-row inmates. Kevorkian ailing with Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral
served as a U.S. Army medical officer in Korea and Colo- sclerosis, or ALS). On November 22, 1998, portions of a
rado (1953–1955) and later worked at hospitals in Michi- videotape of the incident were aired in a CBS 60 Minutes
gan and California. Michigan revoked his medical license broadcast, which attracted 22 million viewers. Kevorkian
in 1991 because of his activities involving assisted suicide, had sent the tape to CBS weeks after Michigan voters had
and California followed suit in 1993. Kevorkian is the overwhelmingly rejected Proposal B, which would have
author of several books, including Medical Research and the legalized physician-assisted suicide. The measure had
Death Penalty (1960) and Prescription-Medicide: The Goodness been opposed by a coalition comprising the state medical
of Planned Death (1991). In 1994, the American Humanist society, hospice workers, the Catholic Church, and right-
Association presented him with its Hero Award. to-life groups. During the broadcast, Kevorkian taunted
In 1988, Kevorkian invented a device called the Michigan authorities to indict him. This proved to be his
Thantron (later renamed the Mercitron), a “self-execu- undoing because the videotape showed Kevorkian, not
tion machine” in which the “patient” pulls a switch to the patient, administering a fatal drug—crossing the line
administer fatal drugs. A second machine used carbon from assisted suicide to homicide. (Kevorkian has long ar-
monoxide. Kevorkian envisioned a society in which gued that people suffering from degenerative muscle and
suicide clinics equipped with death machines would nerve disorders need help in killing themselves because of
be legally sanctioned. Kevorkian’s first case of assisted the inability to swallow or manipulate a switch.)
suicide occurred in June 1991 and involved a fifty-four- Kevorkian’s last trial attracted supporters and de-
year-old woman from Oregon named Janet Adkins, who tractors. Serving as his own defense counsel, Kevorkian
had Alzheimer’s disease. The event took place in the compared himself to civil rights pioneers Dr. Martin
29 8 Keyes, A lan
Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. The prosecution called Identifying himself as pro-life and pro-family, he has
him “a medical hit man.” The jury, after twelve hours of attributed a wide array of social ills such as poverty,
deliberation, found him guilty of second-degree murder. crime, and out-of-wedlock births to the demise of “the
“This trial was not about the political or moral correct- marriage-based, two-parent family.”
ness of euthanasia,” said the judge at sentencing. “It was Alan Lee Keyes was born August 7, 1950, in New
about you, sir. It was about lawlessness.” York City and raised in a Roman Catholic family headed
After his release from prison, an editorial in the by a career army sergeant. He attended Harvard Univer-
New York Times (June 5, 2007) castigated the “deluded sity (BA, 1972; PhD, 1979), having left Cornell Univer-
and unrepentant” Kevorkian for his “cavalier, indeed sity over a death threat in response to his criticism of a
reckless approach” to euthanasia. “If his antics provided campus protest led by black students. Along the way, he
anything of value,” the editorial continued, “it was a was mentored by conservative icon Allan Bloom, and at
reminder of how much terminally ill patients can suffer Harvard he befriended fellow graduate student and future
and of the need for sane and humane laws allowing care- neoconservative William Kristol. Keyes worked for the
fully regulated assisted suicides.” By way of example, U.S. State Department (1971–1987), including a stint
the article pointed to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act as a U.S. representative to the United Nations Economic
(1997), which allows terminally ill individuals to obtain and Security Council (1983–1985). During this time, he
prescriptions for lethal drugs for ending their lives. The defended President Ronald Reagan’s refusal to impose
Oregon law requires two physicians to document that economic sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid
the patient is sane and has only six months to live. From system. After leaving the federal government, Keyes was
1998 to 2006, a total of 292 individuals, mostly cancer a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
patients, died under the program. Of the other states, (1987–1989) and hosted the radio program America’s
forty-four have criminalized assisted suicide while five Wake-Up Call: The Alan Keyes Show on WCBM Radio
others have not. in Baltimore (1994–2000) and the MSNBC television
In March 2008, Kevorkian announced his candidacy program Alan Keyes is Making Sense (2002).
for Congress as an independent candidate, declaring that Known for his lively campaign rhetoric as a Repub-
if elected he would promote the Ninth Amendment and lican candidate for various offices, Keyes has lost three
his view that it allows assisted suicide. In the general U.S. Senate races (in Maryland, 1988 and 1992; and in
election, he placed third in a five-way contest, receiving Illinois, 2004) and two presidential primaries (1996
3 percent of the vote as an independent. and 2000). Running for office has provided him with
a pulpit for expressing a conservative message, includ-
Roger Chapman ing attacks on abortion, the welfare system, affirmative
action, income tax, government-run Social Security,
See also: Catholic Church; New York Times, The; Not Dead Yet; universal health care, same-sex marriage, gun control,
Operation Rescue; Right to Die. judicial activism, the United Nations, and certain global
trade agreements.
Further Reading He has publicly decried homosexuality as “selfish
Betzold, Michael. Appointment with Doctor Death. Troy, MI: hedonism”—an assertion reaffirmed during his 2004
Momentum Books, 1993. Illinois campaign in reference to Vice President Dick
Kevorkian, Jack. Prescription-Medicide: The Goodness of a Planned Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney. Following the
Death. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991. latter statement, Keyes’s daughter Maya announced that
Marker, Rita, and Kathi Hamlon. “Prisoner Number 284797.” she, too, was a lesbian and that this revelation had created
Human Life Review 25:3 (Summer 1999): 65–76. a rift between daughter and parents.
Nicole, Neal, and Harry Wylie. Between the Dying and the Dead: Keyes’s admirers, especially members of the Reli-
Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia. gious Right, express appreciation for his directness in
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press / Terrace Books, linking a religious moral perspective to the nature and
2006. duties of the U.S. government. Detractors character-
Zucker, Marjorie B., ed. The Right to Die Debate: A Documentary ize his opinions as ideologically extreme and ethically
History. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. questionable.
Mark L. Dubois
Keye s , A l a n See also: Abortion; Affirmative Action; Family Values; Gay
A politically conservative African-American activist, Rights Movement; Gun Control; Health Care; Lesbians; Mul-
public speaker, and frequent candidate for public office, ticultural Conservatism; Outing; Republican Party; Same-
Alan Keyes has participated in the American culture Sex Marriage; Social Security; Tax Reform; United Nations;
wars by championing his brand of “moral populism.” Welfare Reform.
K ing , Mar tin Luther, Jr. 29 9
Further Reading player of her stature could never defeat him. In accepting
“He’s the Best-Educated Man in the GOP: But Alan Keyes the challenge, King declared it an important battle in
Gets no Respect.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 26 the war for women’s equality. The televised match was at
(Winter 1999): 39. the time the most watched tennis event in history, with
“The Higher Education of Alan Keyes: A Lonely Black Man in 90 million viewers. King defeated Riggs 6–4, 6–3, 6–3,
the Party of Lincoln.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education taking the $100,000 purse and declaring a momentous
11 (Spring 1996): 66–67. victory for gender equality.
Keyes, Alan L. Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of During that memorable year, King had an extra-
Black America. New York: William Morrow, 1995. marital affair with Marilyn Barnett, who eight years later
———. Our Character, Our Future: Reclaiming America’s Moral outed the tennis star as a lesbian in an unsuccessful pali-
Destiny. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996. mony suit. In time, King grew comfortable being identi-
fied as a lesbian and spoke of it publicly. In a biographical
HBO television documentary, Billie Jean King: Portrait of
King, Billie Jean a Pioneer (2006), King and her companion of many years,
One of the most successful and popular professional Ilana Kloss, openly discuss their relationship.
tennis players in the history of the sport—the holder In August 2006, the U.S. Tennis Association named
of seventy-one singles titles—Billie Jean King used her its public tennis complex in Flushing, New York, the Billie
celebrity to advocate equality for women and men in Jean King National Tennis Center.
earnings and respect, not only in tennis but in other Margaret Barrett
careers as well. Perhaps her most well-known victory
in this regard was achieved in 1973 when she defeated See also: Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave;
Bobby Riggs in their highly publicized “Battle of the Lesbians; Outing.
Sexes” exhibition match.
Born Billie Jean Moffitt on November 22, 1943, Further Reading
in Long Beach, California, she showed early promise as King, Billie Jean, and Frank Deford. Billie Jean. New York:
an athlete, participating in a variety of male-dominated Viking, 1982.
sports, including football and baseball. During adolescence, Roberts, Selena. A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby
however, she began to focus exclusively on tennis. Her first Riggs, and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game. New York:
major tennis success came in 1961, when she teamed up Crown, 2005.
with Karen Hantze to win the doubles championship at
Wimbledon. In 1966, she won her first Wimbledon singles
title and was ranked first in the world. K i n g , M a r t i n L u t h e r, J r.
Also in 1966, she married law student Larry King. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most
She took her husband’s name but, unlike many women influential leader of the civil rights movement that
in the 1960s, chose not to abandon her career. culminated in the 1960s with the passage of sweeping
In 1968, Billie Jean King turned professional, but the federal laws against racial discrimination. Winner
transition did not bring instant riches. Female athletes of the Nobel Peace Prize (1964) for his insistence on
earned much less money than their male counterparts, and nonviolent protest and his calls for interracial harmony,
King protested the inequality. In 1972, after receiving he was considered by some an increasingly radical activist
$15,000 less than her male counterpart for winning the against racism, poverty, slums, and the war in Vietnam.
U.S. Open, King demanded that the prize money be made More militant groups, however, criticized King for not
equal by the next year, or she would not play. During going far enough.
the course of the following season, she helped establish Born on January 20, 1929, to middle-class African-
the Women’s Tennis Association, a player’s union. And American parents in Atlanta, King felt both anguish and
indeed, the U.S. Open became the first major tournament anger at segregation, realizing that “separate but equal”
to offer equal prize money to men and women. was a contradiction that undermined human dignity. A
The “Battle of the Sexes,” held at the Houston As- brilliant student, he graduated from Morehouse College
trodome on September 23, 1973, was perhaps the most (BA, 1948), Crozer Seminary (MDiv, 1951), and Boston
famous tennis match of King’s career. She accepted the University (PhD, 1955). His studies nourished a philoso-
challenge to play the 1939 Wimbledon men’s singles phy of social activism that interwove Christian beliefs
champion Bobby Riggs, then fifty-four, who openly with advocacy of nonviolent protest and civil disobedi-
bragged that he was a “male chauvinist pig” and stated, ence. At the heart of King’s values was a desire to topple
“Women belong in the bedroom and kitchen, in that the racist practices sanctioned by law and flourishing on
order.” Leading up to the best-of-five-sets match, Riggs the margins of the American conscience.
publicly taunted King, arguing that a female tennis In December 1955, while King was pastor of a black
3 00 K ing , Mar tin Luther, Jr.
Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks Although King is now widely remembered as an
defied municipal ordinances by refusing to yield her seat inspiring advocate of interracial brotherhood, in his
on a public bus to a white man. After Parks was arrested, lifetime he was beset by critics on both the right and
black leaders unanimously chose King to lead a boycott of the left. Southern white politicians denounced him as
the offending bus company. The wide support that blacks an “outside agitator,” police often jailed him, and racist
and northern white liberals gave the successful year-long vigilantes were a constant menace. FBI director J. Edgar
boycott was in part a tribute to King’s eloquent defini- Hoover, seeking to discredit King as a demagogue, char-
tion of the campaign as a struggle not against whites, latan, womanizer, and pawn of communist subversives,
but against injustice. fed the press any available fact or fabrication. Some white
King exerted his greatest influence during the 1960s moderates, including eight prominent southern ministers
as a strategist and a symbol of the movement for racial in 1963, called King’s protests “untimely” and deplored
equality in the South. Although he insisted that dem- as “extreme” and anarchic his advocacy of selective law-
onstrators refrain from violence, he believed in the tonic breaking. He retorted that to peacefully disobey racist
value of confrontation. In May 1963, people recoiled in laws and lovingly accept the full legal penalty, including
horror and indignation at televised scenes from Birming- prison, showed the highest respect for law while awaken-
ham, where attack dogs loosed by police sank their fangs ing the nation to injustice. (The Baptist-run Bob Jones
into fleeing children and officers used fire hoses to blast University disagreed, choosing after his assassination not
unarmed demonstrators against buildings and wielded to lower its flags to half-mast.)
nightsticks indiscriminately. In March 1965, police King contended, too, with fissures in the civil rights
assaults on peaceful marchers in Selma outraged other movement. Militant younger groups like the Student
Americans and generated crucial support for passage of Nonviolent Coordinating Committee mocked King’s
a strong voting rights bill. Christian piety and adherence to nonviolence, bemoaned
King made his greatest contribution to the civil his focus on mobilizing marchers rather than on cultivat-
rights movement by conveying with matchless elo- ing local leadership, and found him too ready to settle
quence a dream of interracial harmony in speeches, as for symbolic victories that garnered national headlines.
at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, and By 1967, King had also alienated President Lyndon B.
in writings, most notably his “Letter from Birmingham Johnson and much of the liberal establishment by dis-
Jail” on April 16, 1963. Fusing civil rights with both missing the War on Poverty as inadequate and calling
democratic and patriotic content, he defended African- the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in
American demands as reflecting a “love for America and the world today.”
the sublime principles of liberty and equality on which In 1983, as the radical edges of King’s leadership
she is founded.” He voiced familiar Cold War refrains faded from public memory, Congress enacted a national
while imparting an added social challenge: that the way holiday to honor him and, by extension, the civil rights
Americans treat the “eternal moral issue” of civil rights movement he symbolized. Americans of all backgrounds
“may well determine the destiny of our nation in the and viewpoints celebrate the Reverend Martin Luther
ideological struggle with Communism.” And highlight- King, Jr., as an icon of brotherhood while minimizing
ing his role as a minister, he urged prompt civil rights his role as a militant protest leader. Yet the holiday
action to guard “the most sacred values of America’s celebrates King’s abiding faith in the possibilities for
Judeo-Christian heritage.” peaceful democratic reform to ensure dignity and op-
The passage of civil rights laws, though owing much portunity for all.
to King’s leadership, did not exhaust his criticisms of The circumstance of King’s assassination continues
American institutions and values. In 1966, King led to be debated. Although the House Select Committee on
marches in Chicago and its white suburbs to demand Assassinations concluded in 1979 that James Earl Ray was
equal access to housing outside ghetto slums. He also indeed the assassin, perhaps with the help of his brothers,
expressed growing doubts about capitalism for permit- King’s family members and others continued to believe
ting a “gulf between superfluous wealth and abject that the slain civil rights leader was the scapegoat of a
poverty.” In April 1967, King condemned escalating larger conspiracy.
U.S. military intervention in Vietnam as a brutal diver-
sion from urgently needed domestic reforms. In the days Robert Weisbrot
before his assassination on April 4, 1968, King marched
in Memphis alongside striking black sanitation workers See also: Bunche, Ralph; Civil Rights Movement; Cold War;
who were protesting both poverty and racism, and he Communists and Communism; Conspiracy Theories; Hoover,
proposed a Poor People’s March on Washington to focus J. Edgar; Jackson, Jesse; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Parks, Rosa;
attention on his call for “the total, direct, and immediate Race; Vietnam War; Voting Rights Act; War on Poverty;
abolition of poverty.” Wealth Gap.
K ing , Rodney 3 01
Further Reading On March 15, 1991, a grand jury indicted four po-
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, lice officers—Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Theodore
1954–63. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Briseno, and Timothy Wind—for using excessive force
———. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65. New during the arrest. The state trial was moved to the mostly
York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. white suburb of Simi Valley. On April 29, 1992, after
———. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68. six weeks of testimony and six hours of deliberation,
New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006. the jury of ten whites, one Hispanic, and one Filipino
Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., American found three of the four officers innocent;
and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: Powell was convicted of one count of assault. Defense
Vintage, 1986. attorneys, who showed the film and offered a frame-by-
Oates, Stephen B. Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther frame commentary, convinced the jury that the officers
King, Jr. New York: Harper and Row, 1982. had reasonably followed proper arrest procedures. Unlike
Washington, James Melvin, ed. A Testament of Hope: The Essential television viewers, the jury saw the first three seconds
Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: Harper San of the video footage, in which King lunges at Powell.
Francisco, 1991. Although King’s supporters argued that he had simply
been trying to shield himself from blows, defense attor-
neys characterized the jerky movements of King in the
K i n g , Ro d n ey film as aggressive. Some defenders of King argued that
Rodney Glen King, an African American born in San his “lunge” was actually the imitation of a black minstrel
Francisco on April 4, 1965, was at the center of a highly show dance, in a feeble attempt to use humor to diffuse
publicized Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) the tension of the moment.
police brutality case during the early 1990s, an episode In the wake of the verdict, rioting, burning, and
that led to rioting in Los Angeles and highlighted the looting broke out in south central Los Angeles and even-
nation’s racial polarization. For many whites, King had tually spread to others parts of the city. The outrage in
put others at risk, committing more than fifteen traffic the black community was based on the feeling that the
violations and resisting arrest. For many blacks, King justice system operated with a double standard, denying
had been beaten by the police because of his race. African Americans equal treatment. There was lingering
After serving half of a two-year sentence for the anger over the March 1991 shooting death of Latasha
November 1989 robbery of a Monterey Park grocery Harlins, a black fifteen-year-old, by Soon Ja Du, the
store and assaulting a clerk with a tire iron, King was wife of a Korean store owner, who in November 1991,
freed and placed on parole. Five weeks later, during although found guilty, was sentenced only to probation.
the evening of March 2, 1991, he was driving over the Harlins, accused of trying to shoplift a $1.79 bottle of
speed limit on the Foothill Freeway in Los Angeles. orange juice, was shot in the back as she headed to the
When a California Highway Patrol car signaled for him rear of the convenience store. The store’s videotape of
to pull over, King, fearing a return to prison, panicked Harlins’s death, like that of the King beating, had been
and tried to escape. Twenty-seven law enforcement shown repeatedly on the local news.
officers were involved in the subsequent high-speed The preexisting black frustration and the verdict in
chase. When King finally stopped, he and his two male the King case led to five days of violence, resulting in
passengers, also black, were ordered out of the vehicle. fifty-four deaths, thousands of injuries, more than 7,000
King, the last to emerge from the car, scuffled with the arrests, and $1 billion in property damage. California
police. The confrontation ended with King’s suffering Governor Pete Wilson called out the National Guard to
a concussion, broken cheekbone, fractured eye socket, help restore order.
and burns from a Taser. During the riots, a television news team recorded
King’s arrest was documented on an 81-second the beating of Reginald Denny, a white truck driver
videotape filmed by a bystander, George Holliday, and who was pulled from his truck by four black youths and
later aired on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles and worldwide attacked.
by CNN. The shocking film showed white officers, The media also aired the moment when Rodney King
under the glare of a helicopter searchlight, inflicting pleaded for the violence to stop, asking, “People, I just
more than thirty baton blows on the prone King. Many want to say, you know, can we all get along?” President
viewers believed that it was an unmistakable case of po- George H.W. Bush addressed the nation, expressing
lice brutality. The police maintained that King seemed frustration over the verdict and hinting that there would
to be abnormally aggressive that night, as if under the be a federal prosecution. Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley
influence of the drug PCP (“angel dust”); subsequent formed a special commission headed by former Secretary
lab tests revealed a high blood-alcohol level and traces of State Warren Christopher to investigate LAPD mis-
of marijuana. conduct. Police chief Daryl Gates, pressured to retire
3 02 K in sey, A lf red
because of the incident, was eventually replaced by Willie its excesses. Critics have also accused Kinsey of being
Williams, an African American. a libertine, a bisexual whose research was motivated
The same four officers were indicted by a federal grand by his personal perversity, including a fascination with
jury, and the jury in the federal case that followed included pedophilia.
two African Americans. On April 17, 1993, after thirty Alfred Charles Kinsey was born in Hoboken, New
hours of jury deliberation, a split verdict acquitted Briseno Jersey, on June 23, 1894, and raised by strict religious
and Wind but found Koon and Powell guilty of violating parents. Educated at Stevens Institute of Technology
King’s civil rights. The two men received thirty-month (1912–1914), Bowdoin College (BS, biology and psychol-
sentences and were out on parole by December 1995. ogy, 1916), and Harvard University (ScD, 1919), Kinsey
Political conservatives helped the two ex-officers raise spent his career as a professor in the Zoology Department
funds to pay legal fees. Conservative publisher Alfred at Indiana University in Bloomington (1920–1956). In
Regnery, for example, helped Koon raise over $9 million. 1947, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, he
Koon characterized himself as “the political scapegoat of established the Institute for Sex Research (later renamed
radicals and self-serving liberal politicians.” The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Re-
On December 7, 1993, Damian Williams, one of production) at the university. In addition to his seminal
Reginald Denny’s assailants, was given the maximum works on sexuality, Kinsey authored a popular biology
sentence of ten years for one count of assault with a textbook for secondary students, a field guide on edible
deadly weapon. On April 21, 1994, a Los Angeles jury wild plants, and a number of works on his earlier research
awarded King $3.8 million in compensatory damages on gall wasps. By the time of his death on August 26,
for his arrest 1956, in Bloomington, Kinsey had personally conducted
Roger Chapman 7,985 of the 18,000 sex histories then gathered by his
institute. Kinsey’s life was the subject of the 2004 Holly-
See also: Blackface; Civil Rights Movement; Police Abuse; wood film Kinsey, which was condemned by conservative
Race; Racial Profiling; Watts and Los Angeles Riots, 1965 religious groups such as Focus on the Family.
and 1992. In 1938, Kinsey began teaching a marriage and
family class at Indiana University but found there was
Further Reading little published material on the topic of human sexuality
Cannon, Lou. How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles that was both honest and scientific. To fill the void, he
and LAPD. New York: Times Books, 1997. started obtaining the sexual histories of his students and
Gibbs, Jewelle Taylor. Race and Justice: Rodney King and O.J. Simp- then expanded his research off campus, making trips to
son in a House Divided. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996. Chicago and other urban areas. This work drew criticism
Koon, Stacey C., with Robert Deitz. Presumed Guilty: The from various entities, including members of the clergy.
Tragedy of the Rodney King Affair. Washington, DC: Regnery Even some of his own colleagues were critical of him,
Gateway, 1992. pointing out his refusal to teach against premarital sex.
Finally, Kinsey was advised by the university president
either to quit teaching the marriage class or to halt his
K i n s ey, A l f r e d sex research. With the university’s blessings, he chose
The pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey has been to continue his research, but he was asked to release his
simultaneously praised and vilified for his landmark findings only when the state General Assembly was not
studies Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and in session.
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). These Sexual Behavior in the Human Male sold 185,000
works reported higher than previously imagined figures copies in its first year, becoming a best-seller despite
for occurrences of premarital and extramarital sexual its 800 pages and $6.50 retail price. Based on 5,300
intercourse and acts of homosexuality in the United interviews with white men and boys, the book reported
States in the immediate postwar period. Supporters that 68 percent of the males surveyed had premarital
of Kinsey credit him with establishing a precedent sex by age eighteen; 50 percent had some extramarital
for rational and morally neutral discussion of human experience; 69 percent had visited a prostitute at least
sexuality. They also applaud his courage to debunk the once; 37 percent had engaged in a homosexual activ-
hypocrisy of his day by showing that many Americans ity leading to orgasm; 92 percent had masturbated;
were not following the conventional puritanical sex code. 84 percent had been aroused by sexually fantasizing
Detractors over the years have argued that the Kinsey about a female; and nearly 100 percent had experienced
reports were flawed and biased. Many religious leaders nocturnal sex dreams. The results of Sexual Behavior in
and social conservatives blame him for influencing the Human Female, based on interviews of 5,940 white
society to regard immorality as normal and acceptable, females, indicated that 50 percent of those surveyed
thus paving the way for the sexual revolution and all of had engaged in premarital sex; 26 percent had some
K lein, Naomi 3 03
extramarital experience; 13 percent had experienced a See also: Focus on the Family; Gay Rights Movement; Gra-
homosexual encounter leading to orgasm; 62 percent ham, Billy; Hay, Harry; Mead, Margaret; Niebuhr, Reinhold;
had masturbated; 69 percent had been aroused by erotic Sex Education; Sex Offenders; Sexual Revolution.
fantasies; and 37 percent had experienced sex dreams.
Kinsey’s research methodology was immediately Further Reading
called into question, as it still is today. The reported Gathorne-Hardy, Jonathan. Sex–The Measure of All Things: A
figures seemed too high for some observers, who blamed Life of Alfred C. Kinsey. Bloomington: Indiana University
Kinsey for interviewing people who were less repre- Press, 2004.
sentative of the general population. Also, Kinsey was Institute for Media Education Web site. www.drjudithreisman
condemned for studying humans as if they were animals .com.
because he omitted from his analysis attitudes about Jones, James H. Kinsey: A Life. New York: W.W. Norton,
love and spirituality. The evangelist Billy Graham and 2004.
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, among others, deplored Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction
Kinsey’s studies, regarding them as socially harmful. Web site. www.indiana.edu/~kinsey.
Even the anthropologist Margaret Mead criticized Kin- Reumann, Miriam G. American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and
sey for removing “a previously guaranteed reticence” National Identity in the Kinsey Reports. Berkeley: University of
and leaving young people “defenseless in just those California Press, 2005.
areas where their desire to conform was protected by
a lack of knowledge of the extent of nonconformity.”
In 1954, amid pressure from U.S. Representative B. K lein, Naomi
Carroll Reece (R-TN) and other public officials, the The Canadian activist and author Naomi Klein has
Rockefeller Foundation canceled its funding of Kinsey’s emerged as one of the most prominent figures in the con
research. temporary antiglobalization and anticorporate movement.
One continuing debate about Kinsey’s findings is Supporters view her activism as advocacy for social jus-
the question of the reported number of homosexuals. tice; detractors dismiss her negative critique of globaliza-
Detractors of his work argue that, since he engaged in tion as evidence of a poor understanding of the business
same-sex liaisons, he was eager to inflate figures on ho- world as well as a biased disregard for the benefits of a
mosexuality. Controversially, Kinsey argued that a typical vibrant global economy.
individual is somewhere in between heterosexuality and Born on May 5, 1970, in Montreal, Canada, Naomi
homosexuality, not exclusively one or the other. Accord- Klein is the daughter of American parents. She did not
ing to the Kinsey reports, 10 percent of males claimed complete her degree program at the University of To-
exclusive homosexual relations for a period lasting at least ronto, but she gained journalism experience writing for
three years, but only 4 percent of that group claimed the student newspaper. Klein is the author of No Logo:
exclusive homosexual tendencies. To this day, due to Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000), regarded as a kind
incorrect readings of Kinsey, the conventional wisdom of manifesto for the antiglobalization movement; Fences
is that 10 percent of the U.S. population is homosexual. and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Global-
Subsequent studies by other researchers have reported ization Debate (2002); and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of
figures as low as 1 percent. A 1994 study conducted by Disaster Capitalism (2007), all dealing with issues sur-
the National Opinion Research Center at the University rounding the rise of global capitalism. Klein also writes
of Chicago found 2.8 percent of American males to be syndicated columns for the Globe and Mail (Toronto) and
homosexual. the Guardian (United Kingdom), while contributing es-
Perhaps the strongest denunciation of Kinsey’s says to a number of magazines (such as the Nation, New
work and legacy has come from Judith Reisman, presi- Statesman, Progressive, Village Voice, and Ms.). Most of her
dent of the Institute for Media Education and author activism has been devoted to tracking the development
of Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences (1998). Referring to of the antiglobalization and anticorporate movement. No
him as a “massive criminal” who committed scientific Logo rolled off the presses only weeks after the dramatic
fraud, Reisman charges that Kinsey sought pedophiles 1999 “Battle of Seattle” protest against the World Trade
to conduct experiments on children and then report the Organization.
results. She bases her argument in part on Tables 31–34 The antiglobalization movement’s lack of clear
of Kinsey’s 1948 book, which records the notes of one leadership and its decentralized character have led
anonymous man’s sexual experience with children as well some to identify Klein as one of globalization’s most
as adults of both sexes. Kinsey has been criticized for not important critics. She has been a controversial figure
reporting to the police that man and other pedophiles he for her willingness to serve as a cheerleader for a num-
interviewed. ber of disaffected groups, from radical French farmers
Roger Chapman to Zapatista revolutionaries in Chiapas, Mexico. The
304 Koop, C . Evere t t
primary criticism leveled by Klein’s detractors is that Reaganites with his statement that any negative health
her condemnation of globalization ignores most, if not effects of abortion on women could not be conclusively
all, of its benefits. determined. While staying true to his fundamentalist
Klein comes from an activist family—her grand- roots, he was a pragmatist in the “family values” era,
father was a labor organizer; her father was a Vietnam becoming the most trusted medical professional in the
War draft dodger; her mother is the producer of the 1980s.
antipornography documentary film Not a Love Story Born on October 14, 1916, in Brooklyn, New York,
(1981); and her brother is the director of the liberal to a well-to-do Dutch family, Charles “Chick” Everett
think tank, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. As Koop was an only child. He attended Dartmouth Col-
a teenager, she was, by her own admission, a “mall rat,” lege (BA, 1937), Cornell University Medical College
fully embracing the consumer brands she now so readily (MD, 1941), and the Graduate School of Medicine at
castigates. This familiarity lends an impassioned urgency the University of Pennsylvania (ScD, 1947). Koop mar-
to her admonishment. ried his college sweetheart, with whom he raised four
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, children. For thirty years, he was a pediatric surgeon at
Klein increasingly began writing about the ramifications the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and a
of American foreign policy and the U.S. government’s pediatrics professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s
attempts to spread democracy around the world. She is School of Medicine. At CHOP, he created the nation’s
trenchant in her assertions that the project is doomed to first neonatal intensive care unit and separated three sets
failure so long as America’s leadership maintains close of Siamese twins.
ties to corporate capitalism. Koop’s candidacy for surgeon general was based
on a suggestion from evangelist Billy Graham and on a
Patrick Jackson film series Koop did with theologian Francis Schaeffer,
Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979). Liberals
See also: Battle of Seattle; Canada; Corporate Welfare; Execu- feared he would politicize the Public Health Service as a
tive Compensation; Factory Farms; Feminism, Third-Wave; member of the anti-abortion Christian Action Council.
Globalization; Labor Unions; Migrant Labor; Nader, Ralph; Conservatives hoped he would be a conduit for their
Nation, The; Wal-Mart. ideology. Despite opposition from the American Public
Health Association, Koop was confirmed by a 68-24 vote
Further Reading on November 16, 1981.
MacFarquhar, Larissa. “Outside Agitator.” The New Yorker, Liberals were surprised by Koop’s progressive stance
December 8, 2008. on smoking but expected a moral message on sexual be-
NoLogo Web site. www.nologo.org. havior in his 1986 AIDS report. Instead, the report came
Segerston, Paul Stephen. Naomi Klein and the Anti-Globalization out in favor of sex education and condom use as means of
Movement. London: Centre for Economic Policy Research, combating the epidemic: “We are fighting a disease, not
2003. people,” it said. Koop’s 1988 report on abortion was an
“Why Naomi Klein Needs to Grow Up.” Economist, November opportunity for further research on the issue, but conser-
9, 2002. vatives were disappointed by Koop’s focus on the social
causes underlying unwanted pregnancy and his refusal
to make a definitively pro-life statement.
Ko o p, C . Eve r e t t Ostracized by the George H.W. Bush administra-
The well-known pediatric surgeon, Christian funda- tion, Koop retired in October 1989. (Earlier a number
mentalist, and ardent anti-abortionist C. Everett Koop of Democratic presidential candidates, including Jesse
imbued the position of U.S. surgeon general—which Jackson, Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis, indicated that,
he held for nearly the duration of the Ronald Reagan if elected, they would appoint Koop to a position.) He
administration in the 1980s—with an innovative sense went on to chair the National “Safe Kids” Campaign
of visibility and influence. Guided by the classic medi- and returned to teaching. Koop’s ability to put himself
cal principle “First, do no harm,” the Republican ap- above politics, and between citizens and policymakers,
pointee held to the belief that health care and politics made him an inadvertent liberal hero and the bane of
do not mix and that he worked for all Americans. Dur- conservatives.
ing his controversial tenure (1981–1989), Koop start- Anna Zuschlag
ed a national campaign for a smoke-free society and
set medical care standards for handicapped infants. He See also: Abortion; AIDS; Birth Control; Family Values; Fun-
shocked conservatives and liberals with his pronounce- damentalism, Religious; Graham, Billy; Health Care; Rea-
ment that AIDS was a medical and social problem, not gan, Ronald; Schaeffer, Francis; Science Wars; Sex Education;
a moral or political issue. He angered pro-lifers and Smoking in Public.
K r is tol , Ir v ing , and B ill K r is tol 3 05
Further Reading ideas have been blamed for inspiring the 2003 U.S.-led
Bowman, James S. “C. Everett Koop: Integrity—No Matter invasion of Iraq, leading to a decline in his stature among
What.” In Exemplary Public Administrators: Character and some political conservatives. Irving Kristol died on Sep-
Leadership in Government, ed. Terry L. Cooper and N. Dale tember 18, 2009.
Wright, 270–303. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992. Bill Kristol was born on December 23, 1952, in New
Koop, C. Everett. Koop: The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor. York City, and educated at Harvard (AB, 1973; PhD,
New York: Random House, 1991. 1979). Like his father, he came under the influence of
———. The Right to Live, the Right to Die. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale the teachings of Leo Strauss. His mother, Gertrude Him-
House, 1976. melfarb, was a cultural historian and conservative scholar.
Rubin, Eva R. The Abortion Controversy: A Documentary History. More directly involved in politics than his parents, he
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. served as special assistant to Secretary of Education Wil-
liam Bennett in the Reagan administration (1985–1989),
campaign manager for Alan Keyes’s U.S. Senate bid in
Kr istol, Ir v ing , and Bill Kr istol Maryland (1988), and domestic policy adviser to Vice
Irving Kristol, one of the leading figures of the neocon- President Dan Quayle (1989–1993). As editor of the
servatism movement, was the father of William “Bill” Weekly Standard since 1995, he champions conservative
Kristol, who in 1995 founded the conservative magazine politics based on reason and morality in opposition to cul-
the Weekly Standard. Together and independently, the tural relativism. A proponent of the invasion of Iraq—he
two men have profoundly shaped the American political is the co-author of The War Over Iraq (2003)—he argues
landscape and been active players in the culture wars. that U.S. foreign policy should actively promote, with
Irving William Kristol, born in New York City on
January 22, 1920, has been dubbed the “godfather of
neoconservatism,” although he was more of a commentator
than a theoretician. He studied history at City College of
New York (BA, 1940), where he embraced Marxism, but
as a follower of the ideals of Leon Trotsky, he was an anti-
Stalinist. Following army service during World War II, he
joined Commentary magazine as managing editor (1947–
1952). During the 1950s, he came under the influence of
political philosopher Leo Strauss and turned considerably
more conservative, although he remained a Democrat. His
article “Civil Liberties 1952: A Study in Confusion,” pub-
lished in Commentary, defended Senator Joseph McCarthy
and condemned liberals for not taking a stronger stance
against communism. From 1953 to 1959, he managed the
British journal Encounter, a publication funded by the CIA
and known for its staunch anticommunism.
From his niche as professor of social thought at
the New York University Graduate School of Business
(1969–1988), Irving Kristol wrote and published widely
on politics, economics, education, morality, culture,
and foreign affairs. His most important works are On the
Democratic Idea in America (1972), Two Cheers for Capitalism
(1978), Reflections of a Neoconservative (1983), and Neocon-
servatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (1995). He broke
with the Democratic Party in 1972, foreshadowing the
later political relocation of other neoconservatives, such
as Richard Pipes, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Paul Wolfowitz,
and Richard Perle. Kristol’s move to the Republican
Party did not, however, prevent him from criticizing
the Nixon administration’s policy of détente with the
William “Bill” Kristol, a prominent media commentator, edi-
Soviet Union. Similarly, during the 1980 campaign, he tor of the Weekly Standard, and founder of influential think
supported Ronald Reagan for president, only to later tanks, took up the mantle of neoconservatism pioneered by
criticize Reagan’s and George H.W. Bush’s attempts his father, Irving Kristol, beginning in the 1950s. (Alex Wong/
to negotiate with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. His Getty Images)
306 K r ug man, Paul
the backing of the military, universal human rights. From Krugman explained in How I Work (1993) that he
2008 to 2009, Kristol was a regular op-ed columnist for is motivated by a personal interest in and an intellectual
the New York Times. As adults, both son and father have curiosity for policy work. He has focused on issues such as
been more active in practicing Judaism, believing that the stock market bubble and the Japanese economy after
morality cannot be achieved by reason alone. the 1997 Asian economic crisis, and he was a severe critic
of the policies of the George W. Bush administration.
Robert L. Richardson Nicholas Confessore of the Washington Monthly referred
to Krugman as the most important political columnist
See also: American Century; Cold War; Communists and Com- in America; in 2003, however, the Economist noted that
munism; Keyes, Alan; Marxism; McCarthy, Joseph; Neocon- Lyinginponds.com ranked Krugman second, behind con-
servatism; Reagan, Ronald; Soviet Union and Russia; Strauss, servative commentator Ann Coulter, in overall partisan
Leo; Weekly Standard, The. slant. (The same Web site in 2005 ranked him first in
partisanship.)
Further Reading Krugman consistently criticized the Bush admin-
Ehrman, John. The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and For- istration’s handling of the economy, accusing it of
eign Affairs, 1945–1994. New Haven, CT: Yale University misinforming the public and using bogus arithmetic
Press, 1995. that led to large budget deficits. He also criticized the
Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to Federal Reserve Board chair, Alan Greenspan, for a lack
the Culture Wars. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1997. of intellectual integrity, and he has assailed multina-
Kristol, Irving. Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea. tional companies for crony capitalism. In 2008, with
New York: Free Press, 1995. the publication of The Return of Depression Economics and
the Crisis of 2008, an update of an earlier work, Krug-
man blamed the nation’s financial crisis on the failure of
Krugman, Paul federal regulation.
An economist with expertise in international trade, Krugman draws fire from many conservative com-
Paul Krugman has participated in the culture wars mentators, such as Laurence Kudlow, James Cramer,
by challenging conservative economic policies and and Bill O’Reilly, who in 2004 referred to Krugman
theories. In articles written for the general public, as a “quasi-socialist.” Yet Krugman also faces criticism
he has issued warnings about America’s mounting from some on the left for his views on globalization and
public and private debt, and although once an ardent for accusing liberal commentators and other journalists
supporter of globalization, he has become a cautious of not doing enough to expose the faults of the Bush
supporter of free markets and free trade. In 2008, administration.
Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Quentin Hedges Duroy
Sciences.
Paul Robin Krugman, born on February 28, 1953, See also: Bush Family; Coulter, Ann; Democratic Party; Elec-
on Long Island, New York, was educated at Yale Uni- tion of 2000; Federal Budget Deficit; Friedman, Milton; Glo-
versity (BA, 1974) and the Massachusetts Institute of balization; New York Times, The; O’Reilly, Bill; Reagan, Ron-
Technology (PhD, 1977). From the late 1970s to the ald; Republican Party; Supply-Side Economics; Tax Reform.
early 1990s, other than a brief policy stint with the Rea-
gan administration, his work has been mostly academic Further Reading
in nature. Over the years affiliated with various research Confessore, Nicholas. “Comparative Advantage: How Economist
universities, most recently as a faculty member at Paul Krugman Became the Most Important Political Colum-
Princeton University, Krugman received the John Bates nist in America.” Washington Monthly, December 2002.
Clark medal in 1991 for his contributions to economics. Klein, Daniel B., with Harika Anna Barlett. “Left Out: A Cri-
During the 1990s, he began writing for a nontechnical tique of Paul Krugman Based on a Comprehensive Account
readership with The Age of Diminished Expectations: U.S. of His New York Times Columns, 1997–2006.” Econ Journal
Economic Policy in the 1990s (1990) and Peddling Prosperity Watch 5:1 (January 2008): 109–33.
(1994), offering a criticism of conservative economics Krugman, Paul. The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compas-
and particularly supply-side economics. Beginning in sionate Agenda. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.
October 1999, after writing articles for Fortune and Slate ———. The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Cen-
magazines, he became a regular columnist for the New tury. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
York Times—some of these writings have been compiled
in The Great Unraveling (2003). In The Conscience of a
Liberal (2007), Krugman offers an economic history and Ku K l u x K l a n
calls for a “new New Deal.” See White Supremacists.
Ku shner, Tony 3 07
Ku b r i c k , S t a n l ey and strategic mistakes of the Vietnam War, just then en-

An accomplished and influential American film director, tering popular discourse, in Full Metal Jacket (1987). His
Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928, in the Bronx, final film was the sexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut (1999),
New York. His films, often technical masterpieces, have which explored the darker impulses of married people. He
contributed to the culture wars by focusing on themes died shortly after completing it, on March 7, 1999.
pertaining to war, state power, and sexuality.
Kubrick took an interest in filmmaking after a stint Benjamin W. Cramer
as a professional photographer for Look magazine in the
late 1940s. His first film was Day of the Fight (1951), a See also: Censorship; Cold War; Counterculture; Holocaust;
short documentary produced for a newsreel company. Kennedy Family; LeMay, Curtis; Nuclear Age; Sexual Revo-
Kubrick soon turned to full-length narrative films, start- lution; Teller, Edward; Vietnam War.
ing with the war story Fear and Desire (1953).
His first critical and commercial success was Paths of Further Reading
Glory (1957), the story of several World War I soldiers Cocks, Geoffrey. The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History,
accused of cowardice. The film was a rarity in its time, and the Holocaust. New York: Peter Lang, 2004.
exploring the less heroic realities of war and military Duncan, Paul. Stanley Kubrick: The Complete Films. Los Angeles:
leadership in an era when World War II was still glam- Taschen, 2003.
orized as a completely noble and just cause. It was also Falsetto, Mario. Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis.
Kubrick’s first foray into anti-establishment themes. His 2nd ed. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001.
next major project was the big-budget historical epic Kubrick, Christine. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. New York:
Spartacus (1960). Little, Brown, 2002.
Trouble on the set of Spartacus, in which Kubrick Phillips, Gene D., ed. Stanley Kubrick: Interviews. Jackson: Uni-
clashed with star and producer Kirk Douglas over creative versity of Mississippi Press, 1999.
control, earned Kubrick a reputation as a disagreeable
director. This unleashed an independent streak, and
many of Kubrick’s later films would tackle controversial
Ku s h n e r, To ny
themes or cinematic challenges that few other directors American playwright Tony Kushner is best known for
would attempt. Lolita (1962) was based on the hugely his Pulitzer Prize–winning, two-part drama on the
controversial Vladimir Nabokov novel about an adult AIDS epidemic, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on
man’s sexual obsession with a twelve-year-old girl. The National Themes (1991 and 1992). Born in Manhattan
film toned down the story significantly in order to avoid on July 16, 1956, Kushner spent his childhood in Loui-
censorship, though it still attracted intense criticism from siana with his musician parents. He returned to New
a public that was not ready for such a frank depiction of York in 1974 to study English literature at Columbia
sexuality. University, then completed a degree in directing at New
Kubrick’s most political, controversial, and influ- York University’s graduate school in 1984.
ential film was Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Kushner’s first major play was A Bright Room Called
Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), based on a little- Day, which premiered in New York in 1985. Set in
known political thriller about an accidental nuclear war Germany during the fall of the Weimar Republic in the
caused by faulty communications. Kubrick transformed early 1930s, the drama follows a group of friends whose
the story into a dark comedy, poking fun at the nuclear personal lives collapse under the pressure of political
paranoia of the Cold War, then at its height after the events. The 1930s’ action is interrupted by the character
Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of John F. Zillah, an American living in present-day Berlin who rails
Kennedy. Audiences found the film hilarious but also against the Reagan administration. Critics of the produc-
disturbing, as it foreshadowed the anti-establishment tion reacted strongly to Zillah’s hyperbolic comparisons
ideas that soon erupted in the counterculture and among between Reagan and Hitler.
some intellectual elites. Part 1 of Angels in America premiered in San Fran-
After tackling a challenging cinematic production cisco in 1991 and Part 2 in 1992. Set in the mid-1980s,
with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), considered one of the the play’s action is shaped by the milieu of the Reagan
most influential science fiction films of all time, Kubrick administration, which is stubbornly indifferent to the
returned to controversial subject matter in A Clockwork AIDS epidemic ravaging the gay community. Signifi-
Orange (1971). Based on an Anthony Burgess novel, it cant characters include Louis, a self-hating Jew; Prior,
explored the establishment’s use of violence and repres- who is struggling with AIDS and experiencing dramatic
sion to prevent violence and repression. visitations by angels; Belize, a black ex-drag queen who
Kubrick’s subsequent films were less controversial is Prior’s friend and nurse; Joe, a closeted gay Republican
culturally and politically, but he addressed the horrors Mormon; Harper, his Valium-addicted wife; Hannah,
308 Kwan z aa
Joe’s practical-minded Mormon mother; and Roy Cohn, (creativity), and Imani (faith). Each principle relates to
a McCarthyite lawyer who is Joe’s mentor. The character Karenga’s stated ideal that “the sevenfold path of black-
Roy Cohn, based on the real-life figure, is often considered ness is think black, talk black, act black, create black,
Kushner’s most brilliant creation: he delights in having buy black, vote black, and live black.” Reinforcing these
had Ethel and Julius Rosenberg put to death for being principles are seven symbols: Mazao (crops), Mkeka (mat),
Soviet spies, he has sex with men yet persecutes homo- Kinara (candle holder), Muhindi (corn), Mishumaa Saba
sexuals, and he possesses a charisma and consistency that (seven candles), Kikombe cha Umoja (unity cup/chalice),
invariably charm audiences even as they despise him. and Zawadi (gifts).
Full of memorable dialogue, fantasy, and black Many dismiss the holiday as an exercise in political
comedy, the play examines homosexual-heterosexual dy- correctness. They criticize the “manufactured” aspect
namics in America. It argues for choosing life in the face of the holiday and regard its timing as an attempt to
of oppression and suffering and for including even one’s undermine Christianity. Supporters note that Thanks-
worst enemies in the human family. Kushner’s screenplay giving was also “manufactured,” citing the efforts of
version of Angels was produced as a well-received HBO Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, to promote that
miniseries in 2003. holiday. Critics of Kwanzaa also point to the negative
Christine Hoff Kraemer past of its creator: Karenga, a former Black Panther, was
convicted in 1970 of felony assault and diagnosed with
See also: AIDS; Gay Rights Movement; Gays in Popular Cul- “paranoid and schizophrenic” behaviors. Some conserva-
ture; Holocaust; McCarthyism; Outing; Reagan, Ronald; tives have suggested that Karenga’s adoption of Marxist
Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosenberg; Sexual Revolution. philosophies proves that Kwanzaa was designed to cause
political unrest.
Further Reading Solomon Davidoff
Fisher, James. The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. New
York: Routledge, 2001. See also: Afrocentrism; Black Panther Party; Christmas; Clin-
Vorlicky, Robert, ed. Tony Kushner in Conversation. Ann Arbor: ton, Bill; Conspiracy Theories; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
University of Michigan Press, 1998. Studies; Political Correctness; Thanksgiving Day.
Further Reading
Kw a n z a a Flores-Peña, Ysamur, and Robin Evanchuk. “Kwanzaa: The
The seven-day holiday Kwanzaa, whose name derives from Emergence of an African-American Holiday.” Western Folklore
the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, or “first fruits,” 56:3/4 (Summer/Autumn 1997): 281–94.
was originated by Ron “Maulana” Karenga (born Ronald Official Kwanzaa Web site. www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org.
McKinley Everett) and first celebrated from December 26, Riley, Dorothy Winbush. The Complete Kwanzaa: Celebrating Our
1966, to January 1, 1967. Inspired by African agricultural Cultural Harvest. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
festivals and communal rites, the holiday was conceived to
revitalize connections among people of African descent. It
drew on Karenga’s pan-African values system, the Nguzo Kyo t o P r o t o c o l
Saba, highlighted through the principle of “Kawaida,” The twentieth century’s most prominent internation-
an amalgamation of tradition and reason. Swahili terms, al agreement on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol,
used by many African nations, reflect the pan-African originally signed in December 1997, requires devel-
roots of Kwanzaa. oped countries to reduce their collective emissions of
Family or community-wide Kwanzaa celebrations greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
are characterized by African music, discussions on each oxide, and others—through cleaner fuels, stricter envi-
day’s principle, a candle-lighting ritual, and a feast. It ronmental regulations, and other means. Although the
is not uncommon to find families who observe Kwanzaa United States is the world’s largest creator of green-
combining the celebration with Christmas and New Year house gases, it is also the world’s only developed coun-
observances. Mainstream support outside the African- try not to ratify the agreement. While some dispute
American community is growing. A U.S. postage stamp the science that underpins theories of human impact
with a Kwanzaa theme was issued in 1997, and President on climate change, further controversy has developed
Bill Clinton began the tradition of issuing an annual over the potential environmental, economic, and po-
Kwanzaa message. litical impact that would result from conforming, or
The seven days of Kwanzaa are associated with seven not conforming, to the regulations set forth in the
interrelated principles: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self- Kyoto Protocol. Because these far-reaching implica-
determination), Ujima (collective work/responsibility), tions would cross all sectors of American life, a vast
Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba amount of attention has been paid to these issues by
Kyoto P rotocol 309
politicians, businesses, industries, the media, lobbyists, Those who advocate for compliance with the Kyoto
policy groups, and other organizations. Protocol believe that reducing carbon emissions is
Drafted in 1997 and put into effect on February 16, critical to sustaining a stable climate for the planet.
2005, the Kyoto Protocol is an addendum to the 1992 Without regulation, they argue, human impact on the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate environment through carbon-based emissions will lead
Change, which outlined voluntary emissions cataloging to catastrophic environmental change that would render
and reductions, but was not enforced and had little impact economic concerns moot. Defenders of the agreement
on reducing carbon-based pollution. The Kyoto Protocol refute the argument that current target reductions have
aimed to establish environmental standards by assigning little practical impact on the reduction of greenhouse
mandatory emissions reduction targets to developed na- gases, maintaining that the treaty establishes a policy
tions, to be met before the year 2012. Developing econo- precedent that could lead to further regulation and gov-
mies such as China and India could ratify the agreement, ernance. President George W. Bush was adamant about
but would not be required to reduce emissions, because keeping the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol,
the economic burden for them was deemed too high. but some key Democratic senators have been in favor of
Supporters and detractors of the treaty differ in their revisiting talks. Meanwhile, a number of state and city
understanding of human impact on the environment and governments have formed coalitions to meet the reduc-
climate change and in their assessment of the relationship tions of the agreement voluntarily.
between the economic costs of compliance and the envi-
ronmental consequences of unchecked emissions. Nick Malinowski
Opponents of the Kyoto Protocol argue that the
structure of the agreement places too much of the bur- See also: Bush Family; China; Environmental Movement;
den on wealthy countries like the United States, while Global Warming; Globalization; Gore, Al; United Nations.
rapidly developing economies such as China and India,
which if present trends continue will likely surpass the Further Reading
United States as the highest emitters of greenhouse gases, Bily, Cynthia A., ed. Global Warming: Opposing Viewpoints.
are rewarded by gaining competitive leverage in global Farmington Hills, MA: Greenhaven Press/Thomson Gale,
markets. Others have suggested that by increasing restric- 2006.
tions in the United States, companies would seek to move Coon, Charli E. “Why President Bush is Right to Abandon
their operations to countries with less regulation; such the Kyoto Protocol.” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, May
a trend, it is said, could cost the United States several 11, 2001.
million jobs and do little to curb pollution on a global Homer, Christopher C. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global
level. Still others suggest that even if the Kyoto Protocol Warming and Environmentalism. Washington, DC: Regnery,
reductions are met with 100 percent compliance, the stan- 2007.
dards are too lenient to have a noticeable environmental Victor, David G. The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle
effect, and that the money should be spent instead on the to Slow Global Warming. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
development of cleaner technologies. Press, 2004.
In a strange twist, La Follette in 1947 wrote an article
averring that communists had infiltrated some commit-
tees of Congress, including the La Follette Committee. In
the aftermath of his suicide, there was speculation that La
Follette had feared McCarthy was about to subpoena him
L a F o l l e t t e , R o b e r t , J r. and require an account of why he did not do more about
“Young Bob” La Follette, like his father a longtime communist subversion in Congress. Ironically, La Follette
progressive U.S. senator from Wisconsin (1925–1947), blamed his election defeat on communists in the CIO
championed unemployment relief and public works, (Congress of Industrial Organizations) unions, claiming
while arguing that the New Deal did not go far enough. they were angry over his criticism of the Soviet Union.
A major highlight of his tenure was heading a probe In April 1954, Progressive magazine reiterated the point
of antilabor practices, which some scholars suggest in- that communists in 1946 were responsible for sending
spired conservative revenge later during the Red Scare. McCarthy to Washington.
Ironically, La Follette lost his senate seat to the virulent Roger Chapman
anticommunist Republican Joseph McCarthy.
Born on February 6, 1895, in Madison, Wisconsin, See also: Communists and Communism; Labor Unions;
Robert Marion La Follette, Jr., was six years old when McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; New Deal; Soviet Union
his father was elected governor. La Follette studied at the and Russia; Third Parties.
University of Wisconsin in Madison (1913–1917) but
dropped out due to a near-fatal viral infection. In 1918, Further Reading
he became the chief assistant to his father, who since Auberbach, Jerold S. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee
1905 had served as a U.S. senator. After La Follette, Sr., and the New Deal. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1996.
died in 1925, the son filled his father’s seat by winning Haynes, John E. Red Scare or Menace? American Communism and
a special election as the Progressive candidate; he was Anticommunism in the Cold War Era. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
reelected in 1928, 1934, and 1940. La Follette switched 1996.
to the Republican Party in 1946, as the Progressive Party Herman, Arthur. Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy
effectively disbanded, but narrowly loss the primary race of America’s Most Hated Senator. New York: Free Press, 2000.
to McCarthy, 207,935 votes to 202,557. He went on to La Follette, Robert M., Jr. “Turn the Light on Communism.”
work as a business consultant and in 1938 served on the Collier’s, February 8, 1947.
Hoover Commission on Executive Reorganization. On Maney, Patrick J. “Young Bob” La Follette: A Biography of Robert
February 24, 1953, La Follette shot himself to death in M. La Follette, Jr., 1895–1953. 2nd ed. Madison: Wisconsin
Washington, D.C. Historical Society Press, 2003.
As chairman of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee
(1936–1940), La Follette gained national prominence
by holding a series of hearings designed to “investigate La Raza Unida
violations of the right of free speech and assembly and The primary political arm of the Chicano Movement of
undue interference with the right of labor to organize the 1970s, the Texas-based Partido de La Raza Unida
and bargain collectively.” The probe, commonly known (The Party of the United Race, or United People) called
as the La Follette Committee, focused on the violence for freedom from Anglo hegemony through Chicano cul-
of anti-union tactics employed by industrialists, many tural nationalism and cultural democracy. Visionary orga-
of whom were subpoenaed, put under oath, and grilled nizers hoped to reclaim Aztlán, the ancestral homeland of
by La Follette. Some accused the committee of being a the Chicanos held by the United States since the Treaty
communist conspiracy; and conservatives seethed at La of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, by affecting the schools,
Follette for ignoring incidents of unionist violence. In municipalities, and counties of that region.
1938, Congress founded the House Committee on Un- La Raza’s electoral strategy achieved success in local
American Activities (HUAC), which initially probed elections by skillfully organizing slates of candidates and
fascism in the United States but soon shifted to the mobilizing voters against incumbents. The movement
“communist menace,” even serving as a forum for critics reflects the influence of a new generation of Chicano in-
of the La Follette Committee. Wisconsin Republicans tellectuals moving through undergraduate and graduate
who campaigned against La Follette in 1946 argued programs that stimulated interest in issues of race, ethnic-
that the committee had “promoted the class hatred of ity, class, and gender. Inspired by the writings of George
the New Deal.” Later, those who felt the “Brown Scare” I. Sanchez, Saul Alinsky, Stokely Carmichael, and other
of the 1930s was a pretense for attacking political con- prominent activists, La Raza leaders employed much of
servatives regarded McCarthy’s red-baiting of liberals as the same rhetoric as other New Left movements of the
justifiable recompense. 1960s and 1970s in its calls for “Brown Power.”
310
L abor Union s 311
Conceived in El Paso, Texas, in October 1967 by Pycior, Julie Leininger. LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox
Chicano activists attending a national conference on of Power. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997.
Mexican-American affairs, The Party of the United Race
(or People) sought to make the political landscape more
accurately reflect the cultural background of the citizenry. Labor Unions
A follow-up conference in San Antonio in January 1968 American labor unions have drawn the ire of many on
spurred the establishment of La Raza organizations in both sides of the culture wars. For those on the right,
other centers of Chicano population, including college unions are relics of an outdated New Deal system:
campuses. On the West Coast, La Raza activists often al- bloated bureaucracies that protect overpaid workers,
lied themselves with César Chávez’s United Farm Work- hinder free competition in a capitalist economy, and
ers movement. For conservative Mexican Americans, the support liberal, if not socialist, politics. Critics on the
leftist agenda proved too problematic to be overcome by left fault unions for old-style politics and cultural con-
appeals to ethnic pride. servatism, arguing that they bear scant resemblance to
In the heavily agricultural Winter Garden region of the dynamic, socially activist organizations they once
south Texas, local organizational efforts by José Angel were.
Gutiérrez proved successful. The first slate of candidates Union membership and power were at their peak at
appeared on a ballot in February 1970 in the town of the close of World War II, largely due to the organizing
Cotulla, in LaSalle County. Victories in school board campaigns of the 1930s and New Deal labor protections.
elections and various races for local and county offices in Most union members belonged to one of two compet-
south central Texas signaled a new era of political asser- ing federations, the American Federation of Labor
tiveness by non-Anglo citizens in border communities. (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations
The group’s presence on the national political landscape (CIO), both of which had significant influence with
peaked in November 1972, when La Raza Unida can- the Democratic Party. Some labor leaders were hope-
didates appeared on ballots in eighteen states and the ful that the war victory would usher in an era of social
District of Columbia. democracy, but already there were contrary tendencies.
By the late 1970s, the radical agenda lost favor, and The electorate had become more conservative during
the party’s influence within the Mexican-American com- the war. Business leaders regained much of the stature
munity faded. La Raza Unida stood apart from established lost during the Great Depression, and many hoped to
interest groups like the GI Forum and the League of United roll back labor’s gains of the previous decade. It also
Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which La Raza per- became clear that unions were politically vulnerable on
ceived as sellouts. La Raza candidates often ran for offices the issue of communism.
held by Mexican Americans endorsed by local Democrats The difficult transition to a peacetime economy,
or Republicans. Internal debates about the direction of unpopular postwar strikes, and unsuccessful efforts to
the La Raza’s electoral efforts proved damaging. Some felt unionize the South reduced labor’s popularity while em-
that getting statewide slates of candidates was essential to boldening its opponents. Above all, the emerging Cold
the cause, while others felt the party should concentrate War constrained labor. In an atmosphere of anticommu-
only in those areas where the demographics of the district nist hysteria, unions were on the defensive—especially
pointed to success. Meanwhile, the Republican and Demo- since communists had played a major role in much of
cratic parties took increased notice of the mobilization of the organizing of the 1930s and even held leadership
Mexican-American voters and opened new channels for positions in many unions.
their involvement in mainstream politics. These difficulties were reflected in the Taft-Hartley
Act (1947), which limited the power of unions, hindered
Robert H. Duke their growth, and punished those that tolerated communist
influence. Most unions purged communist leaders; the
See also: Chávez, César; Civil Rights Movement; Democratic few that refused lost the protection of federal labor law.
Party; Hispanic Americans; Mexico; Migrant Labor; New This discouraged labor from taking controversial political
Left; Race; Republican Party. positions. In the early 1950s, unions increasingly eschewed
organizing campaigns and social activism, focusing on
Further Reading negotiating favorable contracts and administering benefits
Acosta, Oscar Zeta. The Revolt of the Cockroach People. New York: programs for their members, who remained concentrated in
Vintage Books, 1989. the nation’s core industries and skilled trades. The differ-
Fehrenbach, T.R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. ences between the two labor federations became so minor
New York: Da Capo Press, 2000. that in 1955 they merged as the AFL-CIO.
Gutiérrez, José Angel. The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons The era of big labor ended with the decline of employ-
from Cristal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. ment in the heavily unionized industries, a situation that
312 L abor Union s
began in the 1950s with technological change, interna- the unskilled, and forging alliances with various groups
tional competition, and the shift of jobs to the Sunbelt and on the left, including civil rights organizations, college
then overseas. White-collar unionism grew in the 1960s students, and groups opposed to free trade.
as groups like teachers and government employees won During the early 2000s, debate over how to rebuild
the right to organize, but this could not offset declining unions continued amid some encouraging signs. In 2008,
membership in other sectors. The percentage of American organized labor gained 428,000 new members, growing
workers belonging to unions declined steadily beginning from 12.1 percent of the total workforce the previous year
in the mid-1950s. Meanwhile, the Landrum-Griffin Act to 12.4 percent, marking the largest gain in a quarter
(1959) expanded Taft-Hartley’s restrictions on unions and century. That year 16.1 million of the labor force were
encouraged the passage of state right-to-work laws. union members, including 11.4 percent of manufactur-
Greater challenges emerged in the 1960s when ing workers and 36.8 percent of government workers.
unions, composed mostly of white males and allied with However, just 7.6 percent of workers in the private sector
the Democratic Party, were seen by some political and belonged to a union. Meanwhile, issues like immigration
cultural activists as part of the establishment. Few unions were internally divisive. Balancing identity politics with
escaped the divisive effects of issues such as the war in unionism’s class-based perspective was difficult, as was
Vietnam, racism, and cultural conflict. By 1968, labor finding a common understanding of unionism that could
was politically divided, with many workers attracted to unite such diverse groups as manufacturing employees,
the culturally and politically conservative positions of agricultural workers, nurses, teachers, and janitors. Ear-
George Wallace and Richard Nixon. Anti-union forces lier, in 2005, several unions dramatically withdrew from
recognized labor’s vulnerability and stepped up their the AFL-CIO and formed the Change to Win coalition,
attacks, arguing that by limiting the power of unions, expressing their belief that more effort must be devoted
they were defending the rights of individual workers. to “organizing the unorganized.”
The language of individual rights, a powerful theme of Gary L. Bailey
the 1960s, became a weapon against labor.
Unions suffered further shocks during the 1970s and See also: Battle of Seattle; Budenz, Louis F.; Chávez, César;
1980s. The end of sustained postwar prosperity and la- Cold War; Communists and Communism; Democratic Party;
bor’s declining political fortunes encouraged employers to Globalization; Illegal Immigrants; Migrant Labor; New Deal;
bargain aggressively. The government-brokered Chrysler Nixon, Richard; Reagan, Ronald; Wallace, George.
bailout of 1979 showed the potential of “concessionary
bargaining” in which unions had to surrender some Further Reading
of what they had won through many years of contract Buhle, Paul. Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George
negotiations. In 1981, despite gaining the vote of many Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor.
union members, President Ronald Reagan broke a strike New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999.
by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization Freeman, Joshua B. “Labor During the American Century:
(PATCO) by firing strikers and hiring replacements. The Work, Workers, and Unions Since 1945.” In A Companion
PATCO strike made it clear that federal labor policy had to Post-1945 America, ed. Jean-Christopher Agnew and Roy
become strongly pro-employer and helped legitimize Rosenzweig, 192–210. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.
the use of replacement workers. Throughout the 1980s, Geoghegan, Thomas. Which Side Are You On? Trying to Be for
unions faced factory closings and relocations, employer Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back. New York: Farrar, Straus
demands for givebacks, declining membership, and a and Giroux, 1991.
hostile political environment. Lichtenstein, Nelson. State of the Union: A Century of American
Nonetheless, there were hopeful signs for unions. Labor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Membership among white-collar, service, and public Moody, Kim. Labor in a Lean World: Unions in the International
employees grew, and some unions in these sectors, notably Economy. New York: Verso, 1997.
the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), built Nelson, Daniel. Shifting Fortunes: The Rise and Decline of American
memberships that included men and women and workers Labor, from the 1820s to the Present. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
of all races. Teacher unions like the American Federation 1997.
of Teachers and the National Education Association grew. Yates, Michael D. Why Unions Matter. New York: Monthly
The realization that labor needed to change if it was to Review Press, 1998.
survive produced an insurgency that in 1995 forced out
the AFL-CIO’s old leadership and led to the election of
SEIU president John Sweeney as federation president. L a H aye , T i m , a n d B eve r l y
Sweeney and his supporters hoped to revive labor by us- L a H aye
ing more confrontational tactics, organizing previously The Southern California–based husband and wife team
unorganized workers, reaching out to immigrants and of Tim and Beverly LaHaye have had a major, if long un-
L aHaye, T im, and Beverly L aHaye 313
derestimated, role in the cultural and political evolution

of a large segment of America’s Christian evangelical
subculture since the 1970s. Through their best-selling
books and organizational efforts, the LaHayes have had
an impact on the Religious Right that few can rival.
Indeed, one can hardly imagine the contemporary con-
tours of the conservative side of the culture wars with-
out the LaHayes’ prescient eye for hot-button issues and
political coalition-building.
The grandson of French-Canadian immigrants, Tim-
othy F. LaHaye was born in Detroit on April 27, 1926.
After a stint with the U.S. Army Air Force in World
War II, he studied at Bob Jones University (BA, 1950),
where he met his future wife, Beverly Jean Ratcliffe—
born on April 30, 1929, also in Detroit. The two were
married in July 1947 and went on to have four children. Tim LaHaye’s series of best-selling Left Behind novels, of-
fering apocalyptic visions of biblical prophecy, have afforded
Beverly dropped out of school, but Tim continued his the author a central role in the evangelical movement and
studies while serving as the pastor of a Baptist church in right-wing Christian politics. (Urbano Delvalle/Time & Life
Pickens, South Carolina (1948–1950). They subsequently Pictures/Getty Images)
served a Baptist congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota
(1950–1956) and then relocated to Scott Memorial Bap- of famed sex therapists Masters and Johnson.
tist Church in San Diego (1956–1981). In the meantime, By the late 1970s, the LaHayes were using their
he completed his studies at Western Conservative Baptist status in the evangelical subculture to explore cultural
Seminary (DMin, 1977). and political issues that concerned their constituency. For
Under LaHaye, Scott Memorial grew and flourished, example, Tim LaHaye became the first major evangelical
accomplishing major undertakings, such as the establish- figure to squarely address the growing visibility of the gay
ment of a number of private Christian schools in the San lifestyle with his book The Unhappy Gays (1978). At the
Diego area, Christian Heritage College (1970), and the same time, he was also involved in an effort to ban gay
Institute for Creation Research (1972). Although his first teachers from California classrooms. In 1979, he created
decade of ministry was largely congregational in focus, Californians for Biblical Morality, which inspired Jerry
LaHaye did evidence a penchant for right-wing politics, Falwell to form the Moral Majority, with LaHaye serv-
serving as a regular speaker and seminar leader for the ing on the organization’s board. He continued his role
local John Birch Society. as a culture warrior with a series of “battle” books that
LaHaye came to the attention of the larger evangeli- became Christian best-sellers—The Battle for the Mind
cal community with the publication of The Spirit-Filled (1980), The Battle for the Family (1982), and The Battle for
Temperament (1966), a psycho-spiritual self-help book. the Public Schools (1983). In 1981, he created the Council
His views were largely a biblically colored rehashing for National Policy (CNP) to coordinate and fundraise
of classical and medieval theories on the body’s four for the Religious Right, and in 1983 he founded the
humors as the gateway for understanding personality American Coalition for Traditional Values (ACTV). With
differences. By the early 1970s, he was promoting his help from prominent evangelical broadcasters, ACTV’s
ideas through the Family Life Seminar ministry; often voter registration drives were responsible for turning
accompanied by his wife, he held workshops on Chris- out as many as 2 million conservative voters in the 1984
tian marriage at large evangelical churches across the presidential election.
country. Meanwhile, Beverly LaHaye also moved into the
In the early and mid-1970s, the LaHayes ascended political trenches. In 1979, after listening to a Betty
to the status of premier evangelical celebrity-experts on Friedan interview, she founded Concerned Women for
relationships, marriage, the family, and child-rearing America (CWA) to counter the influence of the National
through a series of Christian best-sellers, including Tim’s Organization of Women and to fight the passage of the
How to Be Happy Though Married (1968) and Beverly’s Equal Rights Amendment. The organization would
The Spirit-Controlled Woman (1976). But their biggest eventually claim more than half a million members and
success came with their jointly authored book, The Act played a key role with groups like Focus on the Family
of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (1976), which sold in a variety of conservative “pro-family” issues, including
nearly 3 million copies. While understated and discreet network television content, Supreme Court nominations,
compared to other best-selling sex manuals of the period, the effort to ban “partial-birth” abortions, and embryonic
the volume made the LaHayes the evangelical equivalent stem-cell research. In 1990, she began Beverly LaHaye
314 L aHaye, T im, and Beverly L aHaye
Live, a nationally syndicated radio talk show that aired Lapin, Daniel
on over one hundred stations. An Orthodox rabbi and an activist for conservative
In the mid-1980s, after it was reported that the Republican political causes, Daniel Lapin is the best-
ACTV had received substantial funding from the Rev- known Jewish spokesman for the Religious Right. Born
erend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, the group in 1947 in Johannesburg, South Africa, he immigrated
disbanded. LaHaye’s reputation was damaged further to the United States in 1973 and founded and headed a
when revelations of past anti-Catholic comments and synagogue in Venice, California. In 1991, he moved near
activities came up during the 1988 presidential race, Seattle, Washington, and founded the nonprofit Jewish-
causing Republican candidate Jack Kemp to jettison Christian organization Toward Tradition, largely funded
him from his campaign team. Shunned by his peers in by conservative non-Jewish foundations.
the Religious Right, for the next few years CWA and Lapin believes that the United States is the most
Beverly’s radio show became the LaHayes’ principal plat- Jewish-friendly nation in history, that U.S. conservative
form as Tim was consigned to the margins of conservative Christian political power is good for the Jewish commu-
evangelical politics. nity, and that there should be Christian-Jewish alliances
LaHaye’s fortunes changed, however, when he linked based on politically conservative values. He strongly criti-
up in the early 1990s with Jerry Jenkins in signing a deal cizes the liberalism of the U.S. Jewish community, arguing
with the Wheaton, Illinois–based Tyndale House Publish- that liberalism is not based on Judaism. He denounced the
ing for a novel offering his apocalyptic interpretations of Anti-Defamation League for publishing The Religious Right:
Bible prophecy. The resulting book, Left Behind: A Novel The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America (1994).
of the Earth’s Last Days (1995), sold more than five million As a culture warrior, Lapin has spoken out on several
copies in five years. This ultimately led to a thirteen-book controversial issues. He defended Alabama chief justice
series, culminating with Kingdom Come: The Final Victory Roy S. Moore, who in 2003 was removed from the bench
(2007). The Left Behind series spawned a frequently visited for defying a higher court’s ruling that he remove the Ten
Web site, children’s versions, and film. Sales for the series Commandments monument he had erected in the rotunda
topped 60 million copies by late 2006. of the state Supreme Court building in Montgomery.
The sales of LaHaye’s novels served to restore his Lapin defended Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (2004)
position as a major player in the Religious Right. Indeed, while accusing Jewish critics of the film of driving a
book royalties financed Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University wedge between Jews and Christians. He criticized the
for a LaHaye-run Pre-Trib Research Center, dedicated to judges in the Terri Schiavo case, who in 2005 ordered the
keeping a tab on “prophetic developments” and exposing disconnecting of the feeding tubes from Schiavo, who for
“false prophets” and their agendas both in America and fifteen years had been in a persistent vegetative state—he
overseas. To many secularists and liberals, the content referred to the situation as a “premeditated murder plot
and success of the Left Behind series served to stoke para- by her husband and the courts.” He has regularly opposed
noia over the mass appeal and possible direction of the gay rights and feminism.
marriage between conservative politics and apocalyptic- In 2002, Lapin and Gary Bauer, a former Republican
minded evangelicals. presidential candidate, founded the American Alliance of
Larry Eskridge Jews and Christians, the purpose being to “unite Christians
in support of Israel and work with American Jews and
See also: Abortion; Equal Rights Amendment; Evangelicalism; Christians on behalf of traditional values.” The advisory
Falwell, Jerry; Family Values; Focus on the Family; Friedan, board included James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Rob-
Betty; Gay Rights Movement; John Birch Society; National ertson, Rabbi Barry Freundel, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik,
Organization for Women; Premillennial Dispensationalism; and two well-known close Jewish friends of Rabbi Lapin,
Religious Right; Stem-Cell Research. conservative movie critic Michael Medved and lobbyist
Jack Abramoff.
Further Reading Lapin also has hosted a weekly radio talk show, and
Dreyfuss, Robert. “Reverend Doomsday.” Rolling Stone, January has appeared as a guest on a number of radio and televi-
28, 2004. sion talk programs, namely Focus on the Family, The Michael
Eskridge, Larry. “And the Most Influential Evangelical of the Medved Show, and The Mike Reagan Show. He has written
Last Twenty-Five Years Is . . .” Evangelical Studies Bulletin several books, including America’s Real War (1999) and
17:4 (Winter 2001): 1–4. Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money
Frykholm, Amy Johnson. Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evan- (2002). Lapin’s father, two brothers, and a brother-in-law
gelical America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. also are rabbis, and most of his family has immigrated to
Standaert, Michael. Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and the United States. He and his wife have seven children,
Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire. whom they have homeschooled.
Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2006. Abraham D. Lavender
Lear, Nor man 315
See also: Christian Radio; Feminism, Second-Wave; Focus on Economy (1975), LaRouche reversed course and began
the Family; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gay Rights Move- leading followers into alliances with the political right.
ment; Gibson, Mel; Israel; Moore, Roy S.; Moral Majority; Left-wing critics began calling his group a fascist cult,
Religious Right; Schiavo, Terri; Ten Commandments. dubbing members “LaRouchies.”
LaRouche, who has often portrayed himself as a dissi-
Further Reading dent Democrat, has been generally rejected and renounced
Lapin, Daniel. America’s Real War. Sisters, OR: Multnomah, by both major parties. Between 1982 and 1988, his fol-
2000. lowers ran as Democratic candidates in 4,000 elections in
———. Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money. more than thirty states, gathering over 4 million votes.
Indianapolis: John Wiley & Sons, 2002. In 1986, two followers of LaRouche won the Democratic
Toward Tradition Web site. www.towardtradition.org. primary in Illinois for lieutenant governor and secretary
Wallis, Jim. God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the of state, forcing the Democratic gubernatorial candidate,
Left Doesn’t Get it. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Adlai Stevenson III, to repudiate the official party ticket
while calling the LaRouche followers “neo-Nazis.” That
same year, LaRouche organizers placed Proposition 64,
L a Ro u c h e , Ly n d o n H . , J r. an AIDS quarantine initiative, on the ballot in Califor-
A candidate for the U.S. presidency in every campaign nia, saying that its stringent measures were required to
from 1976 through 2004 and the founder of several ex- stop the spread of HIV. The initiative was defeated by
tremist political organizations, Lyndon LaRouche is re- gay rights activists, who labeled it authoritarian and
garded by critics as a neofascist or simply a political kook. homophobic.
His loyalists energetically distribute flyers warning of After several state and federal investigations, La-
impending economic or political cataclysm unless their Rouche was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to fifteen
leader’s advice is followed. Over the years, LaRouche has years in prison for federal conspiracy, mail fraud, and tax
offered up countless conspiracy theories, warning against violations. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction
the power of the Rockefellers, Zionists, and the Interna- of LaRouche and six associates, and he served five years in
tional Monetary Fund (IMF), among others. His anti- prison before being paroled in 1994. LaRouche support-
Semitic writings and speeches have gained him the ire ers claimed that the entire episode was part of an illegal
of the Anti-Defamation League. During the 1980s, his conspiracy by rogue CIA operatives to silence him.
political network fielded thousands of candidates, dis-
guised as conservative Democrats, in local elections. Chip Berlet
The son of Quaker parents, Lyndon Hermyle La-
Rouche, Jr., was born on September 8, 1922, in Roch- See also: AIDS; Anti-Semitism; Central Intelligence Agency;
ester, New Hampshire. His studies at Northeastern Conspiracy Theories; Democratic Party; Gay Rights Move-
University in Boston were interrupted in 1942 due to ment; Marxism; Neoconservatism; Students for a Democratic
World War II. Briefly returning to Northeastern after Society.
his discharge from the U.S. Army, LaRouche dropped
out and joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Dis- Further Reading
patched to the Lynn, Massachusetts, GE River Works to Berlet, Chip, and Joel Bellman. Lyndon LaRouche: Fascism
do support work and recruiting for the party, he adopted Wrapped in an American Flag. Cambridge, MA: Political
the pseudonym Lyn Marcus. Moving to New York City Research Associates, 1989.
in 1954, LaRouche worked as a management consultant King, Dennis. Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism.
while remaining committed to Trotskyite Marxism. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
LaRouche’s role as a political leader began in the LaRouche, Lyndon H., Jr. The Power of Reason: A Kind of an
late 1960s after he was expelled from the SWP. In Autobiography. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House,
1969, after mentoring activists in the labor caucus of the 1979.
campus-based Students for a Democratic Society (SDS),
he led a group in establishing the National Caucus of
Labor Committees (NCLC). Four years later, the group L e a r, N o r m a n
had more than 600 members in two dozen cities across Groundbreaking television writer and producer Nor-
the United States and published a newspaper called New man Lear dominated the airwaves, and discussion of
Solidarity. In 1973, LaRouche escalated a long-simmering television, in the 1970s with his portrayal of bigots,
feud with the Communist Party of the United States feminists, political activists, and antiwar radicals in
of America through a confrontation dubbed Operation a number of primetime situation comedies. Offering
Mop-Up, which led to some violence. After publishing viewers an array of iconic characters in topical situa-
Dialectical Economics: An Introduction to Marxist Political tions, Lear was the mind behind such wildly popular
316 Lear, Nor man
programs as All in the Family (CBS, 1971–1978), Sanford tion to the growing political ascendancy of conservative
and Son (NBC, 1972–1977), Maude (CBS, 1972–1978), televangelists. The organization stood in direct opposi-
Good Times (CBS, 1974–1979), One Day at a Time (CBS, tion to well-known leaders of the Religious Right such
1975–1984), and The Jeffersons (CBS, 1975–1985). as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jimmy Swaggart.
Lear’s representations of both liberal and conservative The PFAW proclaims its support of the preservation
ideologies were revolutionary in the medium. of constitutional liberties while championing religious
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 22, 1922, pluralism, freedom of expression, and the separation of
Norman Milton Lear briefly attended Boston’s Emerson church and state.
College. He dropped out in 1942 to join the war effort Inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame
and served in the air force. After his discharge in 1945, in 1984, Norman Lear garnered the Medal of Arts in
he turned his attentions to the entertainment industry, 1999. He later devoted much of his time to nonprofit
earning his first writing credit in 1950 as a contributor organizations, including the Norman Lear Center at the
to the Ford Star Revue. He spent the next twenty years USC Annenberg School for Communication (2000–),
as a writer for more than a dozen comedy and variety a multidisciplinary research and public policy center
programs, including the Colgate Comedy Hour with Dean dedicated to exploring the convergence of entertainment,
Martin and Jerry Lewis, the Danny Kaye Show, and the commerce, and society.
Andy Williams Show. Aidan Smith
After decades in the genre, in 1971 Lear was given
an opportunity to craft his own characters and plotlines See also: Feminism, Second-Wave; Religious Right; Roe v.
with the airing of All in the Family. The show focused on Wade (1973); Vietnam War.
the working-class Bunker family, including conservative
patriarch Archie and his wife, Edith. Their daughter Further Reading
Gloria and her husband, Mike, lived in the same crowded Adler, Richard. All in the Family: A Critical Appraisal. New
house in Queens, New York. The younger couple em- York: Praeger, 1979.
bodied the liberal spirit of the era in their attitudes Arlen, Michael. “The Media Dramas of Norman Lear.” The New
toward the feminist and civil rights movements and Yorker, May 10, 1975.
the Vietnam War. The house was filled with perpetual Marc, David. Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American
conflict as Archie and Mike (referred to as “Meathead” by Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
his father-in-law) clashed. Archie spewed racial epithets Norman Lear Web site. www.normanlear.com.
in his rants with Mike—a kind of language and frank People for the American Way Web site. www.pfaw.org.
discussion of political issues that was virtually absent
from television in this era. Though not well received by
fans in its first season, All in the Family went on to secure L e a r y, T i m o t hy
a place in the top-ten Nielsen ratings for the duration A psychologist, psychedelics advocate, showman, and
of its eight seasons. entrepreneur, Timothy Leary urged young people to
Lear extended the realistic portrayal of contemporary take drugs, reject academia and the corporate “rat race,”
political issues to several other situation comedies, most and join the ranks of the permanently disaffected. “Turn
notably Maude, featuring Beatrice Arthur as an affluent on, tune in, drop out,” he proclaimed famously, in a
liberal feminist. Several times divorced, Maude spoke catchy slogan that reverberated with the counterculture.
openly about sexuality and drug use. Perhaps most con- A member of the generation that came to be known as
troversial to audiences, the main character had an abortion “the Greatest,” he turned his back on his contemporaries
in the 1972 season, two months prior to the landmark and urged the young to defy their elders. A handful of
Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that made abortion his influential peers—including Benjamin Spock, the
legal. At least thirty CBS affiliates refused to broadcast the world-famous pediatrician, and Yale chaplain William
episode and dropped the program from their schedules. Sloane Coffin, a former CIA operative—joined him and
In 1972, Lear testified before a Senate Subcommittee helped widen the generation gap that divided parents
on Constitutional Rights: “The American public is the and children during the Vietnam era. At one point,
final arbiter anyway, and it tells us very quickly what it Richard M. Nixon proclaimed him the “most danger-
likes and does not like. What it will be allowed to see, ous man in America.”
however, is another matter, and there the writer deserves Timothy Francis Leary was born on October 22,
the right to express life as he sees it.” 1920, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to a well-off Irish
In 1981, Lear became more directly involved in Catholic family. His father was an alcoholic who aban-
the culture wars when he co-founded People for the doned him and his mother. After studying at Holy Cross
American Way (along with Democratic congresswoman College (1938–1939), Leary attended the U.S. Military
Barbara Jordan of Texas and other civic leaders) in reac- Academy at West Point (1940–1941). His career as a
Lee, Spike 317
cadet ended after school officials caught him consum- Torgoff, Martin. Can’t Find My Way Home: America in the Great
ing alcohol, a violation of academy rules, but he went Stoned Age, 1945–2000. New York: Simon & Schuster,
on to serve in the Army Medical Corps. He completed 2004.
his education at the University of Alabama (AB, 1943),
Washington State University (MA, 1946), and the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley (PhD, clinical psychology, L e e , S p i ke
1950). He married, had children, and in 1955 became the Motion picture director, producer, writer, and actor
director of clinical research at the Kaiser Foundation Hos- Spike Lee has been one of the most provocative and in-
pital in Oakland, California, publishing highly respected fluential filmmakers in America since the 1980s and the
articles on behaviorism in scientific journals. first African American to win broad critical acclaim in
Accepting a prestigious lectureship at Harvard Uni- the field. Many, if not most, of his more than twenty fea-
versity in 1959, Leary seemed bound for respectability. ture films—including Do the Right Thing (1989), Mal-
Then, in Mexico in 1960, he began to experiment with colm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), and the documentary 4
hallucinogenic mushrooms. From that moment on, he Little Girls (1997)—have made statements about race
became an apostle for psychedelic drugs, especially LSD relations, violence, and other polarizing themes, draw-
(lysergic acid diethylamide), which was legal at the time; ing on the artist’s experiences in the neighborhoods of
the CIA considered it an indispensable psychological Brooklyn, New York. Lee’s attempts to explore com-
weapon in the Cold War. plex social problems have been both acclaimed and de-
Harvard promptly clamped down on Leary’s LSD nounced, variously labeled provocative, explosive, and
experiments with undergraduates and fired him in even exploitive of the black experience. As an African-
1963. He pursued his mission at Millbrook, an estate American director with access to power and media, Lee
in upstate New York, with the help of his aide, Richard has brought an awareness of black identity and advo-
Alpert, and the poet Allen Ginsberg. Leary won converts cacy of social reform to personal and professional lives.
throughout the 1960s, but he tangled repeatedly with His films explore the complexities of African-American
the law and was finally sentenced to prison for posses- experience, including racial prejudice and stereotyping,
sion of marijuana. The Weather Underground, a radical adding depth to the ways in which audiences under-
leftist organization, helped him escape, and from 1970 stand and address issues affecting the black community,
until 1973, Leary lived as a fugitive and exile in Africa including the interplay of racism and class conflict.
and Europe. Arrested in Afghanistan and extradited to Born on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia, Shel-
the United States, he cooperated with authorities and ton Jackson “Spike” Lee spent most of his childhood and
named names, including the lawyers who had helped adolescence in Brooklyn. He later returned to Atlanta to
him escape from prison. attend Morehouse College, where he studied mass com-
Released in 1976 after serving three years in prison, munication (BA, 1978). He went on to earn a Master of
Leary settled in Los Angeles and recycled himself as a Fine Arts degree at New York University’s Tisch School
1960s icon. He teamed up with convicted Watergate of the Arts (1982). In his first year of graduate film
burglar G. Gordon Liddy in some public speaking ap- studies, he produced The Answer, a ten-minute critical
pearances, then reinvented himself as an apostle and African-American revision of D.W. Griffith’s racially
salesman for computers, the Internet, space travel, vir- charged Birth of a Nation (1915).
tual reality, and video games. Leary died of cancer on His initial film work was followed by several mul-
May 31, 1996, and, in accordance with his wishes, his tifaceted narratives of African-American life, including
ashes were launched into space. To admirers, Leary was Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop—We Cut Heads, which won the
a visionary; to skeptics, a kook of the hippie era. 1983 Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Student Academy
Award; She’s Gotta Have It (1986); and School Daze (1988).
Jonah Raskin The last of these, focusing on what Lee termed “the black
See also: Central Intelligence Agency; Counterculture; Gener- caste system,” stirred controversy in the African-American
ations and Generational Conflict; Ginsberg, Allen; Liddy, G. community, with some members commending his un-
Gordon; Nixon, Richard; Students for a Democratic Society; flinching examination of a concealed social problem in the
War on Drugs. black community while others condemned his airing of
“dirty laundry.” This was followed by Do the Right Thing,
Further Reading which explored the web of racial and ethnic tensions on
Leary, Timothy. Flashbacks. New York: Putnam, 1990. a hot summer day in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of
Lee, Martin A., and Bruce Shalin. Acid Dreams: The Complete Brooklyn. The film continued Lee’s efforts to address
Social History of LSD. New York: Grove, 1985. issues of exclusion, solidarity, difference, and similarity,
Stevens, Jay. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. New while its depiction of racism and resistance brought Lee
York: Grove, 1987. significant criticism for promoting racial violence. The
318 Lee, Spike
create films that reflect conditions in inner-city African-

American communities and the struggles that arise in
them. However, those very filmmakers have distanced
themselves from Lee’s work, criticizing him for “selling
out”—creating films that increasingly resemble the slick,
glossy products of Hollywood—and adopting the filmic
devices and language of the industry’s historically white
producers and directors. Advocates of Lee’s work argue
that, whatever his appeal to mainstream audiences, he
draws attention to vital issues in the black community
and is working within the system to create change. As
if responding to his critics, Lee produced When the Levees
Broke (2006), a four-hour HBO documentary—and a
work of little commercial value—that shames the federal
government, in particular President George W. Bush,
for its poor response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina
in New Orleans. Most of Lee’s supporters and detractors
do agree that his work has opened the door for a new
generation of black filmmakers.
Cynthia J. Miller
See also: Afrocentrism; Anti-Semitism; Hurricane Katrina;

Lesbians; Literature, Film, and Drama; Malcolm X; Million
Man March; National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People; Race.
Further Reading
Friedman, Lester D., ed. Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the
American Cinema. Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), a tale of racial ten- 1991.
sion and violence in Brooklyn, New York, epitomizes his focus Grizzuti Harrison, Barbara. “Spike Hates Your Cracker Ass.”
on the urban black experience, racial prejudice, and ethnic Esquire, October 1992.
polarization. It was selected for the National Film Registry in Lee, Spike, with Lisa Jones. Do The Right Thing. New York:
1999. (Library of Congress, POS-MOT.PIC.-1989) Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Reid, Mark A. Redefining Black Film. Berkeley: University of
same criticisms would also be aired about his next release, California Press, 1993.
Jungle Fever (1991), a story of interracial love. “A Revealing Look at Spike Lee’s Changing Life.” Ebony, May
The highly acclaimed Malcolm X (1992), in which 1994.
Denzel Washington starred as the Black Muslim fire-
brand, again created controversy within the African-
American community. In an open letter in Ebony L e M ay, C u r t i s
magazine, the United Front to Preserve the Memory of A stocky, cigar-chomping U.S. Air Force general respon-
Malcolm X and the Cultural Revolution, led by poet, sible for long-range bombing missions in case of war,
playwright, and activist Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Curtis LeMay was characterized in the culture wars as a
publicly objected to Lee producing a film about the warmonger eager to trigger nuclear Armageddon. His
martyred activist, believing it would be “exploitive” and Cold War reputation for championing a military doc-
promote the worldview of the oppressors. Accusations trine of overwhelming force, seemingly without moral
of commercialism were levied after the film’s release, as qualms, was preceded by his service during World War
promotional merchandise was sold through Lee’s compa- II, which included directing the incendiary bombing
nies, including Spike’s Joint (retail outlets in Brooklyn campaign of Japanese cities and later the use of atomic
and Los Angeles) and 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks bombs. LeMay’s occasional blunt remarks in reference
and Musicworks (his production company). to Cold War strategy made him appear extreme—an ef-
Some scholars regard Lee’s work, particularly his fect heightened by facial paralysis, the result of Bell’s
early films, as representative of the avant-garde school palsy, which left him with a permanent frown. As the
of radical black filmmakers, whose avowed mission is to running mate of independent presidential candidate
Leopold , A ldo 319
George Wallace in 1968, he stated that the United Leopold, Aldo

States should consider the use of nuclear weapons in the Aldo Leopold, a leading conservationist and wilderness
Vietnam War. advocate of the twentieth century, fostered wilderness
The son of an ironworker, Curtis Emerson LeMay management in the United States and was instrumental
was born on November 15, 1906, in Columbus, Ohio. A in the creation of the U.S. national wilderness system.
graduate of Ohio State University (BS, civil engineering, His conservation philosophies were a catalyst to the en-
1932), he began his military career in 1928 in the U.S. vironmental movement. His call for a land ethic based
Army Air Corps, inspired in part by Charles Lindbergh’s on a moral responsibility to the environment fundamen-
crossing of the Atlantic the previous year. During World tally changed how the American people look at preser-
War II, LeMay rose from the rank of major (1941) to vation, land use, and conservation.
major general (1944). After the war, he organized and Born Rand Aldo Leopold on January 11, 1887, in
headed the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command Burlington, Iowa, from his youth he exhibited an interest in
(SAC; 1948–1957), then served as Air Force vice chief nature and outdoor recreation. After studying at Yale’s School
of staff (1957–1961) and chief of staff (1961–1965). In of Forestry (BS, 1908; MS, 1909), he joined the U.S. Forest
1968, three years after retiring from the military, he ran Service and in 1912 rose to supervisor of the Carson National
for vice president on the American Independent Party Forest in northern New Mexico. While working in the
ticket with Wallace. His published works include Mission Southwest, Leopold advocated intensive game management
with LeMay: My Story (1965), America Is in Danger (1968), that favored “high-value” species like deer and elk. As part of
and Superfortress (1988). He received twenty medals and his official duties, he traveled throughout the region, speak-
decorations from the United States and other governing to various groups about the benefits of stocking game
ments for his military service. species and eliminating or controlling predators. In 1924,
In his first plan for nuclear war, drafted in 1949, while in New Mexico, Leopold also helped establish the Gila
LeMay called for dropping 133 atomic bombs on seventy- National Forest as the first national wilderness area.
seven Soviet cities. In a speech at the National War Col- That same year, the Forest Service transferred Leopold
lege in 1956, he boasted that after a single day of SAC to Madison, Wisconsin, where he led a series of educational
nuclear attacks, the Soviet Union would be “infinitely programs emphasizing conservation and game manage-
poorer than China . . . and condemned to an agricultural ment to local farmers and landowners. Leopold’s devotion
existence perhaps for generations to come.” LeMay is and expertise drew the notice of the University of Wiscon-
also remembered for saying of the North Vietnamese in sin, which in 1933 created for him a chair of game manage-
his autobiography, “We’re going to bomb them back to ment in its Department of Agricultural Economics. As a
the Stone Age,” although he later denied writing it and professor, he published Game Management (1933), a text-
shifted the blame to his ghost writer. book calling for land management grounded in research
LeMay’s perceived enthusiasm for nuclear warfare is and science. This work was instrumental in developing
believed to have inspired the characters Jack D. Ripper wildlife conservation as an academic as well as a practical
and Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick’s satirical film discipline, leading the university in 1939 to appoint him
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and chair of its new Department of Wildlife Management, the
Love the Bomb (1964). But after the demise of the Soviet first of its kind in the nation. In 1935, he helped found
Union, some Americans, mostly political conservatives, the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit organization devoted
proclaimed LeMay a hero for organizing a nuclear strike to the preservation of U.S. public lands.
force that they believed helped the United States win the Leopold’s most enduring and controversial environ-
Cold War. LeMay died on October 1, 1990. mental philosophies are found in A Sand County Almanac
(1949), published posthumously following his fatal heart
Roger Chapman attack on April 21, 1948. The environmental movement
of the 1960s and 1970s was inspired by this work, which
See also: Cold War; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Kubrick, Stan-
envisioned ecosystems giving equal importance to land,
ley; Nuclear Age; Soviet Union and Russia; Teller, Edward;
plants, animals, and humans. The book also criticized
Vietnam War; Wallace, George.
conservative notions of private property rights as too nar-
row and destructive, and it called for a land ethic based
Further Reading on an ecological consciousness rather than on economic
Coffey, Thomas M. Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis
motives alone.
LeMay. New York: Crown, 1986.
Drew A. Swanson
Conversino, Mark J. “Back to the Stone Age: The Attack on Cur-
tis E. LeMay.” Strategic Review 25:2 (Spring 1997): 60–68. See also: Animal Rights; Earth Day; Endangered Species Act;
“Curtis LeMay: The Hedgehog.” U.S. News and World Report, Environmental Movement; Foreman, Dave; Forests, Park-
March 16, 1998. lands, and Federal Wilderness.
320 Lesbians
Further Reading bians called for the rejection of man-made constructions

Knight, Richard L., and Suzanne Riedel, eds. Aldo Leopold of femininity and patriarchy as well as an end to the
and the Ecological Conscience. New York: Oxford University objectification of women. By denaturalizing the concept
Press, 2002. of heterosexuality, Radicalesbians hoped to diminish the
Meine, Curt. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. Madison: Univer- guilt and self-hate experienced by many lesbians. More
sity of Wisconsin Press, 1988. important, “The Woman-Identified-Woman” was one
Yannuzi, Della A. Aldo Leopold: A Protector of the Wild. Brook- of the first documents to promote a positive image of
field, CT: Millbrook Press, 2002. lesbianism and lesbian sexuality.
The Radicalesbians were successful in convincing
many women of the primacy of the lesbian experience, and
Lesbians they attracted many new followers. In the early 1970s,
The label “lesbian”—referring to women who seek out NOW recognized the importance of lesbians in the move-
and engage in sexual relationships exclusively with ment; in the mid-1970s, the National Women’s Political
other women—was originally meant to be derogatory Caucus also supported nondiscrimination against lesbi-
but became a source of pride, identification, and revolt ans. Although the Radicalesbians disbanded in 1971,
for many women involved in the countercultural move- the lesbian-feminist movement under the guidance of
ments of the 1960s and 1970s. Brown, Sheila Jeffreys, Jill Johnston, and Adrienne Rich
While many lesbians remained closeted during that flourished into the 1970s and 1980s. Lesbian feminists
period, individuals like Rita Mae Brown, Lois Hart, and tended to be younger women attracted to one of two
Martha Shelley became actively involved in the women’s strands of lesbian feminism: separatism or cultural femi-
rights, gay rights, and civil rights movements. Dissatisfied nism. Separatists, the more radical of the two, actively
with what they perceived as the sexism inherent in the promoted the establishment of a distinct women’s culture
gay rights movement and the reluctance of the women’s and founded women’s-only social networks, bookstores,
rights movement to recognize issues specific to lesbians, presses, and music festivals. Olivia Records, the Naiad
many lesbian feminists split from these two more main- Press, and the Michigan Womyn’s Musical Festival are
stream groups to search for a more inclusive and radical just a few examples of the separatists’ many initiatives to
approach to women’s rights. In 1970, Brown and Shel- withdraw entirely from male-defined society. Separatists
ley founded the Lavender Menace—later renamed the also rejected what they considered man-made labels like
Radicalesbians—in response to a speech made by Betty “butch” and “femme” and instead advocated a more femi-
Friedan, the president of the National Organization of nized approach to language. “History” became “herstory,”
Women (NOW). Fearful that lesbianism might stigma- and “women” became “womyn” or “wimin.”
tize the entire movement, Friedan had reaffirmed NOW’s Like the separatists, cultural feminists also em-
hesitancy to include and promote issues of lesbian sexual- phasized the formation of a distinct women’s culture;
ity and discrimination. Friedan referred to lesbianism as however, the latter often adopted a more theoretical
the “lavender menace” of the women’s movement. approach. Recalling great matriarchies of the past, cul-
In an effort to make their concerns known, Radi- tural feminists discussed the establishment of a utopian
calesbians interrupted the Second Congress to Unite society in which women’s biological superiority over men
Women in May of 1970 wearing shirts emblazoned as well as their antiviolent and maternal characteristics
with the words “Lavender Menace.” In dramatic fash- were celebrated. Although lesbian feminism is often as-
ion, Brown read aloud from the group’s manifesto, “The sociated with separatism, at times the gay, lesbian, and
Woman-Identified-Woman,” while other members of women’s rights movements worked together to enforce
the Radicalesbians distributed copies of the manifesto change. Between 1971 and 1973, for instance, these
to the audience. “The Woman-Identified-Woman” is groups rallied together to have “homosexuality” removed
widely recognized as the founding document of lesbian from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental
feminism. It not only placed lesbianism at the core of illnesses. Lesbian feminism also borrowed elements from
feminism, but also made an impassioned appeal for the the larger women’s movement. “The personal is political”
inclusion of lesbians as well as issues of lesbian sexuality became an important slogan for both movements.
and discrimination in the larger women’s movement. Today, there are many prominent lesbians in the
“The Woman-Identified-Woman” expanded and po- popular media. Actress, comedian, and one-time talk
liticized the definition of lesbian by asserting that “a show host Rosie O’Donnell and Mary Cheney, the daugh-
lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point ter of former vice president Dick Cheney, are just two
of explosion.” According to the text, “Lesbian is a label examples. Ellen DeGeneres, a former stand-up comic
invented by the Man to throw at any woman who dares and popular talk show host, became the first lesbian to
to be equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives, who come out of the closet on national television when her
dares to assert the primacy of her own needs.” Radicales- character Ellen (also the title of the series) admitted that
Liddy, G . Gordon 321
she was a lesbian in 1997. While the profile of lesbians gestion that U.S. foreign policy may have prompted the
in the media increased in the 1990s, lesbian feminism as terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In addition,
a movement declined. Due to the exclusionary and sepa- Lewis is known for linking Osama bin Laden to Iraqi
ratist nature of many of the women-only activities, the president Saddam Hussein, a view that has since been
movement was often regarded as discriminatory toward discredited and that encouraged the Bush administra-
heterosexual women, transgender male-females, and gay tion to launch war against Iraq in 2003 in order to effect
men. The ideological constraints within lesbian feminism “regime change.”
also alienated some working-class and minority lesbians. Bernard A. Lewis was born in London on May 31,
Lesbian-feminists were often accused of being insensitive 1916, and raised in a middle-class Jewish family. He
to issues of class and race discrimination. Despite these studied history at the University of London’s School of
shortcomings, the lesbian-feminist movement offered a Oriental Studies (BA, 1936; PhD, 1939) and completed
radical and potentially revolutionary critique of tradi- graduate work at the University of Paris (1937). During
tional and patriarchal society and raised consciousness World War II, he served in British military intelli-
among heterosexual as well as lesbian women. gence. Lewis taught at the University of London (1938,
Due to reporting techniques, it is difficult to de- 1949–1974), Princeton University (1974–1986), Cornell
termine how many lesbians currently live in the United University (1984–1990), and has been a visiting profes-
States. According to the 2000 Census, there were 593,391 sor at numerous prestigious institutions in the United
same-sex unmarried partner couples living in the country, States and abroad. In 1982, he became a naturalized U.S.
293,365 of which were female couples. Researchers have citizen. In 2007, in order to counter what he regards as
estimated that the population of lesbian couples could a liberal bias in the study of Islamic societies, Lewis co-
actually be 25 to 50 percent higher than the recorded founded the Association for the Study of the Middle East
census findings. Since the census does not ask any ques- and Africa, headquartered in Washington, D.C.
tions about sexual orientation or sexual preference, it is Lewis is the author of two dozen books, including
also difficult to ascertain how many single lesbians are The Muslim Discovery of Europe (1982), Islam and the West
currently living in America. (1993), What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and
Kelly L. Mitchell Modernity in the Middle East (2002), The Crisis of Islam:
Holy War and Unholy Terror (2003), and From Babel to
See also: Cheney Family; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East (2004). At a May
Third-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Gay Rights Movement; Gays in 2006 meeting of the World Affairs Council, U.S. Vice
Popular Culture; National Organization for Women; Outing; President Dick Cheney publicly praised Lewis for his con-
Shelley, Martha; Socarides, Charles; Transgender Movement. tributions to the study of Islamic societies. In November
of the same year, President George W. Bush presented
Further Reading Lewis with the National Humanities Medal. Vocal critics
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of have included Edward Said and Noam Chomsky.
Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1991. Roger Chapman
Johnston, Jill. Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1973. See also: Chomsky, Noam; Huntington, Samuel P.; Pipes,
Radicalesbians. “The Woman-Identified-Woman.” In Radi- Richard, and Daniel Pipes; Said, Edward; September 11.
cal Feminism: A Documentary Reader, ed. Barbara A. Crow,
233–37. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Further Reading
Lewis, Bernard. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror.
New York: Modern Library, 2003.
Lew is, Ber nard ———. “The Roots of Muslim Rage.” Atlantic Monthly, Sep-
A British-American scholar of Near Eastern studies, tember 1990.
Bernard Lewis has advanced the “Muslim rage” thesis. Lockman, Zachary. “Critique from the Right: The Neo-
In his view, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism are conservative Assault on Middle East Studies.” New Centennial
reactions based on envy and humiliation as Western cul- Review 5:1 (Spring 2005): 63–110.
ture, power, and prestige have eclipsed once great Mus- Postel, Danny. “Islamic Studies’ Young Turks.” Chronicle of
lim societies for over three centuries. Lewis coined the Higher Education, September 13, 2002.
term “clash of civilizations” in describing the fourteen
centuries of conflict between Christians and Muslims.
In the American culture wars, Lewis’s views have been L i d d y, G . G o r d o n
adopted by political conservatives to answer the ques- G. Gordon Liddy, born George Gordon Battle Liddy on
tion “Why do they hate us?” and to dismiss any sug- November 30, 1930, in Hoboken, New Jersey, was a
322 Liddy, G . Gordon
key figure in the Watergate scandal and later became a ling Terrorism, Liddy Style, written with his son, James G.
controversial right-wing commentator. Liddy, and J. Michael Barrett and Joel Selanikio. Despite
After graduating from Fordham University (BS, his conservative ideology, Liddy has some friends on the
1952), Liddy served in the U.S. Army during the Ko- left, including liberal comedian Al Franken and outspo-
rean War but did not see combat. Later, he studied law ken feminist Camille Paglia.
at Fordham University (LLD, 1957). He worked briefly
for the FBI (1957–1962) and then had a private law Benjamin W. Cramer
practice in New York (1962–1966). As a district attor-
ney in Poughkeepsie, New York, he first gained public See also: Colson, Chuck; Conspiracy Theories; Dean, John;
notoriety in 1966 by putting on trial the counterculture Felt, W. Mark; Leary, Timothy; Nixon, Richard; Presidential
drug proponent Timothy Leary, but Liddy lost the case. Pardons; Talk Radio; Vietnam War; Watergate; Woodward,
In 1968, Liddy ran for Congress, losing in the Republican Bob.
primary against the incumbent Hamilton Fish, Jr.
Building on his growing political connections, Liddy Further Reading
served as a local manager for Richard M. Nixon’s 1968 Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men.
presidential campaign. By 1971, he had risen to a key role New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.
in Nixon’s reelection campaign, serving on the Commit- G. Gordon Liddy’s Official Web site. www.liddyshow
tee to Reelect the President (CRP or “CREEP”). As head .com.
of the White House Plumbers Unit, a secret operations Sussman, Barry. The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of
group, Liddy concocted a number of “dirty tricks” to be Watergate. New York: Crowell, 1974.
carried out against Nixon opponents, from minor press Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. The Final Days. New York:
leaks of false information to larger illegal schemes such Simon & Schuster, 1976.
as breaking into the office of the psychiatrist of Vietnam
War critic and former member of the State Department
Daniel Ellsberg. (The Nixon administration was after Limbaugh, Rush
information to discredit Ellsberg, the whistleblower who A prominent voice on American talk radio since the
leaked to the press the secret government history of the late 1980s, Rush Limbaugh has boosted AM radio as
Vietnam War, known as the Pentagon Papers.) a popular communications medium while using pop-
Liddy masterminded the June 1972 break-in at the ulist humor and satire to castigate liberalism and the
Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Democratic Party. With President Ronald Reagan his
Watergate hotel and office complex, setting off a series chief political hero, Limbaugh has defined his conserva-
of events that ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation in tive principles as supporting individual liberty, limited
August 1974. Liddy, one of the highest officials in the government, free-market economics, law and order, re-
Nixon administration to be tried for illegal activities in ligious freedom, a color-blind society, and a strong na-
the Watergate affair, was convicted of burglary, wiretap- tional defense. Specifically, he has spoken out in favor of
ping, and conspiracy. He received a twenty-year prison school choice, tax cuts, welfare reform, faith-based ini-
sentence, commuted after four years by President Jimmy tiatives, judicial restraint, and the war on terrorism.
Carter in 1977. Rush Hudson Limbaugh, III, was born on January
After his release from prison, Liddy published a 12, 1951, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. His family was
best-selling autobiography, Will (1980), and had sup- active in local Republican politics, a grandfather serv-
porting roles in several movies. He contends that the ing as a state representative. In 1983, President Reagan
Watergate break-in was meant to expose a call-girl ring appointed Limbaugh’s father, an attorney and World
operated by the Democrats, a theory embraced by right- War II veteran, to a federal judgeship. Limbaugh grew
wing commentators and conspiracy buffs. In 1992, he up keenly interested in current events and, while in
debuted as a conservative talk radio host. In 1994, Presi- high school, worked for a local radio station. After three
dent Bill Clinton and former president George H.W. semesters, he dropped out of Southeast Missouri State
Bush condemned Liddy for advising private property University in 1971. This was followed by radio jobs in
owners to shoot federal agents in the head so as to avoid Pennsylvania and Missouri, a stint in public relations
their bulletproof vests. for the Kansas City Royals baseball team (1978–1983),
Liddy moved his radio show to the Radio America and another radio job at KFBK in Sacramento, California
network in 2003. He occasionally appears on television (1984–1988). ABC then invited Limbaugh to start his
talk shows and provides commentary for Fox News. His own radio program in New York.
book When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country (2002) The Rush Limbaugh Show began broadcasting in
offers a potpourri of right-wing views mixed with some August 1988 from New York City’s WABC-AM sta-
humor. This was followed in 2006 by Fight Back! Tack- tion, where it still airs live 12–3 p.m. on weekdays. The
Limbaugh , Ru sh 323
1993), as well as a best-selling book, The Way Things

Ought to Be (1992).
The appeal of The Rush Limbaugh Show rests on
the host’s humor, beginning with a fictional creation
called the “Excellence in Broadcasting (EIB) network.”
Between political commentaries, the show airs parodies,
mock commercials, and skits. The program is noted for
such original jargon and catchword phrases as “Ditto”
or “Mega Ditto” (greetings from show listeners); “Ditto-
head” (Limbaugh devotees); “Environmentalist Wackos”
(believers in global warming); “Feminazis” (feminists);
and “Talent on loan from God” (Limbaugh’s moniker
for bombast).
Limbaugh’s conservative ideals generally support the
Republican Party and always denigrate the Democratic
Party. Perhaps with his marriage foibles in mind, he
has rarely appropriated the “family values” rhetoric of
evangelicals. He has instead focused on the “dangers”
of government spending, liberal media bias, feminism,
the Clinton family, H. Ross Perot, political correctness,
and what he has regarded as environmentalists’ excesses.
Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have
Rush Limbaugh’s nationally syndicated radio talk show is appeared on the show, as have such other notables as Dick
the most popular in America despite—or because of—his Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza
blunt style, arch-conservative views, and personal contro- Rice, Robert Bork, Thomas Sowell, Tony Snow, Walter
versy. Among his legions of admirers, Limbaugh is known as
“America’s truth teller.” (William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)
Williams, and Matt Drudge. During the first year of
Clinton’s presidency, Reagan wrote Limbaugh: “You have
become the number one voice for conservatism in our
ability of stations to air such a long broadcast without country.” After the 1994 congressional election, Speaker
diversity of viewpoint was a consequence of the Federal of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) stated, “Rush has
Communications Commission’s repeal of the “Fairness made it significantly more expensive to be liberal and
Doctrine” in 1987. Limbaugh’s syndicated program, significantly easier to be conservative. . . . He does for
a call-in show that screens callers for ideological point conservatives what NPR [National Public Radio] does
of view, has been popular with white, male, college- for liberals.”
educated baby boomers of Republican affiliation. At Limbaugh’s opponents have criticized him for dis-
its peak in the mid-1990s, the broadcast was heard on torting and simplifying complex issues. Some have also
more than 665 stations, reaching more than 20 million labeled him a hatemonger. The syndicated columnist
listeners. By 2005, these figures had declined to less than Molly Ivins once said of him: “It’s not his humor I object
600 and 13.5 million, respectively. In 1993, Limbaugh to; it’s his targets [of derision]. Women, children, dead
was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, and in 2002 people, the homeless, and animals.” While discussing
an industry magazine designated him “the greatest radio Limbaugh’s charges of a conspiracy behind the suicide
talk show host of all time.” of Vincent Foster (a former White House lawyer under
During the 1990s, Limbaugh briefly branched out Clinton), New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis
into television, beginning with a controversial 1990 concluded, “Limbaugh’s game [is] to throw dirt on gov-
stint as substitute host of CBS’s late-night Pat Sajak ernment and anyone who believes that society needs
Show. Limbaugh’s prior acidic comments on gays and government. . . . He is really trying to destroy public
the AIDS crisis inspired the group ACT UP (AIDS Co- faith in our institutions.” On the lighter side, among
alition to Unleash Power) to pack the studio audience those turning humor against Limbaugh has been Al
for his television debut. During the broadcast, audience Franken, author of the best-selling book, Rush Limbaugh
members yelled comments such as “You’re a Nazi!” is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations (1996). According
and “Go home!” The network’s security crew emptied to Franken, “Rush’s show is to punish you for actually
the studio during a commercial break, and Limbaugh knowing anything.”
finished the show without a live audience. In terms of Occasionally Limbaugh’s activities outside of his
other media, Limbaugh published the Limbaugh Letter radio program have become fodder for the culture wars.
in the 1990s (190,000 monthly subscriptions as of early As a commentator in 2003 for an ESPN television show
324 Literature, F ilm, and Drama
on professional football, Limbaugh asserted that popular War nuclear doom with post-apocalyptic grotesques,
media support for an African-American football player, and consumerist suburbia with satirical contempt. Grace
Donovan McNabb, was racially motivated. The public Metalious shocked America with her Peyton Place (1956),
outcry over what was regarded as a racist remark prompted a best-selling account of the sexual goings-on in a New
Limbaugh’s resignation from the ESPN program. That England community. C.P. Snow’s 1959 “Two Cultures”
same year, authorities in Florida began investigating lecture on the chasm between the sciences and the hu-
Limbaugh for improperly obtaining prescription drugs. manities heightened cultural and institutional debates
In 2006, after treatment for addition to painkillers and a about the value of literature and literary education in the
lengthy legal battle, he was charged with “doctor shop- age of increasingly militarized science.
ping” in a settlement with Palm Beach County authorities. Rent by civil rights unrest, the 1950s saw the
Critics accused Limbaugh of hypocrisy for portraying him- emergence of black writers and the nonconformist Beats.
self as a victim (he claimed the prosecutor was politically While Philip Roth deplored the powers of fiction to do
motivated), pointing out that the broadcaster for years justice to a world that was quickly overtaking writers’
had advocated prison for drug abusers. imaginations, the 1957 U.S. Supreme Court decision
Tim Lacy in Roth v. United States established that literature could
not be banned as obscene unless it was utterly without
See also: AIDS; Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Democratic redeeming social value. The New York Jewish elite
Party; Federal Communications Commission; Feminism, Sec- congregated around the Partisan Review, giving the East
ond-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Global Warming; Me- Coast literary establishment its legendary clout and
dia Bias; Political Correctness; Reagan, Ronald; Republican verve. Warning against the closing of the American
Party; Talk Radio. mind, sociologists identified the mood of the nation amid
postwar culture: atomized; conformist; looking for a fix
Further Reading in materialism, existentialism, or even—presaging the
Barker, David C. “Rushed Decisions: Political Talk Radio hippies—Eastern mysticism.
and Vote Choice, 1994–1996.” Journal of Politics 61:2 (May Starting with the 1960s, all literary subdivisions
1999): 527–39. became increasingly jumbled, not to say arbitrary. Styles,
Chafets, Zev. “Late Period Limbaugh.” New York Times Magazine, influences, and ideologies mixed freely as tens of thousands
July 6, 2008. of book titles appeared annually in multimillion editions,
Colford, Paul D. The Rush Limbaugh Story: Talent on Loan from glutting the market. Day-Glo colors masked the culture
God: An Unauthorized Biography. New York: St. Martin’s of black humor, in turn ironic and savagely funny, forged
Press, 1993. among the Vietnam conflict, political assassinations, drug
Franken, Al. Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observa- and sexual revolutions, and race riots spilling from inner-
tions. New York: Delacorte Press, 1996. city ghettoes. Becoming awash with intertextual and in-
Kelly, Charles M. The Great Limbaugh Con: And Other Right- tercultural allusions, at once sophisticated and vernacular,
Wing Assaults on Common Sense. Santa Barbara, CA: Fithian realistic and fantastic, a melting pot of genres, techniques
Press, 1993. and modes, literature went to fight its own war.
Kurtz, Howard. Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time. New York: Fiction writers invaded the domain of history and re-
Times Books, 1996. portage, following Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966),
Limbaugh, Rush H., III. See, I Told You So. New York: Pocket a nonfiction novel. Award-winning “docufiction” proved
Books, 1993. that history could be profitably wed to the techniques
———. The Way Things Ought to Be. New York: Pocket Books, and appeal of the novel. Media-hip New Journalists,
1992. beginning with Tom Wolfe, smashed sales records with
their hyped-up, heat-of-the-moment pieces that obscured
distinctions between fiction and reportage and between
Literature, Film, and Drama literary and popular culture. A generation of confes-
Literature, film, and drama have expressed and shaped sional poets, including Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and
postwar America. As cultural products, they have been Anne Sexton, stood emotionally naked after casting the
powerful tools of communication among different and innermost aspects of their lives in verse, much as today’s
sometimes warring social groups, contributing to and controversial poetry slammers and rappers do.
often escalating the culture wars. Beginning with the 1970s, theory-laden litera-
ture sought refuge in universities, which were funding
Literature writers-in-residence and cultivating professional “creative
Postwar American literature began with a wave of anti- writers.” New Criticism and the art of “close reading”
war novels, celebrated in print and as Hollywood motion (with exclusive and strict study of texts) were eclipsed
pictures, that depicted combat with hyperrealism, Cold by structuralist literary theories, reducing reading to a
Literature, F ilm, and Drama 325
search for the structural “hidden logic” of a text, even about law and justice was the rise of cinematic antiheroes
though critic Susan Sontag had railed against tedious who embraced social marginality and alienation. Sam
critical analyses in Against Interpretation and Other Essays Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) and Martin Scorsese’s
(1966). Scholars adopted various theoretical approaches, Taxi Driver (1976) sent shockwaves with their levels of
such as reader response, neo-Marxism, neo-Freudianism, violence and sex. A milder, though no less controversial
feminism, deconstruction, and postcolonialism. Often touch came from Woody Allen, who produced comic
compromised by obscure jargon, some of these approaches social satires and experimented with techniques of the
thrived on campuses while coming under attack for shaky French New Wave.
methodology and for usurping the primacy of literature Following Sidney Poitier’s 1963 Academy Award
itself. for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field, blaxploitation mov-
At the center of these interpretive wars, postmodern ies arose as a form of social protest against racism and
writers created language-centered, self-reflexive self- injustice (beginning in 1969 with Melvin Van Peebles’s
parodies, cutting truth and reality loose in fictional Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song), sparking new culture
and metafictional antinarratives. In response to the wars in the film industry. This era of historical correctness
postmodern pyrotechnics, the 1980s minimalists, such was echoed by Marlon Brando’s refusal of his Academy
as Raymond Carver with What We Talk About When We Award for Best Actor in 1972 for The Godfather in order
Talk About Love (1981), stripped prose of excess. Plots to publicly condemn the American government’s past
were in abeyance and moral judgments suspended, story treatment of Native Americans.
after story filled with social “lowlifes” addicted to alco- Foreign attacks on Hollywood sprang predominately
hol or drugs, on welfare, suffering trailer park blues, or from French nationalists who railed against the monopo-
intellectual malaise. lization of movie theaters and oppression of independent
In the last generation, a splintering mosaic of ethnic exhibitors and European films. Similar disdain came from
and cultural communities gained unprecedented reader- Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Ge-
ship and critical applause. Together with women writers, tino, who called for a Latin American “Third Cinema” to
they began to edge out some of the classics (“great books”) protect its own movie industry. Attacks from within the
as a focus of literary study, precipitating “canon wars” in American film industry came from independent filmmak-
American universities and cultural institutions. Courses ers such as John Cassavetes, who inspired a generation
in science fiction were included in university curricula. of experimental moviemakers with his improvisational
A new wave of novelists elevated crime fiction to lit- camera work and editing.
erary heights. Romances and erotica smashed readership The 1980s were marked by the tremendous growth
records, and Stephen King and his imitators reinvented in studio earnings, multiscreen cinemas, and bankable
the horror story. During the 2000s, belles-lettres ac- stars, and were fueled by a rising social consciousness.
counted for less than 3 percent of all literature sold in Many movies spoke against materialism and traditional
the United States, and popular literature made gains in values. The culture wars were carried to another height
prestige and legitimacy, spawning a no-brow culture. when Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
opened amid 25,000 protesters at Universal City, Cali-
Film fornia. The strongest opposition came from the Roman
The American triumph in World War II was followed Catholic Church, which later denounced Priest (1995)
by frantic production of war movies as patriotism and and Dogma (1999) on similar grounds of being not only
propaganda reigned supreme. Anthropologist Hortense pornographic but distorting the image of the Church.
Powdermaker, in Hollywood the Dream Factory (1951), Scrutiny and labeling of movie content became the norm.
portrayed Hollywood in the late 1940s as totalitarian, a Organizations such as the American Family Association
subculture driven by business and mass communication. on one side and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Under Cold War suspicion and anticommunist crusades, Defamation the other represented polemical views on
the film industry experienced a major brain drain with homosexual elements in films.
the blacklisting of film professionals deemed subversive Hollywood blockbusters continued to make money
by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. during the 1990s and 2000s with the use of Dolby sound,
Numerous gifted directors, actors, and writers were in digital postsynching, special effects, jump cuts, speed ed-
effect exiled. Meanwhile, the birth of television led to iting, and other cinematic technology that surpassed and
bankruptcy for many movie theaters. at times denigrated the domain of art and scriptwriting.
American cinema in the 1960s and 1970s displayed Over-the-top excesses enticed mass audiences despite the
a highly political flavor. Mirroring the tumultuous so- constant upgrading of film codes on obscenity by the
ciopolitical context, conspiracy thrillers projected dark Motion Picture Association of America.
and unsettling hints of paranoia, provoking audiences. In the hands of Michael Moore, Errol Morris, and
In tune with the Beat sensibility and cynical attitudes Morgan Spurlock, the documentary became a major and
326 Literature, F ilm, and Drama
lucrative player in the film industry. Robert Redford “obscene” plays. Conservative and religious activists
and his Sundance Festival increased the chances of wide demonstrated outside theaters and pressured govern-
distribution for independent, experimental, and foreign- ment and private agencies to cut financial support for
language movies, while film production and distribution “antifamily” productions.
went global. Beginning in the 1990s, American drama was charac-
terized by the incorporation of multimedia and multilin-
Drama gual scripts. Turning some of their own plays into movies,
Mirroring the views of existentialists, postwar American modern dramatists like Paddy Chayefsky, David Mamet,
dramas delivered forceful statements about psychologi- and Sam Shepard bridged the gap between cinema and
cal displacement, self-deception, absurdity, and family theater. Facing the competitive challenge from films
tensions. Some plays dealt with postwar and Cold War and “reality” TV, Broadway increasingly offered mass
trauma and paranoia. Using expressionist techniques, entertainment and popular appeal, mounting a number
Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller delved into the of blockbuster musicals. In the age of the new electronic
American psyche and portrayed in characters their in- media and globalization, the distinctions blurred between
ability to cope with the modern mechanical world. Of- high aesthetics and popular entertainment.
ten this took the form of the characters’ perpetual en-
gagement in verbal battles in the desire to make sense Peter Swirski and Selina S.L. Lai
of their existence.
The 1960s marked an escalation in the culture wars See also: Book Banning; Censorship; Counterculture; Gays in
between serious drama and mass entertainment. Just as Popular Culture; Great Books; Hollywood Ten; Motion Pic-
Miller in 1967 denounced Broadway as “a cripple look- ture Association of America; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
ing for a crutch,” Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway Studies; National Endowment for the Arts; New Journalism;
theaters challenged commercial theaters and social con- Postmodernism; Religious Right; Structuralism and Post-
formity. Where the San Francisco Mime Troupe fought Structuralism.
a legal battle for the right to stage its political plays in
a public park, Living Theater presented the U.S. Army Further Reading
as suppressive and destructive in Kenneth Brown’s The Grey, Richard. A History of American Literature. Malden, MA:
Brig (1963), and the Performance Group’s production of Blackwell, 2004.
Makbeth (1969) depicted America as a fascist society. Krasner, David, ed. A Companion to Twentieth-Century American
David Rabe, a leading representative of the “uncom- Drama. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.
fortable theater” of the early 1970s, shocked audiences Neve, Brian. Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition.
with his disturbing war plays Sticks and Bones (1973) London: Routledge, 1992.
and Streamers (1977). David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Ruland, Richard. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of
Chicago (1974) overwhelmed Off-Broadway with its frank American Literature. New York: Viking, 1991.
profanity and obscenity. The anti-Broadway impulse was Sternlicht, Sanford. A Reader’s Guide to Modern American Drama.
further promulgated with the rise of ethnic dramatists: Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002.
the founding of the Negro Ensemble Company (1967), Swirski, Peter. From Lowbrow to Nobrow. Montreal: McGill-
for instance, brought black dramatists to the forefront Queen’s University Press, 2005.
both on and off Broadway. Toeplitz, Jerzy. Hollywood and After. London: Allen and Unwin,
Most ambitious playwrights interviewed in the 1974.
1980s and 1990s perceived Broadway as dead, irrelevant,
or ridiculous. At the same time, the rise of the women’s
movement, gay liberation, and a variety of ethnic com- Lott, Trent
munities fostered a revitalization of the American the- A conservative Republican U.S. representative and sena-
ater. Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains tor representing Mississippi from 1973 to 2007, Trent
It All for You (1979) launched a comedic attack on the Lott did not author any major piece of legislation but
principles and structure of the Catholic Church, and made use of opportunities to direct federal funds to
gay theaters began to flourish since Charles Ludlam’s his state. In the culture wars, he was a minor figure of
founding of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company (1967), controversy in the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton im-
which dramatized themes of lust, obscenity, parody, peachment proceedings, but he became best known and
and scatology. most controversial for 2002 remarks in which he praised
Viewing some of the independent production as Strom Thurmond’s earlier run for the White House as a
vile and filthy, the Religious Right railed against the segregationist candidate.
National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation The son of a shipyard worker, Chester Trent Lott
for Public Broadcasting to protest public funding for was born on October 9, 1941, in Grenada, Mississippi.
Lot t , T rent 327
After spending his formative years on the Gulf Coast in on Black Entertainment Television, calling segregation
the town of Pascagoula, Lott attended the University “a stain on our nation’s soul.”
of Mississippi, where he studied public administration Critics dismissed Lott’s apologies as disingenu-
and law (BPA, 1963; JD, 1967). From 1968 to 1972, ous, noting that he had made a similar speech praising
he was the top assistant to the pro-segregationist con- Thurmond in 1980 during a Reagan rally. In addition,
gressman William M. Colmer (D-MS). After Colmer they charged, Lott in 1992 appeared before the Council
retired, Lott filled that seat as a Republican, vowing of Conservative Citizens, a white-supremacist group,
to “fight against the ever increasing efforts of the so- and assured them that he and they “stand for the right
called liberals to concentrate more power in Washing- principles and the right philosophy.” More than words,
ton.” Lott’s time in the U.S. House of Representatives however, was Lott’s record on civil rights: he twice voted
(1973–1989) was followed by a slightly longer tenure against extending the Voting Rights Act (1975 and
in the Senate (1989–2007). In the former, he served as 1981); opposed establishing a federal holiday to honor
minority whip (1981–1989) and in the latter as party Martin Luther King, Jr. (1983); backed a proposed con-
whip (1995–1996, 2007), majority leader (1996–2001), stitutional amendment to ban school busing (1979); often
and minority leader (2001–2003). tried to remove affirmative action stipulations in federal
As a legislator, Lott supported federal farm subsidies bills; and filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme
and military shipbuilding contracts for his state, voted Court that supported Bob Jones University’s claim for
in 1987 to override President Ronald Reagan’s veto of tax-exemption status even though it was in violation of
a highway spending bill because it had road projects for federal antidiscrimination law for banning interracial
Mississippi, arranged special tax breaks for Mississippi’s student dating (1981). In the end, Lott was forced to
barge operators and shipbuilders, and facilitated Nissan relinquish his Senate leadership position. He afterward
in locating a minivan and truck plant in Canton, Missis- told a group of supporters that he fell into a trap that had
sippi. After Hurricane Katrina (2005), which destroyed been set by those who oppose him because he is a Missis-
his oceanfront home in Pascagoula, Lott announced plans sippian, a political conservative, and a Christian.
to serve another term of office in order to bolster the Fed- In November 2007, one year after reelection and
eral Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and fight being voted minority whip, Lott announced his resigna-
for more federal disaster relief for affected homeowners. tion. Observers speculated that he wished to leave office
Lott’s first major task in Congress was sitting on the before the effective date of the Honest Leadership and
House Judiciary Committee during the 1974 Watergate Open Government Act of 2007, which would double
hearings. He argued at the time that a president should from one year to two years the time a former member of
be removed from office “only for serious misconduct Congress must wait before returning to Capitol Hill as
dangerous to the system of government established by a lobbyist. Dramatically, two days after Lott signaled his
the Constitution.” Twenty-four years later, during the departure, a federal prosecutor announced the indictment
Clinton impeachment, Lott suggested that “bad con- of Lott’s brother-in-law, Richard F. Scruggs, Jr., for at-
duct . . . is enough for impeachment.” When Democrats tempting to bribe a Mississippi county circuit judge. A
denounced Lott’s inconsistency, it was pointed out that witness in the subsequent trial testified that Scruggs had
Bill Clinton at the time of Watergate said a president asked Lott to try to arrange for the judge an appointment
should be impeached if he lies or impedes a government to the federal bench, but Lott denied any wrongdoing
investigation. and was not charged with any crime. Scruggs, as well as
In December 2002, while giving a toast at the hun- his son, later went to prison. Meanwhile, Lott indicated
dredth birthday party of Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), that he and former senator John Breaux (D-LA) would
Lott said Mississippi was one of the four southern states open a lobbying office to provide “strategic consulting”
that supported Thurmond’s 1948 presidential bid, add- to corporations.
ing, “We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country Roger Chapman
had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these
problems over all these years, either.” Since Thurmond’s See also: Bob Jones University; Civil Rights Movement; Clin-
“Dixiecrat” campaign was first and foremost about pre- ton Impeachment; Hurricane Katrina; King, Martin Luther,
serving racial segregation, Lott’s words were interpreted Jr.; Lynching; Reagan, Ronald; Republican Party; Thurmond,
by many as a criticism of the civil rights movement. In Strom; Voting Rights Act; Watergate; White Supremacists.
the subsequent brouhaha, minority groups began call-
ing for Lott’s resignation. President George W. Bush Further Reading
responded, “Any suggestion that the segregated past was Goodgame, Dan, and Karen Tumulty. “Tripped Up by History.”
acceptable or positive is offensive. . . . Recent comments Time, December 23, 2002.
by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country.” Kuypers, Jim A. Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame
Lott repeatedly apologized for his remarks and appeared Controversial Issues. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
328 Love Canal
Lott, Trent. Herding Cats: A Life in Politics. New York: Regan- bombs.” Later, after the majority of the Love Canal area
Books, 2005. was declared habitable by the New York State Depart-
“Trent Lott’s Wish: Thinking about What the Nation Would ment of Health, local residents complained of a cover-up
Have Been Like under President Strom Thurmond.” Jour- while others deplored the continued testing, cleanup, and
nal of Blacks in Higher Education 42 (Winter 2003–2004): compensation as a waste of tax dollars.
24–26. Local grassroots organizations, including the Love
Watts, Rebecca Bridges. Contemporary Southern Identity: Com- Canal Homeowners Association and the Ecumenical Task
munity Through Controversy. Jackson: University of Missis- Force of the Niagara Frontier, as well as high-profile
sippi, 2008. resident-activists such as Lois Gibbs and Beverly Paigen,
were instrumental in battling government and industry to
Love Canal force thorough investigations of the effects of toxicity in
An abandoned canal in Niagara Falls, New York, that their community. Their struggles, in lobbying to have the
fell into use as a chemical dump, Love Canal emerged health concerns of Love Canal addressed and in amending
in the late 1970s as the site of the first hazardous waste national policies on public access to information about
disposal case to receive widespread national attention. environmental contamination, ultimately altered the face
Evidence of contamination in the surrounding area, of grassroots environmental activism.
along with its environmental and health effects, spurred
support for the enactment of the national Comprehen- Cynthia J. Miller
sive Emergency Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act of 1980 (the “Superfund Act”). Love Canal remains See also: Carter, Jimmy; Environmental Movement; Science
a landmark in environmentalist controversies, with one Wars.
side viewing it as a symbol of politico-industrial irre-
sponsibility and the other a case study of media hype Further Reading
and environmentalist hysteria. Blum, Elizabeth. Love Canal Revisited: Race, Class, and Gender
After a decade in which 21,000 tons of chemical in Environmental Activism. Lawrence: University of Kansas
waste was dumped by Hooker Plastics and Chemicals Press, 2008.
(later Occidental Chemical Corporation), including pes- Gibbs, Lois Marie, with Murray Levine. Love Canal: My Story.
ticides, dioxin, and chlorobenzenes, the Love Canal site Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.
was capped and then purchased for one dollar in 1953 Sherrow, Victoria. Love Canal: Toxic Waste Tragedy. Berkeley
by the Niagara Falls Board of Education, which pos- Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2001.
sibly ignored warnings that contamination would ensue Wagner, Travis. “Hazardous Waste: Evolution of a National
if development breached the site’s protective walls. An Environmental Problem.” Journal of Public History 16:4
elementary school and playground were constructed on (2004): 306–31.
the site in 1955, and the remaining parcels of land were
sold to a residential developer. Ultimately, more than two L ov i n g , R i c h a r d , a n d M i l d r e d
hundred residences were built and occupied adjacent to
the Love Canal site.
L ov i n g
As portions of the landfill eroded, evidence of con- Richard and Mildred Loving were plaintiffs in Loving v.
tamination began to appear. Health complaints from Virginia, a U.S. Supreme Court case. The decision issued
neighborhood residents escalated during the 1960s, as on June 12, 1967, ended state restrictions on interracial
toxins leached into groundwater and, ultimately, the marriages, based on the Equal Protection Clause of the
Niagara River—a major source of drinking water for over Fourteenth Amendment. More recently, the decision has
75,000 people. Tests of the area indicated contamination been referenced by advocates of same-sex marriage, who
in air and soil as well, while informal grassroots research note similarities between the two historically prohib-
pointed to elevated levels of reproductive disorders, birth ited types of marriage. Randall Kennedy, a professor at
defects, and cancers in the community. Responding Harvard Law School, has argued that the Loving decision
swiftly to public outcry, both the New York State Health “helps to buttress the case for tolerating same-sex mar-
commissioner and President Jimmy Carter declared Love riages.”
Canal a state of emergency in August 1978. Ultimately, In 1924, thirty-eight states had laws against interra-
more than 800 residents of Love Canal were relocated. cial marriages. In 1967, sixteen southern or border states
The public and legal controversy surrounding Love still had such restrictions in place. (The first law against
Canal grew, with financial and cleanup responsibilities, as miscegenation had appeared in 1661, in Maryland.) It
well as levels of risk and long-term effects, hotly debated. took 306 years to remove the laws against “mixed mar-
Meanwhile, panic spread across the country regarding the riages.” Ironically, twenty-four years after the historic
hazards of other chemical waste sites, referred to as “time ruling, in 1991, U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC),
Ly nching 329
previously a strong segregationist, successfully supported

Clarence Thomas, a fellow conservative, for appointment
to the Supreme Court. Thomas, a black man, and his wife,
a white woman, lived in Virginia.
Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and Mildred
Delores Jeter, of mixed African and Cherokee heritage,
were both born and raised in the same rural community
in Caroline County, Virginia, 40 miles (60 kilometers)
north of Richmond. Aware that a mixed-race marriage
was illegal in Virginia, the engaged couple went to the
District of Columbia in June 1958 to get married.
The couple then returned to Virginia and set up a
household. Five weeks later, after a predawn police raid
at their home, they were arrested, charged with unlawful
cohabitation, and indicted for breaking Virginia’s law
against interracial marriage. They pled guilty and were
sentenced to one year in jail but were given suspended
sentences on condition that they leave Virginia and not
return for twenty-five years.
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia for
five years but were homesick and returned to Virginia.
The civil rights movement inspired them to fight for
change, and the American Civil Liberties Union, sup-
ported by the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, took up the case. A Virginia judge Plaintiffs Richard and Mildred Loving meet with an ACLU
ruled against them, explaining that “Almighty God” lawyer during the appeal of their conviction on antimiscege-
separated the races into separate continents, thus showing nation charges in 1958. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
that races were not meant to mix. Loving v. Virginia (1967) ended state restrictions on interracial
On November 6, 1963, the Lovings filed a motion in marriage. (Grey Villet/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Virginia to have the judgment vacated because it violated
the Fourteenth Amendment. The Virginia court took no
action, so on October 28, 1964, the Lovings filed a class- See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Civil Rights Move-
action lawsuit in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District ment; Family Values; National Association for the Advance-
of Virginia. When this motion was denied, they appealed ment of Colored People; Race; Same-Sex Marriage; Thomas,
to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, which in Clarence; Thurmond, Strom.
December 1965 upheld that statute banning mixed-race
marriage. The matter then went to the U.S. Supreme Further Reading
Court, which ruled in Richard Perry Loving, Mildred Jeter Johnson, Kevin R., ed. Mixed Race America and the Law: A
Loving v. Virginia (1967) that restricting marriage based Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2003.
on race is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of Lubin, Alex. Romance and Rights: The Politics of Interracial Inti-
the Fourteenth Amendment. macy, 1945–1954. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press,
The decision predictably met with strong criticism, 2005.
especially in, but not limited to, the southern United Moran, Rachel F. Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and
States. A 1965 Gallup poll, for example, indicated that Romance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
42 percent of northern whites and 72 percent of southern Newbeck, Phyl. Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers: Interracial
whites supported bans on interracial marriage. Regard- Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving.
less of negative attitudes, intermarriage greatly increased Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.
in the succeeding decades. U.S. Census data show that
black-white marriages increased from 51,000 in 1960
to 422,000 in 2005, or from 1.3 percent to 6.0 percent Ly n c h i n g
of all marriages. The increased number of people with Few phenomena in American life and culture stand in
mixed-race identity caused the Census Bureau in 2000, starker contrast to the principles upon which the na-
for the first time, to allow people to identify themselves tion was founded than lynching. The practice—defined
by more than one race. as unlawful communal punishment, often resulting in
Abraham D. Lavender the death of the victim—has occurred through much
33 0 Ly nching
of American history and in every region of the country. lynching-style murder of James Byrd, Jr., an African
It is best known, however, as a brutal means of enforc- American dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas, by three
ing white supremacy in the post–Civil War South. Ac- white men in a pickup truck, served as a reminder that
cording to widely cited data by the Tuskegee Institute, the custom was not fully extinct in America. Moreover,
some 4,743 persons in America were lynched between symbolic, rhetorical, and historical references to lynch-
1882 and 1968. Nearly three-quarters of the victims ing have continued to provoke controversy. Some felt,
were black and died in the South. Although the practice for instance, that reopening the civil rights era lynching
declined after the 1930s, several high-profile lynchings cases merely served to stir up trouble between the races.
took place during the civil rights era of the 1950s and By contrast, advocates of the new proceedings believed
1960s. Today, while lynching has all but disappeared they offered the possibility of long delayed, if incomplete,
from America society, the issue remains divisive, as justice.
evidenced by recent controversies over symbolic and Memories of lynching have also been stirred by
rhetorical references to lynching, and from the U.S. the occasional, yet persistent, appearance of nooses to
Senate’s 2005 apology for never passing antilynching communicate dislike, hatred, or a threat of violence
legislation. toward an individual. Indeed, as recently as 2007,
Tensions stoked by the burgeoning civil rights move- white students at a high school in Jena, Louisiana,
ment produced a spate of notorious killings intended to hung nooses from a tree on the school’s grounds after a
intimidate those engaged in the struggle for black equal- black student asked whether he could sit beneath the
ity. Instead, such heinous acts created a groundswell of tree, customarily used by whites. Following the Jena
support for civil rights activists, particularly when justice incident, several other instances of noose hangings were
seemed so elusive. Such was the case with the lynching of reported by African Americans. To the targets of such
Emmett Till in 1955. A fourteen-year-old black boy from displays, the symbolic reference was an unmistakable
Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi, Till was savagely and deeply disturbing reminder of how lynching had
killed after he allegedly flirted with a white woman. The once been used to maintain white supremacy. Yet there
two men charged with the crime were acquitted of all were some who, while not condoning the actions, as-
charges. Several months later, in a magazine interview, serted that however offensive or repugnant a symbol
they boasted about punishing Till, reinforcing the percep- the noose might be, it constitutes a form of expression
tion that blacks could still be lynched in the South with protected by the First Amendment.
impunity. Despite the confessions, no further charges The issue of lynching was also unexpectedly injected
were brought against the men or anyone else who might into the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings
have been involved in the incident. In 2004, however, for Clarence Thomas, a little-known black conservative
the U.S. Department of Justice reopened its investiga- judge chosen by President George H.W. Bush to take
tion of the case. The FBI eventually turned over nearly the seat of Thurgood Marshall, one of the great icons
8,000 pages of materials to local prosecutors, but a county of the civil rights struggle and a liberal stalwart on the
grand jury did not find sufficient evidence to issue new high court. When Thomas’s nomination was imperiled
indictments, effectively guaranteeing that no one would by allegations of sexual harassment from a former col-
ever be held accountable for Till’s death. league, Thomas accused the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Nearly a decade after Till’s murder, three civil controlled by Democrats, of subjecting him to “a high-
rights workers—James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and tech lynching” for daring to break with the ideological
Andrew Goodman—became the most famous lynching orthodoxies that most white liberals presumed of African
victims in American history when they were murdered Americans.
near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in an elaborate scheme In 2005, the U.S. Senate waded into the lynching
involving as many as two dozen local officials and Ku thicket when it overwhelmingly passed a resolution
Klux Klansmen. Although the ensuing federal district apologizing for its failure ever to enact antilynching
court trial produced the first guilty verdicts ever handed legislation. The resolution’s sponsors stated they were
down in a Mississippi civil rights case, only seven of the inspired to issue the apology after viewing James Al-
conspirators were convicted, and no one was sentenced len’s widely discussed book, Without Sanctuary: Lynching
for longer than ten years. The case was reopened decades Photography in America (2000). However, critics of the
later when Mississippi belatedly charged one of the measure, most of whom were conservatives, derided
masterminds of the triple lynching with murder in early it as a cynical political gesture, given that current
2005. Following a trial that received national attention, senators bore no direct responsibility for failing to pass
the jury returned a guilty verdict—but only on a lesser such legislation, and that it was better to look forward
charge of manslaughter. and take action than to dwell on the past. By contrast,
Despite the virtual disappearance of lynching in liberals noted that while more blacks were lynched
the decades after the civil rights movement, the 1998 in Mississippi than in any other state, neither of its
Ly nching 331
Republican senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, See also: Civil Rights Movement; Hate Crimes; Hill, Anita;
joined nearly ninety of their colleagues as co-sponsors Human Rights; Lott, Trent; Philadelphia, Mississippi;
of the resolution. Backers of the resolution also noted Thomas, Clarence; Till, Emmett.
that all of the senators who failed to support the apol-
ogy were Republicans. Such partisan bickering is but Further Reading
one reminder of the bitter legacy that the practice of Allen, James, ed. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in
lynching has injected into contemporary society. America. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2000.
Dray, Phillip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown. New York:
Sven Dubie Random House, 2002.
Culture
Wars An Encyclopedia of
Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
Volume 2
Roger Chapman, Editor
M.E.Sharpe
Armonk, New York
London, England
M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
80 Business Park Drive
Armonk, NY 10504
© 2010 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders.
Cover photos (clockwise from upper left) provided by Getty Images and the following: Katja
Heinemann; Terry Ashe/Time & Life Pictures; Mark Leffingwell/AFP; Michael Springer;
Karen Bleier/AFP.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Culture wars : an encyclopedia of issues, viewpoints, and voices / Roger Chapman, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7656-1761-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Culture conflict—Encyclopedias. 2. Politics and culture—Encyclopedias. 3. Social problems—
Encyclopedias. 4. Social conflict—Encyclopedias. 5. Ethnic conflict—Encyclopedias.
I. Chapman, Roger.
HM1121.C85 2010
306.0973’03—dc22 2009011925
Printed and bound in the United States
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z 39.48.1984.
CW (c) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Publisher: Myron E. Sharpe

Vice President and Director of New Product Development: Donna Sanzone
Vice President and Production Director: Carmen Chetti
Executive Development Editor: Jeff Hacker
Project Manager: Angela Piliouras
Program Coordinator: Cathleen Prisco
Assistant Editor: Alison Morretta
Text Design and Cover Design: Jesse Sanchez
Typesetter: Nancy Connick
Contents
Volume 2 Moore, Roy S....................................................366

Moral Majority.................................................367
MacKinnon, Catharine.....................................332 Morgan, Robin.................................................368
Madonna..........................................................332 Morrison, Toni..................................................369
Mailer, Norman................................................334 Mothers Against Drunk Driving......................369
Malcolm X.......................................................335 Motion Picture Association of America.............370
Manson, Marilyn..............................................336 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick.................................371
Mapplethorpe, Robert......................................336 Ms....................................................................372
Marriage Names...............................................337 Multicultural Conservatism..............................373
Marxism...........................................................338 Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies................373
McCain, John...................................................339 Mumford, Lewis...............................................374
McCarthy, Eugene............................................340 Murdoch, Rupert..............................................375
McCarthy, Joseph.............................................341 Murrow, Edward R...........................................376
McCarthyism....................................................342 Muslim Americans...........................................377
McCloskey, Deirdre..........................................345 My Lai Massacre...............................................378
McGovern, George...........................................345 Nader, Ralph....................................................380
McIntire, Carl...................................................347 Nation, The.......................................................381
McLuhan, Marshall...........................................348 Nation of Islam................................................382
McVeigh, Timothy...........................................349 National Association for the Advancement of
Mead, Margaret................................................350 Colored People.............................................383
Media Bias........................................................350 National Endowment for the Arts.....................384
Medical Malpractice.........................................352 National Endowment for the Humanities.........387
Medical Marijuana............................................353 National Organization for Women...................388
Medved, Michael..............................................354 National Public Radio......................................389
Men’s Movement..............................................354 National Review.................................................390
Mexico.............................................................356 National Rifle Association................................391
Microsoft..........................................................357 Nelson, Willie..................................................392
Migrant Labor..................................................358 Neoconservatism..............................................393
Militia Movement............................................359 New Age Movement.........................................395
Milk, Harvey....................................................360 New Deal.........................................................397
Millett, Kate....................................................361 New Journalism...............................................398
Million Man March..........................................362 New Left..........................................................398
Miranda Rights................................................363 New York Times, The..........................................399
Mondale, Walter...............................................364 Niebuhr, Reinhold...........................................402
Montana Freemen.............................................365 Nixon, Richard.................................................403
Moore, Michael.................................................365 Norquist, Grover..............................................405
iii
iv Contents
North, Oliver...................................................406 Reagan, Ronald................................................458

Not Dead Yet...................................................407 Record Warning Labels....................................459
Nuclear Age.....................................................408 Red and Blue States..........................................460
Obama, Barack.................................................411 Redford, Robert...............................................461
Obesity Epidemic.............................................413 Redneck...........................................................462
Occupational Safety..........................................414 Reed, Ralph.....................................................463
O’Connor, Sandra Day......................................415 Rehnquist, William H.....................................464
O’Hair, Madalyn Murray..................................416 Relativism, Moral.............................................465
O.J. Simpson Trial............................................417 Religious Right................................................466
Operation Rescue.............................................418 Reparations, Japanese Internment.....................467
Oppenheimer, J. Robert...................................419 Republican Party..............................................468
O’Reilly, Bill....................................................420 Revisionist History...........................................470
Outing.............................................................421 Right to Counsel..............................................471
Packwood, Bob.................................................422 Right to Die.....................................................472
Paglia, Camille.................................................422 Robertson, Pat..................................................474
Palin, Sarah......................................................423 Rock and Roll..................................................475
Parks, Rosa.......................................................424 Rockwell, George Lincoln................................477
Penn, Sean........................................................425 Rockwell, Norman...........................................477
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.....426 Rodman, Dennis...............................................478
Perot, H. Ross..................................................427 Roe v. Wade (1973)............................................479
Phelps, Fred.....................................................429 Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosenberg...........480
Philadelphia, Mississippi..................................429 Rove, Karl........................................................480
Pipes, Richard, and Daniel Pipes......................430 Ruby Ridge Incident........................................482
Planned Parenthood..........................................431 Rudolph, Eric...................................................483
Podhoretz, Norman..........................................432 Rusher, William A...........................................483
Police Abuse.....................................................433 Ryan, George....................................................484
Political Correctness.........................................434 Said, Edward....................................................486
Pornography.....................................................436 Same-Sex Marriage...........................................486
Postmodernism.................................................438 Sanders, Bernie.................................................488
Premillennial Dispensationalism......................439 Saudi Arabia.....................................................488
Presidential Pardons.........................................440 Schaeffer, Francis..............................................490
Prison Reform..................................................441 Schiavo, Terri....................................................490
Privacy Rights..................................................443 Schlafly, Phyllis................................................492
Privatization.....................................................444 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.................................492
Progressive Christians Uniting.........................445 School of the Americas......................................493
Promise Keepers...............................................446 School Prayer....................................................494
Public Broadcasting Service..............................447 School Shootings..............................................496
Punk Rock.......................................................449 School Vouchers................................................497
Quayle, Dan.....................................................451 Schwarzenegger, Arnold...................................498
Race.................................................................452 Science Wars....................................................499
Racial Profiling................................................453 Secular Humanism...........................................501
Rand, Ayn........................................................454 Seeger, Pete......................................................502
Rap Music........................................................455 September 11...................................................502
Rather, Dan......................................................456 September 11 Memorial...................................505
Contents v
Serrano, Andres................................................506 Talk Radio........................................................549

Sex Education...................................................507 Tax Reform.......................................................550
Sex Offenders....................................................509 Televangelism...................................................552
Sexual Assault..................................................510 Teller, Edward..................................................553
Sexual Harassment............................................511 Ten Commandments.........................................554
Sexual Revolution.............................................512 Terkel, Studs....................................................555
Sharpton, Al.....................................................513 Thanksgiving Day............................................556
Sheen, Fulton J.................................................515 Think Tanks.....................................................557
Shelley, Martha.................................................515 Third Parties....................................................559
Shepard, Matthew.............................................516 Thomas, Clarence.............................................561
Shock Jocks......................................................517 Thompson, Hunter S........................................562
Sider, Ron.........................................................518 Three Mile Island Accident..............................563
Silent Majority.................................................518 Thurmond, Strom.............................................563
Simpsons, The.....................................................519 Till, Emmett....................................................564
Smoking in Public............................................520 Tobacco Settlements.........................................565
Socarides, Charles.............................................521 Tort Reform.....................................................566
Social Security..................................................521 Transgender Movement....................................567
Sodomy Laws....................................................523 Truman, Harry S..............................................568
Sokal Affair......................................................524 Turner, Ted.......................................................569
Soros, George...................................................525 Twenty-Second Amendment.............................570
Southern Baptist Convention............................525 Unabomber......................................................572
Soviet Union and Russia...................................526 United Nations................................................572
Sowell, Thomas................................................529 USA PATRIOT Act.........................................574
Speech Codes....................................................530 Ventura, Jesse...................................................576
Spock, Benjamin...............................................531 Victimhood......................................................576
Springsteen, Bruce............................................532 Vidal, Gore.......................................................577
Starr, Kenneth..................................................533 Vietnam Veterans Against the War...................578
Stay-at-Home Mothers.....................................534 Vietnam Veterans Memorial.............................579
Steinbeck, John................................................535 Vietnam War....................................................580
Steinem, Gloria................................................535 Vigilantism......................................................582
Stem-Cell Research...........................................536 Voegelin, Eric...................................................583
Stern, Howard..................................................538 Voting Rights Act............................................584
Stewart, Jon......................................................538 Waco Siege.......................................................586
Stone, Oliver....................................................539 Wall Street Journal, The......................................587
Stonewall Rebellion..........................................540 Wallace, George...............................................588
Strategic Defense Initiative...............................540 Wallis, Jim.......................................................589
Strauss, Leo.......................................................541 Wal-Mart.........................................................589
Structuralism and Post-Structuralism...............542 Walt Disney Company.....................................591
Student Conservatives.......................................543 War on Drugs...................................................592
Students for a Democratic Society.....................544 War on Poverty................................................593
Summers, Lawrence..........................................546 War Powers Act...............................................594
Supply-Side Economics.....................................546 War Protesters..................................................595
Symbionese Liberation Army............................547 War Toys..........................................................597
Taft, Robert A..................................................549 Warhol, Andy...................................................598
vi Contents
Warren, Earl.....................................................599 Williams, William Appleman..........................618

Warren, Rick....................................................601 Wilson, Edmund..............................................618
Washington Times, The........................................601 Winfrey, Oprah................................................619
Watergate.........................................................602 Wolf, Naomi....................................................620
Watt, James.....................................................603 Wolfe, Tom......................................................621
Watts and Los Angeles Riots, Women in the Military.....................................622
1965 and 1992.............................................604 Women’s Studies..............................................623
Wayne, John.....................................................605 Woodward, Bob...............................................624
Wealth Gap......................................................606 World................................................................625
Weekly Standard, The.........................................607 World Council of Churches..............................625
Welfare Reform................................................608 World War II Memorial...................................626
Wellstone, Paul................................................609 Wounded Knee Incident...................................627
West, Cornel....................................................610 Young, Neil......................................................628
Weyrich, Paul M..............................................611 Zappa, Frank....................................................629
Whistleblowers................................................612 Zero Tolerance..................................................629
White, Reggie..................................................613 Zinn, Howard...................................................630
White Supremacists..........................................614
Wildmon, Donald............................................616 Bibliography......................................................633
Will, George....................................................617 Index..................................................................I-1
Culture
Wars
Volume 2
Conservatives argue that MacKinnon’s assertions
regarding male domination are untrue. Where she sees
oppression, many conservatives see contentment and
social order. They reject her claims of gender hierarchy,
describing instead natural sexual differences and the
MacKinnon, Catharine mutual compatibility of complementary gender roles.
Catharine MacKinnon, feminist legal theorist, attorney, Like MacKinnon, however, many conservatives reject
law professor, and author, helped shape American pornography, albeit on different grounds—they believe
legal theory pertaining to sexual discrimination by it is immoral (often from a religious perspective).
broadening the definition to include sexual harassment. MacKinnon has also faced opposition from some
She has also campaigned against pornography, linking it feminists who see her views as dangerously aligned with
to male aggression and dominance toward women. Her the Religious Right. The problem is not pornography,
positions and active lobbying for changes in American some of her critics argue, but “sexual oppression,” which
law propelled her into the culture wars, and she has stigmatizes not only pornographers and pornography
often faced opposition from the left and the right. consumers but other “sexual minorities” like prostitutes,
She was born Catharine Alice MacKinnon on Oc- sadomasochists, homosexuals, transsexuals, and fetish-
tober 7, 1946, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and raised ists. They argue that sex is a realm of potential freedom
in an upper-middle-class home. Her father, George E. for women, and that pornography produced by and for
MacKinnon, was a federal judge, U.S. Representative women can be an important feminist act.
(R-MN), and adviser to the presidential campaigns of
Dwight Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon. Educated at C. Heike Schotten
Smith College (BA, 1969), Yale Law School (JD, 1977), and
Yale University (PhD, political science, 1987), MacKinnon See also: Dworkin, Andrea; Feminism, Second-Wave; Femi-
has been a professor at the University of Michigan Law nism, Third-Wave; Flynt, Larry; Hefner, Hugh; Pornogra-
School since 1990. She was also a visiting professor at phy; Religious Right.
the University of Chicago (1980–1982, 1984–1988).
Her books include Sexual Harassment of Working Women: Further Reading
A Case of Sex Discrimination (1979), Toward a Feminist Califia, Pat. Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. San Francisco:
Theory of the State (1989), Only Words (1993), Are Women Cleis, 2000.
Human? (1998), and Sex Equality (2001). MacKinnon, Catharine, and Andrea Dworkin, eds. In Harm’s
Best known for her militant antipornography activ- Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings. Cambridge, MA:
ism, MacKinnon rejects pornography because it exempli- Harvard University Press, 1998.
fies and reproduces male domination, which she argues Posner, Richard. Overcoming Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
is the defining characteristic of American society. She University Press, 1995.
has argued that pornography constitutes a violation of Rubin, Gayle. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory for
women’s civil rights. She rejects the legal framework the Politics of Sexuality.” In Pleasure and Danger: Exploring
of obscenity and community standards in U.S. pornog- Female Sexuality, ed. Carole Vance, 267–319. Boston: Rout-
raphy law, viewing such distinctions as legal disguises ledge, 1984.
for the male viewpoint. Pornography laws, she argues,
thus work to ensure the availability of pornography for
men, while rendering women’s subordination invisible. Madonna
Working with the radical feminist and antipornography The singer, songwriter, and dancer Madonna, widely
advocate Andrea Dworkin in 1983, MacKinnon drafted known as the “Queen of Pop,” released eighteen albums
a civil rights ordinance that defined pornography as “the from 1983 to 2008, selling more than 200 million
graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through copies worldwide—believed to be the most ever by any
pictures and/or words.” The ordinance was briefly adopted female recording artist. A film actress, producer, and
in Minneapolis and Indianapolis but was later ruled children’s author as well as a pop music icon, Madonna is
unconstitutional. well known for generating controversy with the sexual,
Ever controversial, MacKinnon has faced opposition political, and religious imagery in her music and video
from every side of the political spectrum. The mainstream recordings and her live performances.
left has argued that her antipornography statute violates She was born Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone on
free speech guarantees under the First Amendment to August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan, and raised
the Constitution. Like legal scholar Richard Posner and in a Catholic family in the suburbs of Detroit. She left
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, many liberals believe that college and moved to New York in 1978 to pursue a
pornography should not be censored. dancing career and began singing with a rock band
332
Madonna 333
disappointed, however, when she did not speak out pub-

licly for their cause. Others, including women’s organi-
zations and parents, criticized the singer for promoting
teenage pregnancy.
With the release of her music video “Like a Prayer”
(1989), new controversy erupted because of the mix of
Catholic imagery and eroticism. At one point in the
video, Madonna appears to be making out with Jesus. The
Pope openly condemned this video, and Pepsi canceled
its Madonna television commercial.
Madonna’s book Sex (1992), an instant best-seller,
featured a collection of hardcore sexual fantasies, poems,
and photos; Madonna was depicted acting out sexual
fantasies, including sadomasochism. She stirred further
controversy the following year with the explicit sexual
overtones and her irreverent behavior as a dominatrix
in The Girlie Show world tour. A marked change in
behavior began to be seen with the release of her album
Bedtime Stories (1994) and her Golden Globe–winning
performance in the film Evita (1996), but Madonna’s
calm demeanor proved fleeting.
At the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998, Madonna
angered Hindus when she sported facial markings consid-
ered holy during her performance of “Ray of Light.” Her
eighth album, Music (2000), debuted at number one on
the Billboard Charts and led to more raised eyebrows. The
music video for “What It Feels Like for a Girl” (2000),
directed by her husband, Guy Ritchie, contained so much
explicit violence that both MTV and VH1 banned the
The Catholic-born pop superstar Madonna has raised video after only one airing. In the video, Madonna went
the hackles of church groups, cultural conservatives, and on a rampage of violence, including ramming a car into
parental organizations, among others, with her irreverent a group of people, shooting a water pistol at police, and
lyrics and sexually explicit performances. (Frank Micelotta/ running the car into a lightpost.
Getty Images) In 2003, Madonna released another controversial
album, American Life. The video to the title track con-
called the Breakfast Club. Her career took off in the tained graphic scenes of war and finished with Madonna
early 1980s after she signed a recording contract. Her throwing a grenade in the lap of a George W. Bush look-
debut album, Madonna (1983), produced Top 10 hits alike. She pulled the video but still earned a reputation
that established her as a star. She also began her pioneer- as unpatriotic and anti-American. Later that same year,
ing work in music videos, appearing in elaborate, often the singer caused a stir by French kissing Britney Spears
sexually explicit productions that helped make her a and Christina Aguilera on stage during the MTM Video
multimedia pop-culture star. Her song lyrics, music Music Awards program.
videos, live performances, and publications all pushed Madonna’s Confessions tour led to another contro-
conventional boundaries of decency. At the First An- versy with the Catholic Church. She performed “Live to
nual MTV Video Music Awards, she performed “Like a Tell” (2006) while hanging on a cross with a crown of
Virgin” (1984) wearing a wedding dress while writhing thorns on her head. The act outraged Catholics, and there
on stage, simulating masturbation, shocking viewers were calls for Madonna’s excommunication. The concert
and incensing critics. The Who’s That Girl Tour (1987) also received criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church
featured Madonna in fishnet stockings and a corset with and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia,
gold-tipped conical breasts. adding more entries to the list of groups disenchanted
Madonna’s 1986 song “Papa Don’t Preach” raised with the singer’s use of religious symbolism.
new issues by addressing teenage pregnancy and abor- In 2008, Madonna was inducted into the Rock and
tion. Conservatives interpreted the line “But I made up Roll Hall of Fame, released the album Hard Candy,
my mind, I’m keeping my baby” to mean that Madonna signed a $100 million deal with the concert promoter
advocated a pro-life stance. Opponents of abortion were Live Nation, and agreed to provide a divorce settlement
33 4 Mailer, Nor man
of between $76 million and $92 million to actor Guy writing. He twice ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New
Ritchie (earlier she had divorced actor Sean Penn). York City (1960 and 1969), the first time shortly after
stabbing his second wife while in a drunken state. (He
Margaret Dykes had six marriages.) From 1984 to 1986, he served as the
president of PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists,
See also: Abortion; Catholic Church; National Organization and Novelists). Mailer died on November 10, 2007.
for Women; Penn, Sean; Pornography; Race; Rock and Roll; One of Mailer’s early controversies was the publica-
Rodman, Dennis. tion of “The White Negro” (1957), an essay in Dissent
that romanticized the black male as the prototype of the
Further Reading hipster. Mailer suggested that black Americans are truly
Bego, Mark. Madonna: Blonde Ambition. New York: Harmony liberated, including sexually, because they are not part of
Books, 1992. mainstream society. The black novelist James Baldwin,
Benson, Carol, and Allan Metz, eds. The Madonna Companion: Two in his Esquire essay “The Black Boy Looks at the White
Decades of Commentary. New York: Shirmer Books, 1999. Boy” (1961), accused Mailer of reducing the American
Guilbert, Georges-Claude. Madonna as Postmodern Myth: How Negro male to “a kind of walking phallic symbol.” The
One Star’s Self-Construction Rewrites Sex, Gender, Hollywood, and Beat novelist Jack Kerouac objected to Mailer for link-
the American Dream. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. ing hipsters with violent psychopaths. Indeed, Mailer
Madonna Official Web site. www.madonna.com. connected the bravery of criminals with the countercul-
Paglia, Camille. “Mercurial Girl.” Rolling Stone, May 18, 2006. ture in general. In an infamous passage of “The White
Negro”—which Norman Podhoretz deplored as “the
most morally gruesome”—Mailer praises hypothetical
M a i l e r, N o r m a n hoodlums who would be daring enough to “beat in the
The author of more than thirty books, Norman Mailer brains” of a candy-store owner.
was a social commentator and cultural provocateur as In the essay collection Advertisements for Myself (1959),
well as one of America’s most prominent literary figures Mailer categorized himself as a major writer with the
in the latter half of the twentieth century. Remembered potential of changing American culture. “The way to save
for his New Journalism writings, which blended fiction your work and reach many more readers is to advertise
and nonfiction, Mailer chronicled the counterculture yourself,” he wrote, explaining why he sought the public
and the New Left as a participant observer. Many of his spotlight, which some regarded as a bald rationalization of
writings are infused with a philosophy of Manichean the author’s egotism. Mailer explained that, in his mind,
dualism, a binary construct of reality: good and evil, he had been running for president for the past decade,
“hip” and “square,” and the like. A self-described “left adding, “I am imprisoned with a perception which will
conservative,” Mailer regarded American society as a settle for nothing less than making a revolution in the
battleground between what is natural and artificial. He was consciousness of our time.” By the 1970s, he would have
“left” in that he favored “hipsters” and radicals, viewing less grandiose ambitions, concluding that novelists had
them as existentialists fighting against conformity and lost their stature in society.
“technological fascism.” He was “conservative” in that he In the meantime, he joined in the political clamor of
favored primitivism, famously asserting that technology his day. On invitation of the Students for a Democratic
(including birth control), plastic, and cancer all are Society (SDS), Mailer spoke at the University of California
related to the unnatural and inauthentic modern lifestyle. at Berkeley during the spring of 1965. Addressing the
Mailer’s writings from the 1950s through the 1970s student crowd, he ridiculed President Lyndon Johnson
marked his major participation in the culture wars. and the Vietnam War, arguing that rational debate was
Norman Kingsley Mailer was born on January 31, pointless and that the only way to end the war was to
1923, in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in engage in outrageous forms of protest. He later wrote
Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Harvard Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967), a novel about a manly
University (SB, aeronautical engineering, 1943), he was bear hunt in Alaska that uses the word “Vietnam” only
drafted into the army and served in the Pacific theater once (on the last page), but serves as an allegory of the
during World War II. When the war was over, he at- U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia. This was followed by
tended the Sorbonne in Paris and published The Naked and his most acclaimed nonfiction work, the Pulitzer Prize–
the Dead (1946), a bleak, hyper-real war novel, suggesting winning Armies of the Night (1968), an account of the 1967
that the defeat of fascism came at the price of adopting antiwar march on the Pentagon, including his arrest, and
some of its ways. Mailer became instantly famous and a probing study of the New Left. In this work, what he
went on to practice a hipster lifestyle. He co-founded called “history as a novel, the novel as history,” Mailer
the alternative Greenwich Village weekly newspaper the refers to himself in the third person as “the Novelist,”
Village Voice (1955) and used it to experiment with essay “the Ruminator,” “the General,” and “the Historian.”
Malcolm X 335
Also in 1968, he produced Miami and the Siege of Chicago, rhetoric against perceived social injustices experienced
a work covering the two party conventions but focusing by African Americans. He also criticized blacks for their
heavily on the antiwar violence in Chicago that year at the self-loathing, which he attributed to “brainwashing” on
Democratic National Convention. That event, in Mailer’s the part of the “white devils.” A critic of the Reverend
view, represented the Democratic Party turning against Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent resistance
its working-class base. against segregation, Malcolm X advocated violent self-
In response to feminist attacks against him, Mailer defense. Renewed interest in this controversial figure
wrote The Prisoner of Sex (1971), in which he specifi- followed the release of Spike Lee’s biographical film,
cally targets Kate Millett, the author of Sexual Politics: Malcolm X (1992).
A Manifesto of Revolution (1970). Millett, he contends, The son of a Baptist minister who was an adherent
had taken male authors out of context in deconstructing of Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa movement, Malcolm
their “gender bias.” In Mailer’s view, biology constitutes X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Oma-
at least half of a woman’s destiny, and feminist ideology ha, Nebraska. In 1929, the family moved to Lansing,
has certain totalitarian aspects. Although his retort was Michigan, where the father died two years later under
strong and mean-spirited, referring to Millet as “Kate- mysterious circumstances; Malcolm later blamed white
baby” and “laboratory assistant Kate,” Mailer is credited supremacists. Following his mother’s admittance to a
with being the first major male writer to seriously address mental institution, Malcolm and his siblings were placed
the women’s liberation movement. in foster homes. He moved to Boston at age sixteen, then
Mailer ended the 1970s with The Executioner’s Song drifted to Harlem in New York City, and returned to
(1979), about the murder and robbery spree of Gary Boston, where he got involved in drug-related activity
Gilmore and his subsequent death by firing squad in and ended up incarcerated for burglary (1946–1952).
Utah. This work, billed as “a true-life novel,” won Mailer During his imprisonment, Malcolm converted to Is-
his second Pulitzer Prize and provoked a national debate lam as a member of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam,
on capital punishment. Mailer, however, was more inter- or Black Muslim movement. Shortly after his release,
ested in the relativism of good and evil. He explored how having taken the name of “X” and discarded the “slave
each character in the story, which he initially entitled name” Little, he was appointed the assistant minister to
American Virtue, had a different concept of virtue. Mailer Muslim Temple Number One in Detroit. He went on
regarded Gilmore as “a monster who killed two people, to establish mosques in Boston and Philadelphia, and by
but not totally a monster.” Later, Mailer was blamed for 1963 had become the leading spokesman and national
his role in the paroling of Jack Henry Abbott, the author minister of the Black Muslim movement. Later that year,
of a collection of prison letters to Mailer entitled In the however, following the assassination of President John
Belly of the Beast (1981), who, weeks after being released, F. Kennedy, he was censured by Elijah Muhammad for
fatally stabbed a waiter. comments about “chickens coming home to roost.”
Roger Chapman In 1964, disenchanted with his mentor, who was
embroiled in a sex scandal, Malcolm left the Nation
See also: Counterculture; Democratic Party; Feminism, Third- to form the Organization of Afro-American Unity. At
Wave; Generations and Generational Conflict; Gilmore, this juncture, he changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-
Gary; Kerouac, Jack; Millett, Kate; New Journalism; New Shabazz, believing it more akin to his adopted religion
Left; Students for a Democratic Society; Vietnam War; War and African ancestry. Following a pilgrimage to Mecca
Protesters. that year, he returned to the United States with a broader
vision, one more hopeful of racial harmony. On February
Further Reading 21, 1965, Malcolm was gunned down in Harlem, New
Dearborn, Mary V. Mailer: A Biography. Boston: Houghton York, while giving a speech. (A week earlier his home
Mifflin, 1999. had been firebombed.) The three assassins were members
Lennon, J. Michael. Conversations with Norman Mailer. Oxford: of the Nation of Islam.
University Press of Mississippi, 1988. What many regard as the quintessential or defining
———. Critical Essays on Norman Mailer. Boston: G.K. Hall, speech by Malcolm X, delivered in Cleveland, Ohio, on
1986. April 3, 1964, is titled “The Ballot or the Bullet.” In a
Wenke, Joseph. Mailer’s America. Hanover, NH: University call for unity among the 22 million “Africans who are
Press of New England, 1987. in America,” Malcolm chastised listeners to “wake up”
and realize that “it’s got to be the ballot or the bullet.”
Referring to the filibuster then taking place in the Senate
Malcolm X against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he charged a “seg-
The black nationalist Malcolm X shocked mainstream regationist conspiracy” led by Democrats who officially
America during the 1950s and 1960s with his angry speak in favor of civil rights but do not expel from their
33 6 Man son, Mar ily n
party the Dixiecrats (the southern Democrats) impeding performing naked during the group’s “American Family
progress for black rights. If the government cannot pro- Tour.” Consistent with another stage antic—tearing apart
vide protection to blacks, he argued, then “it’s time for Bibles—Manson became an honorary ordained reverend
Negroes to defend themselves.” in the Church of Satan in 1988.
Roger Chapman While Manson’s detractors have focused on the
pornographic and Satanist themes in his music and
See also: Afrocentrism; Civil Rights Movement; Haley, Alex; performances, others have hailed him as a champion of
King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Lee, Spike; Muslim Americans; Na- free speech because he pushes the bounds of the First
tion of Islam; White Supremacists. Amendment. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), Music Industry Coalition (Mass MIC),
Further Reading Rock Out Censorship (ROC), and Parents for Rock and
Collins, Rodnell, and Ella Coll. Malcolm X: The Man Behind the Rap have taken up the cause of defending Manson and his
Myth. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. right to free expression. Others have dismissed Manson
Conyers, James L., and Andrew P. Smallwood. Malcolm X: A as simply the latest shock rocker in the tradition of early
Historical Reader. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, heavy metal bands such as Alice Cooper and Kiss, who
2008. used outrageous stage theatrics to sell more albums.
Malcolm X, with Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Manson’s infamy grew in the wake of the 1999 Colum-
New York: Ballantine Books, 1965, 1992. bine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, when
Tyner, James A. The Geography of Malcolm X: Black Radicalism and it was learned that the two assailants had been influenced
the Remaking of American Space. New York: Routledge, 2006. by his music. In response, Manson had a letter printed in
Wilson, August. “The Legacy of Malcolm X.” Life, December Rolling Stone magazine, stating that American society and
1992. not his music is to be blamed for the killings. Despite
the controversy, he has maintained a large cult following,
consisting largely of suburban teens who dress in black
Manson, Marilyn attire and wear black makeup.
Controversial rock musician Marilyn Manson, born David J. Childs
Brian Hugh Warner, legally changed his name to the
one that he used in his performing group, combining See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Censorship; Fam-
the names of film star Marilyn Monroe and cult figure ily Values; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gun Control; Moore,
Charles Manson to reflect the dark genre of “shock Michael; Rock and Roll; School Shootings.
rock.” Conservative, pro-family, and Christian groups
have blamed Marilyn Manson’s music and stagecraft for Further Reading
negative youth trends such as teen suicide, drug use, Marilyn Manson Web site. www.marilynmanson.com.
and school shootings. Manson, Marilyn, and Neil Strauss. The Long Hard Road Out of
Born in Canton, Ohio, on January 5, 1969, he began Hell. New York: Regan Books, 1999.
attending Heritage Christian School in Canton in 1974 Rogers, Kalen. Marilyn Manson: The Unauthorized Biography.
but later transferred to the public school system, taking New York: Omnibus, 1997.
with him a negative view of the Christian religion that
would later be expressed in his music. In 1989, while liv-
ing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he formed the Goth band M a p p l e t h o r p e , Ro b e r t
Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids. He has produced Robert Mapplethorpe was an acclaimed American artist
nearly a dozen albums, including Portrait of the American whose provocative black-and-white photographs gener-
Family (1994), Antichrist Superstar (1996), Holy Wood (In ated intensive debates over the nature of obscenity and
the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (2000), and The Golden the role of the state in funding and censoring works of art.
Age of Grotesque (2003). He has also appeared on televi- Though well known in artistic circles before his death
sion and in films, including Michael Moore’s Bowling for in March 1989, Mapplethorpe made national headlines
Columbine (2002). later that year when conservative senator Jesse Helms
In the tradition of shock rock, Manson has been (R-NC) brought the artist’s photographs to the floor of
known to startle audiences by appearing at concerts the U.S. Senate in an attempt to introduce content re-
dressed in knee-high black boots, women’s clothing, strictions on grants provided through the National En-
black eyeliner and lipstick, white foundation makeup, dowment for the Arts (NEA). Helms’s campaign result-
and bizarre contact lenses. Stage props have included fire, ed in record attendance at Mapplethorpe’s exhibitions,
animals, cages, raw chicken parts, and chainsaws—and he a dramatic increase in the value of the photographer’s
has been known to expose himself during performances. work, and reduced budgets and a climate of defensive-
In 1994, he was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, for ness at the NEA.
Marriage Names 337
Mapplethorpe, born on November 4, 1946, in Reaction to the Controversy over NEA Funding for Robert
Floral Park, New York, left home at the age of sixteen Mapplethorpe’s ‘The Perfect Moment’ Exhibit.” Journalism and
to pursue a career in fine arts. After receiving a BFA Mass Communication Quarterly 75:2 (Summer 1998): 278–91.
from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1970, he began Morrisroe, Patricia. Robert Mapplethorpe: A Biography. New York:
constructing images that combined magazine photo- Papermac, 1995.
graphs, painting, and found objects. He later took up
photography, producing a number of self-portraits,
images of celebrities such as Andy Warhol, Richard Marriage Names
Gere, and Deborah Harry, a series of photographs of The 1970s brought a change in the custom in which a
bodybuilder Lisa Lyons, album covers for New Wave bride automatically forfeited her maiden name upon
rockers Patti Smith and Television, and floral still lifes. marriage and took the surname of her husband. At the
It was Mapplethorpe’s frank depictions of homoerotic time, some businesses refused to issue credit cards to
and sadomasochistic themes, however, that would gar- women under their own names, instead issuing cards that
ner the most notoriety among political and religious read, for example, Mrs. John Smith. After the feminist
conservatives. He died in Boston of complications from movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, however, a variety
AIDS on March 9, 1989. of options became more culturally acceptable for marriage
Mapplethorpe’s work entered the culture wars af- names, not only for women but for men as well.
ter the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia Although a seemingly innocuous personal choice,
received a $30,000 grant from the NEA to organize an the issue of marriage names sparked considerable debate
exhibition of his photography entitled The Perfect Mo- in America. Many conservatives and religious leaders
ment. The exhibit opened without controversy in the fall argued that a woman who does not take her husband’s
of 1988, and then traveled to Chicago in February of the name is not committed to her role as a wife and that a
following year. However, shortly before it was to have man who does not insist that his wife take his surname
opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, is weak.
D.C., in June, Helms obtained a catalog of the exhibit. Women who chose to retain their maiden name,
The senator, already alarmed over NEA support for an however, argued that adopting their husband’s name
exhibit featuring Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (which de- would be tantamount to enslaving themselves and for-
picted a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine), convinced going individual rights. Many professional women who
the Senate to pass legislation that banned federal fund- had built careers before marriage preferred to keep their
ing for works of art considered obscene. Helms’s actions names. These same women might choose to take their
drew praise from conservative organizations such as the husband’s name when placed in a public role—as Hil-
American Family Association and Citizens for Commu- lary Rodham did when her husband, Bill Clinton, ran for
nity Values, and fierce condemnation from arts groups, governor of Arkansas.
liberals, and free-speech advocates. The practices of retaining one’s maiden name, tak-
The Corcoran Gallery, meanwhile, canceled its ing a spouse’s surname, hyphenating both surnames, or
planned showing of The Perfect Moment, a decision that led combining the two surnames into a new name are all ac-
to widespread protest and an eventual apology from the ceptable in American culture today. In fact, the trend for
gallery. When the exhibit opened at the Contemporary a man to take on his wife’s surname or for both husband
Art Center in Cincinnati in 1990, gallery officials were and wife to take both surnames is increasing. However,
indicted for pandering obscenity, though they were later when faced with children’s surnames, many couples
acquitted. Following the 1994 Republican takeover of continue the tradition of using the husband’s surname
Congress, the NEA suffered a budget reduction of about in order to avoid confusion with the schools and other
40 percent as a result of the Mapplethorpe controversy social situations. Some women who choose this option
and associated issues. argue that there is little difference between carrying their
Robert Teigrob husband’s last name and carrying their father’s.
The marriage name issue has been more controversial
See also: AIDS; Alexander, Jane; Censorship; Gays in Popu- in the United States than in other countries that have
lar Culture; Helms, Jesse; National Endowment for the Arts; prescribed rules about surnames. In France, for instance,
National Endowment for the Humanities; Pornography; Ser- women maintain their birth name for all legal documents
rano, Andres; Warhol, Andy; Wildmon, Donald. but use their husband’s surname in social situations. In
Spain, Latin America, and China, women usually main-
Further Reading tain their birth name after marriage. In America, couples
Mapplethorpe, Robert. Mapplethorpe. New York: Random now have a myriad of choices as to marriage names.
House, 1992.
McLeod, Douglas, and Jill Mackenzie. “Print Media and Public Tanya Hedges Duroy
33 8 Mar x ism
See also: Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Ferraro, Geraldine; great debate on the left, including feminists, civil rights
Feminism, Second-Wave; Ms. supporters, and other political activists, as some liberals
seek to analyze and resist the forces of globalization.
Further Reading The popular discourse of the Cold War convinced
Forbes, Gordon B., Leah E. Adams-Curtis, Kay B. White, and many in the United States that Marxism is the exact op-
Nicole R. Hamm. “Perceptions of Married Women and Mar- posite of American capitalist democracy. Although the
ried Men with Hyphenated Surnames.” Sex Roles: A Journal communist movement once had a limited foothold in
of Research (March 2002): 167–75. American society, primarily with the labor movement,
Johnson, David R., and Laurie K. Scheuble. “Women’s Marital by the 1950s there was little or no tolerance for members
Naming in Two Generations: A National Study.” Journal of or sympathizers of the Communist Party of the United
Marriage and Family 57 (1995): 724–32. States of America (CPUSA). During the “Red Scare” of
Scheuble, Laurie K., and David R. Johnson. “Married Women’s that decade, it was dangerous for anyone to maintain
Situational Use of Last Names: An Empirical Study.” Sex any affiliation with the CPUSA or related organizations,
Roles: A Journal of Research (July 2005): 143–51. known as “communist fronts.” Such individuals, includ-
ing teachers, government bureaucrats, unionists, writers,
and filmmakers, were sniffed out and fired, blacklisted,
Marxism or imprisoned—whether they were actual members,
The ghost of Karl Marx continues to hover over arguments erstwhile sympathizers, or just opponents of what they
between the left and right in America, particularly when regarded as a “witch hunt.”
the debate focuses on economic disparities. Between the “Red baiting” remained a common political tactic
end of World War II in 1945 and the end of the Cold even as the 1960s ushered in a period of radicalism.
War in 1991, the conflict between the two superpowers, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s reluctance to pull U.S.
the United States and the Soviet Union, was generally forces out of Vietnam was motivated in part by a fear of
understood as a contest between communism (or being seen as “soft on communism.” President Richard
Marxism) and capitalism. Although the end of the Cold M. Nixon, only because he for years had garnered a strong
War was widely attributed in the democratic West to anticommunist reputation, was later able to withdraw
the inherent weakness of communism, Marx’s criticisms U.S. troops from Vietnam and establish ties with com-
of the effects of capitalism remain potent for many on munist China. Ronald Reagan, who as a Hollywood
the left. actor had testified as a friendly witness before the House
Marxism is a political and economic theory that origi- Committee on Un-American Activities, emphasized his
nated in the nineteenth century with such writings by strong anticommunist views on the campaign trail, and as
Karl Marx as Das Kapital (Capital, 1867–1894) and The president he called the Soviet Union “an evil empire.”
Communist Manifesto (1848), written with Friedrich En- In other countries, however, and for academics in
gels. Focusing on economic relationships, Marx regarded the United States, Marxism has remained an intellectual
class as the primary political interest motivating human and political force. Contemporary Marxist scholars use
activity and leading to political conflict. According to the perspective of class struggle in considering such
classic Marxist theory, the system of capitalism inevitably phenomena as mass culture and how it masks the effects
causes exploitation and thereby contains the seeds of its of capitalism, anticolonial struggles in the Third World,
own destruction. Marx argued that capitalism produces and globalization. Marxist ideas have also been reflected
alienation; people as workers are forced into a wage system in the antisweatshop movement, global unionization
that exploits their labor and robs them of control over movement, protests against the World Trade Organiza-
their own lives—leading ultimately to worldwide revo- tion, and liberation theology in Latin America. Some
lution. Although Marx predicted that capitalism would international leaders, particularly in the Third World,
collapse because of its own “internal logic,” communist have turned to Marxist theory in critiquing American
systems based on Marxism have repeatedly failed. hegemony.
In the United States, Marxism has been primarily While Marxism remains a powerful source of ideas
an academic theory, with only limited effective political for the political left, its emphasis on economic power
action, while opposition to Marxist ideas is an almost and class identity has embroiled the theory and its ad-
obligatory rallying cry for both major political parties. vocates in struggles within the left. Marxists have long
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Marxism criticized what they call the fragmentation caused by
does not pose a serious threat to American power, but it various groups on the left, arguing that feminists, civil
remains a much demonized ideology in the United States, rights advocates, and gay rights activists have divided the
particularly among conservatives, because of conditions left and distracted it from the primary struggle against
in and relations with holdover communist states such as capitalism.
Cuba and North Korea. Marxism has also been part of a Claire E. Rasmussen
McC ain , John 33 9
See also: Battle of Seattle; Cold War; Communists and Com- issues. He went before conservative antigay groups and
munism; Cuba; Feminism, Second-Wave; Gay Rights Move- spoke about tolerance. He also, however, supported every
ment; Globalization; McCarthyism; New Left; Race; Soviet aspect of the Republican Contract with America and
Union and Russia; Vietnam War; Wealth Gap. voted to impeach President Bill Clinton. The Republican
Party, he maintained, was large enough to include “dif-
Further Reading ferent voices in honorable disputes.”
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death That belief was tested during his bid for the Re-
of Communism in the Twentieth Century. New York: Collier, publican presidential nomination in 2000. Pushing his
1989. reformist agenda and touting the need for the McCain-
Elster, Jon. Making Sense of Marx. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Feingold campaign finance reform bill, opposed by the
University Press, 1985. vast majority of Republican incumbents, McCain said
Joseph, Jonathan. Marxism and Social Theory. New York: Palgrave the legislation was needed because trial lawyers control
Macmillan, 2006. Democrats and the insurance companies Republicans.
Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, His campaign bus, christened the Straight Talk Express,
the Golden Age, the Breakdown. New York: W.W. Norton, symbolized his desire to court moderates. Winning a
2008. surprisingly large victory over George W. Bush in the
Walker, David M., and Daniel Gray. Historical Dictionary of New Hampshire primary, McCain experienced a bitter
Marxism. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007. contest a few weeks later in South Carolina.
Bush started the South Carolina campaign with
a speech at ultra-conservative Bob Jones University,
McCain, John prompting religious conservatives like Pat Robertson
A prominent Republican U.S. senator from Arizona, to quickly line up against McCain. A vicious negative
John McCain has stood out as an enigmatic figure during campaign by Bush and a series of semi-official smear
the increasing political polarization of the culture wars. campaigns ensured the defeat of McCain, who decried
Although a self-avowed conservative, McCain has often Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance.”
held political and social positions that attract moderates After losing the majority of the primaries on Super Tues-
and independents while simultaneously putting him day, McCain suspended his campaign and eventually gave
at odds with the Religious Right and the base of his Bush a half-hearted endorsement. Later, he was more
own party. He won the Republican nomination for enthusiastic backing Bush’s reelection.
president of the United States in 2008 but was defeated During Bush’s second term McCain, thinking about
by Democrat Barack Obama on Election Day. another presidential run, began reaching out to social con-
The son of a high-ranking American naval officer, servatives while trying to retain the support of moderates.
John Sydney McCain III was born in the Panama Canal Thus, McCain voted against a constitutional amendment
Zone on August 29, 1936. After graduating from the banning same-sex marriage, but worked to stop same-sex
U.S. Naval Academy (1958), he became a navy pilot and marriage bills in Arizona; voted against Bush’s initial tax
was shot down over North Vietnam in October 1967. cuts, but later voted to make them permanent; and put
As a prisoner of war in Hanoi (1967–1973), he suffered himself at odds with Republicans over some gun control
torture and other violations of human rights. McCain measures and the handling of enemy combatants, but
retired from the military in 1981, moved to Arizona, and endorsed the teaching of Intelligent Design.
entered politics, first serving in the House of Representa- McCain’s 2008 primary campaign was a hard-fought
tives (1983–1987) and then succeeding Barry Goldwater affair among Republicans, but it ended much sooner than
in the Senate (1987–present). the drawn-out battle among Democrats that eventually
In Washington, McCain quickly earned a reputation saw Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the nomina-
as a maverick, although his political career was jeopar- tion. McCain won the GOP nomination in spite of heavy
dized in 1989 when he was investigated as one of the early opposition from many on the right, including
Keating Five, a group of senators accused of improperly influential radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, who dur-
shielding a corrupt savings-and-loan executive. In the ing the primaries said he would prefer a Democrat over
end, McCain was cleared of any illegality but criticized McCain. Many political observers felt that conservative
for acting with poor judgment. Republican primary voters split their allegiance among
McCain adopted a variety of positions at odds with other candidates, helping McCain win the nomination.
hardcore conservatives. He urged normalization of Hoping in part to energize the conservative Repub-
U.S.-Vietnamese relations as he worked on resolving lican base and to attract women voters who might have
the Vietnam MIA-POW issue. He favored sanctions on resented Obama not choosing Hillary Clinton as his
South Africa’s apartheid regime, federal support for fetal running mate, McCain chose Sarah Palin, the governor
tissue research, and a moderate approach to environmental of Alaska and a newcomer to national politics, as his vice
340 McC ar thy, Eugene
presidential candidate. Many conservatives applauded in New Hampshire (42 percent of the vote to Johnson’s
the choice, with William Kristol calling her “fantastic.” 49 percent) rested on the work of a legion of students
Others, including a columnist for the conservative and who got “Clean for Gene” and waged a door-to-door
influential National Review, worried about Palin’s record campaign. McCarthy’s White House bid altered
and performance during the campaign, felt that she was the political landscape: Johnson withdrew from the
“out of her league,” and urged her to bow out. During the presidential campaign, and Robert F. Kennedy declared
campaign, Palin energized many conservative rallies, but his candidacy.
her support among the general public fell quickly. By late Temperamentally conservative and introspective,
October, after a series of disastrous interviews with news McCarthy did not fit the pattern of a 1960s political
networks and being skewered by late-night comedians, a activist. His Vietnam stance during the New Hamp-
Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 55 percent shire campaign was vague, and he attracted more votes
of Americans felt she was not qualified to be president. from those who thought Johnson was insufficiently
McCain lost to Obama in the general election, gar- hawkish than from those who wanted immediate
nering almost 46 percent of the popular vote and only withdrawal. On the other hand, he proposed radical
173 of the 538 Electoral College votes. Besides losing solutions for some of the nation’s pressing social and
the traditional swing states of Ohio and Florida, McCain economic issues.
narrowly lost the red states of Virginia, North Carolina, Born on March 29, 1916, in Watkins, Minnesota,
and Indiana. The campaign was often sidetracked by Eugene Joseph McCarthy grew up in a deeply religious
extraneous issues, but in the end, the massive public Catholic household. He attended St. John’s University
rejection of the Bush presidency and the details of the (BA, 1935) and the University of Minnesota (MA, 1941),
growing economic crisis that came to light that fall taught public school, and was briefly a Benedictine novice
helped to secure Obama’s victory. After the election, the (1942–1943). His deep belief in Catholic social activism
Republican Party and right-wing conservatives began a soon led him into politics. In 1948, the Democratic Farm-
series of public and private deliberations to determine the er Labor Party nominated him to oppose the Republican
future course of the party. incumbent of Minnesota’s Fourth Congressional District.
John Day Tully He won the election and served five terms in the U.S.
House of Representatives (1949–1958), followed by two
See also: Bob Jones University; Campaign Finance Reform; terms in the U.S. Senate (1959–1971). Despite a generally
Clinton Impeachment; Contract with America; Creationism unimpressive legislative record, he was well regarded by
and Intelligent Design; Gay Rights Movement; Palin, Sarah; congressional colleagues, though many were surprised by
Religious Right; Republican Party; Same-Sex Marriage; Viet- his decision to challenge Johnson in 1968.
nam War. After the New Hampshire results, the race for the
Democratic nomination became a three-way contest
Further Reading among McCarthy, Kennedy (who soon emerged as the
Alexander, Paul. Man of the People: The Life of John McCain. front runner), and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Kennedy’s assassination in June left McCarthy dispirited
Drew, Elizabeth. Citizen McCain. New York: Simon & Schuster, and unfocused, his campaign lagging. He remained aloof
2002. after Humphrey was nominated, giving the vice president
McCain, John, with Mark Salter. Faith of My Fathers: A Family only a lukewarm, last-minute endorsement. McCarthy
Memoir. New York: Random House, 2008. retired from the Senate in 1971, a decision he seemed
———. Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir. New York: Random later to regret.
House, 2002. In retirement, McCarthy taught, lectured, and wrote
Schecter, Cliff. The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust poetry, political commentary, and other works. He tried
Him—and Why Independents Shouldn’t. Sausalito, CA: Poli- more than once to restart his political career, occasion-
PointPress, 2008. ally renewing old political connections or acting on old
Welch, Matt. McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. New York: Pal- grudges, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination
grave Macmillan, 2007. in 1972 and running an ill-fated independent campaign
for president in 1976. He died on December 10, 2005,
remembered primarily for his major role in the political
M c C a r t hy, E u g e n e drama of 1968.
Enigmatic and often unpredictable, U.S. Senator Gary L. Bailey
Eugene McCarthy (D-MN) attracted national attention
in 1968 when he carried the banner for antiwar forces See also: Catholic Church; Cronkite, Walter; Democratic Par-
by challenging President Lyndon B. Johnson in that ty; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Kennedy Family; Vietnam War; War
year’s first Democratic primary. His stunning showing Protesters.
McC ar thy, Joseph 3 41
Further Reading denounced the Democratic-controlled proceedings as a

LaFeber, Walter. The Deadly Bet: LBJ, Vietnam, and the 1968 whitewash. Tydings later that year lost his reelection race
Election. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. during a campaign in which McCarthy passed out fliers
Larner, Jeremy. Nobody Knows: Reflections on the McCarthy Cam- with a photograph of the Maryland legislator juxtaposed
paign of 1968. New York: Macmillan, 1969. with one of Earl Browder, the head of the Communist
McCarthy, Eugene J. First Things First: New Priorities for America. Party of the United States. Meanwhile, on June 1, 1950,
New York: New American Library, 1968. with McCarthy clearly in mind, freshman senator Mar-
Rising, George. Clean for Gene: Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 Presiden- garet Chase Smith (R-MA) delivered her “Declaration of
tial Campaign. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997. Conscience” speech on the Senate floor, arguing that those
Sandbrook, Dominic. Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of who “shout the loudest about Americanism” ignore “some
Postwar American Liberalism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, of the principles of Americanism” when they convert the
2004. Senate into “a forum of hate” and violate the Constitution
by using the tactic of “trial by accusation.”
As chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Inves-
M c C a r t hy, J o s e p h tigations, under the Senate Committee on Governmental
In the culture wars, the name Joseph McCarthy is Operations, McCarthy continued to make headlines
associated with the 1950s red scare and political witch as he hunted for communists in various parts of the
hunts referred to as McCarthyism. As a Republican government, including the Voice of America, the U.S.
U.S. senator from Wisconsin, McCarthy staked his Information Libraries, the Government Printing Office,
political reputation on fighting communist subversion and the Army Signal Corps. His tactics were called into
in the U.S. government, but in the end he was censured question by the renowned television journalist Edward
by his Senate colleagues for the manner in which R. Murrow in “Report on Senator McCarthy,” a See It
he conducted that attack. Although most historians Now program aired on March 9, 1954. The following
and political commentators remember McCarthy for month, the Senate began holding the Army-McCarthy
publicly accusing individuals of disloyalty by making hearings to investigate McCarthy’s allegations of com-
use of hearsay and insubstantial evidence for the purpose munist espionage in the army and the countercharge that
of political grandstanding, leaving ruined careers in the senator had sought preferential treatment from the
his wake, over the years some conservative revisionists army for one of his committee staff members who had
have defended his memory in a quest to rehabilitate been drafted. McCarthy’s rude and ruthless manner and
his public image. While most observers regard him as constant interruptions during the televised proceedings
a demagogue, a passionate few argue that he was the shocked many of the 20 million viewers, adding drama
victim of a liberal media. and poignancy to the moment when army counsel Joseph
Born into a large Catholic family on November 14, Welch pointedly asked McCarthy: “Have you no sense
1908, near Grand Chute, Wisconsin, Joseph Raymond of decency, sir, at long last?” A public backlash against
McCarthy grew up poor on a farm. Later, he obtained a McCarthy ensued, including a spirited recall drive in
law degree at Marquette University (LLB, 1935), took up Wisconsin. The senator’s detractors began wearing “Joe
the practice of law, and sought to launch a political career. Must Go” and “McCarthy for Fuehrer” buttons. As the
Although unsuccessful in campaigning as a Democrat for army hearings were winding down in June, Senator
Shawano County district attorney (1936), he later won a Ralph Flanders (VT-R) introduced a resolution to censure
nonpartisan race for the state’s tenth judicial circuit court McCarthy, and on December 2, 1954, the Senate voted
(1939). Following a stint as a Marine Corps intelligence 65–22 to condemn McCarthy for actions “contrary to
officer in the Pacific during World War II, he won a U.S. senatorial traditions.”
senate seat after narrowly defeating the progressive Robert During the 1960s, the Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
M. La Follette, Jr., in the 1946 Republican primary. He Educational Foundation, founded by members of the
was elected to a second term in 1952. McCarthy died on John Birch Society in Appleton, Wisconsin, began a
May 2, 1957, in Bethesda, Maryland, from liver failure campaign to address “the lies by politicians, educators
due to alcoholism. and members of the news media” about the late senator.
McCarthy’s notoriety began on February 9, 1950, The founders began hosting annual graveside services and
during an address to a Republican women’s club in remembrance dinners, and called for a commemorative
Wheeling, West Virginia, in which he made the ac- McCarthy postage stamp and a national holiday in his
cusation that many in the U.S. State Department were honor. In the same town, from January 2002 to January
communists or communist sympathizers. After an inves- 2004, the Outagamie Museum offered the nation’s first
tigation by the Tydings Committee, headed by Senator exhibit on McCarthy, using a purposefully ambiguous
Millard Tydings (D-MD), McCarthy’s charges were title: “Joseph McCarthy: A Modern Tragedy.”
dismissed as groundless—although some Republicans In perhaps what was the first major defense of
3 42 McC ar thy ism
cCarthyism, the conservative activist William F. Buck-

M the anticommunist crusade of the 1950s as personified
ley (with his brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell) published by the grandstanding of U.S. senator Joseph R.
McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning McCarthy (R-WI). McCarthy quickly became a symbol
(1954), arguing that McCarthy’s anticommunism was for the myriad efforts by American politicians and self-
“a movement around which men of goodwill and stern proclaimed patriots to outdo each other in exposing
morality can close ranks.” John A. Stormer, a member and ruining communists and other suspicious groups,
of the John Birch Society, followed with the best-seller policies, and lifestyles. It was generally believed that the
None Dare Call It Treason (1964), a work supportive of “containment” of Soviet advances abroad—the mandate
McCarthy in that it warned that the United States was of the “cold war” inaugurated by President Harry Truman
losing the Cold War because of communist subversion in March 1947—necessitated similar vigilance at home.
in American society. Medford Evans, also a member of The term “McCarthyism” continues to circulate today
the John Birch Society, wrote The Assassination of Joe in the political rhetoric of the culture wars, referring to
McCarthy (1970); and years later his son, M. Stanton the kind of fear tactics, unsupported accusations, and
Evans, a writer for the National Review, published Black- demagoguery employed during the Red Scare.
listed by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy
and His Fight Against America’s Enemies (2007). In Joseph The “Brown Scare” and Formation
McCarthy: Reexamining the Legacy of America’s Most Hated of HUAC
Senator (2000), Arthur Herman, a one-time staffer at the In light of the fascist takeover in several European
Smithsonian Institution, argues that McCarthy was sim- countries during the 1920s and 1930s, Americans had
ply guilty of “making a good point badly.” These works begun to wonder whether such a thing might happen
attempt to vindicate McCarthy by suggesting that though in their country, making conditions ripe for a “Brown
he made “mistakes,” the danger of communism was real Scare” (a reference to the brown shirts worn by Nazi
and something liberals generally refuse to acknowledge. storm troopers). Threats to democratic ideals seemed
In Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War evident, given the appearance of the German-American
on Terrorism (2003), the conservative pundit Ann Coulter Bund, the Silver Shirts, and other pro-Nazi groups.
asserts that “McCarthy’s crusade” benefited the country Although none of these organizations appeared ready to
by making it a “disgrace” to be a communist. lead a fascist revolution in America, several politicians,
Roger Chapman President Franklin Roosevelt among them, chose to play
on public fears. The political advantages became evident,
See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Cold War; Communists and for instance, when the America First Committee, a broad
Communism; Coulter, Ann; John Birch Society; La Follette, coalition of pacifists opposed to the U.S. military buildup
Robert, Jr.; Marxism; McCarthyism; Murrow, Edward R.; Re- and aid to Great Britain, was cast as a union of Nazi
publican Party; Revisionist History; Taft, Robert A. sympathizers—Roosevelt even had the FBI illegally tap
the phones of its leaders. Progressive Wisconsin Senator
Further Reading Robert La Follette, Jr., upset many conservatives when
Cunningham, Jesse G., and Laura K. Egendorf, eds. The Mc- he used his congressional probe, set up to investigate
Carthy Hearings. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2003. violations of the National Labor Relations Act (1935),
Evans, M. Stanton. Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of to paint anti-union industrialists as an equivalent danger
Joseph McCarthy and His Fight against America’s Enemies. New to New Deal community rebuilding.
York: Crown Forum, 2007. In this context, the House Committee on Un-
Oshinsky, David M. A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe American Activities (HUAC) was made permanent in
McCarthy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 1938. The body had been created by liberal Democrats
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. in 1934 to investigate the success of fascist propaganda.
New York: Little, Brown, 1998. Conservative Texas Democrat Martin Dies, who chaired
Thelen, David P., and Esther S. Thelen. “Joe Must Go: The HUAC from 1937 to 1944, made exaggerated, unsub-
Movement to Recall Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.” Wisconsin stantiated claims about the extent and scope of American
Magazine of History 49:3 (1965–1966): 185–209. fascism like his liberal predecessors. Under Dies’s leader-
ship, HUAC also began to target the radical and liberal
left. It used the specter of communist infiltration as a
M c C a r t hy i s m means to dismantle New Deal agencies conservatives
The term “McCarthyism” was coined by cartoonist had long opposed, including the Federal Theatre Project
Herbert Block (Herblock) in the March 29, 1950, (FTP), which was shut down in June 1939 after HUAC
edition of the Washington Post to refer to the campaign interrogation. With the 1946 Republican takeover of
to root out alleged communists from American Congress, Dies’s successors looked to work more aggres-
institutions. Not many were amused, however, during sively in exposing communism in America. Freshmen
McC ar thy ism 3 43
lin operative turned anticommunist journalist Whittaker

Chambers that such had been the case. Chambers named
Harvard-educated New Dealer Alger Hiss, who convinc-
ingly refuted the charges before HUAC, leading Truman
to condemn the committee’s partisanship. Chambers then
came out with copies of State Department documents
that Hiss had reportedly passed to him. Hiss went to
prison for perjury, and Democrats were perceived as be-
ing “soft on communism.” With the help of the liberal
anticommunist think tank Americans for Democratic
Action (ADA), Republicans went on to drive Popular
Front liberals out of prominence.
The transformation of anticommunism into a mass
cultural panic was further aided by the revelation of espio-
nage activity that passed on atomic secrets to the Soviet
Union—e.g., the cases of Klaus Fuchs (a former Manhat-
tan Project scientist) and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Congress added to HUAC the Senate Internal Security
Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations, which together considered over one
hundred cases between 1949 and 1954. The Smith Act
In a 1954 Herblock cartoon during the Army-McCarthy hear- (1940), originally targeting fascist plots to overthrow the
ings, Senator Joe McCarthy holds a “doctored photo” and U.S. federal government, was used to prosecute twelve
“faked letter” that he claimed were FBI documents. (A 1954 Communist Party leaders in 1948. This antisubversion
Herblock Cartoon, copyright by The Herb Block Foundation)
law was strengthened by the Internal Security or Mc
Carran Act (1950) and the Communist Control Act
senators Richard Nixon (R-CA) and Joseph McCarthy (1954). The FBI and Loyalty Review Boards, as part of
(who ousted La Follette) would join in this task. Truman’s Loyalty Program (1947), would investigate
millions of federal employees well into the 1950s, result-
“Red Scare” Politics and Culture ing in thousands of resignations and dismissals but no
After the demise of the Soviet Union in the early formal charges of espionage. In addition, a number of
1990s, U.S. access to Soviet archives and the Venona teachers and lawyers were fired without explanation after
surveillance project (secret U.S. eavesdropping on Soviet the FBI began leaking confidential findings to employ-
communications during and after World War II) suggest ers. In 1947, U.S. attorney general Tom Clark added to
that Americans had more cause to dread “red” subversion his initial “list” of pro-German and pro-Japanese groups
than “brown.” While official Communist Party numbers up to 154 communist and “front” organizations. The
in the United States peaked around 100,000 in 1939, Taft-Hartley Act (1946), along with widely circulated
members were loyal to the Soviet Union. In turn, they publications such as Red Channels (1950) put out by
were used to recruit and plant spies in key government former FBI agents, empowered citizens to ensure that
agencies. During the 1930s “Popular Front” supporters, communists and “fellow travelers” would no longer serve
trying to ground socialism in American domestic in labor unions, Hollywood, or television.
policies, had become an important and visible wing of
the New Deal coalition. By some estimates, 10 million McCarthy’s Rise and Fall
American workers belonged to unions with communist The “scare” aspect of the anticommunist campaign
leadership in 1947. was directly attributable to the rhetoric and tactics of
The second Red Scare (the first took place during Senator Joseph McCarthy beginning in the early 1950s.
World War I) began to coalesce when HUAC launched Having watched from behind as fellow Republican
an investigation of Hollywood in 1946. Committee mem- Richard Nixon led the initial congressional charge
bers targeted a broad political spectrum of entertainers against Soviet penetration, McCarthy was provoked by
for accusations of disloyalty—although it was true that the unexpected fall of China to communists in 1949 to
nine of the Hollywood Ten charged with contempt for launch a broader campaign. In a Lincoln Day speech in
refusing to testify had been members of the Communist February 1950, he claimed to have compiled a list of
Party. HUAC Republicans felt vindicated when, after 205 known communists then working for the U.S. State
having lambasted New Deal Democrats for harboring Department. Some of these names were of individuals
Soviet spies, they received testimony from former Krem- who had failed to pass security screenings in 1946,
344 McC ar thy ism
mostly for reasons other than ties to the Communist Trumbo) even received screen credit for Exodus (1960) and
Party, as the Democratic-controlled (Millard) Tydings Spartacus (1960). Nonetheless, the federal government
Committee later established. This committee unwit did not cease its campaign against perceived political
tingly gave McCarthy a platform to spin more stories subversion. For example, in 1956, the FBI began its
of communist destruction of the American way of Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to disrupt
life. Still seeking revenge for the profiling of political the Communist Party, which by that time had only about
conservatives as Nazis during World War II, McCarthy 3,000 members. By the 1960s, COINTELPRO agents
and Republicans found the post-Hiss Democratic were infiltrating, intimidating, and sometimes attacking
administration an easy target. Before long, television protest groups, mostly leftist ones, such as the Students
cameras would be capturing McCarthy’s complaints for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panthers. In
that President Truman, secretary of state Dean Acheson, 1974, President Richard Nixon, who earlier had politically
and former secretary of state George Marshall had more benefited by exploiting the fear of communism, resigned
or less orchestrated China’s “enslavement.” from office in order to avoid impeachment for his abuse of
Winning the chairmanship of the Subcommittee executive power in the Watergate scandal.
on Investigations in 1953, McCarthy became an even During the 1980s, media watchdog and political
more polarizing figure. He was a crystallizing center for conservative Reed Irvine, began Accuracy in Academia
popular opposition to New Deal planning, public health (AIA), enlisting student volunteers to anonymously
programs, the United Nations, and homosexuals (even monitor class lectures on college campuses and report
though his top aide was bisexual). A 1954 poll suggested “liberal bias.” This type of surveillance of academia later
that 50 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of became the forte of neoconservatives, including David
the senator. He especially found friends among fellow Horowitz and Daniel Pipes, who founded organizations
Catholics, including William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of such as Students for Academic Freedom and Campus
the National Review and an early voice of the conserva- Watch. These organizations named names of professors
tive resurgence. All the same, the liberal ADA painted thought to be biased and misleading, and the Internet
McCarthy as a reckless, self-interested demagogue. became a tool for singling out liberal professors. Horow-
Members of his own party, like Maine senator Margaret itz also published a book entitled The Professors: The 101
Chase Smith, publicly condemned McCarthy’s “character Most Dangerous Academics in America (2006). All of this,
assassinations” as unbecoming of the country he claimed opponents have argued, amounts to a campaign in the
to defend. In The Crucible (1952), blacklisted playwright spirit of McCarthyism.
Arthur Miller revisited the seventeenth-century Salem Indeed, it is difficult to peruse political blogs and not
witch hunts to insinuate the similarly irrational essence find occasional references to McCarthyism. Some oppo-
of McCarthyism. “We must not confuse dissent with dis- nents of drug testing, for example, refer to the practice as
loyalty,” concluded CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow “chemical McCarthyism”; others critical of health checks
in his 1954 See It Now indictment of the senator. for obesity refer to that idea as “medical McCarthyism.”
The backlash against McCarthy in 1954 signaled a To characterize any public policy or proposal as Mc
temporary halt to McCarthyism. Having been united by Carthyism—whether it be zero-tolerance law enforcement,
anticommunism but then divided by McCarthy, Demo- proposals for a national ID card, antismoking restrictions,
crats and Republicans once again united when McCarthy or virtually any perceived form of “Big Brother” moni-
turned on Eisenhower appointees and various military toring—is to suggest that it is sinister, unfair, a threat to
personnel. The televised Army-McCarthy hearings in individual freedom, and driven by ulterior motives.
April were the senator’s final undoing. During a dramatic Some civil libertarians castigated President George
episode, after McCarthy revealed that an assistant investi- W. Bush for his response to terrorism following the at-
gative attorney years earlier had been a fleeting member of tacks of September 11, arguing that he took advantage
the leftist National Lawyers’ Guild, attorney for the army of public fear to advance his conservative agenda while
Joseph Welch asked him, “Have you no sense of decency, unfairly portraying his opponents as “soft on terrorism.”
sir, at long last?” Thinking he did not, the Senate voted The USA PATRIOT Act (2001), which Bush persuaded
overwhelmingly to censure him in December. McCarthy Congress to pass, was quickly characterized by critics as
died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1957. being in the tradition of the Smith and McCarran Acts be-
cause of perceived harm to civil and academic freedoms in
McCarthyism Continued the name of national security. In response to such charges,
In a renewed interest in civil liberties, a series of U.S. conservative pundit Ann Coulter wrote Treason (2003),
Supreme Court cases in 1957 and 1958 curbed the accusing liberals of trying to impede counterterrorism ef-
anticommunist powers of Congress and the White House. forts by resorting to unfair comparisons to McCarthyism.
Also, in 1962, the blacklisting of entertainers came to This did not stop film actor George Clooney from offering
an end—one of the Hollywood Ten (screenwriter Dalton a tribute to Edward R. Murrow in the film Good Night,
McGover n, George 3 45
and Good Luck (2005), which some reviewers interpreted that fail to explain many aspects of human behavior.
as a kind of editorial that praised one who directly opposed Although there are numerous references to gender in
McCarthy in order to speak out against the post-9/11 this work, the economist was a founding member of the
political climate. International Association for Feminist Economics prior
Mark Edwards to the sex-change operations, suggesting some continuity
of thought regardless of gender identity.
See also: Academic Freedom; Chambers, Whittaker; Cold War; McCloskey’s memoir Crossing (1999) explains the
Communists and Communism; Hiss, Alger; Hollywood Ten; decision behind the sex-change operation and the sub-
Horowitz, David; Irvine, Reed; Labor Unions; McCarthy, Jo- sequent ramifications, including a divorce after thirty
seph; Murrow, Edward R.; Neoconservatism; Nixon, Richard; years of marriage and other family problems. Laura A.
USA PATRIOT Act. McCloskey, a psychology professor at the University
of Arizona and sister of the economist, tried to get her
Further Reading brother committed to a mental hospital, an action that
Cole, David. “The New McCarthyism: Repeating History in was subsequently condemned in a resolution passed by the
the War on Terrorism.” Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Social Science History Association. Deirdre McCloskey’s
Law Review 38 (Winter 2003): 1–30. academic Web site has included personal references about
Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspec- her transgender experience, as well as links to GenderPAC
tive. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. (Gender Public Advocacy Coalition) and the International
Haynes, John E. Red Scare or Red Menace? American Communism Foundation for Gender Education.
and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era. Chicago: Ivan R. Critics have charged McCloskey with perpetuating
Dee, 1996. stereotypes about women. The economist claimed, for
Heale, M.J. McCarthy’s Americans: Red Scare Politics in State and Na- example, that changing genders made her gentler and
tion, 1935–1965. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. more caring and that her teaching style became more af-
Herman, Arthur. Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy firming and less rude toward students. Her enthusiastic
of America’s Most Hated Senator. New York: Free Press, 2003. discussions on makeup and female friendship have led
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. some women to wonder whether she is acting out woman-
Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. hood from an unenlightened male perspective. Perhaps
more controversial in the long run will be McCloskey’s
academic work, such as The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an
M c C l o s key, D e i r d r e Age of Commerce (2006), which maintains that capitalism
After nearly three decades as a respected male economist is both morally good and good for morality.
and academic, Donald N. McCloskey underwent sex
reassignment surgery in 1996, took the name Deirdre Roger Chapman
N. McCloskey, and subsequently began writing from a
feminist perspective. Born on September 11, 1942, in See also: Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave;
Ann Arbor, Michigan, McCloskey attended Harvard Jorgensen, Christine; Transgender Movement; Women’s
University (BA, 1964; PhD, 1970), and built a Studies.
reputation by arguing that economists rely unduly on
statistics and mathematical formulas, that persuasion Further Reading
and rhetoric play a central role in human decision Balak, Benjamin. McCloskey’s Rhetoric: Discourse Ethics in Econom-
making, and that the field of economics is more art ics. New York: Routledge, 2006.
than science. McCloskey has held teaching positions at McCloskey, Deirdre. Crossing: A Memoir. Chicago: University of
the University of Chicago (1968–1980), University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Iowa (1980–1999), and University of Illinois at Chicago Ryan, Alan. “Is Capitalism Good for You?” New York Review of
(since 1999). Books, December 21, 2006.
In November 1995, at age fifty-three, McCloskey Wilson, Robin. “Leading Economist Stuns Field by Deciding
informed colleagues of the decision to become a woman, to Become a Woman.” Chronicle of Higher Education, Febru-
reportedly prompting the department chair at the Uni- ary 16, 1996.
versity of Iowa to express deadpan relief that at least it
was not something as drastic as renouncing capitalism for
socialism. After the sex-change surgery and a sabbatical M c G ove r n , G e o r g e
at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, An anti–Cold War Democrat, the U.S. senator and
McCloskey published The Vices of Economists, The Virtues 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern of
of the Bourgeoisie (1997), a work that criticizes economists, South Dakota called for reducing military spending
especially male ones, for relying on theory and statistics in order to expand social programs. His defeat at the
346 McGover n, George
hands of incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972 represented Democratic Party (1953–1956). From there he launched
a signal event in the culture wars because a major a political career, serving in the U.S. House of Represen-
candidate had sought the White House—only to lose tatives (1957–1961) and the U.S. Senate (1963–1981),
overwhelmingly—by rejecting a centrist campaign in between directing the Food for Peace program under
strategy for one that sought to build a coalition around the Kennedy administration (1961–1962).
minorities, women, and youth. Some suggested that As a legislator, McGovern supported President
McGovern’s campaign staff resembled the cast for Hair, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program, civil rights
the 1969 Broadway musical about the counterculture. reforms, school busing, increased federal spending for
In the end, McGovern received only 37.5 percent of entitlement programs, and the nuclear test ban. One of
the popular vote and the Electoral College votes of only the first senators to oppose the Vietnam War, which he
Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. The hit characterized as a “terrible cancer eating away the soul
country-and-western single “Uneasy Rider” (1973) by of the nation,” McGovern futilely attempted to end the
Charlie Daniels features a humorous stanza in which a conflict by utilizing the power of the legislative branch.
southern redneck is falsely accused of having voted for In May 1970, he sponsored with Mark O. Hatfield (R-
McGovern. OR) a Senate amendment to cut off war funding; the
The son of a Methodist minister, George Stanley measure was defeated by a 62–29 vote. The following
McGovern was born in Avon, South Dakota, on July year, McGovern offered a similar amendment that failed
19, 1922. Following service as a bomber pilot in World 55–39; and in 1972, his amendment for a troop with-
War II (1943–1945) and finishing a degree at Dakota drawal was defeated 52–44. As a presidential candidate,
Wesleyan University (BA, 1946), McGovern pursued his McGovern campaigned primarily on the promise to end
interest in the social gospel while working as a student the war in ninety days and to grant amnesty to draft
minister and attending Garrett Theological Seminary evaders.
in Evanston, Illinois (1946–1947). He later studied The Democratic nomination of McGovern for presi-
history at Northwestern University (MA, 1949; PhD, dent was a consequence of the 1968 election, in which
1953), taught at Dakota Wesleyan (1949–1953), and Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Later,
ended up as the executive secretary of the South Dakota McGovern wrote an essay for Harper’s Magazine, “The
Lessons of 1968” (January 1970), in which he called on
the Democratic Party to reform its platform as well as
its method of selecting its standard bearer in order to be
more representative of women, minorities, and young
people. Under the new rules drafted by the McGovern-
Fraser Commission—McGovern shared the task with
Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota—state
central committees were no longer permitted to select
the delegates to the national convention, but were re-
quired to hold open primaries or caucuses. This shifted
power from the party bosses to rank-and-file Democrats,
enabling a candidate such as McGovern, one of the most
liberal of the party, to emerge as the nominee. After the
presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), who likewise
had been a political outsider, national party leaders
instituted counter-reform measures for regaining some
control. Still later, with the influence of Bill Clinton, the
Democratic Party shifted more to the right to undo the
McGovern legacy.
It could be argued that McGovern’s loss was a com-
bination of factors, not all ideological. Nixon’s campaign
benefited from the May 1972 shooting of George Wal-
lace, a segregationist whose withdrawal from the race as
a third-party candidate ensured that the Republican vote
The landslide defeat of 1972 Democratic candidate George
would not be split. In addition, McGovern made mistakes
McGovern (right) became associated, in some circles, with
liberal lost causes and defeatist foreign policy. Running
during the campaign that gave voters the impression that
mate Thomas Eagleton (left) withdrew after disclosures of he was indecisive and untrustworthy. For example, after
electroshock treatment for depression. (Anthony Korody/ it became known that his running mate, Senator Thomas
Getty Images) F. Eagleton of Missouri, had suffered depression and been
McIntire, C arl 3 47
treated with electric shock therapy, McGovern held a Leo, John. “The New McGovernites.” U.S. News & World Report,
press conference and said he supported Eagleton “1,000 November 7, 2005.
percent”—only to replace him later with R. Sargent McGovern, George S. Grassroots: The Autobiography of George
Shiver, Jr. McGovern also backpedaled on a proposal for McGovern. New York: Random House, 1977.
a guaranteed income after Republicans ridiculed it as a
handout for people unwilling to work. As the McGovern
campaign suffered the “dirty tricks” that were part of the McIntire, Carl
Watergate conspiracy, it was being openly opposed by The fundamentalist radio preacher and ministry founder
Democrats for Nixon, an organization spearheaded by the Carl McIntire became known in postwar America for
former Texas governor John Connally, who opposed iso- objecting to conservative evangelical efforts to “modern-
lationist foreign policy. Ultimately, Nixon undermined ize.” Most notably, he rejected the evangelical preacher
McGovern’s key issue by convincing voters that the war Billy Graham for his willingness to coordinate his Cru-
was winding down. sades with nonevangelical churches and for his openness
In 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected presi- to preaching before racially mixed audiences. Incapable
dent, McGovern lost his Senate seat to James Abdnor, of political compromise or strategic coalition building,
a Republican candidate heavily funded by abortion McIntire could never join the ranks of Jerry Falwell or
opponents. In 1984, McGovern was briefly a candidate Tim LaHaye as an effective player in the New Christian
for the party’s presidential nomination, promoting na- Right, but he did fight the Federal Communications
tional health care and promising to decrease the military Commission (FCC) over his radio station for many years,
budget. Later, as U.S. ambassador to the United Na- protest the policies of the National Council of Churches
tions Food and Agricultural Agencies in Rome, Italy (NCC), and make high-profile attacks against the Rev-
(1998–2001), he promoted genetically modified food. erend Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights
McGovern has written a number of books, including A activists, thereby emerging as a controversial and highly
Time of War, A Time of Peace (1968), The Third Freedom: charged symbol of old-school American fundamentalism.
Ending Hunger in Our Time (2001), and The Essential Born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on May 17, 1906,
America: Our Founders and the Liberal Tradition (2004). Carl Curtis McIntire attended Southeastern State Teach-
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in ers College in Durant, Oklahoma (1923–1926), Park
2000. College in Parkville, Missouri (BA, 1927), Princeton
In the 2000s, McGovern voiced criticism of George Theological Seminary (1928–1929), and Westminster
W. Bush, rating him as the worst president in American Theological Seminary (ThB, 1931). Ordained in 1931 as
history, including Nixon. “On just about every level I a minister of the Presbyterian Church, he was stripped
can think of, Bush’s actions are more impeachable than of his ordination five years later for his strident criti-
were those of Nixon,” he argued. McGovern drew paral- cism of the church’s “liberal” missionary activities. In
lels between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War, stating 1937, McIntire’s congregation in Collingswood, New
that “in both cases we went to war with a country that Jersey, began identifying itself as the Bible Presbyterian
was no threat to us.” In April 2007, Vice President Dick Church. That same year, he established Faith Theological
Cheney suggested that the Democratic Party, in urging an Seminary in Wilmington, Delaware, whose early gradu-
American withdrawal from Iraq, was adopting the same ates included the evangelical pastor and author Francis
losing platform offered by McGovern in 1972. Schaeffer. McIntire went on to found the American Coun-
cil of Christian Churches (1941) and the International
Roger Chapman Council of Christian Churches (1948) as alternatives to
the NCC and the World Council of Churches, ecumeni-
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; Counterculture; cal Protestant organizations he condemned as “apostate”
Democratic Party; Great Society; Nixon, Richard; United Na- and hopelessly liberal.
tions; Vietnam War; Wallace, George; Watergate; Wounded For decades, McIntire disseminated his religious and
Knee Incident. political views in the newspaper Christian Beacon (begin-
ning in 1936) and a daily radio program, The Twentieth
Further Reading Century Reformation Hour (beginning in 1955). At its peak
Anson, Robert Sam. McGovern: A Biography. New York: Holt, in the late 1960s, the half-hour radio show aired on more
Rinehart & Winston, 1972. than 600 stations, including McIntire’s own WXUR,
Brinkley, Douglas. “George McGovern.” Rolling Stone, May 3, based in Media, Pennsylvania. In 1968, after years of field-
2007. ing complaints from citizens offended by the program’s
Dougherty, Richard. Goodbye, Mr. Christian: A Personal Account right-wing, racist orientation, the FCC moved to revoke
of McGovern’s Rise and Fall. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, McIntire’s broadcasting license for flagrant violation of
1973. the Fairness Doctrine. McIntire appealed the case, but the
348 McLuhan, Marshall
FCC’s decision was upheld in the 1972 federal District at the University of Manitoba (BA, 1932; MA, 1934)
Court case of Brandywine v. Mainline Radio. and Cambridge University (BA, 1936; MA, 1939; and
An exceptional showman, McIntire first came to PhD, 1942), although he originally sought to be an
national media attention in 1953 when, along with engineer. McLuhan taught at the University of Wis-
fellow fundamentalist broadcaster Billy James Hargis, consin, Madison (1936–1937), University of St. Louis
he unleashed thousands of Bible messages attached to (1937–1944), and Assumption University in Windsor,
balloons from West Germany over the Iron Curtain. Ontario (1944–1946), before moving to the University
McIntire also briefly ran a floating pirate radio station of Toronto, where he taught for more than three decades
off the New Jersey coast (after first posing with eye patch (1946–1979). In 1963, he established the Centre for
and pirate hat for photographers on shore); held several Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto for
“Victory in Vietnam” rallies in Washington, D.C., in studying “the psychic and social consequences of tech-
the early 1970s; and played table tennis in front of the nologies and media.” McLuhan’s many published works
White House to protest Nixon’s “Ping Pong diplomacy” include The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man
with China in 1971. If his political efforts were largely (1951), The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic
ineffective, McIntire was, nonetheless, an accomplished Man (1962), and Understanding Media: The Extensions of
culture warrior when it came to finding publicity for Man (1964). He also co-authored The Medium Is the Mas-
his right-wing causes. He died on March 19, 2002, in sage: An Inventory of Effects (1967), From Cliché to Archetype
Voorhees, New Jersey. (1970), and City as Classroom (1977). He died in Toronto
Heather Hendershot on December 31, 1980.
McLuhan divided human history into broad periods
See also: Cold War; Federal Communications Commission; on the basis of communications developments: the tribal
Fundamentalism, Religious; Graham, Billy; Hargis, Billy; age, the print age, and the electronic age. The tribal
LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; Religious Right; Schaef- age, he argued, depended on speech, sound, nonlinear
fer, Francis; Vietnam War; World Council of Churches. thinking, and direct human connection for obtaining
information. The printing press ushered in the second
Further Reading age, characterized by importance of the eye and linear
Fea, John. “Carl McIntire: From Fundamentalist Presbyterian thinking but less need for immediate tribal contact
to Presbyterian Fundamentalist.” American Presbyterian 72:4 because one could read in private. The electronic age,
(Winter 1994): 253–68. beginning with the wireless telegraph and continuing
Forster, Arnold, and Benjamin R. Epstein. Danger on the Right: with radio and television, was viewed by McLuhan as
The Attitudes, Personnel and Influence of the Radical Right and a return to instantaneous communication that would
Extreme Conservatives. New York: Random House, 1964. foster retribalization and ultimately lead to a “global
Hendershot, Heather. “God’s Angriest Man: Carl McIntire, Cold village.” He regarded TV as an acoustic medium, not
War Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Radio.” American a visual one, requiring nonlinear thinking. The elec-
Quarterly 59:2 (June 2007): 373–96. tronic age, he warned, would change how people think
Jorstad, Erling. The Politics of Doomsday: Fundamentalists of the Far and render less important the culture of print. These
Right. Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press, 1970. changes, which McLuhan regarded as inevitable, were
not personally pleasing to him. As he said in a 1970
interview, “Only madmen would use radio and TV if
McLuhan, Marshall they knew the consequences.”
A controversial and highly influential Canadian media In fact, McLuhan blamed television for the decline in
theorist, Marshall McLuhan coined the term “global student test scores and literacy, declaring a print-based
village” and famously stated that “the medium is the educational system with its linear thinking incompatible
message” (and later, “the medium is the massage”), with the electronic age. Contrary to conventional wisdom,
arguing that the impact of electronic communications is McLuhan did not regard watching television as a passive
greater than the actual information being transmitted. activity, but thought of TV as a “cool” medium requir-
Many academics viewed him as an intellectual charlatan; ing viewer involvement for filling in details. McLuhan
dubbed his provocative aphorisms “McLuhanisms”; and also linked electric media with rock and roll and drugs.
complained that his ideas on technological determinism “One turns on his consciousness through drugs,” he said
were mere assertions, not supported by empirical data. during a 1969 interview, “just as he opens up all his
The novelist Tom Wolfe, on the other hand, considered senses to a total depth involvement by turning on the
McLuhan in the same league as Newton, Darwin, Freud, TV dial.” McLuhan also observed that television would
Einstein, and Pavlov. change political debate, giving the edge to candidates,
Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born on July 21, like John F. Kennedy, who possess “cool, low-definition
1911, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He studied English qualities.” The cool medium of television made long,
McVeigh , T imothy 349
protracted wars such as Vietnam less possible, he argued, Waco tragedy angered McVeigh because it started out
because viewers will lose patience. as a federal investigation of firearms violations. Earlier
Roger Chapman he had read The Turner Diaries (1978), a terrorist novel
by William Pierce, a white supremacist, in which the
See also: Canada; Counterculture; Education Reform; Kennedy main character, Earl Turner, uses a truck bomb to blow
Family; Leary, Timothy; Medved, Michael; Postmodernism; up the FBI headquarters in Washington as a protest
Rock and Roll; Vietnam War; War on Drugs; Wolfe, Tom. over stricter gun laws. McVeigh decided to turn fiction
into reality. His bomb, in the form of a Ryder rental
Further Reading truck containing sixteen 55-gallon drums packed with
McLuhan, Eric, and Frank Zingrone, eds. Essential McLuhan. 4,800 pounds (2,182 kilos) of ammonium nitrate fertil-
New York: BasicBooks/HarperCollins, 1995. izer mixed with liquid nitromethane, demolished the
Meyrowitz, Joshua. No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic building, left 168 dead, and injured more than 400
Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford University others. Among the dead and injured were children who
Press, 1985. attended a day-care center on the second floor of the
Moss, George, and Linda M. Morra. At the Speed of Light There building. Afterward, borrowing a Pentagon euphemism
Is Only Illumination: A Reappraisal of Marshall McLuhan. Ot- from the Gulf War, McVeigh dismissed the children’s
tawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2004. deaths as “collateral damage.” He never expressed re-
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the morse, explaining that Harry Truman did not apologize
Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin, 1985. for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, a decision that
also killed children.
On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty of
M c Ve i g h , T i m o t hy eleven counts of murder and conspiracy, and the jury
Before the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, recommended the death penalty. Appeals of the verdict
the worst act of terrorism ever committed on American and sentence were unsuccessful, and on June 11, 2001,
soil was the April 19, 1995, truck bombing of the McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at the federal
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. (Terry Nichols was
The bombing was planned and carried out by Timothy convicted for his role in the incident in December 1997
McVeigh, a twenty-six-year-old U.S. Army veteran with and sentenced to life in prison; Michael Fortier, who testi-
ties to domestic right-wing extremist groups. fied against both McVeigh and Nichols, received a twelve-
Born on April 22, 1968, in Lockport, New York, year sentence.) After McVeigh’s execution, conspiracy
Timothy James McVeigh grew up in a Catholic, theories lingered. Some demolition experts argue that a
middle-class family and was introduced to firearms by single bomb could not have caused so much damage. The
his grandfather. After a blizzard in 1977, the young writer Gore Vidal and others suggested that there may
man became interested in survivalist training; his per- have been a Muslim terrorist connection, with McVeigh
sonal ideology was an amalgamation of what he read serving as the “useful idiot.” Many agree that McVeigh,
in comic books, Soldier of Fortune magazine, and the influenced by the antigovernment rhetoric of right-wing
writings of the militia movement and Ku Klux Klan. ideologues and the paranoia of the militia movement, saw
According to psychiatrists who examined him before himself as a freedom fighter and not a terrorist.
trial, he had harbored fantasies of being a hero since
his childhood. Roger Chapman
McVeigh enlisted in the army in May 1988 and
participated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, earning a See also: Capital Punishment; Comic Books; Conspiracy Theo-
bronze star and a combat infantry badge. While attending ries; Gun Control; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Militia Move-
basic training, he befriended Terry Nichols and Michael ment; Muslim Americans; September 11; Vidal, Gore; Vigi-
J. Fortier, who would later be implicated in the Okla- lantism; Waco Siege; White Supremacists.
homa City bombing. Although he intended to reenlist,
McVeigh left the military in December 1991 after fail- Further Reading
ing the Special Forces qualifications course. His return Hoffman, David. The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of
to civilian life was marked by a restless bitterness. Much Terror. Venice, CA: Feral House, 1998.
of his time was spent attending gun shows and mixing Michel, Lou, and Dan Herbeck. American Terrorist: Timothy
with elements of the militia movement. McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. New York: Regan
The bombing of the federal building was revenge Books, 2001.
for the April 19, 1993, federal assault on the compound Vidal, Gore. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to
of the Branch Davidians, a Seventh-Day Adventist Be So Hated. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press / Nation
cult, near Waco, Texas, that left eighty-two dead. The Books, 2002.
35 0 Mead , Margare t
Mead, Margaret of “anger and bitterness” at “the discovery that what they
Perhaps the twentieth century’s most famous social had hoped for no longer exists for their children,” Mead
anthropologist, Margaret Mead stirred controversy with concluded, adults must embrace “consciously, delight-
pioneering work that contrasted human social relations edly, and industriously rearing unknown children for an
in traditional and Western societies, as exemplified in unknown world.”
her initial book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), and later Mike Males
summary works, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive
See also: Abortion; Family Values; Generations and Genera-
Societies (1935) and Male and Female (1949). Mead
argued from research of isolated Pacific Island societies tional Conflict; Kinsey, Alfred; Race; Sexual Revolution.
that child-rearing ideals, sex roles, marriage, sexual
behavior, the nature of moral authority, and other social Further Reading
arrangements vary from culture to culture, and none is Freeman, Derek. The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A
based on universal absolutes. Her conclusions infuriated Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Researches. Boulder, CO:
social conservatives, who held her partly responsible for Westview Press, 1999.
the excesses of the sexual revolution. Gewertz, Deborah, and Frederick Errington. “We Think,
Born in Philadelphia on December 16, 1901, Mead Therefore They Are? On Occidentalizing the World.” In
studied psychology at Bernard College (BA, 1923) and Cultures of United States Imperialism, ed. Amy Kaplan and
anthropology at Columbia University (MA, 1924; PhD, Donald E. Pease, 635–55. Durham, NC: Duke University
1929). Her major fieldwork was conducted in Samoa Press, 1993.
(1925–1926), New Guinea (beginning in 1928), and Bali Mark, Joan T. Margaret Mead, Anthropologist: Coming of Age in
(1930s and 1950s). Long affiliated with the American America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Museum of Natural History in New York (1926–1969), Shankman, Paul. “Culture, Biology, and Evolution: The Mead–
Mead also taught at a number of universities, including Freeman Controversy Revisited.” Journal of Youth and Ado-
Stanford, Harvard, and Yale. She died on November 15, lescence, 29:5 (2000): 539–56.
1978.
Traditionalists viewed Mead’s rejection of biodeter-
minism (the view that immutable biological differences
Media Bias
largely dictate gender and social roles) as attacks on The claim of bias in the American media is a common
religion and society. Conservative commentators argued refrain in the rhetoric of the culture wars. The expectation
that her popularizing of “the fantasies of sexual progres- that news reporting should be neutral and objective
sives” contributed to the practice of casual sex, a higher developed in the United States in the nineteenth and
rate of divorce, and an increase in abortion in America. early twentieth centuries. The question of whether the
The anthropologist Derek Freeman went so far as to media should be, or even can be, unbiased has been
characterize Mead’s Samoan ethnography as a “hoaxing,” intensely debated in recent decades. It is worth noting
but that critique, in turn, was criticized by the American that accusations of media bias, while typically directed
Anthropological Association as “unscientific” and “mis- against political bias in news reporting, have also been
leading.” The dispute, which is ongoing, is referred to directed against everything from sitcoms to cartoon
as the “Mead-Freeman controversy.” strips to Hollywood films.
Mead also seeded controversy over generational Right-wing critics of the media tend to identify
conflict, the consequence of perhaps her most visionary journalists as the source of media bias. The rise in criti-
work, Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation cism of journalists as liberal elitists has coincided with
Gap (1970, updated 1978), which disputed the primacy the growing voice of populist conservatism in the United
of adult authority over children. The eighty-page treatise States. One formative event in this development was Reed
crowns her career with a radical hypothesis: rapid demo- Irvine’s founding of the influential conservative watchdog
graphic, social, and technological changes in modern soci- organization Accuracy in Media (AIM) in 1969. That
ety were rendering traditional adult values and authority same year, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew described the
obsolete. Mead argued that the older generation must media as home to “nattering nabobs of negativism.” More
adopt imaginative ways of understanding contemporary recently, conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh,
society and global change in order to effectively raise chil- Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and others have repeated
dren for a future in which “there are no guides.” Parents the criticism. According to Coulter in How to Talk to a
who try to direct modern children with “simple asser- Liberal (2004), the typical journalist has only one stan-
tions” such as, “Because it is right to do so, because God dard: “Will this story promote the left-wing agenda?”
says so, or because I say so” (emphasis hers), must yield Bernard Goldberg’s best-selling Bias (2002) argues that
to “a world in which conflicting points of view, rather the personal views of journalists are overwhelmingly
than orthodoxies, are prevalent and accessible.” Instead liberal, and that this gives a liberal shape to their news
Media B ia s 351
grown considerably since 2000, with documentaries such

as Bowling for Columbine (2002), Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004),
and Outfoxed (2004) receiving significant attention.
The form of media most commonly held under
scrutiny is television news. Many conservative commenta-
tors hold that the nightly news shows of the Big Three
networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) display a strong liberal
bias. Longtime CBS news anchor Dan Rather in particular
was criticized by the right. The network most frequently
singled out for criticism by liberal commentators is the
Fox News Channel. Various other forms of media—e.g.,
National Public Radio, the New York Times, talk radio,
and a wide assortment of other outlets—have been criti-
cized as biased by those on the left and the right.
The topic of media bias raises philosophical issues
often associated with postmodernism. One central question
concerns the language of objectivity and value-neutrality
The Fox News Channel was launched in 1996 with the pur-
pose of correcting the liberal bias perceived in mainstream
that has become part of the self-image of serious journalism
television networks. Despite its slogan of “Fair and Balanced,” and whether news coverage can ever be “merely” factual, in
Fox has been accused by liberals and media watchdog view of the fact that values are involved in selecting facts
groups of disseminating explicitly conservative opinion. (Katja to report. Thus, disputes over media coverage concern not
Heinemann/Aurora/Getty Images) only whether what is reported is true but the question of
which information reaches the screen or newspapers. One
stories. Goldberg further contends that the media deni- influential concept of bias-free reporting is the idea of
grate and marginalize religious belief and are to the left showing a variety of perspectives on any given issue. This
of mainstream America on topics such as abortion, the concept, taken to an extreme, means giving equal time to
death penalty, and homosexuality. Conservatives argue all sides of an issue regardless of the truth or credibility of
that they have succeeded in attracting attention—and the positions in question. Many of the devices of television
adherents—to their view because they reflect the percep- news, especially those aimed at persuading the viewer of
tion of the broader American public. the authority, impartiality, and objectivity of the broadcast,
Critics on the left have a different argument about have been parodied by such popular television programs
media bias. Left-wing critics of the media tend to focus as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
on the effects of economic power, especially the influ- One important development in relation to media bias
ence of corporate ownership and funding of the media. is the growth of narrowcasting—media aimed at a specific,
Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media? (2003), a critical homogeneous demographic group. Narrowcasting has en-
response to Bernard Goldberg, argues that while there couraged news reporting that is both more willingly and
is some merit to the charge that the media are liberal on more explicitly partisan and, as a result, has contributed
social issues, there is clear conservative bias in the media to cultural polarization.
when it comes to economic issues. Noam Chomsky and Daniel Callcut
Edward S. Herman argue in Manufacturing Consent (1988)
that various systemic features of the media work to muffle See also: Chomsky, Noam; Coulter, Ann; Irvine, Reed; Moore,
or prevent the publication of stories that would harm Michael; Murdoch, Rupert; National Public Radio; New
the interests of major corporations. They argue that the Journalism; New York Times, The; Postmodernism; Public
dependence of mainstream media on advertising dollars Broadcasting Service; Rather, Dan; Stewart, Jon; Talk Radio.
limits the degree to which the media can criticize cor-
porations. They also stress that major media outlets are Further Reading
themselves part of corporations—NBC, for example, is Adkins-Covert, Twanya J., and Philo C. Wasburn. Media Bias?
owned by General Electric. A Comparative Study of Time, Newsweek, the National Review,
Progressives argue that the idea of a liberal media is a and the Progressive, 1975–2000. Lanham, MD: Lexington
conservative myth used to pressure journalists not to run Books, 2009.
stories that threaten those in power. One important in- Alterman, Eric. What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and
stitutional development for left-of-center media criticism the News. New York: Basic Books, 2004.
was the founding of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Chomsky, Noam, and Edward S. Herman. Manufacturing
(FAIR), a media watchdog organization, in 1986. The Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York:
visibility of left-wing criticism of mainstream media has Pantheon Books, 1988.
352 Medic al Malprac tice
Goldberg, Bernard. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media suits, it paralleled the increase in the number of physi-
Distort the News. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2002. cians. The average award for medical malpractice in
Kallen, Stuart A., ed. Media Bias. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven 1964 was $5,000, but several highly publicized cases
Press, 2004. gave successful plaintiffs windfalls of $100,000 or more.
Streissguth, Thomas. Media Bias. New York: Marshall Caven- Malpractice suddenly became a high-profile public issue,
dish Benchmark, 2007. covered in the mainstream press and made the subject
of federal government inquiry. In November 1969, a
subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Executive
Medical Malpractice Reorganization issued a 1,060-page report on medi-
“Medical malpractice” is a legal term that refers to cal malpractice that asserted, albeit with no statistical
negligent treatment, or failure to take appropriate action, support, “Most malpractice suits are the direct result of
on the part of a doctor or other medical practitioner that injuries suffered by patients during medical treatment
causes harm to a patient. or surgery. The majority have proved justifiable.” Critics
An often rancorous partisan debate in the culture questioned the claim of justifiability when 90 percent of
wars, the issue of malpractice suits has been labeled a malpractice cases that went to court were won by physi-
“crisis” by the American Medical Association (AMA). In cian defendants.
1975, Newsweek magazine concurred, declaring malprac- Citing the high cost of medical malpractice insur-
tice “medicine’s most serious crisis.” From 1960 to the ance, political conservatives generally favor reform mea-
mid-1980s, the frequency of medical malpractice claims sures to cap the amount of damages a person can receive
in America rose from 1 to 17.5 per every 100 physicians. for a medical mistake and to penalize and deter those who
During the same period, plaintiff awards in major cities file “frivolous” suits. Malpractice claims, usually initiated
such as Chicago and San Francisco rose from $50,000 to in state courts, have been blamed in part for the spiraling
$1.2 million. In addition to the specific repercussions for cost of health care and for the trend toward “defensive
the medical community, insurance companies, and the medicine” to shield doctors from potential liability. In
overall cost of health care, the debate on medical malprac- 1975, California passed a law capping noneconomic
tice has touched on larger issues of tort reform. damages at $250,000; by the mid-1980s, several other
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2001 states passed similar caps. From the mid-1970s to the
there were a total of 1,156 medical malpractice trials, beginning of the twenty-first century, it should be noted,
including claims of permanent injury (67 percent) and personal-injury suits in America, including medical
death (33 percent). The overall success rate for plaintiffs malpractice claims, have remained flat on a nationwide
was 27 percent, with a median award in jury trials of basis, while lawsuits against other businesses have more
$431,000—up 50 percent from $287,000 just five years than tripled.
earlier. From 1992 to 2001, between 1 and 4 percent of Liberal advocacy groups such as Ralph Nader’s Public
successful plaintiff winners also received punitive dam- Citizen charge that the medical malpractice “crisis” is
ages, averaging about $250,000 per litigation. Many propaganda advanced by medical, pharmaceutical, and
other cases were settled out of court. insurance lobbyists who seek legislative protection to
The AMA began earnestly addressing medical shield their clients from accountability. According to a
malpractice during the 1950s with the aim of reducing number of reports, the dramatic rise in medical malprac-
lawsuits by improving medical care, most notably by tice insurance rates in the mid-1970s, mid-1980s, and
reforming hospital procedures and prompting standard- late 1990s were the consequence of insurance underwrit-
ization of medical records. (Of all malpractice suits at ing and investment cycles (relating to interest rates and
the time, 70 percent arose from incidents at hospitals.) market-based investments) and had little to do with any
Since surveys during that period found that most doc- rise in malpractice awards.
tors did not consider medical malpractice lawsuits a In 2003, hospitals, doctors, and other health pro-
major problem, AMA leadership began making them a fessionals paid $11 billion for malpractice insurance, a
topic of discussion in its Journal of the American Medical sum representing less than 1 percent of the total $1.5
Association. trillion national health care cost. That same year, $27
By the 1960s, the AMA shifted its focus of attack billion was spent on automobile liability, $57 billion
to the legal system, blaming the surge in malpractice on workers’ compensation insurance premiums, and $5
lawsuits on lawyers and plaintiffs. During this period, billion for product liability insurance. Of the 900,000
rules pertaining to the statutes of limitations had been practicing physicians in the United States that year, the
liberalized in favor of injured patients (that is, allowing a average premium was $12,000 per doctor. However, the
longer filing period for a malpractice claim since result- premiums do vary significantly from state to state—for
ing health repercussions are not always initially known). example, doctors in Florida typically pay seventeen times
Although there was a rise in the number of malpractice more for malpractice insurance than doctors in Minnesota.
Medic al Mar ijuana 353
Also, premium rates are typically higher for obstetrics and in connection with cancer treatment, loss of appetite
gynecology than for other medical specialties. States that associated with AIDS, eye pain due to glaucoma, and
have passed strict tort caps have not seen dramatic de- spasms and seizures triggered by multiple sclerosis. Op-
creases in the cost of malpractice premiums. In California, ponents of medical marijuana, suspecting that the at-
doctors experienced a reduction in the cost of premiums tributed medicinal benefits have been exaggerated, note
after voters in 1988 approved Proposition 103, which that cannabis has never been screened for efficacy and
regulated insurers and mandated policyholder refunds. safety by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Critics of the AMA’s campaign against malpractice Furthermore, skeptics argue, smoking marijuana for the
suits emphasize that the primary problem is medical “benefit” of THC is questionable since it could be more
malpractice itself. The California Medical Insurance safely delivered by pill, suppository, or nasal inhaler.
Feasibility Study of the mid-1970s, conducted by the Generally, political conservatives view medical mari-
California Hospital Association and the California Medi- juana as a purposeful step toward complete legalization
cal Association, found that doctors and hospitals in that of the drug.
state were responsible for injuring 140,000 patients, In contradiction of federal law, voters in a number
leading to 14,000 deaths, in 1974. Of the total number of states have approved by wide margins ballot items
of injured, 24,000 were considered a consequence of allowing the possession and use of marijuana for medi-
medical malpractice. In the mid-1980s, Harvard Uni- cal treatment—Proposition 215 in California (1996);
versity conducted a study on medical injuries in New Proposition 200 in Arizona (1996); Question 8 in Alaska
York, concluding that there had been 27,000 injuries (1998); Measure 67 in Oregon (1998); Question 9 in
from medical malpractice in 1984. Harvard did another Nevada (1998); Question 2 in Maine (1999); Amend-
study in 1992, this time in Utah and Colorado, reaching ment 20 in Colorado (2000); Initiative 148 in Montana
similar results as in California and New York—that is, (2004); and Proposal 1 in Michigan (2008). The District
that the number of injuries from medical malpractice is of Columbia approved a medical marijuana referendum in
far greater than the number of lawsuits filed for medical 1998, but Congress, exercising its oversight of the federal
malpractice. In California, only one lawsuit was filed for city, overturned the law. State legislatures have passed
every ten malpractice injuries; in New York, the ratio was legislation permitting medical marijuana in Hawaii
one lawsuit for every seven malpractice injuries; and in (2000), Maryland (2003), Rhode Island (2006), and New
Utah and Colorado, the ratio was one for every six. Ac- Mexico (2007). The General Assembly of Rhode Island
cording to a November 1999 report issued by the U.S. overrode the veto of Governor Donald Carcieri, a Repub-
Academy of Sciences, entitled To Err is Human, 98,000 lican who argued that the law would only lead to more
people die from medical mistakes each year in the United marijuana being sold on the streets. Robert Ehrlich, the
States, more than the number killed in automobile and governor of Maryland, was the first Republican elected
work-related accidents. official to approve such a measure.
Roger Chapman Tod H. Mikuriya, a California physician, was in-
strumental in getting his state to be the first to pass a
See also: Health Care; Nader, Ralph; Tort Reform. medical-marijuana referendum, but colleagues criticized
him for allowing his advocacy to cloud his professional
Further Reading judgment. In 2004, the California medical board fined
Baker, Tom. The Medical Malpractice Myth. Chicago: University Mikuriya $75,000 and placed him on probation for writ-
of Chicago Press, 2005. ing marijuana prescriptions for sixteen individuals with-
Danzon, Patricia A. Medical Malpractice: Theory, Evidence, and out conducting appropriate physical examinations. By the
Public Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, time of his death in 2007, he had reportedly prescribed
1985. marijuana to some 9,000 individuals. The founder of the
Hogan, Neal C. Unhealed Wounds: Medical Malpractice in the California Cannabis Research Medical Center (and its
Twentieth Century. New York: LFB Scholarly, 2003. subgroup the Society of Cannabis Clinicians), Mikuriya
Sloan, Frank A., et al. Suing for Medical Malpractice. Chicago: openly admitted to routinely smoking marijuana with
University of Chicago Press, 1993. his morning coffee.
Weiler, Paul C. Medical Malpractice on Trial. Cambridge, MA: As pharmacies have refused to sell medical marijuana,
Harvard University Press, 1991. such prescriptions have instead been filled by “cannabis
buyers’ clubs” that are listed as medical distributors.
Many of these clubs have been raided by the U.S. Drug
Medical Marijuana Enforcement Administration. In the case of U.S. v. Oak-
Advocates of medical marijuana argue that the main land Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative (2001), the U.S. Supreme
ingredient of the drug (THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol) Court ruled against the distributors, stating that “medical
is useful for treating nausea caused by chemotherapy necessity” is not a legal defense against violation of federal
35 4 M e d ve d , M i c h a e l
law. In Gonzalez v. Raich (2005), the high court ruled 6–3 autobiography, Right Turns: Unconventional Lessons from
that the federal Controlled Substances Act, which outlaws a Controversial Life (2005), provides some detail on his
the possession and distribution of marijuana, preempts political about-face, from campaigning for Robert Ken-
state laws authorizing medical marijuana. Many politi- nedy to supporting Ronald Reagan. Daniel Lapin, an
cal conservatives who generally prefer states’ rights over Orthodox rabbi and affiliate of the Religious Right, was
the power of the federal government make an exception Medved’s mentor.
when it comes to drug policies. Sounding much like the media theorist Marshall
Roger Chapman McLuhan, Medved has suggested that the medium of
television, regardless of the programming, is its own
See also: Food and Drug Administration; War on Drugs. message and one that erodes the values of the viewer. The
counterculture generation, he continues, while it grew up
Further Reading watching such wholesome programs as The Mickey Mouse
Ferraiolo, Kathleen. “From Killer Weed to Popular Medicine: Club (1955–1959), Father Knows Best (1954–1960), and
The Evolution of American Drug Control Policy, 1937– Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963), nonetheless failed to ma-
2000.” Journal of Policy History 19:2 (2007): 147–79. ture into responsible adulthood. According to Medved,
Marijuana Policy Project. State-by-State Medical Marijuana those who watch television to excess are prone to be
Laws: How to Remove the Threat of Arrest. Washington, DC: impatient, self-pitying, and superficial.
Marijuana Policy Project, 2007. Despite such theorization, Medved has devoted
Minamide, Elaine. Medical Marijuana. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven much of his career to critiquing the content of films and
Press, 2007. television shows. In Hollywood vs. America: Popular Cul-
ture and the War on Traditional Values (1992), he asserts
that the values of Tinsel Town—which are belittling to
M e d ve d , M i c h a e l religion and the sanctity of marriage and family—are
An Orthodox Jew and liberal turned conservative, out of sync with mainstream American values. He also
Michael Medved has participated in the culture wars as contends that it would be more financially profitable
film critic, author, and radio talk show host. He came for Hollywood to make more G-rated films and fewer
to public prominence with What Really Happened to the R-rated ones. Although long concerned about violence in
Class of ’65? (1976), a best-selling book co-authored films, Medved defended Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ
with David Wallechinsky. Adapted into an NBC (2004). Earlier, he collaborated with younger brother
television series (1978), the book is a probing assessment Harry in writing several whimsical works—beginning
of the counterculture generation, specifically the alumni with Golden Turkey Awards (1980)—that rated the all-
of California’s Palisades High School who had been time “worst” films.
featured in Time magazine. Roger Chapman
Medved was born on October 3, 1948, in Philadel-
phia and grew up in San Diego and Los Angeles, Cali- See also: Counterculture; Gibson, Mel; Kennedy Family;
fornia. After graduating from Palisades High School, he Lapin, Daniel; Limbaugh, Rush; McLuhan, Marshall; Reagan,
studied American history at Yale University (BA, 1969), Ronald; Religious Right.
where he also briefly studied law (1969–1970). This was
followed by a creative writing program at California Further Reading
State University, San Francisco (MFA, 1974). Early jobs Catanzaro, Michael J. “Michael Medved.” Human Events, Febru-
included teaching at a Hebrew school in New Haven, ary 20, 1998.
Connecticut (1969–1970), working as a speechwriter Medved, Michael. “The Demand Side of Television.” In Build-
for various Democratic candidates (1970–1972), and ing a Healthy Culture: Strategies for an American Renaissance,
writing for an advertising agency in Oakland, California ed. Don Eberly, 416–23. Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
(1972–1974). Other early writings include The Shadow Eerdmans, 2001.
Presidents: The Secret History of the Chief Executives and ———. Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on
Their Top Aides (1979) and Hospital: The Hidden Lives of Traditional Values. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
a Medical Center Staff (1983). Michael Medved Web site. www.michaelmedved.com.
For years a film critic for the Public Broadcasting “The Thorn in Hollywood’s Side.” Christianity Today, April
Service (co-host of Sneak Previews, 1985–1996) and the 27, 1992.
New York Post (1993–1996), Medved emerged as a popu-
lar voice for social conservatives, including the Religious
Right. After guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh’s radio M e n ’s M ove m e n t
talk show, Medved began his own syndicated program The men’s movement that developed in America in the
in 1996, broadcasting at KVI-AM out of Seattle. His 1970s, which sought to promote social and cultural
Men ’s Movement 355
changes that centered on understandings of manhood, fathers initiated their sons into manhood, but the In-
gender relations, and family life, was not a unified dustrial Revolution feminized men by separating them
coalition. The numerous groups clustered under this from their fathers, leaving them to learn the meanings
heading outlined a variety of issues and recommendations of masculinity from their mothers. Bly calls on men to
for social change. Scholars have generally viewed the embark on a “spiritual journey” through which they can
men’s movement as a response to the feminist movement discover their “deep masculine” natures. The attempts
of the 1970s. In general, the men’s movement attempted of participants in the mythopoetic men’s movement to
to define masculinity and assert the importance of the recapture a pre-industrial masculinity often took the
roles of men in American society. form of appropriations of Native American and non-
Western cultures. Men traveled to remote locations to
Reactions to Second-Wave Feminism take part in retreats that often involved Native Ameri-
A “men’s liberation movement” developed in the can rituals, drumming, chanting, and an emphasis on
early 1970s alongside second-wave feminism. Ap- notions of warriorhood. Mythopoetic leaders also touted
plying feminist insights, its leaders concluded that the potential for such retreats to promote male bond-
contemporary understandings of gender roles were det- ing, an activity that they viewed as critical to men’s de-
rimental to men as well as to women. Although mem- velopment in the absence of meaningful relationships
bers of the men’s liberation movement frequently saw between fathers and sons.
themselves as allies of feminism, some in the feminist Although some critics, including journalist Susan
movement believed that men’s liberation had the poten- Faludi in Backlash (1991), argued that the mythopoetic
tial to undermine the radical potential of feminism by men’s movement was a reaction against feminism, Bly
focusing on individuals rather than on the institutional and others maintained that the movement developed
structures of power that fostered women’s oppression. without reference to feminism—that it was about men
As the men’s liberation movement waned in the rather than women. Leaders of the movement articulated
late 1970s, the “men’s rights movement” began to as- a belief in essential differences between men and women;
sert that feminist ideologies were damaging to men and “deep” masculinity was portrayed as a timeless and
that the male had become the victim. The men’s rights unchanging phenomenon, although individual agency
movement, building on feminist notions of gender roles, played a role in gender construction. Bly suggested that
posited that the constraints of masculinity were more there were parallels between feminists and mythopoets, as
stringent and potentially damaging to men than notions both groups struggled against a society and culture that
of femininity were to women. Some advocates argued circumscribed their self-definitions and their day-to-day
that men were the true victims of sexual harassment, activities. However, the mythopoetic men’s movement
pornography, false accusations of rape, and media bias. was largely anti-intellectual and apolitical; its members
The “father’s rights movement” of the late 1980s argued focused on spirituality rather than on analysis of their
in favor of men’s right to custody in cases of divorce, the activities. Critics claimed that, like the men’s liberation
elimination of alimony and child-support arrangements, movement, it ignored institutions and power structures
and greater control in cases where a partner is consider- that worked to men’s benefit.
ing abortion.
Consequently, the men’s rights movement had Return to Traditional Roles
important political ramifications. Most activists were The Promise Keepers of the mid-1990s represented
white, middle-class males who felt threatened by what a more conscious effort to work against the changes
they viewed as a culture of entitlement for women and brought about by feminism. The Promise Keepers
minorities. Such men tended to move to the right po- aimed for a reassertion of masculinity and a return to
litically, thereby exacerbating the gender gap in the men’s leadership in families. The movement was deeply
American electorate. rooted in conservative Christianity; one of its goals
was the “remasculinization” of images of Jesus Christ.
The Mythopoetic Movement Their call for a return to traditional gender and family
The leaders of the “mythopoetic men’s movement” drew roles was premised on a belief in God-given biological
on myths and fairy tales to create gendered archetypes characteristics, dictating that women are best suited to
and encouraged men to analyze these stories in order to childrearing and other domestic duties, while men are
achieve personal insights. They argued that industrial- meant to be breadwinners and community and family
ization and modernization, rather than feminism, had leaders. The Promise Keepers have drawn criticism for
a deleterious effect on American men and masculinity. their apparently antigay and antifeminist agenda. Most
Robert Bly in his best-seller Iron John (1980), one of Promise Keepers are middle-class, white, Protestant
the movement’s seminal texts, argues that pre-industrial men, but the group has made efforts to reach across
societies were characterized by rituals through which racial lines. Such efforts have generally been stymied,
35 6 Mexico
however, by the differing priorities of members of other economic growth in Mexico; conservative opponents
ethnic and racial groups, particularly African-American argued that untold numbers of American workers would
men. lose their jobs as production moved across the border,
The Million Man March, organized in October 1995 where labor was cheaper. Subsequently, however, liber-
by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, was based on als came to express disillusionment with NAFTA (and
a declaration that black men intended to confront the globalization in general) because of its negative impact
crisis they perceived in black communities and families. on small farmers and businesses as American products
The movement’s emphasis on the need for men to assume flooded the market and Wal-Mart stores displaced lo-
leadership roles echoed the ideas of the Promise Keepers, cal tiendas.
but participants used a language of gender equality that The controversy over illegal immigration from
went beyond the framework of the Promise Keepers. Mexico has been another ongoing debate in the culture
While participants in the various men’s movements wars, heightened by the September 11, 2001, terrorist
have articulated a shared sense that Americans must attacks and the resulting wave of xenophobia. Many
reexamine and redefine masculinity, there has not been liberals and some conservatives have emphasized the
a unified approach to achieving that end. economic plight of impoverished Mexicans who travel
to the United States in search of work, as well as the
Charlotte Cahill benefits of cheap labor to American businesses. Some
have called for amnesty or other legal mechanism to allow
See also: Evangelicalism; Farrakhan, Louis; Feminism, Second- undocumented immigrants to obtain American citizen-
Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Gay Rights Movement; Mil- ship. Most conservatives, however, view illegal aliens as
lion Man March; Promise Keepers; Victimhood; Women’s lawbreakers who should be deported. Many Americans
Studies. characterize illegal aliens from Mexico as invaders who
smuggle drugs, take jobs from American workers, and
Further Reading enjoy social and medical services without paying taxes.
Claussen, Dane S., ed. The Promise Keepers: Essays on Masculinity Although liberals applaud the multiculturalism that
and Christianity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000. Mexicans and other Latin Americans have brought to
Griswold, Robert L. Fatherhood in America: A History. New York: the United States, conservatives warn of “Mexifornia”
Basic Books, 1993. (an overrunning of the state of California by Mexicans)
Hagan, Kay Leigh, ed. Women Respond to the Men’s Movement. and the threat of unchecked immigration to America’s
San Francisco: Pandora, 1992. Anglo-Protestant cultural and political identity. The
Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. New movement to make English the official language of the
York: Free Press, 1996. United States is a response to the perceived cultural threat
Magnuson, Eric Paul. Changing Men, Transforming Culture: posed by the influx of Hispanics.
Inside the Men’s Movement. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publish- The conservative camp of the culture wars has pushed
ers, 2007. for the completion of a wall at the southern border of
Messner, Michael A. Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements. the United States to prevent illegal aliens from turning
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997. America into another Third World nation. Such a wall,
it is further argued, would strengthen America’s home-
land security and serve as a protection against terrorism
Mexico and drug smuggling. During the summer of 2005, to
Given that Mexico and the United States share a highlight dissatisfaction with the open border, civilian
common border and yet are vastly different in terms of vigilante volunteers of the Minuteman Project patrolled
political and social traditions, religion, and economic the frontier between Mexico and Arizona to deter illegal
development, it was perhaps inevitable that Mexico crossings. The opposing camp maintains that the two
would become a major battleground topic in America’s countries must recognize their interdependence and work
culture wars. together to resolve the economic problems, such as un-
The dominant issue during the 1990s was free trade, employment and low wages, that lead so many Mexicans
in the context of the North American Free Trade Agree- to cross the border into the United States.
ment (NAFTA), signed by the United States, Mexico,
and Canada in 1992 and taking effect on January 1, Sue Davis
1994. Under the provisions of the agreement, goods
and services would be exchanged freely, without tariffs, See also: Bush Family; Canada; Clinton, Bill; English as the
between the participating nations. Initially, support Official Language; Globalization; Illegal Immigrants; Immi-
for NAFTA came from liberals, who maintained that gration Policy; Migrant Labor; September 11; Vigilantism;
increasing trade would lead to more jobs and more rapid Wal-Mart; War on Drugs.
Mic rosof t 357
Further Reading titrust authorities of the United States and the European
Cooper, Marc. “High Noon on the Border.” Nation, June 6, Union. The browser wars spilled over into the culture
2005. wars, as Microsoft’s products came under attack by some
Domiguez, Jorge I., and Rafael Fernandez de Castro. United members of the “open-source community,” endorsers of
States and Mexico: Between Partnership and Conflict. New York: the idea that the code for operating personal computers
Routledge, 2001. and the software applications running on them should
Hanson, Victor Davis. “Frank Talk About ‘Mexifornia.’ ” Im- be freely available to all. Resentful of Microsoft’s market
primis, November 2003. dominance, hackers engaged in a campaign to disable
Huntington, Samuel P. Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s Windows-based PCs by distributing viruses and worms
National Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. over the Internet that exploited vulnerabilities in the
Preston, Julia, and Samuel Dillon. Opening Mexico: The Making of operating system’s security defenses.
a Democracy. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004. Although Microsoft had been the subject of a Fed-
eral Trade Commission investigation into the provisions
of licensing agreements with PC manufacturers in the
Microsoft early 1990s, Windows 95 drew the battle lines more
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice, under sharply. That version of Microsoft’s operating system was
President Bill Clinton, initiated an antitrust lawsuit bundled with the first edition of the company’s own Web
against Microsoft, the world’s largest computer software browser, Internet Explorer, intended to compete directly
company and the maker of the Windows computer with Netscape Navigator. Because Internet Explorer was
operating system. The suit alleged that Microsoft, included with Windows 95 at no charge and given a
headquartered in Redmond, Washington, and run by prominent place on PC desktops, Netscape complained
founder and CEO Bill Gates, had become a monopoly, to the Department of Justice that Microsoft was engaged
illegally stifling competition and innovation. The in an unlawful attempt to drive it from the market.
public debate on the case focused on the rights of Joined by the attorneys general of twenty states and
producers versus those of consumers. Gates maintained the District of Columbia, the Justice Department sued
that what was good for Microsoft was good for computer Microsoft in May 1998, charging that the company
and Internet users, but hackers who disagreed fought had monopolized the market for PC operating systems
back by releasing computer viruses aimed at crippling and had used its monopoly unlawfully in a variety of
Microsoft systems. ways. Chief among the charges was that Microsoft had
The ubiquitous personal computer (PC) is only a introduced Internet Explorer to prevent Navigator from
few decades old. The first IBM PC became available in becoming an alternative to Windows as a platform for
1981. Foreseeing the personal computer’s potential far running software applications.
more clearly than his former bosses at “Big Blue,” who The federal judge who presided over the Microsoft
remained wedded to the mainframe, Gates shipped the case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ultimately ruled in the
initial copies of his Windows operating system in 1985. government’s favor. Since Windows was preloaded on 90
Windows 3.0, the first truly user-friendly version of percent of the new PCs shipped in the United States, and
Microsoft’s product, was released on May 22, 1990, and Microsoft’s large market share had created a barrier to
quickly became the industry standard, a position Gates’s entry by manufacturers of rival operating systems because
company solidified five years later when it introduced most software applications were written for Windows, the
Windows 95. judge concluded that the company possessed monopoly
Windows 95 was launched one week after Netscape, power. On June 28, 2001, Judge Jackson ordered Micro-
a tiny start-up company headquartered in Mountain soft, within ninety days, to break itself into two separate
View, California, went public. At the leading edge of firms, one devoted to operating systems and the other to
what would become the dot-com boom (and subsequent software applications. That remedy was overturned on
bust), Netscape’s stock offering was wildly successful, as appeal, however, and the case eventually was settled in
investors flocked to buy shares in the company that had early 2003 on terms that preserved Microsoft’s organi-
acquired the rights to Mosaic, a browser for connecting zational structure but imposed various restrictions on its
to sites on the World Wide Web. Beginning in 1993, business practices.
when Mosaic had only twelve users, Netscape transformed As it turned out, Internet Explorer’s share of the
Mosaic into Navigator, the first “killer application” of the browser market reached 85 percent by 2006, while
PC age. Two years later, Netscape’s browser completely Netscape, after its purchase by America Online, lost its
dominated the market. position completely. However, open-source applications
Whether the release of Windows 95 was timed de- took off: Linux, the operating system written by Linus
liberately or not, 1995 marked the start of the “browser Torvals, steadily attracted users, as did the Web browser
wars” and Microsoft’s protracted encounters with the an- Firefox and e-mail client Thunderbird, both distributed
35 8 Mig rant L abor
at no charge by Mozilla.org. None of these developments ers quickly recognized the utility of cheap, compliant
were anticipated by Judge Jackson, who also excluded Mexican labor, which, after the braceros arrived at their
Apple’s MacIntosh operating system from the market he intended destinations, remained largely unregulated.
determined Microsoft to have monopolized. Braceros, who lived together in labor camps that were
Microsoft’s legal troubles were far from over. In March often only rudimentary places to eat and sleep, worked
2004, the European Commission, concerned, among other under temporary contracts. They often came to agreement
things, about the competitive effects of Microsoft’s bun- with farm owners that they would work at the same farm
dling Media Player with later versions of Windows, found in subsequent harvest seasons, returning legally through
that Microsoft had abused its dominance of the operat- the Bracero Program or otherwise.
ing system market and fined the company half a billion By 1945, an estimated 50,000 braceros were working
euros. With the support of George W. Bush’s Justice on American farms at any given time. Another 75,000
Department, Microsoft appealed the commission’s fine. worked in the railroad industry under a separate program.
As Gates announced in 2006 that he was stepping down Farm owners became so reliant on this pool of cheap labor
as the company’s CEO in order to devote more time to that, although the program was intended to end with the
his philanthropic work with the Bill and Melinda Gates conclusion of the war, many states continued importing
Foundation, EU Antitrust Commissioner Neelie Kroes braceros as late as 1964.
threatened to levy more fines on Microsoft for failing to
comply with the commission’s 2004 order. César Chávez and NFWA
As large agribusinesses consolidated control of farm
William F. Shughart II ownership in the mid-twentieth century, working
conditions for migrant workers—who lacked protec-
See also: Internet. tion by federal labor or collective bargaining law—
steadily worsened. A young man working in Los An-
Further Reading geles in the early 1950s, César Chávez, took notice
Auletta, Ken. World War 3.0 and Its Enemies. New York: Ran- of the migrant workers’ plight and in 1962 began
dom House, 2001. the National Farm Workers’ Association (NFWA),
Heilemann, John. Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates which organized California’s largely Mexican-Amer-
and the End of the Microsoft Era. New York: HarperCollins, ican (Chicano) and Filipino farm workers into a for-
2001. midable labor force. Previous attempts at organizing
Liebowitz, Stan J., and Stephen E. Margolis. Winners, Losers, migrant workers had failed, but Chávez exuded a
and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology. personal magnetism, due in large part to his devout
Oakland, CA: Independent Institute, 1999. Catholicism and his commitment to nonviolent so-
McKenzie, Richard B., and William F. Shughart II. “Is Micro- cial protest, which appealed to many workers. Thus, a
soft a Monopolist?” Independent Review 3:2 (1998): 165–97. cultural revolution had begun.
Rubinfeld, Daniel L. “Maintenance of Monopoly: U.S. v. Meanwhile, on Thanksgiving Day in 1960, television
Microsoft (2001).” In The Antitrust Revolution: Economics, journalist Edward R. Murrow broadcast a documentary
Competition, and Policy, 4th ed., ed. John E. Kwoka, Jr., and called Harvest of Shame, which revealed the poor living
Lawrence J. White, 476–501. New York: Oxford University and working conditions faced by migrants. Thus, when
Press, 2004. Chávez launched the now-famous grape strike and boycott
from the union’s headquarters in Delano, California, it did
not take long for it to garner nationwide attention. After
Migrant Labor a highly publicized 300-mile march from Delano to Sac-
Disagreements about migrant labor have been a constant ramento in spring 1966, Chávez announced a nationwide
in America’s culture wars. The migrant stream, which boycott of table grapes. Support groups formed to assist
often originates in Mexico and south Texas, creates the workers in cities across the nation, and the boycott
not only transnational and ethnic exchange but also finally broke the will of most California growers in July
cultural conflict. This interethnic exchange illustrates 1970, when many agreed to sign collective bargaining
the increasing social diversity of the United States since agreements with the union.
the 1940s. The victory proved only temporary. When most of
A 1942 agreement between the U.S. and Mexican the contracts expired in 1973, the majority of California
governments created the Bracero Program, through growers signed with the Teamster’s Union, and a bitter
which Mexican nationals legally entered the United struggle between the two labor organizations ensued. It
States to work in agriculture. The program was origi- was in the 1970s that the farm workers’ movement began
nally intended to prop up U.S. industries threatened by to disintegrate. Chávez ran afoul of many Chicano move-
labor shortages during World War II, but farm own- ment leaders when he issued public proclamations critical
Militia Movement 35 9
of illegal immigrants. Several union leaders became dis- Gamboa, Erasmo. Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros
illusioned with Chávez’s leadership. Antonio Orendain, in the Pacific Northwest, 1942–1947. Austin: University of
the union’s original secretary-treasurer, broke away Texas Press, 1990.
and formed the Texas Farm Worker’s Union in the Río Gómez-Quiñones, Juan. Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise,
Grande Valley in 1975. By the 1980s, the NFWA had 1940–1990. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
lost much of its force, though Chávez remains a celebrated 1990.
hero in the Mexican-American struggle for civil rights. Herzog, Lawrence A. Where North Meets South: Cities, Space, and
His legacy survives not only in the United Farm Work- Politics on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Austin: University of Texas,
ers (formerly NFWA) but also in the spirit of farm labor Center for Mexican American Studies, 1990.
organizations like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers,
a Florida-based group that led a protracted nonviolent
boycott against the fast-food chain Taco Bell in the late M i l i t i a M ove m e n t
1990s and early 2000s. In September 2004, the Farm The militia movement is a loosely organized network
Labor Organizing Committee, resorting to Chávez-style of paramilitary groups in the United States, most
boycotting, succeeded in unionizing most of the guest prominent in the early to mid-1990s but still active in
workers who harvest crops in North Carolina. the early twenty-first century. Militia members typically
oppose gun control legislation, believing that the
Post-9/11 Politics Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects
In addition to the many Mexicans in border cities who individuals’ right to bear arms and that an armed
have “green cards” allowing them to commute daily across citizenry is a crucial bulwark of liberty. Members also
the border to work for U.S. employers, millions of illegal tend to distrust the federal government and fear that the
immigrants cross the border yearly in search of work. United States is in danger of losing its sovereignty to a
Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, tyrannical “New World Order,” possibly to be ushered
the issue of illegal immigration has become deeply in by the United Nations.
politicized, as many fear that fundamentalist Islamic While militia rhetoric frequently includes calls for
terrorists will take advantage of the relatively porous violent action, members do not consider themselves en-
U.S.-Mexican border to enter the United States. This emies of the United States. Rather, they see themselves
fear led to the formation of the Minuteman Project, a as the true heirs of the nation’s founders in a country
volunteer group that patrols the border and assists the where most citizens no longer understand the meaning
U.S. Border Patrol in capturing illegal immigrants. Some of liberty. They also embrace an account of the American
high-profile conservatives, such as media commentator Revolution that largely credits small groups of citizen
Pat Buchanan, argued that President George W. Bush’s soldiers with winning the nation’s independence.
inability to address the “border problem” made the The militia movement is commonly associated with
Minutemen an unfortunate necessity. Liberals, however, the Patriot movement, a broader social movement that
criticize the Minutemen for their abuse and harassment includes gun advocates, tax protesters, survivalists, “sov-
of immigrants. ereign citizenship” proponents, some white supremacist
Although most Mexicans who cross the border il- groups, some abortion opponents, and “Wise Use” mili-
legally do so to participate in the U.S. workforce as well tants who generally oppose environmental legislation such
as consume goods made in the United States, many as the Endangered Species Act as infringements on property
conservative lawmakers have proposed increasingly stiff rights. The feature that distinguishes militias from other
penalties on illegal immigrants and the businesses that groups involved in the Patriot movement is their com-
employ them. In protests during spring 2006, hundreds mitment to armed paramilitary groups. Militia members
of thousands of ethnic Mexicans took to the streets in cit- hold that such organizations are authorized by the Second
ies such as Dallas and Los Angeles. Illegal immigration Amendment and statutes that define most male (and some
and the future of migrant labor will be hotly debated for female) adults as members of the “unorganized militia.”
years to come. Critics of the militia movement contend that it is a
Timothy Paul Bowman hotbed of racism and anti-Semitism and that its members
embrace a faulty interpretation of the Constitution. Also,
See also: Chávez, César; Hispanic Americans; Illegal Immi- militias are criticized for teaching an inaccurate account
grants; Immigration Policy; Labor Unions; Mexico; Militia of the American Revolution by exaggerating the effective-
Movement; Murrow, Edward R.; September 11; Vigilantism. ness of militias in that struggle while ignoring the role of
a professionalized Continental Army and assistance from
Further Reading France in securing independence.
Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. 5th ed. Although militia leaders have generally avoided ex-
New York: Longman, 2004. plicitly racist appeals, critics note that many militia lead-
360 Militia Movement
ers have previously been members of white supremacist Between 1994 and 1996, more than 400 militia
organizations such as Aryan Nations, Posse Comitatus, groups were active in the United States. Estimates of
the Ku Klux Klan, and a variety of Christian Identity total membership vary from 20,000 to 300,000. The
groups, and that many militias have adopted these groups’ movement began to decline after the bombing of the
organizational structures and tactics. According to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
Southern Poverty Law Center, militia leaders have minion April 19, 1995, although the effect was not immedi-
mized racist rhetoric in order to broaden their appeal but ate. Although Timothy McVeigh, who was eventually
without abandoning the underlying belief system. Critics executed for the bombing, was not a militia member, he
also note parallels between conspiratorial accounts of the had attended a Michigan Militia meeting and came to
coming New World Order and earlier, explicitly anti- be associated with the movement in the public’s mind.
Semitic conspiracy theories. In 1996, there was an eighty-one-day standoff between
The militia movement is part of a long history of law enforcement officials and a group called the Montana
paramilitary organizations in the United States and has Freemen, and in 1997 there was a seven-day confrontation
intellectual precursors such as the John Birch Society’s with a group called the Republic of Texas; both ended
critique of internationalism. Militia leaders transferred peacefully after negotiations. After the terrorist attacks
their conspiracy theories to the federal government after of September 11, 2001, a distinct decline followed in the
President George H.W. Bush, on the eve of the 1991 militia movement—the number of known groups fell
Persian Gulf War, announced a new world order, followed below 200—with no significant resurgence.
shortly thereafter by the demise of the Soviet Union and
the emergence of the United States as the world’s sole Thomas C. Ellington
superpower. Gun control legislation as well as federal as-
saults against citizens at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, See also: Conspiracy Theories; Founding Fathers; Globaliza-
Texas, confirmed in the minds of militia leaders fears of tion; Gun Control; McVeigh, Timothy; Montana Freemen;
“Big Brother” operating out of Washington. Revisionist History; Ruby Ridge Incident; United Nations;
The Ruby Ridge incident in August 1992 involved Vigilantism; Waco Siege; White Supremacists.
an effort to arrest fugitive white supremacist Randy
Weaver on weapons charges. Weaver’s son and wife Further Reading
were killed in the incident, as was a U.S. marshal. Before Chermak, Steven M. Searching for a Demon: The Media Construc-
Weaver’s surrender, the standoff generated national at- tion of the Militia Movement. Boston: Northeastern University
tention and drew a crowd of outraged antigovernment Press, 2002.
protesters to the site. Similarly, a federal assault on the Crothers, Lane. Rage on the Right: The American Militia Movement
Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, which ended from Ruby Ridge to Homeland Security. New York: Rowman
on April 19, 1993, with at least seventy-five deaths, also and Littlefield, 2003.
provoked outrage. The federal government, in its quest Dees, Morris, with James Corcoran. Gathering Storm: America’s
to enforce gun control, was seen as repressive and willing Militia Threat. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
to commit murder. Militia members were also troubled Michael, George. Confronting Right-Wing Extremism in the U.S.A.
by the passage of the Brady Bill (1993), which imposed New York: Routledge, 2003.
a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns, Mulloy, D.J. American Extremism: History, Politics, and the Militia
and a ban on assault rifles (1994). Movement. New York: Routledge, 2004.
In response to the events at Ruby Ridge, a group
met in October 1992 at Estes Park, Colorado, for a
meeting called the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. There M i l k , H a r vey
Larry Pratt, leader of the group Gun Owners of America, Elected in 1977 to the San Francisco board of supervisors,
declared conventional political efforts to be ineffective Harvey Milk was the first openly gay politician to hold
and called for the formation of small, armed groups to office in a major American city. His assassination the
resist federal oppression. In February 1994, the Militia following year by a political rival and the light prison
of Montana was founded by John, David, and Randy sentence for the perpetrator (seven years and eight
Trochmann, friends of Randy Weaver. This group dis- months) triggered a riot by gays and lesbians in San
tributed instructions on how to form a militia group. Francisco. In tape recordings, voicing a premonition of an
Among the groups using these instructions was the early violent death, Milk expressed hope that “hundreds
Michigan Militia, established by Baptist minister and will step forward, so that gay doctors come out, the gay
gun store owner Norman Olson and real estate agent Ray lawyers, gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects. I hope
Southwell in April 1994; it quickly became the largest that every professional gay would just say ‘Enough.’”
militia organization in the United States, with as many Harvey Bernard Milk was born on May 22, 1930, in
as 7,000 members. Woodmere, New York. After graduating from New York
Mille t t , Kate 3 61
State Teachers College at Albany (1951) and completing Millett, Kate

a tour in the U.S. Navy (honorably discharged in 1955), A feminist activist, artist, and cultural and literary
he worked as an insurance salesman and financial ana- critic, Kate Millett is known primarily as the author of
lyst in New York, maintaining politically conservative Sexual Politics: A Manifesto for Revolution (1970), a revised
views, even campaigning for Barry Goldwater during PhD outline that became an unlikely best-seller, landed
the 1964 presidential election. Over time, influenced Millett on the cover of Time magazine and provided
by his participation in theater productions, he joined the the modern women’s liberation movement with its
counterculture movement and relocated to San Francisco theoretical underpinnings. The book’s main thesis is
in 1972. There he opened a camera shop in Castro, the that gender roles are socially constructed, imposed
city’s main gay district, and emerged as a leader of the by a male-dominated society in order to subordinate
growing gay community. women.
Founding the Castro Valley Association, Milk repre- Katharyn Murray Millett was born on September 14,
sented local merchants in dealing with municipal govern- 1934, to an Irish Catholic family in St. Paul, Minnesota.
ment. Known as the “mayor of Castro Street,” he began to She studied literature at the University of Minnesota
politically organize from his place of business, launching (BA, 1956), St. Hilda’s College at Oxford University
a voter registration drive. After losing three close races, (MA, 1958), and Columbia University (PhD, 1970).
Milk was finally elected to the city’s board of supervisors As an activist, Millett joined the National Organiza-
in 1977. Less than a year into his term, on November tion for Women and chaired its Education Committee
27, 1978, he was shot and killed, while standing next (1965–1968), but she was also involved in the civil rights
to Mayor George Moscone, by a former city supervisor movement, including the Congress of Racial Equality.
named Dan White. The murder was revenge for Milk and She has taught at numerous institutions of higher learn-
Moscone’s refusal to reinstate White to the board; he had ing, including Wasada University in Tokyo, Barnard
formally resigned and then changed his mind. College, Bryn Mawr College, and California State Uni-
Although Milk wanted to be known as a “politician versity, Sacramento.
who happens to be gay” rather than a “gay politician”—he Sexual Politics indicts romance, the family as a
supported local unions, all minority groups, small busi- political unit, and monogamous marriage, and it
nessmen against big business and the political “machines” critiques the literary canon through such writers as
of both parties, and worked to save neighborhoods from
commercial development—the cause of gay rights was
his abiding passion. In an era when being gay was consid-
ered a psychological perversity and many cities still had
antihomosexual statutes on the books, Milk called on all
gays to come out of the closet and assert their gay pride.
He thought that if every homosexual, from bus drivers to
doctors, refused to hide their sexual orientation, society
would stop thinking of gays as sexual deviants. In the
1970s, however, there was still widespread opposition to
gays and homosexuality—from Anita Bryant’s referendum
drive in Florida to repeal an ordinance prohibiting dis-
crimination based on sexual orientation to John Briggs’s
Proposition 6 in California, which would have prohibited
any advocate of homosexuality from teaching in the pub-
lic schools. During his brief tenure as a city supervisor,
Milk faced Briggs, a state senator, in a televised debate
on the proposition—which was decisively voted down by
Californians in November 1978, just weeks before Milk’s
assassination.
E. Michael Young
See also: Bryant, Anita; Counterculture; Gay Rights Move-

ment; Goldwater, Barry; Outing; Penn, Sean.
A leading theoretician of second-wave feminism, Kate Millett
Further Reading rose to prominence and gave impetus to the movement with
Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of the publication of her first book, Sexual Politics, in 1970. (Fred
Harvey Milk. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. W. McDarrah/Getty Images)
3 62 Mille t t , Kate
D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Charlotte Brontë, and Million Man March
Norman Mailer. The manifesto inspired Mailer’s The One of the largest peaceful demonstrations ever held on
Prisoner of Sex (1971), in which he argues that males the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Million
also have a sensitive side. The publication of Sexual Man March took place on October 16, 1995, led by
Politics placed Millett at the forefront of second-wave the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis
feminism along with Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem, Farrakhan. The purpose of the event, as conceived at the
and Germaine Greer. Other books by Millett followed, African American Leadership Summit in June 1994,
focusing on contemporary world events and autobio- was to inspire and unite the black male community.
graphical experiences to analyze the intersection of in- The Million Man March brought together hun-
terpersonal relationships and larger cultural attitudes dreds of thousands of black men—estimates varied
and ideologies. significantly—from more than 400 cities across America
Millett’s other works include The Prostitution Papers for “a day of atonement, reconciliation, and responsi-
(1973), a defense of prostitute rights; Flying (1974), bility.” Participants gathered to hear prominent social
an autobiography that expresses discomfort with her activists and writers, such as Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson,
celebrity role as feminist spokesperson; Sita (1977), an Dick Gregory, Rosa Parks, and Maya Angelou, call for
account of her affair with a woman; The Basement (1979), an end to racism, white supremacy, violence, substance
an examination of female-adolescent brutality; Going to abuse, crime, and underemployment. The day-long
Iran (1982), a report on her brief trip promoting Muslim program, heralding the return of collective and peace-
women’s rights; The Loony Bin Trip (1990), a memoir in ful civil rights actions, was reminiscent of the 1963
which she discusses her mental breakdown; The Politics of March on Washington led by the Reverend Martin
Cruelty (1994), a treatise on patriarchal state-sanctioned Luther King, Jr. Numerous organizations, including
violence and torture; A.D.: A Memoir (1995), a reflection the National Black United Front, All African People’s
on her severed relationship with an aunt over her decep- Revolutionary Party, and Union Temple Baptist Church,
tion involving lesbianism; and Mother Millett (2001), pledged to continue the struggle for civil rights. Blacks
an indictment on the institutionalization of the elderly were encouraged to register to vote, join local African-
through the story of the illness and death of Millett’s American organizations, and become strong commu-
mother. nity activists. Farrakhan called for nothing less than
Millett has faced criticism from conservatives and the political, economic, and spiritual empowerment of
liberal feminists. While married to Japanese sculptor African-American males.
Fumio Yoshimura for many years, she was also openly The Million Man March brought the discussion of
in relationships with women. Millett’s bisexuality, along discrimination back into the mainstream media and pit-
with her reluctance to be cast as a “leader” of what was ted conservative commentators against the more radical
a large, grassroots movement, prompted “mainstream” black press. Although it was generally considered a suc-
feminists to look elsewhere for a representative voice, cess, the march was marred by controversy. When the
while gay rights activists admonished her for not coming U.S. Park Police estimated the crowd at only 400,000,
out earlier. Culture critics such as Camille Paglia read Farrakhan and other activists threatened to sue the
Millett’s work as overly bitter and out of touch with a National Park Service for attempting to undermine the
third-wave feminism that has moved beyond casting significance of the movement. Some black feminists and
women as victims of patriarchy. scholars, namely Angela Davis and Marcia Gillespie,
Rebecca Nicholson-Weir took issue with the male focus of the event. Some main-
stream African-American organizations, including the
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Family Values; Feminism, National Association for the Advancement of Colored
Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Gay People (NAACP), refused to endorse the event due to
Rights Movement; Lesbians; Mailer, Norman; National Or- the radical and politically incorrect nature of some of
ganization for Women; Outing; Sex Offenders; Steinem, Glo- Farrakhan’s teachings.
ria; Victimhood. The black press faulted the rightist press for focusing
too heavily on Farrakhan’s notoriety. Although planners
Further Reading repeatedly urged journalists to “separate the message
Millett, Kate. Sexual Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois from the messenger,” Farrakhan’s controversial character
Press, 2000. remained a prominent feature of the mainstream media
Moi, Toril. Sexual Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. New coverage. As he promoted the event by speaking about
York: Routledge, 1985. self-determination and moral and spiritual improvement,
Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti Farrakhan undermined any potential broad appeal by
to Emily Dickinson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, simultaneously issuing anti-Semitic, sexist, and black
1990. supremacist statements. Consequently, his comments
Miranda R ight s 3 63
deterred many conservative Republicans from fully en- Furthermore, since evidence can be thrown out in court
dorsing the march. if it is determined that the defendant’s Miranda rights
Despite such controversies, the Million Man March had been denied, conservatives argue that the “rights
presented a more positive image of African-American of criminals” allow loopholes for lawbreakers to escape
manhood to contrast with the negative media images justice. Liberals, on the other hand, see Miranda rights as
fueled by the O.J. Simpson murder trial, which ended on safeguarding individual civil liberties against the strong
October 3, 1995. The event inspired the Millions More arm of the government.
Movement, which became heavily involved in administer- Two years prior to the Miranda decision, the Supreme
ing aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina (2005), and Court’s ruling in Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) established the
the Million Mom March for gun control in 1999. basic framework for evaluating right-to-counsel claims.
In that case, the high court held that denying a criminal
Kelly L. Mitchell suspect access to an attorney in the context of custodial
interrogation violates the right-to-counsel provision of
See also: Angelou, Maya; Civil Rights Movement; Farrakhan, the Sixth Amendment and the due process clause of the
Louis; Hurricane Katrina; Jackson, Jesse; King, Martin Lu- Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, the Escobedo ruling
ther, Jr.; Malcolm X; Men’s Movement; Nation of Islam; Na- announced a key implication of the Sixth Amendment’s
tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People; language—at the moment police investigative efforts
O.J. Simpson Trial; Parks, Rosa. are trained on a particular individual, a right to counsel
goes into effect and remains during all subsequent police
Further Reading procedures.
Alex-Assensoh, Yvette M., and Lawrence J. Hanks, eds. Black Miranda, importantly, is distinct from the Escobedo
and Multiracial Politics in America. New York: New York case in at least two ways. First, Miranda rights were
University Press, 2000. created to give meaning to the Fifth Amendment’s self-
Clatterbaugh, Kenneth C. Contemporary Perspectives on Masculin- incrimination clause requiring that “No person shall . . .
ity: Men, Women, and Politics in Modern Society. Boulder, CO: be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
Westview Press, 1997. himself.” Second, Miranda rights dictate that police al-
Madhubati, Haki R., and Maulana Karenga. Million Man low persons held in custody access to an attorney, at the
March / Day of Absence: A Commemorative Anthology. Chicago: government’s expense if necessary, during all periods
Third World Press, 1996. of interrogation. Moreover, the Miranda ruling was an
extension of the Escobedo principle to persons who are not
the sole focus of a police investigation yet are subject to
Miranda Rights custodial interrogation.
As a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark The Miranda decision established a heightened
decision in the case of Miranda v. Arizona (1966), standard against which courts measure the admis-
law enforcement officials in America are required to sibility at trial of a confession rendered during police
verbally communicate an individual’s “Miranda rights” custody. Prior to the mid-1960s, judicial rulings in
to anyone questioned while in police custody. Miranda state courts on the admissibility of confessions turned
warnings consist of notification of the individual’s right on various applications of the due process clause of the
to refuse to answer interrogative questions, a warning Fourteenth Amendment. Consequently, the adoption of
that any answers may be used by prosecutors at trial, the Escobedo rules and, especially, the exacting Miranda
and a guarantee upon request of the assistance of counsel rules were of revolutionary impact in the arenas of
during questioning. street-level police work and the nation’s courtrooms—
Inasmuch as issues of crime and punishment are cen- settings where civil liberties and law enforcement
tral to ideological tensions in American society, liberals activities often collide.
and conservatives disagree bitterly as to the impact of Today, conservatives cite Miranda as an example
the Miranda case on crime-control policy and the juris- of the unchecked liberal jurisprudence of the Warren
prudential foundations of this key limitation on police Court, an impediment to effective law enforcement,
authority. Disputes about the applicability of Miranda and a decision with no foundation in constitutional text
rights occur whenever a criminal defendant during a that ultimately empowers criminals. Supporters of the
trial challenges the admissibility of a verbal statement Miranda decision argue that such warnings are demanded
made while in police custody. In short, the assertion of a by the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, address the
violation of Miranda rights centers on either an involun- pragmatic goal of enhancing the reliability of confessions,
tary confession or a denial of legal counsel during police and, perhaps ironically, ease prosecutors’ efforts to turn
questioning. For conservatives, Miranda rights unduly arrests into convictions.
“handcuff” police officers in the fight against crime. In 2000, much to the disappointment of the War-
364 Miranda R ight s
ren Court’s detractors, the Supreme Court in Dickerson M o n d a l e , Wa l t e r

v. U.S., reaffirmed the central role of Miranda rights When he ran for president in 1984, Walter (“Fritz”)
in the American system of criminal justice. Rejecting Mondale, a former U.S. senator (D-MN) and vice
conservatives’ invitation to review custodial confessions president to Jimmy Carter, was defeated by Ronald
solely according to subjective measures of voluntariness, Reagan, who won a second term as president and lay
Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s opinion for the Court claim to a conservative political realignment. Mondale
referred to the essential holding in Miranda as “part of was unable to resurrect a New Deal coalition that could
our national culture.” bridge the generational and ideological gaps of the
Beyond technical constitutional claims, liberals Democratic Party.
continue to advance two positions that, if correct, ef- Walter Frederick Mondale was born on January 5,
fectively undermine Miranda’s critics. First, supporters 1928, in Ceylon, Minnesota. He attended the University
of Miranda maintain that a large percentage of arrest- of Minnesota, studying political science (BA, 1951) and
ees waive their Miranda rights and speak freely with law (LLB, 1956), in between completing a hitch in the
police interrogators. Second, proponents of Miranda U.S. Army. As a student, he helped manage Hubert
rights, particularly the American Civil Liberties Union Humphrey’s first successful bid for the U.S. Senate
(ACLU), point to scientific studies indicating that it is (1948). Mondale’s subsequent political career was rich
highly unusual for criminal defendants to successfully and varied: Minnesota attorney general (1960–1964);
challenge a conviction on the grounds of a Miranda U.S. senator (1964–1976); vice president (1977–1981);
rights violation. Though conducted prior to the an- chair of the National Democratic Institute for Interna-
nouncement of the Court’s decision in Dickerson, an tional Affairs (1986–1993); U.S. ambassador to Japan
interview with ACLU legal director Steven Shapiro on (1993–1996); and U.S. special envoy to Indonesia (1998).
PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in January 2000 cap- After Senator Paul Wellstone’s sudden death in 2002,
tured the left’s perennial and most persuasive response Mondale made an unsuccessful attempt to win that seat
to Miranda’s critics. “If anything,” Shapiro explained, for the Democrats.
“it makes it easier to admit confessions at trial, as long Greatly influenced by his father’s liberal populism,
as police obey the rules.” Mondale as state attorney general emphasized consumer
Exhaustively debated for more than forty years, the protection and civil rights, earning a reputation as a
subject of Miranda rights fuels a key ideological divide “people’s lawyer.” He took over Humphrey’s seat in the
in American society. On opposite sides of the divide are Senate after his mentor became Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice
two distinct cultural forces—one defined by a liberal president in 1964. Senator Mondale supported Johnson’s
ideology and supportive of limitations on the power of Great Society programs and pushed for such later progres-
the state, the other conservative and suspicious of poli- sive initiatives as a $2 billion child-care program that
cies expanding the rights of persons accused of criminal President Richard M. Nixon vetoed in 1971.
wrongdoing. Though opposed, these positions are trace- As Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Mondale redefined
able to broader, persistent tensions among Americans on the role of an office long considered unimportant. The
the issues of crime and punishment. staffs of the president and vice president were integrated
Bradley Best for the first time, and Mondale became the first vice presi-
dent to have an office in the West Wing of the White
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Judicial Wars; Police House, near the Oval Office. He met regularly with
Abuse; Rehnquist, William H.; Right to Counsel; Warren, President Carter, had access to the same information, and
Earl. was not sidelined with “busy work.” However, he proved
unable to meaningfully shape the Carter presidency, as
Further Reading the administration’s policies were different from those
Cassel, Paul G., and Richard Fowles. “Handcuffing the Cops? of the New Deal and Great Society liberalism. With the
A Thirty Year Perspective on Miranda’s Harmful Effects emergence of “Reagan Democrats,” many voters deserted
on Law Enforcement.” Stanford Law Review 50 (1998): the Carter-Mondale ticket in 1980, electing Ronald
1055–145. Reagan to his first term as president.
Leo, Richard A. “Inside the Interrogation Room.” Journal of In 1984, Mondale was the Democratic presidential
Criminal Law and Criminology 86:2 (1996): 266–303. standard bearer. His selection of U.S. Representative
Samaha, Joel. Criminal Procedure. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wads Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) as a running mate, the first
worth, 1999. female candidate for vice president, showed his willing-
Shulhofer, Richard J. “Reconsidering Miranda.” University of ness to include new elements of the Democratic coalition.
Chicago Law Review 54 (1987): 435–61. But Reagan, running as a moderate conservative, drew
Stewart, Gary L. Miranda: The Story of America’s Right to Remain support from many Democrats, and Mondale, facing the
Silent. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2004. reality of inflation, openly stated during the campaign
Moore, Michael 3 65
that if elected he would increase taxes. When the votes were criticized for being overly patient with the Freemen,
were tallied, Mondale carried only his home state and the but the FBI was determined not to repeat the mistakes of
District of Columbia. Waco and Ruby Ridge, two earlier standoffs with other
Diane Benedic extremists that ended with lost lives. The federal govern-
ment spent $7.5 million in apprehending the Freemen.
See also: Adler, Mortimer J.; Carter, Jimmy; Democratic Par- Later, in federal court, it was determined that the
ty; Ferraro, Geraldine; Great Society; Humphrey, Hubert H.; Montana Freemen wrote 3,432 bogus checks totaling
Johnson, Lyndon B.; New Deal; Nixon, Richard; Reagan, $15.5 billion. Although less than 1 percent of the checks
Ronald; Republican Party; Wellstone, Paul. cleared, the group was able to accumulate $144,000 in
cash, along with an assortment of money orders and gold
Further Reading and silver coins. After two federal trials, the main lead-
Gillon, Steven M. The Democrats’ Dilemma: Walter F. Mondale ers of the Freemen received prison sentences. In March
and the Liberal Legacy. New York: Columbia University 1999, Schweitzer, the Freemen’s founder, was sentenced
Press, 1992. to twenty-two-and-a-half years in prison.
Lewis, Finlay. Mondale: Portrait of an American Politician. New In other cases, individuals associated with the Free-
York: Harper and Row, 1980. men movement have been implicated in various criminal
conspiracies, including a plan to bomb a mosque near
Denver in 1999. A group in Michigan that included a
Montana Freemen former member of the Montana Freemen was convicted
A white-supremacist group founded in 1992, the in December 2001 of issuing $550 million of counterfeit
Montana Freemen (sometimes referred to as the Christian U.S. Treasury checks.
Freemen) rejected federal authority, asserting that the Roger Chapman
U.S. government based on the Constitution is illegal.
Influenced by other right-wing militia and survivalist See also: Aryan Nations; Militia Movement; Ruby Ridge Inci-
groups, including Posse Comitatus and Christian dent; Waco Siege; White Supremacists.
Identity, the Freemen were secessionists who refused to
pay taxes and maintained that members of “the white Further Reading
race” are Israelites and subject only to the laws of the Barkun, Michael. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the
Bible (what they call “common law”). Christian Identity Movement. Rev. ed. Chapel Hill: University
The Freemen movement, based near the northeastern of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Montana town of Jordan, achieved notoriety in the mid- Jakes, Dale, Connie Jakes, and Clint Richmond. False Prophets:
1990s for attempting to defraud banks and businesses of The Firsthand Account of a Husband-Wife Team Working for the
billions of dollars by writing bogus checks and money FBI and Living in Deepest Cover with the Montana Freemen. Los
orders. They placed fraudulent liens on the assets of other Angeles: Dove Books, 1998.
individuals, especially public officials, to obtain collateral Shannan, J. Patrick. The Montana Freemen: The Untold Story.
for carrying out illegal banking schemes. Freemen leaders Jackson, MS: Center for Historical Analysis, 1996.
were known for hosting workshops on how to engage in
bank fraud, rationalizing it as legitimate activity against
an “illegal” system. However, one prominent militia Moore, Michael
leader, Charles Duke of the Patriot movement, publicly Film producer and writer Michael Moore has achieved
dismissed the Freemen as “nothing but criminals.” fame and fortune in the culture wars for a highly politi-
In September 1995, the Montana Freemen “estab- cized series of documentary films that are unabashedly
lished” their own government, Justus [sic] Township, liberal and populist in both perspective and audience
a 960-acre (390-hectare) compound consisting of four appeal. Relying on ambush interviews, news and archi-
ranches in Garfield County about 100 miles (160 kilo- val footage, animation, satire, and comedy, Moore has
meters) northeast of Billings. The settlement attracted taken on the interests of corporate America and the fed-
some individuals who had lost farms or ranches to fore- eral government (especially Republican administrations)
closures and sheriff auctions, but the group remained on issues including industrial unemployment, gun cul-
small in number. In May 1996, Leroy M. Schweitzer, ture, the war in Iraq, and health care. Opponents charge
Daniel Petersen, and eight other Freemen were indicted him with manipulating facts, distorting the sequence of
for trying to harm the national banking system. In June events, and editing videotape to create false impressions.
1996, after an eighty-one-day standoff with 633 federal He has also been criticized for owning stock in some of
agents, the remaining sixteen of twenty-six Montana the companies he has vilified in his productions.
Freemen surrendered without firing a shot, ending one of The son of a General Motors factory worker, Michael
the longest armed sieges in U.S. history. Federal agents Francis Moore was born on April 23, 1954, in Davison,
366 Moore, Michael
American oil industry, while portraying military recruit-

ment efforts as exploitation of the economically disadvan-
taged. Moore grossed about $200 million worldwide from
the release of the film, but his primary goal of thwarting
Bush’s 2004 reelection bid failed. In fact, according to
some critics, the film’s confrontational style led to a voter
backlash that helped Bush defeat Democratic opponent
John Kerry in 2004. Months prior to the election, the
singer Linda Ronstadt was booed off the stage in Las
Vegas after praising Moore and the film. Conservatives
that year produced three film rebuttals to Fahrenheit 9/11,
including Michael Moore Hates America, Celsius 41.11:
The Temperature at which the Brain . . . Begins to Die, and
FahrenHYPE 9/11.
Populist documentary filmmaker Michael Moore (left) joins
Jessie Swigger and Roger Chapman
a fellow liberal foot soldier in the culture wars, comedian-
turned-politician Al Franken, at the 2004 Democratic National See also: Bush Family; Election of 2000; Gun Control; Health
Convention in Boston. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Care; Kerry, John; School Shootings; September 11.
Michigan, a suburb of Flint. He attended Catholic schools Further Reading

until the age of fourteen and at one point considered Larner, Jesse. Forgive Us Our Sins: Michael Moore and the Future of
becoming a priest. In 1972, at age eighteen, he was the Left. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
elected to the Davison County School Board. Ironically, Palash, Dave, and Christopher Hitchens. The Real Michael Moore:
he failed to complete his freshman year at the University A Critical Biography. New York: Touchstone Books, 2008.
of Michigan–Flint, dropping out to work in local radio Rapoport, Roger. Citizen Moore: The Life and Times of an American
and journalism. He began hosting a public radio program Iconoclast. Muskegon, MI: RDR Books, 2007.
called Radio Free Flint and founded an alternative news- Schweizer, Peter. Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal
paper called the Flint Voice (later renamed the Michigan Hypocrisy. New York: Doubleday, 2005.
Voice). By 1985, Moore was a commentator at National Toplin, Robert Brent. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: How
Public Radio. Later, he was dismissed after a few months One Film Divided a Nation. Lawrence: University Press of
as an editor of the left-wing magazine Mother Jones (1986), Kansas, 2006.
but he used the windfall from an out-of-court settlement
to start Dog Eat Dog Films, a documentary film produc-
tion company.
M o o r e , R oy S .
Moore’s films include Roger & Me (1989), about the A former chief justice of Alabama (2001–2003), Roy
decision of General Motors to close its factory in Flint, Stewart Moore is best known for defying a federal court
Michigan; Bowling for Columbine (2002), about the culture order in August 2003 to remove a monument of the Ten
of guns and violence in America, in the wake of the 1999 Commandments from the rotunda of the state Supreme
student shootings at Columbine High School in Little- Court building in Montgomery—an act of defiance for
ton, Colorado; Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), about President which he was removed from office.
George W. Bush in wake of the September 11 terrorist Moore was born on February 11, 1947, in Gadsden,
attacks and the decision to go to war against Iraq; and Alabama. Upon graduating from the U.S. Military Acad-
Sicko (2007), about the nation’s failing health care system. emy (1969), he served as a second lieutenant in Germany
In addition to his films, Moore has written several books, and then in Vietnam, where he commanded a military
including Downsize This! Random Threats from Unarmed police unit. Following graduation at the University of
America (1997), about corporate crime and the effects of Alabama School of Law (JD, 1977) and passing the bar
corporate downsizing on working-class families; Stupid exam, Moore served as deputy district attorney for Etowah
White Men, and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Na- County and then worked in private practice. In 1992,
tion (2002), about conservative politics during the Bush Governor Guy Hunt appointed Moore to finish out the
presidency; and Dude, Where’s My Country? (2003), which term of a county circuit judge who died in office. Two
Moore called “a book of political humor” (and used at the years later, Moore defeated a Democratic challenger to
expense of political conservatives). win election to a full six-year term.
In Fahrenheit 9/11, perhaps his most controversial It was in this position that Moore first gained sig-
and popular film, Moore suggests that the Bush admin- nificant public notice, as the American Civil Liberties
istration’s invasion of Iraq was launched on behalf of the Union (ACLU) challenged his practice of beginning
Moral Major it y 3 67
court sessions with prayer and his posting of the Ten way for a new level of participation and influence in
Commandments in the courtroom. The ACLU filed suit American politics on the part of evangelicals.
against Moore in 1995, and the State of Alabama in turn In its early years the Moral Majority claimed rapid
filed suit on his behalf. The ACLU claim was eventually growth, reporting 7 million members by 1983, though
dismissed due to a lack of standing by the plaintiffs. most observers believe that figure to be inflated. For
Moore was elected chief justice of Alabama in 2000, instance, when the Moral Majority was at its peak in
having campaigned as the “Ten Commandments Judge.” the early 1980s, some 750,000 people received copies
On the night of July 31, 2001, Moore had a 2.5-ton gran- of the group’s newspaper while direct-mail solicitations
ite monument of the Ten Commandments installed in returned an average of only 10,000 contributions.
the rotunda of the Supreme Court building, while a crew The organization claimed to represent Christian
from Coral Ridge Ministries videotaped the installation. Americans disheartened by the secular turn in Ameri-
Moore unveiled the monument the next morning and a can culture and politics. Falwell repeatedly argued that
number of groups, including the ACLU, responded by America faced certain peril if it were to abandon its
filing suit in federal court. The monument, they argued, Judeo-Christian heritage. The Moral Majority advocated
amounted to a state endorsement of the Judeo-Christian positions that were largely cultural in nature and domes-
deity and was thus a violation of the First Amendment’s tic in focus. It opposed abortion and supported school
Establishment Clause. The Ten Commandments, Moore prayer. It was against sex education in public schools,
countered, represent the moral foundation of American arguing that knowledge of contraceptives would encour-
law, adding that his display was protected by the First age young, unmarried people to be sexually promiscuous.
Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and was in harmony The group criticized entitlement programs for the poor,
with the Alabama Constitution’s acknowledgment of linking welfare to the rise of children born out of wedlock.
God’s sovereignty. Deeming free enterprise as biblical, the group generally
The federal district court rejected Moore’s position and regarded welfare programs as socialistic.
ordered him to remove the monument, and this ruling was To a lesser degree, the Moral Majority also advanced
upheld on appeal. Moore refused to comply, however, call- certain foreign policy positions. The primacy of premil-
ing it an illegal order that he was duty-bound to disobey. lennial dispensationalism in fundamentalist thought,
On November 13, 2003, as a consequence of his refusal to which holds that the reconstitution of Israel signals the
comply with a federal court order, the Alabama Court of end times, led the group to support policies favorable to
the Judiciary removed Moore from office. In 2006, Moore the modern state of Israel. Indeed, the organization en-
failed to win the Republican primary for the Alabama dorsed Ronald Reagan’s 1980 candidacy for president in
governorship. large part because President Jimmy Carter had affirmed
Thomas C. Ellington the Palestinian right to a homeland. The group also sup-
ported President Reagan’s efforts to defeat leftist guerril-
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; American Civil Reli- las in Central America, wishing to curtail any potential
gion; Church and State; Coulter, Ann; Fundamentalism, Reli- establishment of an atheistic communist society.
gious; Religious Right; Ten Commandments. In addition to being the object of scorn by liberals,
the Moral Majority was attacked by moderates and even
Further Reading members of the political right, including the syndicated
Coulter, Ann. “Man of the Year: Roy Moore.” Human Events, columnist James J. Kilpatrick. Many detractors accused
December 22, 2003. the Moral Majority of seeking to establish an American
Davis, Derek H. “Religion and the Abuse of Judicial Power.” theocracy. As evidence, they pointed to the group’s sup-
Journal of Church and State 39:2 (Spring 1997): 203–14. port of policies said to undermine the separation of church
Green, Joshua. “Roy and His Rock.” Atlantic Monthly, October and state. Detractors also viewed the Moral Majority as
2005. bigoted and intolerant, noting the group’s depiction of
Moore, Roy, with John Perry. So Help Me God: The Ten Command- the AIDS epidemic as divine retribution for sinful life-
ments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom. styles and Falwell’s vigorous support of the South African
Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman, 2005. apartheid regime.
In January 1986, Falwell announced that he was
closing the Moral Majority and replacing it with the
Moral Majority Liberty Foundation. The organization’s decline has been
The Moral Majority was a conservative political attributed to a number of factors, including competition
organization founded in 1979 by the Reverend Jerry from other Christian advocacy groups vying for financial
Falwell, a fundamentalist Baptist preacher and television contributions from evangelicals; the group’s shifting fo-
evangelist based in Lynchburg, Virginia. Part of the cus on issues not directly related to moral concerns; and
Religious Right, the Moral Majority helped pave the Falwell’s controversial statements that repelled moder-
368 Morgan, Robin
ate and mainstream believers. The Liberty Foundation Robin Morgan, at the age of four, and became something
folded in 1989 and was superseded by Pat Robertson’s of a child star on the 1950s television series Mama. After
Christian Coalition. studying literature and writing at Columbia University
Although the Moral Majority was relatively short- (no degree, 1956–1959), she worked as a freelance book
lived, its formation and ascendancy was emblematic of editor and agent in New York City. She had her first po-
the growing participation of evangelicals in politics. ems published in the early 1960s and contributed articles
Many of the issues the Moral Majority advocated remain and essays to a number of counterculture publications of
on the conservative political agenda, and some have the period. In the early 1970s she began contributing
been addressed through legislation. A number of states, to Ms. Magazine, which she later edited (1990–1993).
for example, have restricted access to abortion and also Over the years, Morgan has played important roles in the
passed laws permitting moments of silence (for prayer founding of women’s aid organizations, and in 1984 she
purposes) in schools. co-founded the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, a think
Carolyn Gallaher tank. In 2007, she was named Humanist Heroine of the
year by the American Humanist Association.
See also: Abortion; AIDS; Carter, Jimmy; Evangelicalism; During the1968 Miss America pageant in Atlantic
Falwell, Jerry; Fundamentalism, Religious; Israel; Premillen- City, New Jersey, Morgan led a group of about one hun-
nial Dispensationalism; Religious Right; School Prayer; Sex dred feminists in a widely publicized “guerrilla theater”
Education. demonstration, in which participants crowned a sheep as
the pageant winner and tossed “instruments of torture to
Further Reading women”—bras, high-heeled shoes, and copies of Playboy
Fitzgerald, Frances. Cities on a Hill. New York: Touchstone, 1987. magazine—into a designated Freedom Trash Can. In her
Snowball, David. Continuity and Change in the Rhetoric of the Moral public statement, titled “No More Miss America!” Mor-
Majority. New York: Praeger, 1991. gan compared the contest to the judging of animals at
Webber, Robert. The Moral Majority: Right or Wrong? the 4-H Club county fair, only more commercialized. She
Westchester, IL: Cornerstone Books, 1981. criticized the pageant for choosing only white women as
Miss America, for its role as cheerleader for U.S. troops in
M o r a l Re l a t i v i s m the Vietnam War, and for imposing “Madonna-Whore”
See Relativism, Moral expectations on American women.
Morgan was an early feminist critic of the New Left,
arguing that it was controlled by a male hierarchy dis
Morgan, Robin interested in women’s issues—a topic of her famous essay,
A feminist activist, lesbian, writer, and editor, Robin “Goodbye to All That” (1970). In addition to advocating
Morgan has been a major figure in promoting radical female separatism in the struggle for gender equality, she
feminism, an ideology that links all social oppression to has made multiculturalism an aspect of feminism. In The
patriarchy. In 1967, she was a co-founder of the short- Anatomy of Freedom: Feminism, Physics, and Global Politics
lived New York Radical Women and its political wing, (1982), Morgan links feminism with the holistic move-
Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell ment, and in The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism
(WITCH). The following year, she was the principal (1989), she argues that terrorism is the logical consequence
organizer of the first protest against the Miss America of patriarchy. She has chronicled her personal development
beauty pageant. In 1979, she helped establish Women as a feminist in Going Too Far: The Personal Documents of a
Against Pornography, arguing that pornography is the Feminist (1977); The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches
theory of the practice of rape. Morgan has also compiled 1968–1992 (1992); and an autobiography, Saturday’s
and edited anthologies that advance radical feminism Child: A Memoir (2001). Morgan has further explored
at the national level, Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology feminism in her creative works, most notably her first
of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement (1970); volume of poetry, Monster (1972).
at the international level (including the Third World), Roger Chapman
Sisterhood is Global: The International Women’s Movement
Anthology (1984); and into the twenty-first century, See also: Beauty Pageants; Feminism, Second-Wave; Femi-
Sisterhood is Forever: The Women’s Anthology for a New nism, Third-Wave; Hefner, Hugh; Lesbians; Ms.; Multicul-
Millennium (2003). While some have criticized her for turalism and Ethnic Studies; New Left; Pornography; Viet-
being antimale, dogmatic, and loose with facts, others nam War; Women’s Studies.
praise her for voicing a universal female rage.
Robin Evonne Morgan was born on January 29, Further Reading
1941, in Lake Worth, Florida, and grew up in Mount Ver- Jay, Karla. “What Ever Happened to Baby Robin?” Lambda
non, New York. She had her own radio show, called Little Book Report, June 2001.
Mothers A gain s t Dr unk Dr i v ing 369
Morgan, Robin. “No More Miss America!” In The Radical Morrison caused a stir in 1998 when she referred
Reader, ed. Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John McMillan, to President Bill Clinton as the “first black president.”
425–27. New York: The New Press, 2003. Her participation in the culture wars, however, has been
———, ed. Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings mostly at the academic level through her nonfiction books.
from the Women’s Liberation Movement. New York: Random In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita
House, 1970. Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Real-
Willis, Pat. “Robin Morgan, 2007 Humanist Heroine.” Human- ity (1992), she focuses on the 1991 scandal surrounding
ist, November–December 2007. allegations of sexual harassment against U.S. Supreme
Court nominee Clarence Thomas. With Claudia Brodsky
Lacour, she edited Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script, and
M o r r i s o n , To n i Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case (1997), examining the
The writings of novelist, children’s author, essayist, and O.J. Simpson murder trial, which Morrison believes was
playwright Toni Morrison, the first African American correctly judged by the jury. Her Playing in the Dark:
to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993), address Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992) analyzes the
issues of history, identity, race, and gender from a “black character” in white literature, arguing that black
black feminist perspective, asking readers to engage in characters serve as “metaphorical shortcuts” pertaining to
“rememory” (remembering what has been forgotten). what is dreaded and desired.
The subjects explored in her work—from slavery and Kirk Richardson
its legacies to race relations to the O.J. Simpson trial—
have made Morrison an active participant in the culture See also: Angelou, Maya; Clinton, Bill; Feminism, Second-
wars. Wave; Great Books; Hill, Anita; Literature, Film, and Drama;
Born Chloë Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, O.J. Simpson Trial; Race; Thomas, Clarence; Till, Emmett.
in Lorain, Ohio, she was the first woman in her family
to attend college, studying at Howard University (BA, Further Reading
1953) and Cornell University (MA, 1955). She taught at Bloom, Harold. Toni Morrison. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House,
Texas Southern University (1955–1957), Howard Uni- 2000.
versity (1957–1964), the State University of New York at Fulz, Lucille P. Toni Morrison: Playing with Difference. Urbana:
Purchase (1971–1972), Yale University (1976–1977), the University of Illinois Press, 2003.
State University of New York at Albany (1984–1987), Gillespie, Carmen. Critical Companion to Toni Morrison: A Literary
and Princeton University (1989–2006). In 1964, she Reference to Her Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 2008.
became an editor at Random House. In 1970, she made Peach, Linden. Toni Morrison. New York: St. Martin’s Press,
her debut as a novelist. 2000.
Morrison’s novels—The Bluest Eye (1969), Sula
(1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved
(1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), Love (2003), A Mothers Against Drunk Driv ing
Mercy (2008)—largely draw on the African-American Founded in 1980, Mothers Against Drunk Driving
lore she heard growing up in a family with roots in the (MADD) is a nationwide grassroots organization that
South. Her play Dreaming Emmett (1986) focuses on the has lobbied successfully for tougher law enforcement
murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi against drunk driving. Widely viewed as an effective
in 1955. Black elites rallied around her work, and when “do-gooder” organization that has helped reverse
Beloved failed to win the 1987 National Book Award, societal complacency toward drunk driving, MADD has
such prominent figures as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Maya nonetheless drawn criticism from those who think its
Angelou, Alice Walker, and others praised Morrison in positions are repressive.
an open letter to the New York Times. The novel did win Originally known as Mothers Against Drunk Driv-
the Pulitzer Prize (1988) and was made into a movie by ers, MADD was started in California by Candy Lightner
Oprah Winfrey (1998). The Nobel Prize committee cited in reaction to the death of her thirteen-year-old daughter,
Morrison’s Beloved and other novels for their “visionary Cari, a victim of a hit-and-run motorist who was drunk
force and poetic import.” at the time and who had a record of repeated drunk-
As an editor at Random House from 1964 to 1983, driving offenses. Back then about half of the 45,000
Morrison helped shape the canon of African-American annual traffic fatalities in the United States were linked
literature, reaching out to other black authors such as to drunk driving. In 1980, Lightner compelled Califor-
Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, and Gayl Jones. She nia governor Jerry Brown to form a state commission to
saw biographies of Muhammad Ali and Huey P. Newton study the problem of drunk driving. Two years later, she
get published and helped produce The Black Book (1974), persuaded President Ronald Reagan to do the same at
a scrapbook of black hidden history. the national level. Lightner served on both commissions,
370 Mothers A gain s t Dr unk Dr i v ing
and her cause was further boosted by the 1983 airing of Further Reading
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers: The Candy Lightner Story, Jacobs, James B. Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma. Chicago:
an NBC television movie. By 1985, MADD had 320 University of Chicago Press, 1989.
chapters in forty-seven states. Liebschutz, Sarah F. “The National Minimum Drinking-Age
With its headquarters in Hurst, Texas, MADD Law.” Publius 15:3 (Summer 1985): 39–51.
pushed for (1) reducing the trend for plea bargaining Mothers Against Drunk Driving Web site. www.madd.org.
in which drunk-driving charges are dropped in ex- Reinarman, Craig. “The Societal Construction of an Alcohol
change for admissions of lesser offenses; (2) imposing Problem: The Case of Mothers against Drunk Drivers and
mandatory jail time, higher fines, and longer periods Societal Control in the 1980s.” Theory and Society 17:1 (Janu-
of driver license suspension/revocation for drunk driv- ary 1988): 91–120.
ing; (3) lowering the legal limit for motorist blood Sadoff, Mickey. Get MADD Again, America! Irving, TX: Moth-
alcohol count (BAC); (4) utilizing drunk-driving ers Against Drunk Driving, 1991.
countermeasures such as random sobriety checkpoints
at police roadblocks; and (5) raising the nation’s legal
drinking age. Motion Picture A ssociation of
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, America
heavily lobbied for by MADD, raised the drinking age Established in 1922, the Motion Picture Association
from eighteen to twenty-one. This was controversial of America (MPAA) is a nonprofit trade organization
because it meant that a young person old enough to vote that serves as the advocate of the U.S. film, home video,
or serve in the military would be denied the right to and television industries. Originally called the Motion
drink alcohol. According to MADD, 50,000 American Pictures Producers and Distributors Association, it
teenagers had died in alcohol-related crashes from 1974 was formed to promote the interests of the major
to 1984, roughly equivalent to the number of Americans movie studios and to safeguard against government
killed in the Vietnam War. Dismissing the argument that intervention. The latter concern grew out of the U.S.
age eighteen represents adulthood, Lightner answered, Supreme Court’s decision in Mutual Film Corporation v.
“There are different age limits for different levels of re- Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915), which affirmed the
sponsibility: thirty-five for President, thirty for Senator, right of states to establish film censorship boards. Much
twenty-three for FBI agent. We just don’t feel that kids of the MPAA’s involvement in the culture wars stems
at eighteen, many of whom are just learning how to drive, from its film rating system, the voluntary industry
should be allowed to drink too.” President Reagan, who standard.
regarded the bill as a violation of states’ rights, reluctantly The MPAA instituted its Production Code in 1930
signed it into law. in response to increasing public complaints about film
In 1985, following reports questioning Lightner’s content. The guidelines, which some regarded as an at-
financial management of MADD, the organization’s tempt to censor the industry, were created out of fear that
executive committee voted to sideline her. Relations fur- local authorities would ban the showing of films that they
ther deteriorated between MADD and its founder when, deemed immoral. This concern was enhanced when the
in 1994, Lightner became a lobbyist for the American Catholic Legion of Decency (CLD) declared a boycott of
Beverage Association, representing the alcohol industry. films it considered indecent. The Code mandated that
She also sided against MADD’s campaign to lower the films, prior to public release, receive a certificate from
national BAC limit from .10 to .08, arguing that existing the MPAA.
laws simply needed to be enforced. In a 2002 interview In the 1960s, filmmakers asserted that the Produc-
with the Washington Times, Lightner characterized MADD tion Code was stifling their creativity, and movies began
as turning “neo-prohibitionist,” adding, “I didn’t start to be released without the MPAA certificate. Attempts by
MADD to deal with alcohol . . . [but] to deal with the the CLD or other groups to boycott productions no longer
issue of drunk driving.” represented a serious threat, and the MPAA responded
In 2008, much to the chagrin of MADD, 130 college by creating its “Suggested for Mature Audiences” rat-
presidents called for lowering the drinking age in order to ing in 1966. Due to its perceived lack of stringency the
reduce campus surreptitious drinking, which they said is Production Code was abolished in 1967.
linked to binge drinking. Those in favor of keeping the The following year, after meeting with govern-
drinking age at twenty-one noted the 11 percent decline ment representatives and the National Association of
in alcohol-related deaths of young people since the pas- Theater Owners in response to public outrage about
sage of the 1984 law. the content of certain films, the MPAA adopted a new
Roger Chapman ratings system. The initial designations were G, M, R,
and X. The purpose was to rate the content of a movie
See also: Automobile Safety; Reagan, Ronald. to provide the public with guidance as to specific ele-
Moy nihan, Daniel Patr ick 371
ments: violence, sexuality, and harsh language. Later, M oy n i h a n , D a n i e l P a t r i c k

the MPAA refined the ratings to include the now- Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a U.S. senator (D-NY)
familiar G (General Audiences), PG (Parental Guidance and sociologist whose ideas on poverty and race relations
Suggested), PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned), R in America generated considerable controversy. Born in
(Restricted; viewer must be age 17 or accompanied by Tulsa, Oklahoma, on March 16, 1927, he was raised
a parent or guardian), and NC-17 (No One Under 17 in an impoverished neighborhood in New York City
Admitted). and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He
The MPAA rating system has been the object of attended Tufts University (BA, 1948; MA, 1949; PhD,
diverse and ongoing complaints. Some filmmakers 1961) and held various positions in New York state
find that the system has had the unintended effect of government during the 1950s. In 1961, President John
forcing studios to change film content, as filmmakers F. Kennedy appointed him assistant secretary of labor,
consciously make alterations to obtain a particular rat- in which capacity he quickly emerged as a key figure in
ing for commercial purposes. In addition, independent President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.
distributors sometimes believe that their films are Perhaps most controversial among Moynihan’s ex-
rated unfairly. They point to major studio productions tensive writings was his 1965 report “The Negro Fam-
that contain more violence, sex, and strong language ily: The Case for National Action.” In it, he argued that
than many of their films but receive a less-restrictive the “deterioration of the Negro family,” particularly in
rating. urban areas, was responsible for the gap in incomes and
According to a study by the Harvard School of living standards between African Americans and other
Public Health in 2004, the standards used to determine Americans, and that these circumstances were impeding
movie ratings have been steadily declining. The result, the progress of the civil rights movement. The Moynihan
according to the study, has been a significantly greater Report, as it was popularly known, further suggested that
degree of sex, violence, and strong language in films policymakers should rely more heavily on the research and
between 1992 and 2003. Other groups, including the methodologies of social scientists. Critics of the report
Conference of Catholic Bishops, an offshoot of CLD, charged that it blamed the victim rather than the cause
have also noticed the trend, resurrecting concerns about of the problem, provided an excuse for inaction on the
film content. critical issues of race and poverty, and drew attention
The independent documentary This Film Is Not Yet away from the real sources of these problems, but the
Rated (2005) explores the widespread inconsistencies in Moynihan Report did mark a change in government ap-
the MPAA’s approach to film ratings; in the book The proaches as policymakers moved away from their focus
Movie Ratings Game (1972), Stephen Farber confronts the on legal issues and considered broader questions about
issue from an insider’s perspective. Despite criticism of African-American communities.
the ratings system, many believe that it has generally Amid growing tensions with President Johnson,
benefited filmmakers more than it has hurt them. As the Moynihan resigned from the Department of Labor and
concerns grow on both sides of the issue, the MPAA and in 1966 became a professor at Harvard University. The
its ratings system no doubt will remain controversial. debate over the Moynihan Report caused him to question
his commitment to liberalism, and in time he would be-
James W. Stoutenborough come identified with the neoconservative movement. He
returned to Washington in 1968 to serve in the Nixon
See also: Catholic Church; Censorship; Comic Books; Literature, administration as assistant to the president for urban af-
Film, and Drama; Record Warning Labels; Zappa, Frank. fairs. Moynihan again became the center of controversy
in 1970, after writing a memo to the president in which
Further Reading he outlined the significant gains in income and education
Bernstein, Matthew. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and level in the African-American community, contended
Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers that racial politics in America had become too highly
University Press, 1999. charged to be constructive, and suggested that the “issue
Black, Gregory D. The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940– of race could benefit from a period of ‘benign neglect.’”
1975. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Critics cited the memo as evidence that Moynihan did
Farber, Stephen. The Movie Ratings Game. Washington, DC: not care about the problems of African Americans.
Public Affairs Press, 1972. Moynihan served as U.S. ambassador to India from
Lewis, Jon. Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle over Censor- 1971 to 1973 and as U.S. representative to the United
ship Saved the Modern Film Industry. New York: New York Nations from 1975 to 1976. He used the latter position
University Press, 2000. to promote the growth of liberal democracy around the
Motion Picture Association of America Web site. www.mpaa globe. Although he was highly popular at home, he
.org. drew criticism from abroad for his relentless defense of
372 Ms.
American interests. Moynihan was elected to four terms 1960s. In March 1970, the National Organization of
in the U.S. Senate (1977–2001), where he became chair Women (NOW) formally adopted Ms. as the appropriate
of the Finance Committee and cemented his reputa- title for any woman. The designation also inspired the
tion as a political maverick. Ever unpredictable, he was name of a new feminist periodical, the influential Ms.
willing to criticize politicians and policies without Magazine. Founded in 1972 by Gloria Steinem, Ms. stood
regard for party loyalties. Although he supported the out as a different kind of women’s magazine, one that
neoconservative push for a muscular Cold War foreign was countercultural and independent, dismissing no-
policy, Moynihan was also deeply concerned about hu- tions of beauty and domesticity and declaring a woman
man rights and criticized the Reagan administration’s as having an identity not defined by her relationship
policies in Latin America. Elected as a Democrat, he to a man.
worked toward welfare reform and opposed President Bill Also in 1972, Congresswoman Bella Abzug (D-NY)
Clinton’s health care proposals. Moynihan was awarded introduced legislation that would have restricted the
the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. He died on federal government from using Mrs. or Miss in correspon-
March 26, 2003. dence or records. Although her bill did not pass, the U.S.
Charlotte Cahill Treasury Department and the Government Printing Of-
fice subsequently authorized the use of Ms. Also in 1972,
See also: Affirmative Action; Civil Rights Movement; Clinton, feminists lobbied the New York Times to officially adopt
Hillary; Family Values; Great Society; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Ms. for identifying women in news articles and editori-
Kennedy Family; Neoconservatism; United Nations; War on als; the editors refused. In March 1974, women activists
Poverty; Wealth Gap. began what would be twelve years of random picketing
outside the Times’s office in protest of the continued use
Further Reading of Miss and Mrs.
Ehrman, John. The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and For- The Times began questioning its policy on Ms. after
eign Affairs, 1945–1994. New Haven, CT: Yale University Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York emerged
Press, 1995. as the Democrat’s vice presidential candidate in 1984.
Glazer, Nathan, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Beyond the Melt- The influential political columnist and language expert
ing Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of William Safire suggested that since Ferraro, married to
New York City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1963. John Zaccaro, had kept her maiden name, it was not
Katzmann, Robert A., ed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intel- technically correct to refer to her as “Mrs. Ferraro.” On
lectual in Public Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University the other hand, he pointed out, identifying her as “Miss
Press, 2004. Ferraro” was likewise inaccurate. Thus, Safire concluded,
Rainwater, Lee, and William L. Yancey. The Moynihan Report and it made sense to call her Ms. Ferraro. Ironically, although
the Politics of Controversy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967. the candidate preferred to be addressed as “Congress-
Schoen, Douglas. Pat. New York: Harper and Row, 1979. woman” or “Ms.,” during the campaign, she continued to
use the conventional “Mrs.” for private matters. On June
19, 1986, the editors of the paper announced, “The Times
Ms. believes that ‘Ms.’ has become a part of the language and
An alternative to “Miss” and “Mrs.,” the honorific “Ms.” is changing its policy.”
(pronounced Miz) promotes gender equality by providing As Ms. became assimilated in everyday speech as a
women the female equivalent of “Mr.,” rendering courtesy title, the term was largely rendered apolitical.
marital status irrelevant in how one is addressed. Some have concluded that this is because the feminist
During the 1970s, after Ms. emerged as a trademark of values of the 1970s have been adopted as mainstream.
the women’s liberation movement, critics characterized True or not, polls conducted over the years have indi-
it as “contrived” and “man-hating.” Feminists regarded cated a lingering stereotype that women who use Ms.
the term as empowering because it defined a woman are more likely to be masculine, divorced, or less than
as an individual in her own right. With the trend of ideal wives and mothers. The original Ms. Magazine
more brides retaining their maiden names (by 2000 ceased publication in 1989 but was resurrected the
that represented about 20 percent of college-educated following year as a bimonthly, in smaller format, and
women), Ms. became a more convenient designation as without advertising.
well. Roger Chapman
As early as 1952, the National Office Management
Association recommended the designator Ms. to simplify See also: Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave;
recordkeeping and the drafting of correspondence. The Ferraro, Geraldine; Gender-Inclusive Language; Marriage
term was consequently introduced in secretarial manu- Names; Morgan, Robin; National Organization for Women;
als, which drew the attention of feminists during the New York Times, The; Steinem, Gloria.
Multic ulturalism and Ethnic Studies 373
Further Reading of the civil rights movement. They advocate race-blind

Atkins-Sayre, Wendy. “Naming Women: The Emergence policies and often criticize minorities and homosexu-
of ‘Ms.’ as a Liberatory Title.” Women and Language 28:1 als as lacking self-reliance and clinging to deviant or
(2005): 8–16. pathological beliefs, values, and institutions. Instead of
Crawford, Mary, Amy C. Stark, and Catherine Hackett Renner. attributing social or economic disparities to racism, sex-
“The Meaning of Ms.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 22 ism, or homophobia, multicultural conservatives often
(1998): 197–208. cite cultural deficiencies or individual inadequacies as
Farrell, Amy Erdman. Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the explanations for the problems of minorities and women.
Promise of Popular Feminism. Chapel Hill: University of North They argue that policies promoting preferential treat-
Carolina Press, 1998. ment for women and minorities fuel a victim mentality
in those social groups.
Multicultural conservatives have faced occasional
Multicultural Conser vatism marginalization from the right and have complained that
“Multicultural conservatism” is a term coined by the mainstream conservative movement needs to increase
political historian Angela D. Dillard in her book Guess its outreach efforts toward women and minorities. Critics
Who’s Coming to Dinner Now? (2001), an examination of on the left point out that some multicultural conserva-
conservative African Americans, Latinos, homosexuals, tives who oppose policies such as affirmative action have
and members of other minority groups that usually align gained prominence within the conservative movement
with the political left. Although members of ethnic or simply by virtue of their minority status. Critics of mul-
other minority groups, these conservatives typically ticultural conservatives cite polling and public opinion
reject the communal associations of multiculturalism and data to suggest that their views are not representative
“identity politics.” Instead, they call for politics based of minorities and women generally. Ironically, such at-
on individualism, and they tend to support conservative tacks have sometimes led multicultural conservatives to
positions on family values and free markets. position themselves as misunderstood and victimized
Exemplars of multicultural conservatism include minorities within their own social groups.
Bruce Bawer, Linda Chavez, Dinesh D’Souza, Alan Keyes,
Richard Rodriguez, Phyllis Schlafly, Thomas Sowell, Corey Fields
Andrew Sullivan, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza
Rice, and organizations such as the Lincoln Institute for See also: Affirmative Action; Civil Rights Movement; D’Souza,
Research and Education, Independent Women’s Forum, Dinesh; Family Values; Heritage Foundation; Neoconserva-
and Log Cabin Republicans. Multicultural conservatives tism; Religious Right; Schlafly, Phyllis; Secular Humanism;
also have close ties with the mainstream conservative Sowell, Thomas; Thomas, Clarence; Victimhood.
movement, working within such larger conservative
organizations as the Heritage Foundation, American Further Reading
Enterprise Institute, and Hoover Institution. Dillard, Angela D. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now? Mul-
Multicultural conservatism is often associated with ticultural Conservatism in America. New York: New York
the rise of neoliberalism and the prominence of neocon- University Press, 2001.
servatives and the Religious Right within the Republi-
can Party. Its adherents share the neoliberal aversion to
government intervention in market policy and support Multiculturalism and Ethnic
low taxes, and at the same time they oppose what they Studies
see as the trend of secular humanism in American culture Multiculturalism has been a contentious topic of the
and its detrimental effects on traditional families, gender culture wars because it emphasizes pluralism over
roles, and morality. common heritage, challenging traditional views of
It is their staunch opposition to affirmative action Americanism. Instead of focusing on the nation as a
and other policies they perceive as giving preferential whole, multiculturalists consider culture and history
treatment based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality through the prisms of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and
that place multicultural conservatives in the center of even sexual orientation. The view is that the United States
public consciousness—and often controversy. Multi- is too vast and complicated to have one grand narrative,
cultural conservatives see the elimination of legalized but rather it is a nation of many different groups with
discrimination occasioned by the civil rights movement unique stories. Critics argue that multiculturalism
as sufficient to create equal opportunities for minorities undermines national unity, hinders integration, taints
and women. Critical of the identity politics of the “civil scholarship, distorts the past by making “fringe” history
rights establishment,” multicultural conservatives view the central focus, instills victimhood status on minorities,
preferential social policies as an inversion of the goals dismisses individualism by relegating each person to a
374 Multic ulturalism and Ethnic Studies
group, and imposes political correctness. Advocates of lesbian, and bisexual studies, which began with a gay
multiculturalism argue that it acknowledges America’s literature class in 1978.
diversity; shows how the nation is richer and more Opposition to ethnic studies has centered on peda-
expansive than its stock Anglo-Protestant heritage; gogical issues. Some argue that these programs, by be-
opens space for other viewpoints to be presented and ing ghettoized, unwittingly marginalize the study of
seriously examined; and fosters tolerance, understanding, minorities. It would have been far more effective, critics
and democracy. suggest, to integrate ethnic studies into the “regular”
The debate on multiculturalism centers on two com- curriculum. The general trend has been that whites
peting metaphors—the melting pot versus the salad bowl. avoid ethnic studies, men avoid women’s studies, and
The former emphasizes homogeneity, viewing America heterosexuals avoid LGBTQ studies, meaning that these
as composed of immigrants from all over the world, who special programs have a narrow audience. With such
are absorbed into the nation, acculturated as one people awareness, some schools, including Bowling Green State
in accordance with the motto inscribed on the Great Seal University beginning in 1991, have mandated diversity
of the United States, E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one), courses as part of graduation requirements. The trend
as if all were put into one pot and made into an American of required ethnic studies has often been at the expense
stew. The latter emphasizes diversity, viewing America of the western humanities, including its emphasis on
as one nation composed of many ethnic groups, like the cultural canon or “great books.” Trading the great
different ingredients made into a tossed salad, in which books for ethnic studies has been disheartening to social
each kind of vegetable remains distinct, although each conservatives, who believe that the traditional values
shares a common bowl and perhaps some dressing (made enshrined in the canon have historically been the basis
from constitutional principles and concepts of equal op- of America’s greatness and cultural unity.
portunity) adds some common flavoring.
A movement began in the late 1960s to incorporate Roger Chapman
multiculturalism into higher education by introducing
programs of ethnic studies. This developed out of a stu- See also: Civil Rights Movement; Diversity Training; Gay
dent protest movement at the University of California at Rights Movement; Great Books; Hispanic Americans; Multi-
Berkeley and San Francisco State College in 1968. The cultural Conservatism; Muslim Americans; National Endow-
protesters, who formed a group called the Third World ment for the Humanities; Political Correctness; Race; Trans-
Liberation Front, demanded separate academic programs gender Movement; Women’s Studies.
to focus on African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispan-
ics, and American Indians. Further Reading
The argument for ethnic studies programs was that Bernstein, Richard. Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and
the academic curriculum of the university was biased the Battle for America’s Future. New York: Random House,
from a Eurocentric perspective, ignoring the history and 1994.
culture of other ethnicities. By February 1969, after weeks Foster, Lawrence, and Patricia Susan Herzog. Defending Diver-
of student violence, Governor Ronald Reagan called out sity: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives on Pluralism and
the National Guard. Calm was not restored, however, Multiculturalism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
until the following month, after both campuses opened Press, 1994.
ethnic studies programs. Goldberg, David Theo. Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader.
The Berkeley program started out offering thirty-four Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994.
courses and had a student enrollment of 990. In 1983, Huntington, Samuel P. Who Are We? The Challenges to American
Berkeley was the first institution to offer a doctoral pro- National Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
gram in ethnic studies. Two years later there were 500 Schoem, David Louis. Multicultural Teaching in the University.
black studies programs on the nation’s college campuses. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.
In 1974 there were 200 ethnic studies programs. By the Wood, Peter. Diversity: The Invention of a Concept. San Francisco:
1980s there was a resurgence of ethnic studies at schools Encounter Books, 2003.
across the nation. Beginning with San Diego State College
in 1970, programs in women’s studies were introduced,
operating on the rationale that the general curriculum Mumford, Lew is
is patriarchal. By 1975 there were 112 women’s studies A social philosopher, architectural critic, urban
programs across the country. Sexual diversity studies or planner, and educator, the broadly influential Lewis
sexuality studies programs, commonly known as LG- Mumford is remembered especially for his warnings
BTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, about the spiritual consequences of modernity and the
and queer) studies, were also founded. The City College dehumanizing aspects of technology.
of San Francisco established the first department of gay, Born in Flushing, New York, on October 19, 1895,
Murdoch , Ruper t 375
Mumford studied at the New School for Social Research Wojtowicz, Robert. Sidewalk Critic: Lewis Mumford’s Writings
(beginning in 1912), as well as City College of New York on New York. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press,
and Columbia University, but he never obtained a degree. 2000.
After serving in the U.S. Navy (1917–1918), he worked as
associate editor of the Sociological Review and then became Murdoch, Ruper t
a freelance writer. He is the author of more than thirty As chief executive of News Corporation—whose hold-
books, including The Study of Utopias (1922), The Culture ings include major newspapers, magazines, film studios,
of the Cities (1938), The Condition of Man (1944), The Con- television stations, and other assets in the United States,
duct of Life (1951), The City in History (1961), The Myth United Kingdom, Australia, and elsewhere—Rupert
of the Machine (1967–1970), and The Pentagon of Power Murdoch is one of the most powerful figures in world
(1971). He was the architectural critic for the New Yorker media. His U.S. media enterprises, in particular Fox
magazine for more than thirty years and, beginning in News, have heightened the culture wars by promoting a
1929, taught at such institutions as Dartmouth, Stanford politically conservative agenda.
University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, He was born Keith Rupert Murdoch on March 11,
and the University of California, Berkeley. 1931, in Australia, where his father was an influential
Many of Mumford’s writings on literature, cities, and newspaper executive. After attending Oxford University
architecture address the problems of modernity associated (MA, 1953), he returned to Australia to take over his
with the dehumanizing aspects of technology. Although father’s newspaper business, which he christened News
he had once been optimistic about the assertion of the Corporation. Over the next decade, Murdoch acquired
human spirit through technological advancements, he a string of newspapers throughout Australia, and in
later changed his mind and warned about “technics,” the 1964 he founded the country’s first national paper, the
interweaving of high-tech innovation with the social fab- Australian. Murdoch’s goals of acquiring outlets in other
ric such that the goals and processes of technology take on types of media were restricted by Australia’s cross-media
a life of their own. He coined the term “megatechnics” to ownership laws, however, and his newspapers often
describe the constant, unrestricted expansion and replace- carried editorials demanding advantageous changes to
ment that robs manufactured artifacts of their quality those laws.
and durability while creating the need for higher levels Murdoch moved to Great Britain in the mid-1960s
of consumption, advertising, credit, and depersonaliza- and became a major force in newspapers there as well,
tion. In The Pentagon of Power, he cites New York City’s acquiring the nation’s leading paper, the Times, in 1981.
newly constructed World Trade Center as an example of But he was best known for his tabloid newspapers, par-
“purposeless gigantism” and “technological exhibition- ticularly the Sun in London, which featured topless mod-
ism” that threatens to dominate humanity. els. In 1986 and 1987, he revolutionized the newspaper
Mumford’s humanism and emphasis on the social business in the UK by moving printing and production
aspects of urban development were in direct opposi- in-house to avoid the British printers’ unions.
tion to popular notions of progress and betterment of By the mid-1970s, Murdoch was breaking into
the human condition in the twentieth century. While American media ownership, first acquiring the San
some critics see Mumford as antitechnology, his views Antonio News in 1973 and the New York Post in 1976,
are more complex—he differentiated technology used while founding the supermarket tabloid the National
to solve human problems from oppressive technology Star in 1974. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in
existing for its own sake. In 1964, he was awarded the 1985 in order to satisfy a legal requirement that only
Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mumford died on Janu- Americans could own television stations. The follow-
ary 26, 1990, in Amenia, New York. ing year, he founded the Fox television network, and in
1996 the twenty-four-hour cable station Fox News. He
Cynthia J. Miller also founded the right-wing Weekly Standard magazine.
By the beginning of the new millennium, Murdoch
See also: Literature, Film, and Drama; Mailer, Norman; had expanded his holdings into satellite TV and the
Nuclear Age; Postmodernism; Science Wars. Internet. In 2004, he moved News Corporation’s base
from Australia to the United States, apparently to take
Further Reading advantage of America’s more relaxed cross-media owner-
Miller, Donald L., ed. The Lewis Mumford Reader. Athens: Uni- ship laws. In 2007, the same year Fox Business Channel
versity of Georgia Press, 1995. was launched, Murdoch spent over $5 billion acquiring
Mumford, Lewis. Sketches from Life: The Autobiography of Lewis the Wall Street Journal.
Mumford. New York: Dial Press, 1982. Murdoch has aroused controversy with the purport-
Stunkel, Kenneth R. Understanding Lewis Mumford: A Guide for edly conservative bias of reporting in his diverse media
the Perplexed. Lewistown, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. holdings. The most noteworthy incident occurred in
376 Mur row, Edward R .
November 2000, when Fox News called the presidential help of a crack reporting team known as “Murrow’s boys,”
election in favor of George W. Bush before the votes had the progress of the war until its conclusion in 1945.
been accurately counted in Florida. The Robert Green- Later, it was argued by at least one writer that Murrow’s
wald documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on broadcasts drew America into the war.
Journalism (2005) provocatively showcases the conserva- After returning to the United States, Murrow contin-
tive tilt of Fox News. ued working for CBS, making the transition to the new
Some commentators suggest, however, that Mur- medium of television beginning in 1950. He served as
doch’s politics are more complex than a simple favoritism host of various programs, including the issues-oriented
for the right wing, as he tends to support policies that series See It Now. After leaving CBS in 1961, Murrow
further his business interests and profitability. Events or served under President John F. Kennedy as director of
political developments that may negatively affect Mur- the United States Information Agency (1961–1963). In
doch’s profits are rarely reported by his news outlets, but 1964, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
his newspapers are infamous for giving glowing reviews Murrow died of lung cancer on April 27, 1965.
of books and movies produced by his other companies. Prior to challenging the veracity and methods of Sen-
ator McCarthy, Murrow spoke out critically against the
Benjamin W. Cramer House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC),
stating in an October 1947 broadcast, “The right of dis-
See also: China; Election of 2000; Federal Communications sent . . . is surely fundamental to the existence of a demo-
Commission; Labor Unions; Media Bias; Neoconservatism; cratic society. That’s the right that went first in every
O’Reilly, Bill; Pornography; Republican Party; Weekly Stan- nation that stumbled down the trail of totalitarianism.”
dard, The. See It Now, which Murrow co-produced with Fred W.
Friendly, offered four hard-hitting broadcasts that were
Further Reading critical of the Red Scare and McCarthyism: “The Case of
Chenoweth, Neil. Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World’s Milo Radulovich” (October 20, 1953), “An Argument in
Greatest Media Wizard. New York: Crown Business, 2001. Indianapolis” (November 24, 1953), “Report on Senator
Kitty, Alexandra. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism. McCarthy” (March 9, 1954), and “Annie Lee Moss Before
New York: Disinformation, 2005. the McCarthy Committee” (March 16, 1954).
Page, Bruce. The Murdoch Archipelago. New York: Simon & The exposé on Radulovich—an Air Force Reserve
Schuster, 2003. lieutenant facing dismissal because, although declared
Tuccille, Jerome. Rupert Murdoch: Creator of a Worldwide Media “loyal,” he was classified as a “security risk” due to his
Empire. Washington, DC: Beard Books, 2003. father’s and sister’s alleged radical politics—raised the
Wolff, Michael. The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret
World of Rupert Murdoch. New York: Doubleday, 2008.
M u r r o w, E d w a r d R .
A pioneer of radio journalism and television news for
the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Edward
R. Murrow rose to prominence with his World War
II broadcasts from Europe and made his mark in the
culture wars by criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy
(R-WI) on the air in March 1954. In turn, critics of
Murrow castigated his news analysis as editorial opinion
and labeled his station “the Red network.”
Egbert Roscoe Murrow was born of Quaker parents
on April 24, 1908, near Polecat Creek, North Carolina.
He grew up in the state of Washington and graduated
from Washington State College (BA, 1930). Elected
president of the National Student Federation of America
(1929), he later served as assistant director of the Institute
of International Education (1932–1937). Murrow joined
Edward R. Murrow of CBS News, seen here during election
CBS radio in 1935 and two years later moved to London night coverage in 1952, became a paragon for subsequent
as director of European operations. With his signature generations of television reporters and investigative jour-
opening, “This is London,” Murrow broadcast live reports nalists. His great legacy in the culture wars was confronting
of the events leading up to World War II and, with the McCarthyism. (CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)
Mu slim A mer ic an s 377
issue of guilt by association. The Indianapolis story day, however, approximately 35 percent of Muslims in
focused on the American Legion’s attempt to block the the United States are native born. Since the majority
formation of a local chapter of the American Civil Lib- religion among native-born Americans is Christianity,
erties Union, raising the issue of the right of assembly. with Protestantism perceived as a dominant influence
The report on McCarthy presented the senator “in his in American culture, Muslim Americans have lived
own words and pictures,” exposing his half-truths and in relative obscurity, though subjected to occasional
unaccountability. The segment on Moss, a Pentagon misunderstanding and mistrust. After the terrorist at-
cafeteria worker accused of having communist ties, tacks of September 11, 2001, such tensions have been
raised the issue of due process of law. A subsequent heightened.
viewer poll revealed strong agreement with Murrow Muslims have lived in North America since the era
about McCarthy. Murrow’s opposition to McCarthyism of transatlantic slavery. In the early twentieth century, a
was the subject of the Hollywood film Good Night, and series of Middle Eastern Muslim families migrated to the
Good Luck (2005). United States, establishing several sizable Islamic com-
Murrow’s legacy, however, was about more than munities in places such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Detroit,
confronting the Red Scare. His influence is evident in Michigan; and Sacramento, California. By century’s end,
the long-running CBS program 60 Minutes and other the majority of native-born Muslims were African Ameri-
investigative “news magazine” shows, which bor- can, with the remaining number composed of children
rowed the format of Harvest of Shame (1960), Murrow’s of immigrants and converts from other backgrounds. In
exposé on the plight of migrant workers. A critic of the United States, Muslims from the majority Sunni and
television and its increasing commercialism, Murrow minority Shi’ite sects generally have enjoyed peaceful,
advanced the concept of noncommercial broadcasting cooperative relations. A 2006 survey of Muslim regis-
that helped lay the foundation for the Public Broad- tered voters found that 12 percent identified themselves
casting Service. Many prominent journalists credit as Shi’ite, 36 percent as Sunni, and 40 percent as “just
Murrow with inspiring them to strive for excellence a Muslim.” Of the more than 1,200 mosques across the
in their reporting. United States in 2008, more than one-third were located
Roger Chapman in California (227) or New York (240). Most foreign-born
Muslims are from the Middle East or North Africa, fol-
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Communists and lowed closely by Eastern Europe, and then Asia. There
Communism; McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; Media Bias; are few differences in earnings and educational levels
Migrant Labor; National Public Radio; Public Broadcasting between Muslims and their non-Muslim neighbors in
Service. the United States, in contrast to France, Germany, and
England, where Muslims are 20 percent more likely to
Further Reading live in poverty.
Edwards, Bob. Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Among the several branches of Islam in African-
Journalism. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. American communities is the Nation of Islam, founded
Kendrick, Alexander. Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow. in 1931 by Wallace Fard in Detroit. This religious move-
Boston: Little, Brown, 1969. ment is noted for contextualizing Islamic teachings to the
Ranville, Michael. To Strike a King: The Turning Point in the Mc- political concerns of blacks living in a white-dominated
Carthy Witch-Hunts. Troy, MI: Momentum Books, 1997. society. Fard’s assistant, Elijah Muhammad, was more
Rosteck, Thomas. See It Now Confronts McCarthyism: Television radical, calling on African Americans to renounce Christi-
Documentary and the Politics of Representation. Tuscaloosa: anity, which he characterized as the religion of the “white
University of Alabama Press, 1994. oppressor.” This message resonated with Malcolm Little,
Seib, Philip M. Broadcasts from the Blitz: How Edward R. Murrow who after finishing a prison sentence in the early 1950s
Helped Lead America into War. Washington, DC: Potomac, changed his name to Malcolm X (in order to discard his
2007. Christian slave name) and went on to propel the growth
of the Nation of Islam through his dynamic oratory. Mal-
colm X’s message focused on separatism and economic
Muslim Americans self-help, in contrast to the goal of integration then being
Muslim Americans, who by conservative estimates promoted by the Christian-inspired civil rights move-
numbered 2.35 million in 2008, are part of the multi- ment. He eventually gravitated toward Sunni Islam, as
cultural phenomenon of the United States. The growth did most Nation of Islam followers. In New York, the
of Islam in the country is largely due to the influx of minister Louis Farrakhan kept the Nation of Islam alive,
immigrants from Muslim countries since 1965, spurred often attracting controversy with his fiery rhetoric, in-
by the reform of federal immigration policies that re- cluding statements considered to be anti-Semitic.
laxed restrictions on the influx of non-Europeans. To- Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, most
378 Mu slim A mer ic an s
Muslim Americans have reported a feeling of oppression, Goode refused. Islamaphobic literature also targeted the
convinced they are under federal surveillance. There have Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama by sug-
also been occasional reports of random violence and hate gesting that he is a closeted Muslim, a smear parodied in
crimes against Muslims, including vandalism and at- a controversial New Yorker magazine cartoon cover (July
tacks on mosques. The case of the “American Taliban,” 21, 2008) that portrays Obama as a flag-burning Muslim
twenty-year-old John Walker Lindh, who was captured in Arabian dress and his wife, Michelle, as a gun-toting
in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, heightened official black nationalist.
concern that Muslim centers in the United States were Susan Pearce
potential incubators for “homegrown terrorism.” Lindh,
a white middle-class Californian who had converted to See also: Ali, Muhammad; Farrakhan, Louis; Fundamentalism,
Islam after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), Religious; Haley, Alex; Malcolm X; Montana Freemen; Na-
was persuaded to participate in a jihad in Afghanistan tion of Islam; Obama, Barack; Saudi Arabia; September 11.
after studying Arabic in Yemen and Pakistan. Although
he apologized for his actions (while having no connection Further Reading
with the September 11 attacks), Lindh was sentenced to Barrett, Paul M. American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a
twenty years in prison. California Muslims in 2007 were Religion. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007.
alarmed following disclosure of a counterterrorism effort Curtis, Edward, ed. The Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the
by the Los Angeles Police Department to “map” Islamic United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
enclaves in Los Angeles, but the ensuing outcry over “racial Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, ed. Muslims of America. New York:
profiling” brought a halt to that undertaking. On the op- Oxford University Press, 1993.
posite coast, Mohammad Qatanani, a Palestinian who for Kukis, Mark. “My Heart Became Attached”: The Strange Journey of
a dozen years had served as imam of the Islamic Center of John Walker Lindh. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003.
Passaic County, New Jersey, faced deportation proceedings Nomani, Asra Q. Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s
in 2008 for not reporting on a green-card application his Struggle for the Soul of Islam. New York: HarperSanFrancisco,
detainment several decades prior in Israel. 2005.
Within the Muslim American community, cultural Walker, Dennis. Islam and the Search for African-American Na-
conflicts over the interpretation of Islam have been on the tionhood: Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, and the Nation
rise, often led by the younger American-born descendents of Islam. Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2005.
of Muslim immigrants in opposition to the foreign-born
imams. (Only 15 percent of American mosques are led
by American-born imams.) Gender equality has been a My Lai Massacre
divisive issue. The American-born journalist Asra Nomani, My Lai-4, a hamlet located about 100 miles (160 ki-
for example, refused to follow her mosque’s proscriptions lometers) southeast of Saigon, was the site of a notori-
that women must enter through the back door and pray ous American war crime during the Vietnam War. On
behind the men—a controversy she publicly aired in her March 16, 1968, between 400 and 500 unarmed Viet-
autobiographical work Standing Alone in Mecca (2005). namese civilians, including women and children, were
Many such controversies over Islamic customs have arisen massacred during a search-and-destroy mission by U.S.
in the Muslim Student Associations, founded in 1963. In- Army infantrymen. In November 1969, the American
grid Mattson, director of the Islamic chaplaincy program at investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh broke the sto-
Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, broke a gender barrier ry, which won him a Pulitzer Prize.
in 2006 when she became the first female president (as well Interpreting My Lai has been a polarizing issue of the
as convert) of the Islamic Society of North America, the culture wars, prompting debate on national virtue. For
largest Muslim organization in the United States. skeptics of American exceptionalism, including the view
In 2006, Keith Ellison, an African American, became that the United States serves as a moral beacon to the rest
the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress. A member of the world, My Lai reveals a national “heart of darkness.”
of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Ellison For others, My Lai simply represents “a tragic aberration.”
later drew national attention, much of it negative, for Motion picture director Oliver Stone, himself a Vietnam
taking his oath of office while placing his hand on the veteran, used My Lai as the basis for a pivotal scene in
Koran, using a copy that once belonged to President his Academy Award–winning film Platoon (1986). Later,
Thomas Jefferson. Among the critics of this act was during the Iraq War, some commentators compared the
Congressman Virgil Goode, Jr. (R-VA), who expressed American abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison to the
alarm over the growth of Islam in the United States, degeneracy of My Lai.
attributing it to “illegal immigration” and diversity The My Lai killings were carried out by members of
visas for Middle Eastern immigrants. The Council on the 11th Infantry Brigade, specifically Charlie Company
American-Islamic Relations requested an apology, but of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry. Frustration and fear,
My L ai Ma ssac re 379
as well as poor command, were said to be contributing complained that many critics “were not really interested
factors to the moral lapse. In the Quang Ngai province in the moral questions raised by the Calley case, as they
where the village was situated, U.S. forces suffered many were interested in using it to make political attacks
casualties at the hands of Vietcong who operated in and against the Vietnam war.” In People of the Lie (1983), the
around the hamlets. In the two months preceding the noted psychiatrist M. Scott Peck characterizes the My
massacre, nearly one-third of Charlie Company, headed Lai incident as an example of “group evil” and the initial
by Captain Ernest Medina, had been killed or wounded. cover-up as “a gigantic group lie.”
The locals, feigning lack of knowledge about the Viet- Although decades passed, other My Lai–like atroci-
cong, seldom cooperated with the Americans. After a ties of the Vietnam War eventually came to light. In
sweep through the area turned up nothing, Lieutenant 2003, the Toledo Blade published a series of articles
William L. Calley, Jr., the leader of 1st Platoon, ordered detailing the killing of civilians, prisoner abuse, and
all villagers rounded up and killed. After witnessing the corpse mutilations over a seven-month period in 1967 by
events from the air, Hugh C. Thompson, Jr., an army a “Tiger Force” platoon of the 101st Airborne Division
helicopter pilot, landed and directly confronted Calley. operating in the Quang Ngai province (the same region
Thompson went on to evacuate some wounded civilians as My Lai). Lieutenant Colonel Anthony B. Herbert was
and later reported what he saw to his superiors. The in- relieved of his battalion command in 1969 after reporting
cident was covered up, however, and the deaths that day a series of war crimes by the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne
were officially reported as Vietcong fatalities. Brigade; internal military documents declassified in 1994
A year later, Ronald L. Ridenhour, a discharged (and discovered by a researcher in 2006) confirmed his
Vietnam veteran, wrote of the massacre to Congressman allegations of prisoner abuse and revealed that he was
Mo Udall (D-AZ). In his letter, dated March 29, 1969, punished for being a whistleblower. In 2001, Bob Kerrey,
Ridenhour emphasized the importance of “principles of a former U.S. senator (D-NE) and Congressional Medal of
justice and the equality of every man, however humble” Honor recipient, admitted to killing women and children
and urged “a widespread and public investigation on during a 1969 U.S. Navy SEAL mission in the Mekong
this matter.” Of the twenty-five men subsequently in- Delta, stating, “I have not been able to justify what we
dicted by the military for murder, conspiracy, and/or did . . . morally.”
perjury, charges were dropped for all but four. Medina Roger Chapman
and Calley were charged with murder, and their supe-
riors, Colonel Oran K. Henderson and Major General See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; American Exceptionalism;
Samuel Koster, were charged with dereliction of duty Cold War; Human Rights; Nixon, Richard; Stone, Oliver;
and cover-up. Only Calley was convicted. On March Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam War; War Pro-
29, 1971, a military jury declared him guilty of the testers; Whistleblowers.
premeditated murder of twenty-two civilians. Accord-
ing to a 1971 Newsweek magazine poll, 79 percent of Further Reading
Americans disapproved of the court-martial finding Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New
against Calley, largely viewing him as a scapegoat. Half York: Viking, 1992.
of the respondents believed that My Lai represented a Herbert, Anthony B., with James T. Wooten. Soldier. New
“common” event in Vietnam, while 24 percent classi- York: Dell, 1973.
fied it as “isolated.” Lieutenant Calley was originally Hersh, Seymour. Cover-Up. New York: Vintage Books, 1973.
sentenced to life in prison, later reduced to twenty years; Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. My Lai: A Brief History
he was paroled in 1974. with Documents. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
In RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (1978), the 1998.
former president viewed My Lai as “inexcusable” but Sherman, Scott. “The Other My Lai.” Nation, March 1, 2004.
generated by Nader’s best-seller, Congress in 1966 con-
ducted hearings on auto safety, requesting the author’s
testimony. This led to the passage of the National Traffic
and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), which established
the Highway Traffic Safety Administration and mandated
N a d e r, R a l p h seat belts and safety glass in windshields.
As a consumerist and citizens’ advocate, Ralph Nader General Motors had sought to discredit Nader, hiring
has long fought for tougher federal regulations to private detectives to investigate his past, tap his phones,
address automobile safety, work hazards, air and water and entrap him with prostitutes. When this failed scheme
pollution, tainted meat, food additives, product labeling, came to light, federal lawmakers became ever more con-
whistleblower protection, public access to government vinced to pass automobile safety legislation. Nader sued
records, and so on. Conservatives and libertarians the company for violating his privacy and in 1970 accept-
have faulted Nader for demonizing corporations while ed an out-of-court settlement of $284,000, using much of
promoting the growth of government bureaucracy. Some the proceeds for seed money in establishing consumerist
critics have also denigrated Nader as a self-appointed organizations, such as the Public Interest Research Group
gadfly, although over the years he has had an extensive (PIRG). Nader was a reformer, not a revolutionary, and
base of support, albeit a liberal one. Up until the 2000 his approach was to emphasize research and reporting
presidential election Nader was generally esteemed by as opposed to demonstrations and civil disobedience.
progressives and even moderate Democrats, but that Young people joined Nader’s cause, establishing PIRG
relationship soured after his third-party candidacy was chapters on many college campuses and developing a
blamed for facilitating George W. Bush’s defeat of Al network nicknamed “Nader’s Raiders.” Public Citizen,
Gore. Since then many of his once former supporters Nader’s umbrella organization, has been credited with
have vilified Nader as a political curmudgeon and being a driving force behind the establishment of the
ideological purist. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (1970),
The son of Lebanese immigrants, Ralph Nader was the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), and the
born on February 27, 1934, in Winsted, Connecticut. Consumer Product Safety Commission (1972).
He studied government and economics at Princeton Nader’s public influence, however, was already wan-
University (BA, 1955) and attended Harvard Law School ing by the time of the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.
(LLB, 1958). After graduation he served as a cook in This period was characterized by the undermining of the
the U.S. Army (1959), traveled overseas (1959–1961), federal agencies and regulations that Nader’s organiza-
taught history and government at the University of Hart- tions had fought to establish. Heading the regulatory
ford (1961–1963), and worked on the staff of Assistant bodies were political appointees who saw their role as
Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1964). curtailing government while aiding commerce. The
He then gained national attention with the publication succeeding decade continued to be disappointing for
of Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the Nader as President Bill Clinton charted a centrist course,
American Automobile (1965). After a short stint teaching virtually ignoring the progressive wing of the Democratic
law at Princeton University (1967–1968), Nader began Party. At a time when Nader was expressing concern that
his public advocacy work, founding the Center for the multinational corporations were violating worker rights
Study of Responsive Law (1969) as well as other public- and environmental protections with impunity, Clinton
interest groups, and serving as director of Public Citizen led the United States in accepting the North American
(1971–1980). On four occasions Nader ran for president Free Trade Agreement (1993) and joining the World
of the United States as a third-party candidate (1996, Trade Organization (1994).
2000, 2004, and 2008). During the 1970s Nader had turned down invita-
Haunted by an accident scene he came across in which tions to run for president as a third-party candidate, but
a little girl in the car crash had been decapitated by a his attitude changed by the 1990s as he came to regard
glove-box door, Nader during his last year of law school the Democratic Party as having become “Demopublican.”
wrote an essay entitled “American Cars: Designed for He was a “none of the above” presidential candidate in the
Death,” which appeared in the Harvard Law Record. The 1992 New Hampshire primary, but his first major run
following year he expanded on that topic in the Nation for president occurred four years later as a Green Party
magazine with the article “The Safe Car You Can’t Buy.” candidate tallying a mere 0.7 percent of the popular vote.
That led to the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, which In 2000, he increased his showing to 2.7 percent of the
critiqued the design hazards of the Chevrolet Corvair and national total, in the process gathering 97,421 votes in
indicted the Detroit auto executives for callous disregard Florida, where the election was ultimately decided by
of automobile safety at a time when there were 50,000 only 537 votes. Certain Nader had thrown the election
annual traffic fatalities. In response to the public outcry to the Republicans, the normally staid Michael Dukakis
380
Nation, The 3 81
at the time stated that he would “strangle the guy with central editorial role. Famous for his defense of migrant
my bare hands.” In his account of the 2000 election, workers, McWilliams revitalized the publication with
Crashing the Party (2002), Nader further alienated Demo- contributions from intellectuals like C. Wright Mills,
crats by indicating no remorse. Nader’s 2004 and 2008 Marxist historians, and new foreign commentators while
presidential bids as a Reform Party candidate generated creating dialogues between traditional leftists and emer-
scant public support. gent New Left voices. During his tenure as editor from
Roger Chapman 1950 to 1975, the magazine, in editorials and articles,
called for mercy for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, despite
See also: Automobile Safety; Clinton, Bill; Democratic Party; their conviction for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet
Election of 2000; Environmental Movement; Freedom of In- Union; expressed disapproval over Levittown policies
formation Act; Genetically Modified Foods; Globalization; denying the sale of homes to blacks; deplored CIA ac-
Occupational Safety; Third Parties; Whistleblowers. tivities in Cuba; endorsed the March on Washington in
1963; condemned California governor Ronald Reagan
Further Reading for suggesting that a “bloodbath” might be necessary for
Burt, Dan M. Abuse of Trust: A Report on Ralph Nader’s Network. ending campus violence; and criticized the U.S. bombing
Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1982. campaign in the Vietnam War.
Marcello, Patricia Cronin. Ralph Nader: A Biography. Westport, Before becoming the publisher in 1995, Vic-
CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. tor Navasky, editor from 1978 to 1994, steered the
Martin, Justin. Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. Cambridge, MA: magazine through financial and political crises along-
Perseus, 2002. side other liberals including Paul Newman and E.L.
Nader, Ralph. Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Gov- Doctorow. The Nation Institute, founded in 1966,
ernment in an Age of Surrender. New York: Thomas Dunne offers programs, internships, and awards for creative
Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2002. citizenship. Cruises, local conversation groups, and
———. The Ralph Nader Reader. New York: Seven Stories unique personal ads also cement the Nation’s reputation
Press, 2000. as both a human and media community of influence
Young, Charles M. “Crashing the Party.” Rolling Stone, Septem- and liberal dissent.
ber 14, 2000. Under Navasky’s successor, Katrina vanden Heuvel,
the magazine adamantly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq
and broke the Valerie Plame leak story (pertaining to the
Nation, The U.S. decision to invade Iraq) in 2003. The Nation ran ar-
The oldest weekly magazine in the United States ticles on corruption, mismanagement, and environmental
(founded in 1865), the Nation is known for independent issues throughout the presidency of George W. Bush,
but generally leftist, often dissenting, views on without excusing the perceived weakness or “cowardice”
government, society, and culture. Although circulation among Democrats and other opposition factions. Mean-
increased from 20,000 (1970s) to more than 173,000 while, right-wing critics charged both the magazine and
(2004), the magazine has often faced financial crises, its contributors with being anti-American.
forcing negotiations between strong-minded editors
and wealthy publishers. Gary W. McDonogh
In pieces by the likes of Wendell Phillips Garrison,
Edward Godkin, Charles Eliot Norton, Henry James, and See also: Bush Family; Du Bois, W.E.B.; Ehrenreich, Barbara;
W.E.B. Du Bois to those by Martin Luther King, Jr., King, Martin Luther, Jr.; McCarthyism; Migrant Labor; New
Hunter S. Thompson, Edward Said, Susan Sontag, Gore Left; Niebuhr, Reinhold; Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosen-
Vidal, Barbara Ehrenreich, Katha Pollitt, Eric Alterman, berg; Said, Edward; Thompson, Hunter S.; Vidal, Gore.
Lani Guinier, Jonathan Schell, and Mumia Abu-Jamal,
the Nation has commented forcefully on presidential im- Further Reading
peachments, wars, and the persistent issues of race, class, Horowitz, Irving Louis. “Shaping the Nation Magazine.” Sewanee
and gender. It also has fostered controversy within its own Review 113:4 (Fall 2005): 648–54.
pages among editors, columnists, and correspondents. McWilliams, Carey. The Education of Carey McWilliams. New
Vital interests in international affairs (especially the York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
Middle East), environmentalism, and the arts round out Nation Web site. www.thenation.com.
the Nation’s critiques of changing American culture. Navasky, Victor. A Matter of Opinion. New York: Farrar, Straus,
In the 1950s, when the magazine was facing declin- and Giroux, 2005.
ing circulation and constant conflict with Joseph Mc- Navasky, Victor, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, eds. The Best of the
Carthy (New York City schools banned the magazine), Nation: Selections From the Independent Magazine of Politics and
West Coast correspondent Carey McWilliams assumed a Culture. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2000.
3 82 Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam nonviolent civil rights movement of Martin Luther King,

The Nation of Islam, a black separatist organization Jr., as moderate, peaceful, and Christian.
whose members are known as Black Muslims, was Relations between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad
founded by Wallace D. Fard in the early 1930s and became strained in the early 1960s. Malcolm objected to
grew under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad from Muhammad’s extramarital relations with his secretar-
the 1930s until his death in 1975. During the early ies. Muhammad officially silenced Malcolm following
1960s, its most visible spokesperson was Malcolm the latter’s statement that the assassination of President
X. The original organization was transformed into a John F. Kennedy had been “a case of the chickens coming
more orthodox movement of Sunni Islam under Elijah home to roost.” Further, Malcolm’s pilgrimage to Mecca
Muhammad’s son, Wallace D. Muhammad. Resisting convinced him that according to Islam, white people
these changes, a splinter group led by Louis Farrakhan were not inherently evil. When Malcolm broke with
formed in the 1970s and retained the principles and name the organization in 1964, he was vilified in the Nation
of the original organization. The two groups reconciled of Islam’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. On February
in 2000. In both forms, the Nation of Islam has rejected 21, 1965, assassins from the Newark mosque murdered
the integrationist doctrine of the civil rights movement, Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.
stressing black self-sufficiency and discipline, and the Malcolm X was not the only antagonist from within
“evils” of white, “racist” America. the Nation of Islam. Elijah’s seventh son, Wallace D. Mu-
The Nation of Islam drew its inspiration from nine- hammad, had grown estranged from his father. During a
teenth-century Pan-Africanism and the African national- three-year imprisonment, Wallace had studied traditional
ism proclaimed by Marcus Garvey in the early twentieth Sunni Islamic teachings and rejected key Nation of Is-
century. The Black Muslim movement owes its origin lam doctrines, such as his father’s quasi-divine status as
to Fard, or Fard Muhammad, a door-to-door silk peddler prophet and messenger of Allah, and the deity of Wallace
who hawked his wares and ideology in Depression-era Fard. Despite a series of expulsions from and returns to
Detroit. There he established the first Temple of Islam, the fold, Wallace was anointed as the new leader of the
its educational arms—the University of Islam and the Nation of Islam upon the death of his father in 1975 and
Muslim Girls Training Class—and a paramilitary unit quickly began transforming the group into an orthodox
called the Fruit of Islam. Fard taught that American Muslim organization. He reinterpreted Fard and Elijah’s
blacks are the descendents of a virtuous race of gods, doctrines as masterful teachings designed to prepare black
members of the primordial tribe of Shabazz, and that, in Americans for the truth of traditional Islam. He changed
rebellion against Allah, an evil renegade scientist called his name to Warith Deen Muhammad and moved the
Yakub formed white people (“blue-eyed devils”) through organization away from its radical anti-Americanism
genetic manipulation. Although whites have taken over and racial separatism. The organization was renamed the
the world, Fard explained, their 6,000-year reign expired World Community of al-Islam in the West (and later
in 1914, and the return of Allah in the person of Fard the American Muslim Mission). Warith’s transition to
marks the process of resurrection of black people from a the mainstream was signaled by his invitation to offer
state of mental death. the prayer of invocation before the U.S. Senate in 1992.
Elijah Poole, the son of a Baptist preacher, became The rapid transformation of the Nation of Islam led
Fard’s prophet and messenger, Elijah Muhammad, and to membership losses, the revelation of grave financial
led the movement after Fard’s disappearance in 1934. problems, and the formation of a number of splinter or-
Muhammad was imprisoned for over three years during ganizations. Most significant was the resurrected Nation
World War II on draft evasion charges, and jails and of Islam under Louis Farrakhan, whose supporters point
prisons became important recruiting grounds for the to anecdotal evidence suggesting that he was Elijah’s
Nation of Islam. Its teachings offered an explanation for true choice as successor. In November 1977, Farrakhan
the racism and exploitation experienced by black inmates, openly announced that he would reestablish the Nation
also giving them the dignity, hope, and discipline needed of Islam in a form faithful to Elijah Muhammad’s teach-
to straighten out their lives. ings. Farrakhan maintained the original rhetoric of racial
The most famous prison convert was Malcolm Little, separatism and moral uplift and demonstrated the appeal
renamed Malcolm X by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm of the new Nation of Islam to ghetto culture, drawing
quickly established himself as the group’s foremost gang members and rap musicians into its orbit.
proselytizer and organizer of the 1960s. As minister of Farrakhan supported the campaign of Jesse Jackson
the Boston temple, he recruited Louis Walcott, later refor nomination as the 1984 Democratic presidential candi-
named Louis Farrakhan. Along with such groups as the date. When news reports revealed that Jackson had made
Black Panther Party, the Black Muslims became media anti-Jewish remarks, Farrakhan came to the candidate’s
representatives of black nationalist rejection of white defense, referring to Judaism as a “dirty” religion. Far-
American values. In contrast, the media portrayed the rakhan’s anti-Semitism was thereafter emphasized by the
National A ssoc iation for the Advancement of Colored People 3 83
media. But the success of the 1995 Million Man March, During the 1950s, the NAACP won some major
a rally of black men in Washington, D.C., to foster black victories. Its Legal Defense Fund, under the direction
unity, self-respect, and personal responsibility, more of Thurgood Marshall, challenged the long-standing
strongly established the Nation of Islam as a voice for the doctrine of “separate but equal” and convinced the U.S.
concerns of the African-American community at large. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Since the 1980s, however, the Nation of Islam has that racial segregation in schools is a violation of the
been the only widely acknowledged black separatist voice Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth
in public discourse. Amendment. The following year, Rosa Parks, a local
Steve Young NAACP leader, initiated the Montgomery (Alabama)
Bus Boycott, sparking the modern civil rights movement.
See also: Afrocentrism; Anti-Semitism; Black Panther Party; NAACP headquarters, local branches, and associated
Civil Rights Movement; Farrakhan, Louis; Jackson, Jesse; youth councils worked alongside other organizations
King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Malcolm X; Million Man March; during this period to challenge and eradicate Jim Crow
Muslim Americans; Race. as a formal legal impediment to black equality.
By the 1960s, numerous activists in the civil rights
Further Reading movement began to question the NAACP’s tactics.
Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Resurrection, Younger activists, wishing for speedier results, regarded
Transformation, and Change of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the NAACP as overly cautious and conservative. They
America, 1930–1995. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1996. called into question the association’s tendency toward
Ogbar, Jeffrey O.G. Black Power: Radical Politics and African legal activism, economic boycotts, and political coalition
American Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University building, arguing that such methods were too indirect
Press, 2004. and nonthreatening to white supremacy. Indeed, protest
Turner, Richard Brent. Islam in the African-American Experience. policies were largely shaped by the middle- and upper-
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. class status of the organization’s older leadership, while
Walker, Dennis. Islam and the Search for African-American Na- the younger radicals who were willing to confront Jim
tionhood: Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, and the Nation Crow head-on by staging sit-ins accused their seniors of
of Islam. Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2005. being complacent and acquiescent. The young radicals
of the sixties found NAACP officials’ willingness to
National A ssociation for the work with local, state, and federal government to bring
about change as a sign that their elders had “sold out” to
Ad v a n c e m e n t o f C o l o r e d the establishment. Black nationalist leaders such as the
People Nation of Islam’s Malcolm X made similar complaints,
Founded in 1905 by a group of black intellectuals led chiding the NAACP and other civil rights organizations’
by W.E.B. Du Bois, the National Association for the belief in civil disobedience as ineffective in battling
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—now the virulent racists.
oldest and largest U.S. civil rights organization—has Cold War politics presented further complications
been at the forefront of the culture wars in its long for the NAACP. Opponents charged the association
struggle to destroy the sociopolitical underpinnings of with communist influences and infiltration during the
racial discrimination. As an activist organization, the height of McCarthyism. NAACP leaders were forced
NAACP directs legal and social campaigns designed to into silence when outspoken socialists such as Paul
help African Americans and other marginalized groups Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois (who had long since left
by promoting racial equality, securing justice in the the organization) were targeted in communist witch
courts, fostering suffrage, and advancing education and hunts. The labeling of virtually all civil rights activ-
employment opportunities. ists as potential or actual communists hindered the
After World War II ended, the NAACP, which in NAACP’s aggressiveness, thus reinforcing the young
1945 had a membership of 450,000 (including 150,000 black activists’ impression that the association had lost
in its chapters in the South), worked to dismantle Jim its radical edge.
Crow laws throughout the South and end school desegre- Nonetheless, the cornerstones of the NAACP’s
gation. White southerners viewed the growing NAACP agenda—legal advocacy and legislative lobbying—led
rolls and the corresponding militancy of NAACP mem- to significant courtroom and congressional victories. As
bers as direct threats to the long-standing racial order of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund continued to win key
the South. NAACP spokespersons were typically charac- cases after Brown, the NAACP’s office in Washington,
terized as outside radicals who, unaware of southern cus- D.C., headed by Clarence Mitchell, Jr., helped secure
toms, were upsetting the amicable relations that blacks passage of the monumental Civil Rights Acts of 1964,
and whites had established since Emancipation. 1965, and 1968.
384 National A ssoc iation for the Advancement of Colored People
Despite the gains in racial equality that stemmed Further Reading

directly from the efforts of the organization, the pres- Berg, Manfred. “The Ticket to Freedom”: The NAACP and the
tige of the NAACP declined. The loss of influence was Struggle for Black Political Participation. Gainesville: University
exacerbated by widely publicized internal conflicts and Press of Florida, 2005.
the overwhelming persistence of black poverty and un- Cortner, Richard C. A Mob Intent on Death: The NAACP and the
employment, de facto segregation, job discrimination, Arkansas Riot Cases. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University
police brutality, and the failures of school desegregation. Press, 1988.
By the 1970s and 1980s, such social problems seemed Greenberg, Jack. Crusaders in the Courts: How a Dedicated Band
insurmountable under the conservative ideologies and of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution. New York:
policies of President Ronald Reagan. As government Basic Books, 1994.
funding for social programs was severely reduced, Kellogg, Charles F. NAACP: A History of the National Associa-
blighted urban spaces and their residents found little tion for the Advancement of Colored People. Baltimore: Johns
protection in the NAACP. Hopkins University Press, 1967.
During the 1990s, as the organization faced financial Tushnet, Mark V. The NAACP’s Legal Strategy Against Segregated
problems, two of its leading officials were accused of Education, 1925–1950. Chapel Hill: University of North
fiscal improprieties. The NAACP rebounded, however, Carolina Press, 1987.
reestablishing its financial integrity and activist agenda Vose, Clement E. Caucasians Only: The Supreme Court, the NAACP,
under the leadership of Kweisi Mfume, a former U.S. rep- and the Restrictive Covenant Cases. Berkeley: University of
resentative (D-MD). The Legal Defense Fund continued California Press, 1959.
to be active, offering legal support for the University of Zangrando, Robert L. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching,
Michigan affirmative action cases that were heard by the 1909–1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980.
Supreme Court in 2003. Meanwhile, the NAACP focused
its energies on economic development and educational
opportunities for black youth. It has openly opposed National Endow ment for
school vouchers, arguing that “school choice” programs the Ar ts
will not result in quality education for all children but The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an
will lead to increased educational apartheid. The or- independent federal agency that provides grants in
ganization also redirected its attention to gun control support of the visual, literary, and performing arts. A
legislation, women’s and gay rights, racial profiling, and lightning rod in the culture wars, the NEA has long
black political participation as well as the issue of voting been opposed by political conservatives who think
disfranchisement. government funding of the arts is a bad idea in general.
The NAACP was directly involved in investigating During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the NEA came
alleged voting improprieties in the 2000 presidential under attack for sponsoring what critics regarded as
election, placing it at odds with President George W. “offensive” art.
Bush. From 2001 to 2005, Bush refused to address the The NEA is a legacy of President Lyndon B. John-
annual meeting of the NAACP, becoming the first presi- son’s Great Society. It was established in September
dent since Herbert Hoover to snub the invitation, and 1965 as part of the National Foundation on the Arts
accused the association of being overly harsh and critical. and Humanities, with the mission “to foster the excel-
In 2004, the Internal Revenue Service began an inves- lence, diversity and vitality of the arts in the United
tigation of the NAACP’s tax-exempt status as a result States and to broaden public access to the arts.” With
of a speech given by the group’s chair, Julian Bond, in that mandate, the NEA in its first forty years awarded
which he openly criticized the president. Subsequently, more than 120,000 grants totaling $3.9 billion and has
Bush met with NAACP leaders and addressed the 2006 been a major force in the establishment of regional arts
NAACP national meeting. Despite the challenges and organizations, including theater, ballet, and opera com-
changing sociopolitical tides throughout its existence, panies, symphony orchestras, and museums. As annual
the NAACP finds itself at the core of the nation’s culture funding of the NEA grew over the years—from $2.8
wars in the twenty-first century. million at its inception to a peak of $175.9 million in
1992—fiscal conservatives bristled over what they called
Robert S. Smith “cultural welfare.” Proponents of public funding of the
arts, however, emphasize the economic benefits. In the
See also: Affirmative Action; Black Panther Party; Black Radi- first decade of the twenty-first century, they point out,
cal Congress; Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Busing, the arts contributed $37 billion annually to the national
School; Civil Rights Movement; Du Bois, W.E.B.; McCarthy- economy, returning $3.5 billion in taxes. NEA support-
ism; Nation of Islam; Parks, Rosa; School Vouchers; Voting ers also note that federal grants to the arts are more than
Rights Act. matched by donations from the private sector.
National Endow ment for the A r t s 3 85
From New Deal to Great Society a reportedly filthy, obscene book called Fear of Flying.”
Federal funding of the arts originated with President Prior to that, there had been criticism of writer George
Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration Plimpton, another individual grant recipient, for the
(WPA). Although that New Deal program ended in kinds of material he was compiling in a series of literary
1943, various members of Congress in subsequent years anthologies—one short story with a graphic sex scene
floated bills for establishing a national arts program. was, at the urging of Hanks, excised from the third
Since some WPA projects, including public murals volume.
and plays, had been leftist in political orientation, The NEA during the Carter administration was
conservatives were ambivalent about reviving arts stirred by a populism-elitism controversy. With Liv-
funding. The Cold War eventually became a rationale for ingston L. Biddle, Jr., as chair (1977–1981), the NEA
a federal arts program because of the desire to contrast “decentralized” art funding by allocating half its grants to
American values, most notably freedom of expression, traditional American arts. This led to the establishment of
with those of the totalitarian Soviet Union. President the Folk Arts Program (1978) and the National Heritage
Harry Truman in 1951 requested a report on the national Fellowships (1980), which came largely at the expense
arts, which was released two years later during the of programs geared to Western European classical arts.
Eisenhower administration. In the meantime, art funds Critics accused Carter of politicizing the NEA by having
were appropriated for cultural presentations overseas. funds spread around geographically, arguing that projects
In 1955, Eisenhower recommended a Federal Advisory of higher artistic merit were being passed over. Carter
Committee on the Arts, but stressed that it should not supporters disagreed, charging that the Ivy League elitists
dispense grants. of cosmopolitan New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los
During the Kennedy administration, a commissioned Angeles were just sulking. During the 1980 presidential
report by August Heckscher, director of the Twentieth campaign, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan pledged
Century Fund, recommended the creation of an Advisory that he would end the politicization of the arts.
Arts Council and the establishment of a National Arts When Reagan entered the White House, his goal
Foundation for issuing federal grants to private organiza- was to replace the NEA with a privatized corporation di-
tions and state arts councils. In June 1963, acting on the vested of public funding. Friend and fellow actor Charlton
Heckscher report, President Kennedy issued an executive Heston was appointed co-chair of a task force to study
order for establishing a national council on the arts. The public funding of the arts, but to Reagan’s chagrin, the
federal government, Kennedy argued, “surely has a sig- commission stopped short of recommending the abolition
nificant part to play in helping establish the conditions of the NEA. During his first year as president, Reagan
in which art can flourish.” If government can encourage reduced arts funding from $158.7 million to $143.4
science, he added, likewise it ought to encourage the arts. million—considerably less than his original proposal to
Although Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963 slash the NEA budget by 51 percent. The tenure of NEA
halted momentum for the council he proposed, Congress chair Francis S.M. “Frank” Hodsoll (1981–1989) brought
in mid-1964 approved the National Council of the Arts, a 28 percent increase in challenge monies, an effort to
albeit without funding for grants. In 1965, Johnson fol- increase private giving.
lowed up with legislation that would fund both the arts Under Reagan, interestingly, the pomp and pag-
and the humanities. The Republican Policy Committee eantry of the NEA was expanded with the establishment
opposed the bill, arguing that the arts and humanities of the annual National Medal of Arts (for outstanding
were already “thriving” and would continue to do so artists) and the Presidential Design Awards (for federal
provided the “deadening hand of federal bureaucracy” projects). In 1985, the National Academy Awards pre-
was kept away. Over such objections, the NEA, with sented the NEA with its own award, a special citation for
Roger Stevens as founding chairman (1965–1969), was twenty years of support of the arts. By 1989, the final year
established. of Reagan’s second term, the NEA budget had grown to
$169 million. That same year, Newsweek columnist Robert
From Nixon to Reagan Samuelson called the NEA “a highbrow pork barrel.”
To the surprise of many, the NEA budget under the
Nixon and Ford administrations expanded by 1,400 The Helms Amendment
percent. With Nancy Hanks as chair (1969–1977), the Fiscal conservatives were in a conundrum because their
NEA budget grew from $8.2 million in 1970 to $123 desire to eliminate the NEA was kept in check by the
million in 1978, leading critics to suggest that Nixon elites who often supported conservative candidates but
had used the NEA to help soften his public image. By at the same time were major benefactors of the arts. This
1974, however, conservative senator Jesse Helms (R- constituency, generally representative of the corporate
NC) was calling into question a $15,000 NEA grant to sector, came to view the NEA as an essential partner
“a person named Erica Jong so that she could produce in the arts. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, critics
386 National Endow ment for the A r t s
of the NEA, generally conservative Republicans, began

shifting their arguments from fiscal concerns to moral
ones, focusing attention on “offensive” art that had been
funded by tax dollars.
In 1984, Congressman Mario Biaggi (D-NY) pro-
tested a NEA-sponsored production of Verdi’s Rigoletto
because of references to the Italian Mafia. Biaggi proposed
an amendment to the NEA funding bill prohibiting grant
recipients from using their work to “denigrate any ethnic,
racial, religious or minority group”; the amendment was
not passed. The following year, Texas Republican con-
gressmen Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, and Steve Bartlett
protested the NEA’s sponsorship of “pornographic” po-
etry. The trio introduced an amendment to limit future
arts funding to projects of “significant literary, scholarly,
cultural or artistic merit” that are “reflective of excep-
Members of the congressional Conservative Action Team,
tional taste.” This amendment was passed.
including Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX, at podium),
The NEA under President George H.W. Bush faced call for the abolition of the National Endowment for the Arts
a political crisis in 1989. Outrage was directed against in 1997. House Republicans slashed the NEA budget, citing
Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987), a photograph of a “decency” issues. (Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/
plastic crucifix immersed in yellow urine. The artist had Getty Images)
been a recipient of a $15,000 subgrant from the South-
eastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, which had received its funding from the controversy in several ways. First, Representative Dana
NEA. Around the same time, homoerotic photographs Rohrabacher (R-CA) mounted a legislative effort to elimi-
by Robert Mapplethorpe, part of a retrospective collec- nate the NEA altogether; his bill was ultimately rejected.
tion titled Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, were On July 26, Senator Helms introduced an amendment
on a travel exhibit sponsored by the University of Penn- to the NEA appropriations bill prohibiting any future
sylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art, made possible funding of “obscene” artwork. In September, the House
by a $30,000 NEA grant. The fact that Mapplethorpe, and Senate rejected the Helms amendment by votes
a homosexual artist, had recently died of AIDS, only of 264–53 and 62–35, respectively. Instead, Congress
added to the drama. passed Public Law 101–122, which incorporated some of
Numerous members of Congress condemned the the language of the Helms amendment, stipulating that
Serrano photograph, most notably Senator Alphonse NEA funds may not be used “to promote, disseminate, or
D’Amato (R-NY) and Helms. In their letter of protest produce materials which . . . may be considered obscene,”
to the NEA, signed by a number of other colleagues, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller
including Democratic Senator John Kerry (D-MA), v. Sullivan (1973).
they argued, “This matter does not involve freedom of
artistic expression—it does involve the question whether Continuing Controversies
American taxpayers should be forced to support such In 1990, Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes,
trash.” Meanwhile, in June 1989, officials at the Corcoran and Tim Miller, solo performing artists who would
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., decided to cancel become known as the NEA Four, were rejected for NEA
the Mapplethorpe exhibit rather than put in jeopardy its fellowships despite receiving recommendations from
annual federal funding of $300,000. To protest what they peer-review panels. The performances of these artists,
regarded as an act of censorship, many artists withdrew three of them homosexual, focused on controversial
their exhibits from the Corcoran and some benefactors themes, including the human body, abortion, AIDS,
withdrew monetary support. The Washington Project and sexual orientation. NEA chair John E. Frohnmayer
for the Arts, located down the street from the Corcoran, (1989–1992) later admitted that his decision to decline
carried the Mapplethorpe exhibit, which in July was funding for the four artists was based on decency
viewed by 50,000 visitors. The Religious Right, specifi- standards. Later, the U.S. Supreme Court, in National
cally Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association Endowment for the Arts v. Finley (1998), affirmed the
and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, accused the constitutionality of the NEA to consider “general
NEA of supporting artwork that seeks to undermine standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs
Christian morality. and values of the American people” in determining what
Congress responded to the Serrano-Mapplethorpe art proposals to fund.
National Endow ment for the Humanities 3 87
In 1992, conservative Patrick Buchanan challenged National Endow ment for the
President Bush on the NEA issue during the Republican Humanities
presidential primary, arguing that the Serrano-Map-
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is
plethorpe crisis was proof that the incumbent was out
an independent agency of the U.S. federal government
of touch with the public. The criticism prompted Bush
founded in 1965—under the National Foundation on
to ask his NEA chair, Frohnmayer, to resign. Buchanan
the Arts and the Humanities Act, which also established
ultimately endorsed the Bush candidacy, but at the same
the National Endowment for the Arts—to support
time delivered his famous “culture wars” speech at the
research, education, and preservation programs in the
Republican National Convention. During the presi-
humanities. The NEH pursues its mission chiefly by
dential campaign that fall, Democratic candidate Bill
offering grants to cultural institutions such as museums,
Clinton—much like Reagan before him—accused his libraries, archives, colleges and universities, and public
opponent of having politicized the NEA. television and radio stations, as well as individual
President Clinton appointed actress Jane Alexander scholars and artists for research, writing projects,
as chair of the NEA. During her tenure (1993–1997), Al- and media productions. According to the NEH, the
exander reformed the process for issuing grants, shifting humanities are vital to the nation in that they reveal
awards from nontraditional organizations to mainstream “lessons of history” for gaining “wisdom” essential to a
museums. In June 1994, a controversy erupted in response democratic republic. Beginning in the 1970s, political
to a performance-artist show held in Minneapolis that fea- conservatives sharply criticized the NEH for sponsoring
tured Ron Athey, a homosexual who was HIV-positive, “leftist” programs and projects. During the 1980s
drawing blood from a fellow performer. In response to and early 1990s, when Republican appointees were in
the Athey incident, Congress reduced the NEA budget control of the agency, liberals complained that the NEH
by 2 percent. The following year, with Republicans in was blocking innovative proposals for purely ideological
control of the House, the NEA budget was slashed from reasons.
$162.3 million to $99.5 million, a 39 percent reduction. The NEH was established in the midst of the Cold
By 1997, moreover, Congress had become decidedly more War, when it was argued that the arts and humanities,
active in its oversight of the NEA. in addition to the sciences, should be enlisted in the
Although the NEA budget increased in subsequent campaign against world communism. In the first thirty-
years—reaching $144.7 million in fiscal year 2008—its five years of its existence, the NEH sponsored a total of
budget was still nearly $40 million less than what it was 58,000 projects, issuing grants worth $3.72 billion while
prior to the Serrano-Mapplethorpe scandal. NEA chair generating $1.63 billion in private donations. The NEH
Dana Gioia, appointed in 2003 by President George W. sponsored a wide range of projects, including a travel-
Bush, declared his mission “to bring the agency beyond ing exhibition of the treasures of King Tut’s tomb, Ken
the culture wars to create an institution which Americans Burns’s PBS documentary series on the U.S. Civil War,
trust and esteem.” Under Gioia’s watch, Shakespeare the Papers of George Washington (projected to be ninety
festivals and jazz concerts were major NEA-sponsored volumes when completed in 2016), and a number of
events. research projects that led to award-winning books. The
Roger Chapman NEH has also appropriated $370 million to regional
projects, including studies of the South and the Great
See also: Alexander, Jane; Censorship; Christian Coalition; Plains. Its American newspaper project had microfilmed
Great Society; Helms, Jesse; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Literature, 63.3 million pages of newsprint by the early 2000s, with
Film, and Drama; Mapplethorpe, Robert; Serrano, Andres; a longer-term effort to convert the material into digital
Wildmon, Donald. format and make it available online.
Of the appointed chairpersons since the body’s
Further Reading inception—Barnaby C. Kenney (1966–1970), Ronald S.
Binkiewicz, Donna M. Federalizing the Muse: United States Arts Berman (1971–1977), Joseph D. Duffey (1977–1981),
Policy and the National Endowment for the Arts 1965–1980. William J. Bennett (1981–1985), Lynne V. Cheney
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. (1986–1993), Sheldon Hackney (1993–1997), William
Brenson, Michael. Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, R. Ferris (1997–2001), and Bruce Cole (2001–2009)—
and the Place of Visual Arts in America. New York: New the two most controversial were those appointed by
Press, 2001. President Ronald Reagan, Bennett and Cheney, who
Jensen, Richard. “The Culture Wars, 1965–1995: A Historian’s saw it as their task to reel in the NEH and keep it from
Map.” Journal of Social History 29 (1995): 17–37. supporting liberal perspectives.
National Endowment for the Arts Web site. www.nea.gov. In his book The De-Valuing of America (1992), Ben-
Zeigler, Joseph Wesley. Arts in Crisis: The National Endowment for nett devotes the first chapter, titled “The Fight Begins:
the Arts versus America. Chicago: A Capella Books, 1994. Identifying the Enemy,” to the NEH. The “enemy,”
388 National Endow ment for the Humanities
according to Bennett, is a liberal academic elite whose $7.3 million, involving citizen groups, state humanities
disdain for traditional morality, patriotism, and the councils, and college campuses, and was the subject of
American Dream has left it out of touch with the pulse the PBS documentary Talk to Me: Americans in Conversa-
of the nation—and who ought not be eligible for NEH tion (1997).
funding. Bennett was thus dismayed to learn that his In the meantime, both Cheney and Bennett recom-
agency, through the Wisconsin Humanities Committee, mended that the NEH be abolished, suggesting that the
had sponsored a documentary film by the International agency was beyond redemption. After Republicans gained
Women’s Project, titled From the Ashes . . . Nicaragua control of Congress in 1994, the House Budget Commit-
Today (1982), that was sympathetic to the left-wing tee voted to eliminate the NEH, and the Senate Budget
Sandinista rebels of Nicaragua. Bennett denounced the Committee voted to reduce its budget by 50 percent. The
film, which later won an Emmy, as “unabashed socialist agency survived, but funding fell from $152 million to
realist propaganda” and informed the heads of the state $93 million in just one year (1995 to 1996). Ferris, the
humanities councils that under his charge they were not next NEH chair, deplored the cuts, stating, “Where is
to endorse “partisan” works. the peace dividend if we win the Cold War but lose the
Cheney’s debut began with an attack on The Africans battle for our souls?”
(1986), a nine-part NEH-supported film that linked the After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the NEH
problems of modern Africa to the legacies of Western under Cole initiated a program called We the People,
colonialism. Calling the documentary an “anti-Western which focused on American history and culture. “Our
diatribe,” Cheney demanded that the agency be removed tolerance, our principles, our wealth, and our liberties
from the film’s credits, despite the $600,000 in NEH have made us targets,” Cole declared in a 2003 speech.
funding. Scorning academic approaches to the humanities “To understand this conflict, we need the humanities.”
from the perspective of gender, race, and class, Cheney Cole went on to assert that it was a matter of national
insisted that analysis should be based on “truths that security for Americans to overcome “amnesia” about their
pass beyond time and circumstance” and that the field history and culture. In 2004, the NEH announced that
not be reduced to texts about “politics” and “social the review process for grant proposals would no longer
power.” Cheney thus was accused of stacking the cards include assessments by independent specialists, a decision
against liberal scholars, especially multiculturalists and critics interpreted as ideology triumphing over quality.
feminists, who applied for NEH funding. Defenders, By 2006, the NEH budget stood at $141 million.
emphasizing the stiff competition, accused losing ap-
plicants of sour grapes. Indeed, in 1991, only 1,776 Roger Chapman
projects were financed out of a total 8,132 applications.
Even so, the Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed See also: Afrocentrism; Bennett, William J.; Cheney Family;
some NEH insiders who acknowledged that proposals Great Books; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; National
were screened for political considerations. Cheney, like Endowment for the Arts; Reagan, Ronald; Revisionist His-
Bennett, deplored colleges and universities for deem- tory; September 11; Will, George.
phasizing the traditional Western canon and tended to
back more traditional proposals. In her book Telling the Further Reading
Truth (1995), Cheney casts herself as a cultural warrior Cheney, Lynne V. Telling the Truth. New York: Simon & Schus-
who as NEA chair suffered attacks from those who were ter, 1995.
politically biased, unfair, and irrational. Hackney, Sheldon. One America Indivisible: A National Conver-
Cheney’s successor, Hackney, led an initiative known sation on American Pluralism and Identity. Washington, DC:
as A National Conversation on American Pluralism National Endowment for the Humanities, 1997.
and Identity (1994–1997), whose goal was to carry out Miller, Stephen. Excellence and Equity: The National Endowment
President Bill Clinton’s vision: “We must find in our for the Humanities. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
diversity our common humanity.” Hackney later wrote 1984.
that some perceived the initiative as “a bugle call—for National Endowment for the Humanities Web site. www.neh.gov.
cultural war.” Instead, he insisted, he wanted to create Rediscovering America: Thirty-Five Years of the National Endowment
conditions for fostering a “civil society.” Conservatives for the Humanities. Washington, DC: National Endowment
accused Hackney of attempting to impose a multicul- for the Humanities, 2000.
tural ideology, while liberals accused him of seeking to
impose a melting pot ideology. Conservative columnist
George Will pooh-poohed the idea of a national conversa- National Organization for
tion, stating, “Subsidizing talk about diversity today is Wo m e n
akin to subsidizing crabgrass: the problem is a surplus, Inspired by the African-American civil rights movement,
not a shortage.” The project moved forward at a cost of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), and efforts
National P ublic Radio 389
by John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Commission on the abortion rights and affirmative action, and a measurable
Status of Women (1963) to document the lives of wom- gender gap among American voters in the last decades of
en in postwar American society, a group of feminists at- the twentieth century. Rather than simply a battle between
tending a conference in June 1966 in Washington, D.C., men and women, the continuing conflict over the role of
founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). NOW and feminism in American life became a protracted
The organization, which included activists with back- struggle over competing cultural ideals.
grounds largely in the labor movement, focused initially
on legal and political efforts to achieve gender equality in Richard L. Hughes
employment, education, and the media. The group’s at-
tack on sexual discrimination represented a controversial See also: Abortion; Affirmative Action; Civil Rights Move-
challenge to the notion of fixed, distinct, traditional gen- ment; Equal Rights Amendment; Family Values; Feminism,
der roles that dominated American society at the height Second-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Gay Rights Movement; Gen-
of the Cold War. Its success in such areas as lobbying the der-Inclusive Language; Lesbians; Ms.; Schlafly, Phyllis.
federal government to use the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to
fight sexual discrimination in employment made NOW Further Reading
one of the most visible and enduring expressions of the Critchlow, Ronald. Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism:
rebirth of American feminism. As of 2007, the organiza- A Woman’s Crusade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
tion had more than half a million contributing members Press, 2005.
and 550 chapters across the United States. Evans, Sara. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation
In addition to criticism from social conservatives in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York:
that NOW was irrelevant, or even dangerous, the liberal Vintage, 1980.
feminists who formed the organization also increasingly National Organization for Women Web site. www.now.org.
drew opposition from radical feminists in the women’s Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s
liberation movement. While NOW relied on the efforts of Movement Changed America. New York: Viking, 2000.
middle-class, educated white women such as Friedan (its Rymph, Catherine. Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism
first president) to work for women’s rights, radical femi- from Suffrage Through the Rise of the New Right. Chapel Hill:
nism often centered on younger women more interested University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
in consciousness raising and revolutionary challenges
to patriarchy than liberal reform. While some conflicts
were irreparable, the tension between NOW and radical National Public Radio
feminism also resulted in NOW’s eventual attention to National Public Radio (NPR) is a nonprofit, publicly
issues such as the civil rights of lesbians, abortion rights, and privately funded media organization that produces
and the struggles of working-class women and women and distributes radio programs to affiliate stations in the
of color. By the late 1970s, NOW activists combined United States, providing an alternative to commercial
support for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) with broadcasting. While the organization does not broadcast
recognition that the personal was indeed political for a radio signal itself, NPR can be heard on more than
American women. The result was a polarizing critique 800 local radio stations in all fifty states. In the culture
of American society that addressed issues related to mar- war controversy that surrounds NPR, the organization
riage, family, violence, and sexuality. is variously described as either too liberal or not liberal
As NOW forged a modern American feminism, enough in its reporting of the news. In the ongoing
addressing gender equality in public and private life, po- debate, economic and political actors take aim at NPR
litical and social conservatives countered with their own as a federally funded organization and create different
organizations—such as Women Who Want to Be Women political goals for it.
(WWWW), Happiness of Home Eternal (HOME), and Established in 1970 and initiating broadcasts the
Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. Conservatives from the New following year on ninety charter public radio stations,
Right targeted NOW as a dangerous threat to American NPR has grown significantly as a media distributor over
families and “traditional values,” and, by the 1980s, anti- the years. In NPR’s first three decades of operation, its
feminism contributed to the ascendancy of the Republican number of listeners climbed from tens of thousands to
Party. Conservative opponents associated NOW with the more than 26 million per week. Throughout its existence,
supposed cultural excesses of the 1960s, and, despite the NPR has struggled to reach diverse audiences and attain
fact that millions of American women created professional financial security. In 1983, however, it fell $7 million
and personal lives that spoke to the ongoing struggle for into debt after attempting to expand into other markets.
gender equality, “feminism” increasingly became a pejo- Pacific Radio International and American Public Media,
rative term. Results of the backlash included the demise both rivals to NPR in public radio, gained from NPR’s
of the ERA in 1982, the increased erosion of support for overstretch and found a stable niche in the market. Cur-
390 National P ublic Radio
rently, NPR receives its funding from corporate gifts and messages), yet some critics maintain that NPR fails to
grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the report on the misdeeds of its corporate sponsors. While
U.S. government, and other organizations. A third source underwriting messages are not strictly advertisements,
of funding is the affiliate stations themselves, which pay they do tell listeners who funds NPR and may have the
their dues by holding on-air membership pledge drives. same effect as advertisements.
In 2004, NPR received a bequest of $236 million from NPR remains one of the nation’s most prominent
the estate of Joan B. Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s media distributors. During the early twenty-first century,
founder Ray Kroc. The main branches of NPR are located it had two of the three most popular radio programs in the
in Washington, D.C., and Culver City, California, with country with Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
nineteen smaller bureaus around the country and sixteen
international offices. Ryan Gibb
NPR has repeatedly found itself in the middle of
the culture wars, at the nexus of liberal and conservative See also: Abortion; Federal Communications Commission;
politics. Conservatives have consistently attacked NPR, Gay Rights Movement; Gingrich, Newt; Hill, Anita; Irvine,
referred to by some as National Precious Radio, for be- Reed; Limbaugh, Rush; Media Bias; Murrow, Edward R.;
ing overtly liberal, framing stories to favor liberals in Public Broadcasting Service; Wildmon, Donald.
general and Democrats in particular. Through the early
and mid-1990s, especially, conservative politicians and Further Reading
talk show hosts charged that NPR’s story selection and Engleman, Ralph. Public Radio and Television in America: A
content were unequivocally liberal. At the helm of this Political History. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.
attack was Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA), McCauley, Michael. NPR: The Trials and Triumphs of National
Larry Pressler of the Senate Commerce Committee (R- Public Radio. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
SD), and popular conservative radio talk show host Rush McCourt, Thomas. Conflicting Communication Interests in America:
Limbaugh. Among their accusations was that conserva- The Case of National Public Radio. Westport, CT: Praeger,
tives were routinely identified as “conservatives,” but that 1999.
liberals were never labeled as “liberals.” Mitchell, Jack W. Listener Supported: The Culture and History of
More broadly, conservatives took issue with NPR’s Public Radio. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005.
program content, which they claimed was favorable to National Public Radio Web site. www.npr.org.
liberal social issues such as abortion and gay rights, and
charged that liberal issues and candidates were cast in a
favorable light and conservative issues and candidates in N a t i o n a l R ev i e w
a negative light. In 1995, with the help of fellow Repub- Launched in November 1955, the weekly (later biweekly)
licans, Gingrich and Pressler attempted to amend a bill National Review has played a vital role in the emergence
so as to halt federal support for NPR. Citing free-market and definition of post–World War II American conser-
principles, Gingrich lamented government funding vatism. Under the guidance of founder and longtime
for public-media outlets and asserted the need for free editor William F. Buckley, Jr., the magazine provided
competition in public radio. NPR countered by mobiliz- an important venue for the consolidation of diverse con-
ing local station managers to complain to their elected servative perspectives.
representatives. Gingrich finally lost support, and the Throughout the Cold War, the National Review
amendment to end public funding of NPR was defeated remained staunchly anticommunist, often supporting
on the floor of the House. Conservatives remained wary an aggressive, confrontational approach to the Soviet
of NPR as a credible news source. Union. During the Vietnam War era, it rejected the
From the other end of the political spectrum, liberal message of the antiwar movement and criticized U.S.
critics have sometimes bemoaned NPR as an elitist in- policymakers for failing to take a hard-line approach to
stitution that caters to the upper class. NPR’s cultural winning the conflict. In domestic affairs, the magazine
programming, say these critics, inordinately represents championed a free-market perspective and rejected the
the interests of the wealthy. bureaucratic and ever-expanding administrative state as
Statistically, NPR listeners are much more likely to epitomized by Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Its op-
be professionals, have advanced degrees, and earn higher position to civil rights legislation during the same period
incomes than the general American population. As a also highlighted the magazine’s opposition to extensive
public media organization with government funding, government intervention. While supporting integration
however, it is said that NPR should be more representa- in principle, its criticism of civil rights legislation rested
tive of the nation as a whole and more interesting to more on the perception of government’s general incompetence
people. In addition, NPR accepts corporate funding in to remedy social ills.
exchange for underwriting spots (“brought to you by” In another sign of its distrust of big government,
National R if le A ssoc iation 3 91
the National Review enthusiastically supported the 1964 National Rifle A ssociation
presidential campaign of conservative Republican Barry On the 135th anniversary of the National Rifle
Goldwater. After his landslide defeat at the hands of Association (NRA) in 2006, President Sandra S. Froman
Johnson, the magazine turned its attention to Ronald detailed the mission of the organization: to defend the
Reagan, who gained national prominence during the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, support law and
campaign. The magazine proceeded to support Reagan order and the national defense, train citizens in the
in his successful bid for the California governorship and, safe handling and efficient use of small arms, promote
in 1980, for president of the United States. Read widely shooting sports and competitions, and support hunter
in the Reagan White House, the National Review had safety and hunting as a conservation activity. The primary
a formative influence on young conservatives in that focus of the NRA is protecting the Second Amendment
administration. to the U.S. Constitution (which guarantees “the right
Buckley’s Catholic sensibility was also evident in the of the people to bear and keep arms”), characterized
magazine from the outset, although it was not unusual by Froman as “the cornerstone and guarantor of our
for editorials to be critical of church leadership, includ- Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
ing American bishops for their pastoral letters on war Established following the Civil War, the NRA ini-
and peace, and the economy. The magazine was openly tially maintained close relationships with state and local
critical of Pope Paul VI for his 1968 encyclical, Huma- governments, which provided assistance to the organiza-
nae Vitae, which reasserted the church’s prohibition on tion. With increasing urbanization, however, U.S. public
artificial birth control. officials began to place limitations on the ownership of
After thirty-five years as editor in chief (1955– firearms in order to limit their use in criminal activity.
1990), Buckley stepped down and was replaced by As the U.S. Congress passed gun control legislation (in
John O’Sullivan (1990–1998). It was not until 2004, 1934, 1938, 1968, and 1993), NRA officials intensified
however, that Buckley officially relinquished control their opposition to government limitations on firearms
of the magazine by giving his majority share to a self- ownership. A distinct cultural divide developed between
selected board of trustees. Rich Lowry (1998–) assumed those who support more extensive limitations on gun
the position of editor in chief with the departure of ownership and use, and those who regard firearms owner-
O’Sullivan. ship as a crucial ingredient to a free society.
Given its conservative perspective, the National The NRA regards the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Review has been a constant opponent of progressive Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)—the federal
intellectual and political movements and has taken criti- agency responsible for enforcing firearms legislation—
cism from them. At times, however, it has also been the with suspicion and at times with outright hostility. For
object of disapproval by conservatives. Jeffrey Hart, a example, Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s
senior editor at the National Review, has subtly criticized Institute for Legislative Action, denounced the “heavy-
the magazine for “downplaying conservative ideas and handed” enforcement techniques that ATF agents report-
arguments of various conservative strands of thought” edly used in 2005 at gun shows in Richmond, Virginia.
in favor of a reportorial and topical focus under the One group the NRA considers a major opponent is the
editorial leadership of Rich Lowry. A former trustee of Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly
the magazine, Austin Bramwell, criticized the magazine Handgun Control, Inc.), in which James and Sarah Brady
for abandoning its long-held conservative principles in have been active for many years—James Brady, the former
support of President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. White House press secretary, was shot in 1981 during an
assassination attempt on President Reagan and has been
Todd Scribner wheelchair bound ever since. Another opposition group
to the NRA is the Violence Policy Center, directed by
See also: Birth Control; Buckley, William F., Jr.; Bush Fam- Josh Sugarmann, who has called for an outright ban on
ily; Catholic Church; Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; handguns.
Goldwater, Barry; Reagan, Ronald; Soviet Union and Russia; NRA leaders proudly declare that they campaigned
Vietnam War. successfully for the election of George W. Bush to the
White House and a congressional majority (Republican)
Further Reading sympathetic to their cause (up until 2006). Following
Bramwell, Austin. “Good-bye to All That.” American Conserva- Senate ratification in 2005 and 2006 of President Bush’s
tive, November 20, 2006. two Supreme Court nominees, John Roberts, Jr., and
Hart, Jeffrey. The Making of the American Conservative Mind: Samuel Alito, the NRA leadership announced that, with
National Review and Its Times. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, one additional Bush appointment, a five-justice majority
2005. could decide that the Second Amendment guarantees the
National Review Web site. www.nationalreview.com. right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms—this was
3 92 National R if le A ssoc iation
of firearms, seek regulation of the firearms industry, a

crackdown on the illegal gun market, the establishment
of product safety standards for firearms, and enhanced
authority of the ATF to enforce regulations pertain-
ing to firearms. Nonetheless, the NRA, a well-funded
organization with more than 3 million members, has,
with some exceptions, succeeded in preventing the
adoption of additional firearms restrictions. Whether
gun control supporters can compete effectively with the
NRA may depend on their ability to raise funds, appeal
to public opinion, and lobby effectively at various levels
of government.
Glenn H. Utter
See also: Conspiracy Theories; Gun Control; Judicial Wars;

United Nations.
Further Reading
Froman, Sandra S. “President’s Column.” American Rifleman,
December 2005.
Actor Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle As- ———. “President’s Column.” American Rifleman, June
sociation, addresses the group’s national convention in May 2006.
1999, following the Columbine (Colorado) High School shoot-
ings. Heston said gun owners were being unfairly blamed for
LaPierre, Wayne. The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N.
the incident. (Mark Leffingwell/AFP/Getty Images) Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights. Nashville, TN: Nelson
Current, 2006.
realized in 2008 with the Supreme Court ruling District National Rifle Association Web site. www.nra.org.
of Columbia v. Heller. Holding that self-protection is “the Sugarmann, Josh. Every Handgun Is Aimed at You: The Case for
most basic human right of all,” NRA officials have lob- Banning Handguns. New York: New Press, 2001.
bied state legislatures to pass right-to-carry laws, which ———. National Rifle Association: Money, Power and Fear.
allow residents to carry a concealed weapon outside the Washington, DC: National Press, 1992.
home. The organization claims that in states with right-
to-carry laws, the incidence of murder, rape, and robbery
has declined significantly. As of 2007, forty states had Nelson, Willie
passed such laws. Willie Nelson is an iconic country music songwriter
The NRA also worked for congressional passage and performer from Texas whose unmistakable tremolo
of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act voice enlivens his recordings of such genre classics as
(2005), a measure that prohibits lawsuits against firearm “On the Road Again” (1980), “Mamas, Don’t Let Your
manufacturers and retailers for the criminal use of their Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (1978, with Waylon
products. Also, the NRA lobbied the Florida legislature Jennings), and “Always on My Mind” (1982). One of
to pass the “Castle Doctrine” law (2005), which estab- the originators and leaders of the “outlaw” movement
lishes the right of citizens to defend themselves by using in country music, Nelson is also an outspoken figure
deadly force and eliminates the “duty to retreat” when outside the entertainment area, making his views known
faced with force outside the home and in a place they on such issues as drugs, factory farms, the environment,
have a right to be. By May 2006, three other states had and the war in Iraq.
passed Castle Doctrine legislation In the international Born William Hugh Nelson on April 30, 1933, in
realm, Wayne LaPierre (executive vice president and Abbott, Texas, he later dropped out of high school, served
CEO of the NRA) claimed that a well-funded group eight months in the air force (1950), and briefly attended
was attempting to persuade the United Nations to ratify Baylor University. Nelson’s early musical career took him
an International Arms Trade Treaty that would restrict far and wide before he finally settled in Nashville, Ten-
private ownership of firearms in the United States and nessee, in the late 1950s in search of stardom. Although
establish gun control on a global basis. He urged gun he succeeded as a songwriter—penning “Crazy” (1961)
rights supporters to oppose any UN action to regulate for Patsy Cline, “Hello Walls” (1961) for Faron Young,
the firearms trade. and “Night Life” (1962) for Ray Price—the proprietors
Gun control supporters, claiming that the NRA of the Nashville studios deemed Nelson’s voice (and face)
disregards the suffering caused by the easy availability to be too offbeat for the upscale crossover audience they
Neocon ser vatism 3 93
sought. In the 1970s, Nelson relocated to Austin, Texas, (“Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth,” 2004) and one
where he acted as a catalyst in a regional “hippie-redneck” documenting the phenomenon of gay cowboys (“Cowboys
subculture and style referred to alternately as “cosmic Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other,” 2006).
cowboy,” “progressive country,” “outlaw country,” or Nelson remains a singular figure in the culture wars,
“redneck rock.” During this period, he cemented the as he maintains strong ties all along the cultural and po-
crossover audience Nashville claimed he would never find, litical spectrum. The song “Highwayman” (1985), sung
appealing to a younger, countercultural demographic with Jennings, Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash, appealed
with the concept albums Yesterday’s Wine (1971), Shotgun to the New Agers with its allusion to reincarnation. With
Willie (1973), Phases and Stages (1974), The Red-Headed the conservative country singer Toby Keith, Nelson re-
Stranger (1975), and Wanted: The Outlaws (1976). His corded “Beer for My Horses” (2002), a seeming lament
“Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” won the 1976 Grammy on lawlessness and the anxiety of modern society but one
Award for best single. Nelson also went on to appear in that romanticizes lynching.
a number of films, including Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Nelson strikes a pose of creative freedom that can, at
which was based on his life. times, seem to place him above ideological wrangling,
Significantly, Nelson’s deviation from the Nash- and he has been invoked on more than one occasion as a
ville norm constituted a sartorial as well as an auditory fitting symbol of the nation itself. Perhaps no moment
rebellion. He grew his hair long, wearing it in braids, better encapsulates this than his appearance on the ce-
sported a beard, and presided over a group of like-minded lebrity telethon held in the wake of the September 11
artists—Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Jerry terrorist attacks, concluding the program by leading all
Jeff Walker, among others—who brought a 1960s sensi- participants in singing “America the Beautiful.” Thus,
bility to a musical genre that had often been critical of the Willie Nelson’s career as an artist and activist reveals
counterculture movement. Curiously, Nelson succeeded much about the course of the culture wars in America,
in carrying his music to a new, younger, and politically even as he confounds many of the assumptions regarding
progressive audience without alienating the core of his the much discussed red state–blue state divide.
more traditional supporters.
Nelson also began to establish himself as a political Jason Mellard
populist in these years, appearing with the likes of both
George Wallace and Jimmy Carter. In 1980, he sang See also: Counterculture; Country Music; Factory Farms;
the “Star Spangled Banner” at the Democratic National Lynching; Nader, Ralph; New Age Movement; Red and Blue
Convention, leaving out the words “And the rocket’s States; Redneck; September 11; Wal-Mart; War on Drugs.
red glare,” prompting Republicans to accuse him of
performing while under the influence. In 1985, Nelson Further Reading
organized the Farm Aid concert series to publicize the Malone, Bill. Country Music U.S.A. Austin: University of Texas
agricultural crisis threatening America’s family-owned Press, 2002.
farms. From 1985 to 2006, the Farm Aid concerts raised Nelson, Willie, with Bud Shrake. Willie: An Autobiography. New
$29 million for farmers. In 1990, the Internal Revenue York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Service indicted Nelson for failure to pay millions of Reid, Jan. The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock. Austin: University
dollars in taxes, further cementing his reputation as a of Texas Press, 2004.
rebel. Willie Nelson Official Web site. www.willienelson.com.
During the 2000 election, Nelson voiced support for Willman, Chris. Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country
Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, and in 2004, he was Music. New York: New Press, 2005.
one of the higher-profile supporters of and fundraisers
for the antiwar Democratic presidential candidate Den-
nis Kucinich. As an environmentalist, he has promoted Neoconser vatism
Willie Nelson Biodiesel (or “BioWillie”), made from Neoconservatism, which emerged in the United
vegetable oils and animal fats produced on American States during the second half of the twentieth century,
farms. As a pot smoker—in Willie (1988), his autobi- emphasizes ideological constructs of freedom and
ography, the singer boasts of once smoking a joint on democracy as the primary agent of historical change.
the roof of the White House, unbeknownst to President This form of Americanism, neoconservatives believe,
Carter—he is a critic of the war on drugs and a backer of may be wielded like a weapon to destroy evil and
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana injustice in the world. Conversely, neoconservatives
Laws (NORML). He came into conflict with the retail promote constant vigilance at home, lest undesirable
giant Wal-Mart over the marijuana leaf that graces the ideas corrupt American institutions and culture.
cover of his reggae album, Countryman (2005). In recent As a result of this philosophical foundation, neocon-
years, he has recorded a song critical of the war in Iraq servatives tend to favor an activist and interventionist
394 Neocon ser vatism
foreign policy and domestic policies that promote order, American Beginnings
security, and the national interest. Unlike traditional Politically, the neoconservatives’ trajectory has taken
conservatives, neoconservatives do not have an aversion them from the far left to the far right. Many of the
to big government. However, they reject the liberal com- first-generation neoconservatives had been young anti-
mitment to using big government to foster equality and Stalinist socialists who abandoned socialism for the
social justice. From the neoconservative perspective, a conservative wing of the Democratic Party during
large, powerful government is necessary for maintaining the Truman administration. Staunch anticommunists
order and security at home and for promoting American during the 1950s, the neoconservatives began to break
interests abroad. Although they tend to be somewhat with mainstream liberalism during the 1960s. The
more liberal on many domestic issues than traditional advent of the counterculture, the civil rights movement,
conservatives—or “paleoconservatives,” as the neocon- and the war in Vietnam, as well as the social pressures
servatives call them—they do not immerse themselves engendered by these events, seemed to them to echo
very deeply in domestic affairs. A sort of tacit agreement the sort of societal breakdown that had characterized
seems to have prevailed in which conservatives, mostly Weimar Germany. Some, like Harry Jaffa, Norman
Republican in party affiliation, give social and religious Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Irving Kristol, and Gertrude
conservatives sway over domestic questions, and the intel- Himmelfarb, became Republicans. It was Jaffa who in
lectual neoconservatives control foreign affairs. 1964 formulated Barry Goldwater’s famous declaration:
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice . . .
European Origins moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” As
The origins of neoconservatism can be traced to Europe, the decade proceeded, Kristol, Podhoretz, and other
in particular Weimar Germany (1919–1933). After neoconservatives held forth in the pages of Commentary
the conclusion of World War I, many young Germans and the Wall Street Journal on subjects as diverse as civil
believed that liberal democracy had sapped the vitality of rights, women’s rights, integration, the peace movement,
the German state and German culture. By the mid-1920s, the Great Society, and the generation gap.
a right-leaning nationalist reaction, which to some extent Other neoconservatives, however, remained aligned
presaged the rise of National Socialism (Nazism), had with the Democratic Party, albeit opposed to the anti–
emerged. Reactionary thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Vietnam War stance that the party adopted in 1968.
Ernst Junger, and Carl Schmitt rejected both Bolshevism Most of these neoconservatives—a name bestowed on
and Western-style liberal democracy as manifestations of them by leftist commentator Michael Harrington when
historicism, scientism, and a licentious relativism that they refused to support the presidential candidacy of
had, in their view, begun with the Enlightenment. As George McGovern in 1972—aligned themselves with
Europe drew closer to war in the 1930s, Heidegger’s Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-WA). One of the most
Jewish students Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Herbert senior and powerful figures in Washington, Jackson
Marcuse, Karl Lowith, and Hans-Georg Gadamer fled was an expert in defense matters, a staunch supporter of
Germany for America. There, over the course of the next Israel’s interests, and a man with presidential ambitions.
two decades, the émigrés’ philosophy entered American During the 1970s, Jackson made it his business to ensure
political thought, infusing older American traditions, that the Nixon administration did not give away too
on both sides of the political spectrum, with a new much as it pursued arms control agreements with the
theoretical vitality. By the 1960s, for instance, Strauss Soviet Union. In order to assist Jackson in his jousting
had come to be identified with conservatism, while with the administration, his chief of staff, Dorothy Fos-
Marcuse was identified with the New Left. dick, brought in talented young neoconservatives such
The theoretical character of the émigrés’ philosophy as Richard Perle, Charles Horner, Douglas Feith, Paul
was highly attractive to many young intellectuals of the Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, and Richard Pipes to serve
1930s and 1940s. Almost the entire first generation of on or assist Jackson’s staff.
neoconservatives gravitated toward academia, the law, The neoconservative assault on détente and arms
and various literary pursuits. Among them are Willmoore control continued throughout the 1970s. Jackson shep-
Kendall, Albert Wohlstetter, Gertrude Himmelfarb, herded the Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974), which
Harry Jaffa, Allan Bloom, Irving Kristol, and Norman linked most favored nation trade status with increased
Podhoretz. Similarly, many of their students, protégés, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. Albert Wohl-
and children, such as Francis Fukuyama, Paul Wolfowitz, stetter attacked arms control and charged that the CIA
William Kristol, and John Podhoretz, have gone on to had consistently underestimated Soviet nuclear missile
careers in the same fields. In the aggregate, their work deployments. Irving Kristol, Theodore Draper, and others
imparted a cohesiveness, sophistication, and intellectual inveighed against the Nixon, Ford, and Carter adminis-
authority to neoconservative thought that is unmatched trations’ foreign policy and the effects on the American
by other strains of conservatism. psyche of the “Vietnam syndrome.”
New A ge Movement 3 95
Reagan Revolution and journalist Charles Krauthammer. In “The Neocon-

For neoconservatives, 1980 was a watershed year. The servative Moment,” an article in the conservative National
December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had dealt Review, Fukuyama described a 2004 speech given by
the deathblow to détente and the Carter administration. Krauthammer on Iraq as “strangely disconnected from
However, Jackson learned that he had terminal cancer reality . . . without the slightest nod towards the new
and retired from the Senate. Those neoconservatives empirical facts that have emerged in the last year or so.”
who had remained Democrats now prepared to support, Krauthammer, calling the criticism “bizarre,” accused
many for the first time in their lives, a Republican Fukuyama of “denying the obvious nature of the threat”
candidate for president. Ronald Reagan’s call for a return represented by radical Islam.
to traditional values and his support for a muscular,
confrontationist foreign policy resonated deeply with Robert L. Richardson
the neoconservatives.
Reagan’s victory over Carter in 1980 allowed many See also: American Century; Cheney Family; Cold War; Com-
neoconservatives to gain positions in the administration. munists and Communism; Israel; Keyes, Alan; Kristol, Irving,
Perle, Abrams, and Feith, for instance, secured jobs in the and Bill Kristol; Pipes, Richard, and Daniel Pipes; Podhoretz,
Defense Department as assistant secretaries. Jeane Kirk- Norman; Reagan, Ronald; Republican Party; September 11;
patrick was appointed ambassador to the United Nations. Soviet Union and Russia; Strauss, Leo; Think Tanks.
Wolfowitz, named director of policy planning at the State
Department, brought in several of his former students and Further Reading
associates, including I. Lewis Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, Ehrman, John. The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and For-
Alan Keyes, and Francis Fukuyama. Pipes was given the eign Affairs, 1945–1994. New Haven, CT: Yale University
post of director of East European and Soviet affairs on Rea- Press, 1995.
gan’s National Security Council. On the domestic policy Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to
front, however, neoconservative representation was scant. the Culture Wars. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1996.
Despite Reagan’s harsh, “evil empire” rhetoric, Kristol, Irving. Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea.
many neoconservatives were quickly disillusioned by the New York: Free Press, 1995.
president’s reticence to launch a global crusade against
communism. Irving Kristol, writing in the Wall Street
Journal, called Reagan’s foreign policy a “muddle.” N e w A g e M ove m e n t
Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, detected an The New Age and neopagan (or contemporary pagan)
incipient “anguish” among neoconservatives. Many neo- movements are new religious movements (NRMs) that
conservatives took their leave after Reagan’s reelection postdate World War II. They are particularly indebted
and an improvement in Soviet-American relations. Held to the 1960s’ counterculture for their aesthetics, prac-
at arm’s length by the less ideological administrations of tices, and ideology, though they also have roots in ear-
George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, many neoconserva- lier alternative religious movements such as theosophy,
tives and their allies spent their time outside government Western ceremonial magic, spiritualism, transcenden-
in think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute talism, and New Thought.
and the Hudson Institute. They also formed several policy The practices and beliefs of New Agers and contem-
advocacy groups, the Jewish Institute for National Secu- porary pagans are highly eclectic and diverse. Common
rity Affairs and the Project for a New American Century threads include a disillusionment with mainstream
being the most significant. religion as repressive, inauthentic, or spiritually barren;
Returned to power with the presidency of George W. a conception of life as a journey of self-development; an
Bush, neoconservatives were the strongest promoters of a optimistic view of human nature; a focus on holistic heal-
U.S. invasion of Iraq. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul ing, both spiritual and physical; a belief in reincarnation
Wolfowitz is widely acknowledged as a chief architect of and karma (the notion that actions in this life have effects
the Bush administration’s decision to oust Saddam Hus- on the next); the use of ritual to contact spiritual entities;
sein. The subsequent pressures generated by the outcome religious syncretism; and a desire to connect with and
in Iraq caused divisions among neoconservatives, and protect the natural environment.
some traditional conservatives, such as John McCain and Most New Agers and many pagans adhere to a pan-
Colin Powell, turned against the neoconservatives, who theistic worldview, believing that the divinity of the
on past occasions had politically outmaneuvered them. self and the interconnection of all things are the basis
The conflict among neoconservatives, given the for an ethic of love, compassion, and social justice. The
movement’s cohesiveness over the years, surprised many term “New Age” comes from the millennial belief that
observers. A notable example of the schism was a heated a new era of peace and prosperity will emerge from this
exchange between political scientist Francis Fukuyama evolutionary transformation of consciousness.
396 New A ge Movement
The differences between pagans and New Agers often intense individualism and lack of an external moral au-
come down to aesthetics. Although pagans occasionally thority leave no basis for moral judgment. Elliot Miller’s
gather for large festivals, they tend to work in small, A Crash Course on the New Age Movement (1989) suggests
personal groups without hierarchical authority. Unless that the New Age emphasis on mysticism encourages a
they do healing work professionally, for example, as retreat from the external world and undermines the work
psychotherapists or acupuncturists, many are reluctant to of social justice.
charge money for healing. Contemporary pagan practices Skeptics such as Martin Gardner and Carl Sagan, in
are often strongly nature oriented and draw on ancient their books The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher (1988)
and indigenous religions for their gods and myths, with and The Demon-Haunted World (1995), respectively, assert
the Celtic, Greek, and Egyptian pantheons as popular that the emphasis on intuition and subjectivity in the
choices. Accordingly, the scholarly reconstruction of an- New Age movement strips practitioners of the benefits of
cient religions is taken seriously by many pagans. Some empirical fact checking. New Agers, they claim, are unable
are polytheists as they understand ancient cultures to to distinguish science from pseudoscience and may subject
have been, seeing deity as fundamentally multiple. It is themselves to useless or even dangerous practices.
more common, however, to understand all gods as part of Historian Ronald Hutton’s largely sympathetic
one entity, often conceived of as a goddess. Many pagans study The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan
also consider themselves witches, that is, practitioners of Witchcraft (1999) agrees that an overemphasis on intu-
nature-based magic, with Wicca being the most widely ition over rationalism can lead to dismissal of important
known form of religious witchcraft. scientific and historical data. Some critics, for example,
New Agers, by contrast, tend to be more comfort- are skeptical of the Goddess movement’s theory of ma-
able with professional–client relationships and with triarchal prehistory. Some Native Americans have also
the exchange of money for healing work. They are less been critical of New Agers and pagans, accusing them of
likely to call themselves witches, devote themselves to a irresponsible cultural borrowing. For Native Americans,
particular pantheon, or practice a “tradition.” Reading the co-optation of their spiritual practices by such groups
groups, learning centers, and workshops are more likely is part of an ongoing cultural imperialism by whites.
gathering places for New Age practitioners than covens As some commentators note, the pagan belief that
or ritual groups. New Agers are also more likely to em- acts of love and pleasure are the rituals of the Goddess
brace practices and beliefs that blend religion and science, has sometimes led to a hedonism that is anything but
such as Kirlian photography (the capturing of auras on spiritual. Pagans, however, are dedicated to celebrating
film) or the Gaia hypothesis (that the earth operates as sexuality, the natural world, and the body, and serious
a single organism), although pagans also participate in practitioners complain of “festival pagans,” dabblers
these. Channeling, whereby a spirit is allowed to speak whose attendance at festivals is not based in regular
through a human medium, is popular among New Ag- religious practice or ethical commitments.
ers, who look to these spirits for advice and guidance.
Particularly famous among channeled books are the Christine Hoff Kraemer
best-selling A Course in Miracles (1976) and The Celestine
Prophecy (1993). See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Counterculture; Evangelical-
Evangelical Christians and rationalist skeptics are ism; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Leary,
the most vocal critics of the New Age and contemporary Timothy; Men’s Movement; Morgan, Robin; Postmodernism;
pagan movements. Evangelicals have presented a host Relativism, Moral.
of biblical objections to New Age beliefs and practices,
particularly targeting New Age assertions that Jesus Further Reading
is meant to be emulated, not worshipped; that human Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, God-
beings can attain their own wholeness or salvation; that dess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. Boston:
acts that do no harm, such as consensual extramarital Beacon, 1986.
sex, cannot be considered wrong; that the divine can be Chandler, Russell. Understanding the New Age. Dallas, TX:
experienced as feminine as well as masculine; and that Word, 1988.
evil is not an external force, but rather the product of an Heelas, Paul. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and
unnecessary disconnection from God. the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1996.
More sophisticated evangelical critiques, such as Miller, Elliot. A Crash Course on the New Age Movement. Grand
journalist Russell Chandler’s Understanding the New Age Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989.
(1988), accuse the New Age movement of trivializing Pike, Sarah M. New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. New
the problem of suffering as nothing more than an error York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
in belief. Chandler also criticizes the moral relativism of Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
some New Age writers, suggesting that the movement’s Dark. New York: Random House, 1995.
New Deal 3 97
New Deal especially rolling back the legacies of the New Deal. Thus,
The programs and policies for economic recovery many New Deal programs had already been downsized by
and social reform advanced by the administration of the time Republican Ronald Reagan assumed the presiden-
President Franklin D. Roosevelt were collectively cy in 1980. Although Reagan greatly admired Roosevelt,
known as the New Deal. Most New Deal programs were his tenure as president is often viewed as the antithesis of
intended as short-term solutions to facilitate economic New Deal leadership, with its emphasis on limited gov-
growth during the Great Depression. Others, such ernment interference in big business and on supply-side
as Social Security, had a lasting impact on American economics. For political conservatives Reagan represented
institutions. Ultimately, the New Deal created federal the heroic counterpart to FDR and a realignment force.
and state institutions that significantly expanded the This is why Representative Mark Souder (R-IN) in 2003
role of government in American life, and its legacy has proposed replacing the image of Roosevelt on the dime
been frequently debated as part of the culture wars. with that of Reagan. (The proposal was withdrawn after
The New Deal originated in the Democratic Party, Reagan’s widow, Nancy Reagan, voiced opposition.)
which was guided by its principles in the decades follow- President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, referred to a
ing the 1930s. Supporters of its programs and ideology “New Covenant” between government and the American
were referred to as “New Deal Democrats” or members people. Clinton, an ardent admirer of Roosevelt, proposed
of the “New Deal coalition.” The New Deal coalition a wide range of initiatives aimed at social reform, includ-
consisted of politicians, special interest groups, including ing an unsuccessful attempt to introduce universal health
labor unions, and voting blocs that supported New Deal care. Under Clinton, however, federal welfare programs
initiatives. Over time, the coalition became increasingly were downsized.
fragmented, finally beginning to disintegrate in the Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) in 2003
mid-1960s. accused President George W. Bush, a Republican, of try-
Critics opposed the New Deal on the grounds that ing to “undo the New Deal,” and many other Democrats
it contained elements of socialism. Leading the opposi- saw Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” as an effort to
tion in the 1930s was Senator Robert Taft (R-OH), who roll back the New Deal in favor of a system of privatized
believed that the New Deal placed too many restrictions social services. His extensive tax cuts seemed to follow
on business. Taft argued that the New Deal would ulti- Grover Norquist’s plan to return to the days before the
mately return the economy to a depression. New Deal, including a widening of the wealth gap. Critics
The New Deal remains controversial among Ameri- argue that Bush’s Medicare prescription drug plan, which
can politicians, economists, and historians to the pres- favored privatization, and his proposal to offer private
ent day. Critics point to expanded federal control of the investment options as part of the Social Security system
economy, reliance on deficit spending, creation of the showed his antipathy toward the New Deal. But support-
“welfare state,” and continued financial burdens of New ers of the Bush administration argued that the president
Deal programs as negative legacies. Supporters point to approved an expansion, not a reduction, of entitlement
New Deal programs as necessary and innovative responses programs, most notably the Medicare prescription drug
to the Great Depression. They applaud programs such plan. Following the collapse of the credit market in 2008,
as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social the Bush administration launched a $700 billion financial
Security as beneficial to economic stability. bailout, which critical observers suggested was a return to
Support for the New Deal and its legacy has fallen the New Deal.
primarily along party lines. Roosevelt’s immediate suc- Melanie Kirkland
cessor was his vice president, Harry Truman, who sought
ways to apply New Deal policies to postwar America. In See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; Compas-
his “Fair Deal” plan, he proposed universal health care. sionate Conservatism; Great Society; Health Care; Norquist,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, resisted Grover; Social Security; Supply-Side Economics; Taft, Robert
calls from his party to dismantle the social programs of A.; Wealth Gap; Welfare Reform.
the New Deal. John F. Kennedy began his political ca-
reer as a New Deal Democrat and sought some form of Further Reading
its continuation in his plan for social reform, the “New Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Reces-
Frontier.” Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, also sion and War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
a Democrat, promoted the “Great Society,” a program Chafe, William H., ed. The Achievement of American Liberalism:
that called for expanded social reform. The New Deal and Its Legacies. New York: Columbia Univer-
Although the Environmental Protection Agency and sity Press, 2003.
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were Fraser, Steve, and Gary Gerstle, eds. The Rise and Fall of the New
created on his watch, Richard M. Nixon, a staunch Repub- Deal Order, 1930–1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
lican, was committed to the ideal of limited government, Press, 1989.
398 New Jour nalism
Phillips-Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conserva- During the late 1960s, writers such as Hunter S.
tive Movement from the New Deal to Reagan. New York: W.W. Thompson pushed the concept of New Journalism even
Norton, 2009. further, arguing that reporters should not only be forth-
coming about their perceptions, but they should experi-
ence the events they describe firsthand. As chroniclers of
New Jour nalism the counterculture, “Gonzo journalists”—practitioners of
New Journalism emerged during the 1960s and 1970s Thompson’s style of subjective, first-person narrative—
as an innovative style of reporting in harmony with the often consumed copious amounts of alcohol and drugs
counterculture movement. New Journalists saw them- as part of their work. This served as additional fodder
selves as taking over the role of the traditional novelist for those who argued that New Journalists were simply
by addressing the broad social and cultural movements self-indulgent. The legacy of New Journalism, with its
of their day, which they felt novelists had abandoned. emphasis on the role of the reporter in the construction
While conventional journalists argued that a degree and telling of a story, remains evident in such magazines
of objectivity could be achieved by maintaining a disas Rolling Stone.
tance from their subjects, New Journalists contended Jessie Swigger
that objective writing was not only untenable, but un-
desirable. By combining literary and journalistic de- See also: Counterculture; Literature, Film, and Drama; Mailer,
vices, New Journalists hoped to create a more engag- Norman; Thompson, Hunter S.; Wolfe, Tom.
ing and emotionally charged writing style that would
go beyond answering the standard questions of who, Further Reading
what, where, when, why, and how. Weingarten, Marc. The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight: Wolfe,
In his introduction to The New Journalism (1973), Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution. New
Tom Wolfe defines the contours of New Journalism, York: Crown, 2006.
explaining that it is a new literary form combining Wolfe, Tom, and E.W. Johnson, eds. The New Journalism. New
traditional reporting with novelistic devices such as York: Harper and Row, 1973.
telling stories using scenes rather than a chronological
narrative; including conversational speech or full dia-
logue; adopting a personal point of view; and recording New Lef t
the details of everyday life. Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid The New Left movements that flourished during the
Acid Test (1963), which documents the LSD activities 1960s and early 1970s challenged discrimination
and cross-country escapades of Ken Kesey and the against blacks, ethnic minorities, and women; pro-
Merry Pranksters, is written in this style. Hunter S. moted freedom in dress, language, sexuality, and other
Thompson’s Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga aspects of personal expression; and opposed the nuclear
(1967) uses a similar approach as he describes his trav- arms race and the war in Vietnam. These movements
els with this counterculture motorcycle gang. Other exposed the fault lines in American society and politics
books that have been identified as leading examples by pressing for a radical extension of democracy to every
of New Journalism include Truman Capote’s In Cold person regardless of color, gender, sexual orientation, or
Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Conse- origin. In foreign affairs, New Left activists challenged
quences (1965); Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem the consensus to contain communism at any cost by pro-
(1968), a series of articles about life in San Francisco; testing a war that increasingly seemed without strategy,
and Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night: History as a morality, or purpose.
Novel, the Novel as History (1968), which documents his The New Left germinated during the conservative
experience during a 1967 anti–Vietnam War march on 1950s, when communists, socialists, and anarchists of
Washington, D.C. the Old Left appeared moribund. It found scattered
Critics of New Journalism quickly argued that by models of resistance in African-American struggles for
combining the literary devices of novels and journalism, civil rights; Christian pacifist groups such as the War
New Journalists corrupt both forms. The insertion of Resisters’ League; and the Committee for a Sane Nuclear
the reporter’s internal dialogue and worldview into a Policy, formed in 1957 to oppose nuclear testing. In the
text labeled journalism, critics suggested, leads readers early 1960s, the New Left drew inspiration from black
to assume that the reporter is an unreliable source. Such student sit-ins in the South and the Student Nonviolent
detractors dismissed New Journalism, with the reporter Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which helped guide
having a central role in the story, as symptomatic of the those campaigns. It drew, too, on the idealism of affluent
self-absorption of the 1960s counterculture. New Journal- Baby Boom youths eager to act on John F. Kennedy’s
ists countered that the goal of objectivity in reporting is inaugural exhortation to “ask what together we can do
patently unrealistic. for the freedom of man.”
New York Times, The 399
White college students were prominent in the should be “thrown off campus—permanently.” When
emerging New Left because they were relatively privi- protestors outside the Democratic National Convention
leged, articulate, sheltered from the demands of the work in Chicago in August 1968 met with police brutality,
world, and part of a fast-growing cohort marked by a however, the American public was shocked by the city’s
strong generational identity. Students for a Democratic use of violence. But the backlash continued against the
Society (SDS), originating as an offshoot of the socialist New Left, fed on resentment of all protests; hostility
League for Industrial Democracy, in 1962 circulated an toward blacks, feminists, gays, and lesbians; tensions
influential reform vision, the “Port Huron Statement,” between blue-collar workers and more affluent antiwar
written chiefly by Tom Hayden, which urged “participa- demonstrators; and fears of violence stoked by ghetto
tory democracy,” to let individuals shape decisions that riots and bombings by New Left splinter groups like the
affected them in a bureaucratized society dominated by Weather Underground.
corporations and the military. In 1964, the Free Speech The SNCC, the SDS, Yippies, and similar groups
Movement at the University of California at Berkeley faded after the early 1970s, but in its brief heyday the
applied this philosophy by staging nonviolent student New Left transformed American society and politics. It
sit-ins that restored student rights to engage in political helped topple the South’s legalized racial caste system;
activity on campus. established a new consensus that groups long on the mar-
Early New Left activists fit comfortably within the gins of public life, including blacks and women, deserved
liberal Democratic coalition that enacted civil rights laws, rights, opportunities, and positions of authority; brought
advocated equal rights for women, expanded federal aid issues of gay and lesbian rights to the center of national
to education, and sought to empower the poor through politics; expanded the boundaries of acceptable cultural
community action programs. Beginning in March 1965, expression and relationships; and made dissent against
however, the sustained American bombing of North U.S. foreign policy respectable even in wartime.
Vietnam and the deployment of ground troops to South
Vietnam alienated New Left groups from the nation’s Robert Weisbrot
liberal leaders and a “system,” as Paul Potter of the SDS
declared in April 1965, that “put material values before See also: Black Panther Party; Chicago Seven; Civil Rights
human values.” Movement; Communists and Communism; Counterculture;
The New Left became larger, more diverse, and Gay Rights Movement; Hayden, Tom; Hoffman, Abbie;
more radical during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In Nuclear Age; Sexual Revolution; Students for a Democratic
1966, Stokely Carmichael of the SNCC advocated Black Society; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
Power based on militant racial solidarity rather than
integration, liberal coalition, and nonviolence. Chicanos Further Reading
(Mexican Americans), Puerto Ricans, Asian Americans, Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York:
Native Americans, gays and lesbians, and other groups Bantam Books, 1987.
also asserted their identity, pride, and grievances toward Gosse, Van. Rethinking the New Left: An Interpretive History. New
mainstream institutions and values. Opponents of the York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Vietnam War engaged in civil disobedience at draft Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. America Divided: The
induction centers, held the March on the Pentagon in Civil War of the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press,
October 1967, and drew half a million demonstrators to 2000.
Washington, D.C., in November 1969. During a student Miller, James. “Democracy Is in the Streets”: From Port Huron to the
protest at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970, Siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
National Guard troops killed four students, precipitating
student “strikes” that shut down hundreds of colleges
and universities. N e w Yo r k T i m e s , T h e
While Yippies (members of the Youth International Founded in 1851 and often referred to as “the Gray
Party) declared that “revolution is fun,” and some mem- Lady” (for its plain appearance and traditional status),
bers of other New Left groups flirted with the idea of the New York Times has for years been the nation’s
violent revolution, their extreme actions led to a backlash most prominent newspaper. As such, it has unofficially
in public opinion; electoral shifts toward conservative functioned as the “newspaper of record,” providing
Republicans over liberal Democrats; and repression by American society with the “first draft of history” and
local police, the National Guard, and the FBI. In his acting as a sort of “fourth estate” of the national sphere.
successful campaign to become governor of California In 2009, as the paper boasted the largest staff of any
in 1966, Ronald Reagan branded activists at the Uni- other newsroom in the country (some 1,200 staffers)
versity of California at Berkeley a disruptive “minority and maintained a daily print circulation of 1 million
of hippies, radicals, and filthy speech advocates” who (with Sunday circulation of 1.4 million), the New York
4 00 New York Times, The
Times Company experienced severe financial strain cosmopolitan mores of its immediate readership, the
($1.1 billion in debt), which was exacerbated by a 7.7 residents of New York City. Some have contended as well
percent decline in advertising revenue due to a faltering that the Times is often judged by the standards of advocacy
economy as well as the trend of more people relying on journalism and narrowcasting rather than a dialectical
the Internet for their primary source of news. “both sides” approach. In recent times, the Times’s op-ed
From its beginnings as the New York Daily Times, the page has included liberal columnists such as Maureen
paper sought to be more substantive and less sensational Dowd and the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman
than the rival newspapers of the day, as then explained while also providing a rightward forum to former Weekly
by founder Henry J. Raymond: “[W]e do not mean to Standard editor David Brooks and globalization advocate
write as if we were in a passion.” In 1896, the struggling Thomas Friedman. From 2007 to 2009, Bill Kristol, the
paper was bought by Adolph S. Ochs. The new owner, leading figure of the neoconservative movement, was a
wishing to set a course for higher journalism standards, regular columnist.
added a motto to the paper’s masthead: “All the News Although the Times supported the adoption of the
That’s Fit to Print.” Within four years, the newspaper Twenty-second Amendment, a conservative initiative
attracted more advertising and increased its circulation to limit a president to two terms of office in negative
from 25,000 to 100,000 by bolstering market reports and response to Roosevelt winning four terms, its editorial
coverage of government news. During the paper’s early page has not endorsed a Republican presidential candidate
years, the staff worked out of Times Tower on Broadway, since Dwight D. Eisenhower. In fact, the Times was part
a prominent location that came to be called Times Square. of the small 16 percent of newspapers that endorsed John
By the 1920s, circulation reached 330,000, with Sunday F. Kennedy for president in 1960. Writing in Newsday
sales topping 500,000. Ochs remained publisher until his in 2000, Charles Krauthammer argued that the Times’s
death in 1935, and all subsequent publishers have been headline of September 7—“Gore Offers Vision of Bet-
his descendants: Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1935–1961), ter Times for Middle Class”—was what “Pravda used to
Orvil E. Dryfoos (1961–1963), Arthur Ochs “Punch” run for Leonid Brezhnev’s campaigns.” That same year,
Sulzberger (1963–1992), and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush was
(1992–). Although the company began issuing stock dur- inadvertently caught on an open mike complaining about
ing the 1960s, the family has retained majority control. Times reporter Adam Clymer, whom he referred to with
In 2007, the paper moved its operation into a new fifty- an expletive.
two-story neo-Gothic tower on Eighth Avenue between In one of the most infamous attacks against the paper,
40th and 41st streets in Midtown Manhattan. the conservative pundit Ann Coulter wrote in the New
York Observer, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh
Omissions and Biases [the bomber of the Oklahoma City federal building] is
The New York Times has been praised for its coverage he did not go to the New York Times building” (August
of such landmark twentieth-century events as the 26, 2002). As the late Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media
sinking of the Titanic, the Armenian genocide during earlier accused the paper of projecting a liberal bias, MIT
the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and the two world professor Noam Chomsky was advancing the argument
wars. However, it has been criticized for inaccuracies and/ that the Times, by acting as an “agenda setter” of the
or omissions pertaining to the civil war following the mainstream media, has narrowed the spectrum of pub-
1917 Russian Revolution, the Holocaust, the Pinochet lic debate to the point that what is considered liberal is
regime in Chile, and, most recently, the lead-up to the actually quite conservative.
Iraq War. In 2003, Walter Duranty, a Stalin apologist conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
who was a Times correspondent in Moscow during the has often ridiculed the paper, despite the fact that he has
1920s and 1930s, was nearly posthumously stripped for years drawn material from it. Ironically, the liberal
of his 1932 Pulitzer Prize for allegedly misleading his watch group Media Matters was displeased by an “ego-
editors and readers about the Ukrainian famine. stroking profile” of Limbaugh that appeared in the New
In the culture wars, the Times has been criticized by York Times Magazine (July 6, 2008), calling Zev Chafets,
both conservatives and liberals alike. For those who are the reporter who wrote the piece, “a toothless tiger.” In
politically to the right, the Times is a liberal newspaper February 1994, Limbaugh criticized the Times for not run-
that fails to reflect the values of the larger American cul- ning a front-page article about Whitewater, a real estate
ture. The conservative Media Research Center, founded in scandal involving the Clintons, even though two years
1987, maintains a “Times Watch” Web page “dedicated earlier the paper broke the story on page one. Liberals,
to documenting and exposing the liberal political agenda in fact, accused the Times of having revived Whitewater,
of the New York Times.” which had otherwise been a dead issue, and they point out
It can also be argued, however, that the editorial that earlier the paper largely stood on the sidelines while
positions of the paper are largely in harmony with the the Washington Post investigated the Watergate scandal.
New York Times, The 4 01
Since Whitewater involved a Democratic administration suicide following the publication of a front-page article
and Watergate a Republican one, some liberal critics on his background.
suggest an inconsistency. During the Vietnam War, the paper became increas-
ingly critical of American foreign policy. Beginning in
An “Establishment” Paper 1962, Times reporter David Halberstam became the first
For years the Times was regarded as an “establishment” war correspondent to offer a negative account of what
newspaper. This is why it was chosen by the federal was occurring in Vietnam; two years later he won the
government in 1945 to write the history of the Pulitzer Prize. In 1966, Harrison E. Salisbury reported,
development of the atomic bomb. science reporter in contradiction to official statements of the Lyndon John-
William Laurence was assigned this exclusive task and son administration, that American B-52s were bombing
even accompanied the August 9 bombing mission of civilian targets in North Vietnam. Although an advisory
Nagasaki, winning a Pulitzer Prize for his eyewitness board recommended Salisbury for the Pulitzer Prize, the
account of the devastation. On many occasions, the decision was overruled by a 6–5 vote, apparently over
Times cooperated with American officials by either not disenchantment with the embarrassment caused for the
publishing stories or delaying their release. In 1954, government. In late 1969, frustrated by the growing
as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was about to antiwar sentiment of the news media, Vice President
launch a coup in Guatemala, the Times management Spiro T. Agnew publicly denounced the biases of the
ordered reporter Sydney Gruson out of that country—as “eastern establishment,” clearly counting the New York
later divulged, the decision was prompted by “security Times as one of the “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
concerns” raised by CIA director Allen Dulles, who After the Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers,
wanted the event left unreported. Later, as the CIA the government’s top-secret history of the Vietnam
made preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, War, the Nixon administration sought a court injunc-
the paper acquiesced to the Kennedy administration tion to halt the serialization, but in New York Times Co.
and held back on its coverage. Over the years, it was v. United States (1971), the Supreme Court sided against
speculated that the paper was occasionally used as a cover the government, 6–3.
for the CIA, a subject explored at length in Without Fear
or Favor: The New York Times and Its Times (1980) by Iraq War
former Times reporter Harrison E. Salisbury. In 1956, the In Off with Their Heads (2003), political consultant and
Times joined other American newspapers in declining Fox News analyst Dick Morris includes a chapter entitled
China’s invitation to send correspondents because it did “The New New York Times,” faulting the paper for failing
not wish to embarrass the U.S. government. to support President Bush after the terrorist attacks
Despite any perceived coziness with Washington of September 11, 2001. Howell Raines, who became
officialdom, the Times had its conservative detractors managing editor days prior to the terrorist attacks, is
who were displeased by the paper’s support of New Deal blamed by Morris for being a “partisan cheerleader,
programs and the civil rights movement. The paper’s sending messages of dissent, and fanning the flames
editorial stance, such as in 1951 when it sided with of disagreement on the left.” Conservative critics have
President Harry Truman in the firing of General Douglas also questioned the newspaper for labeling the unrest
MacArthur, would sometimes be out of sync with the pre- in Iraq a “civil war” and for the persistent usage of the
vailing public mood. In 1956, Senator James O. Eastland term “insurgents” instead of “terrorists.” (Similarly,
(D-MS) launched an inquiry of the Times, charging that there was objection to articles that referred to Hurricane
100 communists were on its staff. Ironically, this came Katrina survivors as “refugees” instead of “evacuees.”)
after the Kremlin had publicly attacked the paper for In an opposite conclusion, liberals such as Arianna
distorting the policies of the Soviet government. Later, Huffington of the Huffington Post group blog fault the
segregationists sued for libel after being inaccurately Times for its stenography-like reporting in the lead-up
depicted in a political ad placed in the paper by a civil to the Iraq War. Huffington and others were especially
rights group. In the resulting U.S. Supreme Court deci- condemning of Times reporter Judith Miller, believing
sion, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), the court that she quoted officials without doing real reporting.
ruled against the plaintiffs on the grounds that criticism According to this critique, Miller in 2002 and 2003
of public officials does not warrant libel unless “actual played up the story on weapons of mass destruction in
malice” can be proven. Some believe that the paper’s lib- Iraq (which later proved to be nonexistent), sanctioning
eral bias drove it in October 1965 to unnecessarily reveal the efforts of the Bush administration.
that Daniel Burros, the New York head of the Ku Klux In 2006, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that
Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party, had preventing the United States from winning the war on
been born Jewish but was keeping it concealed; Burros, terror was “a major goal” of the New York Times. This
who some thought was mentally disturbed, committed judgment followed the Times breaking a news story that
4 02 Niebuhr, Reinhold
the U.S. government was tracking international banking the American atomic bombings of Japan, Stalinism,
data in an attempt to uncover terrorist funding. Vice Soviet aggression, McCarthyism, nuclear brinkmanship,
President Cheney criticized the paper for disclosing southern segregation, and the Vietnam War.
“vital national security programs” and said that doing A neo-orthodox Protestant, Niebuhr in his writ-
so would make it “more difficult . . . to prevent future ings, speeches, and sermons offered political analysis and
attacks against the American people.” Defending itself in social commentary that were infused with the doctrine
an editorial (June 28, 2006), the Times argued that ter- of Original Sin and the belief that human beings are
rorists obviously knew that transferring money by wire incapable of making an ideal society. Yet Niebuhr was
was subject to government monitoring. The real issue, not a conservative; he leaned to the left, affiliating for a
the editorial continued, was “an extraordinarily powerful time with the Socialist Party (1929–1941), embracing
executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and many of the tenets of Marxism, and eventually support-
balances of our system of government.” ing New Deal liberalism. He believed that “children of
light” should strive to make the world better even if it
Roger Chapman will always be less than perfect. As he once concluded,
“Democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions
See also: Central Intelligence Agency; Clinton Impeachment; for insoluble problems.” Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer”
Coulter, Ann; Holocaust; Kristol, Irving, and Bill Kristol; (early 1940s), which became engrained in American
Krugman, Paul; Limbaugh, Rush; Media Bias; September 11; popular culture during World War II and the postwar
Vietnam War; Washington Times, The; Watergate. years, expresses such views concerning human limita-
tions. One version reads in part: “God, give us grace / to
Further Reading accept with serenity / the things that cannot be changed, /
Friel, Howard, and Richard A. Falk. The Record of the Paper: courage to change the things / that should be changed,
How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy. New / and wisdom to distinguish / the one from the other.”
York: Verso, 2004. The poem was adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, but
Hirschorn, Michael. “End Times.” Atlantic, January–February Niebuhr’s authorship has been called into question—
2009. most recently in 2008 by a librarian at Yale University
Morris, Dick. Off with Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks & Obstruction- whose research uncovered examples of other individuals
ists in American Politics, Media & Business. New York: Regan reciting similar prayers during the 1930s.
Books, 2003. Karl Paul Reinhold “Reinie” Niebuhr, the son of a
New York Times Web site. www.nytimes.com. German immigrant and pastor of the Evangelical Synod
Salisbury, Harrison E. Without Fear or Favor: The New York (Lutheran), was born on June 21, 1892, in Wright City,
Times and Its Times. New York: Times Book, 1980. Missouri, and grew up in Lincoln, Illinois. After graduat-
Talese, Gay. The Kingdom and the Power. Behind the Scenes at the ing as valedictorian at both Elmhurst College (1910) and
New York Times: The Institution That Influences the World. Eden Theological Seminary (BD, 1913), near Chicago and
New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2007. St. Louis, respectively, he completed his studies at Yale
Tifft, Susan E., and Alex S. Jones. The Trust: The Private and University (BD, 1914; MA, 1915). A pastorate stint at
Powerful Family Behind the New York Times. Boston: Little, the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit (1915–1928),
Brown, 1999. where Niebuhr supported the cause of the labor move-
TimesWatch Web site. www.timeswatch.org. ment and denounced the policies of Henry Ford, was
followed by a long teaching career at Union Theological
Seminary in New York (1928–1960). A prolific essay-
News Repor ting ist, Niebuhr was a regular contributor to the Christian
See Media Bias Century (1922–1940), the Nation (1938–1950), and the
New Leader (1954–1970). In 1935, he founded Radical
Religion (later renamed Christianity and Society), a journal
N i e b u h r, R e i n h o l d of current affairs he edited for three decades. In 1941, he
Identified by Time magazine in 1950 as “the number founded a second journal, Christianity and Crisis.
one theologian of United States Protestantism,” Niebuhr also wrote nearly twenty books, includ-
Reinhold Niebuhr spent an academic career critiquing ing Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), a criticism
domestic and foreign affairs through the prism of what of both secular and religious liberalism; The Nature and
he called “Christian realism.” Ever against any political Destiny of Man (1941, 1943), his central work, which in
idea, doctrine, policy, or movement that he regarded as two volumes presents a theory of history and the human
excessively idealistic, naive, unjust, or showing signs condition; The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
of hubris, Niebuhr over the years criticized pacifism, (1944), an endorsement of democracy with a warning of
the Christian social gospel, secular liberalism, fascism, its human limitations; and The Irony of American History
Ni xon, R ichard 4 03
(1952), a treatise that discusses the inherent weakness of and thirty-seventh president of the United States. In
national power. One of his later books, The Structure of 1974, he resigned the presidency to avoid impeachment
Nations and Empires (1959), advocated U.S.-Soviet coex- over his cover-up in the Watergate scandal. A politically
istence in the nuclear age. polarizing figure and a culture warrior in his own right,
As a Cold Warrior, Niebuhr quit writing for the Nixon remains a topic of the culture wars into the twenty-
Nation because he thought its editorials were support- first century, as various factions debate the meaning of
ive of Stalinism. He was the first national chairman of his presidency and his overall political legacy.
the Union for Democratic Action, which in 1947 was Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9,
renamed the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, and raised in a finan-
a liberal organization staunchly committed to the Cold cially struggling Quaker household. After attending
War policy of containment against the Soviet Union. He Whittier College (BA, 1934) and Duke University Law
was consequently a booster of the Marshall Plan, believ- School (JD, 1937), Nixon served in World War II in the
ing it was prudent to help Western Europe rebuild after U.S. Navy. When the war was over, he returned to Cali-
World war II in order to keep it safe for democracy. fornia and began his career in politics, winning election
During the late 1940s, he was a chief adviser to the U.S. to the U.S. House of Representatives (1947–1950) and
State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, influenc- the U.S. Senate (1950–1953). After two terms as vice
ing Cold War strategists such as George Kennan, who president under Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961),
called Niebuhr “the father of us all.” During this time, Nixon lost the 1960 presidential race to Democrat
Niebuhr also worked closely with the historian Arthur John F. Kennedy by less than 113,000 votes out of 68
M. Schlesinger, Jr. million ballots cast. Two years later, he lost the race
Although awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for California governor to Democrat Edmund G. “Pat”
in 1964, Niebuhr was the subject of an FBI probe directed Brown, only to make an amazing political comeback
by President Richard Nixon after the theologian spoke by twice wining the U.S. presidency (1968 and 1972).
out against the Vietnam War and expressed support for On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned as president. For
the civil rights movement. Niebuhr died on June 1, 1971. the remainder of his life he sought to rehabilitate his
Today his ideas continue to influence activists on both image and present himself as a statesman. He died on
the left and the right. April 22, 1994.
Roger Chapman “Red-Baiter” of Liberals

Nixon’s various political campaigns shared the same
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; Graham, Billy; elements: an emphasis on the dangers of America’s Cold
Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Labor Unions; Marxism; Nation, War enemies and “red-baiting” of liberal opponents. He
The; Nixon, Richard; Nuclear Age; Schlesinger, Arthur M., was first elected to public office in 1946 when he defeat-
Jr.; Soviet Union and Russia; Vietnam War. ed Congressman Jerry Voorhis, a five-term Democratic
incumbent from California’s Twelfth District. Nixon
Further Reading was catapulted into national celebrity in 1948 when, as
Brown, Charles C. Niebuhr and His Age: Reinhold Niebuhr’s a member of the House Committee on Un-American
Prophetic Role in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: Trinity Activities (HUAC), he played an instrumental role in
Press International, 1992. exposing Alger Hiss’s connection with the Communist
Fox, Richard Wightman. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography. New Party while working in the U.S. State Department.
York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Nixon became a hero of the political right and used that
Link, Michael. The Social Philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr. Chicago: momentum to gain a Senate seat. In that campaign he
Adams Press, 1975. again used a red-baiting strategy, referring to opponent
Scott, Nathan A., Jr., ed. The Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr. Chicago: Helen Gahagan Douglas as “pink right down to her un-
University of Chicago Press, 1975. derwear.” In response, Douglas branded Nixon with the
Sifton, Elisabeth. The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times “Tricky Dick” epitaph, which followed him for the rest
of Peace and War. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. of his life.
Tinsley, E.J., ed. Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892–1971. London: Epworth Nixon’s popularity among Republicans led to his
Press, 1973. nomination as Eisenhower’s vice-presidential running
mate in 1952. However, he was almost removed from
the ticket after the media reported his personal use of an
N i xo n , R i c h a r d $18,000 political “slush fund.” He saved his reputation
One of the most influential and controversial figures and place on the ticket with a paid televised response—
in postwar American politics, Republican Richard M. his famous “Checkers Speech”—in which he detailed his
Nixon served as congressman, senator, vice president, household finances and explained that his wife did not
404 Ni xon, R ichard
the lasting effects of those setbacks made Nixon a para-

noiac, later leading him to keep an “enemies list” and to
resort to illegal campaign tactics in order to maintain an
edge over opponents.
As the Vietnam War divided the country, Nixon
returned to national politics in 1968 for a second try
for the presidency. The Democratic Party was in a deep
crisis—suffering infighting over the war and a serious
backlash for its advocacy of civil rights legislation and
other social programs. While President Lyndon B. John-
son announced that he would not seek reelection and
the Democrats remained in disarray, Nixon promised to
achieve “peace with honor” in Vietnam and to promote
respect for law and order in American society. These
two platforms appealed to many war-weary voters who
were also unhappy with radical antiwar protests. With
Future Republican president Richard Nixon (far left) achieved the support of “Middle America,” Nixon easily defeated
national prominence—and a leading role in the culture wars— Hubert Humphrey in the November election.
as a “red-baiting” congressman during the Alger Hiss spy
case in 1948. (James Whitmore/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Domestic and Foreign Policies
Images)
Historians critical of Nixon argue that when he assumed
the presidency in 1969 he took advantage of the political
own a fur coat but only a “a respectable Republican cloth and social divisions in the nation to advance his partisan
coat”; the only political gift he ever accepted, he went ambitions. Referring to its supporters as the “great
on, was a cocker spaniel named Checkers, a dog he was silent majority,” the Nixon administration dismissed
not going to return because his children were attached the youth counterculture and antiwar movement as a
to it. Perhaps Nixon’s most well-known moments as vice loud minority that did not represent the values of “real”
president were the stoning of his motorcade during a visit Americans. At the same time, it was said, Nixon tapped
to Venezuela (1958) and the “kitchen debate” he had with into the resentments of whites by delaying enforcement
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over capitalism versus of civil rights in the South and refusing to endorse
communism (1959). school busing. Such policies were often referred to as
the Republican Party’s “southern strategy,” which used
Defeats and Political Comeback issues such as race to appeal to white southern voters in
Nixon’s plan to move into the Oval Office after the end order to gain the electoral edge.
of Eisenhower’s second term was dashed by Kennedy, On matters of race, however, Nixon’s policies were
who narrowly won the 1960 election. Critics charged far nobler than his negative rhetoric. His tenure did
that the Democrat victory was rooted in voter fraud, see gains in school integration—whereas 68 percent of
while others argued that Nixon’s defeat was the result African-American children in the South and 40 percent in
of his poor performance in the country’s first televised the nation as a whole attended all-black schools in 1968,
presidential debate. Television audiences saw two very the figures fell to 8 percent and 12 percent, respectively,
different politicians during that debate: JFK, who only two years later. Nixon also spent significantly on
looked “presidential” and directly at the camera; and civil rights enforcement, bolstering the Equal Employ-
Nixon, who appeared ashen, unshaven, sweaty, and ment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the civil
“shifty-eyed” as he could not decide whether to turn rights division of the Justice Department. Whereas civil
toward the camera or to the man he was addressing. rights outlays in President Johnson’s final budget totaled
Those who watched the debate on television said JFK $911 million, the 1973 budget drafted by Nixon called
had won; radio listeners felt Nixon outdid the young for $2.6 billion.
Democrat. Many conservatives look back on Nixon’s handling of
Many believed that Nixon’s political career was over domestic and economic issues and brand him a liberal. His
after his failed presidential run, which was followed by administration oversaw the creation of the Environmental
a losing race for the California governorship in 1962. Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and
At his farewell press conference, implying that liberal Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); the introduction
media bias was to blame for his two defeats, he bitterly of automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for
told the reporters they would not have Nixon “to kick Social Security recipients; and the establishment of the
around anymore.” Some commentators have argued that Supplementary Security Income (SSI), guaranteeing an
Norquis t , Grover 4 05
annual income for the elderly, blind, and disabled. Contro- quest of President Ronald Reagan, Nixon in 1981 joined
versially, Nixon dealt with inflation by instituting wage Ford and Carter in representing the United States at the
and price controls, a policy critics regarded as a violation funeral of slain Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat. In 1984,
of free-market principles. Under Nixon’s watch, for the after addressing the American Newspaper Publishers
first time since World War II, federal spending on social Association, Nixon to his surprise received a standing
programs exceeded expenditures on defense. ovation. The cover of the May 1986 issue of Newsweek
As a matter of consensus, Nixon’s greatest successes magazine featured the former president with the title
as president came in the area of foreign policy. He and “The Rehabilitation of Nixon.”
Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, set upon Nixon’s defenders, citing the foreign policy successes
a policy that fundamentally changed the direction of the of his administration, argue that it is wrong to reduce his
Cold War. This included establishing diplomatic rela- presidency to the Watergate scandal. Some conservatives
tions with China (which some Democrats characterized as have since blamed Nixon’s downfall on “liberals,” down-
a strategy to overshadow the 1972 presidential campaign playing the enormity of the abuse of power. Conservative
and strengthen Nixon’s reelection chances) and negotiat- radio commentator Rush Limbaugh has dwelled on the
ing the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) media bias against Nixon. Arguably, the intensification
with the Soviet Union in 1971. Thus, the Nixon era ush- of the culture wars is one of Nixon’s major legacies. His
ered in détente, a period of reduced tensions between the White House staff included a number of people who
superpowers. In 1973, after engaging the United States would continue to wage the culture wars in other Re-
in a secret bombing and invasion of Cambodia, Nixon publican administrations, including Dick Cheney and
and Kissinger negotiated the long-awaited end of U.S. Donald Rumsfeld. In addition, Nixon appointed four
involvement in Vietnam. Perhaps only because of Nixon’s justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, all of whom played a
well-established anticommunist credentials was he able significant role in shaping the culture wars on issues such
to pursue many of these foreign policies without being as abortion, affirmative action, school prayer, and states’
labeled an appeaser or simply soft on communism. rights. Most significantly, Nixon appointed perhaps
the most conservative justice on the bench—William
Watergate and Rehabilitation Rehnquist—who for fourteen years had been an associate
In August 1974, Nixon became the first American justice before serving nineteen years as chief justice.
president to resign from office, the culmination of the
Watergate scandal—the break-in and bugging of the Maria T. Baldwin
Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972
and the subsequent cover-up and obstruction of justice See also: Agnew, Spiro T.; Busing, School; China; Cold War;
by the Nixon White House. Had Nixon not resigned, Communists and Communism; Environmental Movement;
he surely would have been impeached and most likely Hiss, Alger; Judicial Wars; Presidential Pardons; Rehnquist,
would have been removed from office. His subsequent William H.; Republican Party; Silent Majority; Watergate.
pardon by President Gerald Ford caused an uproar and
led to accusations that the two had made a secret deal. Further Reading
Adding to Nixon’s disgrace was the decision of Duke Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon. 3 vols. New York: Simon & Schus-
University not to allow its campus to be the site of the ter, 1987–1991.
Nixon Presidential Library. (It would eventually be Greenberg, David. Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image. New
built in San Clemente, California.) York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
Nixon did not fade away. In 1977 he collected $1 MacMillan, Margaret. The Week that Changed the World. New
million for a series of taped interviews conducted by the York: Random House, 2007.
British television personality David Frost. Although Mitchell, Greg. Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon
viewers heard Nixon argue that a course of action taken vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas—Sexual Politics and the Red Scare,
by the president is automatically legal, they also saw him 1950. New York: Random House, 1998.
express regret over Watergate. By the end of the decade, Nixon, Richard. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York:
following the publication of RN: The Memoirs of Richard Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
Nixon (1978), the former president was living in Saddle Reston, James, Jr. The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold
River, New Jersey, to be near the political elites and news Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews. New York: Harmony
media outlets of the Northeast. Popularly received during Books, 2007.
travels to Paris, Jidda, and Beijing, Nixon struck the pose
of an elder statesman and informally advised presidents
from Reagan to Clinton. He also wrote numerous works N o r q u i s t , G r ove r
on foreign affairs, including The Real War (1980), No As founder and executive director of the antitax lobbying
More Vietnams (1987), and Beyond Peace (1994). At the regroup Americans for Tax Reform, established in 1985,
406 Norquis t , Grover
Grover Norquist has worked to prompt elected officials Easton, Nina J. Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conserva-
to cut taxes for the ultimate goal of decreasing the size tive Crusade. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
of the federal government. The New Deal, he argues, has Norquist, Grover. Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s
left a negative legacy of an oversized public sector that Hands Off of Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives. New York: W.
has put a drag on the economy and hampered individual Morrow, 2008.
freedom. As Norquist has said, “I don’t want to abolish
government. I simply want to reduce it to the size
where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in N o r t h , O l i ve r
the bathtub.” Critics maintain that Norquist’s antitax Marine lieutenant colonel Oliver North, Jr., achieved
campaign has led to growing budget deficits, a reduction notoriety during the televised Iran-Contra hearings in the
in the quality of life, and a widening of the wealth gap. summer of 1987 and went on to a career as a conservative
The son of a senior executive at Polaroid, Grover political commentator and aspirant to elective office. A
Glenn Norquist was born on October 19, 1956, and little-known member of the National Security Council
grew up in the Boston suburb of Weston. His interest (NSC) during the Ronald Reagan administration,
in conservative politics took shape during the Cold War, Lieutenant Colonel North was implicated as a key player
when at age thirteen he read J. Edgar Hoover’s book on in a scandal that was a direct defiance of a federal law not
communism, Masters of Deceit (1958), and Whittaker to fund the Contras, or counterrevolutionaries, fighting to
Chambers’s autobiography, Witness (1952). His father overthrow the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
also instilled in him an outrage over taxes. Norquist at- The son of middle-class parents, Oliver Laurence
tended Harvard University, earning a bachelor’s degree “Larry” North, Jr., was born in San Antonio, Texas, on
in economics (1978) and a master’s degree in business October 7, 1943. After studying at the State University
administration (1981). of New York at Brockport (1961–1963), he attended the
As a graduate student, Norquist volunteered in U.S. Naval Academy (BS, 1968). North saw combat in
Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, in the experience Vietnam (1968–1969) and was awarded the Silver Star,
befriending Jack Abramoff, the future K Street lobbyist Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts for his service. In
and convicted felon who was then a student at Brandeis November 1986, “Ollie,” as President Ronald Reagan
University. He later helped Abramoff get elected chair- called him, resigned his post along with the head of the
man of the College Republicans. In 1985, Norquist NSC, Vice Admiral John Poindexter, when U.S. Attor-
established his niche at Americans for Tax Reform, an ney General Edwin Meese announced that sophisticated
advocacy group in step with the philosophy of the Reagan weapons systems had been sold to Iran and that money
administration. from the sales had been diverted to buy weapons for the
Norquist claims credit for President George H.W. Contras. Earlier, because the Contras had attacked Ni-
Bush’s reelection defeat in 1992, declaring that it was caraguan civilians and were charged with human rights
retribution for breaking a promise not to raise taxes. Since abuses, Congress had cut off U.S. military aid.
then, his group has persuaded many candidates, including
George W. Bush, to sign pledges not to increase taxes.
Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) consulted with
Norquist when crafting the Contract with America in
1994. Since then, Norquist has helped maintain a broad
conservative coalition. Over the years his “Wednesday
meetings” in Washington, D.C., attracted many promi-
nent conservative activists and elected officials for strat-
egizing policy and tactics. He has dubbed his political
network the Leave Me Alone Coalition, explaining that
the glue that bonds the disparate factions is the desire
for less government intrusion.
Roger Chapman
See also: Bush Family; Chambers, Whittaker; Contract with

America; Federal Budget Deficit; Hoover, J. Edgar; New Deal;
Reagan, Ronald; Social Security; Tax Reform; Wealth Gap.
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North (left, with his attorney) tes-
tifies before congressional investigators in the Iran-Contra
Further Reading hearings of July 1987. Criminally convicted for his role in the
Americans for Tax Reform Web site. www.atr.org. affair, North was viewed by many as a scapegoat and by
Cassidy, John. “The Ringleader.” The New Yorker, August 1, 2005. some as a hero. (Chris Wilkins/AFP/Getty Images)
Not Dead Ye t 4 07
When congressional hearings investigating the scan- euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian was acquitted
dal were carried live on television, the media spotlight of murder charges in the deaths of two women with
glowed favorably over North, who just as easily could disabilities whom he had helped to commit suicide.
have been cast as the villain. Portrayed as the heroic, Not Dead Yet believes that legalized euthanasia
battle-weary soldier—media professionals described will lead to pressure to end the lives of people with
him as “fascinating”—North was successful at deflect- disabilities. The group positioned itself against the
ing criticism for his role in the scandal, and the public Hemlock Society (since renamed Compassion and
generally viewed him as a scapegoat. Although North Choices), which has sought broadening assisted
admitted to supplying the Contras in defiance of the suicide laws to apply to people with nonterminal
congressional ban—action that was not only illegal but disabilities.
unconstitutional—his three felony convictions were The controversy associated with Not Dead Yet inten-
overturned on a technicality because he had been granted sified because of its alliance with conservative religious
immunity for his testimony before Congress. groups in opposing euthanasia. The Terri Schiavo con-
North later founded a company that manufactures troversy galvanized this alignment in 1998. Schiavo, who
bulletproof vests and promoted his folk-hero status by had collapsed in her home in 1990 and was diagnosed as
writing an account of his military career, Under Fire: An being in an irreversible persistent vegetative state, became
American Story (1991). During the 1994 election, he was an the center of a dispute involving her husband’s decision to
unsuccessful Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in remove her feeding tube. He argued that it was what his
Virginia, challenging Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb. wife would have wanted, despite the absence of a living
Filmmakers were given access to North’s campaign, and will. Her parents argued that because she was Catholic,
the subsequent documentary, A Perfect Candidate (1996), she would be opposed to euthanasia. Not Dead Yet filed
features scenes of North expressing his born-again faith amicus (friend of the court) briefs on behalf of the parents,
juxtaposed with footage of cynical political strategists advancing a disability rights position and denouncing
plotting to use rumors of drugs and infidelity against the work of bioethicist Peter Singer, who has argued
Robb. During the campaign, North caused an uproar that the lives of cognitively impaired people are of lesser
when he asserted that President Reagan all along “knew value than the lives of those who are unimpaired. After
everything” about the diversion of funds to the Contras. various appeals courts supported her husband’s decision,
Although North lost a close race, he reaffirmed his image Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed in 2005, and she died
as affable war hero and devoted family man. North went almost two weeks later.
on to host Common Sense, a right-wing radio talk show on In response to depictions in the critically acclaimed
Radio America (1995–2003), and War Stories with Oliver films Million Dollar Baby (2004) and The Sea Inside (2004),
North (2001–), a military history series on the Fox News Not Dead Yet challenged the notion that disability is
Channel. In addition to appearing regularly on Fox as a worse than death. The group staged demonstrations at
political commentator, he has been a syndicated columnist, the Chicago Film Critics Association awards and the
featured public speaker, and co-author of action novels. Oscar ceremonies, sparking public debate. As in the
Schiavo controversy, however, much of the disability
Robin Andersen
rights message was drowned out by broader arguments
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Cold War; Human between social conservatives and liberals.
Rights; Iran-Contra Affair; Presidential Pardons; Reagan, Not Yet Dead also took a stand against Oregon’s
Ronald. Death with Dignity Act, in which state voters legalized
physician-assisted suicide in 1994. The group supported
Further Reading federal legal attempts to overturn the law, but the U.S.
Andersen, Robin. A Century of Media, A Century of War. New Supreme Court upheld the measure in Gonzales v. Oregon
York: Peter Lang, 2006. (2006). Not Dead Yet criticized the Bush administration
Fried, Amy. Muffled Echoes: Oliver North and the Politics of Public for failing to challenge the law from a disability rights
Opinion. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. perspective.
Meyer, Peter. Defiant Patriot: The Life and Exploits of Lt. Colonel Laura Hague
Oliver L. North. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.
Pasternak, Douglas. “Oliver North’s New Crusade.” U.S. News See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Catholic Church; Kevorkian,
& World Report, June 6, 1994. Jack; Operation Rescue; Right to Die; Schiavo, Terri.
Further Reading
N o t D e a d Ye t Fleischer, Doris Zames, and Freida Fleischer. The Disability
The disability rights activist group Not Dead Yet was Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation. Philadelphia:
founded by Diane Coleman on April 27, 1996, after Temple University Press, 2001.
408 Nuclear Age
Nuclear Age a group of Manhattan Project researchers in 1945 formed

The $2.2 billion Manhattan Project, which developed the Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS)—soon renamed
the atomic bombs used against Japan on August 6 the Federation of American Scientists—and resorted to
fear tactics in an attempt to convince the public that
and 9, 1945, brought World War II to a close while
nuclear weapons should be placed under international
ushering in the nuclear age. At the same time, it laid the
control. According to historian Paul Boyer, the “politi-
groundwork for the Cold War and the mammoth U.S.
cization of fear” the scientists introduced backfired and
military-industrial complex, including nuclear research
ultimately led to a nuclear arms race.
and development, all of which shaped postwar domestic
politics and contributed to the culture wars. Doomsday Clock
Big Science In 1946, Bernard Baruch, the U.S. representative to
the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission,
The making of the atomic bomb represented the
submitted a plan (called the Baruch Plan) to create an
partnership of the scientific community and the fed-
international agency that would oversee all production
eral government, involving some 120,000 individu-
facilities and research pertaining to atomic energy.
als. Although considerably downsized after the war,
work continued at national laboratories in Los Alamos, This seemed exactly what the FAS wanted, but some
New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and other sites observers saw the proposal as a ploy simply to make
used during the Manhattan Project. The federal com- the Soviet Union look bad. Under the Baruch Plan,
mitment in this field meant that 60 percent of college the United States would agree to turn over its atomic
physics programs in 1949 were financed by the U.S. weaponry and open its pertinent research laboratories
government. Merle Tuve, an American physicist who to international inspectors on the condition that other
during the 1940s had quit working in nuclear research countries, including the Soviet Union, be subject to
because it had become “a business,” challenged the sys- UN inspections as well. All nuclear activities would
tem with his 1959 Saturday Review essay “Is Science have to be licensed by the UN. In other words, the U.S.
Too Big for the Scientist?” The year prior marked the government wanted to prevent all other countries from
establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space breaking its nuclear monopoly.
Administration (NASA), which headed rocket research Although the UN General Assembly passed the Ba-
and the manned space program. When President ruch Plan, the Soviet Union vetoed it when the measure
Dwight Eisenhower left office in 1961, he warned of came before the Security Council. At the time, the Soviets
a military-industrial complex, which included NASA were busy at work secretly developing an atomic bomb.
and the nuclear industry. Alvin Weinberg, the director With hopes for international control of atomic energy
of the Oak Ridge lab from 1955 to 1973, coined the dashed, the FAS the following year began publishing
negative term “big science” in reference to expensive the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in an effort to lift the
ongoing programs involving applied research for pri- veil of military secrecy and prompt public debate on the
marily warfare purposes. Weinberg’s Reflections on Big hazards of the nuclear age, something the scientists felt
Science (1967) warned that these colossal projects have was not happening despite the creation of the U.S. Atomic
the potential of bankrupting society. It has been esti- Energy Commission (1946), which purportedly placed
mated that from the time of the Manhattan Project to atomic energy under civilian control. the June 1947
the end of the Cold War the United States spent $5.5 issue of the Bulletin introduced the so-called Doomsday
trillion on its nuclear arsenal. Clock, showing how many “minutes before midnight,” or
Americans at first were proud of the atomic bomb, nuclear tragedy, the world stood. After the Soviet Union
regarding the mushroom cloud as a symbol of progress detonated its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949, the
and modernity. However, ambivalence and social tensions clock was set at three minutes to midnight.
were apparent early on. As the country-and-western song On April 5, 1951, Judge Irving Kaufman sentenced
“When the Atomic Bomb Fell” (1945) celebrated the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for passing atomic
defeat of the “cruel Jap,” the U.S. Army was dismissing secrets to the Soviet Union, blaming them for “putting
reports of radiation sickness at Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before
as “Jap propaganda.” The following year, the Hollywood our best scientists predicted Russia would” and embold-
docudrama The Beginning or the End portrayed the physi- ening the communists to start the Korean War. Earlier
cists of the Manhattan Project as heroes for saving lives that year, the Federal Civil Defense Administration was
by bringing the war to a speedy conclusion, while John established with the goal of establishing a nationwide
Hersey’s nonfiction work Hiroshima presented a sobering fallout shelter program. In 1952, schoolchildren began
account of the human suffering caused by the first bomb watching the film Duck and Cover to learn how to dive
dropped on Japan. Indignant about the way government under school desks during a sudden atomic attack. On
officials were downplaying the dangers of atomic science, November 1, 1952, the United States exploded a hydro-
Nuclear Age 409
gen bomb at Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific, pushing the consciousness, however, as reflected in the dark, satirical
Doomsday Clock up to two minutes to midnight. The humor of Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I
Soviet Union responded with its own hydrogen bomb Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The po-
on August 12, 1953. liticization of fear in regard to atomic weaponry inspired
the first television campaign attack ad. On September 7,
H-Bomb to Nuclear Treaties 1964, the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential campaign ran
The H-bomb introduced a new wave of nuclear protest, the minute-long “daisy ad” on NBC’s Monday Night at
led by physicist Albert Einstein, philosopher Bertrand the Movies. The commercial showed a little girl standing
Russell, and Pope Pius XII. Following a U.S. test explo- in a meadow, plucking petals from a daisy while count-
sion on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia, ing aloud. At a given point, her voice melds into that of
nuclear fallout spread across the Pacific in areas that had a man counting down to a nuclear explosion. “These are
not been cleared of shipping due to a shift in the winds. the stakes,” a message at the end warns. “To make a world
Consequently, twenty-three crew members of the Japa- in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the
nese fishing trawler Lucky Dragon suffered from radia- dark. We must either love each other, or die.” Although
tion poisoning that resulted in one fatality. “Our fate the spot did not mention the name Barry Goldwater,
menaces all mankind,” said one of the fishermen as he the Republic presidential candidate, it was clear that he
was being treated at the hospital. Fear and fascination was being construed as an extremist who might unleash
about nuclear war and nuclear fallout were expressed in nuclear war. Republicans and others objected to the ad,
a number of popular novels—Dexter Masters’s The Acci- which was run only once but played numerous times as
dent (1955), Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957), and Wal- a news story.
ter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)—and Meanwhile, efforts to halt nuclear proliferation led to
movies—The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), Attack the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, signed by
of the Crab Monsters (1957), and H-Man (1958). Mean- the five nuclear powers at the time—the United States,
while, in June 1957, Saturday Review editor Norman the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China—as
Cousins and others established the National Commit- well as 140 non-nuclear countries (excluding Israel, India,
tee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), urging a halt to Pakistan, and North Korea, all of which later became
nuclear testing. In 1958, others tried to disrupt nuclear nuclear powers). In 1972, the Nixon administration
tests by sailing ships into the Pacific proving grounds. negotiated with the Soviets the first Strategic Arms
Albert Bigelow, a former U.S. naval commander, was Limitation Treaty (SALT), establishing limits on mis-
arrested as he headed The Golden Rule toward the forbid- siles and bombers that deliver nuclear weapons to their
den waters, but Earle Reynolds managed to enter the targets. Further limits on delivery systems were imposed
area with his ship, Phoenix of Hiroshima. by SALT II (1979), which the U.S. Senate refused to
In 1954, the United States focused its attention on ratify but was nonetheless followed by both the Carter
a nuclear delivery system, developing the B-52 long- and Reagan administrations.
range bomber. By 1956, nearly 2,000 bombers with
7,000 nuclear bombs were at the American ready. The Reagan to Yucca
new trend, however, was missile technology with nuclear By the 1980s, the two superpowers possessed a total of
warheads. This is why the successful Soviet launching of 50,000 nuclear weapons, more than enough for mutual
Sputnik in October 1957 greatly alarmed Americans. John destruction. All the bombs dropped during World War
F. Kennedy campaigned for president on the perception II were the equivalent of 3 megatons (equal to 3 million
that there was a “missile gap” between the Soviets and tons of TNT), while in 1983 the combined U.S.-
the Americans, even though in 1960 the United States Soviet nuclear arsenal represented 15,000 megatons.
introduced the nuclear-powered ballistic missile subma- Despite these figures, Ronald Reagan campaigned for
rine, capable of launching a nuclear strike from the ocean the presidency in part to modernize America’s nuclear
depths. Later, in October 1962, the two superpowers arsenal. The nation’s nuclear capability should not be
had a tense standoff over medium-range missiles the based on deterrence, he contended, but on defeating
Soviets had set up in Cuba to counter the U.S. long- the enemy. As president, Reagan authorized 100 MX
range missile capability. After the Cuban missile crisis, missiles, called for the development of the Trident
there was a relaxing of tensions between Washington submarine (each capable of carrying 24 missiles with
and Moscow, marked by the 1963 signing of a partial a total of 336 warheads), reactivated plans for the B-1
test-ban treaty that henceforth restricted nuclear testing bomber (which President Jimmy Carter had canceled),
to below ground. and announced a long-term space-based ballistic
With the specter of the mushroom cloud seeming to missile defense system called the Strategic Defense
fade, anxiety about the nuclear age subsided somewhat. Initiative. These developments alarmed many observers
The inherent danger remained very much alive in public and emboldened a popular nuclear-freeze movement,
410 Nuclear Age
which began in Europe and spread to New England metric tons of spent fuel.) More recently, the U.S. Depart-
town meetings. The dangers of the nuclear age were ment of Energy, which oversees the project, projected
underscored by the radioactive fallout across Europe a 2020 operation date for the facility. As of 2008, the
from the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear estimated cost of the facility was $96.2 billion—up from
power station in the Soviet Union. Eventually, Reagan $57.5 billion seven years earlier. Residents of Nevada and
and his Soviet counterpart, General Secretary Mikhail a number of elected officials and politicians have opposed
Gorbachev, negotiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear the opening of the Yucca site.
Forces Agreement (1987).
In the years after Reagan, the two superpowers agreed Roger Chapman
to the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
in 1991, followed by START II in 1993. The Compre- See also: Cold War; Communists and Communism; Cuba; Eno-
hensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, which was signed by la Gay Exhibit; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Johnson, Lyndon
71 nations (including Russia), bans all forms of nuclear B.; Kubrick, Stanley; Oppenheimer, J. Robert; Postmodern-
testing, but the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it. Ever since ism; Science Wars; Soviet Union and Russia; Strategic De-
the demise of the Soviet Union, concerns have been raised fense Initiative; Teller, Edward; Three Mile Island Accident;
that Russian “loose nukes” might fall into the hands of War Protesters.
terrorists, prompting the U.S. government to allocate
funds to help Russia decommission its old atomic sup- Further Reading
ply. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Boyer, Paul. Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America’s Half-Century
U.S. officials reiterated their concern that a “dirty bomb” Encounter with Nuclear Weapons. Columbus: Ohio State Uni-
could be constructed out of Cold War–era nuclear mate- versity Press, 1994.
rial and detonated in a highly populated area, spreading Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Web site. www.thebulletin.org.
lethal levels of radiation. In addition, the United States DeGroot, Gerard J. The Bomb: A History. Cambridge: Harvard
recommitted itself to missile defense. University Press, 2005.
Meanwhile, environmentalists have been concerned Hughes, Jeff. The Manhattan Project: Big Science and the Atomic
about the problem of nuclear waste. As of 2008, nuclear Bomb. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
waste was being stored at 121 temporary sites in nearly Newton, David E. Nuclear Power. New York: Facts On File,
forty states. Plans were made for the Yucca Mountain 2006.
underground storage facility in Nevada, located about Schwartz, Stephen. Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of
90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas, to U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940. Washington, DC: Brookings
be opened by 1986 for the purpose of burying the spent Institution Press, 1998.
nuclear fuel and radioactive waste from the nation’s 104 Zeman, Scott C., and Michael A. Amundson. Atomic Culture:
nuclear reactors as well as material waste from the military How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Boulder:
nuclear weaponry. (Each year the reactors produce 2,000 University Press of Colorado, 2004.
for tax credits to the working poor and a measure that
mandated videotaping of all interrogations conducted by
state and local police forces. In 2000, he lost a primary
race for Congress against Democratic incumbent Bobby
Rush, a prominent civil rights leader. In 2004, Obama
Obama, Barack won an open U.S. Senate seat, defeating the conservative
The first African American to be elected president of Republican Alan Keyes.
the United States, Barack Obama achieved his 2008 vic- Obama’s unlikely trajectory to the White House
tory running as a self-described post-partisan candidate began with a 2004 keynote address at the Democratic
with a left-of-center message emphasizing “change” and National Convention. In that speech he deplored the
“hope.” In that election, coinciding with two protracted culture wars, asserting that there is only one United States
wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great De- of America, not “a liberal America and a conservative
pression, the Democrats not only won the White House America” and not “a black America and white America
but significantly expanded their majority in both hous- and Latino America and Asian America.” He called on
es of Congress. Some commentators immediately pre- Americans to turn from the “politics of cynicism” and
dicted that the election would go down in history as on to participate in the “the politics of hope.” This post-
par with the political realignments of 1932 and 1980. partisan message was the theme of his presidential run,
“Emphatically, comprehensively,” the New Yorker edito- which was launched two years later with the publication
rialized, “the public has turned against conservatism at of his second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on
home and neoconservatism abroad.” Reclaiming the American Dream (2006).
Obama became the forty-fourth president by de-
feating Senator John McCain (R-AZ), garnering nearly Contentious Democratic Primary
53 percent of the popular vote and carrying the swing In the Democratic primary, Obama criticized Clinton,
states of Ohio and Florida as well as such traditional red his main opponent, for her 2002 vote sanctioning the
states as Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. In the invasion of Iraq. Although not a U.S. senator at the time,
end, Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden (the long- he was publicly against that war from the onset. As a
time senator from Delaware), won the Electoral College presidential candidate, he called for a phased withdrawal
by 365–173 votes. This had been preceded by Obama’s of U.S. troops from Iraq. Clinton, who refused to concede
surprising defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in defeat until the very end, said the freshman senator did
a hotly contested Democratic primary. not have enough experience to be commander in chief.
Obama’s supporters argued that their candidate would
Early Life and Career be “more electable” in the general election than Clinton,
The son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, whom they viewed as politically polarizing. After the
Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in election, Clinton was appointed secretary of state in the
Honolulu, Hawaii. When Obama was two, his parents Obama administration.
separated and the father eventually returned to Africa. Obama’s early campaigning was given a boost by the
Obama spent part of his childhood in Djakarta, Indonesia active support of Oprah Winfrey, the black television talk
(1967–1971), where his mother remarried, this time to show host, who rallied voters during the Iowa caucus and
an Indonesian. Obama was later raised by his maternal South Carolina primary. As Obama’s campaign rallies
grandparents in Hawaii, where, going by the name of drew throngs of people who were buoyed by his eloquent
Barry, he attended the Punahou Academy prep school. speeches calling for political “change,” critics dismissed
He went on to study at Occidental University in Los his “feel good” messages as lacking in substance.
Angeles (1979–1981) and then transferred to Columbia Throughout the campaign, Obama faced attacks
University in New York (BA, political science, 1983). that suggested he was un-American. Certain detractors
Following graduation, Obama briefly worked on Wall referred to him as “Osama” (alluding to Osama bin Laden,
Street before moving to Chicago, where he was a the al-Qaeda leader who masterminded the terrorist at-
community organizer. tacks of September 11, 2001) and emphasized his middle
After attending Harvard Law School (JD, 1991), name (Hussein, like the name of the late Iraqi dictator).
where he served as the first black president of the Har- Some conservative conspiracy theorists on the Internet
vard Law Review, Obama returned to Illinois and directed and talk radio communicated the notion that Obama
PROJECT VOTE! (1992). He also joined a private law was a secret Muslim, perhaps even an al-Qaeda “Trojan
firm, published an autobiography, Dreams from My Fa- horse.” The New Yorker, in its cover cartoon of July 21,
ther: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995), lectured at the 2008, offered a satirical depiction of such fear, presenting
University of Chicago, and served in the Illinois Senate the candidate in a robe and turban giving a fist bump
(1997–2005). As a state senator, he sponsored legislation to his wife, Michelle, who was dressed as a rifle-toting
411
412 Obama , B arack
black radical. Supporters of Obama cried foul over the campaign as the Religious Right rallied around her.
magazine’s sense of political humor, arguing that some For a short while, the McCain-Palin ticket actually led
readers would take the drawing literally. in the polls, but the momentum stalled after the vice-
In the primary as well as the general election, the presidential nominee became a national laughingstock
issue of race was raised frequently. After Clinton had following some bungled television interviews. Obama,
spoken of the courageous accomplishment of President in the meantime, benefited by endorsements from Colin
Lyndon Johnson in signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Powell, a former secretary of state under Bush, and
claiming that she would be that kind of forward-thinking writer Christopher Buckley, son of the late conservative
president, Obama accused her of dismissing the efforts of icon William F. Buckley, Jr.
the civil rights activists. Geraldine Ferraro, the Demo- As the campaign peaked, the economy tanked and a
cratic vice-presidential nominee in 1984 and a Hillary financial crisis unfolded, which Obama blamed on years
supporter, suggested that Obama was receiving preferen- of Republican deregulation. During the last presiden-
tial treatment because of his race: “If Obama was a white tial debate, McCain tried to reenergize his campaign
man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a by calling attention to “Joe the Plumber,” a voter and
woman of any color, he would not be in this position.” small businessman in Ohio who had challenged Obama’s
When criticized for her comments, Ferraro retorted, “Ev- plan to increase taxes on the wealthy. Meanwhile, Palin
ery time that campaign is upset about something, they heated up the culture wars by referring to her small-
call it racist. I will not be discriminated against because town supporters as the “real America” and pointing out
I’m white.” Rush Limbaugh, the king of conservative talk that Obama had earlier referred to rural Americans who
radio, satirized white supporters of Obama with the song cling to religious fundamentalism and guns as “bitter.”
“Barack the Magic Negro,” belittling them for supposing Obama weathered these and other attacks by accusing
the election of a black president would assuage their guilt his opponents of having no fresh ideas, but simply the
over slavery and other past wrongs. Civil rights activists old politics of fear.
such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson thought Obama was On inauguration day, Obama declared a new era
catering too much to white voters, but the candidate saw that would “set aside childish things.” The inaugural
himself as part of the “Joshua Generation” of the civil address was viewed by many as a repudiation of eight
rights movement, meaning a new kind of black leader years of Bush. “On this day, we gather because we have
for a new period. chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and
At one point the spotlight focused on some inflam- discord,” said the new president. “On this day, we come
matory statements of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false
the preacher at the Chicago church the Obamas had promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that
attended for many years. In one controversial sermon on for too long have strangled our politics.” The speech,
racial injustice, Wright shouted, “God damn America!” critics said afterward, was hardly post-partisan.
Many began to ask how Obama could be a follower of
such a spiritual leader. To diffuse the situation, on March Roger Chapman
18, 2008, Obama gave a speech on race in America titled
“A More Perfect Union” at the National Constitutional See also: Clinton, Hillary; Democratic Party; Election of 2008;
Center in Philadelphia, disagreeing with Wright (call- Ferraro, Geraldine; Limbaugh, Rush; McCain, John; Neocon-
ing his remarks “distorted”) but refusing to disown him servatism; Palin, Sarah; Race; Red and Blue States.
(although Obama later withdrew his church member-
ship). Obama was praised by many for daring to candidly Further Reading
address the complexities of race, especially by sharing Asim, Jabari. What Obama Means—For Our Culture, Our Politics,
how his white grandmother, who raised him during his Our Future. New York: William Morrow, 2009.
teenage years and loved him deeply, sometimes feared Corsi, Jerome. The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of
blacks. In that speech, Obama compared his mixed-race Personality. New York: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schus-
background to the larger American experience “that out ter, 2008.
of many, we are truly one.” Ifill, Gwen. The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of
Obama. New York: Doubleday, 2009.
A New Era Lizza, Ryan. “Battle Plans.” The New Yorker, November 17, 2008.
The strategy Obama used in defeating McCain was to Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
link him with the policies of President George W. Bush. American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Desperate for political traction, McCain picked Sarah ———. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
Palin, the popular conservative governor of Alaska, as New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995.
his running mate. Pro-life, pro-gun, and Pentecostal, Silverstein, Ken. “Useful Idiots.” Harper’s Magazine, November
Palin temporarily breathed new life into McCain’s 2008.
Obesit y Epidemic 413
Obesity Epidemic groups (such as nonwhites and the poor) that have less
Since the mid-1990s, alarm in scientific circles and access to health care, lead more stressful lives, and so on.
popular discourse over what has been called “the obesity Furthermore, while a 2004 study showed that obesity
was second only to smoking as a cause of excess mortal-
epidemic” and “the obesity crisis” have coincided with
ity, a study three years later suggested that overweight
the concern of health officials over the increasing body
individuals were actually at lower risk of mortality than
weight of Americans. In 2003, U.S. Surgeon General
their normal-weight counterparts.
Richard H. Carmona, concerned that fewer young peo-
Some blame increased obesity on a “toxic environ-
ple were meeting the physical fitness standards required
ment” in which unhealthy and fattening foods are readily
of military recruits, declared obesity a threat to U.S. na-
available. This view has led to a number of lawsuits, the
tional security more dire than weapons of mass destruc-
first filed in New York in 2002, claiming that fast-
tion. Although there is general agreement that Ameri-
food producers should bear some responsibility for the
cans today are larger than those of previous generations,
weight gain and ill health suffered by those who order
following a global trend, not everyone accepts “obesity”
from their menus, analogous to claims against tobacco
as a meaningful scientific categorization. Furthermore,
companies for the health problems of smokers. Although
regardless of any health risks posed by obesity, unanim-
none of these suits had been successful, the U.S. House
ity is lacking on what, if any, response is warranted on
of Representatives in 2004 and 2005 approved the Per-
the part of individuals, the government, or the medi-
sonal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act (known
cal profession. Since a higher percentage of the poor,
as the “Cheeseburger Act”) to shield the food industry
among them African Americans and Hispanics, tend to
and restaurants from liability claims by obese customers.
be overweight, some critics of anti-obesity campaigns
Although the Senate let the bill die on both occasions,
view them as racial or class snobbery, especially since be-
more than a dozen states, beginning with Louisiana in
ing overweight is often stereotypically linked with lack
2003, passed their own “cheeseburger laws.” Meanwhile,
of discipline. Opinions about obesity often fall into two
in 2006, the board of health in New York City unani-
warring camps: one focuses on public health measures
mously passed an ordinance requiring restaurants to phase
for the common good, and the other emphasizes free-
out artificial trans fats in the food they serve, arousing
dom of choice and individual responsibility.
the ire of the National Restaurant Association. In 2008,
Obesity is generally defined in terms of the body mass
California passed a law requiring restaurant chains to
index (BMI), calculated by dividing weight in kilograms
include food-calorie information on menus.
by the square of height in meters (BMI = kg/m2 ). For
adults age twenty and older, a person with a BMI of less The concern about childhood obesity, heightened
than 18.5 is classified as underweight, 18.5–24.9 as nor- by the recommendation of the American Academy of
mal weight, 25.0–29.9 as overweight, 30–39.9 as obese, Pediatrics to routinely screen individuals nineteen years
and 40 and over as morbidly obese. For an adult who is and younger for weight problems, has led some school
5 feet and 6 inches (168 centimeters) tall, a normal body districts to begin reporting children’s BMI to parents, as
weight would be in the range of 118–160 pounds (54–73 was mandated in Arkansas in 2003. Although motivated
kilos), while a weight of 216 pounds (98 kilos) or more by a concern for children’s health and welfare, BMI re-
would be considered obese. Of course, these categories ports have been criticized for overemphasizing a single
are somewhat arbitrary—Why should 159 pounds (72 health measure at the risk of stigmatizing children who
kilos) be considered normal and 161 pounds (73 kilos) otherwise may outgrow being overweight, and providing
overweight? BMI can also be misleading, as in the case of insufficient contextual information for parents. Organiza-
professional athletes who would be classified as overweight tions such as Commercial Alert and the Kaiser Family
or obese because they are extremely muscular. For children Foundation have recommended a ban on “junk food”
and adolescents age nineteen and younger, growth charts advertising to children and limitations on snack foods
are used to evaluate a child’s weight-to-height ratio in and soft drinks sold in schools. Although campaigns to
relation to children of the same age and sex. prohibit television or print advertising have been unsuc-
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control cessful, California, West Virginia, Colorado, Connecti-
and Prevention (CDC), more than one-third of American cut, and Texas have instituted restrictions on the sale of
adults were obese in 2006, double the percentage reported unhealthy food and drinks in school buildings.
in 1980. Among U.S. children and adolescents (ages two The debate on diet and personal responsibility was
to nineteen), obesity tripled between 1980 and 2002. In intensified by the release of the documentary Super Size
the view of most doctors, these statistics are cause for Me (2004), which portrayed filmmaker Morgan Spurlock
concern because obesity is generally associated with in- gaining 24 pounds (11 kilos) and seriously impairing
creased risk for many diseases as well as premature death. his health after only a month of eating three meals a day
However, other researchers question whether obesity per at McDonald’s. Although McDonald’s discontinued its
se is a health risk, noting that it is prevalent in social “SuperSize” meals due to negative publicity surround-
414 Occ upational S afe t y
ing Super Size Me, many viewers took issue with the workplace inspections for the purpose of enforcing
film’s claim that fast food is inherently unhealthy. Other worker safety.
documentaries—including Bowling for Morgan (2004), Occupational safety mandated by the government
made by Scott Caswell, and Me and Mickey D (2005), dates back to the 1870s, when Massachusetts passed laws
made by Soso Waley, an adjunct of the Competitive for industrial safety. In 1913, the federal government be-
Enterprise Institute—offered the counterargument that came involved in improving working conditions with the
a person may eat fast food and stay healthy, emphasizing establishment of the U.S. Department of Labor. Later, the
the personal responsibility of the consumer in making passage of the Walsh-Healey Act (1936) gave government
intelligent choices. contract workers certain protections, including workplace
The Center for Science in the Public Interest and safety and sanitation standards. The Fair Labor Standards
the World Health Organization have endorsed special Act (1938) implicitly promoted worker safety by limiting
taxes on fast food, analogous to the taxes on soft drinks the work week to forty-four hours and restricting child
and snack foods that already exist in eighteen states and labor. In response to a number of accidents at coal mines,
the District of Columbia. Efforts to tax fast-food chains Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act (1952).
have not been successful, however, partly because of the After television journalist Edward R. Murrow aired the
difficulty of defining what constitutes fast food—for documentary Harvest of Shame (1960), detailing the harsh
instance, taxing a salad at McDonald’s but not a ham- working conditions of migrant farm workers, Congress
burger at a formal restaurant is inconsistent. In addition, passed the Migrant Health Act (1962). All of this set the
a fast-food tax has been criticized as interfering with stage for OSHA, which was designed to build on existing
individual freedom of choice and of disproportionately laws and efforts at both the federal and state levels.
penalizing the poor. As an independent agency under the Department
Sarah Boslaugh of Labor, OSHA works in concert with its research and
education arm, the National Institute for Occupational
See also: Health Care; McCarthyism; Tobacco Settlements. Safety and Health (NIOSH), the latter an independent
agency under the Department of Health and Human
Further Reading Services. The idea for federal regulatory bodies to improve
Brownell, Kelly D., and Katherine Battle Horgan. Food Fight: occupational safety was proposed in 1968 by President
The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America’s Obesity Crisis, Lyndon B. Johnson. At a time when the Vietnam War
and What We Can Do About It. New York: McGraw-Hill, was raging, it was argued that the American workplace,
2003. averaging about 15,000 deaths, 7 million injuries, and
Campos, Paul. The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession with 2 million disabilities annually, was exacting a heavier
Weight is Hazardous to Your Health. New York: Penguin, toll than the battlefields of Southeast Asia. Critics of
2004. OSHA later suggested that the decline in fatal on-the-
Critser, Greg. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People job accidents was a trend well under way prior to federal
in the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. involvement in occupational safety. In 1979, the U.S.
Metcalf, Tom, and Gena Metcalf. Obesity. Detroit, MI: Thomson/ Chamber of Commerce complained that fatal injuries
Gale, 2008. on the job increased by 24 percent from 1976 to 1977,
Oliver, J. Eric. “The Politics of Pathology: How Obesity Became adding that businesses were forced to spend $25 billion
an Epidemic Disease.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 49:4 between 1972 and 1979 to comply with “piles of more
(August 2006): 611–27. OSHA rules and paperwork.” In actuality, the 1977 spike
of 5,560 work-related deaths was considerably lower than
the pre-OSHA figures.
Occupational Safety After its first full year of operation, OSHA in 1973
When President Richard Nixon signed the Occupational was vilified by conservatives as an intolerable government
Safety and Health Act into law on December 29, 1970, intrusion on private enterprise. While the John Birch
he hailed the legislation as “the American system at Society launched a flamboyant “Put OSHA Out of Busi-
its best.” The act established the Occupational Safety ness” campaign, arguing that the regulatory body was
and Health Administration (OSHA) “to assure so far as the first step toward the nationalization of the economy
possible every working man and woman in the Nation (in other words, communism), alarmist business leaders
safe and healthful working conditions.” Over the years, argued that “OSHAcrats” were violating the privacy
OSHA has come to symbolize the rift between those who of corporations by conducting workplace inspections.
look to the government to protect individuals and those In reaction to the outrage of the business community,
who advocate a more libertarian society. In 2008, with Congress introduced numerous bills to scale back OSHA.
more than 2,100 personnel and an operating budget During the Reagan administration Thorne Auchter, a
of over $490 million, OSHA conducted nearly 40,000 construction executive whose firm had been previously
O ’Connor, S andra Day 415
cited for safety violations, was put in charge of OSHA, Gray, Wayne B. “The Cost of Regulation: OSHA, EPA, and
prompting the consumer advocate Ralph Nader to declare the Productivity Slowdown.” American Economic Review 77:5
the agency “shackled.” (December 1987): 998–1006.
Over the years, critics have blamed OSHA for driv- Mintz, Benjamin W. OSHA: History, Law, and Policy. Washing-
ing up the cost of doing business while reducing worker ton, DC: Bureau of National Affairs, 1984.
productivity. According to the findings of a 1987 study Occupational Safety and Health Administration Web site.
by Clark University economist Wayne B. Gray, about 30 www.osha.gov.
percent of the overall drop in productivity experienced
by the American manufacturing sector during the period
1958–1978 was the consequence of governmental regula- O ’C o n n o r, S a n d r a D ay
tion. However, proponents of federal oversight of occupa- The first woman to serve as a justice of the U.S. Supreme
tional safety—in accord with the OSHA maxim “Safety Court, Sandra Day O’Connor was born on March 26,
is good business”—noted that in 2006 alone American 1930, in El Paso, Texas. She grew up on a cattle ranch
employers paid $48.6 billion for job-related injuries, a in southeastern Arizona and graduated from Stanford
business expense that could be reduced by improving University with a BA in economics in 1950. Two
worker safety. Conservatives, on the other hand, insist that years later, she earned a law degree from Stanford Law
they believe in safety just as strongly but think the matter School, where she served on the Stanford Law Review
should be left to voluntary compliance because businesses and graduated near the top of her class (which included
know more about their work environments than OSHA future chief justice William Rehnquist).
“desk jockeys” do. Business executives often complain When O’Connor embarked on a career, law was ex-
that OSHA regulations fail to consider the unique situa- tremely male dominated, and California law firms were
tion of each workplace and instead issue “one size fits all” unwilling to hire her, offering her only a position as a
regulations. OSHA inspectors, critics charge, issue fines secretary. Turning to public service, she became deputy
to companies that fail to meet some obscure regulation county attorney of San Mateo County, California (1952–
yet otherwise have an excellent safety record. In 2006, 1953), and later a civilian attorney for Quartermaster
OSHA issued fines totaling about $85 million. Market Center in Frankfurt, Germany (1954–1957).
While OSHA and NIOSH have given serious atten- She practiced law in the Phoenix area before serving
tion to worker exposure to uranium, lead, cotton dust, as the state’s assistant attorney general (1965–1969), a
coal dust, asbestos, and chemicals, the most common stint that ended when she was appointed to the Arizona
OSHA violation pertains to scaffolding safety—the cause State Senate. A Republican, she served as a senator until
of 9,000 citations issued in 2006. Meanwhile, reducing 1975, when she was elected judge of the Maricopa County
repetitive stress injuries has been an ongoing concern of Superior Court. Four years later, she was appointed to
OSHA and NIOSH. Such injuries are common to workers the Arizona Court of Appeals. On August 19, 1981, up-
in jobs that require the same motion over and over—it has holding a campaign promise to appoint the first woman
been estimated that nearly four out of ten workers suffer to the U.S. Supreme Court, President Ronald Reagan
from this kind of injury. With the advent of computers nominated O’Connor. A month later, the Senate unani-
and more jobs requiring keyboarding, repetitive stress mously confirmed her appointment.
injuries have risen in recent years. In response, OSHA has As an associate justice on the Supreme Court,
emphasized ergonomic solutions, involving the design O’Connor was the object of criticism from diverse interest
and placement of machinery and equipment. In March groups. Her approach was simple: She considered each
2001, arguing that implementation costs would be too case narrowly. She tried to limit the generality of her deci-
financially burdensome for businesses, Congress and sions, which would allow more latitude in future, similar
President George W. Bush rescinded OSHA regulations cases. It was difficult to extrapolate broad ideological
that would have introduced comprehensive ergonomics interpretations from her decisions because they tended to
in the workplace. be restricted to the narrow confines of the specific issue
Roger Chapman before the Court.
Women’s organizations were disappointed that
See also: Bush Family; John Birch Society; Johnson, Lyndon O’Connor would not advance the cause of women’s
B.; Labor Unions; Migrant Labor; Murrow, Edward R.; Nader, rights more ardently. Many more were troubled because
Ralph; Nixon, Richard; Reagan, Ronald; Smoking in Public. O’Connor’s votes on abortion cases were clearly pro-life.
Her abortion decisions—particularly Planned Parenthood
Further Reading v. Casey (1992), which narrowed the right to abortion by
Cullen, Lisa. A Job to Die For: Why So Many Americans Are Killed, striking down provisions of a Pennsylvania state law—are
Injured or Made Ill at Work and What to Do About It. Monroe, regarded as her most controversial.
ME: Common Courage Press, 2002. Conservatives and Republicans were dismayed by
416 O ’Hair, Madaly n Mur ray
some of O’Connor’s decisions. Because she was appointed William’s school. The case went all the way to the U.S.
by Reagan and a registered Republican, they felt confi- Supreme Court, which ruled in her favor in Murray v.
dent that she would regularly side with them. As the Curlett (1963), holding that school-sponsored prayer and
Court became more conservative, O’Connor emerged as Bible study were to be prohibited in all public schools.
a centrist. She was often the deciding vote and was in the In the late 1970s, however, her bid to have the words
majority more often than any of her cohorts. Conserva- “In God We Trust” removed from the national currency
tives were particularly disappointed by her decision in failed. In the midst of these struggles, O’Hair founded
Lawrence v. Texas (2003), in which the Court deemed American Atheists as a civil liberties organization for
unconstitutional a Texas law that made homosexual nonbelievers. As the lifetime leader of American Athe-
sodomy a crime. ists, she produced a radio program to spread her views
On July 1, 2005, O’Connor announced she would and became involved in a number of lawsuits policing
retire upon the confirmation of a successor to the bench. the appearance of religion in the public sphere.
Originally, she was to be replaced by John Roberts, Jr., In 1980, William O’Hair became a born-again
but the unexpected death of Rehnquist that September Christian, sparking a series of mutual renunciations
prompted President George W. Bush to renominate between son and mother. Like the later religious conver-
Roberts for the chief justice position. O’Connor delayed sion of Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe” of the landmark
her retirement until the January 31, 2006, confirmation 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling affirming a woman’s right to
of Samuel Alito. Shortly after leaving the bench, in a an abortion), William’s conversion was invoked by the
speech at Georgetown University, she criticized Repub- Religious Right in their public relations strategy of
lican leaders who had been calling for judicial reform reaching out to “victims” of liberal elitism and judicial
and warned that the lack of an independent judiciary activism. O’Hair was a contentious figure among secu-
is the hallmark of a dictatorship. lar progressives and within the community of atheist
activists, many of whom regarded her as a fractious,
James W. Stoutenborough ill-mannered militant.
After the August 1995 disappearance of O’Hair from
See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Coulter, Ann; Gay Rights her home in Austin, Texas, rumors circulated that she
Movement; Judicial Wars; Planned Parenthood; Reagan, had left the country or that she had died and her chil-
Ronald; Rehnquist, William H.; Sodomy Laws. dren were involved in a cover-up so that William could
not subject his mother to the indignity of a Christian
Further Reading funeral. Slowly, evidence surfaced that ex-convict David
Biskupic, Joan. Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on Roland Waters, who had been loosely involved with
the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice. New York: American Atheists, had kidnapped and killed O’Hair,
Ecco, 2005. her son Jon, and her granddaughter Robin in order to
Chemerinsky, Erwin. “The O’Connor Legacy.” Trial 41:9 steal over $500,000 in gold coins. After her death, e-
(2005): 68–69. mail messages perpetuated a rumor, which first began
Herda, D.J. Sandra Day O’Connor: Independent Thinker. Spring- in 1975, that O’Hair was petitioning the Federal Com-
field, NJ: Enslow, 1995. munications Commission to ban all religious references
O’Connor, Sandra Day. The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a from television programming.
Supreme Court Justice. New York: Random House, 2003.
Jason Mellard
O ’ H a i r, M a d a l y n M u r r ay See also: American Civil Religion; Church and State; Cold
A key figure in the battle over the separation of church War; Conspiracy Theories; Evangelicalism; Federal Commu-
and state, who was branded by Life magazine in 1964 as nications Commission; Fundamentalism, Religious; Judicial
the “most hated woman in America,” Madalyn Murray Wars; Roe v. Wade (1973); School Prayer; Secular Humanism;
O’Hair served as the public face of American atheism Ten Commandments.
from the 1960s to her disappearance and death in
1995. Further Reading
Born Madalyn Mays on April 13, 1919, in Beech- Dracos, Ted. Ungodly: The Passions, Torrents, and Murder of Atheist
view, Pennsylvania, she was a U.S. Army cryptographer Madalyn Murray O’Hair. New York: Free Press, 2003.
during World War II, attended Ashland College in Ohio Le Beau, Bryan. The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O’Hair. New York:
(BA, 1948) and South Texas College of Law (JD, 1952), New York University Press, 2003.
and began a career as a social worker. Seaman, Ann Rowe. America’s Most Hated Woman: The Life and
While living in Baltimore in the early 1960s, O’Hair Gruesome Death of Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Harrisburg, PA:
filed a lawsuit protesting religious observances in her son Continuum International, 2005.
O. J. Simpson T r ial 417
O. J. Simpson Tr ial
The 1995 murder trial of former football star, actor,
and television commentator O.J. Simpson revealed an
abiding racial polarization in American society and
brought fundamental issues of race and crime to the
forefront of national discourse.
On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, the
former wife of O.J. Simpson, and friend Ron Goldman
were murdered in front of her condominium residence in
the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Police soon began
to view O.J. Simpson as a suspect. After being formally
charged on June 17, Simpson and friend Al Cowlings fled
Los Angeles in his vehicle, a Ford Bronco. After being
spotted in Orange County, he led a phalanx of police cars
in a nationally televised low-speed chase that ended up
back at Simpson’s own house.
On July 22, Simpson pleaded “absolutely not guilty”
to the murders, and on January 24, 1995, after months of The highly publicized double-murder trial of former football
jury selection and legal maneuvering, the trial got under star O.J. Simpson in 1995 divided the nation along racial
way. The prosecution presented evidence that Simpson lines: African Americans felt that justice was served by the
had physically abused Nicole during their marriage and “not guilty” verdict; whites were convinced that Simpson had
contended that the abuse had escalated, culminating in committed the crimes. (Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images)
the murders. Since there were no witnesses, confession,
or fingerprints (a single bloody fingerprint was not de-
tected in time to be included in the trial) and the murder carpet fibers found on Goldman’s body were identical to the
weapon was never found, the prosecution’s case was based carpet in Simpson’s car, and that fewer than 100 carpets like
purely on circumstantial evidence. In such instances, the that existed. Because of a procedural error by the prosecu-
prosecution must not only prove its case “beyond a rea- tion, however, the jury never heard the carpet evidence.
sonable doubt,” but it must also disprove any plausible Critics of the not-guilty verdict—rendered on Octo-
theory of innocence. ber 2, 1995, after just three hours of jury deliberation—
According to the defense team, a racist detective blamed the outcome on various missteps by Judge Lance
of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Mark Ito and prosecutors. One crucial decision by Ito was to
Fuhrman, disapproved of Simpson’s marriage to a white exclude from the jury anyone who read a newspaper.
woman and moved incriminating evidence—a bloody Critics contended that this ensured a jury with a low
glove—from the murder scene to Simpson’s home. To intelligence level that would not be able to understand
establish this, the defense invoked past racial statements the complex scientific evidence about DNA that was
by Fuhrman and noted that he had been the one to dis- central to the case.
cover many of the key pieces of evidence in the case. On By virtually all accounts, race was a central element
cross-examination, defense attorney F. Lee Bailey got in the trial, its coverage in the media, and Simpson’s ac-
Fuhrman to deny that he had ever used the “N word” quittal. Many observers believed that the lead prosecutor,
(“nigger”) in the past ten years. Later in the trial, the Marcia Clark, was ill suited to try the case. Once it was
defense presented tape recordings of recent conversations established that the jury would be composed primar-
in which Fuhrman used the word frequently, expressed a ily of black women, research by the prosecution’s own
general hostility toward blacks, and discussed planting focus group found that black women in general did not
evidence and framing men in interracial relationships. like Clark, who was white, and did not subscribe to her
Fuhrman invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if domestic violence theory of the murders. Despite this,
he had planted evidence in the Simpson case. no effort was made to replace Clark or alter the prosecu-
The prosecution was ill prepared to counter this strat- tion’s theory of the case. Meanwhile, realizing the racial
egy, having built its case on the volume of circumstantial implications of the jury composition and the police mis-
evidence amassed against Simpson. This included a trail of conduct theory, the defense replaced lead counsel Robert
blood extending from Nicole’s house to Simpson’s car to Shapiro with Johnnie Cochran, a prominent black lawyer.
Simpson’s property, and all the way inside his house up to Clark was also admonished by her critics for failing to
his bedroom. Among the most incriminating evidence was establish rapport with the jury and, at one point, for
a mixture of O.J. Simpson’s blood and Goldman’s blood going three months without examining a witness. Also
found inside the defendant’s car. Testing also revealed that in terms of the racial dynamic, Clark’s informal banter
418 O. J. Simpson T r ial
with co-counsel Christopher Darden, who was black, was Riccio, Thomas J. Busted! The Inside Story of the World of Sports
believed by some observers to have been alienating to the Memorabilia, O.J. Simpson, and the Vegas Arrests. Beverly Hills,
black women on the jury. The jury itself—sequestered CA: Phoenix Books, 2008.
in isolation for the duration of the trial—was paralyzed Spence, Gerry. O.J.: The Last Word. New York: St. Martin’s
by infighting, some of which involved racial issues, even Press, 1997.
during the testimony phase. Toobin, Jeffrey. The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson.
The announcement of the final verdict polarized the New York: Random House, 1996.
country along clear racial lines. Blacks cheered for what
they regarded as a repudiation of racially driven police
misconduct; whites were stunned to silence over what O p e r a t i o n Re s c u e
they regarded as the exoneration of a brutal killer. Operation Rescue, a Christian Fundamentalist direct-
In a civil trial for wrongful death brought by the action organization, uses graphic imagery, civil disobe-
families of the two victims, Simpson was found liable dience, and intimidation tactics in a campaign to pre-
in February 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5 million in vent abortion in America. Between 1986 and 1994, the
damages. The reversal of outcome was widely explained group’s “rescues” were some of the most high-profile
by the lower standard of proof required to find against examples of militant civil disobedience by the Religious
the defendant in a civil case (“a preponderance of the Right. Operation Rescue argues that they are doing
evidence”) than in a criminal case (“beyond a reasonable God-inspired work to prevent a “holocaust of unborn
doubt”) and by differences in nuance, if not substance, children.” They regard abortion as a perversion of God’s
in witness testimony. law that is indicative of a catastrophic diminution of
A new controversy erupted in late 2006 after biblical morality in society.
ReganBooks announced that it would publish a book by Randall Terry, a born-again charismatic Christian,
Simpson—prospectively titled If I Did It—in which he founded the group in 1986 in Binghamton, New York,
offered an account of how he “might” have carried out the and led it through its most controversial early years.
murders. In response to public outrage, Rupert Murdoch, Operation Rescue protesters used confrontation, intimi-
the owner of the publishing house, stopped the project. dation, and physical harassment to prevent women and
Simpson denied that the book was a confession to the doctors from entering abortion clinics. Terry was arrested
crime, but he did concede that he was trying to capitalize several times, once for arranging to have an aborted fetus
on it—reigniting the outrage of those who believed he delivered to presidential candidate Bill Clinton at the
got away with murder. In August 2007, a Florida court 1992 Democratic National Convention. A Washington
awarded publication rights to the family of Ron Goldman Post report estimated that over 40,000 people were ar-
as partial payment for Simpson’s unpaid civil judgment. rested in Operation Rescue demonstrations between 1986
The book was finally published later that year under the and 1990, one of the highest incarceration rates of any
title If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, with comments social movement organization in American history.
by the Goldman family. After the mid-1990s, deep internal dissent, mount-
In September 2007, Simpson was arrested for leading ing legal costs, prison sentences, and leadership strife
a raid and armed robbery at a casino hotel in Las Vegas, led to organizational splintering. Some members began
Nevada. Simpson claimed that he was retrieving stolen to employ increasingly violent tactics. Several were con-
sports memorabilia that belonged to him. Later, a jury victed in the slayings of abortion clinic doctors, nurses,
found him guilty of twelve felony counts. In December employees, and volunteers. Finally, Congress passed the
2008, a Clark County District Court judge sentenced 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which
Simpson, then age sixty-one, to a prison sentence of nine prohibits the use of intimidation or physical force to
to thirty-three years. Jackie Glass, the presiding judge, discourage people from gaining access to reproductive
publicly stated that neither the jury nor the court had health care facilities.
been influenced by the 1995 murder trial. Renamed Operation Save America (to distinguish it
from various local Operation Rescue splinter groups, the
Tony L. Hill and Roger Chapman organization carries on with a lower profile, maintain-
ing an active Web site, producing exposés on abortion
See also: Morrison, Toni; Murdoch, Rupert; Race. providers, and organizing prayer vigils outside clinics.
In 1995, Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe” in the 1973
Further Reading Supreme Court case upholding a woman’s right to have
Bosco, Joseph. A Problem of Evidence: How the Prosecution Freed an abortion, Roe v. Wade) became a member of Operation
O.J. Simpson. New York: William Morrow, 1996. Save America and was baptized by its leader, Reverend
Bugliosi, Vincent. Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Phillip Benham.
Away with Murder. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Operation Rescue has had critics across the political
Oppenheimer, J. Rober t 419
spectrum. Within the anti-abortion movement, some of the Nazis’ short-lived nuclear weapons program at the
fear that the group’s inflammatory statements and illegal Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute. Oppenheimer taught at the
tactics have drawn too much negative attention to the University of California, Berkeley, and the California In-
pro-life cause. Pro-choice critics argue that the group’s stitute of Technology (1929–1947), taking leave to serve
ranks are filled with dangerous zealots whose tactics create as director at Los Alamos in New Mexico (1943–1945).
a climate of fear that severely compromises women’s legal After the war, Oppenheimer served as director of the
right to obtain a safe, medically supervised abortion. Both Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University
sides agree that Operation Rescue’s protests and tactics (1947–1966). For his role in developing the weapons
created a chilling effect on the available pool of medical that forced the Japanese surrender, Oppenheimer was
personnel willing to perform abortions. Social and cultur- given the Army-Navy Excellence Award (1945) and the
al analysts of abortion in American politics tend to focus Presidential Medal of Merit (1946).
on Operation Rescue’s seminal role in pushing Christian As director of the Manhattan Project during the war,
Fundamentalism into national politics and contributing Oppenheimer was decisive in recruiting scientists and en-
to a “culture of violence” and a highly polarized discourse gineers, acquiring materials, and developing the neutron-
between pro-life and pro-choice camps. splitting fission weapons that would dramatically escalate
the destructive capacity of America’s weapons. Despite
Steve G. Hoffman his postwar antinuclear activism, while at Los Alamos
he believed scientists should implement government
See also: Abortion; Clinton, Bill; Evangelicalism; Family Val- directives and avoid influencing policy. He disallowed
ues; Fundamentalism, Religious; Religious Right; Roe v. Wade the circulation of physicist Leo Szilard’s petition recom-
(1973); Rudolph, Eric. mending vaguely defined conditional-surrender terms
prior to using uranium- or plutonium-based weapons
Further Reading in the Pacific War. Within months of the end of the
Blanchard, Dallas. The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Rise of war, however, Oppenheimer acknowledged the “sin” of
the Religious Right: From Polite to Fiery Protest. New York: the physicists who had developed the atomic bomb. In
Twayne, 1994. a 1965 television broadcast, Oppenheimer repeated the
Ginsburg, F.D. “Rescuing the Nation: Operation Rescue and the lamentation from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita that he had
Rise of Anti-Abortion Militance.” In Abortion Wars: A Half uttered after the initial atomic-test explosion: “Now I
Century of Struggle, 1950–2000, ed. Rickie Solinger, 227–250. am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. During the McCarthy era, Oppenheimer became a
Maxwell, J.C. Pro-Life Activists in America: Meaning, Motivation, target of national security elites advocating moderniza-
and Direct Action. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University tion of America’s nuclear arsenal and a confrontational
Press, 2002. containment policy. Oppenheimer was serving as chair of
Risen, James, and Judy L. Thomas. Wrath of Angels: The American the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy
Abortion War. New York: Basic Books, 1998. Commission (AEC) in October 1949 when he advised
against development of the hydrogen bomb. That rec-
ommendation, as well as previous associations with the
O p p e n h e i m e r, J . R o b e r t Popular Front and Communist Party (though he was
The American nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer never a member), led to speculation—stoked by FBI
directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the director J. Edgar Hoover—that he was a security risk.
Manhattan Project during World War II and oversaw When President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked him to
the production of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan resign, Oppenheimer requested a formal hearing. Based
in August 1945. During the Cold War in the early in part on the testimony of physicist Edward Teller, a
1950s, in response to Oppenheimer’s prior communist chief advocate of the hydrogen bomb, the AEC Personnel
affiliation, his open opposition to development of the Security Board ruled in 1954 to revoke Oppenheimer’s
thermonuclear weapon (hydrogen bomb), and his support security clearance, despite finding him “a loyal citizen”
for international controls of atomic weapons, a federal who had violated no laws. A catalyst of the nuclear age, as
“loyalty” board stripped him of his security clearance. well as one of its most controversial figures, Oppenheimer
Julius Robert Oppenheimer, born on April 22, 1904, died of throat cancer on February 18, 1967.
in New York City, graduated from Harvard University
(1925), did postgraduate work at the Cavendish Labora- Peter N. Kirstein
tory in Cambridge, England, and received his PhD in
physics from the University of Göttingen (1927) in Ger- See also: Cold War; Communists and Communism; Enola Gay
many. There, he studied under the prominent physicist Exhibit; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; LeMay, Curtis; McCarthy-
Max Born and met Werner Heisenberg, later the director ism; Nuclear Age; Science Wars; Teller, Edward.
420 O ’Reilly, B ill
Further Reading The O’Reilly Report, coincided with Roger Ailes’s launch
Bernstein, Jeremy. Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma. Chicago: of the station itself for Australian News Corp owner
Ivan R. Dee, 2004. Rupert Murdoch in 1996. Ailes, a former Republican
Bird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The consultant who worked in the presidential campaigns
Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York: of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W.
Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Bush, made a concerted effort to offer a conservative news
McMillan, Patricia J. The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the alternative to the three major networks (ABC, CBS, and
Birth of the Modern Arms Race. New York: Viking, 2005. NBC). O’Reilly’s program harmonized with that overall
Strout, Cushing, ed. Conscience, Science, and Security: The Case of mission. By the 2000 election, The O’Reilly Factor was at
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963. the top of cable news ratings. By 2007, in its eleventh
year, the show was drawing an audience of several million
viewers per night.
O ’ Re i l l y, B i l l The O’Reilly Factor relies on the personality of its host
Television and radio personality, columnist, and author for its appeal. O’Reilly presents himself as a righteously
Bill O’Reilly has contributed to the culture wars by opinionated working-class hero taking on the intel-
hosting the Fox News Channel program The O’Reilly lectual elites, declaring his show a “no-spin zone.” He
Factor (1996–), which became the highest-rated news frequently responds to negative e-mail and letters on the
show on cable television. A self-described “culture air, and uses his “unpopularity” to bolster his image as
warrior,” O’Reilly places himself at the center of what he an underdog. Specifically geared to counter a perceived
regards as a war between “traditionalists” and “secular- left-leaning bias in the media, The O’Reilly Factor provides
progressives.” His frequent targets include the American a predominantly but not exclusively conservative edito-
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the New York Times, rial perspective. In 2002, O’Reilly began hosting The
Hollywood, and the likes of philanthropist and political Radio Factor, a daily afternoon radio program that soon
activist George Soros. O’Reilly defines his traditional was heard on more than 400 stations. He has produced
principles as opposition to abortion, immigration rights, a weekly syndicated newspaper column and has written
the death penalty, sex education, same-sex marriage, several books, including the best-seller The O’Reilly Factor:
and the separation of church and state; and support The Good, the Bad, & the Completely Ridiculous in American
for the War on Terror, limited government, greater Life (2000), Culture Warrior (2006), and A Bold Fresh Piece
privatization (in particular, of schools), and the use of of Humanity (2008).
coerced interrogation of suspected terrorists. Critics such Critics cry foul over O’Reilly’s lack of concrete evi-
as comedian and political commentator Al Franken, in dence at times, citing his presentation of blatantly untrue
his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (2003), information. The media watch group FAIR (Fairness and
accuse O’Reilly of misrepresenting and fabricating the Accuracy in Reporting) calls O’Reilly the “most biased
truth. O’Reilly has likewise been condemned for his name in news,” and Media Matters named him its “Mis-
practice of shouting down guests and cutting off their informer of the Year” in 2004. The Media Matters Web
microphones when they disagree with him. site also lists specious claims from The O’Reilly Factor,
The son of an accountant, William James “Bill” including a statement that a woman could “never” be
O’Reilly, Jr., was born into an Irish Catholic family on “in danger” from pregnancy complications, incorrect
September 10, 1949, in Manhattan, New York, and statistics on the dropout rates for black students, and
was raised in nearby Long Island. He studied at Marist labeling the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) “a
College (BA, history, 1971), Boston University (MA, terrorist group.”
broadcast journalism, 1975), and Harvard University’s A particularly notable example of O’Reilly’s on-air
Kennedy School of Government (MA, public adminis- style was seen on February 4, 2003. His guest was Jeremy
tration, 1995). After briefly teaching history and English Glick, whose father had been killed in the World Trade
at the Jesuit-run Monsignor Edward Pace High School Center attacks on September 11, 2001. When Glick
in Opalocka, Florida (1971–1973), O’Reilly retooled surprised O’Reilly by suggesting that some of the blame
himself and began a broadcasting career at WNEP-TV for 9/11 fell on the foreign policy of Republicans, Bill’s
in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the 1980s, after years characteristic shouting (“I’ve done more for the 9-11
of reporting local television news at some half-dozen families . . . than you will ever hope to do . . .”) and baiting
locations across the country and winning two Emmys, (“I hope your mom isn’t watching this . . .”) failed to rile
he became a reporter at the network level at ABC and Glick. After repeatedly screaming at the bereaved Glick
CBS. O’Reilly had his first popular success anchoring to “shut up,” O’Reilly cut off his microphone.
the syndicated entertainment program Inside Edition In 2004, a sex harassment suit filed against O’Reilly
in 1989. by one of his producers, Andrea Mackris, was settled
His show on the Fox News Channel, originally called for an undisclosed amount. Controversy surrounding
Outing 421
the incident raised O’Reilly’s audience ratings by as the son of conservative political activist Phyllis Schlafly,
much as one-third during the week the settlement was and news correspondent Pete Williams. Signorile pro-
announced. vided one of the first intellectual arguments justifying
Sue Salinger outing as a way to diminish homophobia in American
society. To respect the rights of the closeted celebrity,
See also: Abortion; American Civil Liberties Union; Capital he contended, is to respect homophobia. Others, both
Punishment; Christmas; Church and State; Media Bias; Priva- conservatives and liberals, have used outing for political
tization; Republican Party; Same-Sex Marriage; September purposes, to topple gays from power, or to expose the
11; Sex Education; Sexual Harassment; Soros, George. hypocrisy of the closeted gay who publicly opposes gay
rights. In the case of the latter, in 2004 gay rights activ-
Further Reading ist Michael Rogers outed Congressman Edward Schrock
Hart, Peter, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). (R-VA), who was on record against same-sex marriage
The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel’s Bill and gays serving in the military.
O’Reilly. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President
Kitman, Marvin. The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Dick Cheney, became the target of numerous gay activist
Bill O’Reilly. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007. groups who accused her of forsaking gay rights in order to
Lemann, Nicholas. “Fear Factor.” The New Yorker, March 27, run her father’s reelection campaign in 2004. In particu-
2006. lar, she was criticized for remaining silent after the Bush
O’Reilly, Bill. Culture Warrior. New York: Broadway Books, administration backed a constitutional amendment ban-
2006. ning same-sex marriage—the Web site DearMary.com,
spoofing a missing child notice, posted a photo of her on
a milk carton under the title, “Have you seen me?” In
Outing 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was
Outing is the act of publicly exposing the sexual ori- criticized for outing Mary Cheney when he mentioned her
entation of a gay person without his or her consent—it sexual orientation during a televised debate, even though
is short for taking someone “out of the closet.” Outing it was already public knowledge.
might also include identifying individuals living with Beginning in 2006, the sexuality of popular celeb-
HIV or AIDS. Since publicly proclaiming one’s homo- rities became a hot topic within the Internet blogging
sexual identity is considered a very private and personal community. In short succession, Mario Lavandeira of
decision, members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans- PerezHilton.com outed three Hollywood celebrities—
gender, and queer (GLBTQ) community, including the Lance Bass, Neil Patrick Harris, and T.R. Knight. All
gay press and national gay political and social organiza- three publicly admitted to being gay after the site at-
tions, generally oppose outing in strong terms. Some tacked them for remaining closeted. While some argue
argue, on the other hand, that outing may be necessary that the visibility of homosexuals in popular culture
for advancing gay rights in certain circumstances. helps others who are dealing with their own sexuality,
Although outing began as a political tactic to others argue that there is a big difference between outing
garner national funding for AIDS education and aware- a celebrity who is just living his or her life and outing
ness, opponents emphasize that it irresponsibly exposes politicians who affect public policy.
individuals to potential antigay violence and stigma due
to the fear of AIDS. Homosexuals, they argue, have the Elizabeth M. Matelski
right to remain closeted in order to avoid personal harm
or harassment. In the armed forces, outing can ruin the See also: AIDS; Cheney Family; Gay Rights Movement;
subject’s military career because the Don’t Ask, Don’t Gays in the Military; Gays in Popular Culture; Kerry, John;
Tell policy prohibits gays and lesbians from serving. Lesbians; Privacy Rights; Same-Sex Marriage; Transgender
More complicated is the issue of gay identity, which some Movement.
view as self-ascribed and not solely a matter of same-sex
activities. Proponents of outing, however, invoke the Further Reading
cause of gay liberation, arguing that homosexuals will Gross, Larry. Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing.
never reach full political and personal freedom until their Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
numbers are revealed and people no longer fear coming Johansson, Warren, and William A. Percy. Outing: Shattering the
out of the closet. Conspiracy of Silence. New York: Haworth Press, 1994.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, journalist Michel- Mohr, Richard D. Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies.
angelo Signorile, in the weekly gay and lesbian magazine Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
OutWeek, outed a number of public figures, including Signorile, Michelangelo. Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the
multimillionaire and publishing tycoon Malcolm Forbes, Closets of Power. New York: Random House, 1993.
See also: Abortion; Clinton Impeachment; Hill, Anita; Thom-
as, Clarence.
Further Reading
Kirchmeir, Mark. Packwood: The Public and Private Life from Ac-
P a c k wo o d , B o b claim to Outrage. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Republican politician Bob Packwood served twenty-six
years as a U.S. senator from Oregon (1969–1995) before
resigning in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal. Paglia, Camille
Known for being independent minded, Packwood was Social critic, writer, professor, and self-described pro-sex
a leader of upholding woman’s reproductive rights and feminist Camille Paglia entered the fray of the culture
environmental causes, voted against the confirmation of wars with the publication of Sexual Personae: Art and
Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), a con-
and was the only senator in 1993 to vote against manda- troversial survey of Western literature and art. Her main
tory life sentences for people convicted of a third violent thesis is twofold: (1) that sex differences between males
felony. and females are based on biological determinism; and
Born Robert William Packwood in Portland, Or- (2) that the Western canon has served to subvert biology
egon, on September 11, 1932, he attended Willamette by culturally creating a variety of sexual personae. Criti-
University in Salem, Oregon (1950–1954), and New cized in publications of the right (such as Commentary)
York University School of Law (1954–1957). Packwood and the left (the Nation), Paglia has offended in equal
had a private law practice in Oregon from 1957 to 1963 measure the social sensibilities of liberals and conserva-
and was a member of the Oregon state legislature from tives with her eclectic ideas and assertions.
1963 to 1968. During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, he Camille Anna Paglia was born into a Catholic fam-
served as chair of the Republican Senatorial Campaign ily in Endicott, New York, on April 2, 1947. After
Committee, the Republican Conference, and the Com- graduating from the State University of New York at
mittee on Finance, and he was a member of the Commit- Binghamton (BA, 1968) and Yale University (MPhil,
tee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 1971; PhD, 1974), she taught at several institutions,
Oregon voters, who largely viewed Packwood as a including Bennington College (1972–1980), Wesleyan
man of principle, became disenchanted with him follow- University (1980), Yale University (1981–1984), and
ing allegations of his unwanted sexual advances toward the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (1984–). After
at least twenty-nine women. When the Washington Post the debut of Sexual Personae, Paglia continued in the same
first broke the story in November 1992, Packwood denied vein with Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992) and Vamps
the allegations and went so far as to attempt to discredit and Tramps (1994), compilations of essays originally
his accusers. He postponed giving requested evidence published in national and international publications on
(a personal diary) to the Senate Ethics Committee until a wide range of topics, including the pop star Madonna,
after the 1992 election. Later, when hard evidence was academia, politics, the Internet, film, and music. This
presented, he claimed not to remember the incidents was followed by The Birds (1998), an analysis of the
because of alcohol abuse. Women’s groups that had once Alfred Hitchcock film by the same name; and Break,
supported him, such as the National Organization for Blow, Burn (2005), an anthology of poems with commen-
Women, lobbied for his resignation. The report of the tary. She was a columnist for the online magazine Salon
Senate Ethics Committee confirmed the allegations as (1996–2001) and then became a contributing editor for
well as the fact that Packwood had altered evidence rel- Interview Magazine.
evant to the committee’s inquiry. Packwood resigned in Paglia’s support of pornography, her dismissive views
disgrace effective October 1, 1995. He then founded Sun- on rape (arguing, for example, that there is a “fun element
rise Research Corporation, a lobbying firm, and played a in rape, especially the wild, infectious delirium of gang
key role in the 2001 fight to repeal the estate tax. rape”) and sexual harassment (which she categorizes as
Packwood’s role in the culture wars centered on the “sexual banter”), and her romanticizing of the prostitute
contradiction between his professional actions and his over the “desexed professional woman” have consistently
personal behavior. By choosing not to confirm Clarence placed her at odds with the feminist establishment. In-
Thomas, who had been accused of sexual harassment, to stigating feuds with major feminists, including Naomi
the U.S. Supreme Court, Packwood enforced a standard Wolf (who described her as “full of howling intellectual
of personal conduct he could not meet. He also profited dishonesty”), Paglia has called the women’s movement
from his misconduct by publishing Senator Bob Packwood’s the “Steinem politburo” while critiquing it as “infantiliz-
Secret Diary (1994). ing and anti-democratic” and embracing of victimhood.
Cyndi Boyce Although an advocate of homosexuality and transvestism,
422
Palin, S arah 423
Paglia has characterized the gay rights movement as and Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer, Alaska. At
“Stalinist.” age twenty, she was runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty
As for the political left, Paglia denigrates it as “white pageant. After college she married her high school
upper-middle-class elitism” that is “paternalistic and sweetheart, Todd Palin, and briefly worked as a televi-
condescending.” She sees academic elites as engaging in sion sports reporter in Anchorage, Alaska. Her political
class warfare, but argues that blue-collar men contribute career began in 1992 when she was elected to the town
more to society than male scholars. Paglia has also criti- council of Wasilla, her hometown of about 6,000. Later,
cized humanities professors of the Ivy League for their she served as Wasilla’s mayor (1996–2002), lost a race
inclusion of poststructuralist theory in the curriculum. for lieutenant governor (2002), and chaired the Alaska
She believes in educational reform that encompasses a bal- Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (2003–2004). In
ance between high art and popular culture. A libertarian, November 2006, campaigning for reform and ethics in
Paglia favors abortion, the legalization of prostitution, state government, Palin was elected Alaska’s eleventh
the reduction of the age of consent to fourteen, and the governor, becoming the first woman to hold the post.
legalization of drugs. In July 2009, she abruptly resigned as governor.
Gehrett Ellis In a move that surprised political observers and even
his own campaign advisers, McCain selected Palin to be
See also: Abortion; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism, his vice-presidential nominee in an attempt to appeal to
Third-Wave; Gay Rights Movement; Great Books; Pornogra- his party’s conservative base, in particular the Religious
phy; Sexual Assault; Sexual Harassment; Sexual Revolution; Right. Observers noted a similarity to the 1988 selection
Structuralism and Post-Structuralism; Transgender Move- by George H.W. Bush, wishing to assuage conservatives,
ment; Victimhood; Wolf, Naomi. of Dan Quayle for his running mate. McCain also hoped
to draw the “Wal-Mart moms” demographic as well as
Further Reading women voters who were disappointed by Hillary Clinton’s
James, Martin. “An Interview with Camille Paglia.” America, failure to win the Democratic primary or be selected as
November 12, 1994. Barack Obama’s running mate. In addition, since Palin
Menand, Louis. “Nietzsche in Furs.” Nation, January 25, had a record in Alaska of opposing her own political
1993. party (having reported several officials, including the
Paglia, Camille. Vamps and Tramps: New Essays. New York: state Republican chairman, for ethics violations), McCain
Vintage, 1994. regarded her as a kindred maverick.
Wolf, Naomi. “Feminist Fatale.” New Republic, March 16, Immediately upon her insertion into the campaign,
1992. Palin ridiculed Obama’s experience as a community
organizer, suggesting that it did not match her execu-
tive credentials as a former mayor and current governor.
Palin, Sarah Presenting herself as a fiscal conservative who cuts govern-
As governor of Alaska and the Republican Party’s first ment spending, she boasted of taking a reduction in pay
female vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin heated as governor, putting a state jet up for sale on eBay, and
up the culture wars during the 2008 general election, halting the federally funded boondoggle known as the
campaigning as “an average hockey mom” who iden- “Bridge to Nowhere.” (It was later reported that her salary
tified with “Joe Sixpack.” Her conservative profile— cut had been followed by a raise, that the jet sold under-
mother of five, Pentecostal, anti-abortion (even in cases priced after finding no buyer on eBay, and that the money
of rape and incest), lifetime member of the National for the bridge was not returned to the federal government
Rifle Association, and nemesis of environmentalism but spent elsewhere.) As the campaign progressed, Palin
(opposed to listing the polar bear on the federal en- spoke of her red-state and small-town supporters as “the
dangered species list, skeptical of the view that global real America” and referred to the opposition as “elitists.”
warming is linked to human activities, and support- Over and over she accused Obama of “palling around with
ive of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife terrorists” because he once sat on an antipoverty board
Refuge)—was to provide a boost to John McCain’s bid with Bill Ayers, a university professor who years earlier
for the White House, but polls on election day revealed had co-founded the radical Weather Underground.
that 60 percent of voters found Palin unqualified for The “mommy wars” broke out almost immediately
the vice presidency. after Palin became a candidate. It was asked why this
She was born Sarah Louise Heath on February 11, woman desired to be a national leader at a time when she
1964, in Sand Point, Idaho, and grew up in Alaska. She was caring for a newborn with Down syndrome, a ques-
majored in journalism at the University of Idaho (BS, tion her supporters argued would never have been raised
1987), after having attended Hawaii Pacific University had she been the father. The question was repeated when
in Honolulu, North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene, it was learned that one of her unmarried teenage daugh-
424 Palin, S arah
ters was five months pregnant. As some pundits viewed Johnson, Kaylene. Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political
the daughter as a case of conservative moral hypocrisy Establishment Upside Down. Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press,
and an example of why schools need to teach about birth 2008.
control, pro-lifers affirmed the daughter’s decision not to
terminate the pregnancy. In another family matter, Palin
was under investigation for using her office as governor P a r k s , Ro s a
to try to arrange the firing of her ex-brother-in-law, an A seamstress by trade, Rosa Parks was an activist with
Alaskan state trooper. The candidate argued that her the National Association for the Advancement of Col-
family’s privacy had been violated, but her detractors ored People (NAACP) whose refusal in 1955 to surren-
answered that it was she who first used her family as a der her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery,
campaign prop. Alabama, inaugurated a year-long bus boycott by black
The major setback for Palin, however, was her fail- residents, propelled the Reverend Martin Luther King,
ure to appear knowledgeable on television. In an ABC Jr., to national prominence as a civil rights leader, sup-
interview conducted by Charles Gibson, she did not plied a blueprint for resisting segregation in the United
seem to know about the controversial Bush Doctrine, a States, and transformed the American civil rights cam-
policy of preemptive war for opposing potential terror- paign into a mass movement of national scope.
ist attacks. Worse was the CBS interview by the news Born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 14, 1913,
anchor Katie Couric, which showed a candidate critical in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks moved, after her parents’
of Supreme Court rulings yet unable to name specific divorce, to Pine Level, Alabama, where she was home-
cases she regarded as judicial activism. In addition, Palin schooled and joined the African Methodist Episcopal
continued to insist that living in Alaska provided her with Church. At age eleven, she attended the Industrial School
foreign-policy experience because of its close proximity for Girls in Montgomery before entering an auxiliary
to Russia. In skits that often were word-for-word from institution of the Alabama State Teachers College for
actual interviews, Palin was ruthlessly lampooned by Negroes for secondary instruction. Family illnesses forced
Tina Fey on the television comedy show Saturday Night her to leave school, and she did not receive her high school
Live. (The Associated Press went on to name Fey the diploma until 1933. The previous year she married Ray-
Entertainer of the Year.) mond Parks, a Montgomery barber and NAACP activist,
Although Palin and her supporters dismissed the bad joined the Montgomery NAACP in December 1943, and
press—including reports that the campaign spent tens of served as chapter secretary until 1957.
thousands of dollars on Palin’s wardrobe at stores such as On December 1, 1955, Parks returned home from
Saks and Bloomingdales and for a fashion consultant, hair her job as a seamstress in a Montgomery department store
stylist, and makeup artist—as proof of liberal media bias on a municipal bus. A long-time municipal ordinance
and gender bias, many conservatives and women publicly mandated segregation on public buses; white passengers
expressed doubts over McCain’s choice of a running mate. enjoyed priority seating, while black passengers would
For example, in a Wall Street Journal column of October sit, stand, or exit outright according to the placement of
17, 2008, Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Presi- a “Colored” sign that limited seating for black passen-
dent Ronald Reagan, described Palin as “a person of great gers. Parks sat in the appropriate section until the num-
ambition” who has shown “little sign that she has the ber of white passengers exceeded the available seating.
tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical Driver James F. Blake then repositioned the “Colored”
grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high sign behind Parks and three other black passengers and
office.” Palin, Noonan added, “does not speak seriously demanded that they move; Parks alone refused. She was
but attempts to excite sensation.” subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct and violat-
Roger Chapman ing a local ordinance. On December 5, she was tried,
convicted, and fined fourteen dollars—a verdict she later
See also: Abortion; Clinton, Hillary; Election of 2008; Endan- appealed.
gered Species Act; Global Warming; McCain, John; Media Local NAACP president Edgar D. Dixon posted
Bias; National Rifle Association; Obama, Barack; Religious Parks’s bond and conceived a community-wide boycott
Right; Republican Party; Stay-at-Home Mothers. of the Montgomery bus system. A citizens’ group called
the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was
Further Reading formed to coordinate the boycott, with local pastor Martin
Gibbs, Nancy. “#4 Sarah Palin.” Time, December 29, 2008. Luther King, Jr., chosen to lead that organization. The
Gourevitch, Philip. “The State of Sarah Palin.” The New Yorker, boycott began on December 5, 1955, and lasted 381
September 22, 2008. days, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Browder v.
Hilley, Joseph H. Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader. Grand Gayle (1956) that municipal bus segregation laws were
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008. unconstitutional.
Penn , Sean 425
Rosa and Raymond relocated in 1957 to Detroit, by his father. After graduating from Santa Monica High
where Rosa worked as a seamstress until 1965, when School, Penn studied acting at the Repertory Theatre of
African-American U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-MI) Los Angeles and briefly attended Santa Monica Junior
hired her as a secretary for his local office—a position College. He emerged as Hollywood’s “bad boy” during
she retained until her retirement in 1988. Parks spoke his tempestuous marriage to the pop singer Madonna
extensively, published memoirs in 1992 and 1995, and (1985–1989), a period in his life highlighted by drunken-
recaptured national attention in 1999 after the hip-hop ness and fights with paparazzi. In 1987, Penn spent over
music duo OutKast released a song titled “Rosa Parks” a month in the Los Angeles County jail after assaulting
without her permission. Parks sued and, after multiple a fellow actor who sought to take his photograph. Since
appeals, agreed in 2005 to an undisclosed settlement with 1996 he has been married to the actress Robin Wright.
the group and its affiliates. Rosa Parks died on October As an actor, Penn has often played loners, misfits,
24, 2005, after a year-long bout with progressive demen- and desperate tough guys, starring in films that examine
tia. During the national funeral tribute, her body lay in social problems or have political themes. He has played
state under the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, troubled youth, including a rebellious cadet at a military
D.C.; it was the first time a woman was so honored. school (Taps, 1981); a surfer (Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
1982); a juvenile delinquent in reform school (Bad Boys,
Kevin C. Motl 1983); and a drug smuggler (The Falcon and the Snowman,
1984). He has portrayed men living on the edge, such as
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Homeschooling; National a street cop (Colors, 1988); an army sergeant in Vietnam
Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Race; who directs his men in a gang rape of a civilian (Casualties
Rap Music. of War, 1989); a cocaine-snorting lawyer (Carlito’s Way,
1993); a killer on death row (Dead Man Walking, 1995);
Further Reading a disturbed Hollywood film director (Hurlyburly, 1998);
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, a cynical army first sergeant in World War II (The Thin
1954–1963. New York: Touchstone, 1989. Red Line, 1998); and a mathematics professor in need of
Brinkley, Douglas. Rosa Parks. New York: Penguin, 2005. a heart transplant (21 Grams, 2003). In narratives about
Kohl, Herbert R. She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story raw justice, Penn has been a mentally disabled man who
of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. New York: New seeks custody of his child (I Am Sam, 2001); an ex-con
Press/W.W. Norton, 2005. who seeks revenge for the murder of his teenage daughter
Parks, Rosa, with Jim Haskins. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: (Mystic River, 2003), a role that won him the Academy
Puffin Books, 1999. Award for Best Actor; and a disillusioned businessman
who attempts to hijack a plane and ram it into the White
House in order to kill President Richard Nixon (The
Penn, Sean Assassination of Richard Nixon, 2004). Penn’s two politi-
Actor, film producer, and Tinseltown activist, Sean Penn cal performances are his portrayals of Huey Long, the
has stirred controversy over the years for his public pro- populist Louisiana governor (All the King’s Men, 2006),
nouncements critical of American foreign policy. He and of Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco elected official
accused President George W. Bush of committing im- (Milk, 2008).
peachable offenses with respect to the Iraq War. Critics In addition, Penn has directed a number of films,
have branded Penn as a disloyal American for traveling namely The Indian Runner (1991), based on a Bruce
overseas to meet with authoritarian leaders who are hos- Springsteen song about two brothers, one who loses a
tile to U.S. interests. In October 2005, the conserva- farm to foreclosure and the other a war veteran return-
tive magazine Human Events listed Penn number three ing from Vietnam; The Crossing Guard (1995), about a
in its top ten “unhinged celebrities,” explaining: “He’s man who seeks homicidal revenge on a drunk driver who
the actor who claimed that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, killed his young daughter; The Pledge (2001), about a man
shock jock Howard Stern and the U.S. government are who seeks revenge on a child molester; and Into the Wild
greater threats to the American people than Osama bin (2007), based on the true story of a young traveler who
Laden.” dies alone in the Alaskan wilderness.
Penn was born into an acting family in Santa Monica, Over the years, Penn has been quoted in the media
California, on August 17, 1960. His father, Leo Penn, a for his strong political views. He referred to President
communist sympathizer or “fellow traveler,” was black- George H.W. Bush as a “murderer” for launching the
listed for supporting the Hollywood Ten and refusing to invasion of Panama (1989) and the Gulf War (1991). He
cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American once called the pope a “monster” for rejecting the use of
Activities. At age fourteen, Penn made his acting debut condoms to combat the AIDS epidemic. Critics have ac-
on Little House on the Prairie, a television series directed cused Penn of being a publicity hound, suggesting that
426 Penn, Sean
this was why he ventured into Los Angeles during the Penn, Sean. “Conversations with Chávez and Castro.” Nation,
riots sparked by the Rodney King police beating (1992) December 15, 2008.
and why he visited New Orleans immediately following Rabb, Scott. “Penn.” Esquire, September 2007.
Hurricane Katrina (2005). By contrast, in Spike Lee’s
2006 documentary film about Katrina, When the Levee
Broke, Penn is highlighted as a genuine rescuer. People for the Ethical
Sean Penn has been involved in several antiwar Treatment of Animals
groups, including Not In Our Name, Artists United to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA),
Win Without War, and MoveOn.org. In the lead-up based in Norfolk, Virginia, was founded as a nonprof-
to the Iraq War, he placed a nearly full-page “open let- it organization in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex
ter” to Bush in the Washington Post (October 19, 2002), Pacheco for waging a campaign for the total elimination
asking the president to show restraint: “Defend us from of animal “exploitation” worldwide. By its twenty-fifth
fundamentalism abroad but don’t turn a blind eye to the year PETA was boasting 1.6 million members and op-
fundamentalism of a diminished citizenry through loss erating on an annual budget of $29 million. The group
of civil liberties, of dangerously heightened presidential views any use of animals for consumer products, medi-
autonomy through acts of Congress, and of this country’s cal and scientific needs, and entertainment as a selfish
mistaken and pervasive belief that its ‘manifest destiny’ is manipulation of the animal kingdom by human be-
to police the world.” That December he traveled to Iraq, ings. PETA’s core philosophy calls for the elimination
where in its capital he held a press conference denouncing of human-centered thinking, and the group considers
the imminent American invasion. Later, in a full-page ad any measures to meet those ends valid. It also opposes
in the New York Times (May 30, 2003), he accused the Bush the use of helper animals, such as Seeing Eye dogs and
administration of bringing misery to Iraq while benefit- helper monkeys, as “speciesist” representations of a hu-
ing American war contractors. In December 2006, Penn man-centric worldview. PETA promotes the health ben-
was presented the first annual Christopher Reeve First efits of a vegan diet, offers free speakers and educational
Amendment Award and used the occasion to call for the programming, funds other educational organizations,
impeachment of Bush and Cheney over misrepresentations stages boycotts and protest campaigns, and accepts ani-
leading up to the Iraq War. Penn shocked his audience by mals from those unable to care for them as an alternative
arguing that if Bill Clinton could be impeached for lying to Humane Society shelters.
about having oral sex with an intern, then to not impeach PETA spends 40 percent of its income on advertising
the Bush administration for lying about the war would be and promotion, inspiring both critical acclaim and deri-
the equivalent of a semen stain on the American flag. sion with its message. Its headline-grabbing multimedia
Penn has visited such politically forbidden places as campaigns are targeted at all ages and have been supported
Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, meeting with rogue dictators by celebrities such as Paul McCartney, Dick Gregory,
and outspoken critics of American neoconservative foreign Al Sharpton, and Cornel West. One effort compared the
policy, and afterward writing about his experiences for the treatment of livestock on farms to the abuse of American
San Francisco Chronicle and the Nation. In October 2008, slaves and concentration camp victims. The group also
he visited Venezuela and Cuba with historian Douglas suggested that it is healthier for college students to drink
Brinkley and journalist Christopher Hitchens. Raul beer than milk. With the slogan “I’d rather go naked than
Castro, the president of Cuba, gave Penn an exclusive wear fur,” accompanied by photos of nude women, PETA
interview. Venezuela and Cuba, Penn argued, have the used a letter-writing campaign to scold television host
right to be autonomous and “imperfectly their own.” Oprah Winfrey for featuring leather and fur clothing on
her programs. A comic book suggested that children ask
Roger Chapman their mother “how many dead animals she killed to make
her fur clothes,” showing a cartoon image of a woman
See also: Bush Family; Clinton Impeachment; Cuba; Hurri- smiling as she raises a bloody knife over a terrified rabbit.
cane Katrina; King, Rodney; Milk, Harvey; Neoconserva- Such campaigns have been variously praised for promot-
tism; September 11; Stern, Howard; War Protesters; Watts ing a more “cruelty-free” lifestyle and criticized for inac-
and Los Angeles Riots, 1965 and 1992. curate information, disturbing imagery, objectification of
women, and preying on children’s insecurities.
Further Reading Over the years, PETA has been accused of supporting
Hirschberg, Lynn. “What’s Sean Penn Angry About Now?” violent behavior and even terrorism in the pursuit of its
New York Times Magazine, December 27, 1998. cause. Incidents range from encouraging the defacement
Kelly, Richard T. Sean Penn: His Life and Times. New York: of school displays that promote meat and dairy products
Canongate U.S., 2005. in the cafeteria, to supporting individuals and groups
Lahr, John. “Citizen Penn.” The New Yorker, April 3, 2006. classified by the Department of Homeland Security as
Perot , H . Ross 427
terrorist threats. PETA has made donations to organiza- he served in the U.S. Navy (1953–1957). He went on to
tions such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the work as a data-processing salesman for IBM (1957–1962),
Earth Liberation Front (ELF), and Stop Huntingdon finally leaving the company to found Electronic Data
Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Both the ALF and the ELF Systems (EDS), headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The
engage in “animal liberation” activities, such as stealing company’s big break came when it won a contract to
animals from zoos, circuses, and research laboratories to process Medicare claims. When EDS was listed on the
release them from captivity; firebombing research clinics New York Stock Exchange in 1968, Perot was suddenly
and other facilities; and running harassment campaigns worth $2 billion. In 1984, EDS was sold to General Mo-
against researchers and animal-control agents. Opponents tors for $2.5 billion, and two years later General Motors
of PETA have complained that it is unethical to accept purchased Perot’s remaining shares for $700 million. In
money donated for animal welfare activities and use it to 1988, Perot founded Perot Systems Corporation, based
support terrorist activities, and hypocritical to engage in in Plano, Texas; he remained chairman of that company
violence against those one accuses of violence. until his retirement in 2004.
Opposition to the group has increased with accusations In 1969, Perot leased two 707 jet airplanes to fly din-
that while PETA targets Humane Society employees and ner, letters, and Christmas packages to American prison-
others involved in euthanizing stray animals, they have put ers of war (POWs) in North Vietnam, but the communist
to sleep many of the animals that they accept or rescue. In regime blocked his plan. That same year he founded
2006, PETA employees were charged with administering United We Stand, an organization that publicized the
lethal injections to animals that they had accepted with POW-MIA situation and gave support to President
donations for their continued care, and of illegally dump- Richard Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy for a gradual
ing animal remains. U.S. troop withdrawal. In 1979, Perot was in the news
Solomon Davidoff again after successfully organizing a rescue of two EDS
employees who had been taken captive in Tehran, Iran,
See also: Animal Rights; Ecoterrorism; Factory Farms; Fur; by Islamic revolutionaries. In order to free them, Perot
Sharpton, Al; West, Cornel; Winfrey, Oprah. hired a retired Army Ranger and Green Beret to conduct
a jail break, an exploit heralded in Ken Follett’s On Wings
Further Reading of Eagles (1983). As head of a Texas task force on the war
Best, Steven, and Anthony J. Nocella II, eds. Terrorists or Freedom on drugs during the 1980s, Perot enlisted the help of
Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals. New York: First Lady Nancy Reagan, who was inspired to launch the
Lantern Books, 2004. “Just Say No” campaign. In 1984 and 1985, Perot headed
Guillermo, Kathy Snow. Monkey Business: The Disturbing Case a Texas task force to study education reform.
That Launched the Animal Rights Movement. Washington, DC: In the early 1990s, after speaking out with increasing
National Press Books, 1993. frequency about the problems of the federal government,
Guither, Harold D. Animals Rights: History and Scope of a Radical Perot was persuaded by the anti-incumbency activist Jack
Social Movement. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Gargan to run for president. On February 20, 1992, on the
Press, 1997. television interview program Larry King Live, Perot an-
Newkirk, Ingrid. Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Libera- nounced that he would run if volunteers gathered the neces-
tion Front. New York: Lantern Books, 2000. sary signatures for listing his name on the ballot in all fifty
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Web site. states. Viewers responded favorably, and Perot initiated an
www.peta.org. organization, called United We Stand America, to facilitate
Workman, Dave. PETA Files: The Dark Side of the Animal Rights their efforts. Perot’s campaign would continue the strategy
Movement. Bellevue, WA: Merril, 2003. of direct televised appeals to spur grassroots activism among
disaffected voters. A hallmark of the campaign was the “in-
fomercials” in which Perot sat behind a desk and talked in
Perot, H . Ross a folksy manner about the economy and other issues while
A maverick Texas billionaire and political populist, H. using a pointer with charts and graphs. During an address
Ross Perot was a third-party presidential candidate in before the National Association for the Advancement of Col-
the 1992 and 1996 elections. He left an indelible mark ored People (NAACP), he offended his audience by referring
on the politics of that decade, shaping the 1992 election to African Americans as “you people.” He also clashed with
that sent Bill Clinton to the White House and inspiring reporters who demanded more program specifics.
the Republican Contract with America in 1994. Perot outlined his political ideas in a book titled
The son of a cotton broker, Henry Ross Perot was United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our Country
born on June 27, 1930, in Texarkana, Texas. After (1992). Outraged by what was then a $4 trillion federal
graduating from Texarkana Junior College (1949) and, debt, he called for an end to deficit spending. He proposed
as president of his class, the U.S. Naval Academy (1953), a 15 percent cutback in federal discretionary spending,
428 Perot , H . Ross
Texas entrepreneur and political maverick H. Ross Perot introduces himself to voters in this Oliphant cartoon during the 1992
presidential campaign. While some said he was short on specifics, the folksy third-party candidate emerged as a major con-
tender. (OLIPHANT ©1992 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.)
a line-item veto, and a cut in the military budget. At for the Reform Party and gained 9 percent of the vote.
the same time, he called for limiting tax deductions on Thereafter, however, he opted out of the Reform Party
interest to mortgages of $250,000 or higher, raising he had founded, mocking former wrestler Jesse Ventura’s
the marginal income tax on the wealthy from 31 to 33 bid for Minnesota governor under the party’s banner in
percent, lifting the cap on income tax for entitlement 1998 and steering clear of Pat Buchanan’s bid for the
programs such as Social Security and Medicare, increasing party’s presidential nomination in 2000. Pundits noted
gas and cigarette taxes, and having Japan and Germany the irony when Perot Systems announced in 2006 that
pay more for collective security. He encouraged political it was opening an office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in order
reform, including term limits, abolition of the Electoral to take advantage of the lower costs in hiring engineers.
College, the creation of an independent national health Although Perot was no longer in charge of the company,
board to contain health costs, trade protectionism, and a it was being operated by his son, H. Ross Perot, Jr.
libertarian social agenda (pro-choice and neutrality on gay
marriage). The North American Free Trade Agreement Jason Mellard and Roger Chapman
(NAFTA) emerged as his key issue, about which Perot
famously warned that there would be a “giant sucking See also: Clinton, Bill; Contract with America; Federal Bud-
sound” of American jobs leaving for Mexico if the treaty get Deficit; Globalization; Gore, Al; Nixon, Richard; Tax
were enacted. In the end, Perot garnered 19 percent of the Reform; Third Parties; Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Vietnam
national vote, the best showing for a third-party candidate War; War on Drugs.
since Theodore Roosevelt’s run on the Bull Moose ticket
in 1912. Perot reportedly spent more than $72 million Further Reading
of his personal wealth on the campaign. Jelen, Ted, ed. Ross for Boss: The Perot Phenomenon and Beyond.
Remaining active in politics through the 1990s, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Perot returned to Larry King Live in 1993 to debate Vice Mason, Todd. Perot: An Unauthorized Biography. Homewood, IL:
President Al Gore over NAFTA, a debate most viewers Dow Jones–Irwin, 1990.
thought Gore won. Congressman Newt Gingrich (R- Perot, H. Ross. My Life & the Principles of Success. Fort Worth,
GA) conferred with Perot when crafting the conserva- TX: Summit Group, 1996.
tive Contract with America legislative agenda in 1994. Posner, Gerald. Citizen Perot: His Life and Times. New York:
Perot ran for president again in 1996 as a candidate Random House, 1996.
Philadelphia , Mississippi 429
Phelps, Fred church and awarded nearly $11 million in damages to a

As founder and leader of the notorious Westboro Baptist family whose funeral service for their son, a U.S. Marine
Church in Topeka, Kansas, the Reverend Fred Phelps who had been killed in Iraq, was disrupted by antigay
has led antigay protests across the nation, proclaiming protesters. In April of that same year, Kansas passed a law
that God has punished and will continue to punish the requiring a protest-free buffer around military funerals.
United States as long as it shows tolerance toward and About a dozen other states passed similar legislation. On
acceptance of homosexuality. Phelps claims that from Memorial Day 2007, President George W. Bush signed
1991 to 2008 the Westboro church conducted more a similar federal law, the Respect for America’s Fallen
than 34,000 antihomosexual demonstrations. Heroes Act. In the meantime, American Legion groups
Fred Waldron Phelps was born on November 13, across the country formed motorcycle honor guards to
1926, in Meridian, Mississippi. After attending John protect the sanctity of military burial against protesters.
Muir College (AA, 1951), he moved to Topeka, Kansas, In addition, a group calling itself FreeRepublic.com was
where he began a church while continuing his educa- formed to stage demonstrations against the Westboro
tion at Washburn University (BA, 1962; JD, 1964). demonstrators.
A primitive Baptist by his own definition, Phelps was Roger Chapman
originally ordained as a Southern Baptist. He practiced
law for several years but reportedly was disbarred in 1979 See also: Evangelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gay
for ethical misconduct. Rights Movement; Hate Crimes; Hurricane Katrina; Septem-
Phelps, who views himself as a prophet, has declared ber 11; Shepard, Matthew.
that divine retribution for gay culture lay behind the
September 11 terrorist attacks and natural disasters Further Reading
such as Hurricane Katrina. The placards he and his GodHatesFags Web site. www.godhatesfags.com.
followers have used at demonstrations are viewed as Van Biema, David. “The Harley Honor Guard.” Time, May 8,
hateful by almost all observers, including conservative 2006.
Christians: “God hates fags” is a common refrain. Other Veenker, Jody. “Called to Hate?” Christianity Today, October
slogans include “Thank God for AIDS,” “No tears for 25, 1999.
queers,” and the like. In 1998, Phelps shocked the na-
tion by chanting “Matt is in hell” during the funeral Philadelphia, Mississippi
of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who had been
brutally murdered in Wyoming. Later, Phelps and his Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town with about 7,300 res-
followers protested at U.S. military funerals, attribut- idents, is remembered for the brutal slayings of three
ing America’s war deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan to civil rights workers in 1964 as well as a controversial
God’s displeasure over sodomy. Some Evangelicals have campaign stop by presidential candidate Ronald Reagan
expressed concern that “leftists” have unfairly tried to in 1980. Although rurally isolated, the town is a recog-
equate Phelps’s extremist message with mainstream nized symbol of the culture wars.
Christian thought. On June 21, 1964, members of the local Ku Klux
The Westboro church, which meets in the leader’s Klan beat and shot to death James Chaney, Andrew
home, is attended primarily by family members; Phelps Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who had come to
is the father of some dozen adult children with children the area as volunteers in the “Freedom Summer” black
of their own. In cult-like gatherings, Phelps preaches a voter registration drive. The three men—two white and
strict form of Calvinist theology, believing that all but one black, all in their early twenties—were stopped for a
a tiny elect are predestined to hell. At the church’s main minor traffic violation, temporarily jailed, and upon their
Web site, GodHatesFags.com, visitors are referred to as release, ambushed by Klansmen organized by Edgar Ray
“depraved sons and daughters of Adam.” To those who Killen, a part-time Baptist minister. Their bodies were
think his message against gays is harsh and unloving, found weeks later buried under an earthen dam outside
Phelps argues that he is uncompromising about what of town. In 1967, eighteen suspects were indicted on
the Scriptures teach concerning homosexuality. Amer- federal conspiracy charges in connection with the case,
ica’s “kissy-pooh preachers,” he maintains, have turned but only seven were convicted. Killen was set free because
churches into “candy stores” and church members into of a hung jury.
“moral diabetics.” Phelps refers to his antigay protests Despite Philadelphia’s lingering stigma, it was the
as “Love Crusades” in which warnings are offered out of setting for Reagan’s first major campaign speech after
brotherly concern. gaining the Republican nomination for president. In
Phelps’s actions have led to lawsuits, legislation, his August 3, 1980, address at the Neshoba County
and numerous counter-protests. In November 2007, a Fair, Reagan proclaimed, “I believe in states’ rights” and
jury in Baltimore, Maryland, ruled against the Westboro promised that as president he would work to “restore to
43 0 P ipes, R ichard , and Daniel P ipes
states and local governments the power that properly the American enemy of the day—for the former, the So-
belongs to them.” Critics interpreted these remarks as viet Union; for the latter, Islamic fundamentalism.
signaling sympathy to white southerners for resisting Richard Edgar Pipes was born on July 11, 1923, in
federally imposed civil rights for African Americans. De- Cieszyn, Poland, eventually immigrating to the United
fenders of Reagan say it is unfair to characterize the term States with his parents. He was educated at Muskingum
“states’ rights” as code language for white segregation; College in New Concord, Ohio (1940–1943), Cornell
they also point out that Democratic presidential candi- University (BA, 1945), and Harvard University (PhD,
date Michael Dukakis spoke at the same fair in August 1950). As a Harvard professor (1950–1996), he was an
1988. Dukakis, however, did not defend states’ rights expert on Russian history and the Soviet Union, authoring
but pledged to “bring down the barriers to opportunity or editing more than two dozen books, including Forma-
for all our people.” tion of the Soviet Union (1954); The Russian Intelligentsia
The emergence of new evidence in the murder of (1961); Soviet Strategy in Europe (1976); Russia Observed:
Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner led to a reopening of Collected Essays on Russian and Soviet History (1989); Com-
the case and a new trial in the town. On June 21, 2005, munism, the Vanished Specter (1994); and Three “Whys”
a jury found Killen, then eighty years old, guilty of three of the Russian Revolution (1997). The 1917 communist
counts of manslaughter; he was promptly sentenced to revolution in Russia, he maintained, was not representa-
sixty years in prison. That same month, the U.S. Sen- tive of the people’s will but simply the result of Lenin’s
ate issued a formal apology for having failed to enact tenacity and audacity.
antilynching legislation; Mississippi’s two Republican Politically active during his academic career, Richard
senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, were among Pipes was an officer and member of the anticommunist
the several who refused to co-sponsor the resolution. Committee of the Present Danger (1977–1992) and
Although most Philadelphia residents welcomed the served during the 1980s as an adviser to President Ronald
Killen trial, some saw it as reopening old wounds and Reagan on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Critics
believed that it was wrong to bring a man to trial four accused him of being overly pessimistic toward the So-
decades after the fact. viet Union, including a lack of enthusiasm during arms
The events of June 1964 and the original legal limitation talks between Moscow and Washington. Ac-
proceedings were depicted in the 1988 motion picture cording to defenders, however, his influencing Reagan’s
Mississippi Burning. The evidence that finally led to Kil- hard stance against the Soviets helped paved the way for
len’s conviction was turned up by investigative journalist the United States to win the Cold War.
Jerry Mitchell, with the help of an Illinois high school Born on September 9, 1949, in Boston, Massa-
teacher and three students. chusetts, Daniel Pipes studied at Harvard University
Roger Chapman (BA, 1971; PhD, 1978) and also attended schools in
the Middle East, including the University of Tunis,
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Dukakis, Michael; Hate University of Cairo, and Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
Crimes; Kennedy Family; Lott, Trent; Lynching; Reagan, From the 1970s through the 1990s, he held teaching
Ronald; Republican Party; Rockwell, Norman; Till, Em- and research positions at a number of prestigious uni-
mett; White Supremacists. versities and institutes, including Princeton University
(1977–1978), the University of Chicago (1978–1982),
Further Reading Harvard University (1983–1984), the Naval War Col-
Ball, Howard. Justice in Mississippi: The Murder Trial of Edgar Ray lege (1984–1986), and the Foreign Policy Research
Killen. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Institute (1986–1993); he also served a stint on the
Cannon, Lou. Reagan. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982. policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State
Huie, William Bradford. Three Lives for Mississippi. Introduc- (1982–1983).
tion by Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: New American Daniel’s early writings, including Slave Soldiers and
Library, 1968. Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (1981) and In the
Mars, Florence. Witness in Philadelphia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Path of God: Islam and Political Power (1983), explained
State University Press, 1977. the history of Islam to those who were unfamiliar with
Younge, Gary. “Racism Rebooted: Philadelphia, Mississippi, its principles and teachings. In The Rushdie Affair: The
Then and Now.” Nation, July 11, 2005. Ayatollah, the Novelist, and the West (1990), he offered an
explanation for the violent reaction of Islamic leaders
to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s 1989 novel The
Pipes, R ichard, and Daniel Satanic Verses and suggested that the novelist should have
Pipes anticipated the negative reaction. During the 1990s,
Richard Pipes and Daniel Pipes, father and son, respec- Pipes wrote essays warning against the dangers of Islamic
tively, are neoconservatives known for their critiques on fundamentalism to the United States. Critics accused him
Planned Parenthood 431
of racism and repeated the charge following the attacks clinic in Brooklyn, New York. As an obstetrical nurse she
of September 11, 2001, when he updated and antholo- became interested in birth control from working among
gized many of the essays, publishing them under the title immigrants in the slums of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Militant Islam Reaches America (2002). This experience radicalized her to begin disseminating
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Daniel Pipes printed materials on birth control. She was later indicted
co-founded Campus Watch, a Web site dedicated to the for violating the Comstock Laws of 1878, which banned
study of Middle Eastern history and culture on college the use of the mail service for disseminating sexually
campuses. In 2002, Campus Watch published a list of related material or anything that could be broadly con-
academics whom Pipes judged to be overly critical of U.S. strued as pornographic. In her work Women and the New
foreign policy. Many of the accused retaliated, calling Race (1920), Sanger promoted birth control as a way to
Campus Watch and him anti-American. Several critics ensure a woman’s right to “voluntary motherhood.”
suggested that Pipes’s activities bore similarities to the In 1923, Sanger’s clinic became the basis of the
Red Scare tactics of McCarthyism. American Birth Control League, which in 1942 was
renamed Planned Parenthood. Controversially, Sanger as
Margaret Barrett and Roger Chapman well as others in the birth-control movement advocated
eugenics, including sterilization for the “unfit” (poor).
See also: Academic Freedom; American Century; Cold War; Many of those designated poor were Catholic and Jew-
McCarthyism; Muslim Americans; Neoconservatism; Saudi ish immigrants as well as blacks. By the late 1930s the
Arabia; September 11; Soviet Union and Russia. general public came to associate eugenics with Nazi
racism, giving birth control a negative connotation.
Further Reading On the advice of a public relations consultant, Sanger’s
Pipes, Daniel. Militant Islam Reaches America. New York: W.W. organization adopted the name “planned parenthood” in
Norton, 2002. lieu of “birth control.”
Pipes, Richard. Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger. New Haven, In 1948, Planned Parenthood provided a research
CT: Yale University Press, 2003. grant to the biologist Gregory Pincus, whose work ul-
Schrecker, Ellen. “The New McCarthyism in Academe.” Thought timately led to the development of oral contraception,
& Action 21 (Fall 2005): 103–18. popularly known as “the pill.” On May 9, 1960, the Food
and Drug Administration approved the pill’s availability
to the public. This new form of birth control proved to be
Planned Parenthood more effective than condoms, diaphragms, or chemicals,
The organization Planned Parenthood Federation of resulting in greater sexual freedom for women minus
America, with nearly 900 centers across the nation, pro- the consequences of unplanned pregnancy. By 1965 one-
vides birth-control materials, abortion and sterilization fourth of married women in the United States were using
procedures, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, the pill. Oral contraception, most agree, was a major
and screening for cervical and breast cancer. Twenty-five factor in precipitating the sexual revolution.
percent of American women reportedly use the services Following the introduction of oral contraception,
of Planned Parenthood at least once in their lives. Ac- Planned Parenthood turned its attention to abortion.
cording to its 2006–2007 annual report, Planned Par- That effort was indirectly facilitated by a challenge of the
enthood performed 289,750 surgical abortions in 2006, Connecticut ban on contraceptives. The Planned Parent-
representing 3 percent of the total services it provided. hood League of Connecticut, headed by Estelle Griswold,
From the perspective of its 4 million activists, donors, took that issue to the Supreme Court, which in the rul-
and supporters, Planned Parenthood champions reproduc- ing Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) overturned all such
tive rights by offering women confidential counseling state laws on the grounds of privacy rights. Afterward, a
and safe options in rational family planning. Its pro-life number of states not only rescinded their laws banning
detractors, on the other hand, regard the organization as contraceptives, but liberalized abortion laws as well. The
primarily a network of abortion clinics responsible for the Griswold decision was part of the cited case law that was
murdering of the unborn. Even some pro-choice advocates used in Roe v. Wade (1973), the landmark Supreme Court
have been critical of Planned Parenthood, calling it the decision that declared a woman’s right to abortion to be
“Wal-Mart of abortion clinics” because it typically drives part of her constitutional right to privacy.
small-size abortion clinics out of business by providing After the legalization of abortion in 1973, Planned
cheaper but inferior services. Parenthood became a target of derision by the pro-life
Planned Parenthood was founded by the pioneering movement. During the mid-1980s a number of Planned
birth-control crusader Margaret Sanger, who coined the Parenthood clinics across the nation were bombed, set on
term “birth control.” The roots of the organization date fire, or vandalized. Later, Planned Parenthood lost ground
back to 1916 when Sanger established a birth-control in the judicial war over abortion. In Planned Parenthood
432 Podhore t z , Nor man
v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court ruled against the

requirement for spousal notification prior to an abortion
procedure; however, the same decision upheld state law
requiring a mandatory cool-off period for all abortions
and parental notification in cases involving minors.
In Gonzalez v. Planned Parenthood (2007), the Supreme
Court upheld the federal ban on D and X (dilation and
extraction) abortion, which critics dub “partial-birth
abortion.”
Roger Chapman
See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Douglas, William O.; Food

and Drug Administration; National Organization for Wom-
en; Operation Rescue; Roe v. Wade (1973); Sex Education;
Sexual Revolution; Wal-Mart.
Further Reading
Coates, Patricia Walsh. Margaret Sanger and the Origin of the Birth
Control Movement, 1910–1930: The Concept of Women’s Sexual
Autonomy. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2008.
Gordon, Linda. The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth
Control Politics in America. Urbana: University of Illinois As the editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine and author
Press, 2002. of several influential books, former leftist Norman Podhoretz
Grant, George. Immaculate Deception: The Shifting Agenda of emerged in the early 1970s as a leading voice of the fledg-
Planned Parenthood. Chicago: Northfield, 1996. ling neoconservative movement. (James Keyser/Time & Life
Johnson, John W. Griswold v. Connecticut: Birth Control and Pictures/Getty Images)
the Constitutional Right of Privacy. Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 2005. 1955), Podhoretz joined the staff of Commentary, the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America Web site. www journal of the American Jewish Committee, rising to
.plannedparenthood.org. the position of editor-in-chief in 1960. He was already
active in leftist politics, supporting a nuclear test ban and
disarmament. Under his editorship, contributions were
Podhoret z, Norman published by such authors as Paul Goodman, Staughton
As editor of the magazine Commentary from 1960 to Lynd, Herbert Marcuse, and Norman O. Brown, thereby
1995, Norman Podhoretz established the publication contributing to the intellectual foundations of the emerg-
as an influential—if ideologically shifting—journal of ing New Left.
opinion. At first, he published authors who shaped the By the late 1960s, Podhoretz had become dis-
emergence of the New Left in the early and mid-1960s. enchanted with what he regarded as the New Left’s
By the end of the decade, however, his magazine was op- anti-American, anti-Semitic, and totalitarian tendencies.
posing much of the radical agenda and shifting toward Moving to the right politically, he described the New
what would emerge as neoconservatism. Left as “Stalinist,” declared Lyndon Johnson’s War on
The son of Jewish immigrants, Podhoretz was born Poverty a failure, and opened the pages of his journal
on January 16, 1930, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. to critiques of the counterculture. By the early 1970s,
His father, a milkman, wanted him to have a Jewish edu- nearly every issue of Commentary included an article by a
cation, so in addition to attending a public high school disillusioned liberal. The magazine came to be regarded
during the day, he went to a night school where classes as a conservative rival to the New York Review of Books,
were taught in Hebrew. After completing high school whose editor, Jason Epstein, had had a falling out with
in 1946, Podhoretz attended Columbia University (AB, Podhoretz.
1950), where he studied with the distinguished critic Although Commentary addressed a wide range of is-
and writer Lionel Trilling. At the same time, Podhoretz sues, novelist Gore Vidal argued in a 1986 article that
also studied Judaism and Jewish history at the College of Podhoretz was interested primarily in Israel, wanting to
Jewish Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary (BHL, use American influence to advance its cause, and had little
1950). He completed his formal studies at Cambridge genuine interest in other matters. Podhoretz, however,
University in England (MA, 1957). believed that he was challenging the “appeasement”
Upon completing service in the U.S. Army (1953– culture of the left.
Police A bu se 433
In addition to editing Commentary and writing ar- Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties
ticles, Podhoretz published several books, among them Union have promoted the establishment of civilian review
a trilogy of memoirs recounting his political passage boards to provide external investigations when citizens
and its consequences—Making It (1967), Breaking Ranks file complaints of police abuse, such as racial profiling
(1979), and Ex-Friends (2000)—and an autobiography, and police brutality. Opponents of the review boards
My Love Affair with America (2002). From 1981 to 1987, argue that police should be judged by other police, not
he worked for the United States Information Agency. individuals who lack training in law enforcement and
After leaving Commentary in 1995, he joined the Hudson who have never dealt with the everyday realities of police
Institute, a conservative think tank, where he was a senior work. Although most of the nation’s largest cities now
fellow until 2003. His son, John, was appointed editor have these boards in place, critics argue that their lim-
of Commentary in 2007. ited power makes them ineffective. In conjunction with
Gary Land review boards is the trend for the videotaping of arrests
and interrogations in order to provide a “record” should
See also: Anti-Semitism; Ginsberg, Allen; Israel; Mailer, Norman; there later be accusations of excessive force.
Neoconservatism; New Left; Vidal, Gore; War on Poverty. Police corruption was a major concern during the
1960s and 1970s. It often involved police officers accept-
Further Reading ing bribes from criminal syndicates that were involved
Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to with gambling, prostitution, illegal alcohol, and the
the Culture Wars. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1996. fencing of stolen goods. The bribed police would shield
Jeffers, Thomas L., ed. The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection the syndicate, which would in turn pledge not to commit
of His Writings from the 1950s Through the 1990s. New York: any robberies within the city limits. In 1961, there was
Free Press, 2004. a major investigation of such a corrupt bargain in Kansas
Vidal, Gore. “The Empire Lovers Strike Back.” Nation, March City, Missouri. That same decade the Chicago police force
22, 1986. underwent a major reform and established an internal
Winchell, Mark Roydon. Neoconservative Criticism: Norman Pod- investigation division to address corruption within its
horetz, Kenneth S. Lynn, and Joseph Epstein. Boston: Twayne, ranks. Frank Serpico made headlines during the late 1960s
1991. and early 1970s by reporting the corruption he witnessed
while serving as an officer of the New York Police Depart-
ment (NYPD). Occasional news items continue to report
Police Abuse of police officers who are “on the take” and providing
Police abuse has been a divisive topic of the culture wars, protection to drug dealers and their operations.
placing law and order in tension with individual rights. Police brutality emerged as a public issue during
Prior to the 1960s, concern about police abuse gener- the 1960s and 1970s in connection with the civil rights
ally centered on corruption, but later attention shifted movement and protests against the Vietnam War. On
to police brutality, coercive interrogation, the planting March 3, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, police re-
of false evidence, unlawful search and surveillance, and pulsed young civil rights marchers with high-pressured
racial profiling. fire hoses and attack dogs. Since this event was televised,
In most debates on police abuse, conservatives gen- many Americans saw it on the evening news. Birming-
erally defend law enforcement agencies, stressing the ham’s chief of police, Eugene “Bull” Connor, appeared
hazards of police work—from 1946 to early 2009, 4,565 on camera and vowed that his men would do it all over
police officers were shot and killed in the line of duty— again if the “outside agitators” continued to stir trouble.
and its importance in maintaining law and order. When Another iconic event in the annals of police brutality
questions arise over police conduct, conservatives tend to took place in Chicago during the August 1968 Demo-
give the officers the benefit of the doubt. Accusations of cratic National Convention. Police descended upon the
police abuse, many conservatives feel, are grossly exag- protesters with clubs and indiscriminately attacked all
gerated. Liberals emphasize that law and order must be who stood in their path—a “police riot” was the official
applied to all segments of society, including its 800,000 verdict and several police officers were indicted on charges
law enforcement personnel. The rights of the accused, of abuse of power.
which liberals believe are important safeguards against Nearly forty years later, in 2004, police in New York
police abuse, are considered “criminal rights” by many City reacted to a smaller group of demonstrators outside
conservatives who fear that an excessive focus on such the Republican National Convention protesting the Iraq
matters hinders police from doing their job. Public War. Using little discretion, the NYPD arrested nearly
perception of police abuse is polarized by race, with a 2,000 protesters and bystanders. Most were herded into
higher percentage of blacks than whites viewing it as a holding pens in the city’s jails and held without charge
major problem. until the convention was over. Conservatives argued that
43 4 Police A bu se
such “preventive detention” was appropriate to protect- Further Reading

ing government officials and preserving law and order. Blum, Lawrence N. Stoning the Keepers at the Gate: Society’s
Liberals complained that imprisonment without timely Relationship with Law Enforcement. Brooklyn, NY: Lantern
charges was an outrage. Books, 2002.
Over the years much controversy has been stirred over Cole, David. No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American
police surveillance. In numerous cases, the police were Criminal Justice System. New York: New Press, 1999.
found to have been monitoring political groups as opposed Geller, William A., and Hans Toch. Police Violence: Understanding
to criminal suspects. Most notorious was the FBI’s “counter and Controlling Police Abuse of Force. New Haven, CT: Yale
intelligence program,” known as COINTELPRO, which University Press, 2005.
was active between 1956 and 1971. This federal dragnet Klinger, David. Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly
primarily targeted liberal and leftist groups, including orga- Force. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004.
nizations affiliated with the civil rights movement. After the McShane, Larry. Cops Under Fire: The Reign of Terror Against Hero
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there were a number Cops. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1999.
of reports of police monitoring of antiwar groups. Weitzer, Ronald John, and Steven A. Tuch. Race and Policing
Most controversies pertaining to police abuse, how- in America: Conflict and Reform. New York: Cambridge Uni-
ever, are not related to politics as much as they are to the versity Press, 2006.
manner in which law enforcement officials interact with
the local citizenry. The Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) became notorious for the rough treatment of mi- Political Correctness
nority suspects, especially African Americans and Latinos. Political correctness, otherwise known as PC, has been
Between 1963 and 1965, Los Angeles police officers shot used in the culture wars as a pejorative epithet to char-
and killed a total of 60 blacks; 25 were unarmed and 27 acterize what critics deem a destructive political ethos
were shot in the back. This pattern of behavior was one in American society since the 1980s. While accusations
of the triggers for the Watts Riots of 1965, which began of PC have often focused on university practices, they
when a white police officer stopped a black motorist and are by no means limited to this venue. Since the early
subjected him to an abusive interrogation in public. More 1980s, the PC debate has attracted a national audience,
than twenty-five years later, in 1991, a bystander video- framing much of the discussion of, among other things,
taped members of the LAPD clubbing and kicking African race relations, public education, and citizenship.
American Rodney King after a high-speed chase. When the Most often, the ethos that is attacked as politically
officers were acquitted of charges in the beating in 1992, correct is understood to be “liberal,” while those who do
the city erupted into the most destructive urban rioting the attacking tend to be identified as “conservatives”—
in decades. From 1980 to 1991, nearly 280 LA officers or even though some PC developed as a critique of liberal-
sheriffs had been accused of assaulting civilians. ism as much as an extension of it, and liberals frequently
The LAPD was involved in a scandal of a different join with conservatives in making accusations of PC.
kind in 1998. Some thirty police officers in the antigang While the types of practices decried as instances of PC
unit of its Rampart Division were accused of beating citi- are familiar enough, it is often difficult to discern their
zens, planting guns and drugs on suspects, stealing drugs commonality. Thus, some have claimed that it is simply
and guns, taking bribes, conducting illegal searches, an all-purpose pejorative epithet used by conservatives to
and imprisoning people on false evidence. The scandal attack any and all liberal practices of which they disap-
resulted in overturned convictions in more than 100 cases, prove. Still, it is possible to present a coherent account
and in 2000, the city signed an agreement with the U.S. or narrative of what critics might call the “Ideology of
Justice Department to carry out major reforms. Political Correctness” (IPC).
The effect of police conduct on criminal convictions
was strongly emphasized in 2000, when Governor George Ideology of Political Correctness
Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, imposed a moratorium on IPC arises from taking the liberal principle of equal respect
the state’s use of the death penalty. He went a step further to absurd lengths. Classical liberals saw equal respect as
in 2003, commuting the sentences of all 167 death row embodied in a series of individual rights—the right to
inmates in the state. Ryan said that these actions were own property, the right to compete in the marketplace,
the result of evidence of widespread police and prosecu- the right to participate in the political process. While
torial abuse, which included the torturing of suspects to equal rights entailed (a rough) equality of opportunity, it
extract confessions. was never intended to ensure equality of outcomes; accep-
Joseph A. Rodriguez tance of equal rights was not intended to entail equality of
worthiness. The IPC champions not only equality of out-
See also: King, Rodney; Racial Profiling; Watts and Los Ange- come but construes equal respect as equal worthiness, and
les Riots, 1965 and 1992. equal worthiness to require a kind of positive affirmation.
Politic al Cor rec tness 435
But the individual whose worth the IPC is concerned In 1984, Secretary of Education William Bennett
to affirm is not just any individual. In fact, the IPC published a report titled “To Reclaim a Legacy: A Report
represents a shift from classical liberalism’s emphasis on the Humanities in Higher Education,” in which he
on the individual qua individual to the individual qua argued that Western civilization should be the core of
group member, as embodied in the movements of multi- the American college curriculum “because it is a source
culturalism and identity politics. The groups the IPC is of incomparable intellectual complexity, diversity, and
concerned to affirm are those that historically have been depth; [and] because it is under attack.” The “attack” of
discriminated against and excluded primarily on the basis which Bennett warned was the development of a more
of ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. The flip side “multicultural-,” gender-, and race-conscious curriculum
of the affirmation of those oppressed and excluded is the at American colleges and universities and a move away
denigration of the “oppressors,” namely white European from teaching the “traditional” canon of “great” Western
males. This may take a variety of forms, notably revision- books. To those who approve the shift in emphasis, the
ist history and a rejection of the unique accomplishments traditional curriculum reflects a “white European male
of “Western” civilization” (as embodied, for example, in political bias” that systematically dismisses the philoso-
the “Western canon”). This rejection is supported by the phy, literature, and art of non-European cultures as “in-
ethos of multiculturalism, which sometimes exaggerates ferior.” To those who oppose the changes in curriculum
the accomplishments of non-European cultures, as well as a manifestation of PC, such changes are an attempt to
as by moral relativism, which denies the existence of both denigrate the accomplishments of the writers who
universal standards according to which diverse cultural comprise the Western canon—“the oppressors”—and
achievements can be assessed. to exalt “the oppressed” by including works largely on
the basis of the race or ethnicity or gender of the author
Speech Codes and Western Canon (rather than on the merits of his or her works). On the
During the 1980s and early 1990s, a number of univer- other hand, some who argue to keep the canon proposed
sities, responding to complaints of discrimination and expanding it to include previously neglected writings.
harassment on campuses throughout the country, began
formulating what came to be known as “campus speech Revisionist History and National Identity
codes.” By 1995, more than 350 public colleges and uni- The controversy over the canon has been replicated in
versities regulated certain types of “hate speech” in one the controversy surrounding accusations of “politically
form or another. Such codes have been denounced as incorrect” (or “revisionist”) history, as it concerns both
stances of PC largely because of the emphasis placed on academic history and the content of college and pub-
protecting women and minorities from speech deemed to lic school education. A notable example of the former
create a hostile campus environment. To supporters, such is the firestorm surrounding the publication of Martin
codes are necessary to stop speech that is the equivalent Bernal’s Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical
of an assault on personal dignity (not unlike a physical Civilization (1989), which expounds the hypothesis that
assault) and that creates a hostile learning environment. ancient Greece, and hence Western civilization, derives
Such codes recognize that some individuals have been, much of its cultural roots from Afroasiatic (Egyptian
and continue to be, the target of past and present discrim- and Phoenician) cultures. While Bernal’s hypothesis
ination on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, or sexual remains controversial among scholars, it has been de-
orientation. For example, to call a fellow student “nig- nounced as a work of politically correct, revisionist,
ger” would be a violation of a campus speech code. On “Afrocentric” history by many involved in the PC de-
the other hand, to casually call a woman a “girl” might bate (who often appear ill equipped to pass judgment
also be regarded as a violation of the speech codes. on the scholarly merits—or lack thereof—of the work).
Detractors of speech codes see them as an attempt to Debates over teaching history in the public schools have
forcibly impose the politically correct ethos of positive focused on the charge that PC has transformed the teach-
affirmation of groups historically discriminated against ing of American history into a one-sided story of racist
by suppressing legitimate speech. Accusations of PC and sexist exploitation by white European males, or the
have been fueled by the fact that some campus speech charge that American history is sometimes not taught
codes appeared to go beyond prohibiting offensive racial at all but replaced by “multicultural history” (includ-
epithets directed at specific individuals, for example, to ing “Afrocentric” history), emphasizing the story and
proscribing the expression of certain points of view (ac- accomplishments of non-European peoples.
cording to critics, those that are “politically incorrect”). In The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multi-
Some liberal advocates of expansive free speech rights cultural Society (1998), historian Arthur M. Schlesinger,
have joined conservative critics in attacking such codes, Jr., argues that multicultural education, both in colleges
several of which have been challenged in court and held and universities and in the public schools, and multicul-
to be unconstitutional. turalism in general, pose a threat to American culture by
43 6 Por nog raphy
rejecting a unifying national identity based on citizenship and sex radicals have argued that the government is
and replacing it with a fragmenting plurality of identities stifling free speech and regard the antipornography
based on racial and ethnic differences. What is particu- movement as part of a broader antisex agenda on the
larly ironic, Schlesinger argues, is that ascribing such part of conservatives.
importance to racial and ethnic identity is representative The contemporary pornography industry in Ameri-
of the racist legacy of American history that progressive can has been much influenced by the growth of a mass-
liberal democrats have fought to overcome. Defenders of media empire that includes conventional publishing,
multiculturalism argue that American national identity, such as magazines, as well as a booming film and video
far from transcending cultural and ethnic particularity, in industry and, since the 1990s, the Internet. Pornography
fact embodies the cultural particularity of Anglo-Saxon became a major mainstream commercial enterprise in part
Protestant males. Attempts to “assimilate” indigenous via the Playboy enterprise, in which founder Hugh Hefner
and immigrant ethnic and cultural minorities through not only began selling the men’s magazine Playboy in
public education in an American national identity are 1953, but opened a chain of Playboy lounges and popular-
viewed as attempts to force them to abandon their own ized the “Playboy lifestyle.” Other media entrepreneurs
particular cultural identity for another particular (An- benefited from the more permissive sexual environment
glocentric) cultural identity. of the 1960s and 1970s with more hard-core magazines
like Penthouse and Hustler. During that same period, the
Evan Charney film industry produced “porn flicks” of huge commercial
success, including Deep Throat (1972) and The Devil in
See also: Afrocentrism; Bennett, William J.; D’Souza, Dinesh; Miss Jones (1973). The advent of VHS tape was a further
Great Books; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Revision- boon to the industry, providing a cheap medium that
ist History; Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.; Speech Codes. could be delivered to private homes.
The commercial success of the pornography industry
Further Reading prompted a strong legal and political backlash at the
Berlinerblau, Jacques. Heresy in the University: The Black Athena local, state, and federal levels. The beginnings go back
Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals. to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), in which the
Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Supreme Court declared that pornography was not an
Berman, Paul, ed. Debating P.C.: The Controversy over Political automatic protected category of speech. This was fol-
Correctness on College Campuses. New York: Dell, 1992. lowed by Roth v. United States (1957), which ruled that
D’Souza, Dinesh. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex “community standards” could be applied to determine
on Campus. New York: Macmillan, 1991. if questionable material was “utterly without redeem-
Ravitch, Diane. The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict ing social importance.” Finally, in Miller v. California
What Students Learn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. (1973), the high court established clearer parameters
Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a for states to regulate obscenity in accordance with com-
Multicultural Society. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. munity standards. In addition, two federal studies on the
Wilson, John. The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative pornography industry were launched—the 1970 Com-
Attack on High Education. Durham, NC: Duke University mission on Obscenity and Pornography and the 1986
Press, 1995. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. The
first recommended bolstering sex education and further
study of the effects of pornography, findings denounced
P o r n o g r a p hy by both Congress and the White House. The second
Pornography was perhaps most famously defined by study, headed by U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese
U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart in his con- of the Reagan administration and produced by mostly
curring opinion in the case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), antipornography crusaders, recommended more active
where he wrote, simply, “I know it when I see it.” Even enforcement of federal and state anti-obscenity laws.
that rather vague definition of pornography is appropri- The Religious Right, specifically the Moral Majority,
ate for the wide-ranging political debate over obscene took aim at the pornography industry, encouraging leg-
images and sexuality that has been a cornerstone of the islation and boycotts of prominent chain stores that sold
culture wars since the second half of the twentieth cen- pornographic magazines. One of the most high-profile
tury. Making strange bedfellows of groups as disparate conflicts occurred between televangelist Jerry Falwell and
as Christian conservatives and radical feminists, the Larry Flynt, the editor of Hustler magazine. In response
antipornography movement has led to a flurry of le- to Falwell’s public campaign against his magazine, Flynt
gal and political activity restricting sexual expression published a satirical liquor ad using Falwell’s likeness
on behalf of women, children, and civilization. On and describing, in grotesque detail, Falwell losing his
the other side, pornographers, free-speech advocates, virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued for
Por nog raphy 437
local level, with MacKinnon, an attorney, working with

municipalities to draft strict antipornography measures.
One such law, in Indianapolis, explicitly cited the protec-
tion of women as grounds for banning pornography, and
even sanctioned lawsuits against pornography producers
for damages done to women; the ordinance was struck
down in federal court.
Not all feminists agreed with the antipornography
position. So-called sex radicals or pro-sex feminists be-
lieved that the arguments against pornography victimize
women by robbing them of agency in their sexuality.
Some feminists have sought political alliances with sex
workers and the gay and lesbian movements, arguing
that feminists have common ground with persons society
views as sexually deviant. Groups such as FACT (Feminist
Anti-Censorship Task Force) worked to oppose legislation
The issue of pornography—including a lack of consensus
and litigation against pornography on the basis of free
over its very definition—has been one of the central, defin- speech. In addition, pro-sex feminists have been critical
ing battles in America’s culture wars. Here, antipornography of the political ties mainstream feminists established
demonstrators organized by the Moral Majority take to the with right-wing activists, whom they regarded as part
streets of Dallas, Texas, in 1985. (Shelly Katz/Time & Life of a broader agenda to limit access to birth control and
Pictures/Getty Images) abortion.
The antipornography campaign in the 1990s shifted
libel and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court, to the Internet, where pornography images were more
where Flynt’s political speech was protected under the easily and cheaply transmitted and, presumably, more
First Amendment. During the course of the trial, an likely to reach children. In addition, many recognized
apparent supporter of Falwell shot Flynt, leaving him that the Internet allows for greater ease and anonymity
partially paralyzed for life. in the exchange of child pornography. Congress made
In spite of Falwell’s limited success in curbing por- several attempts to regulate the Internet, including the
nography, many groups have been politically and cultur- Child Online Protection Act (1998), which was struck
ally effective in organizing campaigns against obscenity. down by a lower federal court on the grounds of speech
Beginning in the late 1970s, for example, Donald Wild- rights, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in Ashcroft
mon’s American Family Association voiced opposition to v. American Civil Liberties Union (2002).
many facets of the pornography culture by organizing
boycotts of convenience stores that sold pornographic Claire E. Rasmussen
materials, criticizing mainstream television shows with
gratuitous sexuality, and challenging the National En- See also: Dworkin, Andrea; Falwell, Jerry; Feminism, Second-
dowment for the Arts for funding “obscene” artwork. Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Flynt, Larry; Hefner, Hugh;
Wildmon was joined in the fight by the Family Television Internet; MacKinnon, Catharine; Moral Majority; National
Council and the Concerned Women for America. Endowment for the Arts; Sexual Revolution; Wildmon,
Not all antipornography activists were on the politi- Donald.
cal right, however. Prominent feminists such as Catherine
MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin argued that pornogra- Further Reading
phy has a disproportionate impact on women in both the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography: Final Report. Vols.
production of pornographic materials and the effects of I and II. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,
them on male behavior. Their assertions were bolstered 1986.
by porn star Linda Lovelace, who claimed that her per- Califia, Pat. Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. Pittsburgh,
formance in Deep Throat was under duress—including PA: Cleis Press, 1994.
physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by husband-director Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1967) Report. Washing-
Chuck Traynor. MacKinnon and Dworkin argued that ton, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970.
pornography is bad for all women because it sexualizes De Grazia, Edward. Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of
male domination. The antipornography feminists were Obscenity and the Assault on Genius. New York: Random
successful in building a large feminist movement against House, 1992.
pornography, including Women Against Pornography. Kipnis, Laura. Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of
In the 1980s, they successfully lobbied for new laws at the Fantasy in America. New York: Grove Press, 1996.
43 8 Pos tmoder nism
Lynn, Barry W. Polluting the Censorship Debate: A Summary and they argue, it is difficult to organize mass movements for
Critique of the Final Report of the Attorney General’s Commission promoting social justice.
on Pornography. Washington, DC: American Civil Liberties Critics of postmodernism generally take a dim view
Union, 1986. of revisionist history, multicultural studies, and in par-
ticular literary analysis involving deconstructionism,
structuralism, and post-structuralism, all of which they
Postmodernism regard as being connected with intellectual anarchy and
Although not easily defined, the term “postmodernism” confusion. Especially worrisome to critics are the post-
refers to the contemporary period in Western culture— modern assertions that (1) language is signification of
“after” modernism—and the corresponding view among reality, not reality itself; (2) texts are subjective facsimiles
scholars, cultural critics, and philosophers that new of reality; and (3) much of what we feel and experience in
modes of thought and expression in the post–World our mass-communication society is an illusion, a “hyper-
War II era have broken down or transcended established reality” based on simulation, including a type of simula-
rules and categories. Trends and concepts associated with tion (“simulacra”) that has no corresponding reality.
postmodernism include the dominance of mass media, Proponents of the postmodern influence on higher
globalization and cultural pluralism, the blurring of na- learning argue that the “dead white men” celebrated in
tional boundaries, artistic eclecticism and the mixing of traditional accounts of history and represented in the
genres, skepticism toward science and progress, parody literary canon comprise only one strand of the national
and self-reference, a rejection of traditional concepts of narrative. They regard the trend to incorporate consid-
knowledge, and a world of many equal and competing erations of race, class, and gender into the classroom as
ideologies and “isms.” emancipating and democratic because it gives voice to
Any serious approach to understanding postmod- the previously marginalized and opens space for other
ernism begins with two foundational works, Fredric narratives. Postmodernists also emphasize that every text,
Jameson’s Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late whether a book, speech, song, painting, film, or other
Capitalism (1991) and Jean-François Lyotard’s The creative expression, is essentially incomplete, a fragment,
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979). and that much can be learned by considering what was
According to Jameson, the essence of postmodernism left out. Defenders of postmodernism emphasize that
is the commercialism of culture, characterized by a grappling with complexity enlarges human understand-
consumerist demand for increasingly novel productions ing while developing the critical thinking skills necessary
of art and knowledge, and a proliferation of texts that for the information age.
blur high culture and low culture without regard to The postmodern critique of science, including a
authority or the cultural canon. According to Lyotard, rejection of Enlightenment principles and optimism
postindustrial societies, due to computerization, have about human progress, is a reaction to the development of
created a postmodern condition by altering the status of atomic weapons and the use of them on Japan at the end
knowledge and power, rendering the end of the “grand of World War II. Postmodernism sees science as having
narrative” in which knowledge is seen as whole and limitations, and scientists as being guided by ideology
giving way to multiple narratives in which knowledge and blinded by hubris. Whereas modernism is said to
is fragmented. have emphasized rational thought—or the need for it—
In the American culture wars, social conservatives postmodernism stresses the importance of emotion and
have generally equated postmodernism with moral and feelings. In reaction to the postmodern attack on science,
cultural relativism, which they blame on liberals. Crit- physicist Alan Sokal in the 1990s debunked critics by
ics charge that postmodern thought contradicts itself by succeeding in getting a postmodern journal to publish
making arguments that rely on the same conventional his hoax essay which nonsensically asserted that physical
hermeneutics and epistemology it claims to reject—a reality is simply a social construct. On the other hand,
theory and methodology that rejects theory and meth- years earlier Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific
odology. Opponents of postmodernism typically vilify Revolutions (1962) reasonably argued that the scientific
proponents for failing to affirm traditional values and community depends fundamentally on groupthink and
narratives. Part of this response is a call for a return to ritual, and is characterized by a reluctance to think out-
the cultural canon, or “great books.” Cultural literacy, it side the prescribed paradigm.
is said, is about shared values necessary for social cohe- In the American political arena, the postmodern
sion among members of society. Thus, the resurgence trend is reflected in less party loyalty and the rise of inde-
of religious fundamentalism is linked to the desire for pendent voters—with a corresponding, and paradoxical,
certainty in postmodern times. Even some leftists have rise in partisanship. While there is more information
expressed contempt for postmodernism, seeing it as a available about government, opinion polls show that it
threat to political activism. Without agreed-upon norms, has not increased knowledge about what government is
P remillennial Dispen sationalism 43 9
doing. Information is largely communicated in sound millennialists, they believe that the return of Christ will
bites, even as government and other institutional Web precede (pre) the establishment of a thousand-year (mil-
sites post PDF files containing thousands of documents lennial) kingdom on earth (based on a literal interpreta-
and reports. There is a prevailing sense that issues are tion of Revelation 20:1–6). As dispensationalists, they
too complex, contributing to the popularity of pundits divide history into a number (usually seven) of distinct
who simplify issues and events, narrowcasting media that periods (dispensations). Many contemporary premillen-
construct narratives for a specialized ideological audience, nial dispensationalists are convinced that human history
and Internet bloggers who challenge the conventional is nearing the end of the second-to-last dispensation (the
media hierarchy. Politics lapses into entertainment, with “church age”); as the largest constituency of the Reli-
actors and professional wrestlers getting elected to high gious Right, they support political positions that line
office and presidential candidates obligated to appear on up with their view of eschatology. They are often criti-
The Oprah Winfrey Show. cized for accepting as literal the figurative and meta-
It has been argued that postmodernism is a condition phorical language of the Bible, such as insisting that
of contemporary life; like the weather, it is not something references to Israel pertain to the modern secular nation
an individual accepts or rejects. That attribute was de- rather than God’s spiritual followers.
scribed early on by Alvin Toffler in his best-seller Future In interpreting current events, premillennial dis-
Shock (1970), which details the short-lived nature of pensationalists seek “signs of the times” in an attempt to
products, families, and relationships in the contemporary pinpoint the fulfillment of specific prophecy from vari-
world. Even before that, media theorist Marshall McLu- ous apocalyptic biblical texts, including Ezekiel, Daniel,
han warned of postmodern developments then under way, and Revelation. They teach of the “rapture,” in which
pronouncing in the 1960s that “the medium is the mes- Christians who are alive will be “caught up” to heaven
sage” and predicting a “global village” of instantaneous (based on an interpretation of 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17)
communication. In the twenty-first century, the Internet and spared having to experience the “great tribulation” (a
is said to epitomize postmodernism, offering a vast store- term found in Matthew 24:21). The tribulation, a terrible
house of knowledge at the global level—culture that is cataclysmic upheaval but with a relatively short duration,
both high and low, entertainment and commercialism, is said to be followed by the millennium, characterized
a mishmash of visual images, competing narratives, and by Christ reigning with 144,000 Jews. The end of the
communication that is characteristically fragmentary world comes with a literal battle of Armageddon (referred
and fleeting. to in Revelation 16:16), in which Christ and the Jews
Roger Chapman successfully defend Jerusalem against the armies of a
reconstituted Roman Empire (world government). Then
See also: Deconstructionism; Fundamentalism, Religious; there is the Final Judgment, with Satan (also known as
Great Books; Internet; McLuhan, Marshall; Multiculturalism the Antichrist, who had misguided many by posing as a
and Ethnic Studies; Nuclear Age; Relativism, Moral; Revi- peacemaker) being eternally damned along with his fol-
sionist History; Science Wars; Sokal Affair; Structuralism and lowers while God’s people are ushered into the kingdom
Post-Structuralism. of heaven.
American culture was introduced to dispensa-
Further Reading tionalism by the Anglo-Irish evangelist John Nelson
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Darby, a leader of the Plymouth Brethren sect, who
Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. conducted seven preaching tours in the United States
Lyon, David. Postmodernity. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of (1867–1882). reeling in the aftermath of the Civil War
Minnesota Press, 1999. and undergoing social upheaval by industrialization and
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on urbanization, the United States proved a fertile ground
Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. for this new teaching. Unlike progressive postmillennial
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. eschatology that foresaw human civilization improving
Powell, Jim. Postmodernism for Beginners. New York: Writers and generation after generation to the point where it would
Readers Publishing, 1998. usher in a Christian golden age culminating with the
Second Coming, premillennial dispensationalism of-
fered a grim picture of the future: wars, famine, natural
Premillennial calamities, and escalating human wickedness. Darby’s
Dispensationalism dispensational system was further disseminated by (1)
The term “premillennial dispensationalism” refers to the Scofield Reference Bible (1909, 1917, 1967), a highly
the eschatological (“last things” or end times) belief popular annotated edition of the King James Version;
system embraced by millions of Christian fundamental- (2) The Fundamentals (1910–1915), texts sanctioning
ists, evangelicals, and Pentecostal Protestants. As pre- premillennial dispensationalism as fundamentalist or-
440 P remillennial Dispen sationalism
thodoxy; and (3) fundamentalist Bible schools such as Frykholm, Amy Johnson. Rapture Culture: “Left Behind” in Evan-
the Moody Bible Institute (1889), Dallas Theological gelical America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Seminary (1924), and Bob Jones University (1927). Kieruff, Stephen. “Belief in ‘Armageddon Theology’ and Will-
Graduates of the latter two institutions were instrumen- ingness to Risk Nuclear War.” Journal for the Scientific Study
tal in making premillennial dispensationalism a part of of Religion 30:1 (March 1991): 81–93.
popular culture: Hal Lindsey, the author of the best-
seller The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970), is a graduate
of Dallas Theological Seminary; and Tim LaHaye, the Presidential Pardons
co-author (with Jerry Jenkins) of the best-selling Left A presidential pardon is a grant of release from the pun-
Behind fiction series (beginning in 1995), is a graduate ishment or consequences of a federal offense prior to or
of Bob Jones University. Perhaps equal in effectiveness at after conviction. President George W. Bush issued 189
introducing premillennial dispensationalist theology to pardons and commuted eleven prison sentences, the
the masses has been Jack T. Chick, who in 1970 began lowest number of any two-term president since World
producing cartoon tracts infused with the doctrine—over War II. In comparison, Harry S. Truman, who served
half a million copies have been sold. eighty-two days short of two full terms, issued the most
In the culture wars, the politics springing from pardons, commutations, and remissions of fines in the
premillennial dispensationalism tend to be antiprogres- postwar era, totaling 2,044. Dwight D. Eisenhower is-
sive, antiscientific, and infused with an otherworldly sued 1,157 in two terms; John F. Kennedy 575 in less
pessimism about human potential. As time draws near than one term; Lyndon B. Johnson 1,187 in less than two
to the end, society is expected to become more depraved terms; Richard Nixon 926 in less than two terms; Ger-
and immoral—precisely how premillennial dispensa- ald R. Ford 409 in less than one term; Jimmy Carter 566
tionalists have interpreted the counterculture, feminist, in one term; Ronald Reagan 406 in two terms; George
and gay rights movements. In addition, an apostasy is to H.W. Bush 77 in one term; and Bill Clinton 459 in two
occur within the mainline churches, which premillennial terms. Although most presidential pardons are noncon-
dispensationalists see as being possibly carried out by the troversial, in the culture wars certain pardons have been
Christian ecumenical movement and the World Council publicly perceived as a political abuse of power.
of Churches. Efforts toward world peace and the reduction The president’s authority to issue pardons is estab-
of nuclear arms are regarded as swimming against the tide lished by Article II, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution:
of biblical prophecy and perhaps causing an unwanted “The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves
delay of the Second Coming. Since prophecy suggests that and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except
the Antichrist will establish a world dictatorship, premil- in Cases of Impeachment.” The U.S. Supreme Court in
lennial dispensationalists opposed the Soviet Union and Ex parte Grossman (1925) affirmed that the president is
the international communist movement, just as they have authorized to grant pardons before, during, or after a
been negative toward the Roman Catholic Church, the trial. In Schick v. Reed (1974), the high court ruled that
United Nations, the European Economic Community, a president’s power to pardon is provided exclusively by
multinational corporations, and any form of governmen- the Constitution and “cannot be modified, abridged or
tal centralization. Since premillennial dispensationalists diminished by Congress.” With few exceptions, pardons
anticipate the rebuilding of the Jewish temple on the old are processed by the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the
site in Jerusalem (which for them would be a sign that U.S. Department of Justice. Despite the lack of constitu-
the rapture is near), they lobby for an American foreign tional restrictions on the conferring of pardons, specific
policy that highly supports the security of Israel. federal guidelines are in place to ensure an orderly review
of pardon requests, with recommendations forwarded to
Roger Chapman the White House. Shortly after Eisenhower became presi-
dent in 1953, he announced a new policy of openness in
See also: Bob Jones University; Chick, Jack; Counterculture; the granting of pardons, using the occasion to indirectly
Evangelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Israel; LaHaye, criticize Truman for issuing a number of pardons without
Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; Nuclear Age; Religious Right; So- first consulting with the Justice Department.
viet Union and Russia; World Council of Churches. The most controversial pardon was the one Ford
granted to Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Further Reading On September 8, 1974, in a national telecast announc-
Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in ing the decision, Ford explained that he was pardoning
Modern American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press Nixon for “any offenses against the United States, which
of Harvard University Press, 1992. he . . . has committed or may have committed while in
Clark, Victoria. Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zion- office” in order to help the nation heal. Since Nixon had
ism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. personally chosen Ford to succeed Spiro T. Agnew (who
P r ison Refor m 4 41
resigned the vice presidency while under a legal cloud), end of his presidency, George H.W. Bush pardoned six
many suspected a quid pro quo—that is, that Ford was individuals connected with the Iran-Contra scandal, in-
chosen as vice president with the understanding that he cluding former secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger,
would issue Nixon a pardon once becoming president. who was scheduled to go on trial. The prosecutor of
Ford denied the accusation, but he did divulge that the the Iran-Contra scandal, Lawrence Walsh, charged that
Nixon administration had discussed the possibility that Bush’s action amounted to a cover-up and that the out-
Nixon had the power, while still president, to pardon going president was simply hiding his own involvement
himself. Ford also admitted that certain Nixon staffers in the scandal.
had approached him on the matter of a possible pardon. President-elect Bill Clinton, commenting on Bush’s
But Ford maintained that there had been “no deal” and Iran-Contra pardon, stated, “I am concerned by any action
that his decision to pardon Nixon was “out of my concern that sends a signal that if you work for the government,
to serve the best interests of my country.” The pardon you are beyond the law.” Eight years later, however,
virtually ended the Watergate investigation, leading Clinton caused a brouhaha by issuing 140 pardons on his
critics such as Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) to declare last day in the White House. Most controversial was the
Ford’s action “the cover-up of the cover-up.” The politi- pardon of Marc Rich, a fugitive financier under federal
cal fallout from that decision is probably the main reason indictment for evading $48 million in taxes. The press
Ford lost the 1976 election to Carter. quickly learned that Rich’s pardon was lobbied for by his
Less controversial was Ford’s 1977 pardon of Iva ex-wife, Denise Rich, a generous financial contributor
Toguri D’Aquino, also known as Tokyo Rose. Her pardon to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Presidential
came long after she completed more than six years in Library.
prison for treason, specifically for broadcasting Japanese Not wishing to be accused of quid pro quo, Presi-
propaganda to American servicemen during World War dent George W. Bush in December 2008 pardoned an
II. Without offering an explanation, Ford pardoned her individual who had been convicted of real estate fraud,
on his last day in office, restoring her U.S. citizenship. but shortly afterwards rescinded the pardon after learning
Ford also began pardoning individuals who had been that the individual’s family had provided donations to the
convicted of draft evasion during the Vietnam War—a Republican Party. Although Bush issued relatively few
policy dramatically expanded by Carter, who, on his pardons, he set off his own controversy on July 2, 2007,
first day in office, granted unconditional amnesty to an when he granted clemency to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby,
estimated 10,000 draft dodgers. Veterans’ groups were his vice president’s former chief of staff, sparing him
angered by Carter’s blanket pardon, and Senator Barry from going to prison for perjury and obstructing justice.
Goldwater (R-AZ) called it “the most disgraceful thing Libby had been implicated during an investigation of the
that a president has ever done.” Although Truman had 2003 leaking of the identity of a CIA operative after her
earlier pardoned a number of individuals who had violated husband had written an op-ed piece accusing the Bush
the Selective Service Act or deserted during World War administration of misleading the public about weapons
II, most had already completed prison time. of mass destruction in Iraq.
The pardon granted to Nixon was not the only po- Roger Chapman
litical pardon. In 1953, Truman pardoned two former
congressmen: J. Parnell Thomas (R-NJ), once head of the See also: Agnew, Spiro T.; Bush Family; Eisenhower, Dwight
powerful House Committee on Un-American Activities, D.; Felt, W. Mark; Ford, Gerald; Iran-Contra Affair; Nixon,
and Andrew J. May (D-KY), both of whom had been Richard; North, Oliver; Truman, Harry S.; War Protesters;
convicted of fraud. In 1971, Nixon commuted the prison Watergate.
sentence of James R. “Jimmy” Hoffa, the former president
of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who had Further Reading
been convicted of jury tampering and fraud; this was a Krent, Harold J. Presidential Powers. New York: New York
controversial decision because of Hoffa’s earlier support University Press, 2005.
of Nixon. Reagan was under pressure to pardon certain Moore, Kathleen Dean. Pardons: Justice, Mercy, and the Public
figures involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, including Interest. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Oliver North, but declined to do so. In 1980, Reagan Ruckman, P.S., Jr. “Executive Clemency in the United States:
did pardon two FBI officials, W. Mark Felt and Edward Origins, Development and Analysis (1900–1993).” Presiden-
S. Miller, both convicted of directing the 1972–1973 tial Studies Quarterly 27 (1997): 251–71.
break-ins, without search warrants, of suspected hideouts
of Weather Underground fugitives. Felt probably would
not have been pardoned had his identity as Deep Throat, Pr ison Refor m
the Watergate informant, then been known. (He revealed For more than three decades, since the early 1970s, the
that role in 2005.) On December 24, 1992, nearing the United States has undergone an unprecedented wave
4 42 P r ison Refor m
of prison expansion, building and filling prisons faster for drug-related crimes increased from about 40,000 to
than at any time in human history. In 1972, federal nearly 500,000.
and state prisons held 196,000 inmates, with another With 70 percent of funding for the war on drugs
130,000 in local jails. Since then, the national inmate directed to law enforcement that results in high arrest
population has dramatically risen. By 2008, 2.3 mil- rates, treatment options for addicts became less available.
lion people were behind bars in America—far exceed- Doctors and others in public health argue that drug ad-
ing any other nation in the world—and costing tax- diction should be considered a medical problem rather
payers $60 billion annually. Many politicians, both than a crime, and believe that lack of treatment for ad-
Democrats and Republicans, designed and continue to dicts exacerbates demand. Those in favor of continued
support incarceration policies that mandate long pris- criminalization argue that the lifting of harsh sanctions
on terms even for victimless crimes. In many respects, will result in more addicts.
the packed jails and prisons (holding 751 people for Even though the vast majority of drug users and a
every 100,000 of the population) are symbolic of the majority of dealers are white and live in the suburbs,
culture wars. street-level law enforcement has been carried out pri-
Advocates of “tough on crime” policies assert that the marily in urban minority neighborhoods characterized
decline in crime rates proves that incarceration is the best by severe underemployment. In his book Breaking Rank
way to preserve law and order. Even so, a wide range of (2005), former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper ex-
professionals in the criminal justice system, from police posed racial profiling and the targeting of young African
officers and judges to legal aid workers and prison war- Americans. Critics argue that this approach to selective
dens, are in favor of reforming the current prison system. law enforcement has led to the disproportionate arrest
They argue that there are less expensive, more humane, and imprisonment of minorities and explains why, by
and more effective ways to solve crime at the community the 2000s, nearly half of all prison inmates were African
law-enforcement level. Those concerned with social and Americans.
racial injustice, together with the expanding numbers of In the era of prison expansion, meanwhile, crime
family and community members affected by what critics dramas and high-profile violent crimes involving ho-
call the U.S. incarceration binge, are also vocal supporters micides were commonplace in U.S. television program-
of prison reform. ming. Between 1990 and 1998, the number of crime
Much of the increase in the U.S. prison population stories on the network evening news rose from 542 to
can be attributed to mandatory minimum sentencing, 1,392. Media watch groups have likewise documented
such as the “three strikes and you’re out” law passed dramatic increases in stories about homicide, even while
in California in 1994 (calling for twenty-five years to the actual murder rate dropped 20 percent. Being “tough
life for any felony conviction following two prior convic- on crime” was considered a winning electoral strategy for
tions). In 2003, lawyers challenged the constitutionality both political parties, so campaigns that emphasized the
of that law in two cases heard before the U.S. Supreme need for “law and order” became election-year standards.
Court—Ewing v. California and Lokyer v. Andrade. In one While public fear of violent criminals and unsafe streets
case, a man was found guilty of stealing videotapes worth generates political support for long prison terms, statistics
$153 from a retail store on two separate occasions and about the real jail population belie that concern. During
sentenced to fifty years to life. The other man stole three the 1990s, for example, more than half of new inmates
golf clubs from a sporting goods store and was sentenced incarcerated in state and federal prisons were convicted
to twenty-five years to life. The justices ruled that the of nonviolent drug and property offenses.
law did not represent cruel and unusual punishment and After more than three decades, reformers believe that
let the sentences stand. Marc Mauer of The Sentencing changes in U.S. prison policy could be on the horizon.
Project, one of the main groups advocating prison reform, In an era of falling crime rates, crime seems to have lost
noted that, as a consequence of those rulings, California some of its potency as a political “hot-button” issue—a
taxpayers would spend well in excess of $1 million to trend that may bode well for agents of change. Financial
keep the two men in jail. concerns have drawn attention to the escalating costs of
The policies adopted in the mid-1980s that declared prisons at the expense of education and other social ser-
a “war on drugs” have also led to a spike in the incarcera- vices. And the failure of the war on drugs to substantially
tion rate. Increased criminalization for drug possession reduce substance abuse, along with the recognition that
resulted in long prison terms for many low-level dealers drug criminalization policies increase economic distress
and drug addicts. From 1985 to 2000, nonviolent drug in poor minority communities, has led to an openness
offenses alone accounted for 65 percent of the rise in the toward exploring alternative policies. Amid continuing
federal prison population. During the same period, vio- budgetary shortfalls in California, for example, Corrections
lent criminals accounted for only 6 percent of the overall Management Quarterly (1997) published a study demon-
increase. From 1980 to 2008, the number incarcerated strating that almost a quarter of incoming prisoners could
P r i vac y R ight s 4 43
be diverted to community-based programs, at a savings The Griswold decision opened the door to subsequent
of up to 20 percent for new prison admissions. In 1999 rulings that extended privacy rights beyond the issue of
and 2000, voters in Arizona and California, respectively, marital reproduction. First, Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)
approved legislation designed to handle thousands of guaranteed the right of unmarried couples to contracep-
low-level drug offenders through treatment rather than tion. This was immediately followed by the landmark
imprisonment. decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), which relied on the
Robin Andersen Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to
strike down a Texas state law prohibiting abortions and
See also: Gilmore, Gary; Horton, Willie; War on Drugs; Zero extended implied privacy rights to a woman’s right to
Tolerance. choose. This ruling represents one of the most contro-
versial Supreme Court decisions in American history and
Further Reading catalyzed the polarization of society.
Bennett, W. Lance. News: The Politics of Illusion. 5th ed. New The constitutional protection of privacy rights oc-
York: Longman, 2003. cupies a particularly contentious position in the culture
Donziger, Steven R. The Real War on Crime: The Report of the wars because it has incited battles on two fronts. The
National Criminal Justice Commission. New York: HarperPe- first involves the political and moral implications of the
rennial, 1996. Supreme Court’s decisions, which set social conservatism’s
Mauer, Marc. Race to Incarcerate. New York: New Press, 2006. commitment to traditional and transcendent principles
Stamper, Norm. Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the against progressive liberalism’s dedication to the freedom
Dark Side of American Policing. New York: Nation Books, of personal lifestyle choices. This struggle has primar-
2005. ily played out in the context of abortion debates. On
one side are social conservatives self-defined as pro-life,
who believe that abortion is morally wrong because all
Privacy Rights life is sacred and begins at conception. This position is
Privacy rights protect individuals from government represented by the Religious Right and groups such as
intrusion into their personal affairs. The right to pri- the National Right to Life Committee and Operation
vacy is controversial in the United States not least be- Rescue. On the other side are liberals self-defined as
cause there is no language in the Constitution or Bill of pro-choice, who argue that women have a guaranteed
Rights that explicitly guarantees such a right, yet it has right to complete control over their individual body,
been invoked by the Supreme Court to justify conten- including reproduction. This position is represented by
tious decisions on hot-button social issues. By declaring groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned
that reproductive rights, abortion rights, and gay rights Parenthood.
are protected by a constitutional right to privacy, the The second front on which the culture war over
high court has thrust itself into the middle of the cul- privacy rights is fought involves the procedural, and
ture wars. ultimately political, issue of how the Supreme Court ar-
The Bill of Rights, consisting of the first ten amend- rived at these controversial decisions. Specifically, social
ments to the Constitution, explicitly enumerates the conservatives have called into question the legitimacy of
individual freedoms and limits on government power the high court by branding justices who have supported
referred to as civil liberties. While the right to privacy the constitutional protection of privacy rights as “judicial
is not among them, Justice Louis Brandeis argued in his activists.” This pejorative term connotes the willingness
dissent in Olmstead v. United States (1928) that the docu- of justices to “disregard” the language of the Constitu-
ment was intended to embody the principle of limited tion and intent of the framers, and to base decisions on
government and therefore conferred “the right to be their own political convictions. In the words of Robert
let alone.” Yet the right to privacy was not formally H. Bork, a conservative denied Senate confirmation as a
recognized in constitutional law until Griswold v. Con- Supreme Court nominee in 1987, liberal justices “invent
necticut (1965), involving a state ban on the distribution a general right of privacy.”
of information about and the use of contraceptives. The This controversy was again inflamed when a Court
majority opinion, written by Justice William O. Doug- majority returned to the issue of privacy rights in
las, declared the law unconstitutional, claiming that a Lawrence v. Texas (2003). The majority opinion in this
married couple’s reproductive rights are protected from case, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, upheld the
government interference by implied “zones of privacy.” constitutional protection of sexual privacy, declaring a
These privacy rights, while not specifically enumerated, state antisodomy law an “intrusion into the personal and
were said to be found in the “penumbras” of individual private life of the individual.” Advocates for gay rights
freedoms guaranteed by the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, celebrated the decision as a major victory. Conversely,
Ninth, and Fourteenth amendments. social conservatives pointed to the decision as evidence
444 P r i vati z ation
of rampant judicial activism and rallied around Justice services, which are generally intended to improve the
Antonin Scalia’s dissent, which claimed “the Court has quality of life, invariably suffer when the profitability
taken sides in the culture war” and “largely signed on to of the provider is the primary aim. In addition, it is
the so-called homosexual agenda.” said, outsourcing has sometimes led to corruption, lax
During the 2004 presidential election campaign, governmental oversight, and increased costs to taxpay-
Republican incumbent George W. Bush roused the ers (including user fees).
overwhelming support of social conservatives by sug- Early proponents of American privatization included
gesting that judicial activism and the Supreme Court’s Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist
constitutional protection of privacy rights threaten the and author of Capitalism and Freedom (1962); Gordon
two principles they held most dear—the sanctity of mar- Tullock, the public-choice theorist and author of Private
riage and the sanctity of human life. This strategic use of Wants, Public Means (1970); Anthony Downs, the Brook-
the culture wars for political gain helped deliver Bush a ings Institution fellow and author of Inside Bureaucracy
second term in the White House. (1967); William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian
think tank the Cato Institute and author of Bureaucracy
Richard Gibbons Holtzman and Representative Government (1971); and Peter Drucker,
the specialist on modern management and author of The
See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Bush Family; Douglas, Wil- Age of Discontinuity (1968). It was Drucker who coined
liam O.; Gay Rights Movement; Judicial Wars; Operation the term “reprivatization.”
Rescue; Planned Parenthood; Religious Right; Roe v. Wade In 1969, after New York City municipal workers
(1973); Sodomy Laws. were slow in clearing the streets of a major snowfall,
recommendations were made for contracting out munici-
Further Reading pal services, including a proposal for privatized garbage
Bork, Robert H. The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction collection. However, the initiative was nixed after labor
of the Law. New York: Free Press, 1990. unions and others raised objections. During the 1970s,
Garrow, David J. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and Robert W. Poole, Jr., of the Reason Foundation, launched
the Making of Roe v. Wade. Berkeley: University of California a promotion of privatization via the newsletter Fiscal
Press, 1998. Watchdog (later renamed Privatization Watch). By the
O’Brien, David M. Privacy, Law and Public Policy. New York: 1980s, municipalities across the nation began outsourcing
Praeger, 1979. services—according to a survey of 596 American cities,
Roosevelt, Kermit, III. The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making privatization increased by 121 percent from 1982 to
Sense of Supreme Court Decisions. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni- 1992, with 28 percent of municipal services being carried
versity Press, 2006. out by private firms. By 1992, about half of the nation’s
Tribe, Laurence H. “Lawrence v. Texas: The ‘Fundamental Right’ large cities were contracting out solid-waste collection,
That Dare Not Speak Its Name.” Harvard Law Review, 117:6 with privatized prisons on the rise as well, beginning in
(2004): 1894–955. 1984 in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Long-term privati-
Warren, Samuel V., and Louis D. Brandeis. “The Right to Pri- zation of public water utilities increased from 400 in 1997
vacy.” Harvard Law Review 4:5 (1890): 193–220. to 1,100 in 2003. Controversy has occasionally erupted
over contracting out services to foreign companies—as
in 2006, when Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor
Privatization of Indiana, leased for seventy-five years the 157-mile
A topic of the culture wars since at least the 1980s, Indiana Toll Road to an Australian-Spanish consortium
privatization in contemporary America refers primarily for $3.8 billion.
to government outsourcing (contracting out) of public In 1985, President Ronald Reagan announced a fed-
services to private companies, or, more radically, the full eral initiative for privatization. He had been following
transfer of business ownership from the public to the events in Great Britain, where privatization had been
private sector (government divestiture.) A government- introduced by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who
issued school voucher that can be used to pay for edu- was swayed by arguments of the Adam Smith Institute.
cation at a private school is one form of privatization. During her tenure, many state-owned companies were
Supporters of privatization typically assert that govern- privatized, from British Petroleum (1979) to Rolls
ment is a public monopoly that raises money through Royce (1987). In addition, in 1988 the British govern-
taxation and consequently lacks the incentive to reduce ment began requiring competitive bidding for all local
cost and improve performance. With privatization, they government services. Although Reagan’s efforts led to
argue, the entrepreneurial virtues of choice, competi- the sale of few government-owned entities (one exception
tion, and efficiency can be injected into the delivery of was the 1987 divesture of the freight railroad, Conrail),
public services. Critics of privatization argue that public there was an increase in the outsourcing of many federal
P rog ressi ve C hr is tian s Uniting 4 45
support services, including data processing, building contracts. That same year, there were 163,000 nonmili-
maintenance, guard services, and food services. tary personnel in Iraq (including 6,467 armed-security
President George W. Bush, who viewed himself personnel), working as contractors for the Pentagon. Such
as continuing the “Reagan revolution,” tried to ex- reliance on the private sector, critics argued, was a way
tend the privatization argument to Social Security. In for the Bush administration to avoid implementing the
championing what he called the “ownership society,” draft by hiring “mercenaries”; at the time, contractors
Bush recommended that each American worker be al- represented 10 percent of the American presence in Iraq.
lowed to opt out of the public Social Security system Moreover, it was argued, since the battle-zone fatalities
and have the amount that is normally deducted from of contractors—more than 1,000 by 2007—are not part
his or her paycheck placed in a private account that is of the official tally of war dead, privatization enabled the
owned and controlled by the individual. In the face of U.S. government to minimize the true scale of the war’s
public skepticism, the proposal floundered. Bush’s pre- human cost.
sentation, observers noted, avoided mentioning that, in Roger Chapman
addition to providing old-age income, Social Security is
an insurance program that provides death and disability See also: Bush Family; Charter Schools; Cheney Family; Com-
benefits—something privatized accounts would fail to passionate Conservatism; Friedman, Milton; Reagan, Ronald;
match. Concern over the dismantling of the safety net School Vouchers; Social Security; Welfare Reform.
is directly related to the controversy over governmental
outsourcing—the workers of private firms performing Further Reading
the tasks previously done by government employees in Kahn, Si. Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens De-
many cases receive lower salaries and fewer benefits, mocracy. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005.
a common method for reducing operational costs. In Rasor, Dina. Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Priva-
2000, the Economic Policy Institute reported that 10 tizing War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
percent of the 1.4 million federal-contractor workers Reason Foundation Web site. www.reason.org.
in the United States were receiving wages below the Roland, Gérard. Privatization: Successes and Failures. New York:
poverty level. Columbia University Press, 2008.
Although Bush failed to reform Social Security, feder- Savas, E.S. Privatization and Public Private Partnerships. New
al outsourcing increased during his presidency, from $207 York: Chatham House, 2000.
billion in 2000 to $400 billion in 2006. According to the Shichor, David. Punishment for Profit: Private Prisons / Public
Federal Procurement Data System, private contracting in Concerns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995.
2005 amounted to $268.43 billion for the Department of
Defense, $5.49 billion for the Department of State, and
$10.33 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. P r o g r e s s i ve C h r i s t i a n s U n i t i n g
Of all federal contracts issued in 2005, only 48 percent Progressive Christians Uniting (founded in 1996 as
were competitive. In 2007, a no-bid contract worth up Mobilization for the Human Family) is an ecumenical
to $52 million was awarded by the Justice Department organization launched by John Cobb, Jr., and George
to the consulting firm owned by John Ashcroft, who had Regas in the Los Angeles area to provide resources for
resigned as attorney general in 2005—an award called Christian clergy, laity, and congregations that promote
into question by the Democratic-controlled House. progressive political activism.
There was also criticism aimed at Halliburton, the mili- Eager to debunk the presumption that Christian
tary contractor formerly headed by Vice President Dick theology is the exclusive preserve of Christian conserva-
Cheney, as its government contracts increased by 600 tives like Pat Robertson and James Dobson, the group
percent during the first five years of the Iraq War. In the challenges the Religious Right’s appropriation of the
viewpoint of many observers, privatization is especially Bible and Jesus to promote goals such as organized prayer
prone to political corruption. From 2000 to 2007, accord- in schools, pro-life legislation, and the teaching of intel-
ing to one report, the top twenty federal contractors in ligent design. In Progressive Christians Speak (2003), the
America spent $300 million on lobbying and $23 million organization denounces the Christian Right for promot-
on contributions to political campaigns. ing a “politics of nostalgia and fear” and a mythical past
Opponents argue further that privatization tends to when the United States was “harmonious, paternal and
make government activities less transparent, sometimes hierarchical.” Progressive Christians Uniting denies that
making it seem that government is being reduced when such a past ever existed while questioning its theological
in fact it is being increased by proxy. By the fifth year justification.
of the Iraq War (2007), the private security firm Black- Several contributors to Getting on Message (2005)
water Worldwide, with 850 operatives in the war zone, lament that religious progressives have allowed the
had garnered more than $1 billion in no-bid federal Religious Right to “hijack Jesus” for causes utterly
446 P romise Keepers
inconsistent with the spirit of Christ. The group seeks

to reclaim the progressive Jesus of scripture and discern
biblical mandates for diversity, egalitarianism, reconcilia-
tion, economic justice, and equity. Progressive Christians
Uniting argues that progressives are more faithful to the
import of scripture because the Bible is an intrinsically
progressive text.
A core set of theological beliefs, articulated in the
group’s Confession of Faith, inform the organization’s
work: (1) While professing commitment to scripture,
the sacraments, and Christian history, Christian pro-
gressives should also read scripture in light of the best
modern research. (2) Embracing, rather than resisting,
contemporary scholarship is the most responsible way
to apply Christian faith to the questions and concerns
of present-day society. By belief and temperament, the
Members of Promise Keepers, a men’s evangelical Christian
organization is largely optimistic with regard to human group that promotes traditional family values, moral integrity,
will and potential. The group envisions progressive Chris- and personal spiritual commitment, attend a gathering of
tians—sustained by the Holy Spirit and informed by the 25,000 adherents in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 2005. (Charles
tolerant principles of the Enlightenment—challenging Ommanney/Getty Images)
and replacing conservative religious, ethical, and social
norms with an inclusive and justice-centered option for surrounding culture. Although promoted as a ministry,
society’s marginalized and disinherited. Promise Keepers has a political aspect that has placed it
Progressive Christians Uniting publications, confer- squarely in the midst of the culture wars.
ences, and mobilization efforts have stressed the need Bill McCartney, former coach of the University of
for criminal justice reform implementing restorative Colorado men’s football team, started Promise Keepers
models, antisweatshop campaigns, treatment rather in 1990 after attending a banquet of the Fellowship of
than incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders, gender Christian Athletes that March. The organization’s first
equity, more accommodating immigration policies, and national men’s conference was held in 1992, attracting
environmental protection. The organization was highly attendance of more than 22,000. The movement grew
critical of the foreign policy of President George W. Bush, quickly after McCartney appeared on James Dobson’s
in particular the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Focus on the Family radio show in June 1992. Two years
later, Focus on the Family published the group’s mani-
Richard C. Goode festo, “Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper.” During the
summer of 1996, twenty-two Promise Keepers confer-
See also: American Civil Religion; Campolo, Anthony “Tony”; ences were conducted in outdoor stadiums, attended by
Creationism and Intelligent Design; Dobson, James; Evan- over a million men. The height of the group’s national
gelicalism; Fundamentalism, Religious; Religious Right; prominence came on October 4, 1997, with a rally in
Robertson, Pat; School Prayer; Sider, Ron; Wallis, Jim. Washington, D.C., called “Stand in the Gap,” which
attracted an estimated 600,000 men.
Further Reading Rooted in the tradition of revivalism, Promise Keep-
Cobb, John B., Jr., ed. Progressive Christians Speak: A Different ers maintains the mission of “igniting and uniting men
Voice on Faith and Politics. Louisville, KY: Westminster John to be passionate followers of Jesus Christ” through seven
Knox Press, 2003. promises. A Promise Keeper agrees to read the Bible
Laarman, Peter, ed. Getting on Message: Challenging the Chris- regularly, bond with other males, practice sexual purity,
tian Right from the Heart of the Gospel. Boston: Beacon, build a strong marriage, serve his local church, break down
2005. racial barriers, and transform the world through moral and
Progressive Christians Uniting Web site. www.progressivechris- spiritual integrity. Although membership peaked in 1996,
tiansuniting.org. Promise Keepers continues to hold conferences and develop
resources in North America and internationally.
In 2003, after years of the group struggling finan-
P r o m i s e Ke e p e r s cially, board member Thomas S. Fortson, Jr., replaced
An evangelical men’s movement based in Denver, Colo- McCartney as president. In a press conference in April
rado, Promise Keepers was created to help men remain 2004, Fortson announced that Promise Keepers was mov-
faithful to their Christian ideals and to influence the ing from a “movement” to a “mission.” He encouraged
P ublic B roadc a s ting Ser v ice 4 47
evangelical men to “prepare for battle” and “fight the B. Johnson’s Great Society. In 2009, the PBS network
culture war” for America’s soul. Fortson’s overt politici- consisted of 356 member stations across the nation and
zation of the ministry reaffirmed its connections to the U.S. territories, reaching more than 65 million people.
Christian Right. Promise Keepers maintains ties with Political conservatives who are philosophically opposed
such evangelical leaders as James Dobson, Bruce Wilkin- to federal funding of television think PBS should be
son, Jack Hayford, and Charles Swindoll. Although the privatized, arguing that the advent of cable and satellite
Nation magazine has referred to the Promise Keepers as a TV as well as the Internet has rendered public televi-
“third wave” of the Religious Right, taking over for the sion obsolete. In addition, conservatives have for years
late Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s complained that PBS has a liberal bias. PBS supporters,
Christian Coalition, the organization’s leadership argues liberals and moderates alike, argue that public televi-
that its stand is not political but moral. sion enriches society by offering meaningful program-
Groups such as the National Organization for Women ming that profit-driven broadcasters would never be
have argued that the Promise Keepers’ commitment to motivated to produce or air.
traditional patriarchal family roles, its opposition to From its broadcast inception of October 5, 1970,
abortion rights and gay marriage, and its “manly” ethos PBS has grown into an extensive and sophisticated
are a threat to women and democracy. Defenders point network. Broadcasts have included children’s programs
out that there is no uniform gender ideology among its (Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Barney and
adherents and that Promise Keepers calls on men to treat Friends, and the like); cultural programs (such as Mas-
their wives as equal partners, contribute more actively terpiece Theatre, American Playhouse, and Live from the Met);
to the care of children, and encourage spouses to pursue British television series (such as Upstairs, Downstairs);
vocational goals. While Promise Keepers has committed science programs (Nova and Cosmos); news programs
itself to breaking down racial barriers, others argue that (namely NewsHour with Jim Lehrer); and a heavy schedule
its evangelical reliance on individual relationships and of documentary programs. For fiscal year 2009, CPB
moral legalism prevent it from addressing the systemic awarded PBS $196.7 million for station grants and
causes of institutionalized racism. $76.8 million for programming. About 20 percent of
Kurt W. Peterson PBS funding comes from the federal government; the
rest derives from state and local governments, corporate
See also: Dobson, James; Evangelicalism; Falwell, Jerry; Family underwriting, individual viewers, and the marketing of
Values; Focus on the Family; Men’s Movement; Million Man PBS merchandise.
March; Moral Majority; National Organization for Women; PBS was founded for the purpose of bringing var-
Religious Right. ied programming to the airways at a time when there
were only three commercial broadcasters (ABC, CBS,
Further Reading and NBC). In a speech on May 9, 1961, Federal Com-
Bartkowski, John P. The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, munications Commission chairman Newton Minnow
and Godly Men. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, denounced commercial television as “a vast wasteland”
2004. that offers a “steady diet” of “westerns and private eyes.”
Conason, Joe, Alfred Ross, and Lee Cokorinos. “The Promise Such programming, Minnow said, is “obviously not in
Keepers Are Coming: The Third Wave of the Religious the public interest” and fails to cater to the “special
Right.” Nation, October 7, 1996. needs of children.” Six years later, the report of the
Hardisty, Jean V. Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence Carnegie Commission on Educational Television warned
from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers. Boston: Bea- that educational television, then consisting of 182 sta-
con, 1999. tions nationwide, would cease to exist without federal
Hayford, Jack, et al. Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper. Nashville, funding. In that context, the CPB was founded.
TN: W Publishing, 1999. Upon signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967,
Promise Keepers Web site. www.promisekeepers.org. President Johnson spoke idealistically about the “revo-
Williams, Rhys H., ed. Promise Keepers and the New Masculinity: lutionary” power of television to “change our lives.” He
Private Lives and Public Morality. Lanham, MD: Lexington expressed the hope that the public broadcasters would
Books, 2001. “direct that power toward the great and not the trivial
purposes” in order to “help make our Nation a replica
of the old Greek marketplace, where public affairs took
Public Broadcasting Ser v ice place in view of all the citizens.” He also stressed the need
A nonprofit public television broadcasting network, the for the CPB to be “representative” and “responsible.”
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) operates under the Ultimately, Johnson believed that public television and
Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Founded on radio would “enrich man’s spirit” by offering “more than
November 3, 1969, PBS is a legacy of President Lyndon just material wealth.”
448 P ublic B roadc a s ting Ser v ice
The CPB originally partnered with National Edu- that read, “Let’s Keep PBS and ‘Privatize’ Pressler.” In
cational Television (NET), which was founded in 1952 time, Gingrich admitted that Republicans had under
with funding from the Ford Foundation. However, NET estimated public support for PBS. During the presidency
had produced some provocative documentaries about of George W. Bush there was renewed controversy when
the Vietnam War and race relations, rankling conserva- Kenneth Tomlinson, the appointed chairman of the
tives. That is when the CPB decided to form PBS. Later, CPB, called on PBS to reflect “the Republican mandate.”
NET was absorbed by WNDT New York (and renamed Tomlinson later resigned under a cloud, but not until
WNET) and became an important PBS affiliate, along after he singled out the program NOW with Bill Moyers
with KCET Los Angeles, WGBH Boston, and WQED as being too liberal.
Pittsburgh. PBS has been in the spotlight of controversy with
Although it was envisioned for PBS to be indepen- respect to televised presidential debates, ten of which
dent of government control, that seemed tenuous after have been moderated by PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer.
Congress balked at providing an automatic earmark tax During the 2000 campaign, Lehrer wrapped up the
for public broadcasting. Consequently, the CPB would first debate (held at the University of Massachusetts in
have to make a budget request every year. The CPB board, Boston on October 3) by asking Republican candidate
moreover, was made up of political appointees. Beginning George W. Bush, “Are there issues of character that
with President Richard Nixon, who regarded PBS as part distinguish you from Vice President Gore?” For some
of the “liberal establishment,” attempts were made to observers, that question lent support to Bush’s partisan
get the CPB to dictate programming. At the same time, “values campaign.” When Gore suggested redirecting
Nixon pushed for PBS to decentralize (accede more power the discussion to focus on the nation’s problems, Leh-
to local stations) so that “grassroots localism” would rer asked, “Are you saying all this is irrelevant, Vice
dilute the East Coast liberal bias. In 1973, PBS won a President Gore?” For some observers, that episode made
partnership agreement from the CPB to standardize fund- Lehrer seem less than neutral. Later, during the 2008
ing distribution to guard against political interference. In presidential election, observers called into question
1975, Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Financing the neutrality of Gwen Ifill, a senior correspondent for
Act, providing a two-year advance appropriation to the the NewsHour, in connection with her moderating the
CPB to further protect editorial independence. This was a vice-presidential debate (held on October 2 at Wash-
compromise on President Gerald Ford’s recommendation ington University in St. Louis, Missouri). An African
of a five-year advance authorization. American, Ifill at the time was finishing a book on
PBS came under repeated attack during the 1980s. Barack Obama scheduled to be released on inaugura-
The documentary series Frontline was often criticized tion day—The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age
by conservatives, who wanted every program to show of Obama (2009)—which she had not disclosed upfront
“both” sides of an issue. PBS officials, however, thought to the debate commission.
in terms of an overall programming balance. Indeed, Roger Chapman
a 1975 District of Columbia Circuit Court ruling
affirmed this position, stating that balance is to be See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Federal Communications Com-
judged by the overall program schedule and not a single mission; Friedman, Milton; Great Society; Horowitz, David; Ir-
production or even a series. Meanwhile, conservative vine, Reed; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Media Bias; National Public
activist David Horowitz formed the Committee on Radio; Nixon, Richard; Privatization; Rusher, William A.
Media Integrity to document the “leftist slant” of PBS
programs on foreign affairs. Similarly, Reed Irvine of Further Reading
Accuracy in Media criticized the “communist” perspec- Auletta, Ken. “Big Bird Flies Right.” The New Yorker, June 7,
tive of the thirteen-part PBS documentary Vietnam: A 2004.
Television History (1983). On the other side, liberals Bullert, B.J. Public Television: Politics and the Battle over Docu-
noted that PBS had aired a number of conservative mentary Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
programs, from Firing Line, hosted by William F. Press, 1997.
Buckley, Jr., to Milton and Rose Friedman’s ten-part Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting. A
Free to Choose (1980). Public Trust. New York: Bantam, 1979.
Following the 1995 Republican takeover of the Day, James. The Vanishing Vision: The Inside Story of Public Televi-
House of Representatives, Speaker Newt Gingrich (R- sion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
GA) called public broadcasting “an elitist enterprise” and Engelman, Ralph. Public Radio and Television in America: A
announced his goal to “zero out” its public funding. Gin- Political History. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.
grich was joined in that pledge by Representative Larry PBS Web site. www.pbs.org.
Pressler (R-SD), who two years later lost reelection in a Stewart, David. The PBS Companion: A History of Public Television.
campaign in which detractors passed out bumper stickers New York: TV Books, 1999.
P unk Rock 449
P u n k Ro c k and Washington, D.C., with bands such as Black Flag,

Outrageous, confrontational, and outside the main- the Dead Kennedys (fronted by Jello Biafra), and Minor
stream of conventional rock-and-roll culture, punk rock Threat. Mass media quickly picked up the hardcore ste-
conjures images of ripped T-shirts, Mohawk haircuts, reotype of anarchy dressed in ripped jeans; punks were
and safety pins. This youth subculture, however, has demonized on film (Class of 1984, 1982) and television
involved more than music and fashion. Railing against (Quincy, 1982). To the mainstream, hardcore threatened
corporate culture, suburbia, and conservative politics in the social order.
the late 1970s and 1980s, punks were primarily young, Punks fought this misrepresentation in their music
white, middle-class males. Through “in your face” mu- and in “zines” (noncommercial fan magazines), the most
sic and lifestyle, punks attempted to merge the shock of well known being Maximum RocknRoll. Such DIY com-
avant-garde rebellion and New Left protest traditions at munication networks were outlets for punk political
a time when liberalism was on the wane. With a do-it- and social action in going against the Establishment. To
yourself (DIY) ethic of self-production, punks rejected punks, Reaganism merged with the evils of corporatiza-
the corporatization of music, the Reagan Revolution’s tion. This disdain was counter to Reagan-era optimism,
conservative values, and the mainstream media’s nega- as actualized by punk’s use of “direct action” in which
tive stereotypes of punk. radical protest strategies of the 1960s, like guerrilla
The roots of punk rock extend to the mid-1960s theater, were made more aggressive. For example, in one
garage rock of Link Wray, and late 1960s fringe rock particular demonstration, punks staged “die-ins” (mass
bands such as the Stooges and the MC5. Punk rock itself mock deaths), posed as fanatical Christians, and threw
originated in the mid-1970s with a group of New York fake blood at fur stores. This culminated in a mass-action
City musicians inspired by beatniks, the Velvet Under- day called “No Business As Usual Day” (NBAU) on April
ground, and its patron, Andy Warhol. Congregating at 29, 1985. Aimed at the escalating arms race, NBAU con-
CBGB-OMFUG, a bar in New York’s Bowery District, certs and die-ins were staged in cities across the country,
early punks such as Patti Smith and Richard Hell took a including Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco.
populist stance similar to that of their hippie forebears. Political activity grew between 1984 and 1986: Posi-
Their minimalist fashion sense and avant-garde approach tive Force, a punk political organization with chapters
to music formed the foundation for the DIY ethic, while across the United States, arranged concerts for com-
the New York Dolls brought glamour and intensity to munity and international causes such as anti-apartheid;
the movement. At a 1975 CBGB showcase, punk received and a road show called Rock Against Reagan toured the
international press attention. Record companies were country. Punks were keen to act but were not interested
particularly interested in the Ramones, whose music in sophisticated intellectual analysis and lacked long-term
was sparse and powerful, and who would push the punk political vision. Anarchy may have formed the move-
movement beyond the artistic realm. ment’s core, but voluntary cooperation was the goal, not
On a British tour in 1976, the Ramones brought chaos. Because of the movement’s ahistorical perspec-
American punk sensibilities to that country’s youth. tive, a coherent plan for political change could never be
British punk took the New York framework and created achieved. Punks used New Left protest tactics but did not
an outlet for working-class rage. This often anarchic see the legacy that informed these actions as something
expression of generational discontent was epitomized by to be built upon to obtain their own goals.
the Sex Pistols, who reveled in confrontation and shock As punk political action peaked, the subculture’s
value. In 1976, the Sex Pistols’ anthem “Anarchy in the limits crystallized. Commercialism and commodification
UK” helped create the impression that punk rock was were the source of punk ire and anxiety. Many youths were
to be feared. In a June 1977 NBC news report on punk drawn not to the movement’s activism but to its style.
in Britain, the movement was represented as violent and Punk rock could not hold back consumerism, and the
nihilistic, a threat to mainstream society. The report subculture was opened to the masses. Bands such as Green
brought attention to American punks and inadvertently Day made the “new” punk—grunge—a corporate suc-
created a social phenomenon. cess. Like the counterculture a generation before it, punk
While the American artistic punk scene mellowed became exclusionary, going underground as conservatism
into the New Wave (epitomized by Blondie) by the early rose and consumer culture embraced rebellion.
1980s, a harder, more political punk filled the void. This Anna Zuschlag
angrier, more extreme punk (known as hardcore) came
from punks who refused to fall prey to the cooptation that See also: Biafra, Jello; Counterculture; Family Values; Fur;
had begun to take place with media exposure, especially Generations and Generational Conflict; Rap Music; Reagan,
with the spread of cable television channels such as MTV. Ronald; Record Warning Labels; Rock and Roll; Warhol,
Hardcore punk emerged in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Andy; Zappa, Frank.
45 0 P unk Rock
Further Reading Mattson, Kevin. “Did Punk Matter? Analyzing the Practices
Friedlander, Paul. Rock & Roll: A Social History. 2nd ed. Cam- of a Youth Subculture During the 1980s.” American Studies
bridge, MA: Westview Press, 2006. 42:1 (Spring 2000): 69–97.
MacLeod, Dewar. “‘Social Distortion’: The Rise of Suburban Punk Szatmary, David P. Rockin’ in Time: A Social History of Rock-and-
Rock in Los Angeles.” In America under Construction: Bound- Roll. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000.
aries and Identities in Popular Culture, ed. Kristi S. Long and
Matthew Nadelhaft, 123–37. New York: Garland, 1997.
Q u ay l e , D a n
As the forty-fourth vice president of the United States
(1989–1993), former U.S. representative and senator
Dan Quayle (R-IN) personified the young conserva-
tives of the New Right. Critics viewed him as a political
lightweight; supporters argued that he was a victim of
liberal media bias.
The son of a wealthy newspaper publisher, John
Danforth “Dan” Quayle was born on February 4, 1947, in
Indianapolis, Indiana. He studied at DePauw University
(BS, political science, 1969) and Indiana University of Vice President Dan Quayle delivers an attack on the “liberal
media” and the Democratic Party during an August 1992
Law (JD, 1974), serving along the way in the Indiana God and Country rally organized by the Christian Coalition
National Guard (1969–1975) and various positions in the to promote family values. (Chris Wilkins/AFP/Getty Images)
state government (1970–1974). Entering politics during
the Reagan ascendancy, Quayle served two full terms in
the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–1981) and one they praised Quayle’s consistent support for reduced
and a half in the Senate (1981–1989). During his years on government spending and lower taxes, a strong military
Capitol Hill, he sponsored only one major piece of legisla- and the Strategic Defense Initiative (missile defense), and
tion, a job-training bill co-sponsored by Senator Ted Ken- traditional family values. It was this last issue that most
nedy (D-MA). In 1988, Republican presidential nominee engaged Quayle in the culture wars. In a now famous
George H.W. Bush selected Quayle as his running mate; 1992 speech in which he criticized Murphy Brown, a
many criticized this decision, saying the Hoosier was too popular television series character, for having a baby
inexperienced and lacked intellectual heft. out of wedlock, he was lambasted by liberals for being
Quayle’s 1988 vice-presidential campaign was intolerant. (He said the show represented a “poverty of
marked by unusually intensive media scrutiny. His poor values.”) Conservatives countered that Quayle had spoken
academic record at DePauw was uncovered (he was a C the truth about the importance of fathers and claimed that
student and failed his first attempt at the final exam in the negative trend of fatherless families in America was
political science); he was accused of using family connec- the root cause of poverty and crime in inner cities.
tions to get into the National Guard in order to avoid
the Vietnam War; and questions circulated about an E. Michael Young
overnight golfing event involving an attractive female
lobbyist. One of Quayle’s most embarrassing moments See also: Bush Family; Family Values; Gore, Al; Kennedy
came during his vice-presidential debate with Democratic Family; Media Bias; Palin, Sarah; Republican Party; Strategic
counterpart Lloyd Benson in Omaha, Nebraska. After Defense Initiative; Tax Reform; Vietnam War; Woodward,
Quayle stated that he had more experience than John Bob; Zappa, Frank.
Kennedy when he was nominated in 1960, Benson re-
torted, “I knew Jack Kennedy . . . Senator, you’re no Jack Further Reading
Kennedy.” Quayle was left speechless as the studio audi- Broder, David C., and Bob Woodward. The Man Who Would Be
ence cheered. He became fodder for late-night talk shows President: Dan Quayle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
and partisan magazines as his misstatements—many Fenno, Richard F., Jr. The Making of a Senator: Dan Quayle.
apocryphal—were chronicled. The most famous gaffe Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998.
took place during his vice presidency when, at a grade- Quayle, Dan. Standing Firm: A Vice Presidential Memoir. New
school appearance, he misspelled the word “potato” (as York: HarperCollins, 1994.
“potatoe”) on the chalkboard. Quayle partially redeemed Quayle, Dan, and Diane Medved. The American Family: Dis-
his reputation by performing well in the 1992 campaign covering the Values That Make Us Strong. New York: Harper-
debate with Al Gore and with the publication of his well- Collins, 1996.
received autobiography, Standing Firm (1994). Queenan, Joe. Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle and the
Many conservatives remained loyal, saying the press Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else. New York:
unfairly pounced on his every minor mistake. Further, Hyperion Books, 1992.
451
traces of nonwhite ancestry. By the end of the twentieth
century, racial classification became more complicated
with greater diversity from new immigrant waves and
the rise of interracial marriage. The 2000 Census allowed
respondents to identify themselves by choosing more than
Race one race from a list of fifteen choices, and to check “some
With its founding years steeped in slavery, the United other race” if none applied. Critics deplored the omis-
States built a legal and social system around the concept sion of “Arab” from the list, wondering why they were
of “race,” with legacies that continue to the present day. subsumed under “white” or “some other race.” Perhaps
A set of practices known as de jure segregation, or the most problematic from a statistical point of view was the
social separation of groups based on racial difference and recording of the Latino population: while some checked
backed by law, followed the abolition of slavery. Histori- “some other race” (believing themselves “Indian,” as
cally, use of the word race as a term to classify human they were known in their home countries), 48 percent
groups is a relatively recent one. It first came into use identified themselves as “white” and 2 percent “black.”
in late eighteenth-century Europe and was understood Political advocacy groups objected to the census list,
as group identity based on common ancestry and shared fearing it would artificially lower the number of people
physical traits. By the 2000s, de jure segregation had of color and ultimately affect affirmative action decisions
been abolished in the United States, but informal de and electoral districting.
facto segregation remained widespread even though the The concept and meaning of “race” has entered
concept of race as a definitive biological marker was be- prominently into the debates of the culture wars. As
ing questioned. Despite the improvement of “race re- sociologists and scientists were reaching a consensus on
lations,” people of color by and large fall short of full the meaninglessness of racial identity (except as a social
political and economic equality. construction), Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Mur-
Although physical anthropologists and biologists ray caused controversy by asserting in The Bell Curve
had attempted to categorize Homo sapiens by such racial (1994) that differences in I.Q. test scores were evidence
types as “Caucasoid,” “Negroid,” “Mongoloid,” and “Aus- of biologically inherited racial differences in intelligence.
traloid,” by the late 1900s anthropologists had reached A barrage of detractors responded, charging that the
a consensus that race is an arbitrary social construct and authors made assumptions about “essentialist” biological
not a scientific designator. At one time, even Irish, Ital- differences between groups, misinterpreted data, erred in
ians, and Jews were considered nonwhite. Sociologists reasoning, conflated social class with race, and ignored
and anthropologists today prefer the term ethnicity, which research that cast doubt on strong links between genetics
refers to a group that shares cultural affinities, such as and intelligence.
geographical and ancestral roots. Meanwhile, the post-1960s rise of new scholarship to
Despite the discrediting of the scientific category, include voices of people of color, revise historical texts to
American society has continued to grapple with issues of correct bias, and create new theory resulted in a burgeon-
race and racism. Laws against interracial marriage were ing interest in cross-disciplinary fields such as critical race
abolished; the “one-drop rule” method of determining studies, whiteness studies (examining the social inven-
blackness discontinued; and people of color were elected tion of “whiteness”), postcolonial studies, and African-
to public office at local, state, and federal levels, all while American, Latino/a, and Asian studies. “Culture studies”
social integration and equal opportunity have remained departments were established, providing curricula that
out of reach for many minorities. A trend toward the de critically attempted to “de-center” scholarly perspectives
facto resegregation of cities has been evident, ironically and examine the academy’s disciplinary regimes of power,
exacerbated by the upward mobility of African Ameri- using the terminology of French philosopher Michel
cans and the phenomenon of “black flight” (in the wake Foucault. At the forefront of the discussion was often the
of “white flight”) to the suburbs. In major metropolitan perspective of the “canon” or the so-called “great books.”
areas, neighborhoods and schools have redivided along While multiculturalists argued for scrapping the study
racial lines, characterized by economic disparities be- of inherited Western, “Eurocentric” works (or to at least
tween whites and people of color, while those who can augment it with contributions and critical perspectives of
afford to do so relocate for better school districts and marginalized groups, the global south, and the colonized),
areas with less crime. The highest indices of white- traditionalists such as Allan Bloom (author of the 1987
black segregation are concentrated in the Northeast and book The Closing of the American Mind) charged that to
northern Midwest. abandon the canon was to abandon America’s founding
In developing scientific measurements of population, religious and moral principles and to devolve into moral
the U.S. Census Bureau played a role in nineteenth-cen- relativism.
tury race categorization, carefully examining whites for The question of race explosively reentered the Ameri-
452
Rac ial P rof iling 453
can public sphere in the 2008 Democratic presidential for African Americans that they characterize it as be-
election primary with the success of U.S. Senator and ing stopped for DWB—“driving while black.” Follow-
presidential hopeful Barack Obama, son of African immi- ing the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, people
grant and white parentage. Revealing the unsettled state of Middle Eastern descent have experienced a greater
of the definition of race in American public culture were amount of police searches and surveillance.
the questions: “Is America ready for a black president?” In the culture wars most people agree that racial
and “Is he black enough?” Throughout his candidacy, profiling is wrong, but there is no consensus over what
Obama walked a fine line between an attempt to appeal actually constitutes the practice. Law scholars maintain
to groups across the racial divides and his stated commit- that the Fourth Amendment (protecting against un-
ment to address the disparities that communities such reasonable searches) and the Fourteenth Amendment
as African Americans continued to endure. He offered (guaranteeing equal protection under the law) render
the color-blind proclamation that “there is not a black racial profiling unconstitutional. In United States v.
America and a white America. . . . There’s the United Brignoni-Ponce (1975), for example, the Supreme Court
States of America,” but became ensconced in a spring ruled that it is unconstitutional for border officers of the
2008 controversy over language in a sermon by his pastor, Immigration and Naturalization Service to single out
the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that was critical of white people of Mexican descent for additional questioning.
America. Although Obama went on to win not only the Conservatives argue that purely discriminatory racial
Democratic primary, but the general election, becoming profiling occurs much less frequently than liberals claim.
the first black man elected president of the United States, What one side calls racial profiling, the other views as
there was no consensus on how this historic milestone criminal profiling. Public figures generally reject “hard
was to be interpreted with respect to the everyday lives profiling” (using race as the sole criterion), but “soft
of ordinary people of color. profiling” (using race as part of a larger profile) remains
Susan Pearce a contentious issue because the line drawn between the
two can be subjective.
See also: Afrocentrism; Bell Curve, The; Civil Rights Move- Conservatives, emphasizing law and order, argue
ment; Great Books; Hispanic Americans; Loving, Richard, that common sense would allow police to use racial and
and Mildred Loving; Lynching; Multiculturalism and Ethnic ethnic characteristics to identify possible suspects. They
Studies; Obama, Barack; Watts and Los Angeles Riots, 1965 note that federal officials, fearing they would be guilty
and 1992; White Supremacists. of racial profiling, failed to adequately investigate the
influx of Arab students enrolling at flight schools prior to
Further Reading September 11. Criticism of racial profiling is sometimes
Baum, Bruce. The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political seen as avoidance to address the disproportionate rate
History of Racial Identity. New York: New York University of criminality in certain racial and ethnic communities.
Press, 2006. Liberals who are skeptical of soft profiling suggest that
Hannaford, Ivan. Race: The History of an Idea in the West. Balti- hidden prejudice looms larger than what law enforcement
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. officials would care to admit. They also maintain that the
Livingstone, Frank B. “On the Non-Existence of Human Races.” rate of criminality should not be misconstrued with the
In The Concept of Race, ed. Ashley Montagu, 46–60. Westport, rate of arrest, especially if certain segments of society are
CT: Greenwood Press, 1980. subjected to greater police scrutiny.
Spickard, Paul R. “The Illogic of American Racial Categories.” Critics of racial profiling argue that police in America
In Racially Mixed People in America, ed. Maria P.P. Root, have historically targeted minorities for more intensive
12–23. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. policing because of blatant racism. As recently as 1999,
a drug sting in Tulia, Texas, a town of 5,000 people
with a small African-American community, resulted
Racial Profiling in the arrests of forty black males—about a third of the
Racial profiling involves the action of law enforcement town’s total. The arrests, based on the testimony of one
officials based on race, ethnicity, or national origins undercover narcotics officer, proved to have been made
rather than individual behavior or specific informa- with fraudulent evidence. Nearly all the suspects were
tion about alleged criminal activity. Incidents of racial released, but many served several years in prison. The case
profiling typically occur in the context of traffic stops, became the subject of several films, depicting an example
neighborhood patrolling, and airport screening. Afri- of blatantly biased police work in the drug war.
can Americans and Hispanics have often been subject Historically, most police officers in the United States
to this practice, especially by officers concerned about have been white; some harboring strong biases against
drug or immigration enforcement. Being pulled over by African Americans and other minorities. One solution has
the police for questioning is such a common experience been to recruit more nonwhites as police officers, particu-
45 4 Rac ial P rof iling
larly in cities and towns with large nonwhite populations. residents in their towns and cities. An undetermined
While this has helped reduce animosity between police and number had entered the country illegally, and others had
minorities in many cases, studies show that even minority overstayed their visas. In response to the demographic
police officers may police nonwhites more intensely. shift or local complaints about it, police stepped up
Beginning in the 1950s, civil rights groups such as their inquiries of suspects who appeared to be Hispanic.
the Urban League and the National Association for the In some regions they began asking for identity papers
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began cam- to check immigration status. Along the border with
paigning against bias and profiling in police work. More Mexico, border police stepped up efforts to stop the flow
radical groups, such as the Black Panthers and Brown of illegal drugs and other contraband and to curtail the
Berets, joined the campaign the following decade, some flow of illegal immigrants. Since it was not practical to
seeking to incite anger and resistance to law enforcement. search every person at border crossings, customs officials
The 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles, California, was also checked minority travelers at an increased rate. Of all
triggered by an incident that was regarded by the black women searched by customs officers in 1999, for example,
community as police racial profiling. 46 percent were black and only 23 percent were white.
Racial profiling emerged again as a national issue Controversy over racial profiling erupted again after
during the 1980s, as a rapid rise in the use of cocaine led the September 11 terrorist attacks. Travelers who appeared
to a sharp increase in violent crimes in major U.S. cities. to be Middle Eastern or Muslim came under intense law
The federal government intensified the war on drugs, enforcement scrutiny, particularly in and around U.S.
and police throughout the country targeted illegal drug airports, with Middle Eastern passengers being screened
dealers and users. Arrest rates in poor, inner-city neigh- more frequently. The 2001 USA PATRIOT Act allowed
borhoods soared, and jails soon were filled with alleged the U.S. attorney general to detain alien suspects for a
drug offenders. More than 75 percent of them were black week without charge. The government proceeded to jail
or Hispanic. In the mid-1980s, new anticrime legislation 762 aliens, most of them from Arab nations, on immigra-
allowed police to confiscate the property of drug dealers tion violations. Proponents argued that fighting terror-
and other criminals, including cars, houses, and other ism justifies close scrutiny of anyone of Middle Eastern
possessions. In the 1990s, states passed three-strikes laws origin. Opponents claimed that targeting Muslims or
and long mandatory sentences for repeat felony offenders. Middle Easterners for questioning was discriminatory and
Civil rights groups and minority leaders complained that unconstitutional and increased the risk of other terrorists
the laws prescribed longer sentences for the sale or pos- going undetected.
session of crack cocaine (most often used by minorities) Joseph A. Rodriguez
than for possession or sale of powdered cocaine, which is
much expensive and more often used by whites. See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Hispanic Americans;
In the 1980s, criminologists argued that if police en- Illegal Immigrants; Muslim Americans; Race; USA PATRI-
force “quality-of-life” laws against graffiti, panhandling, OT Act; War on Drugs; Watts and Los Angeles Riots, 1965
jaywalking, loitering, vandalism, littering, disorderly and 1992.
conduct, and minor motor vehicle violations, it would
send a message that a neighborhood was under surveil- Further Reading
lance and thereby dissuade more serious criminality. In Harris, David A. Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot
practice, police began detaining individuals for minor Work. New York: New Press, 2002.
infractions and searching on computer databases for out- Heumann, Milton, and Lance Cassak. Good Cop, Bad Cop: Ra-
standing warrants. During the 1990s, crime rates in many cial Profiling and Competing Views of Justice. New York: Peter
large cities declined, most remarkably in New York City, Lang, 2003.
where Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former federal pros- MacDonald, Heather. Are Cops Racist? Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
ecutor, encouraged the police to enforce quality-of-life 2003.
laws. In 1994, Giuliani’s first year in office, New York’s Meeks, Kenneth. Driving While Black: Highways, Shopping Malls,
crime rate fell by 12 percent. After an unexplained rise Taxicabs, Sidewalks: How to Fight Back if You are a Victim of
in 1995, it continued to decline during his eight years Racial Profiling. New York: Broadway Books, 2000.
in office. Critics charged that quality-of-life policing O’Reilly, James T. Police Traffic Stops and Racial Profiling: Resolving
encouraged the police to harass minority residents and Management, Labor and Civil Rights Conflicts. Springfield, IL:
go on “fishing expeditions” in search of illegal guns or Charles C. Thomas, 2002.
drugs. Conservatives pointed to opinion polls indicating
that most citizens living in high-crime areas supported
the enforcement of quality-of-life laws. R a n d , Ay n
In the early 2000s, people in many parts of the coun- A novelist-philosopher, Ayn Rand developed a brand of
try began noticing increasing populations of Hispanic atheistic libertarianism known as Objectivism, empha-
Rap Mu sic 455
sizing objective reality, rationalism, heroic individual- Religious Right. Rand’s literary heir, Leonard Peikoff, in
ism, self-interest, and laissez-faire capitalism, boldly 1985 founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in Marina
declaring selfishness moral. Although Rand’s writings del Rey, California. In April 1997, ARI activists dem-
have influenced millions, the academic community has onstrated at the presidential summit on volunteerism in
remained ambivalent about Objectivism, with many Philadelphia, protesting, “I Have No Duty to Sacrifice
scholars saying it lacks rigor. Early on, Rand’s ideology Myself.”
was rejected by conservatives such as William F. Buck- Andrew J. Waskey
ley, Jr., and Whittaker Chambers due to its atheistic
basis. Rand’s followers, often regarded as cultish, have See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Chambers, Whittaker; Rea-
been routinely denigrated as “Randoids.” gan, Ronald; Religious Right; Secular Humanism; Soviet
Rand was born Alyssa Zinovievna Rosenbaum Union and Russia.
on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia, into a
middle-class Jewish family. In her youth she developed Further Reading
a love of heroic, strong-willed individuals from reading Ayn Rand Institute Web site. www.aynrand.org.
French novels and studying the philosophy of Aristotle McDonald, Marci. “Fighting over Ayn Rand.” U.S. News & World
and Nietzsche. She graduated from the University of Report, March 9, 1998.
Petrograd with a degree in history (1924) and immigrated Sciabarra, Chris Matthew. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. Uni-
to America in 1926. Prior to working in Hollywood, she versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
chose the name Ayn (after a Finnish novelist) Rand (after Sharlet, Jeff. “Ayn Rand Has Finally Caught the Attention of
her Remington-Rand typewriter) to conceal her identity Scholars.” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 9, 1999.
and protect her family in the Soviet Union. Walker, Jeff. The Ayn Rand Cult. Chicago: Open Court, 1999.
After writing the dystopian, anti-Leninist novels We
the Living (1936) and Anthem (1938), Rand reached her
philosophical mark with The Fountainhead (1943) and Rap Music
Atlas Shrugged (1957). In The Fountainhead, which was With origins in the 1970s hip-hop culture of urban
made into a Warner Brothers film starring Gary Cooper New York, rap music became part of the culture wars
(1949), the hero Howard Roark, an architect, exemplifies after gaining commercial success and reaching audi-
Objectivist individualism by refusing to design build- ences beyond America’s black ghetto and urban cen-
ings that conform to societal aesthetic norms, going so ters. The stereotypical rap song that has caught atten-
far as to detonate a construction site rather than to see tion in the culture wars is storytelling delivered with
his plans altered. John Galt, the hero of Atlas Shrugged, fast rhyme, alliteration, and an accompanying beat,
is a similarly decisive figure. Respondents to a 1991 poll expressing concerns of the black underclass with lyrics
by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month that can be raw, boastful, aggressive, violent, sexist,
Club rated Atlas Shrugged, only after the Bible, as the homophobic, obscene, and mocking. Having emerged
most influential book they had ever read. from hip-hop culture (along with break dancing, dee-
Nathaniel Branden (born Blumenthal), a disciple jaying, and graffiti), contemporary rap music also re-
who had an adulterous affair with Rand, in 1958 founded flects a cultural dichotomy. On one hand, rap songs
the Nathaniel Branden Institute to systematize and pro- are often political, focusing on drugs, gangs, street
mote Objectivism. In 1968, however, Rand dismissed violence, rape, police brutality, and the like, offering
him from the movement. Her most famous disciple, a a message of defiance rather than hope. On the other
member of what she jokingly called “the Collective,” was hand, some rap music offers a utopian message of racial
Alan Greenspan, who went on to chair the Federal Reserve unity—though this form is often obscured by the dia-
Board (1987–2006). Many of Rand’s essays published logue of the culture wars and by rap music institutions
in the Objectivist Newsletter (1962–1966), the Objectivist themselves.
(1966–1971), and the Ayn Rand Letter (1971–1976) Outside of hip-hop subculture, the deeper cultural
were later developed into books—For the New Intellectual influences on rap include Jamaican “dub” and reggae
(1961), The Virtue of Selfishness (1964), Capitalism: The culture, African “griot” music, funk, soul, disco, and even
Unknown Ideal (1966), Introduction to Objectivist Epistemol- German “krautrock.” A key moment in the American
ogy (1967), The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution scene occurred when MCs (emcees) in urban neighbor-
(1971), The Romantic Manifesto (1971), and Philosophy: hood block parties (especially in the Bronx) transitioned
Who Needs It? (1982). from entertaining between songs or acts to “rapping” into
Rand died on March 6, 1982, in New York City. the next song. Commercial success for rap began with
Although some credited her with helping pave the way the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” (1979), which
for the conservative resurgence of the 1980s, Rand re- sold several million copies and spawned other rap singles
jected Ronald Reagan because of his alignment with the in the early 1980s, including number one hits by artists
45 6 Rap Mu sic
outside the hip-hop culture, such as Blondie, Falco, and has recorded hip-hop CDs, has argued that rap music is
the Pet Shop Boys. an expression of marginalized blacks who are victims of
Rap music almost immediately became a political capitalism and racism.
vehicle. As an art form, rap offered a musical outlet to Christopher D. Rodkey
those formally untrained or unable to sing, and it was
fairly easy and simple to produce. Its violation of tradi- See also: Censorship; Clinton, Bill; Gangs; Heavy Metal; Jack-
tional tropes of popular music also gave a musical freedom son, Jesse; Parks, Rosa; Police Abuse; Punk Rock; Record
rarely afforded in other music forms. As such, rap music Warning Labels; Watts and Los Angeles Riots, 1965 and
emerged as a liberating experience for the artist, who had 1992; West, Cornel.
an amplified voice to speak his or her mind about current
issues, not the least of which were race and class. One Further Reading
early master of rap, Afrika Bambaata, promoted a quasi- Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Gen-
religious utopian message while organizing block parties eration. New York: Picador/St. Martin’s Press, 2005.
in the Bronx. Other politically minded rappers emerged, George, Nelson. Hip Hop America. New York: Penguin, 2005.
including Lawrence Krisna Parker (known as KRS-One), Light, Alan, ed. The Vibe History of Hip Hop. New York: Random
The Coup, Success-N-Effect, and Public Enemy. House, 1999.
While rap was being appropriated by white culture Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contem-
for mainstream success, “gangsta rap” emerged on the porary America. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press/
West Coast. Most notably, LA rapper Ice T’s debut University Press of New England, 1994.
gangsta rap album, Rhyme Pays (1987), was a top-30 hit Sieving, Christopher. “Cop Out? The Media, ‘Cop Killer,’ and
record and the first rap album to be sold with a “parental the Deracialization of Black Rage.” Journal of Communication
advisory” warning label. The following year, the N.W.A. Inquiry 22:4 (1998): 332–53.
album Straight Outta Compton (1988) prompted a protest Watkins, S. Craig. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and
from the FBI in reaction to a song title featuring an the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston: Beacon Press,
obscene epithet against the police. Gangsta rap’s lyrical 2006.
themes focus on the urban realities avoided by pop music
and earlier rap music, and it is often accused of glorifying
gang violence. R a t h e r, D a n
In 1990, obscenity laws were enforced by the state Longtime television journalist Dan Rather signed off
of Florida with the arrest of a record retailer for selling from his final broadcast as anchorman and managing
copies of the 2 Live Crew’s As Nasty As They Wanna Be editor of the CBS Evening News on March 9, 2005,
(1989). Their music legally defined as “obscene,” the bringing to a close a career that spanned a half-centu-
members of the group that same year were arrested for ry and included firsthand coverage of virtually every
performing at a Fort Lauderdale nightclub. The album’s major event and issue in the postwar era—from the
first single, “Me So Horny,” became a top-30 hit with civil rights movement and the assassination of Presi-
little radio play, and the album eventually went on to sell dent John F. Kennedy to the Vietnam War, Watergate
more than three million copies, largely due to notoriety scandal, and post-9/11 world. He wrote several books,
from the controversy. including The Camera Never Blinks (1977); its sequel,
In the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots of 1992, The Camera Never Blinks Twice (1994); and Deadlines
social activist and minor hip-hop music personality Sister and Datelines (1999). His influence enabled him to se-
Souljah (Lisa Williamson) commented, “If black people cure interviews with such controversial figures as Fidel
kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill Castro and Saddam Hussein. Through all of this, he
white people?” Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, in a also encountered at least his share of controversy. In-
speech before the Rainbow Coalition, publicly denounced deed, his retirement in 2005 came amid charges of
Souljah’s remark as reverse racism, comparing it to the political bias and shoddy journalism in reporting on
hate speech of a white supremacist. Jesse Jackson dis- the politically charged issue of President George W.
missed Clinton’s comments as political posturing, while Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard during
Souljah countered that Clinton was acting as a racist. the 1960s.
From this episode was coined the term “Sister Souljah Daniel Irvin Rather was born in Wharton, Texas,
moment,” defined as the use of a “straw man” for politi- on October 31, 1931, to Byrl and Irwin “Rags” Rather.
cal grandstanding against a perceived extremist view. In He later credited his father with cultivating his interest
1994, the minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in in journalism and shaping his understanding. He once
Harlem, Calvin Butts, began a crusade against “mor- described Rags as an “impulse subscriber” and remem-
ally degraded” rap music, citing its negative influence bered his childhood home as always filled with local and
on black youth. Princeton professor Cornel West, who national newspapers. As a teen, Rather reported on sports
Rather, Dan 457
for the school newspaper. His interest continued to grow

in the early 1950s, after enrolling at Sam Houston State
Teachers College in Huntsville, Texas, with a major in
journalism. While still in college, he worked as a reporter
for local wire services and radio stations. After earning
his degree in 1953, he worked for the Houston Chronicle
and radio station KTRH in that city.
A major turning point in Rather’s career came in
1961, when he was hired as director of news and public
affairs by KHOU-TV, CBS’s Houston affiliate. For the
next four decades CBS would be Rather’s professional
home. Following the national recognition obtained from
covering President Kennedy’s assassination in Novem-
ber 1963, Rather was named the network’s White House
correspondent and went on to cover the Lyndon Johnson
and Richard Nixon administrations. In 1974, Rather
was named anchor and chief correspondent for the show
CBS News Special Reports and, in 1975, a correspondent
for the popular television news “magazine” 60 Minutes.
In 1981, upon the retirement of the legendary Walter
Cronkite, Rather took over as the network’s prime-time CBS television anchorman Dan Rather, a mainstay of the
news anchor and managing editor. network from the early 1960s, resigned in March 2005 over
Known as an aggressive investigative journalist a purported case of liberal media bias: a mistaken report
and interviewer with a sometimes volatile personality, on President George W. Bush’s service record during the
Rather was the center of national controversy on several Vietnam War. (John Chiasson/Getty Images)
occasions during his career. In 2002, 60 Minutes col-
league Andy Rooney stated in a television interview barred from flying after failing to report for physical
that Rather was “transparently liberal”—echoing a examination. The authenticity of the papers was im-
longtime and widely held view. In the context of the mediately called into question and, despite Rather’s
culture wars, Rather had come to epitomize a perceived insistence on the highest journalistic standards, they
bias in the media and was accused of harboring an were soon proven to be spurious. CBS was forced to
agenda that was both anticonservative and antigovern- retract the story and, after an internal investigation,
ment. Indeed, since his early days as a White House fired several producers associated with the story. Rather,
correspondent, Rather had struggled to overcome who had been planning to retire anyway, stepped down
claims that personal politics influenced his reporting. amid uncertainty over whether he was asked to leave as
The most famous example came in 1974, when, as a direct consequence of the incident. In any event, the
White House correspondent, Rather traded words with scandal was pegged as yet another example of a liberal
President Richard Nixon at the peak of the Watergate bias in the mainstream media. In 2008, Rather filed a
scandal. The exchange took place at a press conference lawsuit against CBS, seeking millions of dollars.
when, after Rather rose to ask a question, Nixon wryly
asked if the reporter was “running for something.” Put Liam van Beek
on the spot, Rather responded in kind: “No, sir, Mr.
President, are you?” The exchange cast Rather in the See also: Bush Family; Iran-Contra Affair; Media Bias.
spotlight and had an enduring effect on his reputation
as a journalist. Despite Rather’s claim that his “job is Further Reading
to inform, not persuade,” this was not the last time he Goldberg, Bernard. Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media
was caught in the political crossfire. Elite. New York: Warner Books, 2003.
Rather’s ability to endure and overcome criticism Rather, Dan. The Camera Never Blinks: Adventures of a TV Jour-
from public figures as well as fellow members of the nalist. New York: William Morrow, 1977.
media came to an end in 2005, in the aftermath of the ———. The Camera Never Blinks Twice: The Further Adventures of
so-called Bush Memogate scandal. The controversy be- a Television Journalist. New York: William Morrow, 1994.
gan in September 2004, when Rather reported a story ———. Deadlines and Datelines: Essays at the Turn of the Century.
on 60 Minutes that documents had been discovered in New York: William Morrow, 1999.
the files of President Bush’s former commanding officer Weisman, Alan. Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of
in the Texas Air Guard indicating that Bush had been Dan Rather. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
45 8 Reagan, Ronald
Re a g a n , Ro n a l d political views and, later, party affiliation. Central to

The fortieth president of the United States (1981–1989) this was a growing concern that government was taxing
and leader of a conservative revolution in American American workers to excess.
politics, former film actor and governor of California A belief that the Republic Party was more vigilant
(1967–1975) Ronald Reagan has played a central and against the spread of communism led Reagan to sup-
enduring role in America’s culture wars. Essential to port the presidential candidacies of Dwight Eisenhower
understanding that role is acknowledging Reagan’s life- in 1952 and 1956, and of Richard Nixon in 1960. By
long struggle against communism, his opposition to the the early 1960s, Reagan’s experiences with GE and his
expansion of the federal government, and his somewhat perception that the Democratic Party was becoming ever
contradictory positions on issues of moral controversy. more liberal on the issues of government regulation and
Far from being monolithically conservative on the issues taxation led him to take a more active role in the GOP.
most important to moral and religious traditionalists, His initial foray into politics came in October 1964,
the Reagan record is quite nuanced, with much of his when he delivered a nationally televised address—titled
rhetoric focusing on the war against communism rather “A Time for Choosing”—in support of Barry Goldwater’s
than on abortion, homosexuality, or feminism. presidential bid. Although he had established his repu-
tation as a Hollywood anticommunist crusader, Reagan
Early Life and Emerging Ideology used the speech to express his concern on a different
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, matter: the idea of government expansion as a necessary
in Tampico, Illinois. In 1932, he graduated from Eureka evil in postwar America. On the strength of that ad-
College, where he majored in sociology and economics. dress, California Republican leaders courted Reagan to
After a short stint working as a radio sports broadcaster, challenge the incumbent Democratic governor, Edmund
he passed a screen test with the Warner Brothers film G. “Pat” Brown, in 1966. Running on similar themes
studio in Hollywood and was hired as an actor in 1937. outlined in his 1964 Goldwater speech, Reagan defeated
He appeared in more than fifty motion pictures, with Brown by more than one million votes.
a hiatus during World War II, when he narrated train-
ing films for the armed forces. In 1947, he was elected Political and Cultural Issues
president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), serving as His background as an anticommunist and his first foray
head of that Hollywood union until 1952 and again into Republican politics are central to an understand-
from 1959 to 1960. Also in 1952, three years after a ing of Reagan’s role in the culture wars of the 1970s
divorce from the actress Jane Wyman, he married the and 1980s. His original and primary political concerns
actress Nancy Davis. Moving into television during the centered on the threats to individual freedom and re-
1950s, he became a host and regular performer on Gen- sponsibility posed by communism and big government.
eral Electric Theater and, later, the western series Death Contrary to the views of some culture wars adversaries,
Valley Days. he did not establish his political identity as an anti-
A New Deal Democrat during the 1930s and early abortion crusader or national moralist. Indeed, in his
1940s, Reagan spoke out on behalf of President Harry Tru- eight years as California governor, Reagan supported
man’s government-centered efforts to contain inflation and at least three policies antithetical to conservatives in
unemployment created by military demobilization after the culture wars to come. The first was a liberalization
World War II. During the course of the 1950s, however, of state abortion laws, for which Reagan argued that
Reagan’s views began to change. As president of SAG, he women have the right to protect themselves from the
developed a reputation as a staunch anticommunist. In fact, health risks associated with pregnancy. The new legisla-
he was later identified as a primary source of information tion widened the accepted definition of pregnancy risk
for FBI files opened on hundreds of suspected Hollywood to include mental and psychological stresses, resulting
communists during the McCarthy era. Indeed, Reagan’s in an increase in the number of legal abortions sought
activities during this period—including testimony before and preformed. The second policy permitted no-fault
the House Committee on Un-American Activities—reflect divorce in the Golden State. And the third barred dis-
his commitment to the Cold War struggle that would crimination against homosexual public school teachers.
become a major theme of his presidency. Reagan is lionized in conservative circles to this day
Reagan’s work as SAG president dovetailed into his for his generally “pro-life” position as president, suc-
next series of ideological battles, this time over the size cessfully appealing to the Religious Right in the 1976,
and scope of the federal government. As his film career 1980, and 1984 elections by opposing abortion rights
began to wane, he found work as a national spokesman for (except in cases of rape and incest). It should not be
the General Electric Company in the late 1950s. Regular overlooked, however, that in the late 1970s he was forced
duties included visits to local GE plants throughout the to apologize for the abortion law he signed as governor
year, providing experiences that led to a major shift in of California.
Record War ning L abel s 45 9
A moderate tone and hints of political conciliation and the proceeds illegally diverted to anticommunist
came through at various times during Reagan’s presi- Contra forces in Nicaragua). So enduring was his politi-
dency. In July 1981, he appointed the first woman to the cal influence, however, that as recently as 2008—some
U.S. Supreme Court—Sandra Day O’Connor. Continuing two decades after he left office and four years after his
his relatively supportive position on gay rights, Reagan, death on June 5, 2005—Republican candidates vied
via daughter Maureen, maintained cordial relations with for the claim of being in the conservative tradition of
the Log Cabin Republicans (a national gay and lesbian Ronald Reagan.
GOP organization). At the same time, however, he came Brian Calfano
under fire in his second term for ignoring the growing
AIDS crisis and giving little attention to the issue of See also: Abortion; AIDS; Cold War; Communists and Com-
unequal pay for women. munism; Gay Rights Movement; Goldwater, Barry; Iran-
Contra Affair; Religious Right; Republican Party; Strategic
Legacy Defense Initiative; Supply-Side Economics; Tax Reform.
President Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989
amid Democratic criticism—which has endured—that Further Reading
his conservative fiscal policies inflicted serious, long- Arquilla, John. The Reagan Imprint: Ideas in American Foreign
term damage on the national economy by implementing Policy from the Collapse of Communism to the War on Terror. New
major tax cuts (especially for the rich) at the same time York: Ivan R. Dee, 2006.
that he was dramatically increasing military spending. Collins, Robert M. Transforming America: Politics and Culture
During his presidency, the tax rate for the wealthiest During the Reagan Years. New York: Columbia University
Americans was reduced from 70 percent to 50 percent Press, 2006.
and finally to 28 percent. According to the rationale Diggins, John Patrick. Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the
known as Reaganomics—referred to as “supply-side Making of History. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.
economics” by proponents and “trickle-down econom- Skinner, Kiron K., Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson,
ics” by opponents—a reduced tax burden for the richest eds. Reagan: A Life in Letters. New York: Free Press, 2003.
Americans would enable them to invest more and thus Troy, Gil. Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the
stimulate the economy. Critics came to refer to the Rea- 1980s. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
gan years as the “Second Gilded Age” for the windfall
it brought the economic upper class. While the federal
debt tripled to $2.7 trillion during his presidency, the R e c o r d Wa r n i n g L a b e l s
wealth gap between the richest and poorest widened: Warning labels on recorded music albums, cassettes,
the share of total national wealth owned by the nation’s and compact discs (CDs) with the words “Explicit
richest 1 percent of families increased from 27 percent Lyrics—Parental Advisory” were adopted in 1990 by
in 1981 to 39 percent in 1989. the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),
Although the final demise of the Soviet Union did the industry’s leading trade group. The labeling system,
not come until after Reagan left office, conservatives instituted as a result of lobbying by the Parents Music
and others credit him with winning the Cold War. Ac- Resource Center (PMRC), was intended to restrict child
cording to the conventional wisdom, Soviet communism access to music with “offensive” lyrics.
finally collapsed because the Kremlin could not keep up The PMRC was founded in 1985 by the wives of
economically with the American arms buildup during several members of Congress and senior Reagan admin-
the Reagan years. It is argued, for example, that Reagan’s istration officials. Its spokespersons were Tipper Gore,
support for developing a missile shield known as the the wife of then-Senator Al Gore (D-TN), and Susan
Strategic Defense Initiative (referred to as “Star Wars” Baker, the wife of then-Secretary of State James Baker.
by critics) forced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to give In December 1984, Tipper Gore had bought Prince’s
up the nuclear arms race. According to critics, however, album Purple Rain (1984) for her daughter and listened
Reagan’s foreign policy was reckless, putting the world to the song “Darling Nikki,” which contained a descrip-
at risk of nuclear war, and prolonged the Cold War due to tion of masturbation. Finding such content inappropriate
the negative impact of his actions on Soviet hardliners. for children, Gore decided to mount a public campaign.
During his White House tenure, Reagan was mock- The PMRC goal was to inform parents of offensive lyrics
ingly called the “Teflon president” by his critics, who and to protect children from the dangers of “porn rock.”
regarded him as like a nonstick cooking pan because he Along with the National Parent-Teachers Association, the
was never stuck with blame for failed adventures—such PMRC lobbied the RIAA to develop guidelines similar
as putting U.S. Marines in harm’s way in Lebanon (where to those that govern the movie industry.
241 were killed in a 1983 terrorist attack) and the Iran- The RIAA was a fifty-five-member trade group
Contra affair (in which arms were secretly sold to Iran whose constituent companies produced more than 90
460 Record War ning L abel s
percent of the records sold in the United States. Although more stringent warning labels. Major retail outlets such as
warnings had appeared on many albums prior to 1985, Wal-Mart refuse to carry music with warning labels, thus
the wording varied and the design was often indistinct pressuring artists to produce music with unobjectionable
from the album cover. The PMRC hoped to institute uni- lyrics or to distribute “clean” versions of some albums.
form and visible labels that warned of explicit violence, The PMRC’s campaign to institute record labeling
the glorification of alcohol and illegal drugs, occultism, was linked to other social struggles over issues such as sex
and explicit sexuality. The organization also sought to education and pornography. Protecting the young from
have all song lyrics printed on the record jackets of all explicit sex also had implications for sexual expression
albums so that parents could screen the content of their among adults.
children’s records. Gill Frank
The PMRC’s attempt to regulate the lyrical con-
tent of rock-and-roll albums was informed by a number See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Biafra, Jello; Censor-
of other discourses on youth sexuality, including the ship; Counterculture; Gore, Al; Heavy Metal Music; Pornog-
1985–1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornog- raphy; Rap Music; Reagan, Ronald; Rock and Roll; Sexual
raphy (AGCP), which viewed pornography as corrupting Revolution; Wal-Mart; Zappa, Frank.
children and contributing to sexual violence against
children. Borrowing language from the AGCP report, the Further Reading
PMRC’s media campaign asserted that “rock music has Gore, Tipper. Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society. Nashville,
become pornographic” and harmful to minors. Following TN: Abingdon, 1987.
a publicity campaign about the dangers of “porn rock,” Nuzum, Eric. Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America.
the PMRC used its political connections to secure a hear- New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
ing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Web site.
and Transportation in September 1985. As Tipper Gore www.riaa.com.
testified, one of the committee members at the hearing
was her husband.
At the hearing, the PMRC was opposed by the Red and Blue States
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and popular mu- The tinting of states as either “red” or “blue” during a
sicians John Denver, Dee Snider, and Frank Zappa. The presidential election has been the media’s way of indi-
musicians asserted that labeling was a form of censorship. cating which of the two dominant parties won the cor-
Zappa declared that the efforts of the PMRC were “the responding Electoral College votes. Such color-coded
equivalent of treating dandruff with decapitation.” map displays—designating red for Republican and blue
Although the Senate committee claimed that the for Democratic—distort the reality of how people voted
hearing was strictly informational, the proceeding raised because of the “winner take all” voting system. Used as
the possibility of future legislation, which placed pres- shorthand in the culture wars, the two colors have come
sure on the RIAA to adopt the labels voluntarily. At to symbolize binary opposites: red for conservative and
the same time, the RIAA was lobbying for passage of blue for liberal, another oversimplification.
the Home Audio Recording Act, which would impose a The red-blue demarcation calls attention to the
tax on blank audiotape and home recording equipment, Electoral College system and how it gives greater weight
generating hundreds of millions of dollars for the RIAA to historically constituted geographies than to the actual
members’ companies. Critics of record labeling believed population. Each state, no matter how small its popula-
that the RIAA strategically agreed to the PMRC’s de- tion, is allotted a minimum of three votes in the Electoral
mands because the husbands of four PMRC members sat College—based on the constitutionally guaranteed two
on the Senate committee that heard arguments on the seats for the Senate and one for the House of Represen-
proposed tax legislation. tatives. Since there are a total of 435 seats in the House
On November 1, 1985, shortly after the first hear- and each state is allowed at least one, the remaining seats
ings on the Home Audio Recording Act, the RIAA and are divided among the states in accordance with popula-
the PMRC announced that they had brokered a deal that tion. Thus, rural states have an advantage in that they are
would require labels with uniform wording, design, and guaranteed a minimum number of Electoral College votes
placement to be affixed to all records with explicit lyrics. in a given presidential election; states with large urban
Regulation was to be conducted by the record companies. populations divide the remainder among themselves.
However, the labeling system was not implemented with There has not previously been a consistent attribution
regularity and uniformity by the companies until May of color to particular parties in the postwar era. Clearly,
1990, when the RIAA publicly promised to enforce its the use of red and blue are taken from the colors of the
own labeling system in order to stave off pending legis- U.S. flag to signify the inherent nationalism in both of
lation in nineteen states that would have required even the parties. Television, print media, and the Internet
Redford, Rober t 4 61
have been the primary purveyors of reductive voting Frank, Thomas. What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conser-
patterns that paint states in a broad swath of color rather vatives Won the Heart of America. New York: Metropolitan
than the micro-variation in the actual precinct results. In Books, 2004.
the highly contentious and legally contested election of Gelman, Andrew. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why
2000, the electoral map of red and blue states was con- Americans Vote the Way They Do. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
sistent across major television networks, newspapers, and University Press, 2008.
Internet sites for well over a month, a phenomenon that
appears to have permanently pigmented the two major
parties. Moreover, it contributed to a rancorous political R e d f o r d , Ro b e r t
divide within American society. The acclaimed film actor and director Robert Redford
The polar color schemata have loaded ideological is renowned for his work in such popular hits as Butch
resonances. In most postwar iconography, red was always Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973),
associated with communism, revolution, insurgency, and All the President’s Men (1976), The Natural (1984), and
passion. Blue was often associated with the status quo, the Ordinary People (1980, for which he won an Academy
Union Army, and rationality, but sometimes depression. Award for Best Director), as well as for his role in cham-
Red is traditionally used to note the left in European pioning independent filmmaking in America. Since the
politics. Blue is sometimes associated with parties that 1970s, Redford has also been prominent as an environ-
are proponents of capitalism and conservativism, such mentalist and supporter of Native American rights.
as the British Conservative Party. The dissolution of the The son of a milkman (later accountant), Charles
Soviet Union in 1991 began to dissipate the traditional Robert “Bob” Redford, Jr., was born on August 18, 1937,
color associations, but the polarization of political opinion in Santa Monica, California. In 1955, he attended the
and ad hominem style of broadcasting and print punditry University of Colorado to play on its baseball team, but
since that time have certainly reinforced the association he lost his athletic scholarship because of drinking prob-
of red for Republican and blue for Democratic. lems. In 1958, after working in the oil fields of Southern
The red and blue color coding has served as a proxy California and roaming Europe (studying art in France
for generalizations about the beliefs, culture, and ideology and Italy), Redford moved to New York City to study at
of a state’s population. Red states are said to favor conser- the Pratt Institute of Art and Design. But it was while
vative, moral-driven policies and to oppose government taking classes in set design at the America Academy of
regulation, social spending, public ownership, stem-cell Dramatic Arts in Manhattan that Redford discovered act-
research, abortion, and gay marriage. Blue states, in con- ing and began his professional career. After performing on
trast, are said to support personal liberties, government Broadway—most notably in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the
intervention in the economy, public broadcasting, Social Park (1963)—and various television series, he turned to
Security, scientific research, access to abortion, and gay film in the mid-1960s, achieving superstar status for his
rights. The generalizations are even extended to people starring role (with Paul Newman) in Butch Cassidy.
and their consumption habits: blues are said to live in Not coincidentally, a number of Redford’s films
the “Porn Belt” and “debauched dystopias,” drive Volvos, have resonated in the culture wars for their recurring
and drink lattes; reds reside in the “Bible Belt” and the theme of mistrust of the federal government, or Ameri-
“sticks,” drive pickup trucks, tote guns, watch NASCAR, can institutions in general. Such works include The
and drink Coca-Cola. Candidate (1972), which portrays the compromises and
Such characterizations are also seen in Web sites such disillusionment of an idealistic young candidate for the
as “Blue State of Mind” and “A Red Mind in a Blue State.” U.S. Senate; The Way We Were (1973), about the 1950s
While the broad abstractions have been thoroughly de- Red Scare in Hollywood; Three Days of the Condor (1975),
bunked by social scientists and political analysts, pundits about a sinister CIA conspiracy; All the President’s Men
still rely on these easy stereotypes, and they continue to (1976), about the Washington Post investigative reporters
have resonance in public discourse. who uncover the Watergate scandal (Redford plays Bob
Tom Mertes Woodward); and Quiz Show (1994, director), about the
television quiz show scandals of the 1950s and 1960s.
See also: Abortion; Democratic Party; Election of 2000; Gay Redford has also played in or directed several pictures
Rights Movement; Privatization; Republican Party; Same- with a strong environmental theme, such as Jeremiah
Sex Marriage; Science Wars; Stem-Cell Research; Transgender Johnson (1972), about a mountain man in the American
Movement. West during the mid-1800s; The Milagro Beanfield War
(1988), about a struggle between a poor farmer and rich
Further Reading developers; and A River Runs Through it (1992), about fly
Fiorina, Morris. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. fishing and growing up in Montana.
New York: Longman, 2005. In the 1970s, while making his home outside Holly-
4 62 Redneck
wood, Redford began buying property near Provo, Utah, populists and coal miners’ unions in the early twentieth
in a gorge of the Wasatch Mountains. Proceeds from a century adopted the term as an emblem of class solidarity.
ski resort he bought in the area—renamed Sundance Ski Newspapers of the day used “redneck” interchangeably
Resort, after his character in the 1969 film—helped sup- with “communist” and “Bolshevik” in describing violent
port the nonprofit Sundance Institute he opened in 1981. or rebellious unionists in central Appalachia. The term
As an alternative to the commercialism of Hollywood took on more widespread popularity during the Depres-
production, the Sundance Institute was founded as a re- sion, as southern poverty began to receive unprecedented
source center for aspiring filmmakers, screenwriters, and national attention.
theater artists, providing financial and technical assistance In the civil rights era, “redneck” retained a class-based
for creative artistic development. Beginning in 1985, the undertone but was used, most notably by Malcolm X,
institute began promoting independent films through specifically to describe white racists. The conflation of
the Sundance Film Festival, held annually in Park City, racial politics and white class identity was heightened in
Utah. The Sundance Festival quickly became the largest the late 1960s, when opponents of integration made ra-
independent film festival in the United States, and today cially charged appeals to working-class whites in both the
it remains the world’s premier venue for showcasing new South and the North, as George C. Wallace did during his
independent motion pictures. presidential campaigns. Amid the subsequent emergence of
Redford’s interest in environmentalism began in 1970 identity politics, whites readopted the term for themselves
when he successfully fought a proposal for an eight-lane to describe a conservative, anti-intellectual ideal. As self-
highway near his home in Provo. In 1975, he opposed application of the word increased in popularity, “redneck”
plans to construct a $3.5-billion coal-fired power plant took on a greater cultural significance at the expense of
in southern Utah—a position for which he was burned racial, political, and economic connotations. The word has
in effigy by 500 pro-growth state residents who referred been frequently used in country music lyrics since the 1970s
to the actor as “the hypocritical obstructionist.” Later, as to portray a masculine working-class counterculture.
part of a coalition of activists, he supported the permanent Because of its discursive malleability, “redneck” has
preservation of the area as the Grand Staircase-Escalante remained a commonly used word on both sides of the
National Monument. Redford’s interest in ecological issues political spectrum. Conservatives have used the term
also led to his involvement in Native American rights. In positively to convey an impression of white populism and
his documentary Incident at Oglala (1992), Redford con- negatively to dissociate the Republican Party from right-
demns the federal justice system for prosecuting Leonard wing fringe groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Liberals have
Peltier, a leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM) used the term to disparage opponents, particularly those
and activist, for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents. from “red states,” regarding issues such as gun control,
abortion rights, and public displays of the Confederate
Jacob W. Olmstead and Roger Chapman flag. And many people use the term “redneck” for whites
who fail to conform to bourgeois standards of living.
See also: American Indian Movement; Environmental Move- Some commentators condemn the use of “redneck”
ment; Hollywood Ten; McCarthyism; Watergate; Woodward, because it promotes class stratification. They argue that
Bob. the word’s dual role as a cultural and economic signifier
justifies depictions of poverty as a lifestyle choice. Jim
Further Reading Goad’s polemic The Redneck Manifesto (1997) attempted
Downing, David. Robert Redford. New York: St. Martin’s Press, to reestablish “redneck” within a context of radical class
1982. consciousness among poor whites, and to reprimand
Quirk, Lawrence J., and William Schoell. The Sundance Kid: urban liberals for ignoring economic inequality among
An Unauthorized Biography of Robert Redford. Lanham, MD: white Americans.
Taylor Trade, 2006. T.R.C. Hutton
Spada, James. The Films of Robert Redford. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel
Press, 1977. See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Civil Rights Movement; Con-
federate Flag; Country Music; Gun Control; Labor Unions;
Malcolm X; Race; Red and Blue States; Republican Party;
Re d n e c k Wallace, George.
The term “redneck” as a description of rural, working-
class whites may date back to British usage but is now Further Reading
most commonly associated with poor whites in the Boney, F.N. “The Redneck.” Georgia Review 25:3 (1971):
American South. It is derived from the sunburned skin 333–42.
acquired from outdoor manual labor. Goad, Jim. The Redneck Manifesto. New York: Simon & Schuster,
Although “redneck” is often a pejorative, southern 1997.
Reed , Ralph 4 63
Huber, Patrick J. “Redneck: A Short Note from American Labor

History.” American Speech 69:1 (1994): 106–10.
———. “A Short History of Redneck: The Fashioning of South-
ern White Masculine Identity.” Southern Cultures 1:2 (1995):
145–66.
Jarosz, Lucy, and Victoria Lawson. “‘Sophisticated People Versus
Rednecks’: Economic Restructuring and Class Difference in
America’s West.” Antipode 34:1 (2002): 8–27.
Re e d , R a l p h
Ralph Reed, a conservative political activist and lead-
er of the Religious Right during the 1990s, came to
prominence when Pat Robertson named him as the first
executive director of the Christian Coalition in 1989.
Reed’s work at that fundamental Christian advocacy
group heralded a new era of political sophistication for Named executive director of the Christian Coalition at age
evangelicals in America, translating their concerns into twenty-eight, Ralph Reed played a key role in translating
evangelical principles into a viable political agenda. He left the
a political platform. Allegations of financial impropri- organization over allegations of financial impropriety in 1997
ety ultimately tarnished Reed’s reputation among the and launched a consulting firm. (AP Images/Dennis Cook)
evangelical faithful, however, and he left the Coalition
in 1997 to start a political consulting firm and otherwise the Federal Election Commission for alleged violations
promote a right-wing fundamentalist agenda—only to of federal campaign law in distributing voter guides and
become embroiled in another financial scandal. directly supporting Republican campaigns, including the
The son of a U.S. Navy surgeon, Ralph Eugene Reed, reelection of Congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and
Jr., was born on June 24, 1961, in Portsmouth, Virginia. Oliver North’s U.S. Senate bid in Virginia.
Raised a Methodist, he became an evangelical Christian Upon leaving the Christian Coalition, Reed formed
while attending the University of Georgia (BA, history, Century Strategies, an Atlanta-based lobbying firm with
1985). As an undergraduate, Reed devoted much of his a Republican clientele. He also served as chairman of the
time to GOP causes, serving as executive director of the Georgia Republican Party (2001–2003) and headed the
College Republican National Committee (1982–1984) and Southeast regional reelection campaign for President
as president of the National College Republicans (1983). George W. Bush (2003–2004). In 2005, Reed once again
Working to align Republican and evangelical concerns, he became ensnared in scandal, this time involving a former
was mentored by several prominent GOP strategists, namely mentor, super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who bilked Indian
Grover Norquist and Jack Abramoff. Reed completed his tribal clients of $80 million. Federal investigators found
education at Emory University (PhD, U.S. history, 1991). evidence that Abramoff paid Reed to organize evangelical
During his tenure at the Christian Coalition, based opposition to a proposed Indian casino that a rival tribal
in Chesapeake, Virginia, Reed focused on grassroots or- casino (and client of Abramoff’s) regarded as a threat.
ganizing by establishing local and state affiliates to help Reed claims to have been unaware that his work was
Christian activists develop a political capacity. He circu- helping an existing gambling facility.
lated voter guides at conservative churches to show where Many evangelicals expressed disappointment in
the candidates stood on abortion, gay rights, funding for Reed. Marvin Olasky, editor of the evangelical World
the National Endowment of the Arts, school prayer, and magazine, wrote that Reed’s involvement in the Abramoff
school vouchers, with the goal of increasing votes for affair repudiated the moral principles Reed had fought
Republicans. He also encouraged Christians to run for for at the Christian Coalition. Political commentators
local office and developed workshops to train Christians believe that his involvement in the scandal led to his
for advocacy work. At the 1996 Republican National defeat in the 2006 Republican primary for lieutenant
Convention, Reed successfully thwarted an attempt by governor of Georgia.
some delegates to remove from the party’s platform a Carolyn Gallaher
position supporting a constitutional amendment banning
abortion. Reed resigned from the Christian Coalition in See also: Abortion; Campaign Finance Reform; Christian
April 1997, after the group’s chief financial officer, Judy Coalition; Gingrich, Newt; Indian Casinos; National En-
Liebert, informed federal prosecutors that he had allowed dowment for the Arts; Norquist, Grover; North, Oliver;
a close friend and contractor to over-bill the coalition. At Religious Right; Republican Party; Robertson, Pat; School
the same time, the coalition was under investigation by Prayer; School Vouchers.
464 Rehnquis t , W illiam H .
Further Reading nix home in the 1960s that barred nonwhites from the
Gerson, Michael J. “Christian Coalition in Unprecedented Cri- property. Although some Democrats resisted the nomina-
sis.” U.S. News & World Report, February 16, 1998. tion, many recognized that Rehnquist’s intelligence and
Reed, Ralph. Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul experience would make him a more than capable justice.
of American Politics. New York: Free Press, 1996. Republicans saw him as a member who might shift the
———. Politically Incorrect: The Emerging Faith Factor in Ameri- high court in a more conservative direction. The Senate
can Politics. Dallas, TX: World, 1994. confirmed Rehnquist’s appointment by a vote of 68–26,
and he took his seat in January 1972.
It soon became clear that Justice Rehnquist would
Re h n q u i s t , W i l l i a m H . be as conservative as Nixon had hoped. He was a staunch
As an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court believer in the principle of federalism, trusting that lo-
(1972–1986) and as the sixteenth chief justice of the cal governments would be more likely than the federal
United States (1986–2003), William H. Rehnquist was government to reflect their constituents’ views. Thus,
associated with some of the most conservative rulings of whenever possible, Rehnquist stressed the importance of
that body and left the high court a more conservative ju- states’ rights and interpreted the Equal Protection Clause
dicial body than the one he had joined more than three of the Fourteenth Amendment more narrowly than the
decades before. Rehnquist presided over the Supreme liberal justices who preceded him. in his early years on
Court in two of the most contentious proceedings in the bench, Rehnquist became the justice with the most
America’s culture wars—the Senate impeachment trial sole dissents on the (Warren) Burger Court; he was also
of President Bill Clinton in 1999 and the case of Bush one of two justices to dissent in the historic case of Roe v.
v. Gore (2000), which effectively decided a presidential Wade (1973), which legalized abortion in America.
election. As chief justice—appointed by President Ron-
Born William Hubbs Rehnquist on October 1, 1924, ald Reagan to replace the retiring Warren Burger in
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he attended Kenyon College 1986—Rehnquist, along with fellow Republican ap-
(1942) before serving in the U.S. Army during World pointees, indeed shifted the Supreme court rightward.
War II. Upon returning home, he attended Stanford The first notable conservative ruling came during Rehn
University on the GI Bill, earning degrees in political quist’s first term as chief justice in McCleskey v. Kemp
science (BA, 1947; MA, 1948). After earning another (1987). In a 5–4 decision, the court refused to overturn
master’s degree, in government, at Harvard University the death sentence of Warren McCleskey, a black man,
(1949), Rehnquist returned to Stanford to complete his even though solid statistical evidence showed that the race
education in law (LLB, 1952). Graduating as class vale- of McCleskey’s murder victim likely was an important
dictorian, he was offered a prestigious clerkship for U.S. factor in handing down the death penalty. Then in Wards
Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson (1952–1953), Cove Packing v. Antonio (1989), the justices ruled that a
during which time the court heard initial arguments company did not discriminate against minorities even
in the landmark school desegregation case of Brown v. though strong statistical discrepancies existed regarding
Board of Education. Rehnquist wrote a memorandum to the races of employees and the positions they held. And in
Jackson in which he argued that the court should defer Shaw v. Reno (1993), the high court declared that North
to the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson and allow states to Carolina could not create a district that would increase
exclude blacks from public schools under the “separate the state’s percentage of minority representation, even
but equal” principle. Rehnquist later claimed that he though U.S. attorney general William Barr had ordered
had written the memo on behalf of Justice Jackson, but the state to adopt just such a measure. All of these rulings
legal experts have suggested that the memo represented marked a departure from the Supreme Court’s previous
Rehnquist’s own view. broad definition of racial discrimination.
After working in private practice in Arizona and be- Nearly a year after it was announced that he was
coming active in Republican politics, Rehnquist moved suffering from thyroid cancer, William Rehnquist died
to Washington, D.C., in 1969 to service as assistant on September 3, 2005, at age eighty. He was the first
attorney general in the Richard Nixon administration. Supreme Court justice to die in office since Robert Jack-
Upon the retirement of Associate Justice John Marshall son, for whom he had clerked, in 1954. In the interim,
Harlan in 1971, Nixon nominated Rehnquist to the in large measure due to Rehnquist’s influence, the Court
high court. Senate Democrats, regarding him as too little resembled the liberal (Earl) Warren Court of the
conservative, criticized the nominee for his Brown memo 1950s and 1960s, nor even the more moderate Burger
nearly twenty years earlier and noted other questionable Court of the 1970s and 1980s.
incidents from Rehnquist’s past. Among these was a deed Rehnquist’s tenure was a boon to conservatives, who
to his summer home that prohibited the sale or lease of had grown tired of what they perceived as the Supreme
the house to any Jewish person, and a deed to his Phoe- Court’s “judicial activism.” They regarded Rehnquist as
Relati v ism, Moral 4 65
a chief justice who helped reduce the influence of what Conservative commentators occasionally accuse
they considered unnecessary or unjust programs such as others of moral relativism or moral laxity if someone’s
affirmative action. They also applauded his concurring wrongdoing seems to be punished too lightly. Television
opinion in Bush v. Gore (2000), which ensured that con- commentator Bill O’Reilly, for example, has argued that
servative Republican George W. Bush would win election moral relativism is the world’s greatest danger. Some-
to the White House over his Democratic opponent, Vice times moral relativism is depicted as the inevitable result
President Al Gore. of the secularization of ethics, and colleges are frequently
Liberals, on the other hand, criticized Rehnquist not identified as intellectual sources of moral relativism,
only for his consistent positions on curbing defendant although many conservatives now see it as pervasive in
rights (in the name of law and order) and against civil American culture. According to Allan Bloom in The
rights and labor, but also for his failure to build a legis- Closing of the American Mind (1987), virtually all college
lative consensus beyond his own conservative bloc. The students believe that truth is relative. William J. Bennett
Rehnquist Court was known for an unusual number of in Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism
5–4 and 6–3 verdicts, resulting in a high number of dis- (2002) argues that moral relativism has become today’s
senting arguments that thereby weakend the strength of conventional wisdom.
court precedents. Liberals further accused the Rehnquist The term is often used to describe and criticize the
Court of engaging in right-wing “judicial activism,” as 1960s counterculture and its effects. It was widely used
it declared more federal laws unconstitutional per year in this way during the debates surrounding the impeach-
than any other judiciary in American history. ment of President Bill Clinton in 1998–1999. For some
of his critics, Clinton was a symbol of moral relativism.
Aaron Safane Journalist Joe Klein, for example, observed that the first
of the Baby Boom generation’s “alleged sins” is “moral
See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Bush Family; Cap- relativism.” The term also received attention when,
ital Punishment; Civil Rights Movement; Election of 2000; shortly before he was elected pope in 2005, Cardinal
Gore, Al; Judicial Wars; Kennedy Family; Warren, Earl. Joseph Ratzinger claimed that the world was moving
toward “a dictatorship of relativism.”
Further Reading The term “cultural relativism” is sometimes used
Davis, Sue. “Federalism and Property Rights: An Examination synonymously with “moral relativism,” but it more
of Justice Rehnquist’s Legal Positivism.” Western Political specifically expresses the more modest descriptive claim
Quarterly 39:2 (1986): 250–64. that moral beliefs vary from culture to culture. The term
Keck, Thomas M. The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The “moral subjectivism” refers to the view that moral truth
Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism. Chicago: University of is relative to the individual. Moral relativism tends to
Chicago Press, 2004. be identified as a form of moral skepticism and is often
Kennedy, Randall L. “McCleskey v. Kemp: Race, Capital Punish- mistakenly identified with moral pluralism.
ment, and the Supreme Court.” Harvard Law Review 110:7
(1988): 1622–61. Daniel Callcut
Lawson, Steven F. Civil Rights Crossroads: Nation, Community,
and the Black Freedom Struggle. Lexington: University Press See also: Bennett, William J.; Catholic Church; Clinton, Bill;
of Kentucky, 2003. Clinton Impeachment; Counterculture; Fundamentalism,
Religious; O’Reilly, Bill; Postmodernism; Secular Human-
ism; September 11.
Re l a t i v i s m , M o r a l
Moral relativism encompasses the view that there Further Reading
is no single true morality and that, instead, ethical Callcut, Daniel. “The Value of Teaching Moral Skepticism.”
norms depend on the society to which a person hap- Teaching Philosophy 29:3 (2006): 223–35.
pens to belong. Therefore, according to the relativist, Klein, Joe. The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill
there is no absolute morality that applies to all people Clinton. New York: Doubleday, 2002.
everywhere. The term “moral relativism” is employed Moser, Paul K., and Thomas L. Carson. Moral Relativism: A
with a wide range of meanings in nonacademic con- Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
texts, where it is used as everything from a synonym Shafer-Landau, Russ. Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? New
for tolerance to a synonym for immorality. Despite York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
this range of uses, the term has taken on considerable
symbolic importance. Many regard America’s culture
wars as a battle between moral absolutists and moral Re l i g i o u s F u n d a m e n t a l i s m
relativists. See Fundamentalism, Religious
466 Relig iou s R ight
Re l i g i o u s R i g h t private schools that were set up to avoid court-ordered

By the late 1970s, three important conservative con- public school desegregation (1978), further contributed
stituencies or pressure groups had emerged within the to the outrage of religious conservatives.
Republican Party: fiscal conservatives, national securi- Notable figures in the Religious Right since the
ty conservatives, and religious conservatives—the last 1970s have included the following:
widely known as the Religious Right. A counter to the
ecumenical Christian National Council of Churches and • Robert J. Billings, a graduate of Bob Jones Uni-
the liberal Protestant and Catholic clergy, the Religious versity, founder of the National Christian Action
Right represents a loose coalition of Protestants, Catho- Coalition (1978), a critic of government interference
lics, and Jews; the movement has been dominated, how- in religious schools, an administrator in the Depart-
ever, by conservative Protestants (chiefly “born-again ment of Education under President Ronald Reagan,
Christians”). In the close presidential elections of both and a founding organizer of the Moral Majority;
2000 and 2004, the Religious Right has been credited • James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family
with providing the margin of victory to Republican (1977), a participant in the White House Confer-
George W. Bush. Like Ronald Reagan before him, Bush ence on Families under President Jimmy Carter
had openly courted religious conservatives. (1980), and a panel member of the Commission on
Leaders of the Religious Right present themselves as Pornography under President Reagan (1986);
patriotic Americans who champion the traditional values • Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister and founder of the
that made the nation great. Critics warn that the Reli- Moral Majority (1979);
gious Right is a threat to individual liberty and cultural • Robert Grant, a graduate of Wheaton College and
diversity as it seeks to tear down the wall of separation Fuller Theological Seminary; a founder of the Ameri-
between church and state. Some opponents charge that can Christian Cause (1975), Christian Voice (1978),
the chief aim of the Religious Right is to establish a and the American Freedom Coalition (1987); and
theocracy. Within Christian circles, there are those who the publisher and distributor of “moral-issues report
criticize the Religious Right for fostering the view that cards” on elected officials;
there is only one divinely approved position on political • Bob Jones, Sr., founder of Bob Jones University
and social issues. Religious critics of the Religious Right (1926);
argue further that the work of churches is to win people • Beverly LaHaye, wife of Tim LaHaye, a Baptist
through evangelism and charity, not divide them by and founder of Concerned Women for America
engaging in political activities. (1979), which rallied to defeat the Equal Rights
The Religious Right began to form in the context Amendment;
of the Cold War, which took on religious dimensions as • Tim LaHaye, a Baptist minister and author of the
American politicians emphasized the inherent atheism antisecularist work The Battle for the Mind (1980),
of communism. After the surprise Soviet launch of the a co-founder of Christian Heritage College in San
satellite Sputnik in 1957, which marked the beginning Diego (1970), founder of Californians for Biblical
of the U.S.-Soviet space race, the American government Morality (1980) and the American Coalition for
began emphasizing science in school curricula, which Traditional Values (1983), and a prominent Reagan
rankled Christian fundamentalists who disagreed with supporter;
the theory of evolution, including the concept of an • Clarence E. Manion, a Roman Catholic, conservative
“old earth,” and were philosophically opposed to federal radio commentator (Manion Forum of the Air, 1950s–
interference in local classrooms. In the 1960s, religious 1960s), dean of the college of law at Notre Dame
conservatives were also alarmed by the burgeoning youth University, a founding member of the John Birch
counterculture, with its loose sexual mores, indulgence in Society, and the inspirer and publisher of Barry
drugs, student protests, and disdain for authority. Like- Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative (1960);
wise, religious conservatives were generally hostile toward • Edward A. McAteer, a Memphis-based marketing
the civil rights movement (and the mixing of races), the specialist and active Baptist, founder of the Religious
new wave of feminism (and the proposed Equal Rights Roundtable (1979) who influenced the conservative
Amendment), and the fledgling gay rights movement. takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention (1979)
U.S. Supreme Court rulings that banned school prayer and backed the election of Reagan;
(Engel v. Vitale in 1962 and Abington School District v. • Ralph Reed, executive secretary of the Christian
Kemp in 1963) and legalized abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973), Coalition (1989–1997), publisher, distributor of
combined with the decision of the Internal Revenue Ser- “Christian” voter guides, and conservative political
vice to strip private schools of their tax-exempt status if strategist;
they practiced racial discrimination (1970) and President • Pat Robertson, Baptist-turned-charismatic evan-
Jimmy Carter’s decision to withdraw tax exemptions from gelical; founder of the Virginia-based Christian
Reparation s, Japanese Inter nment 4 67
Broadcasting Network (1960), Regent University gram of relocation and internment of people of Japanese
(1977), and the Christian Coalition (1989); ancestry—including U.S. citizens (about 60 percent of
• James Robison, a Baptist and founder of the Texas- the total) as well as resident aliens. This coincided with
based James Robison Evangelistic Association a smaller effort affecting German and Italian resident
(1965); televangelist preacher; an organizer of the aliens. During the postwar period, with the success of
Religious Roundtable; and a vocal opponent of abor- the civil rights movement, the emergence of a new mul-
tion, gay rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and ticultural perspective, and the clarity of retrospection,
secular humanism; the injustice of Japanese internment and the issue of
• Francis A. Schaeffer, a Presbyterian recognized as reparations became a matter of national debate.
the father of modern fundamentalism, author of The relocation program banned people of Japanese
the antisecular A Christian Manifesto (1981), and an ancestry from residence in 137 areas on the West Coast
advocate of Christian activism to stop abortion; and the southwestern border of the United States. In ac-
• Robert H.W. Welch, Jr., founding president of cordance with Executive Order 9066, signed by President
the John Birch Society (1958), a disseminator of Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942, approximately
communist conspiracy theory, and an advocate of 5,000 Japanese were relocated outside the prohibited
limited government; areas, and another 120,000 men, women, and children
• Paul Weyrich, a Roman Catholic and chief organizer were interned in one of ten relocation centers run by the
of the Religious Right, headed the Washington, War Relocation Authority; the centers were not closed
D.C.–based Committee for the Survival of a Free until June 1946.
Congress (1974), coined the term “moral majority,” Although the ostensible purpose of the internment
and conceived the organization that later bore that was to protect the United States from sabotage or other
name; disloyal acts in support of Japan’s war effort, no effort was
• Donald Wildmon, a Methodist minister; monitor of made to determine whether any individual or organiza-
television programming for moral content; founder tion in fact posed such a threat; people of Japanese heri-
of the National Federation for Decency (1977), later tage were targeted as a group. A presidential commission
renamed the American family Association; and close established by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to study
associate of Jerry Falwell. the matter reported to Congress that the internment was
“motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria,
Roger Chapman and a failure of political leadership.”
Although some Americans at the time opposed
See also: American Civil Religion; Church and State; Dob- internment, the vast majority accepted this usurpation
son, James; Falwell, Jerry; Focus on the Family; John Birch of the civil liberties of Japanese Americans. And in Ko-
Society; LaHaye, Tim, and Beverly LaHaye; Moral Majority; rematsu v. United States (1944), the U.S. Supreme Court
Reed, Ralph; Republican Party; Robertson, Pat; Schaeffer, found the internment constitutional—a judgment that
Francis; Wildmon, Donald. has never been reversed. After the war, the U.S. govern-
ment maintained a list of potential subversives (although
Further Reading not based on ethnicity) and a detention plan in case of a
Balmer, Randall. Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right national emergency.
Distorts the Faith and Threatens America. New York: Basic When forced to relocate, many Japanese Americans
Books, 2006. lost not only their liberty but also their homes, busi-
Diamond, Sara. Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian nesses, and other property. In the aftermath, some initial
Right. Boston: South End Press, 1989. restitution was paid for actual property losses, but it was
Martin, William. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious not until passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that
Right in America. New York: Broadway Books, 1996. reparations were made to all those who had been interned
Viguerie, Richard A. The New Right: We’re Ready to Lead. Falls or relocated. Beginning in 1990, each surviving internee
Church, VA: Viguerie, 1981. was given a $20,000 cash payment, along with a letter
Wallis, Jim. Who Speaks for God? An Alternative to the Religious of apology from the government. The official apology,
Right—A New Politics of Compassion, Community, and Civility. signed by President George H.W. Bush, read in part:
New York: Delacorte Press, 1996. “We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But
we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that
serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans dur-
Re p a r a t i o n s , J a p a n e s e ing World War II.”
Inter nment Although many Americans have looked back on the
In early 1942, shortly after America entered World internment with a sense of shame and regret, the 1988
War II, the U.S. government undertook a massive pro- reparations legislation met with some resistance on the
468 Republic an Par t y
part of World War II veterans and such organizations foreign policies, it maintained a nationwide electoral
as the American Legion. And in a conservative backlash majority until the Great Depression.
after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, some
suggested that the Japanese internment provided a model 1930s to 1960s
for detaining suspects in America’s “war on terror.” From the 1930s through the 1960s the Depression’s leg-
acy caused most Americans to reject the GOP’s conser-
Larry W. DeWitt vative economic policies in favor of the Democrats’ New
Deal programs, as even President Dwight D. Eisenhow-
See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Civil Rights Movement; er, a Republican, conceded in the 1950s. Consequently,
Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Revisionist History; the GOP increasingly focused on cultural conservatism
September 11; Victimhood. to attract white southerners, Catholics, and other con-
servatives away from the Democratic Party. Early in the
Further Reading Cold War, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) and other
Daniels, Roger. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in Republicans achieved some success by attacking Demo-
World War II. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. crats’ loyalty. When Democrats professed staunch pa-
Hayashi, Brian Masaru. Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese- triotism during this period, Republicans sought other
American Internment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University wedge issues. By 1960, race had become a divisive issue
Press, 2004. between liberals and conservatives, but it was not yet a
Malkin, Michelle. In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial partisan concern. In 1964–1965, however, the national
Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror. Washington, Democratic Party under President Lyndon B. Johnson
DC: Regnery, 2004. supported the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime This began a chain reaction causing many cultural con-
Relocation and Internment of Civilians. Seattle: University of servatives to abandon the Democratic fold.
Washington Press, 1997. During the 1960s, many Republicans embraced cul-
tural conservatism to win over conservative Democrats.
In the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater’s (R-
Re p u b l i c a n P a r t y AZ) opposition to the Civil Rights Act helped him win
The Republican Party, founded in 1854 in reaction to five southern states. In addition, the tumultuous cultural
the expansion of slavery, has maintained identifiable events of the 1960s—the Black Power movement, urban
cultural positions throughout its history, and since the rioting, rising crime, the counterculture, the sexual
1960s has increasingly been identified as the politi- revolution, feminism, and the Vietnam War protests—
cal home of conservatism. Soon after its inception, the combined with a strong economy to shift voters’ concerns
party dominated the North, a region that was home to to cultural issues. In 1968, GOP candidate Richard M.
two-thirds of the nation’s population. This enabled Re- Nixon successfully pursued a culturally conservative
publican Abraham Lincoln to capture the presidency “southern strategy,” denying the Democratic candidate,
in 1860 without any southern electoral votes. Lincoln’s Vice President Hubert Humphrey, any southern electoral
Civil War legacy maintained a Republican majority in votes except in Texas.
the North, where the organization gained the nickname Since the Nixon era, Republicans have increasingly
“Grand Old Party” (GOP). But the “party of Lincoln” identified their party as the political home of cultural
was unable to make inroads into the culturally conserva- conservatism. As president, Nixon eschewed openly racial
tive white South until the civil rights movement of the statements to avoid offending moderates, but he won over
1950s and 1960s. culturally conservative Democrats by using code words
During the 1860s and 1870s, the GOP was identified that let them know he was on their side. For example,
with racial liberalism. But after the end of Reconstruc- he promoted “traditional values” and “law and order,”
tion, the massive immigration of non-Protestants, and the launched a “war on drugs,” and denounced abortion
rise of industrial capitalism, the party shifted to the right. rights, affirmative action, Vietnam antiwar protestors,
Thereafter, Republicans received support mainly from “forced busing” to integrate public schools, and “activist
conservative groups: native-born Protestants (especially judges” who ordered desegregation and protected abor-
evangelicals); people of British, German, and Scandi- tion and defendants’ rights.
navian ancestry; business; and the upper socioeconomic Nixon’s success in shifting the country rightward was
classes. To please these constituencies, the GOP promoted mixed, mainly because Democrats controlled Congress.
policies prohibiting alcohol, restricting immigration, He did effect some culturally conservative changes: push-
suppressing inflation, and protecting domestic industry ing through crime and drug laws, nominating conserva-
through tariffs. Although the party was split between tives to the courts, and expanding the Vietnam War into
conservatives and progressives on some economic and Cambodia. Still, many conservatives mistrusted Nixon
Republic an Par t y 469
because he was not a right-wing ideologue; he was a cal- who had raped a white woman while on furlough. As
culating politician. Consequently, much of his cultural president, however, Bush faced a Democratic majority in
conservatism was merely rhetorical, and he followed a Congress and cultural moderates in his own party, and he
generally moderate line in economic and foreign policy. achieved little of substance culturally besides appointing
Moreover, the Watergate scandal undermined Republi- conservative judges. He also presided over the U.S. victory
cans’ identification with “traditional morality.” in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Nevertheless, Nixon’s legacy bolstered conservative
influence in the GOP. On the one hand, he served as a 1990s to 2000s
rallying point for conservatives who admired him and Despite Republicans’ inability to enact significant cul-
hated the liberals who despised him. On the other hand, turally conservative laws, social conservatives remained
right-wing ideologues were pleased that the disgrace of loyal. They considered Democrats irredeemably liberal,
Nixon, whom they viewed as a closet moderate, opened and the GOP aggressively courted them. The lack of
the way for them to dominate the GOP. tangible results energized cultural conservatives to fight
harder within the GOP against moderates and libertar-
1970s to 1980s ian conservatives, who argued that government should
Since the 1930s, conservative intellectuals, politicians, not intervene in cultural matters.
and strategists had been working to take over the GOP. Despite their differences, Republicans and the con-
By the late 1970s, the backlash to the Democrats’ liberal servative movement united against Democrats, a stance
cultural, economic, and foreign policies had boosted the that hardened after Bill Clinton captured the presidency
conservative movement. For example, the populist New in 1992. Cultural conservatives disliked Clinton’s support
Right reinforced cultural conservatism at the grassroots for abortion rights, feminism, affirmative action, and al-
level, especially among white southerners and evangeli- lowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. The
cal Protestants. At the same time, Republican opera- GOP focused its attacks on the president’s “immoral char-
tives disseminated right-wing ideas to the rank and file acter,” using the federal government to investigate his
through targeted mailing, fundraising appeals, and tele- finances, womanizing, lying, and “criminal behavior.”
vision commercials. By 1980, conservatives had united By the mid-1990s, the Republicans had achieved
behind Republican Ronald Reagan. an electoral majority in the South, and nationwide, by
Reagan was the most culturally conservative president applying conservative rhetoric and attacks on Clinton’s
since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He emphasized reli- character. GOP congressional candidates united behind
gion, supported organized prayer in public schools, and Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” (1994), which
wooed conservative televangelists such as Pat Robertson proposed a number of culturally conservative policies,
and Jerry Falwell. Reagan imbued his hawkish national- although it avoided divisive issues such as abortion. In the
istic foreign policy with religious imagery, peppering his 1994 elections, the Christian Coalition and other right-
speeches with “God Bless America” and strongly denounc- wing groups helped the GOP capture Congress. Once
ing the Soviet Union as the “evil empire.” He also pleased in power, however, Republicans failed to enact many
cultural conservatives by professing “family values”; culturally conservative laws. Moreover, Clinton undercut
venerating the military; increasing the defense budget; them by supporting popular conservative measures. Ad-
and opposing abortion, affirmative action, busing, crime, ditionally, former wedge issues like affirmative action,
drugs, the environmental movement, the Equal Rights busing, crime, and immigration lessened in political
Amendment, and pornography. Because of Democratic salience during the 1990s economic boom. Consequently,
opposition and his own focus on economic issues, however, Republicans rallied cultural conservatives by maintaining
Reagan managed just a few culturally conservative results: their attacks on Clinton, even impeaching him in 1998.
appointing conservatives to the judiciary, escalating the The bitterness of the Clinton era widened the gap between
“war on drugs,” and cutting back affirmative action pro- the major parties in the culture wars.
grams. Nevertheless, the Reagan era increased partisan Partisan polarization increased during the presidency
polarization in the culture wars, and Republicans became of George W. Bush. In the 2000 campaign, Republicans
increasingly identified with conservatism. united behind Bush, a staunch conservative whose evan-
Reagan’s successor, Republican George H.W. Bush, gelical religious beliefs shaped his worldview. In order
also espoused culturally conservative rhetoric. In his 1988 to win, however, Bush needed the support of moderate
campaign, Bush denounced his Democratic opponent, independents, so he presented himself as a “compassionate
Michael Dukakis, for supporting abortion rights, op- conservative” and “a uniter, not a divider.” Nevertheless,
posing the outlawing of flag desecration, and allowing polls showed that he owed his success to conservatives,
prisoner furloughs as Massachusetts governor. Bush’s who supported him by an 81–17 margin. Bush’s victory
campaign connected the latter issue with race through an in the disputed 2000 election intensified the culture wars
ad showing Willie Horton, an African-American convict because it was ultimately decided by a Supreme Court
470 Rev isionis t His tor y
dominated by Republican appointees. As president, Bush American historians such as Howard Zinn, Eric
gave rhetorical support to cultural issues but focused on Foner, and Ronald Takaki, among others perceived as
economic ones, especially tax cuts. Following the attacks “liberal” or “leftist,” have been derided by critics and
of September 11, 2001, however, Republicans inflamed praised by supporters as “revisionists.” Yet how one
nationalistic feelings to gain support for the Iraq War applies the term, in either its negative or its positive
(beginning in 2003), but the ongoing difficulties there sense, depends largely on one’s political context. Typi-
once again polarized the nation, as did the contentious cally, critics on the right disparage any type of history
2004 election, which Bush won narrowly. By the end of labeled revisionist. Their opposition is generally based
the Bush era, the Republican Party was a conservative on an ideological position according to which America’s
bastion in the culture wars. “traditional history”—a collection of heroic narratives—
George Rising represents the true, objective, usable past. The concept
of a single shared past is politically useful to the right
See also: Bush Family; Cheney Family; Christian Coalition; when traditionalism comes under attack, in reality or in
Civil Rights Movement; Compassionate Conservatism; Con- perception, by those who seek to dishonor its inherent
tract with America; Evangelicalism; Family Values; Goldwa- values. Said to be at stake in this debate is a sense of
ter, Barry; Moral Majority; Neoconservatism; Nixon, Rich- national identity that depends on particular historical
ard; Reagan, Ronald; Religious Right; September 11; Viet- narratives instilled in citizens.
nam War; Watergate. In 1994, for example, the conservative writer Lynn
Cheney (wife of Dick Cheney, the future vice president)
Further Reading criticized the proposed National History Standards for
Barone, Michael. Our Country: The Shaping of America from public education in America for presenting a “grim and
Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: Free Press, 1990. gloomy” portrayal of the nation’s history. The proposed
Berman, William C. America’s Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton. standards, which addressed certain areas of U.S. history
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. that had been commonly neglected, became the subject
Edsall, Thomas Byrne, and Mary D. Edsall. Chain Reaction: The of national debate, prompted in part by Cheney’s pre-
Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics. New emptive editorial strike. In an article titled “The End of
York: W.W. Norton, 1992. History,” Cheney maintained that a war for America’s
Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the heritage was being waged. Right-wing intellectuals and
Republican Party Before the Civil War. New York: Oxford pundits such as Cheney, televangelist Pat Robertson, and
University Press, 1970. others characterized their opponents as tenured radicals
Fraser, Steve, and Gary Gerstle, eds. The Rise and Fall of the New and liberals, entranced with moral relativism, postmodern
Deal Order, 1930–1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University philosophy, and a “politically correct” agenda—eliciting
Press, 1990. countercharges of intolerance and elitism.
Gerring, John. Party Ideologies in America, 1828–1996. New In the culture wars, proponents of conservatism have
York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. repeatedly framed themselves as defenders of the past as
Mayer, George H. The Republican Party, 1854–1966. New York: it “truly happened.” Among historians who have been
Oxford University Press, 1967. criticized as revisionists, conversely, the view of history
Schaller, Michael, and George Rising. The Republican Ascen- as a single, shared, agreed-upon past is dismissed as a
dancy: American Politics, 1968–2001. Wheeling, IL: Harlan ridiculous construct. Historians such as Howard Zinn,
Davidson, 2002. author of A People’s History of the United States (1980), a
text frequently assailed by critics on the right, argue that
the work of any historian is necessarily interpretive. All
R ev i s i o n i s t H i s t o r y historical evidence, according to Zinn and like-minded
Broadly defined, revisionist history refers to efforts by others, must be selected and interpreted in order to make
scholars to revise the shared, conventional understand- sense of the past. This viewpoint emphasizes that history
ing of the past based on the examination or reexamina- is always constructed.
tion of historical evidence. In the context of the culture Even according to revisionists, however, arguing that
wars, revisionist history has taken on a pejorative con- history is interpretive does not negate the historian’s com-
notation. Referred to in the negative sense, historical re- mitment to accuracy, rigorous documentation and verifi-
visionism is any attempt to revise historical understand- cation, and a balanced reconstruction of events. Historical
ing through political and ideological dishonesty. Histo- education and responsible citizenship, it is said, require
rians who do work labeled “revisionist” are accused of open inquiry, healthy skepticism, and open-mindedness
pursuing scholarship driven by ideological goals—that to new perspectives. Zinn, for example, approaches his-
is, begin with a thesis and then manipulate or manufac- tory from the perspective of minorities and the working
ture evidence to support it. class rather than solely the heroic and elite figures that
R ight to Coun sel 471
have been typically portrayed in traditional accounts. See also: Academic Freedom; American Exceptionalism;
Rather than an example of history being “rewritten,” as Cheney Family; Columbus Day; Deconstructionism; Enola
his critics charge, Zinn maintains that his work offers a Gay Exhibit; Founding Fathers; Great Books; Holocaust;
renewed clarity through the exploration of perspectives Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Postmodernism; Wil-
that have been routinely marginalized. Likewise, much liams, William Appleman; Zinn, Howard.
of the work done in recent years that has been derided as
“revisionist” involves feminist or ethnic histories. Even Further Reading
as critics of these perspectives charge that popular his- Nash, Gary B., Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn. His-
tory is being “hijacked,” revisionists contend that they tory on Trial: The Struggle for National Standards in American
are responding to oversights in the historical record. As Classrooms. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Ronald Takaki has noted, history can be seen as a mirror, Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural
and, in the case of socially marginalized populations, it America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.
is necessary to hold up a different mirror to reflect these Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York:
silenced stories. Harper & Row, 1980.
Revisionist historians contend that some stories
have been systematically left out of mainstream his-
torical accounts, ironically arguing that traditionalists R ight to Counsel
have essentially been engaging in revisionist history of In the American criminal justice system, the right to
their own. For example, traditional accounts of the lives counsel means that a person suspected or formally ac-
of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James cused of committing a crime must be offered the as-
Madison focus solely on their positive attributes and great sistance of a licensed attorney. The right to counsel pro-
accomplishments, whereas more complete accounts would tects the accused from the complexities of the criminal
examine their relationship to slavery, colloquial provincial justice process and the vast legal resources possessed by
interests, political ambitions, and personal rivalries. The the state. Although in theory this right is universally
nation’s founders, in short, have been characterized as supported, the question of how to practically apply it
icons of democracy, while in reality they were individu- has led to contentious debate, highlighting the tension
als with human frailties, complex motivations, and even between the protection of civil liberties and the enforce-
contradictory behavior. ment of law and order.
Conservative advocates sometimes argue that the Right to counsel protections stem from language in
traditional and prevailing view of the founders as heroes the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S.
helps engender civic pride and responsibility among Constitution. Recognized by the Supreme Court in Powell
the people. While proponents of traditionalism argue v. Alabama (1932) as one of the chief expressions of the
that the perpetuation of these virtues is vital to national principle of due process, the right to counsel protections
identity and pride, revisionists argue that the interests of apply to criminal suspects and defendants in federal and
contemporary citizens themselves should be reflected in state jurisdictions. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly
the study of history. Furthermore, they argue, if historians held, the constitutional right to counsel applies in any
do not continue to reanalyze the past, the study of history instance where a person is subject to questioning by po-
will become stagnant, discouraging new scholarship and lice while under the physical control of law enforcement
intellectual curiosity. Zinn and his contemporaries argue officials (Escobedo v. Illinois, 1964; Miranda v. Arizona,
that history should constantly reexamine the past and 1966), in a police line-up (U.S. v. Wade, 1967), at trial
thereby improve understanding of the present. (Johnson v. Zerbst, 1938; Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963;
Despite such serious academic disagreements, “re- Argersinger v. Hamlin, 1972), or in the appeals process
visionism” in the context of the culture wars generally (Douglas v. California, 1963). Current doctrine holds
remains a dirty word. Arguments on the right tend to that the right to legal counsel begins at the time of ar-
paint the controversy as one of dishonest, agenda-driven rest and police questioning and extends to all stages of
ideologues who manipulate the past to promote their the criminal justice process after prosecutors have made
own views. By way of example, one may point to Holo- a formal accusation against the arrestee.
caust deniers, who seek legitimacy by referring to them- Although the right to counsel is considered one of
selves as “revisionists” while shamelessly manipulating the Constitution’s most fundamental liberties, questions
the facts in pursuit of an anti-Semitic agenda. Examples about its ultimate reach are controversial. Many court
of extreme dishonesty aside, understanding the neces- observers argue that right to counsel protections suffered
sity of revisionism in the historical method is key to noticeably at the hands of conservative justices during the
understanding the real stakes in the controversy. Rehnquist Court (1986–2005). Liberals are especially
critical of decisions that have made it more difficult for
Neil Shepard defendants to claim on appeal that their convictions re-
472 R ight to Die
sulted from the ineffectiveness of counsel at trial. Liberals life.” Advocates of the “sanctity of life” viewpoint gen-
argue that because the poorest defendants are typically erally oppose any termination of human life, through
represented by public defenders or court-appointed at- either active or passive means. This position is often
torneys burdened with heavy or even overwhelming premised on the religious belief that since humans are
caseloads, the spirit of the right to counsel is violated at created in the image of God, they consequently possess
trial and again when avenues of appeal are blocked. intrinsic dignity. The “sanctity of life” argument can
Several cases examining Sixth Amendment issues also be founded on a rational, secular concept of life as
pertaining to the right to counsel—e.g., Texas v. Cobb a basic good to which all human beings, regardless of
(2001) and Mickens v. Taylor (2002)—produced narrowly disease or disability, have an inviolate right.
divided decisions and revealed strong ideological tensions In contrast, the “quality of life” approach holds that
on the Court that have shaped the outcome in interpret- the good of life is balanced by the realities of human suf-
ing defendants’ rights. fering and bodily deterioration. Advocates of this position
Some criminologists suggest that the debate on the argue that, in some instances, an individual’s quality
right to counsel reflects the opposing “crime control theolo- of life has deteriorated so much that death becomes a
gies” held by liberals and conservatives. According to this benefit. They support the right of terminally ill patients
argument, conservatives emphasize the importance of the who are enduring serious suffering but are still mentally
fear of punitive measures in promoting individual lawful- competent to make a life-and-death decision to seek a
ness, while liberals emphasize environmental factors as the physician’s assistance in committing suicide.
underlying cause of criminality and believe that rehabili- One form of physician assistance is actual, direct
tation is better than punishment. Critics of that analysis, administration of a voluntarily requested lethal dose; in
however, remind everyone that the right to counsel is a such cases, the act is commonly referred to as “voluntary
right of the accused and that a presumption of innocence is active euthanasia.” Similarly, a physician may assist by
a cornerstone of American law. merely supplying the patient with a requested lethal
Bradley Best dose of medication. The latter act is typically classified
as “physician-assisted suicide,” for the patient is the one
See also: Judicial Wars; Miranda Rights; Rehnquist, William H. who actually commits the suicidal act. The distinction
between these two types of assisted suicide can be seen
Further Reading in the actions of euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian, a
Dudley, Mark. E. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): Right to Counsel. physician who helped a number of people commit suicide.
New York: Twenty-First Century Books, 1995. If a terminally ill patient requested his assistance, Kev-
Smith, Christopher E. The Rehnquist Court and Criminal Punish- orkian would typically attach the patient to a homemade
ment. New York: Garland, 1997. suicide machine that injected a lethal dose of drugs when
Spaeth, Harold J., and Jeffrey A. Segal. The Supreme Court and the patient activated the mechanism. Kevorkian evaded
the Attitudinal Model. New York: Cambridge University criminal conviction until he moved beyond merely fa-
Press, 1993. cilitating a patient’s suicide and instead actively admin-
Taylor, John B. The Right to Counsel and the Privilege Against istered a lethal injection to an individual who no longer
Self-Incrimination: Rights and Liberties Under the Law. Santa had use of his arms or legs. This constituted voluntary
Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. active euthanasia and led to Kevorkian’s conviction and
Walker, Samuel. Sense and Nonsense about Crime and Drugs. Bel- imprisonment for second-degree murder.
mont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998. A third category is “passive euthanasia,” which
includes the withdrawal of life-sustaining medical
treatments, such as ventilators and feeding tubes. Each
R ight to Die of these three categories raises highly contested moral,
Whether people have a right to die is one of the most con- medical, and legal questions regarding concepts of patient
troversial issues in modern American society. The right- autonomy, state paternalism, and “quality of life” versus
to-die movement is a political and legal campaign that “sanctity of life.”
seeks respect for the desires of terminal, suffering, or per-
sistently vegetative individuals, and to empower them (or Legal Landmarks: Quinlan to Schiavo
their surrogates) in ways that help them maintain a mea- The modern right-to-die movement was sparked by
sure of control over the time and manner of their death. the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court decision In re
Quinlan (1976), a case involving passive euthanasia. At
Competing Worldviews and Categories the age of twenty-two, Karen Ann Quinlan collapsed
of Physician Assistance and ceased breathing for two fifteen-minute periods, de-
The right-to-die debate is often framed by two compet- priving her brain of oxygen that left her neurologically
ing worldviews: the “sanctity of life” versus “quality of devastated. Quinlan was diagnosed as being in a persis-
R ight to Die 473
tent vegetative state (PVS), requiring twenty-four-hour mechanical device. Such was the rationale repeatedly ar-
intensive nursing care, a respirator, a catheter, and arti- ticulated by the Florida judiciary as it sought to resolve
ficial nutrition and hydration (ANH) received through a the intractable dispute between Terri Schiavo’s husband
feeding tube. Convinced that his daughter had no chance and her parents over the question of whether to cease
of cognitive recovery and that a slow, inevitable dete- provision of ANH. Schiavo spent over fifteen years in
rioration was not in her best interests, Quinlan’s father PVS before her feeding tube was removed in March 2005;
initiated court action seeking to turn off his daughter’s she died about two weeks later. Her case was the focus of
respirator. The attending physicians refused, at least in unprecedented international media coverage, prompting
part out of fear that they could be criminally liable for a surge in public attention to end-of-life decision making
participating in the death of their patient. and debates regarding the appropriateness of legal, politi-
The court ruled in favor of Quinlan’s father, holding cal, judicial, religious, and medical interventions.
that because his daughter did not have the mental capac-
ity to exercise her independent right of choice, she was State Interests and Individual Liberties
entitled to a surrogate decisionmaker who would act in Controversies surrounding the right to die in the United
her best interests. Moreover, of significant relevance to States have not been limited to passive euthanasia and PVS
physicians, the court distinguished between “the unlaw- patients. When it passed the Death with Dignity Act in
ful taking of the life of another and the ending of artificial 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-
life-support systems as a matter of self-determination.” assisted suicide. Under this law, physicians are permitted
This reassured doctors facing similar scenarios that they to prescribe lethal drugs if a written request is made by
would not be held criminally liable. Following the court an adult patient who desires to end his or her life in a hu-
victory, Quinlan’s father had the respirator removed mane and dignified manner and who has been determined
but not the feeding tube, and she lived for another ten by the attending physician and a consulting physician to
years. be suffering from a terminal disease. The legislation went
An incompetent patient’s right to die versus a state’s into effect in 1997, having survived a repeal attempt and a
interest in promoting life’s sanctity was the subject of federal court challenge to its constitutionality. During its
the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Cruzan v. Direc- first three years of operation, sixty-nine Oregonians died
tor, Missouri Dept. of Health (1990). The case was about from lethal medication obtained pursuant to the proce-
Nancy Cruzan, who on January 11, 1983, at age thirty, dures set forth in the Death with Dignity Act.
was involved in a car accident that caused a deprivation In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Wash-
of oxygen to her brain. The lack of oxygen left Cruzan ington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill that the use of a
neurologically impaired, with no chance of regaining her physician in committing suicide is not a fundamental
mental faculties, and she was diagnosed as being in a PVS. liberty protected by the Constitution. The Court held
After rehabilitation efforts failed, Cruzan’s parents asked that a state’s interest in preserving and protecting human
the hospital to withdraw the feeding tube that had been life—regardless of a terminally ill patient’s desire—is
keeping her alive. The hospital’s refusal to honor their a rational and legitimate state interest, and that state
request was backed by Missouri governor John Ashcroft, prohibitions against physician-assisted suicide appro-
setting in motion a legal battle that wound its way to priately reflect this commitment to life. These rulings
the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices held that a state were championed by many who believe in the “sanctity
may assert an “unqualified interest in the preservation of of life” and that protections are needed for vulnerable
human life,” affirming Missouri’s requirement that clear populations including the elderly, the poor, and people
and convincing proof of the patient’s desire to withdraw with disabilities. Organizations such as Not Dead Yet
ANH must be demonstrated before such action can be argue that euthanasia implicitly devalues those who are
taken. different, which may ultimately lead to abuse, neglect,
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in her concurring and murder of vulnerable members of society.
opinion in Cruzan, noted: “Artificial feeding cannot read- In 2001, U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft or-
ily be distinguished from other forms of medical treat- dered a revocation of the medical licenses of physicians
ment.” Even so, thirty years after Quinlan, in the Terri in Oregon who prescribed lethal substances, arguing that
Schiavo case, those opposing removal of her feeding tube to do so was neither a legitimate medical practice nor
equated such an act with a cruel and unusual death by lawful under federal drug control legislation. However,
starvation not fit for a convicted murderer on death row in Gonzalez v. Oregon (2006), the U.S. Supreme Court
or a rabid pit bull. Provocative rhetoric notwithstand- affirmed the right of states to regulate medical practice,
ing, by 2005, however, the legal, medical, and ethical holding that the attorney general did not have authority
consensus was nearly unanimous that ANH is not the to prohibit physicians from prescribing regulated drugs
moral equivalent of ordinary care, but a life-prolonging for use in physician-assisted suicide procedures permitted
medical treatment no different from a respirator or other under state law.
474 Rober t son, Pat
Questions about the role of medicine in the process had been a member of Congress. Robertson graduated
of death are related to the role of medicine in procreation, from Washington and Lee University (BA, 1950), Yale
abortion, and research on fetal tissue. Consequently, Law School (JD, 1955), and New York Theological Semi-
questions about the meaning of life become politically nary (MDiv, 1959), in between serving as a U.S. Marine
charged. As an unprecedented percentage of the American lieutenant in Korea (1950–1952). Originally intending
population becomes elderly, and as technology increases to pursue a career in law or business, Robertson changed
the sustainability of physiological existence without plans after experiencing a religious conversion in 1956.
“quality of life,” questions related to living and dying Five years later, although connected with the charismatic
well—particularly regarding alleviation of pain—are movement, he was ordained as a minister by the Southern
expected to increase in number and intensity. Baptist Convention.
The year of his ordination, Robertson purchased a tele-
Joshua E. Perry vision station in Portsmouth, Virginia, using it to start the
Christian Broadcasting Network. This undertaking eventu-
See also: Abortion; Health Care; Kevorkian, Jack; Medical ally included not only religious programs but also a range
Marijuana; Not Dead Yet; O’Connor, Sandra Day; Rehnquist, of family movies and news analyses, including The 700
William H.; Schiavo, Terri; Stem-Cell Research. Club, a news talk show that Robertson began in 1966 and
hosted for over forty years. By the mid-1980s, his television
Further Reading network, charitable organizations, and other ministerial
Brock, Dan W. “Voluntary Active Euthanasia.” Hastings Center operations had become a $230 million operation.
Report (March–April 1992): 10–22. The televangelist became a lightning rod for criti-
Dworkin, Ronald. Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abor- cism after announcing his candidacy for the 1988 Re-
tion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. New York: Vintage publican presidential nomination. Although he portrayed
Books, 1994. himself as a responsible conservative slightly to the right
Gostin, Lawrence O. “Deciding Life and Death in the Court- of President Ronald Reagan, critics voiced concern that
room: From Quinlan to Cruzan, Glucksberg, and Vacco—A he would not respect the separation of church and state.
Brief History and Analysis of Constitutional Protection of He claimed in 1985 that his prayer changed the course of
the ‘Right to Die.’ ” Journal of the American Medical Association a hurricane, confirming his decision to run for president.
278: 18 (1997): 1523–28. That same year, he said that only Jews and Christians were
Keown, John. Euthanasia, Ethics, and Public Policy: An Argument qualified to hold office, and implied that as president he
Against Legalisation. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University might ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on abor-
Press, 2002. tion. Many conservative evangelicals, especially members
Kilner, John F., Arlene B. Miller, and Edmund D. Pellegrino, of charismatic churches, appreciated Robertson’s support
eds. Dignity and Dying: A Christian Appraisal. Grand Rapids, for organized school prayer and family values, and his
MI: Eerdmans, 1996. opposition to secular humanism. Born-again Christians
Quill, Timothy E. “Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized enabled him to raise more money than any of his Repub-
Decision Making.” New England Journal of Medicine 324:10 lican opponents. Robertson won a few state party caucuses
(1991): 691–94. and a handful of delegates but received only 9 percent of
Velleman, J. David. “Against the Right to Die.” Journal of the national Republican presidential primary vote.
Medicine and Philosophy 17:6 (1992): 665–81. With the help of Ralph Reed, a young Republican
activist, Robertson in 1989 launched the Christian Coali-
tion. Earlier Christian Right organizations, such as the
Ro b e r t s o n , P a t Moral Majority, had attracted a lot of press coverage but
Televangelist and former Baptist minister Pat Robert- achieved only minimal legislative or electoral influence.
son, a prominent leader of the Christian Right, greatly In contrast, the Christian Coalition focused on winning
influenced American politics in the 1980s and 1990s. control of party organizations at the local level. Conse-
He also founded the nation’s first Christian television quently, the Christian Coalition obtained far more elec-
network, launched the country’s most popular and lon- toral influence than its predecessors and became a powerful
gest-running Christian talk show, created the largest Christian Right pressure group within the GOP, forcing
and most successful Christian Right lobbying organiza- Republicans to maintain their opposition to abortion and
tion, started a university, ran for president, and wrote gay rights in exchange for the Coalition’s continued as-
more than a dozen books. But he attracted widespread sistance in mobilizing evangelical support for Republican
criticism from people who thought he violated the sepa- candidates. The Christian Coalition, at its peak in the mid-
ration of church and state. 1990s, claimed 4 million members and had an operating
Marion Gordon “Pat” Robertson was born on March budget of $25 million, but it experienced a rapid decline
22, 1930, in Lexington, Virginia. His father, Absalom, after Reed left the organization in 1997.
Rock and Roll 475
Further Reading
Boston, Rob. The Most Dangerous Man in America? Pat Robertson
and the Rise of the Christian Coalition. Amherst, NY: Pro-
metheus Books, 1996.
Donavan, John B. Pat Robertson: The Authorized Biography. New
York: Macmillan, 1988.
Foege, Alec. The Empire God Built: Inside Pat Robertson’s Media
Machine. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996.
Harrell, David Edwin, Jr. Pat Robertson: A Personal, Religious, and
Political Portrait. New York: HarperCollins, 1988.
Martin, William. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious
Right in America. New York: Broadway Books, 1996.
Watson, Justin. The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration,
Demands for Recognition. 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin’s,
1999.
Rock and Roll

Televangelist Pat Robertson, an ordained Baptist minister More than a musical movement, rock and roll follows
and charismatic evangelical, founded the Christian Broad- generations through life, changing in beat, lyrics, and
casting Network and the Christian Coalition. He has been a style to reflect the cultural and social needs of its listen-
leading light and controversial spokesman of the Religious ers. At its core, rock symbolizes youthful struggles for
Right since the 1970s. (Marty Katz/Time & Life Pictures/Getty
a voice in popular culture and politics. Teenage disaf-
Images)
fection with parental control in the 1950s imbued early
rock music. When that rebellion turned hostile and
Robertson viewed the Christian Coalition as only radical, rock and roll became the vehicle for challenging
one component in a broader strategy to oppose liberal authority in the decades that followed.
interest groups that he felt threatened Christian religious With roots in the South, rock and roll was a mix of
liberty. Regent University, which he founded in Virginia rhythm and blues, and country music, sounds from the
Beach in 1977, opened a law school in 1986 in order to margins where black and white subcultures coexisted
give evangelicals legal training from a Christian perspec- uneasily. Northern radio stations catered to new audi-
tive. This was followed four years later by the founding ence tastes, playing the music carried north by black
of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a migration in the forties. In 1951, Alan Freed, a Cleveland
counterpoint to the American Civil Liberties Union disc jockey, used the term “rock and roll” to describe
(ACLU), which Robertson regarded as hostile to public the hybrid music his multiracial audience craved. Freed
expression of religion. organized rock concerts where black artists such as Chuck
With the turn of the twenty-first century, Robertson Berry and Little Richard performed for integrated audi-
became an increasingly controversial figure, even among ences. Young white listeners showed their appreciation by
evangelicals. The National Association of Religious flocking to record stores. The trend did not go unnoticed.
Broadcasters’ board of directors voted in 2006 not to With an eye to the racial climate, Sam Phillips, owner of
renew Robertson’s board membership because of their Sun Records in Memphis, believed that a white performer
objections to his polemical statements, which included a with “black style” could help rock and roll corner the
call for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s assassination white music market. With “That’s All Right, Mama” in
and a pronouncement that Israeli prime minister Ariel 1954, Elvis Presley proved Phillips’s intuition correct.
Sharon’s stroke was God’s punishment for authorizing a White rock and rollers like Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis,
withdrawal from the West Bank. Although Robertson covering black artists, brought the music to ever wider
remains a renowned figure because of his formative role audiences and commercial success.
in launching the Christian Right, his influence has Cold War America saw the birth of the teenager, a
waned. new social demographic that enjoyed levels of security
Daniel K. Williams and affluence unknown to previous generations. With
more leisure time and disposable income, teens in the
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Christian Coalition; 1950s became a bastion of consumerism, courted by the
Christian Radio; Church and State; Evangelicalism; Family entertainment industry. Rock and roll’s brash beat and
Values; Fundamentalism, Religious; Moral Majority; Reli- suggestive lyrics spoke of experiences beyond staid pa-
gious Right; Republican Party; Televangelism. rental lifestyles. With Presley’s breakthrough television
476 Rock and Roll
appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, rock and mer of Love” displayed the hippie lifestyle and sounds
roll was entrenched in youth culture. in albums such as Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow
Cold War anxieties had created a rigid atmosphere and the eponymous debut album, The Grateful Dead, as
of social and political homogeneity in the nation. Con- young Americans converged on San Francisco.
comitant with this was a rise in racial tension as blacks The gap between the mainstream and the counter-
pushed for equality. With its bold references to sex and culture widened as the 1960s radicalized. Rock and roll’s
rebellion, rock music faced the ire of authorities. Critics mocking of authority transformed into a direct challenge
decried the erosion of teen morality through rock “leerics” to conservative America’s way of life. Vietnam galvanized
and lewd performances. Interracial concert audiences con- rockers against the dominant political establishment.
cerned Christian fundamentalists and the Ku Klux Klan, Songs like “Eve of Destruction” (1965, Barry McGuire)
who called for a ban on the “devil’s music” to prevent the and “Ohio” (1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) pro-
spread of juvenile delinquency and the “mongrelization” tested militarism and became antiwar anthems. Black
of white teens. Anti–rock-and-roll campaigns stretched artists such as Jimi Hendrix, steeped in the Black Power
across the country, culminating in the payola scandal of movement, called for revolution. The Woodstock Music
the late 1950s, in which the Federal Communications and Art Fair, a massive three-day event in upstate New
Commission targeted disc jockeys, like Freed, for accept- York in 1969, underscored the importance of rock festi-
ing bribes to play specific rock songs. vals as countercultural political forums.
Chastened by critics and controversy, rock and roll’s With defeat in Vietnam, rock and roll in the 1970s
brazen edges were smoothed over by the early 1960s fell victim to the cultural and economic malaise that
when clean-cut teen idols (the likes of Frankie Avalon) blanketed the nation. Activism gave way to hedonism.
were showcased on parentally approved television pro- Glam rock and disco fed the decade’s decadence. Rock was
grams such as American Bandstand. Folk music provided reborn with MTV’s debut in 1981. Political and social
the poignant social commentary missing from the new commentary returned with Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the
“wholesome” rock. As the civil rights movement turned U.S.A. (1984). Although embraced by the ultraconserva-
violent and the Vietnam War accelerated, folk musicians tive Reagan administration, the liberal album addressed
such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez injected politics into the suffocating shadow of Vietnam. Springsteen, along
their lyrics. Folk music merged with rock in Dylan’s “Like with U2’s Bono, has been instrumental in returning
a Rolling Stone,” released in 1965. Dylan’s intense lyrics, activism to rock music. Benefit concerts such as Live
and use of electric guitar, opened the door for rock and Aid in 1985, Live 8 in 2005, and Live Earth in 2007
roll to be a vehicle for political views. pushed listeners to engage in social action. Rock and roll
The enormous success of the Beatles in the mid- as a political medium continued with MTV’s Rock the
1960s solidified rock and roll’s resurgence. It also rein- Vote. Springsteen coordinated the Vote for Change tour,
vigorated claims that rock was damaging American teens. a critical response to President George W. Bush’s 2004
John Lennon’s 1966 statement that the Beatles were more reelection campaign.
popular than Jesus caused a literal firestorm of protest, Though fragmented across many genres, rock and
with record burnings held in states like South Carolina. roll is still a strong musical and cultural force. Censor-
To fundamentalists, rock music foreshadowed Christian- ship campaigns continue, with record warning labels
ity’s destruction and was connected to communist plots to introduced to combat supposedly obscene lyrics. Coop-
corrupt young America, as detailed in Christian polemics tation of elements from the punk and rap subcultures
such as Rock and Roll: The Devil’s Diversion (1967) by the kept rock and roll relevant through the 1990s, though a
televangelist Bob Larson. Performers such as Frank Zappa waning New Left may have blunted rock’s political im-
were deemed to be akin to the anti-Christ and faced calls pact. Tastes change, but rock and roll’s core is intact; it
for censorship. The Nixon administration carried on the remains a communal experience and a beacon of freedom
crusade with a politically motivated campaign linking for all listeners.
drug use to rock and roll. Anna Zuschlag
The politicization of rock corresponded with the
growth of the counterculture. Music was a common ref- See also: Baez, Joan; Bono; Censorship; Civil Rights Move-
erence point for intersecting causes such as civil rights ment; Counterculture; Dylan, Bob; Federal Communications
and the anti–Vietnam War movement. Psychedelic rock Commission; Generations and Generational Conflict; Record
groups such as the Grateful Dead reflected the experimen- Warning Labels; Springsteen, Bruce; Vietnam War; War Pro-
tal attitude toward lifestyle and drugs emerging in San testers; Young, Neil; Zappa, Frank.
Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, a gathering place for
countercultural adherents. Eastern philosophy informed Further Reading
an intergenerational identity that, at its base, reflected a Altschuler, Glenn C. All Shook Up: How Rock ’n’ Roll Changed
general “us” versus “them” mentality. In 1967, the “Sum- America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Rock well , Nor man 477
Bennett, Andy. Cultures of Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open march of neo-Nazis through Skokie, Illinois, a Chicago
University, 2001. suburb that was home to many Jewish Holocaust survi-
Friedlander, Paul. Rock & Roll: A Social History. 2nd ed. Boulder, vors. William L. Pierce founded the National Alliance,
CO: Westview Press, 2006. which in the 1990s grew to prominence in part because
Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, of the success of an Internet-based, mail-order, white-
1993. power music business. Under the pseudonym Andrew
Martin, Linda, and Kerry Segrave. Anti-Rock: The Opposition to Macdonald, Pierce wrote The Turner Diaries (1978), a
Rock ’n’ Roll. New York: DaCapo Press, 1993. work that partly inspired Timothy McVeigh’s truck
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City in April 1995.
Ro c k we l l , G e o r g e L i n c o l n Chip Berlet
A striking figure as he strode the streets of Washington,
D.C., in full Nazi-style regalia, George Lincoln Rock- See also: Anti-Semitism; Cold War; Conspiracy Theories; Ho-
well saw the battle for control of America as a continu- locaust; Marxism; McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; McVeigh,
ation of the struggle of his hero, Adolf Hitler. Rock- Timothy; White Supremacists.
well founded the American Nazi Party in 1959, gaining
much publicity but negligible support. Further Reading
At his northern Virginia headquarters in Arlington, Schmaltz, William H. Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the
Rockwell draped a large Nazi swastika flag and trained a American Nazi Party. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1999.
unit of uniformed storm troopers that marched in dem- Simonelli, Frederick J. American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell
onstrations, which he led dressed in a suit and tie while and the American Nazi Party. Urbana: University of Illinois
puffing on a corncob pipe. Rockwell traveled nationwide Press, 1999.
to promote his views, often drawing counterdemonstra-
tors and occasionally sparking violence.
The son of vaudeville performers, Rockwell was R o c k we l l , N o r m a n
born in Bloomington, Illinois, on March 9, 1918. An Magazine illustrator and painter Norman Rockwell
extrovert as a teenager, Rockwell had a rebellious spirit recorded the simplicity and nobility of American life
that led to disciplinary problems at school and a medio- through six decades of the twentieth century. Social
cre academic record, but he entered Brown University conservatives esteemed Rockwell for his idealized ren-
in 1938 on the strength of exceptionally high aptitude derings of old-fashioned, small-town family life, while
test scores. Leaving college in 1941 to enlist as a U.S. progressives admired later works expressing support for
Navy aviator, Rockwell served in the Pacific theater the civil rights movement.
during World War II. He left active military service Norman Percevel Rockwell was born in New York
as a Naval Reserve lieutenant commander in 1945 and City on February 3, 1894. He enrolled in the National
worked in Maine as a commercial artist while extending Academy of Design in 1910 and soon thereafter in the Art
his skills at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Students League, both in New York. His first cover for
Recalled to active duty for the Korean War, Rockwell the Saturday Evening Post was published in 1916, and over
became a supporter of the anticommunist crusade led the next forty-seven years, he would produce more than
by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI). Becoming con- 320 covers for that magazine, including the 1943 series
vinced that Marxism sought to organize inferior masses of four paintings on the “Four Freedoms” espoused by
of people, Rockwell embraced Hitler’s political tract President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a charter of universal
Mein Kampf and his theories of white supremacy and human rights: freedom of speech, freedom of worship,
anti-Semitism. freedom from want, and freedom from fear. His cover art
In 1962, Rockwell traveled to England and, with also appeared on such popular periodicals as Look, Life,
British neofascist Colin Jordan, formed the World Union and Literary Digest.
of National Socialists. Returning to America, Rockwell Rockwell used his mastery of style and color, along
helped establish nineteen chapters. He renamed his group with his sense of humor, to portray the themes and ex-
the National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP) periences of everyday life in small-town America. While
in 1967. On August 25 of that year, Rockwell was assas- some critics ridiculed his work for being overly optimis-
sinated in Arlington, Virginia, by a disgruntled former tic, Rockwell explained, “I unconsciously decided that
member of the organization. if it wasn’t an ideal world, it should be, and so painted
Several NSWPP associates went on to form white only the ideal aspects of it.” Before 1963, most of his
supremacist groups that reached national prominence. subjects were white people—of his hundreds of paint-
Frank Collin led the National Socialist Party of America, ings on magazine covers, only three featured blacks.
gaining international attention in 1977 by threatening a This changed during the civil rights era, however, when
478 Rodman, Dennis
editors encouraged him to be more daring in addressing who could slow down such opposing stars as Michael
the starker realities of American culture. Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird while fitting into
On one 1964 cover of the Saturday Evening Post, Rock- his team’s “bad boy” style of play.
well’s painting The Problem We All Live With depicted four Late one night during the 1992–1993 NBA sea-
U.S. marshals escorting a young black girl to school. On son, Rodman’s tenure with the Pistons took a turn for
a wall in the background are painted the words “nigger” the worse when team officials found him locked inside
and “KKK,” along with red splotches from thrown toma- his pickup truck with a loaded shotgun. Rodman later
toes. The following year, the magazine published Southern described it as the moment the old Dennis died and the
Justice (which Rockwell called Murder in Mississippi), a new Dennis emerged, when he stopped caring about
reaction to the previous summer’s murder of three civil the popular image of a black NBA star and decided to
rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The painting be himself—whether expressed by his tattoos, his ever
depicts two men, a white and a black, comforting each changing hair colors, or his willingness to speak his
other with a fallen comrade at their feet. mind. Shortly thereafter, the Pistons traded him to the
During his long career, Rockwell was commissioned San Antonio Spurs, where his play was marked less by his
to paint portraits of several U.S. presidents: Dwight D. greatness as a rebounder and defender than by technical
Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. In fouls, ejections, league fines, and suspensions. After the
1977, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1994–1995 season, the Spurs traded him to the Chicago
the nation’s highest civilian honor. He died on November Bulls.
8, 1978, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Rodman’s on-the-court prowess helped propel the
Bulls to three straight championships, but with his
William T. Walker behavior falling short of cultural expectations of the
idealized sports figure, he was often criticized for his
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Fam- “selfish disrespect” for the game. He matched neither
ily Values; Human Rights; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Kennedy Fam- the image of the corporate, racially transcendent player,
ily; Philadelphia, Mississippi. such as Michael Jordan, nor the image of the hip-hop
street baller, such as Allen Iverson. Whereas in the
Further Reading media Jordan was “the good black,” Rodman was “the
Claridge, Laura. Norman Rockwell: A Life. New York: Random bad black” because of his look and style. He regarded
House, 2001. himself as “a real person,” unwilling to conform to a
Gans, Herbert J. “Can Rockwell Survive Cultural Elevation?” contrived “normal” identity. Challenging homophobia,
Chronicle of Higher Education, April 21, 2000. he sat for interviews at gay bars and sometimes cross-
Marker, Sheery. Norman Rockwell: Unabridged. New York: dressed, all the while flaunting his heterosexuality and
World, 2004. interracial relationships with the singer Madonna and
Rockwell, Norman, as told to Tom Rockwell. Norman Rock- model-actress Carmen Electra.
well: My Adventures as an Illustrator. New York: Harry M. On the court, he was no less controversial, racking
Abrams, 1994. up technical fouls and once kicking a cameraman in the
groin,which led to an eleven-game suspension and a
$1.1 million fine. He sometimes treated basketball as a
Ro d m a n , D e n n i s burden that intervened with his party life, and he once
The antics and personality of Dennis Rodman, a talent- described the NBA as 50 percent sex and 50 percent
ed but persistently controversial player in the National money. He made headlines for skipping practices and
Basketball Association (1986–2000), generated much missing a playoff game.
debate during the course of his career, raising broader Although often mentioned in tabloid magazines,
issues about the public image of athletes and whether or Rodman is not remembered with the NBA greats. He
not they have an obligation to be role models. and others believe this is due not to his basketball talents
Born on May 13, 1961, in Trenton, New Jersey, but to widespread disapproval of his image and behavior
Dennis Keith Rodman was raised in poverty. After on and off the court. Rodman’s autobiography As Bad as
playing basketball at Cooke County Junior College in I Wanna Be (1997), widely viewed as a rationalization of
Dallas (1982–1983) and Southeastern Oklahoma State irresponsibility and an attempt to shock readers, offers
University (1983–1986), he was drafted by the Detroit a testimony of individuality and a rejection of corporate
Pistons in 1986. basketball interests that seek to promote a contrived
During his rookie year, Rodman became a key com- image of players.
ponent in the Pistons’ success. Nicknamed “the Worm,” David J. Leonard
he was an “old school” player who played defense and
rebounded with ferocity. He was one of the few players See also: Counterculture; Madonna; Race; Transgender Movement.
Roe v. Wade (1973 ) 479
Further Reading Byron White criticized the ruling, arguing that there was
Barett, Lindon. “Black Men in the Mix: Badboys, Heroes, “no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of
Sequins, and Dennis Rodman.” Callalloo 20:1 (1997): priorities on the people and legislature of the States.”
102–26. From the beginning, the Roe decision evoked support
Lefrance, Melisse, and Genevieve Rail. “Excursions into Oth- and opposition, further polarizing an electorate already
erness: Understanding Dennis Rodman and the Limits of divided over the issue of abortion. “Pro-choice” groups
Subversive Agency.” In Sports Stars: The Cultural Politics of such as the National Organization for Women (NOW)
Sporting Celebrity, ed. David L. Andrews and Steven J. Jack- insist that women have a “fundamental right” to decide
son. London: Routledge, 2001. whether to have an abortion. Arguing that life begins at
Remnick, David. The Devil Problem and Other True Stores. New conception, the Catholic National Right to Life Commit-
York: Random House, 1996. tee, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, and other “pro-life”
organizations have rallied against the decision. McCorvey
eventually revealed her identity and in 1995 converted to
R o e v. Wa d e ( 19 73 ) Christianity. She subsequently joined the pro-life move-
Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ment, believing that abortion is harmful to women. In
case establishing a woman’s constitutional right to have 2005, she unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme
an abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnan- Court to set aside the Roe decision on the basis that abor-
cy, has been a persistent and highly contentious debate tion procedures can cause harm to women.
in the American culture wars from the moment it was Although unable to overturn the 1973 ruling, con-
handed down. servative politicians have succeeded in making it more
The case originated in March 1970 in Texas, where difficult for women to have an abortion. Three years after
Norma McCorvey, an unmarried pregnant women us- the Roe decision, for example, Congress passed the Hyde
ing the alias “Jane Roe” to protect her privacy, filed suit Amendment, which barred federal funding for abortion.
against Dallas County district attorney Henry Wade to be In 1989, Missouri legislators voted to deny the use of
allowed to have an abortion. McCorvey’s lawyers, Linda public facilities and employees to assist or perform abor-
Coffee and Sarah Weddington, argued that an 1856 Texas tions, a measure upheld by the Supreme Court in Webster
law forbidding abortion unless the pregnancy endangers v. Reproductive Health Services (1989). In 2003, Congress
the mother’s life violated Roe’s right of privacy. Their passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, outlawing late-
argument was based on the U.S. Supreme Court deci- term abortions carried out by a procedure known as
sion in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which ruled that a “intact dilation and evacuation”; this law was upheld by
Connecticut statute prohibiting the use of birth control the Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Carhart and Gonzalez
was unconstitutional because its enforcement violated v. Planned Parenthood (2007). In 2006, the South Dakota
“the zone of privacy” created by the Bill of Rights and state legislature and Mississippi’s House Public Health
the Fourth Amendment. These protections, the attorneys Committee approved bills making it illegal for doctors to
contended, gave Roe and other citizens the right to pri- perform abortions. By the early 2000s, thirty-four states
vacy in sexual and reproductive matters. District Attorney had passed legislation requiring minors to obtain paren-
Wade argued that a fetus is a separate human being and tal consent or notify parents before having an abortion.
has the right to live. Although the three-judge federal These measures limited the scope of the Roe decision and
district court ruled for “Jane Roe,” it refused to outlaw suggested further erosion in the future.
enforcement of the 1856 Texas law.
Both “Jane Roe” and Wade appealed to the U.S. Bruce E. Stewart
Supreme Court, where the case was argued in October
1971 and reargued the following year. In 1973, after See also: Abortion; Birth Control; Catholic Church; Equal
much debate, the Court ruled 7–2 in favor of “Jane Roe,” Rights Amendment; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism,
thereby legalizing abortion in America. The majority Third-Wave; Judicial Wars; Moral Majority; National Orga-
opinion, written by Richard M. Nixon appointee Harry nization for Women; Operation Rescue; Planned Parenthood;
Blackmun, found that the privacy right to abortion, Rehnquist, William H.; Sexual Revolution.
grounded in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, was
“broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether Further Reading
or not to terminate her pregnancy” during the first tri- Faux, Marian. Roe v. Wade: The Untold Story of the Landmark
mester. In the second trimester, the state could regulate Supreme Court Decision That Made Abortion Legal. New York:
abortion if the pregnancy endangered the mother’s life Macmillan, 1988.
but could not otherwise prevent the procedure. Only Garrow, David J. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and
during the third trimester could a state prohibit abortion the Making of Roe v. Wade. Berkeley: University of California
altogether. Associate justices William H. Rehnquist and Press, 1998.
480 Rosenberg , Juliu s, and Ethel Rosenberg
Hull, N.E.H., and Peter Charles Hoffer. Roe v. Wade: The ists, liberal celebrities, and the couple’s orphaned sons,
Abortion Rights Controversy in American History. Lawrence: Robert and Michael Meeropol, campaigned to reopen the
University Press of Kansas, 2001. case. The Rosenbergs, particularly Ethel, were treated
sympathetically in the best-selling novels The Book of
Daniel by E.L. Doctorow (1971) and The Public Burning
Ro s e n b e r g , J u l i u s , a n d by Robert Coover (1977) and Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer
Ethel Rosenberg Prize–winning play Angels in America (1993).
The only American civilians executed for espionage, In 1983, historians Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were an enduring cause cé- renewed debate on the case with their book The Rosen-
lèbre of the Cold War era, memorialized by the left as berg File, which concluded that Julius had been a Soviet
martyrs to McCarthyite hysteria and reviled by the right agent. In the 1990s, U.S. government declassification of
as traitors who gave atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. portions of the files of the Venona project, a U.S.-British
revelations by former KGB operatives and the U.S. decryption program of Soviet intelligence communica-
government’s release of decoded Soviet communications tions during and after World War II, and revelations by
from the 1940s have led to a consensus among histori- former KGB agents further implicated Julius in running
ans that Julius Rosenberg did engage in spying. Contro- a spy ring. His guilt—but not Ethel’s—is now generally
versy lingers over several aspects of the case, however— accepted by historians, as is the notion that others played
notably the fairness of the trial and the extent of Ethel’s a greater role in advancing the Soviet atomic program.
involvement.
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg, Andy Markowitz
born on May 12, 1918, and September 28, 1915, re-
spectively, grew up politically radical in New York City See also: Capital Punishment; Cold War; Communists and
and met there in 1936 through the Young Communist Communism; Hiss, Alger; Kushner, Tony; McCarthy, Joseph;
League. Julius Rosenberg, a graduate of the City College McCarthyism; Nuclear Age; Soviet Union and Russia.
of New York (1939) and an electrical engineer, worked
as a civilian for the U.S. Army Signal Corps but was Further Reading
fired in 1945 for his past communist association. Ethel Carmichael, Virginia. Framing History: The Rosenberg Story and
Greenglass, who worked as a secretary for a shipping the Cold War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
company, became active in the labor movement. The 1993.
couple married in 1939. Meeropol, Robert. An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey.
Their prosecution arose from the arrest in 1950 of New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
David Greenglass, Ethel’s brother and an army machin- Radosh, Ronald, and Joyce Milton. The Rosenberg File: A Search
ist who worked on the U.S. atom bomb project at Los for the Truth. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Alamos, New Mexico. Charged with providing notes Press, 1997.
and sketches of bomb components to Soviet agents, Roberts, Sam. The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David
Greenglass told the FBI that Julius had recruited him Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the
into a spy ring. Ethel was also arrested in the hope that Electric Chair. New York: Random House, 2001.
her prosecution would pressure Julius into confessing.
The Rosenbergs were convicted under the Espionage Act
of 1917 in a March 1951 trial that launched the public R ove , K a r l
career of anticommunist attorney Roy Cohn. Judge Irving A controversial Republican campaign strategist, Karl
Kaufman imposed the death penalty, asserting that the Rove was credited as the “architect” of George W. Bush’s
Rosenbergs had committed “worse than murder” and bore election victories—for governor of Texas in 1994 and
responsibility for the Korean War. After a series of failed 1998, and for president of the United States in 2000
appeals, and despite international calls for clemency, the and 2004—and often identified as “Bush’s brain” for his
Rosenbergs were electrocuted on June 19, 1953, at Sing role in shaping White House policy to appeal to the
Sing prison in New York. Republican Party’s conservative base.
For decades after their execution, the Rosenbergs During the first six years of the Bush administration,
were widely viewed as victims of a witch hunt. The fact admirers called Rove a “political genius” for develop-
that Cohn had helped steer the case to Kaufman, that the ing a winning electoral alliance out of a loose coalition
judge agreed with authorities beforehand to impose the of neoconservatives, libertarians, corporate leaders, and
death sentence, and that Ethel was directly linked to the religious right groups, despite the many issues that
case only by Greenglass’s claim that she typed up meeting otherwise divided them. In contrast, detractors labeled
notes (which he recanted fifty years later), fueled feelings Rove “an evil genius,” regarding him as an unprincipled
that the Rosenbergs had been railroaded. Political activ- operator who escalated the culture wars. In 2006, after
Rove, Karl 4 81
Democrats for the first time since 1994 gained control In 1977, Rove did campaign work for both Bushes as
of the House of Representatives, effectively dashing well as Bill Clements, who was elected Texas governor.
Republican hopes for a GOP ruling majority lasting a After serving as Clements’s chief of staff (1977–1981),
generation or longer, Rove was cast as the scapegoat by Rove ran an Austin-based marketing firm, Karl Rove &
members of his party who blamed his polarizing tactics Co. (1981–1991), raising the funds that enabled Repub-
for triggering a voter backlash. At that point, Rove was licans to gain control of Texas. Essentially a party boss,
disparaged as the architect of Republican defeat. Rove picked the Republican candidates to financially
Karl Christian Rove was born on February 25, 1950, support. As the linchpin of George W. Bush’s political
in Denver, Colorado. He grew up in a dysfunctional career, Rove was his political adviser and chief strate-
family (learning as a young adult, for instance, that his gist (1993–2001) and later senior White House adviser
biological father was not the man married to his mother), (2001–2007) and deputy chief of staff (2005–2006).
leading biographers to speculate that his attraction to Following the 2004 election, Bush was designated Time
politics was rooted in a search for belonging. This view magazine’s “Man of the Year,” with Rove as runner-up.
has been supported in part by those who, observing him Rove’s political instincts enabled him to tap into
up close, suggest that Rove does not have passionate issues that resonated with suburban swing voters. Ac-
ideological conviction but thinks purely in terms of cordingly, he directed his candidates to support tax cuts,
political strategy. welfare reduction, tort reform, improvement in educa-
From 1969 to 1977, Rove attended the University of tion, and family values. His strategy was simple: build
Utah, University of Maryland, George Mason University, a large campaign war chest (for example, Bush outdid
and University of Texas but never completed the degree all other Republican challengers in 2000, raising $36
in political science he sought. His political education was million) and repeat a simple message (during the 2004
obtained outside the classroom, serving as the executive presidential election, a central theme of the Bush reelec-
director of the College Republicans (1971–1972), chair tion campaign was that Kerry, the Democratic rival, was
of the College Republicans (1973–1974), and special a “waffler” on the War on Terror). Rove was considered
assistant to the chairman of the Republican National a master of voter turnout strategy and is credited with
Committee, George H.W. Bush (1973). By the mid- developing issues that attracted evangelical voters to the
1970s, Rove was working as a political consultant in polls in 2004. During that campaign, Rove arranged for
Virginia while serving as finance director of the Virginia the Republican National Convention to be held in New
Republican Party. At Bush’s request, Rove moved to York City, not far from Ground Zero, in order to cast his
Texas for the purpose of fundraising for a presidential candidate as the strong avenger of terrorism. Later, Rove
exploratory committee. organized Bush’s push for Social Security privatization,
but the issue failed to gain traction.
Rove’s critics focus on his hardball campaign tactics,
arguing that unethical practices date back to his Col-
lege Republican days when he worked closely with Lee
Atwater, the mastermind of the “whisper campaign” (an
anonymous or “off the record” spreading of malicious
gossip about a rival candidate) and “push polling” (tele-
phone “polls” of prospective voters in which the ques-
tions provide negative and inaccurate information about
the political opposition). In one early campaign trick,
directed at a Democratic candidate running for Illinois
state treasurer in 1970, Rove printed and distributed
stolen campaign stationery advertising “free beer, free
food, girls and a good time.”
Critics have made numerous allegations against
Rove for taking the political low road, but none has
been substantially proven. Among other things, he is
accused of involvement in a whisper campaign suggest-
ing Texas governor Ann Richards was a lesbian (1994);
the distribution of negative fliers against a Republican
Political strategist Karl Rove (right) engineered the ascen-
dancy of George W. Bush from Texas to the White House.
candidate running for the Alabama Supreme Court for
Rove sought to build a conservative Republican coalition that the purpose of duping voters into believing the Demo-
would last a generation; he resigned from the Bush adminis- cratic opponent was resorting to smear tactics (1996); a
tration amid scandal. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) whisper campaign against John McCain during the South
4 82 Ruby R idge Inc ident
Carolina Republican presidential primary in which ques- ment. Militia leaders complained that federal agencies
tions were raised about the former POW’s mental health such as the FBI and the U.S. Marshals were illegally
(1999); and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign using military force against American citizens, and they
attack against the war record of Bush’s Democratic rival encouraged potential recruits to arm themselves for a
John Kerry (2004). showdown with the government. Some militia recruiters
Rove came under suspicion in the 2003 CIA leak also used racist language to encourage white men to “take
case in which an agent’s identity—Valerie Plame—was back” their country from minorities, foreigners, and the
illegally divulged to the press after her husband, former United Nations.
diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, had publicly accused The event that would become the militia move-
the Bush administration of fabricating evidence about ment’s rallying cry began when an undercover federal
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Rove was not charged agent approached Weaver for help purchasing sawed-off
with breaking federal law, but his chief of staff, I. Lewis shotguns. Weaver delivered two guns in 1989 and was
“Scooter” Libby, was indicted, tried, and found guilty of threatened with arrest. The agent offered to withhold
perjury and obstruction of justice. (Libby’s sentence was charges if Weaver became an undercover informant on
subsequently commuted by President Bush.) After leav- the Aryan Nations compound. Weaver refused and was
ing the White House, Rove came under a legal cloud over formally arrested in January 1991. He failed to show up
the improper firing of attorneys at the Justice Department for his court date in February, although evidence suggests
(they had been removed for ideological reasons and re- the wrong trial date was printed on the summons. The
placed by Republican Party loyalists) and over his refusal U.S. Marshal’s office decided to arrest Weaver and to that
to testify about it before Congress. In the meantime, the end set up a surveillance operation on the perimeter of
former political strategist was working as an analyst and Weaver’s property to monitor his movements.
commentator for Fox News and other media outlets. On August 21, 1992, federal marshal William De-
gan was scouting terrain near the house when the family
Roger Chapman dog began barking. Randy Weaver, his son Samuel, and
Kevin Harris, a friend living at the compound, went to
See also: Atwater, Lee; Bush Family; Education Reform; Elec- investigate. A shootout ensued and Degan and Samuel
tion of 2000; Neoconservatism; Privatization; Republican were mortally wounded; Harris badly injured. Weaver
Party; September 11; Social Security; Tax Reform; Tort Re- claimed the government fired the first shot; the govern-
form; Welfare Reform. ment asserted that it was returning fire. The next day,
the rules of engagement were changed to permit agents
Further Reading to shoot to kill any armed male on the property, but
Alexander, Paul. Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl somehow FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi killed Vicky
Rove. New York: Modern Times/Macmillan, 2008. Weaver as she held the door open for her husband. Ho-
Barnes, Fred. “Karl Rove, White House Impresario.” In The riuchi claimed he was aiming at Randy Weaver, who
Weekly Standard: A Reader: 1995–2005, ed. William Kris- surrendered nine days later.
tol, 152–60. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Weaver’s supporters argued that the government
Moore, James. The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for overstepped its constitutional authority by using military
Absolute Power. New York: Crown, 2006. tactics to apprehend him and, in the process, murdered
his son and wife, both unarmed. Some militia leaders
regarded the government’s refusal to accept blame as evi-
R u by R i d g e I n c i d e n t dence of a Zionist plot to co-opt the executive branch of
Ruby Ridge is the name of a bluff in Boundary County, the U.S. government. For the nascent militia movement,
Idaho, where a deadly confrontation erupted in 1992 be- the siege at Ruby Ridge represented federal tyranny,
tween federal agents and a forty-five-year-old survivalist requiring a defense against it that was best provided by
and former Green Beret named Randy Weaver. Weaver the citizens’ militia.
had moved his family to Ruby Ridge in the mid-1980s Detractors argued that while the deaths of Vicky and
and embraced Christian Identity, an anti-Semitic belief Samuel Weaver were tragic, Weaver was responsible be-
system. He also occasionally visited Richard Butler’s cause he broke the law and refused to answer the charges
then nearby Aryan Nation compound. Scholars believe against him in a court of law. Detractors noted that the
that the incident at Ruby Ridge, and a similar standoff Weavers espoused a violent ideology that defined African
in Waco, Texas, the following year, sparked the rise of Americans and Jews as subhuman and called for their
the modern-day militia movement. expulsion from the country.
The government’s aggressive responses at Ruby In 1995, the Weaver family settled a lawsuit against
Ridge and Waco were held up by nascent militia orga- the U.S. Department of Justice. The government did
nizers as a testament to an out-of-control federal govern- not acknowledge wrongdoing but paid the family $3
Ru sher, William A . 4 83
million to compensate for the shooting deaths of Vicky in Murphy, North Carolina. Rudolph, now incarcerated
and Samuel Weaver. at the federal prison in Florence, Colorado, avoided the
Carolyn Gallaher death penalty through a plea bargain in which he agreed
to disclose his hidden stockpiles of explosives.
See also: Aryan Nations; McVeigh, Timothy; Militia Move- The bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in
ment; Montana Freemen; Waco Siege; White Supremacists. Atlanta, his most dramatic offense, was intended to
embarrass the federal government for allowing abortion
Further Reading on demand. He hoped to defy the $303 million security
Dees, Morris. Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat. New operation and force the cancellation of the games, which
York: HarperCollins, 1996. he felt promoted the “despicable ideals” of “global so-
Gallaher, Carolyn. On the Fault Line: Race, Class, and the Ameri- cialism.” He later apologized for that bombing but not
can Patriot Movement. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, the others.
2003. After his arrest, Rudolph, claiming only Catholic
Levitas, Daniel. The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and affiliation, denied any formal link with the Christian
the Radical Right. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Identity movement. In an eleven-page statement, he
Walter, Jess. Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy denounced the U.S. federal government as illegitimate
Weaver Family. New York: ReganBooks, 2002. for legalizing abortion. He characterized the Republican
Party as “the Pharisaical sect,” its pro-life supporters as
duped, and President George W. Bush as a “coward”
Rudolph, Eric despite his talk about the “culture of life.” Rudolph ar-
Widely identified in the media as a “Christian terrorist,” gued that the “plastic people” of America were hypocrites
Eric Rudolph was sentenced in 2005 to life imprison- for supporting the war in Iraq while deploring violence
ment without parole for four bombings in the 1990s against the U.S. government to stop the “murder” of
that killed two people and injured more than a hun- unborn American citizens. As for homosexuality, he
dred others. Among his targets were the 1996 Summer stated that violence should be used to keep it out of the
Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and abortion clinics in public square.
Georgia and Alabama. Roger Chapman
Eric Robert Rudolph was born on September 19,
1966, in Merritt Island, Florida. Following his father’s See also: Abortion; Anti-Semitism; Aryan Nations; Capital Pun-
death in 1981, the family moved to North Carolina. ishment; Catholic Church; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gay
Homeschooled during his teens, Rudolph passed the Rights Movement; Homeschooling; Lesbians; Vigilantism.
GED and briefly attended Western Carolina Univer-
sity in Sylva (1985–1986). He served in the U.S. Army Further Reading
with the 101st Airborne Division (1987–1989), but Schuster, Henry, with Charles Stone. Hunting Eric Rudolph. New
was discharged early because of insubordination and York: Berkeley Books, 2005.
marijuana use. He then took up work as a carpenter. Vollers, Maryanne. Eric Rudolph: Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of
According to various sources, Rudolph was influenced by an American Outlaw. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
the ideology of the Christian Identity movement, which
teaches that Jews are descendents of Satan, responsible
for homosexuality, and part of an abortion conspiracy R u s h e r, W i l l i a m A .
to end the white race. Convinced that the massive U.S. federal bureaucracy
Rudolph’s bombing spree included the Centennial was a form of authoritarian collectivism sliding into so-
Olympic Park in Atlanta, killing a woman and injuring cialism, William A. Rusher spent more than fifty years
over a hundred others (July 27, 1996); the Sandy Springs advocating a rollback of the policies and projects initi-
Professional Building, a complex housing the Northside ated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s.
Planning Services abortion clinic in an Atlanta suburb, Rusher served from 1957 to 1988 as publisher of the
injuring six (January 16, 1997); the Otherside Lounge, a magazine National Review, edited by William F. Buck-
lesbian bar in Atlanta, injuring five (February 21, 1997); ley, Jr. His views were well circulated through a syndi-
and the New Woman All Women Health Care, an abor- cated newspaper column, “The Conservative Advocate,”
tion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an off-duty begun in 1973, and regular appearances on television
police officer and maiming a nurse (January 29, 1998). and radio as a commentator and political analyst. Rush-
For more than five years, despite being on the FBI’s 10 er frequently wrote magazine articles and authored five
Most Wanted List with a $1 million bounty, he evaded major books.
arrest, living in the Appalachian wilderness of western Born in Chicago on July 19, 1923, Rusher mostly
North Carolina. In May 2003, he was finally captured grew up in New York City. After graduating from
484 Ru sher, W illiam A .
Princeton University (AB, 1943), where he was active Schoenwald, Jonathan M. A Time for Choosing: The Rise of
in a campus Republican organization, he served in the Modern American Conservatism. Oxford: Oxford University
U.S. Air Force in India during World War II, advancing Press, 2001.
from second lieutenant to captain. After earning a law
degree at Harvard University (JD, 1948), he worked for
seven years as an attorney for a Wall Street law firm and Ryan, George
then as associate counsel to the Senate Internal Security Prior to his April 2006 conviction on eighteen federal
Subcommittee (1956–1957), where he probed the alleged counts of racketeering, mail fraud, tax evasion, and false
network of communists and subversives and others caught statements, George Ryan, the one-term governor of Il-
up in the Cold War and McCarthyism. linois (1999–2003), dramatically ended his political
Rusher helped Buckley establish the conservative career by declaring a moratorium on state executions,
student group Young Americans for Freedom (1960), emptying out the state’s death row. While critics ac-
and then with a handful of other conservatives began the cused him of trying to bolster his legacy in the face of a
process of convincing Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) political corruption scandal, foes of capital punishment
to run for president in 1964. Although Goldwater was praised him for focusing attention on the arbitrary and
defeated by a wide margin, conservative campaign workers capricious nature of the death penalty. Although nomi-
such as Phyllis Schlafly formed the nucleus of what would nated for the Nobel Peace Prize and lauded in song by
become the New Right, which came to power with the Illinois First, a Chicago rock band, Ryan in September
election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. From 1965 to 1970, 2006 was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for
Rusher was vice chair of the American Conservative Union, a bribery scandal involving the issuance of commercial
which had emerged from the Goldwater campaign. Rusher driver’s licenses when he was secretary of state.
regularly appeared on the PBS debating series The Advocates A native of Kankakee, Illinois, a small town 60 miles
(1969–1973), produced in response to the Nixon admin- (97 kilometers) south of Chicago, George Homer Ryan
istration’s criticism that television had a liberal bias. was born on February 24, 1934. After serving in the U.S.
When polling data in the mid-1970s indicated Army during the Korean War, he studied pharmacy at
that more voters identified themselves as conservatives Ferris State College in Big Rapids, Michigan, graduating
than liberals, Rusher set out to organize conservatives in 1961. For the next several years, he helped his father run
to create a third major political party to challenge the the family’s chain of drugstores but later opted for a career
Republican Party, which he saw as having been hijacked in Republican state politics. Advancing from the Kankakee
by opportunistic politicians, including President Richard county board (1968–1973) to the Illinois House of Repre-
M. Nixon, whom Rusher felt had betrayed conservative sentatives (1973–1983), he went on to hold statewide office
principles. Rusher’s The Making of the New Majority Party as lieutenant governor under Governor James Thompson
(1975) was one of a handful of books that sparked interest (1983–1991), secretary of state (1991–1999), and gover-
in and served as a blueprint for the conservative political nor (1999–2003). For most of his political career, he took
resurgence. Rusher eventually (and reluctantly) joined conservative to moderate positions on most issues.
forces with those conservatives who successfully took over On January 31, 2000, following new evidence that
the Republican Party. exonerated thirteen men on the state’s death row, Ryan
From 1980 forward, Rusher continued his political declared a halt to executions in Illinois. This led to the
activism as a senior statesman of the American conser- establishment of the Capital Punishment Commission,
vative movement and as a distinguished fellow of the which studied 5,310 first-degree murder convictions in
Claremont Institute in California. In The Coming Battle the state from 1988 to 1997. In its report of April 15,
for the Media (1988), he accuses a “media elite” of infusing 2002, the commission offered eighty-five suggestions for
news coverage with a liberal bias. reform, noting that the death penalty should be abolished
Chip Berlet if reform was not implemented. The commission found
that those who murdered an African American were 60
See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Cold War; Communists and percent less likely to receive the death penalty than those
Communism; Goldwater, Barry; McCarthyism; Media Bias; who murdered a white, and of the less than 2 percent of
National Review; Public Broadcasting Service; Republican murder defendants who received the death penalty, the
Party; Schlafly, Phyllis; Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.; Student majority were poor, uneducated, and minorities. In ad-
Conservatives. dition, it was found, a number of death row inmates had
been represented by attorneys who were later disbarred.
Further Reading Clemency hearings in the wake of the report led
Brennan, Mary C. Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conserva- Governor Ryan on December 19, 2002, to pardon three
tive Capture of the GOP. Chapel Hill: University of North men who had been wrongfully convicted of murder. He
Carolina Press, 1995. pardoned four others on January 10, 2003, stating that
Ryan, George 4 85
they had confessed to murders they did not commit after Further Reading
being tortured by the Chicago police. Finally, on January Buchanan, Patrick J. “George Ryan’s Pathetic Farewell.” Human
11, 2003, forty-eight hours before concluding his term, the Events, January 20, 2003.
governor commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates, Sarat, Austin. Mercy on Trial: What It Takes to Stop an Execution.
relegating all but three to life in prison without the pos- Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
sibility of parole. In announcing the decision, Ryan stated, Shapiro, Bruce. “Ryan’s Courage.” Nation, February 3, 2003.
“Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error Warden, Rob. “Illinois Death Penalty Reform: How It Hap-
in determining guilt and error in determining who among pened, What It Promises.” Journal of Criminal Law and
the guilty deserves to die.” Criminology 95:2 (2005): 381–426.
Roger Chapman
See also: Capital Punishment; Race.
account of Western scholarship, while Said’s supporters
contend that Western scholars remain so heavily influ-
enced by Orientalist tradition that they are unable to
present a fair and clear image of their subjects.
A passionate supporter of Palestinian statehood,
Said, Edward Said served as an independent member of the Pales-
Edward Said was an influential and controversial Pales- tinian National Council until Yasir Arafat threw the
tinian American literary theorist and critic whose life Palestinian Authority’s support behind Saddam Hussein
was as much an object of dispute as his scholarship and in the 1991 Gulf War. At that point, Said became an
his pro-Palestinian politics. Of his twenty-three books, increasingly vocal critic of Arafat’s leadership. Shortly
the best known is Orientalism (1978), a critical attack on after Said’s death from leukemia on September 25, 2003,
the Eurocentric attitudes found in Western scholarship, Columbia University established the Edward Said Chair
art, education, and policymaking as well as the West’s in Middle East Studies. In 2006, it was revealed that
perspective of the Orient as the “Other”—the binary Said had been under FBI surveillance since 1971.
opposite of the West.
Edward Wadie Said was born on November 1, 1935, J.D. Jordan
in Jerusalem to affluent Christian parents. He attended
school in both Cairo and Jerusalem until the 1948 Arab- See also: Israel; Lewis, Bernard; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
Israeli War made refugees of his extended family. He Studies; Muslim Americans; Saudi Arabia; September 11.
moved to the United States in 1951, earned degrees from
Princeton University (BA, 1957) and Harvard University Further Reading
(MA, 1960; PhD, 1964), and became a professor of Eng- Said, Edward. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A.
lish and comparative literature at Columbia University Knopf, 1999.
(1963–2003). Singh, Amritjit. Interviews with Edward W. Said. Jackson: Uni-
Justus Reid Weiner, a scholar at the Jerusalem Cen- versity Press of Mississippi, 2004.
ter for Public Affairs, wrote a highly publicized article Weiner, Justus Reid. “‘My Beautiful Old House’ and Other Fab-
in 1999 that challenged the details of Said’s biography. rications by Edward Said.” Commentary, September 1999.
Weiner contended that Said’s family never lived in Je- Williams, Patrick, ed. Edward Said. 4 vols. Thousand Oaks,
rusalem, that he never studied there, and that the 1948 CA: Sage, 2004.
Arab-Israeli War therefore could not have rendered his
family refugees. Said and a number of defenders vigor-
ously refuted those accusations. Same -Sex Marriage
Despite this controversy, it is for Orientalism that Said Same-sex marriage has been a significant issue in Amer-
is best known. Said defines the term “Orientalism” as the ican law and politics since the early 1990s, when the
intellectual and editorial means by which scholars, writ- Supreme Court of Hawaii in Baehr v. Lewin (1993) de-
ers, and political officials have defined, restructured, and clared that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex
dominated the East while obfuscating the inherent and couples was a form of sex discrimination and in viola-
universal humanity present in it. Orientalists define the tion of the state’s constitution. Hawaii and other states
Islamic World and Asia as static, backward, tyrannical, responded with a popular referendum that amended the
incapable of reform, and empirically inferior—racially state’s constitution to define marriage as the legal union
and culturally—to the more advanced West. Said blames between a man and a woman.
colonization and its associated modes of thought for The Hawaii court decision sparked a maelstrom of
encouraging this uneven comparison, explaining Orien- cultural controversy and led to concern that courts in
talism in terms of binary opposition and a pervasive post- other states would challenge the heterosexual basis of
Napoleonic state of colonial inequality. Said proposes that marriage. Politically, same-sex marriage emerged as an
the only honest portrayal of the non-European world is important issue at the federal level with the 1996 Defense
one that emphasizes humanity and individuality without of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was passed by an over-
relying on generalization and categorization to define one whelming majority in Congress and signed into law by
population in terms of the other. President Bill Clinton. The law declared that the federal
Said did not confine his criticism to historical texts government may not recognize same-sex marriages for
but also attacked contemporary scholarship. The public any purpose, and that no state can be compelled to rec-
exchange between Said and Bernard Lewis, a professor ognize a same-sex marriage even if performed in another
of Near Eastern studies at Princeton, debated the merits state. (The act also clarified that polygamous marriages
of Orientalism in numerous academic journals. Critics would not be recognized.) As of 2007, forty-two states
continue to attack Said’s thesis as a profoundly flawed had passed a law or constitutional amendment restrict-
486
S ame -Sex Mar r iage 4 87
ing marriage to heterosexual unions. Several states also judges,” meaning judges whose rulings are viewed as
passed “SuperDOMAs,” denying recognition not only of contrary to conservatives’ understanding of settled law
same-sex marriages but also of civil unions and domestic or the popular will.
partnerships. Some opponents of same-sex marriage argue that
The debate was briefly rekindled in 1999 when recognizing nonheterosexual unions would imply state
Vermont’s Supreme Court declared that denying mar- endorsement of same-sex relationships, in violation of
riage licenses to same-sex couples is a violation of equal the conscience of the majority of Americans and their
protection under the law. The state legislature and the religious views. Others, drawing on conventional wisdom
governor, Howard Dean, responded with a civil union bill about the family, argue that marriage between a man
that defined marriage as heterosexual but granted equal and a woman represents the most stable environment for
state benefits to same-sex couples. Most of the debate rearing children. A two-parent household is more eco-
between 2000 and 2003 occurred at the state level, as nomically stable, it is argued, and the erosion of gender
individual states considered and usually passed DOMAs. norms in nontraditional households is psychologically
Neither of the two major political parties made the ap- harmful to children.
proval of same-sex marriage a part of its platform, and While many social conservatives are united in their
few national politicians spoke out in favor of it. How- opposition to same-sex marriage, some conservatives and
ever, in 2002 the Alliance for Marriage, with the help of Republicans have voiced support for same-sex marriage
conservative legal scholar Robert Bork, drafted a federal or civil unions. Libertarian conservatives such as Andrew
marriage amendment that would define marriage in the Sullivan argue that same-sex marriage would promote
U.S. Constitution as between a man and a woman. a stable family environment for gays and lesbians and
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned all state- discourage promiscuity. Monogamy and familial stabil-
level bans on sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), same- ity through marriage, it is argued, are more important
sex marriage once again became a high-profile issue at the goals than maintaining marriage as a heterosexual in-
national level. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin stitution.
Scalia warned that overturning the criminalization of Gay and lesbian activists have generally lined up in
sodomy would result in the overturning of marriage laws. support of same-sex marriage, and most major gay rights
The state of Massachusetts affirmed his fear in Goodridge organizations, including the Lambda Defense League,
v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health (2003), when have been involved in political and legal struggles in
its Supreme Judicial Court declared that the state’s support of same-sex marriage. However, many others
marriage laws violated equal protection guarantees and have expressed reservations about making same-sex
ordered the state to begin issuing marriage licenses to marriage the central component of the gay rights move-
same-sex couples. ment. Some activists worry that working for same-sex
Following the Massachusetts decision, conservative marriage may interfere with the achievement of other
leaders such as James Dobson and Pat Robertson pres- important goals, such as antidiscrimination measures.
sured Republican politicians to pass the federal marriage Others, such as gender activist Michael Warner, argue
amendment. The plan drew public support from Presi- that the marriage debate attempts to normalize gays
dent George W. Bush and many Republican members and lesbians and demonize alternative sexual expression.
of Congress, although Bush and others did not push for Self-described queer activists worry that the gay rights
immediate passage of the amendment. Bush’s opponent movement has turned its back on the sexual liberation
in the 2004 election, John Kerry, opposed the amend- aspirations of the 1970s and has internalized heterosexist
ment but supported civil unions rather than same-sex norms of the family.
marriage. In the key state of Ohio, where a state amend- Claire E. Rasmussen
ment banning same-sex marriage was also on the ballot
in the 2004 election, voter turnout was high, especially See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Dean, Howard; Dobson,
among conservatives. The Ohio amendment passed by a James; Family Values; Gay Rights Movement; Hay, Harry;
wide margin, and Bush narrowly won Ohio’s electoral Judicial Wars; Kerry, John; Religious Right; Robertson, Pat;
college votes. Sexual Revolution; Sodomy Laws.
While the general public’s interest in same-sex mar-
riage waned after the 2004 election, the issue remained an Further Reading
important one to the Religious Right, which continued Eskridge, William N., Jr., and Darren R. Spedale. Gay Marriage:
to press for the federal amendment as well as further state For Better or for Worse? What We’ve Learned from the Evidence.
provisions. Same-sex marriage was entangled with a num- New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
ber of other issues important to conservative Christians, Goldberg-Hiller, Jonathan. The Limits to Union: Same-Sex Mar-
such as the role of the courts, abortion, and sexuality. The riage and the Politics of Civil Rights. Ann Arbor: University of
issue is often cited in the right’s indictment of “activist Michigan Press, 2002.
488 S anders, Ber nie
Mello, Michael. Legalizing Gay Marriage. Philadelphia: Temple

University Press, 2004.
Wardle, Lynn, ed. Marriage and Same-Sex Unions: A Debate. New
York: Praeger, 2003.
Wolfson, Evan. Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and
Gay People’s Right to Marry. New York: Simon & Schuster,
2004.
Sanders, Bernie
For many years the only independent in the U.S. House
of Representatives, Bernard “Bernie” Sanders has been
the rare radical political activist who has managed to
carry his ideas into mainstream politics during an era
of conservative dominance. A self-described democratic
socialist, he was Vermont’s only member of the House
from 1991 to 2007. He was elected to the U.S. Senate
in 2006. Calling himself a “democratic socialist,” Bernie Sanders of
The son of Polish immigrants, Sanders was born on Vermont—posing before a portrait of socialist labor leader Eu-
gene V. Debs—was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1990. After
September 8, 1941, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. serving eight terms in the House, he was elected to the Senate
He graduated from the University of Chicago (BA, 1964), in 2006. (Steve Liss/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
where he spent much of his time in political activism.
He moved to Vermont in 1964 and entered politics in
the 1970s as a member of the leftist Liberty Union Party. medications available there. Other members of Congress
During that decade, he ran twice for senator under the soon followed suit.
party banner and twice for governor as an independent, Critics on the far left argue that Sanders has so com-
in each case unsuccessfully. In 1981, running as an in- promised his principles that he is effectively a Democrat.
dependent, he won the first of four consecutive terms His supporters contend that he has consistently empha-
as mayor of Burlington, the state’s largest city, which sized his core values, representing the interests of working
some began calling “the People’s Republic of Burling- families, farmers, low-income families, veterans, students,
ton.” Mayor Sanders successfully pushed for a number of and others underrepresented by a corporate-dominated
social, cultural, and economic programs, ranging from a political system. His populist policies have drawn support
public day care center to tax reform and the creation of across the political spectrum, aided by his iconoclastic,
an arts council. outspoken style and no-nonsense practicality, and he has
Early in Sanders’s mayoralty, a local political party, won a surprisingly enduring popularity in a traditionally
the Progressive Coalition, was formed to support his pro- Republican state.
grams. The Vermont Progressive Party grew out of this Gary L. Bailey
effort. One of its candidates succeeded Sanders as mayor,
and other party members won seats to the state legislature See also: Democratic Party; Globalization; Health Care; Re-
as well as local offices. Sanders’s local political career publican Party.
helped galvanize the state’s progressive elements.
Sanders was elected to the U.S. House of Representa- Further Reading
tives in 1990, defeating a first-term incumbent Repub- Conroy, W.J. Challenging the Boundaries of Reform: Socialism in
lican. He increasingly worked with House Democrats, Burlington. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
caucusing with them and being counted with them for Rosenfeld, Steven. Making History in Vermont: The Election of a
such administrative purposes as committee assignments. Socialist to Congress. Wakefield, NH: Hollowbrook, 1992.
He was a co-founder and first chairperson of the House Sanders, Bernie, and Huck Gutman. Outsider in the House. New
Progressive Caucus; all other members were Democrats. York: Verso, 1997.
He emphasized issues such as universal health care, vet- Vermont Progressive Party Web site. www.answers.com.
erans’ issues, and the damaging effects of free trade, and
he supported a variety of measures intended to address
corporate influence in politics and the media. In 1999, to Saudi Arabia
dramatize the problem of high-cost prescription drugs, The largest country in the Middle East, comprising four-
he led a well-publicized bus trip in which a group of fifths of the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia possesses
Vermonters went to Canada to buy the less expensive 20 percent of the world’s known petroleum reserves and
S audi A rabia 489
is perhaps the strictest fundamentalist Islamic society. of intervention after their children were kidnapped in
Over the years, the United States has guaranteed the the United States and flown to Saudi Arabia, prompting
security of Saudi Arabia, providing military protection books such as Patricia Roush’s At Any Price: How America
from first the Soviet Union and later Iraq and Iran, to Betrayed My Kidnapped Daughters for Saudi Oil (2003).
safeguard the flow of oil. After the terrorist attacks of As the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites (Mecca
September 11, 2001, in which fifteen of the nineteen and Medina), Saudi Arabia has extended its religious
hijackers were Saudi nationals, Americans in greater influence to the larger Muslim world, even using oil
numbers began questioning the wisdom of this strate- proceeds to fund nations (primarily Egypt and Syria) and
gic partnership. Critical observers charge that the Saudi movements (such as the Palestinian Liberation Organiza-
monarchy sowed the seeds of al-Qaeda by fostering reli- tion) that oppose Israel. During the 1980s Saudi males
gious extremism. in large numbers, with the monarchy’s blessings, trav-
King Ibn Saud, who founded the Kingdom of Saudi eled to Afghanistan to fight in a jihad against the Soviet
Arabia in 1932, based the laws of his society on Wahha- Union. The United States through the CIA assisted some
bism, a puritanical Sunni Muslim doctrine that empha- of those fighters, including Osama bin Laden, who in the
sizes jihad, or holy war. After Saud’s death in 1953, his late 1980s formed the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Its
successors pursued the same course, infusing Wahhabi members have since committed terrorist attacks inside
ideology in the nation’s mosques, schools, and political Saudi Arabia, denouncing the monarchy for religious
system. Annually, Western monitors cite Saudi Arabia complacency that permitted U.S. forces to marshal in
for human rights violations, but the U.S. government Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War. According to
has avoided pressing the issue. Public worship other than an October 2001 confidential poll of Saudi males (ages
Islam is outlawed, even for foreigners living inside the twenty-five to forty-one), 95 percent approved of bin
country. Non-Muslims are not allowed to be buried in Laden’s jihad against the West.
the country because the ground, being the birthplace of Protecting the oil fields of the Middle East was the
Islam, is considered too sacred. Saudi Arabia is also known U.S. objective of the Gulf War, specifically to coun-
for imposing brutal punishment on lawbreakers, from terbalance Iraq, which had the largest military in the
amputation of limbs to decapitation. Between 1979 and Middle East, and to force its withdrawal from Kuwait.
2008 there were over 1,800 executions in Saudi Arabia, American ties to Saudi Arabia date back to 1933 when
of which more than half were foreign migrant workers. Aramco (the Arabian American Oil Company) received
The British docudrama Death of a Princess (1980), based a concession agreement giving it oil rights until 1999.
on the 1977 execution of a Saudi princess and her lover In the early 1970s, however, Saudi authorities withdrew
for adultery, aroused strong objection by Saudi Arabia the concession. In 1973, oil was for the first time used
when it was aired in the United States by PBS. as a political weapon, prompting Americans to coin the
The American media have criticized Saudi Arabia for phrase “energy crisis.” Members of the oil cartel OPEC
practicing “gender apartheid.” Out in public a woman is (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries),
required to wear a headscarf and a floor-length black gar- founded thirteen years earlier and dominated by the
ment called an abaya. Women are not allowed to drive and Saudi regime, imposed an oil embargo against the United
out in public must be escorted by male family members. States and other Western nations for supporting Israel
Females may only attend all-girl schools. At restaurants during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Despite such politi-
women must eat in “family” sections, separated from cal twists and turns, between 1973 and 1980 the U.S.
single men. McDonald’s Corp. and Starbucks Coffee Co. government allowed the Saudis to purchase $34 billion
have been criticized for allowing their franchises in Saudi of American military hardware. During the early days of
Arabia to operate with gender-segregated zones. Ameri- the Reagan administration, after acrimonious debate and
can service women stationed in Saudi Arabia have also a narrow 52–48 Senate vote, the United States agreed
been subjected to some of these gender rules, prompting to sell Saudi Arabia AWACS—Airborne Warning and
a 2001 lawsuit by Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally, Control System—radar aircraft for monitoring the Saudi
a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, who objected to wearing a skies against surprise attack.
headscarf. (Congress rescinded the headscarf regulation, Since September 11 and the subsequent Iraq War,
but the U.S. military still prohibits its female service some liberal culture warriors have accused the Bush fam-
members from driving while in Saudi Arabia.) A Saudi ily of sinister ties with the Saudi monarchy—for example,
woman who in 2006 had been gang-raped was sentenced Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 (2004) and Craig Unger’s
by a Saudi court to 200 lashes for being alone in an House of Bush, House of Saud (2004). In the meantime,
automobile with a non-relative male, but the negative conservatives who have long advocated oil drilling in the
foreign media attention led to her receiving a pardon. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and offshore
Some American women who married Saudis and were drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts have argued
later divorced have been frustrated by Washington’s lack that increasing domestic oil production would allow the
490 Schaef fer, Franc is
United States to end its energy dependency on authori- ministry, which culminated in 1955 with the founding
tarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia. of L’Abri (The Shelter) in Switzerland. There Schaeffer
taught Christian apologetics and helped establish the
Roger Chapman International Council of Christian Churches, a conserva-
tive counterpart to the World Council of Churches. (One
See also: Bush Family; Cold War; Fundamentalism, Religious; of his students at L’Abri was Michael Ford, the son of
Israel; Muslim Americans; Reagan, Ronald; September 11. President Gerald R. Ford.) Schaeffer wrote a number of
books, including Escape from Reason (1968), The God Who
Further Reading Is There (1968), True Spirituality (1971), and How Then
Baer, Robert. Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Shall We Live? (1976). His book A Christian Manifesto
Soul for Saudi Crude. New York: Crown, 2003. (1981) and the film series it inspired were criticized
Bronson, Rachel. Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partner- for offering a simplified rendering of Western history
ship with Saudi Arabia. New York: Oxford University Press, and philosophy. Some critics found him unscholarly;
2006. evangelical historian Mark Noll argued that Schaef-
Commins, David. The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. New fer’s work presented a “simplified myth of America’s
York: I.B. Tauris, 2006. Christian past.”
Posner, Gerald L. Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Schaeffer died of leukemia on May 15, 1984, in Roch-
Saudi-U.S. Connection. New York: Random House, 2005. ester, Minnesota. L’Abri centers still operate in Great
U.S. Congress. U.S. Relations with Saudi Arabia: Oil, Anxiety, and Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia,
Ambivalence: Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Middle East South Korea, Canada, and the United States; and Schaef-
and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Washington, fer’s teachings continue to influence many fundamental-
DC: US GPO, 2008. ists and other conservative Christians.
Andrew J. Waskey
S c h a e f f e r, F r a n c i s
The evangelical philosopher and Presbyterian pastor See also: Abortion; American Exceptionalism; Catholic
Francis Schaeffer, once dubbed the guru of fundamen- Church; Evangelicalism; Ford, Gerald; Fundamentalism,
talism, fortified the Religious Right by linking secu- Religious; Immigration Policy; Koop, C. Everett; McIntire,
lar humanism to pornography, the breakdown of the Carl; Pornography; Religious Right; Secular Humanism;
family, abortion, and the expansion of government. He World Council of Churches.
blamed America’s moral decline on the waves of im-
migrants that, after 1848, were lacking a Reformation Further Reading
background due to their largely Roman Catholic affili- Duriez, Colin. Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life. Wheaton, IL:
ation. He encouraged “true believers” to rise up in civil Crossway Books, 2008.
disobedience to cast aside immoral laws and reclaim the Ruegsegger, Ronald W., ed. Reflections on Francis Schaeffer. Grand
nation’s Christian—that is, Protestant—heritage. Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1986.
Francis August Schaeffer was born on January 30, Schaeffer, Francis A. The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer:
1912, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He attended A Christian Worldview. 5 vols. Westchester, IL: Crossway
Hampden-Sydney College, graduating magna cum laude Books, 1985.
in 1935, and married Edith Seville, whose parents had Wellman, Sam. Francis and Edith Schaeffer: Defenders of the Faith.
served as missionaries with the Inland China Mission. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour, 2000.
He also attended Westminster Theological Seminary
in Philadelphia (1935–1937), founded in the wake of a
modernist-fundamentalist conflict at Princeton Theo- S c h i avo , Te r r i
logical Seminary and in opposition to the trend toward Terri Schiavo garnered international attention as a symbol
a liberal theological interpretation of the Bible. Ortho- of what religious conservatives described as the “culture
dox Presbyterian leaders, among them Carl McIntire, of death” and what end-of-life activists viewed as a per-
organized Westminster, which eventually led to the son’s right to die. For fifteen years, in a persistent vegeta-
formation of the Presbyterian Church in America. A new tive state, she received nutrition and hydration through
split established the Bible Presbyterian Church and its a feeding tube while a vitriolic legal battle was fought
Faith Theological Seminary. Schaeffer graduated from between her husband and her parents over whether to
the latter in 1938 and became the new denomination’s end that care. Her husband and legal guardian, Michael
first ordained pastor. Schiavo, sought to remove the tube, claiming it was con-
From 1938 to 1948 Schaeffer served in pastorates in sistent with his wife’s medical prognosis and her wishes.
several states. He then moved to Europe to start a youth Mary and Robert Schindler, the woman’s parents, took
Schiavo, Ter r i 4 91
The highly charged case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman in a vegetative state since 1990, pitted her husband, who asked
that life support be discontinued, against her parents and anti-euthanasia groups. Schiavo died in 2005, thirteen days after
the removal of her feeding tube. (Matt May/Getty Images)
legal action to block removal of the feeding tube because October 2003 and again in March 2005 created a media
of their commitment to the sanctity of life and their belief frenzy and ignited a political firestorm. Special laws
that she might one day be restored to health. designed to block the court-ordered removal and to pro-
Schiavo was twenty-six years old when, on Febru- vide federal judicial oversight of the Florida state court
ary 25, 1990, she collapsed in the couple’s apartment. proceedings were passed by the Florida legislature and
Paramedics found her unconscious, not breathing, and the U.S. Congress and signed, respectively, by Governor
without a pulse. A cause was never determined. Unable Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush. Despite these
to swallow, Schiavo underwent surgical placement of a unprecedented legislative and executive interventions in
feeding tube for the delivery of nutrients. By the end of an end-of-life court proceeding, the courts continued to
1990, she was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegeta- uphold the decision of Schiavo’s husband. Schiavo died
tive state, having never regained consciousness. on March 31, 2005, thirteen days after removal of the
In 1998, after years of unsuccessful rehabilitation feeding tube.
efforts and on the advice of his wife’s physicians, Michael In his Focus on the Family newsletter, James Dobson ar-
Schiavo petitioned the court to cease his wife’s medical gued, “Terri’s killing signifies conclusively that the judicial
treatments, including the feeding tube. Removal of the system in this country is far too powerful and . . . out of
feeding tube was opposed by the Schindlers, leading to a control.” But a majority of legal, medical, and bioethical
complex series of court battles and political interventions. commentators found the Schiavo case a model of thorough
The Schindlers were aided by an array of organizations legal proceedings, careful medical analysis, and appropriate
and personalities—including Not Dead Yet, civil rights protections of a patient’s right to self-determination.
activist Jesse Jackson, Operation Rescue founder Randall
Terry, and actor Mel Gibson—who joined in an attempt Joshua E. Perry
to “save Terri” through an Internet-based public relations
campaign marked by disability rights rhetoric and anti- See also: Bush Family; Dobson, James; Evangelicalism; Focus
abortion slogans. on the Family; Gibson, Mel; Jackson, Jesse; Judicial Wars;
The scheduled removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube in Not Dead Yet; Operation Rescue; Right to Die.
4 92 Schlaf ly, Phyllis
Further Reading Through STOP ERA and later the Eagle Forum,
Dobson, James. “Life, Death and Judicial Tyranny.” Focus on the founded in 1975, Schlafly articulated her opposition
Family Action Newsletter, April 2005. to the proposed amendment. If the ERA passed, she
Perry, Joshua E., Larry R. Churchill, and Howard S. Kirsh- warned, courts would reinterpret legislation passed to
ner. “The Terri Schiavo Case: Legal, Ethical, and Medical protect women; abortion would continue unimpeded;
Perspectives.” Annals of Internal Medicine 143:10 (2005): women would be forced into combat situations through
744–48. the draft; homosexual rights would be grafted into the
Schiavo, Michael. Terri: The Truth. New York: Dutton, 2006. Constitution; and laws governing child support, alimony,
Schindler, Mary, and Robert Schindler. A Life That Matters: and divorce would be put in jeopardy. Any intended good
The Legacy of Terri Schiavo—A Lesson for Us All. New York: of the ERA, Schlafly argued, was already provided by the
Warner Books, 2006. Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of
1972. Critics characterized her efforts as impeding the
S c h l a f l y, P hy l l i s progress of women’s rights.
Phyllis Schlafly, a prominent antifeminist leader best Schlafly voiced her arguments against the ERA at
known for her relentless opposition to the Equal Rights protest rallies, congressional hearings, and lobbying ses-
Amendment (ERA), has actively participated in the con- sions right up to the June 30, 1982, ratification deadline.
servative wing of the Republican Party since the 1950s. In the decades after the amendment’s defeat, she remained
She has been called the “Gloria Steinem of the Right.” a strong voice in the conservative ranks of the Republican
Phyllis McAlpin Stewart, born on August 15, 1924, Party, publishing her monthly newsletter and writing a
in St. Louis, Missouri, was raised in a Catholic home and number of books on education, the courts, politics, and
attended a female parochial school. She studied gov- defense policy (she once described the atomic bomb as “a
ernment and politics at Washington University in St. marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise
Louis (AB, 1944) and Radcliffe University (MA, 1945). God”). In May 2008, students and faculty at Washington
Returning to Washington University decades later, University protested against Schlafly being awarded an
she studied law (JD, 1978). On October 20, 1949, she honorary doctorate degree.
married Fred Schlafly, Jr., of Alton, Illinois, a wealthy
attorney and political conservative, and together they Matthew C. Sherman
had six children.
Schlafly’s marriage reinforced her growing conser- See also: Abortion; Equal Rights Amendment; Family Values;
vatism, and during the 1950s and 1960s, she and her Feminism, Second-Wave; Gay Rights Movement; Goldwa-
husband formed a dynamic couple in Illinois Republican ter, Barry; Judicial Wars; National Organization for Women;
Party politics. In 1952, she ran unsuccessfully for Con- Same-Sex Marriage; Stay-at-Home Mothers; Taft, Robert, Jr.
gress and helped organize a GOP meeting in Alton on
behalf of presidential hopeful Robert Taft, a U.S. senator Further Reading
from Ohio. The Schlaflys co-founded the Catholic anti- Critchlow, Donald T. Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism:
communist Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation in 1959. A Woman’s Crusade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
At some point Phyllis Schlafly was a member of the John Press, 2005.
Birch Society. During the 1964 presidential campaign, Felsenthal, Carol. The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority: The Biog-
she wrote A Choice Not an Echo to promote the presidential raphy of Phyllis Schlafly. New York: Doubleday, 1981.
drive of Barry Goldwater. In 1970, she once again failed Hoff-Wilson, Joan, ed. Rights of Passage: The Past and Future of
at a bid for Congress. the ERA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
Although she was exceptionally active in Republi-
can Party politics at the state and local levels, it was her
opposition to the ERA that propelled Schlafly into the S c h l e s i n g e r, A r t h u r M . , J r.
national spotlight. Her initial opposition was based on Historian, author, adviser to presidents, and political ac-
the perception that the ERA was a threat to the family, tivist Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., spent the second half
which she defined in the February 1972 issue of the Phyl- of the twentieth century championing liberalism and
lis Schlafly Report as “the basic unit of society, which is defending the legacies of the New Deal. Schlesinger is
ingrained in the laws and customs of our Judeo-Christian perhaps best known for his cyclical theory of American
civilization [and] is the great single achievement in the political history, which suggests that the United States
history of women’s rights.” With this basic philosophy, has a tradition of swinging back and forth between peri-
she and other conservative women in September 1972 ods of reform and conservative resurgence. Similarly, he
founded Stop Taking Our Privileges (STOP ERA) to observed a tension between two views of the nation, the
counter the ERA movement. Puritan model (American exceptionalism and the belief
School of the A mer ic a s 4 93
of predestined national greatness) and the Founding See also: Afrocentrism; American Exceptionalism; Commu-
Fathers model (a nation of bold experimentation, but nists and Communism; Founding Fathers; Johnson, Lyndon
nonetheless a nation among nations). B.; Kennedy Family; McCarthyism; Multiculturalism and
Himself the son of a prominent Harvard historian, Ethnic Studies; New Deal; Nixon, Richard; Political Correct-
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., was born on October 15, ness; Revisionist History.
1917, in Columbus, Ohio. A graduate of Harvard Univer-
sity (AB, 1938), he served during World War II with the Further Reading
Office of War Information (1942–1943) and the Office of Depoe, Stephen P. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and the Ideological
Strategic Services (1943–1945). Despite not obtaining a History of American Liberalism. Tuscaloosa: University of
doctoral degree, Schlesinger had a distinguished academic Alabama Press, 1994.
career at Harvard (1946–1961) and the City University of Diggins, John Patrick, ed. The Liberal Persuasion: Arthur Schle-
New York (1966–1995). In addition to teaching, Schle- singer, Jr., and the Challenge of the American Past. Princeton,
singer served as a special assistant to President John F. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Kennedy (1961–1963) and President Lyndon B. Johnson Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent
(1963–1964), and acted as a campaign adviser to Adlai Beginnings, 1917–1950. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Stevenson and Robert Kennedy. Schlesinger died in New
York City on February 28, 2007.
A self-described “noncommunist leftist,” Schlesinger School of the Americas
helped found the liberal anticommunist organization The School of the Americas (SOA)—renamed the
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA, 1947), opposed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Coopera-
McCarthyism and “Nixonism,” warned against the “radi- tion (WHISC or WHINSEC) in 2001—was founded
cal Right,” and later declared the Vietnam War a “moral in 1946 at the onset of the Cold War for the purpose
outrage.” In defense of liberalism, Schlesinger argued that of training Latin American military officers in tactics
it serves as the “vital center” between the totalitarian ex- used for fighting communist insurgency. A U.S. Army
tremes of communism and fascism. During a 1961 debate facility operated in Spanish under Pentagon oversight,
with conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of the it was known as the Latin American Training Center
National Review, Schlesinger asserted that the welfare until 1963. Originally located at Fort Gulick in Pan-
state is “deeply consistent with the American tradition” ama, the SOA was relocated to Fort Benning, Georgia,
and is also “the best security against communism.” That in 1984, after the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty.
remark was scorned by Republicans and conservative Since 1990 the school has been the scene of an annual
Democrats, including Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL), protest led by Catholic activists.
who characterized it as “a crisis in the mental history of From 1963 to 1996, the SOA trained 61,000 soldiers
Arthur Schlesinger.” from eleven South and Central American countries. Dur-
Schlesinger is the author of many books, including ing the late 1980s and early 1990s, the facility became
The Age of Jackson (1945), a work placing Andrew Jack- the object of public criticism because some of its gradu-
son in the liberal tradition, and which won a Pulitzer ates were linked to right-wing terror, death squads, and
Prize; The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (1949), a military takeovers. For example, SOA graduate General
defense of postwar liberalism; The Age of Roosevelt (1957, Romeo Lucas García was the dictator of Guatemala from
1959, 1960), a three-volume work extolling the bold 1978 to 1982, during which time that nation witnessed
experimentation of the New Deal; A Thousand Days: some 5,000 political murders and 25,000 civilian deaths;
John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965), a behind-the- three Honduran generals, also SOA graduates, in the
scenes account of the Kennedy administration that won 1970s formed an army death squad called Battalion 3-16;
a Pulitzer Prize for Biography; The Imperial Presidency and nearly all of the officers responsible for overthrowing
(1973), an analysis of the Johnson and Nixon presiden- the democratic government of Salvador Allende in Chile
cies and the abuse of executive power; and The Disuniting on September 11, 1973, were SOA graduates. It was
of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (1991), the tarnished reputation of the SOA that compelled the
a repudiation of “politically correct” history, includ- Pentagon to rename it the Western Hemisphere Institute
ing black studies and Afrocentrism. Over the years, for Security Cooperation.
Schlesinger’s harshest critics accused him of violating The existence of the SOA became more widely known
the objectivity of the historian by allowing partisanship after the shooting deaths of six Jesuit priests in El Salva-
to color his work, but he suggested that history is “the dor on November 16, 1989. Of the twenty-six soldiers
quest for an unattainable objectivity” and gained a wide implicated in the murders, nineteen were later found to
following for his perceptive analyses. have been trained by the SOA. On the first anniversary
of the massacre, Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois, accom-
Roger Chapman panied by protestors Charles Liteky and Patrick Liteky,
494 School P rayer
entered SOA headquarters and poured blood over the that time, the U.S. Supreme Court declared such official
photographs on display of the school’s distinguished rituals unconstitutional. While a bitter grievance of the
graduates. All three men were jailed, but their act of civil Religious Right ever since, school prayer has not been
disobedience gave birth to the advocacy group School of an issue of utmost concern to most Americans. None-
the Americas Watch. Into the twenty-first century, that theless, a Gallup poll as recent as August 2005 showed
organization has continued protesting the operation of that 76 percent of Americans support a constitutional
the training center, which it dubs the “School of the amendment permitting voluntary school prayer.
Assassins” and the “School of Coups.” Each November,
SOA Watch conducts a massive protest outside the gates Cold War Era
of Fort Benning. Before the Supreme Court ban on state-sponsored school
A 1992 internal Department of Defense investigative prayer, only about one-third of the public schools in
report, never intended for public dissemination, revealed postwar America actually conducted classroom prayer.
that between 1982 and 1991 “torture manuals” had been Some regions were more “prayer oriented” than others:
a part of the SOA’s curriculum. Newspapers across the 80 percent of elementary schools conducted prayer in
country responded with editorials calling for the dis- the South and East; 38 percent did so in the Midwest;
mantling of the training center. In 1996, SOA Watch and only 14 percent in the West. State courts banned
established an office in Washington, D.C., with the goal school prayer in Washington, California, South Dakota,
of lobbying Congress to do just that. In 1999, the U.S. Nebraska, Louisiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
House of Representatives voted 230–197 to reduce the The controversy surrounding school prayer emerged
school’s funding from $4.5 million to $2 million, but the partly as a function of the Cold War, a time when many
Senate opposed the reduction. In 2000, the House failed Americans equated atheism with communism. In this
to pass a measure that would have shut down the school context, the phrase “In God We Trust” was inscribed on
entirely. In the wake of the post–September 11 abuse of legal tender, and the words “under God” were inserted
prisoners and detainees by American service personnel in the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1952, Congress directed
at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantánamo Bay the president to establish a National Day of Prayer.
detention camp in Cuba, critics have pointed to the SOA Although some school systems had a tradition of prayer
as proof of a long-standing and institutionalized darker and Bible reading dating back to the nineteenth century,
side of the U.S. military system. others did not introduce devotional exercises until the
Roger Chapman Cold War era.
In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the U.S.
See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Catholic Church; Central Supreme Court by a 5–4 majority interpreted the Es-
Intelligence Agency; Cold War; Human Rights. tablishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution—“Congress shall make no law respecting an
Further Reading establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
Gill, Leslie. The School of the Americas: Military Training and thereof ”—as requiring a “wall of separation” between
Political Violence in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke Uni- church and state. With the doctrine of separation in place,
versity Press, 2004. the high court in McCollum v. Board of Education (1948)
Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jack. School of Assassins: Guns, Greed, and then declared it unconstitutional for public schools to
Globalization. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001. offer religious instruction. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the
Quigley, Bill. “The Case for Closing the School of the Americas.” high court declared mandatory prayer in public schools
BYU Journal of Public Law 20:1 (2006): 1–34. unconstitutional. This was followed by Abington v. Schempp
School of the Americas Watch web site. www.soaw.org. (1963) and Murray v. Curlett (1963), which outlawed
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation web mandatory Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord’s
site. www.benning.army.mil/whinsec. Prayer in public schools.
The Engel Case
S c h o o l P r aye r In July 1958, the Herricks School Board in Nassau
A test of the separation between church and state, the is- County on Long Island (New York) directed its teachers
sue of mandatory prayer in public schools has been an on- to recite the State Board of Regents’ prayer each school
going and often controversial issue in the United States day. Drafted in November 1951, the prayer read, “Al-
since the Cold War in the late 1940s and 1950s. The mighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon
matter came to a head in the early 1960s, after a number Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents,
of individuals filed federal lawsuits against public school our teachers, and our country.” New York governor
districts for conducting prayer in the classroom and re- Thomas Dewey endorsed the prayer, saying that it was
quiring students to take part. In several major rulings at useful for opposing “the slave world of godless commu-
School P rayer 4 95
nism.” New York educational associations also endorsed posed the prayer because of his belief in the separation
the prayer, believing that it could serve as an antidote to of church and state. The only female plaintiff, Lenore
“narcotics and alcohol.” Protestant and Catholic leaders Lyons, was of Jewish descent but a member of the Uni-
endorsed the recitation as well. Opposing the prayer di- tarian Church.
rective were the liberal denominational magazine Chris-
tian Century (which warned that rote prayer can become The Abington and Murray Cases
an “empty formality”); the United Parents Association As Engel wound its way through the lower courts, the
(which argued that students should not be forced to re- Abington and Murray cases were also under way. In 1956,
cite “what they do not even understand”); and several sixteen-year-old Ellery Frank Schempp, whose religious
major Jewish organizations (which called it a violation affiliation was Unitarian, objected to the daily ritual at
of the separation of church and state). Abington Senior High School (in a Philadelphia suburb)
After Herricks High School announced plans for of reading ten verses out of the Protestant King James
implementing regular prayer, twenty-eight parents, Version Bible and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
representing thirty-nine students, requested that their Schempp did not agree with a literal reading of the Bi-
children be excused from participating. In the legal case ble, thought the devotional was a violation of the Estab-
that ensued, Engel v. Vitale, the five plaintiffs, all Jewish lishment Clause, and, with his parents’ permission, filed
parents, had one child each enrolled in the high school. a lawsuit with the aid of the American Civil Liberties
Steven Engel opposed the Board of Regents’ prayer after Union. In 1960, Madalyn Murray, a social worker and
his son told him he should not have to attend synagogue an atheist, sued the Baltimore public school system for
since he was praying in school. Another plaintiff, Law- exposing her son, William, to daily Bible reading and
rence Roth, was an atheist who had painful memories the Lord’s Prayer—morning devotionals she character-
of a brother being lynched in Pennsylvania for being a ized as “brainwashing.”
Jew, and did not want his son to be subjected to religious In all three cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
indoctrination. Roth, who had made the initial contact official school prayer a violation of the Establishment
with the New York Civil Liberties Union over the matter, Clause. In Engel, the justices held, 6–1, that “daily class-
would receive hundreds of threatening phone calls and room invocation of God’s blessings as prescribed in the
letters, many with anti-Semitic remarks; his driveway Regents’ prayer . . . [is] a religious activity.” The decisions
would later be the scene of a cross-burning. Another fa- in the Abington and Murray cases were consolidated, with
ther, Monroe Lerner, regarded the prayer as a “mockery” the justices ruling, 8–1, that Bible reading and prayer
and an “imposition,” arguing that the provision allowing in the present instances constituted “religious exercises,
a student not to participate in the prayer only served to required by the States in violation of the command of the
mark him or her as a “pariah.” Daniel Lichtenstein op- First Amendment that the Government maintain strict
neutrality, neither aiding nor opposing religion.”
Justice Potter Stewart dissented in both rulings, ar-
guing that Thomas Jefferson’s “sterile metaphor” about a
“wall of separation” was “a fallacious oversimplification of
the Establishment Clause.” Americans, he went on, “are a
religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme
Being.” Justice William O. Douglas, while siding with
the majority, nevertheless admitted certain inconsisten-
cies. In his Engel concurring opinion, the liberal Douglas
wrote, “What New York does on the opening of its public
schools is what we do when we open court. Our Crier has
from the beginning announced the convening of the Court
and then added ‘God Save the United States and this Hon-
orable Court.’ That utterance is a supplication, a prayer in
which we, the judges, are free to join, but which we need
not recite any more than the students need to recite the
New York prayer. What New York does on the opening
of its public schools is what each House of Congress does
at the opening of each day’s business.”
High school football players in Odessa, Texas, bow their
heads in prayer before a game in September 2000. The prayer
session was unsanctioned by the school because of a U.S.
Aftermath
Supreme Court ruling in June that banned such activity as The general public voiced strong disagreement with the
unconstitutional. (Joe Raedle/Newsmakers/Getty Images) Engel decision. In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education
496 School P rayer
(1954), which banned school segregation, the outlawing Solomon, Stephen D. Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied
of school prayer further convinced the right wing that Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer. Ann Arbor:
Chief Justice Earl Warren should be impeached. The ul- University of Michigan Press, 2007.
tra-right John Birch Society, which responded to Brown
by mounting a billboard campaign against Warren,
used the issue of school prayer to bolster its argument. School Shootings
“Remove Warren, Restore God” was the slogan of a dif- Since the 1990s, deadly shootings on school grounds and
ferent group, the Committee to Restore God and Prayer college campuses across America have prompted much
in Our Schools. A cartoon in The New Yorker magazine reaction from culture warriors who have linked the trage-
depicted Whistler’s Mother embroidering a pillowcase dies to various perceived social problems: lax gun control,
with the words, “Impeach Earl Warren.” media violence, declining family values, abandonment of
In the wake of Engel and Abington, several attempts religious instruction, rejection of personal responsibility,
were made to pass a constitutional amendment that and victimization. On April 20, 1999, the worst school
would allow school prayer. In spring 1964, at the urg- shooting to date took place at Columbine High School
ing of U.S. congressman Frank Becker (R-NY) of Long in Littleton, Colorado, where teenagers Eric Harris and
Island, the House Judiciary Committee conducted Dylan Klebold utilized homemade bombs, shotguns, a
hearings on school prayer amendments. The “Amen carbine rifle, and a TEC-DC9 pistol to kill twelve fellow
Amendment,” introduced by Senator Everett Dirksen students and one teacher while wounding thirty-three
(R-IL), failed a Senate vote on September 21, 1966. A others before taking their own lives. The deadliest col-
second prayer amendment, offered by Congressman lege shooting occurred at Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Chalmer Wylie (R-OH), was rejected by the House on and State University (Virginia Tech) on April 16, 2007,
November 8, 1971. And the Senate failed to approve when Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean immigrant and
President Ronald Reagan’s prayer amendment on March senior at the school, used Glock and P22 pistols to shoot
20, 1984. to death thirty-three (including himself) while wound-
Since the 1970s, state and local governments, em- ing twenty-three others. Both of these attacks, as well as
boldened by the influence of the Religious Right, have numerous others, involved assailants who were socially
been testing the legal boundaries of the separation of alienated, in some cases alleged victims of peer bullying,
church and state. In June 1978, Kentucky legislators and struggling with mental health problems.
mandated that public schools display the Ten Com- With each new incident, there is widespread debate
mandments, but the law was overturned by the U.S. over how society should best react to school shootings—
Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham (1980). Alabama specifically, the 333 fatalities between September 1992
mandated a “moment of silence” each day in its school and April 2008, as documented by the National School
system, but the Supreme Court in Wallace v. Jaffree Safety Center. One side argues that media hype has
(1985) overturned that mandate on the grounds that its ignored or downplayed statistics showing a decline in
purpose was inherently religious. Clergy-led prayer at school-related shootings. Of the total youth homicides
public high school commencement exercises was ruled during that time period, less than 1 percent involved
unconstitutional in the high court ruling of Lee v. Weis- school shootings. In addition, of the nation’s 30,000
man (1992). And in Santa Fe Independent School District v. annual shooting deaths, only a handful occur on college
Doe (2000), the Supreme Court ruled against student-led campuses. The media fixation on violent news events,
prayers before the start of school football games. they argue, inspires “copy cat” attacks (Cho of Virginia
Tech, for example, referred to the Columbine assailants
Roger Chapman as “martyrs,” while the Columbine attackers seemed
to have been partially inspired by the Oklahoma City
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Brown v. Board of bomber Timothy McVeigh) and provides posthumous
Education (1954); Church and State; Cold War; Communists infamy (on the day of his attack, Cho mailed tapes and
and Communism; Douglas, William O.; John Birch Society; other materials to NBC News). In addition, they argue,
Judicial Wars; O’Hair, Madalyn Murray; Reagan, Ronald; too much attention on school shootings diverts limited
Religious Right; Warren, Earl. financial resources from more serious social problems
(such as violence that occurs off school grounds), leads to
Further Reading an oppressive school environment (involving metal detec-
Dierenfield, Bruce J. The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel tors, surveillance cameras, lockdown drills, zero tolerance
v. Vitale Changed America. Lawrence: University Press of policies, and student snitching), and falsely suggests that
Kansas, 2007. adolescents are the main perpetrators of gun violence.
“Pro and Con: Return Prayer to Public Schools?” U.S. News & Those who think the focus on school shootings has
World Report, September 15, 1980. been overblown point out that such violence is not new.
School Vouchers 4 97
On January 29, 1979, for example, sixteen-year-old Brenda Commandments in schools; enforcing zero tolerance and
Spencer fired a .22-caliber rifle into a crowd at the Cleve- requiring school uniforms; arming teachers and making
land Elementary School in San Diego, California, across guns more available; making guns less available; ban-
the street from her home, killing two and wounding seven. ning violent video games; and identifying alienated and
(Spencer’s explanation for the crime—she said she did not disaffected individuals and victims of student bullying.
like Mondays—inspired the 1979 single “I Don’t Like Bowling for Columbine (2002), the polemical documentary
Mondays” by the UK new wave band Boomtown Rats.) The film by Michael Moore, has linked school shootings to
first major college shooting occurred on August 1, 1966, the National Rifle Association (which weeks after Col-
when Charles Whitman, a former altar boy, Eagle Scout, umbine held an abbreviated annual meeting in Denver),
and U.S. Marine, perched himself on the clock tower at the military-industrial complex (the defense contractor
the University of Texas at Austin and conducted sniper fire Lockheed Martin, it is noted, is the chief employer of
(he was equipped with Remington rifles, an M1 carbine, a Littleton), and class struggle. (Unlike others, Moore
shotgun, and other weapons), killing fourteen and wound- rejects the view that the music of Marilyn Manson and
ing thirty-one before being gunned down by Austin police. violent video games such as Doom were inspirational
Ten years later, on July 12, 1976, Edward Charles Allaway factors in the Columbine attack.)
committed the so-called library massacre at California State In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre—succeeded
University (Cal State), Fullerton, fatally shooting seven and by the February 14, 2008, shooting at Northern Illinois
wounding two with a .22-caliber rifle. University, in which Steven Kazmierczak used a shotgun
Regardless of these earlier incidents, many believe that and Glock pistol to kill seven (including himself) and in-
the 1990s represented something new and concur with jure fifteen others—many colleges across the country have
former CBS News anchorman Dan Rather who, following bolstered campus security and implemented “alert messag-
the tragedy at Columbine, pronounced school shootings ing” systems that include panic buttons on computers.
a “national epidemic.” This assessment was based on the
increase of school rampage shootings in contradiction to Roger Chapman
the otherwise general trend of declining school violence.
In the eighteen months preceding Columbine, school See also: Family Values; Gun Control; Manson, Marilyn;
shootings killed three and wounded seven at Pearl High McVeigh, Timothy; Moore, Michael; National Rifle Asso-
School in Pearl, Mississippi (October 1, 1997); killed three ciation; Rather, Dan; School Prayer; Ten Commandments;
and wounded five at Heath High School in West Paducah, Victimhood.
Kentucky (December 1, 1997); killed five and wounded
ten at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas Further Reading
(March 24, 1998); killed one and wounded three at Parker Gabarino, James. Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How
Middle School in Edinboro, Pennsylvania (April 24, 1998); We Can Save Them. New York: Free Press, 1999.
killed two and wounded one at Philadelphia Elementary Lebrun, Marcel. Books, Blackboards, and Bullets: School Shootings
School in Pomona, California (April 28, 1998); killed one and Violence in America. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
at Lincoln County High School in Fayetteville, Tennessee Education, 2009.
(May 19, 1998); killed two and wounded twenty-two at Moore, Mark Harrison. Deadly Lessons: Understanding School
Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon (May 21, Violence. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2003.
1998); and wounded two at Armstrong High School in Newman, Katharine S., Cybelle Fox, David Harding, Jal Mehta,
Richmond, Virginia (June 15, 1998). and Wendy Roth. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings.
Those advocating special action to curb rampage New York: Basic Books, 2004.
shootings have conceded that the saturation media Zoba, Wendy Murray. Day of Reckoning: Columbine and the Search
coverage has been a factor in inspiring further violence, for America’s Soul. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2000.
but they stress the importance of public awareness for
foiling plots. Unlike typical school shootings of the
past, rampage shootings are usually planned well in S c h o o l Vo u c h e r s
advance and even talked about ahead of time. In 2001, Promoted as “school choice,” school voucher programs
the Journal of the American Medical Association reported, give parents the option of sending their children to pri-
“Although school-associated violent deaths remain rare vate or parochial schools instead of public schools by of-
events, they have occurred often enough to allow for the fering a voucher, tax credit, or scholarship to cover part
detection of patterns and the identification of potential or all of the tuition. The debate on school vouchers has
risk factors.” raised fundamental questions regarding the purpose,
Many of the proposed solutions for preventing school control, and funding of public education in America.
shootings betray a continuation of the culture wars, such Voucher proponents advocate market-based freedom
as mandating moments of silence and displaying the Ten of choice, arguing that it will increase educational op-
498 School Vouchers
portunities for students attending failing public schools, Further Reading

as well as produce more effective schools and better edu- Lupu, Ira C., and Robert W. Tuttle. “Zelman’s Future: Vouchers,
cational outcomes for all children. Voucher programs, Sectarian Providers, and the Next Round of Constitutional
backers insist, promote equity by providing low-income Battles.” Notre Dame Law Review 78 (2003): 917–94.
families the option to leave underperforming schools—an Merrifield, John. The School Choice Wars. London: Scarecrow,
option previously available only to families with greater 2001.
financial means. Proponents also argue that school choice Omand, H. Lillian. “The Struggle for School Choice Policy
programs encourage increased parental involvement and After Zelman: Regulation v. Free Market.” Cato Institute Policy
more efficient educational organizations because the Analysis no. 495, October 29, 2003.
money allocated to parents and students flows directly Ravitch, Diane, and Maris A. Vinovskis, eds. Learning from the
from the parent to the school rather than through the Past: What History Teaches Us About School Reform. Baltimore:
local, state, or federal bureaucracy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Opponents of school vouchers maintain that such Smith, Colleen Carlton. “Zelman’s Evolving Legacy: Selective
programs lead to greater economic, racial, and religious Funding of Secular Private Schools in State School Choice
stratification; weaken public schools; undermine the Programs.” Virginia Law Review 89:8 (2003): 1953–2004.
education profession; and threaten public school sys-
tems’ ability to offer all children equal access to quality
education. In general, opponents regard vouchers as part S c h w a r z e n e g g e r, A r n o l d
of the privatization movement that seeks to dismantle The Austrian-born former world champion bodybuilder
public services, including universal education. Critics and Hollywood film star Arnold Schwarzenegger became
of vouchers also point out that private schools are ef- governor of California in November 2003 after winning
fectively out of reach to the poorest students because an election the previous month in which the incumbent,
vouchers, tax credits, and other scholarship programs Democrat Gray Davis, was recalled. A Republican, fis-
often do not cover the entire cost of tuition. Moreover, cally conservative but socially liberal, Schwarzenegger
private schools, unlike public ones, have the right to went on to win reelection to a full term in 2006. His
reject students; thus, having a voucher does not neces- background has prompted comparison to both Ronald
sarily mean having a choice. Reagan (an actor turned California governor, 1967–
The most controversial school choice programs al- 1975) and Jesse Ventura (a professional wrestler turned
low parents to use vouchers to pay tuition at religious Minnesota governor, 1999–2003). In the culture wars,
schools. One such program is the Cleveland (Ohio) Schol- Schwarzenegger positioned himself as a political moder-
arship and Tutoring Program. Of all voucher students ate, claiming to be “post-partisan.”
in Cleveland in the early 2000s, 99.4 percent attended The son of a Nazi army veteran, police chief, and
religious schools. Opponents of government-subsidized champion curler, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born
faith-based programs view them as a violation of the in Graz, Austria, on July 30, 1947. He briefly served in
separation of church and state. In the case of Zelman v. the Austrian army (1965) and then went on to win thir-
Simmons-Harris (2002), however, the U.S. Supreme Court teen world champion bodybuilding titles, including Mr.
upheld Cleveland’s school voucher program, ruling that Olympia, Mr. World, and Mr. Universe (1965–1980). In
vouchers can be used to pay for tuition at sectarian schools the late 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles and by the 1970s
without violating the Establishment Clause of the First was appearing in Hollywood movies. After studying at
Amendment. the University of Wisconsin at Superior (BA, business and
Almost all existing school voucher programs have international economics, 1980), Schwarzenegger became
been the subject of legal challenge, with varying results. an American citizen in 1983. Three years later he mar-
They have been upheld by state courts in Arizona, Illinois, ried Maria Shriver, a television journalist and a member
Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin but overturned in Vermont of the Kennedy clan. (Her mother was Eunice Kennedy
and Florida. Given the variations in the state programs, Shriver, sister of the late president John F. Kennedy.)
the divergent interpretations of state constitutional Beginning in the early 1980s, Schwarzenegger starred
provisions, and the need to improve public schools, the in a run of blockbuster action films, including Conan the
debate over education and the efficacy of school voucher Barbarian (1982), The Terminator (1984), Predator (1987),
programs no doubt will continue. Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2 (1991), and Terminator 3
(2003). Before becoming governor, he served on national
Traci L. Nelson and state physical fitness councils.
Some believe that Schwarzenegger’s attraction to
See also: Academic Freedom; Brown v. Board of Education public service was motivated in part to defuse criticism
(1954); Busing, School; Charter Schools; Education Reform; about the violent nature of his films. He cultivated a
Faith-Based Programs; Privatization. “family values” persona with his starring role in Kinder-
Sc ience Wars 499
garten Cop (1990) and a $1 million donation to promote S c i e n c e Wa r s

a California ballot initiative to increase after-school The wide-ranging political and religious conflicts
programs for children. Later, while a candidate for gov- over science in contemporary America—the “science
ernor, his wholesome image was tarnished by reports of wars”—reflect differences between the consensus view
sexual misconduct against several young women. After of a particular scientific community or discipline on the
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he served on one hand, and the Religious Right, corporate economic
a board to provide for the family victims of the World interests, or advocates of a political ideology, usually
Trade Center disaster. Ironically, the release date of his conservative, on the other hand. The overarching con-
film Collateral Damage (2001), about a terrorist plot in text of the contemporary science wars is the growth of
the United States, was delayed because of the real at- the federal government in the post–World War II era,
tacks in New York. As governor, Schwarzenegger came leading to federal involvement in local education to
to be known as the “Governator,” a play on his popular bolster science curricula; a body of federal regulations
Terminator character. regarding the environment, health, communication sys-
In November 2005, Schwarzenegger flabbergasted tems, transportation, and other areas of everyday life;
Sacramento Republican circles when he announced that and government spending on research and development
Susan P. Kennedy, a prominent local Democrat and for military-industrial endeavors.
lesbian, would be his chief of staff. Kennedy (no relation The religious science wars, in particular, are fought
to Shriver) had been a deputy chief of staff for Governor over such issues as evolution versus creationism, stem-cell
Davis but agreed to work for Schwarzenegger because of research, and the science of sexuality. Science wars driven
his $222 billion plan to improve the state’s infrastructure by economic interests include the long struggle of the
without raising taxes. The appointment of Kennedy fol- tobacco companies to deny the health risks of cigarettes
lowed a largely unsuccessful year for Schwarzenegger, in and secondhand smoke, and the petroleum industry’s
which he attempted to undermine the power of Demo- support for skeptics of global warming. Conflicts be-
cratic legislators (whom he called “girlie men”) and steer tween those espousing a conservative political agenda
the state in a more conservative direction by introducing and the scientific community include those surrounding
four ballot measures—to extend probation for new public the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or the “Star Wars”
school teachers, restrict union political spending, alter antimissile defense system) proposed during the Reagan
legislative boundaries, and introduce a cap on the state administration in the 1980s but viewed by most scientists
budget—all of which the voters rejected. Despite that as impractical. Such is the prestige of science in modern
setback, Schwarzenegger overwhelmingly won reelection society, however, that none of the opposition groups has
in November 2006. Since then, members of his own party declared itself directly in opposition to science. Instead,
have criticized him for moving to the left, as character- they typically claim to be the proponents of a more true
ized by his endorsing an increase in the minimum wage, and valid science than that of a corrupt or politicized
mandating a reduction in the state’s greenhouse gas emis- scientific establishment.
sions, moving some nonviolent female criminals from Collaboration between business interests, political
jail to rehabilitation programs, and backing universal conservatives, and the Religious Right on various issues
health care. Opponents of capital punishment were dis- has strengthened the antiscience movement. In Congress,
appointed by his refusal to commute the death sentence it has been strongest among Republicans. Various GOP
of former Crips gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams in presidential administrations, particularly those of Ronald
December 2005. Reagan and George W. Bush, have been known for sup-
Roger Chapman porting political positions that are in opposition to the
mainstream scientific consensus.
See also: Capital Punishment; Family Values; Gangs; Global Among the most prominent corporate science wars
Warming; Health Care; Prison Reform; Reagan, Ronald; Re- of the postwar era have been those waged in response
publican Party; September 11; Sexual Harassment; Ventura, to the environmental and public health movements. In
Jesse. both cases, scientific data and research findings have
been ignored or attacked by corporate interests because
Further Reading of their negative commercial implications. The tactic
Cooper, Marc. “Is the Terminator in Freefall?” Nation, October was pioneered by the tobacco industry’s decades-long
31, 2005. campaign against scientific research linking smoking to
Leamer, Laurence. Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger. cancer and other diseases. Another early example was the
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. organized response of chemical and pesticide industries
Wilentz, Amy. I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: to Rachel Carson’s environmentalist classic Silent Spring
Coming to California in an Age of Schwarzenegger. New York: (1962), which highlighted the harmful effects of the
Simon & Schuster, 2006. insecticide DDT. Tactics used by commercial interests
5 00 Sc ience Wars
have included outright denial, character assassination, and activists have also opposed the scientific consensus in
the use of “fringe” scientists, often directly or indirectly denying the effectiveness of condoms in preventing AIDS,
compensated by the commercial interests themselves, to asserting a link between abortion and breast cancer, and
cast doubt on the mainstream position. supporting “abstinence only” sex education.
Several conservative think tanks have been espe- Hostilities between the Republican Party and ideo-
cially associated with the science wars, among them the logical conservatives on the one hand, and the nation’s
American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, scientific community on the other hand intensified in the
and the George C. Marshall Institute. These and other 1990s, particularly after the GOP won a majority in both
corporate-funded policy and research organizations issue houses of Congress in 1994. The new Republican Congress
scientific reports and technological assessments with dismantled that body’s respected scientific advisory body,
the goal of making the mainstream view on certain is- the Office of Technology Assessment, in 1995. But the
sues seem inconclusive or in dispute. All three of the science wars reached new heights during the administra-
above-mentioned groups, for example, remain skeptical tion of George W. Bush, which was powerfully influenced
regarding the threat of global warming. by both religious conservatives and corporate interests.
In media coverage, the conventions of journalistic Bush’s strongly conservative politics combined with his
“evenhandedness” and balance often cause reporters to effort to subordinate nonpolitical executive branch ap-
present the scientific consensus and the claims of op- pointees, including scientists, to political officials. The
ponents on an equal footing. Corporate-backed science political appointees were often former industry lobbyists,
warriors have also developed a distinctive rhetoric, using Religious Right figures, or professional Republican opera-
terms such as “junk science” to condemn their opponents, tives lacking scientific credentials and convinced that the
while describing their own views as “sound science.” scientific community was an enemy.
By no means are all environmental science wars driv- One major struggle in the Bush administration in-
en by the political right. One issue that pits the scientific volved global warming. Climate researchers throughout
mainstream against forces on the environmentalist left is the federal government complained that political pres-
genetic modification of food crops. While organizations sure was put on them not to speak openly about climate
such as Greenpeace cast doubt on the safety of such foods, change. References to global warming were often omitted
their relative lack of financial resources has made it harder from press releases, reports, and Web sites, while po-
for them to have an impact on this issue. litically appointed supervisors controlled or blocked the
The religious science wars have centered primarily on scientists from speaking with the media. The issue was a
the life sciences and spilled over into the social sciences. politically sensitive one in the Bush administration, given
Among the oldest and most contentious issues, of course, that the president’s rival in the 2000 election, Al Gore,
is evolution, pitting the religious view, based on a literal had emerged as the world’s most prominent advocate for
account of creation in Genesis, against the overwhelm- changes in environmental policy.
ing consensus of the scientific community that life has In 2004, opposition to the Bush administration in
evolved in a natural process over billions of years. In The the scientific community was voiced in a statement by
Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994), the evangelical the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental
academic Mark Noll titles one chapter “Thinking about group located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Eventually,
Science,” in which he laments “the damaging intellectual forty-eight Noble laureates and many other distinguished
habits of fundamentalism” with its fixation on so-called American scientists would associate themselves with the
creation science. statement. Many of the signatories and other scientists
Other major and recurring concerns for conservative organized in support of John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for
Christians are the ethical and religious issues raised by president.
advances in medicine and the life sciences—or “bioeth- William E. Burns
ics.” These range from the debate on abortion and the use
of embryonic stem cells for scientific research to in vitro See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Biotech Revolution; Carson, Ra-
fertilization, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and the use chel; Creationism and Intelligent Design; Food and Drug Ad-
of medical equipment to sustain brain-dead patients. ministration; Fundamentalism, Religious; Genetically Modi-
Religious science warriors often place their struggles fied Foods; Global Warming; Nuclear Age; Postmodernism;
in a cultural context, claiming that the real enemy is secu- Religious Right; Smoking in Public; Sokal Affair; Strategic
larism and its “culture of death.” They have sometimes Defense Initiative; Think Tanks.
forged alliances of convenience with postmodernists to
attack established scientific truth in favor of intellectual Further Reading
pluralism, notably in the campaign to teach the “intel- Forrest, Barbara, and Paul R. Gross. Creationism’s Trojan Horse:
ligent design” theory of the development of life alongside The Wedge of Intelligent Design. New York: Oxford University
the scientific theory of evolution. Christian religious Press, 2004.
Sec ular Humanism 5 01
Glantz, Stanton A., John Slade, Lisa A. Bero, Peter Hanauer, Kurtz’s critics regard his “free inquiry” as disingenuous,
and Deborah E. Barnes, eds. The Cigarette Papers. Berkeley: since it rejects theism outright.
University of California Press, 1998. Conservative Christians voiced their opposition to
Mooney, Chris. The Republican War on Science. New York: Basic secular humanism in a variety of writings, among them
Books, 2005. Homer Duncan’s Secular Humanism: The Most Dangerous
Noll, Mark A. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids, Religion in the World (1979), Tim LaHaye’s The Battle
MI: Eerdmans, 1994. for the Mind (1980), Francis A. Schaeffer’s A Christian
Manifesto (1981), Josh McDowell and Don Stewart’s
Understanding Secular Religions (1982), and John W.
Secular Humanism Whitehead’s The Stealing of America (1983). Opponents
Secular humanism, a philosophy that looks to reason maintain that secular humanism is intolerant of Judeo-
and science as the basis for moral decision making and Christian beliefs and promotes moral relativism. Since
cultural expression, has become a highly charged issue secular humanism operates as a nontheistic religion, they
in America’s culture wars. Those who espouse secular argue, it should be subjected to the same constitutional
humanism generally regard organized religion, particu- constraints imposed on all other religions.
larly traditional Christianity, as a threat to rationality In the U.S. Supreme Court decision Torcaso v.
and human progress. The Religious Right has attacked Watkins (1961), secular humanism was classified as a
secular humanists for promoting a type of religion that religion in a footnote. This inspired the Religious Right
eschews God, faith, moral rectitude, and traditional to challenge the teaching of secular humanism in public
values. schools, arguing that any promotion of its tenets in the
The American Humanist Association, an organization classroom is a violation of the First Amendment’s Es-
founded to promote humanism, details its secular philoso- tablishment Clause. This argument was put to the test
phy in Humanist Manifesto I (1933), Humanist Manifesto in Mobile, Alabama, in a legal showdown pitting Pat
II (1973), and Humanist Manifesto III (2003). The first Robertson’s National Legal Foundation against People
document, endorsed by the philosopher John Dewey and for the American Way and the American Civil Liberties
some thirty others, espoused “religious humanism” as Union. In Douglas T. Smith et al. v. Board of School Com-
a twentieth-century alternative to traditional religion. missioners of Mobile County (1987), U.S. District Court
While not rejecting theism, the manifesto elevated “mod- Judge W. Brevard Hand ruled that the Mobile school
ern science” over “supernatural or cosmic guarantees.” system had established “a religion of secularism” and
The second manifesto went on to denounce “traditional ordered the removal of more than forty “secularism”
dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, books from the classroom. On appeal five months later,
God, ritual, or creed above human need or experience” and however, the ruling was overturned.
dismissed the notion of “divine purpose or providence for The Religious Right continues to argue that if pub-
the human species.” Firing a shot in the culture wars, the lic schools are allowed to advance the values of secular
document validated birth control, abortion, and divorce, humanism while suppressing Judeo-Christianity, then
while largely blaming sexual repression on religion. Hu- the absence of a genuine marketplace of ideas renders
manist Manifesto II was signed by a number of prominent by default a public religion of secular humanism. This
individuals, including feminist Betty Friedan, behavioral viewpoint has resonated with many conservative Christian
psychologist B.F. Skinner, and science writer Isaac Asi- parents, propelling the homeschool movement. Funda-
mov. Humanist Manifesto III defined humanism as “a mentalists have equated the teaching of evolution with
progressive philosophy of life . . . without supernatural- secular humanism, arguing that the marketplace of ideas
ism,” emphasizing science and reason, and declared ethical should require that the theory of intelligent design also
values “derived from human need and interest as tested be taught in the classroom. Some critics of the Religious
by experience.” Right argue that it labels anything not in accord with
Some of the signatories of the previous manifes- its perspective as secular humanism. Traditional religion
tos later endorsed “A Secular Humanist Declaration” and secular humanism, since they share some basic values,
(1980), which was drafted by philosopher Paul Kurtz perspectives, and points of view, are not strictly binary
and appeared in the debut issue of the Free Inquiry, the opposites.
organ of the newly established Council for Democratic Roger Chapman
and Secular Humanism (later shortened to the Council
for Secular Humanism). Kurtz was largely reacting to See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Book Banning;
the Religious Right and its claim that secular human- Church and State; Creationism and Intelligent Design;
ism is a religion. His manifesto identified “democratic Evangelicalism; Friedan, Betty; Fundamentalism, Religious;
secular humanism” with “free inquiry” and maintained Homeschooling; Relativism, Moral; Religious Right; Rob-
that people can lead wholesome lives without religion. ertson, Pat; Schaeffer, Francis.
5 02 Seeger, Pe te
Further Reading would have protected him from self-incrimination. Con-

Deckman, Melissa M. School Board Battles: The Christian Right sequently, he was convicted of ten counts of contempt
in Local Politics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University of Congress and sentenced to a year in prison. All was
Press, 2004. overturned on appeal.
Ingber, Stanley. “Religion or Ideology: A Needed Clarification Seeger continued his music and activism throughout
of the Religion Clauses.” Stanford Law Review 41:2 (1989): the 1950s and 1960s, becoming involved in the civil
233–333. rights movement and the folk music revival, and intro-
Kurtz, Paul. In Defense of Secular Humanism. Buffalo, NY: Pro- ducing Martin Luther King, Jr., to his version of “We
metheus Books, 1983. Shall Overcome.” His songs “Where Have All the Flowers
Tourney, Christopher P. “Evolution and Secular Humanism.” Gone?” (1961) and “Turn, Turn, Turn” (1966) were a part
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 61:2 (1993): of the Vietnam War protests. In his later years, Seeger
275–301. also became involved in environmental causes, especially
Webber, Robert E. Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge. along the Hudson River in New York. In his mid-eight-
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982. ies, he actively opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Bruce
Springsteen’s album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
(2006), which includes folk and protest songs that Seeger
S e e g e r, P e t e performed, was created in tribute to the artist. In 2009,
Renowned folk musician and social activist Pete Seeger Singer performed with Springsteen in an outdoor concert
has been a major figure in leftist causes, advocating the in front of the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of the
formation of labor unions, civil rights, the end of the election of Barack Obama as president.
Vietnam War, and environmental protection. He was
also a driving force behind the socially conscious Ameri- Rachel Donaldson
can folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, making
the folk song an instrument of protest. In more recent See also: Civil Rights Movement; Communists and Commu-
times, he has influenced the music of Bruce Springsteen nism; Environmental Movement; Guthrie, Woody, and Arlo
and others. Guthrie; Labor Unions; McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism;
Born on May 3, 1919, Peter R. Seeger was the son Springsteen, Bruce; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
of musicologist Charles Seeger and violinist Constance
Seeger in New York City. Dropping out of Harvard Further Reading
at age nineteen, he traveled across the nation collect- Bromberg, Minna, and Gary Alan Fine. “Resurrecting the Red:
ing songs for the musicologists John and Alan Lomax. Pete Seeger and the Purification of Difficult Reputations.”
A talented musician with an affinity for the working Social Forces 80 (June 2002): 1135–55.
class, Seeger often sang at migrant camps and labor Dunaway, David King. How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger.
rallies during the Depression. In 1940, he met folk New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
singer Woody Guthrie and that December formed a Seeger, Pete. Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singer’s Stories,
folk band, the Almanac Singers, with Guthrie, Lee Songs, Seeds, Robberies. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out, 1993.
Hays, and Millard Lampell. During this time, Seeger Wilkinson, Alec. “The Protest Singer.” The New Yorker, April
joined the Communist Party and was highly critical of 17, 2006.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt for not strongly sup- Winkler, Alan M. “To Everything There Is a Season”: Pete Seeger
porting labor causes. and the Power of Song. New York: Oxford University Press,
An avowed pacifist but also a hater of fascism, Seeger 2009.
served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After his
discharge, he founded People’s Song, Inc. (1946), which
published union songs and folk songs. He also formed the S e p t e m b e r 11
Weavers (1948), another folk singing group. By 1950, On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen ter-
the group was under surveillance by the FBI and the rorists hijacked four American commercial passenger
McCarran Committee for alleged communist activities. aircraft and crashed three of them into high-profile tar-
Blacklisted in 1952, the Weavers disbanded. His detrac- gets in the United States. Two planes flew directly into
tors called Seeger “Khrushchev’s songbird.” In 1955, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York,
though five years earlier he had quit the Communist causing the buildings to collapse completely within a
Party, he was summoned before the House Committee few hours. A third plane plowed into the Pentagon, the
on Un-American Activities. Showing his disdain for headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Ar-
the investigation but proclaiming that he had nothing lington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from
to hide, he refused to answer questions, citing the First Washington, D.C., damaging one of its five sides. The
Amendment rather than the Fifth Amendment, which fourth plane failed to reach its target in Washington,
Sep tember 11 5 03
crashing in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Pas- including the Saudi monarchy; and exploiting Muslim
sengers on that plane challenged the hijackers after countries to gain access to their huge oil reserves.
learning about the earlier attacks, and the hijackers ap- The Bush administration responded to the attacks
parently responded by crashing the plane before being by declaring a global “War on Terror” with the express
overpowered. Altogether, the attacks resulted in the goals of destroying al-Qaeda, bringing Osama bin Laden
deaths of nearly 3,000 people, including all onboard the to justice, and preventing the further expansion of inter-
four planes. national terror networks. The primary tools of this cam-
paign would be increased international intelligence and
Initial Reaction law enforcement, combined with economic sanctions and
Americans responded to the attacks with a rush of pa- military action against states harboring terrorist groups.
triotism, sympathy for the many victims, and anger The first battle in this campaign began in early October
at those who supported and carried out the attacks. In 2001, when the U.S. led an international coalition on
New York and Washington, the response of police and an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban,
firefighters, many working around the clock at the in- which had been harboring al-Qaeda, and to search for
describable disaster scenes, made them national heroes. bin Laden and his lieutenants. The invasion succeeded
President George W. Bush became a spokesman for the in removing the Taliban from power, and the occupying
country’s sorrow and rage, vowing that those responsible authority set up a new Afghan government. Al-Qaeda
would be brought to justice. His approval rating soared and bin Laden slipped away, however, establishing new
to 86 percent, the highest ever attained by a U.S. presi- camps in the remote mountains of western Pakistan, near
dent. New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani became a the Afghan border.
national figure almost overnight as a spokesman for the A year and a half later, the United States led a less
city that sustained the most damage. inclusive coalition of countries in an invasion of Iraq
Within hours of the attacks, government inves- that sought the removal of Saddam Hussein and the
tigators traced several of the hijackers to the terrorist confiscation of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
organization al-Qaeda, whose leader, Osama bin Laden, he was said to possess. The Bush administration claimed
directed international terror attacks from a headquarters that there was a link between the Iraqi dictator and
in Afghanistan, under the protection of the ruling Tali- the September 11 attacks; although the president later
ban party, a fundamentalist Muslim group. Al-Qaeda backed down from that position, many Americans remain
had already been implicated in an earlier attack on the convinced of the initial allegations. Critics of the Bush
World Trade Center in 1993, in which a powerful bomb administration and the Iraq War believe that the sup-
was detonated in the underground parking garage, caus- posed tie was a fabrication to garner public support for
ing six deaths and more than a thousand injuries as the the 2003 invasion.
smoke-filled towers were evacuated. In 1998, bin Laden
publicly called for the killing of American civilians. His Laying Blame
organization is believed to have planned and carried out In struggling to understand the attacks, some Ameri-
a series of subsequent attacks. In 1998, terrorists carried cans blamed the Islamic faith itself and its millions of
out coordinated bombing attacks on the U.S. embas- adherents. Others blamed Muslims of Arab or Middle
sies in Kenya and Tanzania, both in eastern Africa; 12 Eastern descent. In the weeks following the attack, a
Americans and more than 200 others were killed in the number of Arabs and natives of other Muslim coun-
bombings. Two years later, terrorists rammed an im- tries were victims of hate crimes in several U.S. cities
provised bomb against the side of the USS Cole, a U.S. and towns. Others were subjected to verbal abuse and
Navy ship anchored in the harbor of Aden, the capital community suspicion. American Muslim organizations
of Yemen at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. condemned the al-Qaeda attack and denied that their
Seventeen U.S. naval personnel were killed, and forty members were involved as participants or sympathiz-
others were injured. ers. Saudi Arabia, where fifteen of the nineteen attackers
The Bush administration reported that al-Qaeda were born, launched a public advertising campaign in
was motivated by a hatred of freedom and Western-style the United States, condemning the attacks and pointing
democracy. Bin Laden attributed the attacks to particular out that al-Qaeda had also committed terrorist acts on
actions and policies of the U.S. government, including Saudi territory and against the Saudi government.
support of Israel against its Arab adversaries and the pres- A few conservative American religious leaders at-
ence of U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia, the tributed the September 11 attacks not only to Islam
home of Islam’s most sacred places, since the end of the but to moral decay in the United States. The prominent
first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Bin Laden also accused televangelist Jerry Falwell blamed the attacks on pagans,
the U.S. government of sowing discord among Muslim abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the American
people; propping up cruel Middle Eastern regimes, Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way (a
504 Sep tember 11
liberal lobbying group), and all “secularists.” Whereas Justice of Roosting Chickens,” Churchill argued that
certain leaders of the Religious Right attributed the certain victims of the World Trade Center were not so
attacks to some form of divine punishment, the social innocent because they had been serving as “technocrats of
conservative Dinesh D’Souza, in The Enemy at Home: The empire.” The September 11 attacks, he suggested, were a
Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 (2007), asserts “befitting” way to harm “the little Eichmanns inhabiting
that Muslim anger against the United States is a “visceral the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers.” These comments
rage” against American leftist cultural excesses. caught the attention of Fox News commentator Bill
Many found meaning in the works of the academ- O’Reilly, who gave Churchill so much negative publicity
ics Bernard Lewis, Benjamin R. Barber, and Samuel P. that it led to the professor’s firing in 2007. In another
Huntington. For years leading up to September 11, the dramatic episode, again in outrage over the argument that
Near Eastern scholar Lewis had maintained that Islamic the terrorist attacks were retribution for American foreign
fundamentalism is a reaction against secularism and policy, O’Reilly in a February 4, 2003, broadcast angrily
modernism. Furthermore, as he explained in his seminal yelled at his on-air guest Jeremy Glick, whose father had
Atlantic Monthly essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” been killed in the World Trade Center attacks.
(September 1990), Muslims feel aggrieved by their “lost
superiority” as their societies lag further behind the West Antiterrorist Measures and their Critics
in power and wealth. It was Lewis who coined the phrase The U.S. government enacted several significant and
“clash of civilizations” to describe this conflict between controversial pieces of legislation in the wake of the
Islamic fundamentalism and Western culture. After the September 11 attacks. One action involved a major
September 11 attacks, Lewis elaborated on his thesis in reorganization of the executive branch to place nearly
What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity all domestic security agencies under a single cabinet-
in the Middle East (2002). The political theorist Barber, in level organization, the new Department of Homeland
Jihad vs. McWorld (1995), had earlier emphasized a con- Security. Although many commentators welcomed the
flict between “tribalism” and “globalism.” The political reorganization, the department got off to a rocky start.
scientist Huntington, borrowing a key phrase from Lewis, One of its first acts was to create a Homeland Security
had written The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Advisory System, a five-tier, color-coded threat scale to
World Order (1996), which predicted global instability indicate the danger level of new terrorist attacks and
in the wake of the Cold War due to cultural differences. trigger specific actions by federal and local authorities.
These authors were frequently quoted by commentators The system was soon criticized because there were no
who, in the aftermath of September 11, tried to make publicly announced criteria for setting danger levels,
sense of “why they hate us.” and the nature of supposed threats was never disclosed.
Liberal critics found fault with U.S. military and Critics complained that the threat scale could be used
foreign policy, charging that it had contributed to the rise for political purposes—for example, to increase or de-
of militant terrorist groups. In 9-11 (2001), the MIT pro- crease public apprehension about danger before an elec-
fessor Noam Chomsky, a longtime radical critic of U.S. tion or to pressure legislators to pass or vote down spe-
policy, asserted that basic American foreign policy had cific legislation. Other Homeland Security documents
contributed to the September 11 tragedy. He argued that became targets for comedians and satirists. For example,
the U.S. record of imperialism and abuse of other coun- a document recommending actions in case of a terror
tries was sure to arouse violent and terrorist responses. In attack suggested that a house be sealed with plastic tape
fact, he argued, the United States itself can be considered or duct tape to protect inhabitants from a chemical or
“a leading terrorist state.” The former New York Times biological attack.
foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer, in All the Shah’s Even prior to the establishment of the new security
Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Ter- department, the government proposed and strongly
ror (2003), likewise makes the argument that American pushed the USA PATRIOT Act, giving the president
foreign adventures laid the groundwork for September and executive departments sweeping powers to carry out
11. These views of Chomsky and Kinzer harmonize with the War on Terror. Critics charged that in providing for
the thoughts of Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani journalist, increased surveillance of terrorist suspects, the act allowed
who in Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in for the invasion of privacy of U.S. citizens and allowed
Central Asia (2000) suggests that the U.S. covert opera- illegal domestic intelligence gathering without court
tions in Afghanistan during the Cold War acted as the approval. Critics also complained that the provisions for
“midwife” in giving birth to al-Qaeda. detaining terrorist suspects recalled the Alien Registra-
One of the most controversial “laying blame” assess- tion Act of 1940, which was used after the United States
ments was offered by Ward Churchill, an ethnic studies entered World War II in 1941 to justify the internment
professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In his of Japanese Americans and Japanese resident aliens. The
2001 Internet essay “Some People Push Back: On the USA PATRIOT Act was used to justify the fingerprint-
Sep tember 11 Memor ial 5 05
ing and registration of approximately 80,000 Arab and See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Bush Family; Central Intelli-
Muslim immigrants to the United States and the deten- gence Agency; Cheney Family; Chomsky, Noam; Conspiracy
tion of roughly 5,000 foreign nationals. A number of Theories; Falwell, Jerry; Moore, Michael; Muslim Americans;
other countries also passed antiterror legislation, froze Saudi Arabia; September 11 Memorial; USA PATRIOT Act.
the accounts of suspected terrorists and their associates,
and arrested thousands suspected of being members of Further Reading
terrorist cells. Chomsky, Noam. 9–11. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.
Al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants, or suspects Churchill, Ward. On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections
who were captured by allied forces in Afghanistan or on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality.
by antiterror agents in other parts of the world, were Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2003.
designated “illegal enemy combatants.” The U.S. gov- Clarke, Richard. Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on
ernment asserted that these individuals did not qualify Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004.
for the protections extended to prisoners of war under May, Ernest R. The 9/11 Commission Report with Related Documents.
international law and established a special detention Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2007.
center for them at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Mayer, Jane. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War
Bay, Cuba. The government further maintained that on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. New York:
the prison was not subject to international law since Doubleday, 2008.
it was neither part of the United States nor under the Meyssan, Thierry. 9/11: The Big Lie. London: Carnot USA
control of the government of Cuba. Thus, interroga- Books, 2002.
tion methods, prisoner welfare, and criminal procedure
would be decided solely by the executive branch of the
U.S. government. Investigations later revealed that S e p t e m b e r 11 M e m o r i a l
other “unofficial” prisons were being operated by U.S. In January 2004, a design titled Reflecting Absence, by
intelligence agencies in other parts of the world. These architects Michael Arad and Peter Walker, was an-
prisons housed suspects who had been captured by nounced as the winner of an international competition
“extraordinary rendition”—apprehension and removal to create a memorial plan for the World Trade Cen-
by international intelligence officers with or without ter site in New York City. The project was headed by
the cooperation of local law enforcement agencies. The the newly established Lower Manhattan Development
treatment of prisoners in these undocumented prisons Company (LMDC), whose aim was to rebuild ground
was not subject to review of any kind. In fact, the United zero and create a permanent memorial to the victims
States (and other governments suspected of cooperating) and heroes of the terrorist attacks of February 26, 1993,
denied the existence of the prisons altogether. and September 11, 2001. At the heart of the project
Many of the government claims under the USA PA- was a belief that the memorial should reflect both in-
TRIOT Act and related executive actions were later re- dividual sacrifice and the shared values that had been
jected by federal courts in cases brought by Guantánamo threatened by the attacks. The LMDC also sought to
detainees, forcing changes in procedure in trying “enemy shape a commemorative process that was unprecedented
combatants.” In 2008, the status of the Guantánamo Bay in its attention to public sentiment. Esteemed artists
prison itself became an issue in the presidential campaign. and architects, including the designer of the Vietnam
Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who condemned Veterans Memorial, Maya Lin, made up the jury that
the prison, was elected in November. Soon after his in- chose the winning design, but the panel also included
auguration in January 2009, he issued an order that the scholars, a widow of the September 11 attack, a resi-
prison be closed within one year. dent, and a local business owner. Despite the attempts
Meanwhile, the events of 9/11 continued to bewilder to accommodate a variety of interest groups, the project
many Americans. One conspiracy theory suggests that the generated heated controversy.
U.S. government had prior information about the attack The design criteria set out by the LMDC were mo-
but failed to prevent it. Another suggests that agents of tivated by several immutable factors, among them the
the United States actively planned and executed the at- limits of the space itself. In February 2003, Memory
tack, presumably to gain some benefit in international Foundations, the concept of Studio Daniel Libeskind,
position or in dictating domestic policy. In 2004, Michael was selected as the principal element in the project to
Moore’s documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11 suggested that rebuild Lower Manhattan. Although the design preserved
the business relationship between the Bush family and certain elements of the original site, including a remain-
the ruling Saud family of Saudi Arabia complicated the ing wall, it was also meant to inspire a sense of rebirth.
prevention of the attack and its later investigation. The centerpiece was a 1,776-foot (541-meter) building
known as the Freedom Tower. While Libeskind’s plan was
J.D. Jordan and Roger Chapman separate from the commemorative project, the structure
506 Sep tember 11 Memor ial
would provide the physical context for the memorial. historical authenticity of Franklin’s original image.
More important, the LMDC, with input from residents, Ultimately, the design was abandoned in the hope of
survivors, and victims’ families, developed a series of finding a more politically neutral monument.
guiding principles for the design. The foremost goal The only group more vocal about the commemorative
was to create a place that underscored the compassion process was that of the families of the victims, particu-
and honor of those who had sacrificed and to reaffirm larly regarding the World Trade Center site. While their
American strength and commitment to freedom. criticisms ranged from the placement of the names to the
Despite criticism that the eight finalists had pro- proposed symbolism of a below-ground memorial, their
duced somewhat banal and similar concepts, Arad and greatest battle came after the announcement of the Inter-
Walker’s proposal was said to best capture the central national Freedom Center (IFC). Proposed as part of the
principles of the memorial project: enhance the physical site’s cultural complex, the IFC would contain exhibits
landscape, preserve the “footprints” of the Twin Tow- highlighting core American values and principles, as well
ers, incorporate the names of the dead, and include a as displays examining historical struggles for freedom in
below-ground cultural center and museum to tell the the United States and the world. Despite claims that the
personal stories of the attacks. Still, problems quickly IFC would remain nonpartisan, fears quickly emerged
emerged that challenged the sought-after cohesion of that the museum would become a venue for leftists,
the commemorative process. In particular, some New academics, and protesters to denigrate the United States.
Yorkers began to question what the memorial would The plan was finally stymied in 2005, after a successful
say about the event itself and its historical implications. “Take Back the Memorial” campaign was spearheaded
Reflecting Absence, particularly in contrast to the overt by the families. While many concluded that the fight
patriotism of the Freedom Tower, seemed to focus too for freedom in America and abroad should be told, they
intently on grief and loss. Some detractors even argued believed that the World Trade Center site was not the
that the design sanitized and de-historicized the memory place to do so.
of September 11 by avoiding comment on the horror Not unlike that of the ground zero memorial or the
of the attacks. Dissatisfaction with certain concept ele- unsuccessful firefighter’s statue, the IFC controversy
ments crystallized in a debate over the presentation of revealed the tensions inherent in the commemorative
the names of the dead. Arad and Walker had chosen a process. In different ways, the debates facing each of
random arrangement, believing that this would reflect these sites exposed the complicated relationship between
the “haphazard brutality” of the terrorist strike. How- memory and history. More important, they illustrated
ever, many of the city’s firefighters believed that the the larger difficulty in attempting to universalize and
attempt to universalize victimization failed to account make palatable the still evolving experience of September
for the distinctive sacrifice and courage of the first 11. Perceptions of the overall design and its meaning no
responders. This was not the first time that the city’s doubt will continue to change as interpretations of the
most well-known heroes had challenged the process of terrorist attacks themselves also evolve.
commemoration.
One monument, to be erected outside the Fire Liam van Beek
Department Headquarters in Brooklyn, was proposed
to commemorate the firefighters who had died on See also: Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies; Political Cor-
September 11. The bronze statue would be based on rectness; September 11; Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
a photograph taken by Thomas E. Franklin of the Re-
cord (a Bergen County, New Jersey, newspaper) in the Further Reading
aftermath of the attacks. The now-famous image was Greenberg, Judith, ed. Trauma at Home After 9/11. Lincoln and
of three firemen hoisting an American flag over the London: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
rubble at ground zero. Often compared to Joe Rosen- Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Web site. www.
thal’s photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, the renewnyc.com.
image represented for many the patriotism and unity of Simpson, David. 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration. Chicago
all Americans. Nevertheless, in January 2002, debates and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
raged about the decision to portray the group as racially
diverse. Although the photograph was of three white
men, professional models—one white, one black, and Serrano, Andres
one Hispanic—were hired to pose for a more multicul- The New York artist and photographer Andres Serrano
tural rendition. Incensed, local firefighters and residents became the center of a furious culture wars dispute over
protested the development of what they regarded as a public exhibition of his notorious photograph, provoca-
politically correct “melting pot sculpture.” Indeed, many tively titled Piss Christ (1987), of a plastic crucifix in a
saw the move as a political action that undermined the transparent container of urine. Since Serrano had been
Sex Educ ation 5 07
awarded a fellowship from an art gallery sponsored by work featuring an African Virgin Mary partially painted
the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a debate with elephant dung.
soon erupted over the use of public funds to subsidize Roger Chapman
“offensive art.”
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 15, 1950, See also: Censorship; Helms, Jesse; Mapplethorpe, Robert;
Serrano grew up in a Catholic home of African-Haitian National Endowment for the Arts; Religious Right; Warhol,
and Honduran heritage. Serrano had formal training in Andy; Wildmon, Donald.
painting and sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum Art
School (1967–1969), but he did not complete a degree Further Reading
program. His photography exhibits, which have shown Baum, Joan. “On the Edge with Andres Serrano, Contemporary
at galleries and museums throughout the United States Photography’s Artist Bad Boy.” Art Review, December 20,
and Europe, include The Unknown Christ (1986), Nomads 2000.
(1991), KKK Portraits (1991), The Morgue (1992), Budapest “Comments on Andres Serrano by Members of the United States
(1994), The Church Series (1994), A History of Sex (1998), Senate.” Congressional Record, May 18, 1989.
and Body and Soul (2000). Serrano is known for works Rambuss, Richard. “Sacred Subjects and Aversive Metaphysical
that use human bodily fluids for visual effect, including Conceit: Crashaw, Serrano, and Ofili.” ELH 71:2 (Summer
blood, milk, urine, and even sperm. 2004): 497–530.
In 1986, Serrano was awarded a $15,000 fellowship Serrano, Andres. Andres Serrano, Works 1983–1993. Curated by
from the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Patrick T. Murphy. Essays by Robert Hobbs, Wendy Steiner,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The fact that the NEA and Marcia Tucker. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary
did not directly dispense the grant to Serrano was imma- Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1994.
terial to conservatives such as Senators Alphonse D’Amato
(R-NY) and Jesse Helms (R-NC). In 1989, Piss Christ
had been brought to the attention of Congress by the Sex Education
Tupelo, Mississippi–based American Family Association, The sensitive association between children and sexuality
a religious media watchdog, which declared the very title has made sex education one of the most heated debates
of the work blasphemous. in the American culture wars. Questions of who should
Senator D’Amato pronounced the Serrano work “a teach what about sex in public schools have been debat-
deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity” and insisted, ed throughout the post–World War II era, perhaps most
“This is not a question of free speech. This is a question of intensely since the 1980s. While America’s relatively
abuse of taxpayers’ money.” In accordance with that view, high rates of teenage pregnancy and the dangers of sexu-
Senator Helms in July 1989 introduced an amendment to ally transmitted diseases (STDs, also known as sexually
the NEA appropriations bill for the purpose of prohibit- transmitted infections, or STIs) have made sex educa-
ing public funding of art deemed “obscene or indecent” tion appear to be a practical necessity, the rise of the
or denigrating to religion or people. The amendment Christian Right has placed particular emphasis on the
did not carry, but the final funding legislation included moral dimensions of sex education. As a consequence,
language calling on artists to meet “general standards of sex education in America has become a political issue
decency.” The following year, the NEA began requiring impacting debates at every level from local to national
grant recipients to sign an “obscenity pledge.” NEA of- and, in part, facilitating the rise of the Christian Co-
ficials sought to provoke a legal challenge, believing that alition’s grassroots efforts to build a political coalition
it would ultimately result in a judicial decision affirming from school boards up to higher offices.
artistic freedom. That strategy backfired when the U.S.
Supreme Court in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley Historical Background
(1998) ruled that the NEA may apply decency standards Sex has been a part of the public school curriculum and
in determining what art projects to fund. a subject of debate since at least the nineteenth century.
Meanwhile, debate continues over the meaning of At the turn of the twentieth century, moral crusaders
Serrano’s work. While some insist that a religious symbol such as Anthony Comstock sought a total ban on any
immersed in urine is defiling, others believe the artist “sexually explicit” material, including sex education
when he states that his intention was to provide a satire materials. Reformers, primarily women’s groups and
of religious kitsch. It has also been argued that, since the Protestant organizations, sought to educate children
gospel itself is the story of Christ being degraded, the about the moral dangers of sex. The primary advocates
degradation of a symbol of Christ constitutes a retelling for sex education were sex hygienists, often led by medi-
of the gospel. Another similar dispute over religious cal professionals, who sought greater public knowledge
imagery occurred in 1999, when the Brooklyn Museum about sexuality in order to prevent the spread of STDs.
of Art exhibited Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary (1996), a The limited curricula adopted at the time tended to fo-
508 Sex Educ ation
cus primarily on sexual restraint, with an emphasis on vices department that provided information about sex
the biology of sex and the dynamics of family life. In the education and birth control, but these efforts were less
1950s, family life curricula were widely adopted and ap- organized than the political and cultural pressures of the
proved by professional associations. Christian Right.
In 1964, a small group of professionals concerned By the 1980s, with the election of President Ron-
that information on sexuality and sexual activity was not ald Reagan and more conservative legislators across the
readily available formed the Sexuality Information and country, the opposition to comprehensive sex education
Educational Council of the United States (SIECUS). The had well-placed allies in political positions, resulting in
council adopted primarily a sexual hygiene curriculum, new legislation and greater funding for sex education pro-
aimed at delivering scientifically factual information grams that promoted abstinence. Abstinence education
about pregnancy, STDs, and the science of sex. While focused on teaching sexual restraint until marriage, often
eschewing moralizing language, SIECUS believed that using fear tactics about the moral and health consequences
promoting open dialogue about sex—including issues of of adolescent sexuality. In 1981, conservative senators
birth control, pleasure, and desire—was the best way to Jeremiah Denton (R-AL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
ensure self-regulation. Prompted by SIECUS and other sponsored the Adolescent and Family Life Act, popularly
physicians and educators, the federal government began known as the Chastity Act, which provided funds to cre-
devoting significant resources to sex education. In 1965, ate and support abstinence-only sex education. The reach
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of these programs was extended in 1996, when as a part
made sex education a requirement in public schools. of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
The legislation encouraged an approach known as com- Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare reform, states
prehensive sex education, which attempted to inform were given block grants to implement abstinence-only
students about the physical, moral, and psychological or abstinence-plus programs that encouraged abstinence
components of sex so as to enable them to make informed and offered minimal introductions to birth control and
decisions. SIECUS was led by Dr. Mary Calderone, the STD prevention. These programs were allowed to present
former medical director of Planned Parenthood, an orga- information about contraception usage, but only in terms
nization devoted to addressing issues of family planning of failure rates, not in terms of obtaining contraception or
and birth control. its proper use. Educators were encouraged to discuss the
The curriculum design for ESEA generally attempted damaging psychological consequences of sexual activity.
to remain morally neutral in presenting the facts and In 2005, President George W. Bush increased funding
scientific evidence about sexuality. It took the position for abstinence-only sex education by 25 percent.
that issues of sexual morality were best left to individuals In 2005 and 2007, Representative Barbara Lee (D-
and parents. Conservatives organized resistance to the new CA), a proponent of a more comprehensive approach,
curriculum almost immediately despite its relatively con- introduced the Responsible Education About Life Act
servative approach. At the time, social conservatives were to provide funds for broadening sex education beyond
also sensitive to the signs of a growing sexual revolution. abstinence-only programs, and especially to inform young
The first birth-control pill had been made commercially people that condoms can prevent STDs, including HIV-
available in 1961, raising widespread apprehension that AIDS. Conservative opposition succeeded in blocking
it would lead to a decline in moral behavior and family passage of the bill in the 110th Congress.
values. In public education, social conservatives were also The pro-abstinence position also become a part of
concerned about the teaching of evolution and court deci- conservative foreign policy, which required, for example,
sions limiting or ending prayer and religious instruction that part of the money earmarked in the President’s Emer-
in public schools. gency Plan for AIDS Relief be used to promote sexual
In the 1970s, conservative opponents of sex educa- abstinence. In 2009, however, during his early days in
tion produced counter-educational materials focusing office, President Barack Obama withdrew some restric-
on moral issues and sexual abstinence. Led by members tions on the distribution of foreign aid for health and
of conservative Christian churches, the movement put family planning. “For too long,” he said, “international
up candidates for local school boards and local govern- family planning assistance has been used as a political
ments, emphasizing their stance against value-neutral wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that
sex education. The movement warned that sex educa- has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue
tion was encouraging teenage sexuality, often spreading this stale and fruitless debate. It is time that we end the
stories of teachers encouraging sexual experimentation in politicization of this issue.”
the classroom and, later, that teachers were promoting
homosexuality. Proponents of comprehensive sex educa- Current Trends and Viewpoints
tion were generally less organized and less politicized. Today, sex education curricula vary significantly, but ab-
In 1979, Planned Parenthood created an education ser- stinence-plus programs like Sex Respect remain widely
Sex O f fenders 509
popular. These programs encourage abstinence until in the abortion debates has limited its ability to act as an
marriage and often use fear as a means of encouraging advocate for sex education reform. Christian conservatives,
students to refrain from sexual activity. Many curricula on the other hand, continue to apply pressure to maintain
emphasize the failure rate of contraception, resisting sex education that concentrates on morals and values.
peer pressure, and the psychological and physical risks
of sexual activity. For example, in a video entitled “No Claire E. Rasmussen
Second Chance” used in Sex Respect, an educator com-
pares sex outside of marriage to Russian roulette, but See also: Abortion; AIDS; Birth Control; Bush Family; Chris-
with a greater chance of getting killed. A survey by the tian Coalition; Family Values; Gay Rights Movement; Kinsey,
Kaiser Foundation in 2002 showed that as many as one- Alfred; Koop, C. Everett; Planned Parenthood; Religious
third of schools in America were taking an abstinence- Right; Sexual Revolution; Welfare Reform.
only approach—the only one that allows a state school
system to qualify for federal assistance. Since that time, Further Reading
several states have declined federal funds in order to Campos, David. Sex, Youth, and Sex Education: A Reference Hand-
teach comprehensive sex education. book. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002.
Advocates for comprehensive sex education point Deckman, Melissa M. School Board Battles: The Christian Right
out that the United States has a relatively high rate of in Local Politics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University
teenage pregnancy. Pregnancy rates among teenagers Press, 2004.
have generally declined since 1991, but the United States Irvine, Janice. Talk About Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in
compares poorly to industrialized countries that offer the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press,
more comprehensive sex education. The abstinence-plus 2003.
approach was also challenged by the AIDS epidemic. The Levine, Judith. Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Chil-
use of condoms during sexual intercourse can prevent this dren from Sex. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
most feared STD, but the noncomprehensive programs 2003.
teach only about their failure rate (which is very small), Luker, Kristin. When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on
subjecting teenagers who may be sexually active in spite Sex—and Sex Education—Since the Sixties. New York: W.W.
of the program to the danger of contracting AIDS from Norton, 2006.
unprotected sex. Moran, Jeffery P. Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the
Data on the effectiveness of differing programs are 20th Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
not conclusive. According to a 2007 study commissioned 2000.
by Congress comparing groups that had received absti-
nence-only education to groups that had not, on average
both groups had the same proportion of students who Sex Offenders
remained abstinent (about 50 percent) and who engaged A sex offender is an individual who has confessed to, or
in sex during the study period. Those who did have sex been convicted of, committing a sex crime, including
in the two groups were equally likely to use condoms rape, child molestation, and/or downloading from the
or other contraceptives. The study called into question Internet or distributing child pornography. Beginning
the effectiveness of the abstinence programs used by the in the 1990s, many states have passed strict tracking
groups in the study but shed no light on the effectiveness and residency laws in an attempt to protect society, es-
of comprehensive sex education. pecially children, from convicted sex offenders. Opinion
Proponents of comprehensive sex education also point polls show that most Americans support these measures,
out that a large majority of parents favor comprehen- but a number of constitutional experts and public-policy
sive sex education over abstinence-only programs. The consultants believe that such laws violate privacy rights,
Guttmacher Institute reports that as many as 80 percent impose double jeopardy, waste funds, and fail to address
of parents wished their children had exposure to more the problem of sex offenders in the most constructive
information in the classroom. Even so, sex education in manner.
the schools remains a sensitive issue, and little has been Although sex offenses in the United States have been
done to shift from the abstinence-only approach. on the decline since 1992, fear of sex offenders on the part
Advocates of comprehensive sex education may gain of the general public has increased during the 2000s. As
support from the results of the 2008 election, in which part of Operation Falcon (2005–2006), the U.S. Justice
Democrat Barack Obama was elected president and Department in a single day arrested some 1,600 unregis-
Democrats elected majorities in both houses of Congress. tered or wanted sex offenders across twenty-seven states.
SIECUS has continued to promote and produce compre- Of the 190,000 federal prisoners in 2006, 11,000 were
hensive sex education materials, and Planned Parenthood sex offenders. In 90 percent of cases, according to experts,
has also continued promoting the approach, but its role child molestation is committed by family members, not
510 Sex O f fenders
strangers. Even so, most laws aimed at curbing pedophilia chat groups, have also created a medium for finding and
target the stranger. stalking potential victims. The problem came to light
In 1990, Washington became the first state to require in 2004, largely due to exposure on the NBC television
sex offenders to register with police. Other states followed series To Catch a Predator. Working in collaboration
suit, and it became a federal requirement with passage of with law-enforcement officials and the online watchdog
the Jacob Wetterling Act (1994), named after a missing group Perverted Justice, the show identifies predators
child. Also in 1994, New Jersey passed Megan’s Law, online and, when they solicit sex from minors and ar-
requiring community notification of any sex offender who range encounters with them, a camera crew shows up
takes up residency. Megan’s Law was named after seven- to wait for the predator to arrive. Critics of the show
year-old Megan Kanka, a kidnap-rape-murder victim of believe the exposé technique enables offenders to claim
a neighbor with prior convictions for sex offenses. Other forced entrapment in a court of law, not to mention that
states and localities adopted variations of Megan’s Law, it pushes the margins of ethical journalism. In its first
leading to legal inconsistencies in the definition of sex of- three years, however, the program led to the arrest of
fender and how information is to be collected and released more than 200 sex offenders.
to the public. Such confusion prompted passage in 2006 Another important set of events surrounding sex
of the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety offenders are the child molestation scandals that have
Act, named after the murdered son of John Walsh (the plagued the Catholic Church in recent years. John
host of Fox Television’s America’s Most Wanted ), which Geoghan, a priest for thirty years and a significant figure
established national standards for registering, reporting, in the Catholic Church sex scandals, was accused of sexual
and public notification. By 2006, there were more than abuse by more than 130 individuals, defrocked in 1998,
560,000 registered sex offenders nationwide. and sentenced to prison in 2002. He was later murdered
Laws against convicted sex offenders include the in his prison cell by another inmate. Geoghan’s case
registration of all names in publicly accessed databases, became the catalyst for a public interrogation of clergy
the collection of DNA samples, state laws restricting sex abuse and concealment of information by church
where sex offenders can live and work, and the indefinite officials. It later inspired a string of similar court cases
confinement of certain sex offenders to psychiatric centers and a shift in church policy. Today, the archdiocese of
after the completion of prison terms. As of 2006, eighteen Boston and the Vatican require members of the clergy
states had laws allowing for the continued detention of and volunteers to report any accusations of child abuse to
sex offenders following the completion of their prison the proper authorities; however, the Vatican maintains
sentences. A few states have classified sex crimes as a the privacy of accused child abusers. The Catholic Church
capital offense. In addition, efforts have been made to has acknowledged that from 1950 to 2007 there were
regulate the Internet to thwart sexual predators. 13,000 credible accusations of sex abuse by its priests in
Civil libertarians and other critics of sex-offender reg- the United States.
istries raise the issue of individual liberties, arguing that Jennifer Lyn Simpson,
convicts who have served time for their offenses should Merrit Dukehart, and Roger Chapman
be able to resume life as a citizen free from harassment.
Some sex offenders have been rendered homeless because See also: Bradley, Bill; Catholic Church; Pornography; Sexual
residency laws, like the one enacted in Georgia in 2006, Assault; Sexual Harassment.
have made it illegal for them to live near schools, parks,
playgrounds, bus stops, churches, or any other place where Further Reading
children might gather. In certain cases, sex offenders have Greenblatt, Alan. “Sex Offenders.” CQ Researcher, September
listed Wal-Mart parking lots as their official residence. 8, 2006.
When sex offenders are uprooted, health professionals Jenkins, Philip. Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child
warn, their treatment typically gets interrupted. Not Molester in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
only does this raise the risk of a repeat offense, but it also 1998.
makes it more difficult for law enforcement officials to Perverted Justice Web site. www.Perverted-Justice.com.
keep track of them. Since, in some states, persons con- Terry, Karen J. Sexual Offenses and Offenders: Theory, Practice, and
victed of having underaged consensual sex while in high Policy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2006.
school are officially listed as sex offenders, individuals
who may pose no real danger to society can be adversely
impacted by these measures. Sexual A ssault
As widespread access to the Internet has increased, Sexual assault is a category of criminal behavior that in-
some sex offenders have used it as a medium for il- cludes any sexual contact in the absence of uncoerced
legally sharing and viewing child pornography. Social consent. While the legal definition of sexual assault is
networking sites, where users create profiles and/or join now widely accepted, the causes and consequences, ap-
Sex ual Hara ssment 511
propriate prevention methods, and what constitutes a April was designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month;
fitting social response remain contested. events are now held on college campuses and in com-
According to the U.S. Department of Health and munities across the country to raise awareness about
Human Services, sexual assault may include inappropri- sexual assault prevention. In 1998, The Vagina Monologues
ate touching; vaginal, anal, or oral penetration; rape; playwright Eve Ensler founded V-Day as “an organized
attempted rape; incest; or child molestation. Sexual response against violence toward women,” arising from
assault does not require physical contact and may be a demand that “rape, incest, battery, genital mutilation
perpetrated verbally, visually, or in any other way that and sexual slavery must end now.” Issues of sexual assault
forces someone to engage in unwanted sexual contact have influenced the debate over other politically charged
or attention. Specific laws governing what constitutes issues as well. In the abortion debate, for example, some
consent and at what age an individual is able to give it states that otherwise prohibit or restrict abortions make
freely vary by state. exceptions in the case of rape or incest; others do not.
According to the Violence Against Women Grants
Office, an estimated one in six women and one in thirty- Jennifer Lyn Simpson
three men have experienced an attempted or completed
rape as either an adult or child. The rape/sexual assault See also: Abortion; Sexual Harassment; Sexual Revolution.
rate for people ages sixteen to nineteen is nearly twice as
high as for all other age groups. Rape and sexual assault Further Reading
are also among the most underreported of crimes due to Buchwald, Emilie, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth. Trans-
the significant emotional trauma and enduring social forming a Rape Culture. rev. ed. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed
stigma they produce. Rates of reported rape may be even Editions, 2005.
lower for men than for women because of this stigma. Foubert, John D. The Men’s Program: A Peer Education Guide to
Since the 1970s, a large number of groups and or- Rape Prevention. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2005.
ganizations have formed to reduce and ultimately end Thornhill, Randy, and Craig T. Palmer. A Natural History of
sexual assault, though they have pursued a wide variety of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. 3rd ed. Cambridge,
approaches. Some, including AWARE (Arming Women MA: MIT Press, 2000.
Against Rape and Endangerment) and the Women’s
Self Defense Institute, have focused on promoting self-
defense and increasing awareness for potential victims. Sexual Harassment
These groups seek to prevent assaults by strangers (24 Sexual harassment includes a range of behaviors that
percent of assaults fall into this category, according to subject persons to unwanted sexual attention. Accord-
the 2002 National Crime Victimization Survey) and ing to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Com-
advocate “safe” behavior such as avoiding poorly lit mission (EEOC), sexual harassment is a form of sex
areas, traveling with friends or companions (using the discrimination that constitutes a violation of Title VII
“buddy system”), and avoiding “provocative” behavior. of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In educational institu-
The prevention efforts of other groups—such as the tions, sexual harassment is also a violation of Title IX
YWCA, National Sexual Violence Resource Center, of the Education Amendments of 1972. While it may
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), and take many forms, two broad categories of behavior can
MASV (Men Against Sexual Violence)—emphasize the be identified as constituting sexual harassment: quid
prevention of acquaintance or “date” rape (76 percent of pro quo demands for sexual attention, or behavior in
cases), changing cultural systems, the importance of edu- exchange for rewards or protection from punishment;
cating men (who remain the most frequent perpetrators and behavior that is disturbing to the point of inhibit-
of sexual assault), and responsible bystander behavior to ing work performance or creating undue stress in the
intervene in inappropriate or unwanted behavior among workplace by creating a hostile environment. The sexual
peers before an assault occurs. These groups also often harassment debate today centers largely on free speech
challenge “victim blaming,” arguing that because sexual issues and the question of whether restricting speech can
assault is an act of violence and domination, not lust, it or will fundamentally alter the culture of sexism that
cannot be “provoked.” gives rise to sexual harassment.
“Take Back the Night” rallies marked the first From 1997 to 2006, the number of cases reported
significant organized public protests of violence against annually to the EEOC declined by just under 25 per-
women, first in England and then the United States in cent, from almost 16,000 to just over 12,000. During
the late 1970s. These events are characterized by groups the same time period, cases filed by men increased from
of women walking in solidarity through the streets to 11.6 percent of total cases to 15.4 percent. Since sexual
“reclaim” the night as safe for women and raise awareness harassment is widely believed to be underreported because
about sexual violence. In the 1990s, the entire month of of fear of retaliation, reliable figures are hard to obtain.
512 Sex ual Hara ssment
According to a 2006 report by the American Association MacKinnon, Catharine A., and Reva B. Spiegel, eds. Directions
of University Women (AAUW), “Nearly two-thirds of in Sexual Harassment Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University
college students experience sexual harassment at some Press, 2004.
point during college, including nearly one-third of first- Mink, Gwendolyn. Hostile Environment: The Political Betrayal
year students.” of Sexually Harassed Women. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
The origins of the term “sexual harassment” can Press, 2000.
be traced to a 1974 Cornell University case in which a Zimmerman, Jean. Tailspin: Women at War in the Wake of Tail-
female laboratory employee quit her job after a scientist hook. New York: Doubleday, 1995.
made regular unwanted sexual advances, and was denied
unemployment insurance on the grounds that she did not
have “good cause” to leave her job. The term was first S e x u a l R evo l u t i o n
used in a legal ruling in the federal district court case of The sexual revolution was an outburst of experimenta-
Williams v. Saxbe (1976), which recognized sexual harass- tion with sexual norms and practices that took place
ment as a form of discrimination under Title VII. Since mainly during the 1960s. Participants in this liberaliza-
then there have been numerous court decisions clarifying tion viewed pleasure as the guiding criterion of sexual
its definition and scope. life. Opponents defended more conservative values of
Several episodes in the early 1990s brought the issue sexual modesty, premarital chastity, and self-control.
of sexual harassment prominently into public discourse:
the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clar- Origin in the 1950s
ence Thomas, in which University of Oklahoma law school While the sexual revolution is often perceived as a gen-
professor Anita Hill gave testimony that Thomas had sexu- erational struggle pitting 1960s nonconformists against
ally harassed her when they worked together at the EEOC; the puritanical morality and middle-class “family val-
the 1991 Tailhook convention of navy and marine corps ues” of the previous decade, in fact the climate for sexual
aviators, and subsequent claims that seven men and eighty- expression had been significantly liberalized during the
three women had been sexually assaulted or harassed at 1950s. From Alfred Kinsey’s pioneering studies of human
the two-day event in Las Vegas, Nevada; and the 1994 sexual behavior to Elvis Presley’s pelvic gyrations, from
sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones against President risqué films such as Baby Doll (1956) to tabloid coverage
Bill Clinton, alleging that he had sexually propositioned of transsexual celebrity Christine Jorgensen, from Hugh
her when he was governor of Arkansas and she was a state Hefner’s Playboy magazine (founded in 1953) to scandal-
employee. Media coverage of these widely reported events ous works of literature such as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
galvanized and sometimes polarized public conversation (1955) and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1956), American
on the issue of sexual harassment in America. culture of the period was marked by the highly visible,
While the term “sexual harassment” is broadly if controversial, presence of sexuality. The nostalgia for
understood to include injurious and appalling behav- the 1950s evident in many attacks on the sexual revo-
iors, the definition of “offensive” behavior can vary by lution launched by social and religious conservatives is
individual and context. The amorphous and ambiguous thus ironic, since the 1960s capitalized on the already
edges of sexual harassment policy have been widely criti- growing openness of the postwar environment, admit-
cized by defenders of free speech, by libertarian “small tedly pushing it to extremes of expression and conduct
government” groups, and by feminist groups such as that could hardly avoid provoking a backlash.
Feminists for Free Expression, who reject the notion Sexual explicitness in art increased markedly during
that curtailment of speech will fundamentally change the 1960s, prompted by a series of U.S. Supreme Court
the culture of gender discrimination that gives rise to decisions striking down censorship efforts aimed at ban-
sexual harassment. ning literary works by the likes of D.H. Lawrence and
Jennifer Lyn Simpson Henry Miller. The trickle-down effect of these decisions
was to legitimate a wide range of sexual expression in
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Clinton Impeachment; Fem- cinema and print, including the surfacing of the porn
inism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Hill, Anita; industry from a shadowy underground. More daring
MacKinnon, Catharine; Sexual Assault; Thomas, Clarence; competitors to Playboy magazine appeared, such as Al
Women in the Military. Goldstein’s Screw and Larry Flynt’s Hustler, and by the
early 1970s, hard-core films such as Deep Throat (1972)
Further Reading and The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) were enjoying unprec-
Brant, Clare, and Yun Lee Too, eds. Rethinking Sexual Harass- edented critical and commercial success. Meanwhile,
ment. Boulder, CO: Pluto Press, 1994. rock-and-roll music was promoting anti-establishment
Langalan, Martha. Back Off: How to Stop and Confront Sexual attitudes among contemporary youth, including an em-
Harassers. New York: Simon & Schuster/Fireside, 1993. brace of drugs and premarital sex.
S har p ton, A l 513
By the mid-1960s, a counterculture of “hippies” exploitation as sexual objects. Anne Koedt’s landmark
had emerged on college campuses and in major cities, essay “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” (1970) dis-
advocating “free love,” among other things. In 1967, cussed an autonomous female sexuality centered on
they launched the “Summer of Love” in San Francisco, clitoral pleasure, and lesbian feminists defended ho-
inaugurated by a massive “Human Be-In” that featured mosexuality as a political option for all women tired of
public nudity and casual sex. “sleeping with the enemy.” At the same time, feminist
activists mounted powerful critiques of sexual objectifi-
Advent of the Pill cation and violence, attacking the growing sex industry,
Popular views of sexual morality were also relaxed by picketing beauty pageants for commercializing women’s
the advent of accessible birth control through the inven- bodies, and mounting consciousness-raising efforts to
tion of oral contraceptives, approved for use by the FDA combat sexually degrading images of women through-
in 1960 and popularly known as “the Pill.” Unlinking out mainstream popular culture. Radical feminists con-
sex from reproduction meant that casual sex bore fewer verged with the Religious Right in their denunciations
obvious penalties, especially for women. As popular of pornography.
best-sellers such as Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Reactions against the sexual revolution have been
Single Girl (1962) offered advice on how best to capi- largely conservative in nature. Advocates of “family values”
talize on the newly permissive environment, personal have opposed the sexual license of 1960s culture, defend-
pleasure became the guiding standard for sexual eth- ing the importance of traditional marriage. Religious
ics. Consequently, the institution of marriage suffered conservatives have decried the “moral relativism” that al-
while divorce rates climbed, cohabitation became more lows sex to be viewed as a purely naturalistic act centered
widespread, and nonmonogamous behaviors grew. Some on personal gratification. Renewed efforts at censorship
couples experimented with “swinging” practices such have taken aim at popular pornography and graphic works
as spouse-swapping and “open” relationships. Bastions by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, while an antigay
of traditional morality such as the Catholic Church in- backlash has denounced the mainstreaming of homosexu-
veighed against this sudden eruption of licentiousness: ality, sometimes pointing to AIDS as proof of the penalties
Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), for ex- for pursuing unfettered sexual pleasure.
ample, denounced all forms of “artificial” birth control Still, there can be little doubt that popular attitudes
as tending to undermine marital commitment. Even so, toward sexuality underwent a massive transformation
the sexual revolution continued undaunted. during the 1960s. The legacy of the sexual revolution is
One of its most controversial elements was the in- unlikely to abate anytime soon.
creasing visibility of a self-confident and unapologetic
homosexual minority. During the 1950s, gay and les- Rob Latham
bian subcultures had thrived in urban areas, and nascent
“homophile” groups, such as the Mattachine Society See also: Birth Control; Book Banning; Brown, Helen Gur-
and the Daughters of Bilitis, had begun to advocate for ley; Counterculture; Family Values; Feminism, Second-Wave;
mainstream acceptance. The youth counterculture and Gay Rights Movement; Generations and Generational Con-
the antiwar movement of the 1960s, however, tended flict; Hefner, Hugh; Kinsey, Alfred; Planned Parenthood;
to promote more militant attitudes among those who Pornography; Relativism, Moral; Religious Right; Rock and
sought conformity to conservative social norms. Ten- Roll; Sex Education.
sions exploded in the Stonewall Riots of June 1969,
when homosexuals in New York City’s Greenwich Vil- Further Reading
lage struck back against police harassment. The riots Allyn, David. Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution—An
spawned a vocal coalition for “gay liberation.” Gay and Unfettered History. New York: Little, Brown, 2000.
lesbian rights activists released incendiary manifestos, Escoffier, Jeffrey, ed. Sexual Revolution. New York: Thunder’s
mounted freedom marches in major cities, and decried Mouth, 2003.
homophobic stereotypes in the mass media. At the same Heidenry, John. What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual
time, mainstream culture was pioneering more positive Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
depictions of gays and lesbians in films such as The Boys in Jeffreys, Sheila. Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual
the Band (1970). In another battle with sexual orthodoxy, Revolution. New York: New York University Press, 1990.
some more openly explored their bisexuality.
Feminist Reactions Shar pton, Al
An ambivalent response to the sexual revolution was An outspoken African-American Baptist minister and
displayed by second-wave feminism, which embraced political activist, the Reverend Al Sharpton emerged as a
women’s newfound freedoms while condemning their national figure during the 1980s and 1990s for orchestrat-
514 S har p ton, A l
ing militant street protests in New York City in response

to hate crimes, police brutality, and other perceived social
injustices. Called “the Riot King,” “Al Charlatan,” and
“the Reverend Soundbite” by those who believe he lacks
substance and sincerity, Sharpton portrays himself as a
political outsider who represents disenfranchised blacks.
He has publicly criticized the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a
former mentor, as a political insider who has abandoned
his ideals for expanding civil rights. After surviving a
stabbing by a white man during a street protest in 1991,
Sharpton spoke of undergoing a spiritual transformation
that has made him conciliatory and mainstream. Since
then, he has used political campaigns to air his views,
running as a losing candidate in several Democratic pri-
maries—U.S. Senate (1992, 1994), mayor of New York
(1997), and the U.S. presidency (2004).
Alfred Charles “Al” Sharpton, Jr., was born on Oc-
tober 3, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. A “wonder boy The Reverend Al Sharpton, a high-profile activist for African-
American justice, speaks to the media about the case of
preacher” beginning at age four, he was ordained as a Amadou Diallo in 2000. Diallo, who had been unarmed, was
minister of the Pentecostal Church in 1964. Sharpton’s shot forty-one times by four New York City police officers.
social consciousness developed during childhood after his (Manny Ceneta/AFP/Getty Images)
divorced mother was forced to move the family from a
middle-class neighborhood of Queens to the projects in
Brooklyn. The poverty of ghetto life shocked Sharpton, of the white assailants. Sharpton stood behind the allega-
who found the political complacency of its occupants tions of Tawana Brawley, a black teenager who claimed
confounding. He graduated from Tilden High School that several white men had kidnapped and raped her in
in Brooklyn (1972) and then attended Brooklyn College November 1987, although a subsequent investigation
(1973–1975). After serving as youth coordinator of the revealed that her story was a hoax to avoid punishment
Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC’s) by her stepfather for staying out too late; Sharpton later
Operation Breadbasket in New York (1969–1971), had to pay $65,000 in damages for having accused a white
Sharpton founded and directed the National Youth attorney of being one of Brawley’s assailants. Sharpton has
Movement (later renamed the United African Movement) led demonstrations against police brutality on several oc-
(1971–1986). In 1991, he founded the National Action casions, including the February 1999 shooting of Amadou
Network, Inc., also located in New York. In 1993, he Diallo—an unarmed African man who was shot by four
was appointed coordinator of the minister division of white NYPD officers forty-one times after reaching into
Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition. In 1994, he left a pocket for his wallet.
the Pentecostal Church and became the associate minister During the 1980s, unknown to the people he was
of Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn. leading in street demonstrations, Sharpton was working
Sharpton has been criticized for focusing on violent as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
crime committed by whites against blacks, while virtu- (FBI). This came about because of his association with
ally ignoring what the conservative radio talk show host boxing promoter Don King, who had alleged ties to or-
Rush Limbaugh and others call a more extensive problem: ganized crime involving the laundering of drug money;
“black-on-black crime.” Sharpton is further blamed for the FBI threatened Sharpton with criminal prosecution
inflaming racial tensions and in some cases sparking riots, if he did not cooperate with their investigation. Later,
while others agree with him that New York is “perhaps Sharpton was accused of spying on black radicals. He
the most racist city in the country,” presenting situations maintained that he forwarded information to the FBI only
that require extremist activism. Sharpton conducted on suspected drug dealers, but the New York newspaper
protests in reaction to the incident involving so-called Newsday reported in 1998 that he provided the FBI with
subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz, who in December 1984 information that led to the arrest of a black man suspected
shot four blacks who approached him for money in a New in the shooting of a New Jersey state trooper.
York subway car. Following the December 1986 murder
of Michael Griffith, a black youth who had entered the Roger Chapman
white section of Howard Beach in Queens, Sharpton or-
ganized street protests to pressure the city to appoint a See also: Goetz, Bernhard; Hate Crimes; Jackson, Jesse; Lim-
special prosecutor, which led to the eventual prosecution baugh, Rush; Police Abuse; Thurmond, Strom.
S helley, Mar tha 515
Further Reading Church’s support of the Nazis and to create a common

Biondi, Martha. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights enemy for forging a sense of unity between Catholics
in Postwar New York City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- and Protestants.
versity Press, 2003. From 1950 to 1966, Sheen served as national director
Klein, Michael. Man Behind the Sound Bite: The Real Story of the of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. As head
Rev. Al Sharpton. New York: Castillo International, 1991. of missionary activities for U.S. Catholics, he gained a
Sharpton, Al. “What I’ve Learned.” Esquire, January 2005. strong sense of the needs of the disadvantaged poor, at
Sharpton, Al, and Karen Hunter. Al on America. New York: home and abroad. This made him an advocate of social and
Dafina Books, 2002. racial justice in the American South. In the late 1950s,
Sharpton, Al, and Anthony Walton. Go and Tell Pharaoh: he began advocating governmental foreign aid, saying
The Autobiography of the Reverend Al Sharpton. New York: that “missionaries will not sell America, nor will they
Doubleday, 1996. win military pacts. But America will gain by it in the
end.” In 1958, he spoke on the subject during a White
House visit with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He
Sheen, Fulton J. also brought concerns for social justice to Vatican Council
One of the most popular clerics in U.S. history, Arch- II (1962–1965) as a member of the commission on mis-
bishop Fulton J. Sheen helped fashion Roman Catholi- sions. Sheen died on December 9, 1979.
cism as part of the American mainstream with his high-
ly rated prime-time television broadcasts during the Tim Lacy and Roger Chapman
1950s. He condemned communism for its atheistic ide-
ology, and he framed the Cold War as a cosmic struggle See also: Budenz, Louis F.; Catholic Church; Chick, Jack; Civil
that would end with Russia returning to its Christian Rights Movement; Cold War; Communists and Commu-
roots. Sheen converted thousands, including public per- nism; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Marxism; McCarthy, Joseph;
sonalities such as Heywood Broun, Clare Booth Luce, McCarthyism; Televangelism.
and Henry Ford II, as well as the former communists
Louis F. Budenz and Elizabeth Bentley. Further Reading
Born in El Paso, Illinois, on May 8, 1895, Fulton Reeves, Thomas C. America’s Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton
John Sheen grew up in nearby Peoria. After earning de- J. Sheen. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001.
grees at St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Illinois (AB, Riley, Kathleen L. Fulton J. Sheen: An American Catholic Response
1917; MA, 1919), he received ordination in September to the Twentieth Century. Staten Island, NY: St. Paul’s / Alba
1919. He then continued his education in theology House, 2004.
and philosophy at Catholic University of America in
Washington, D.C. (STL and JCB, 1920), and the Uni-
versity of Louvain in Belgium (PhD, 1923). From 1926 S h e l l ey, M a r t h a
to 1950, he taught at Catholic University of America, A radical feminist gay rights activist and controver-
but it was his broadcast ministries—beginning with sial writer, Martha Shelley spearheaded the separatist
the national radio program The Catholic Hour in 1930 radical lesbian-feminist movement in postwar Amer-
and the prime-time television show Life Is Worth Liv- ica. Inspired by the Stonewall Riots of 1968, Shel-
ing, which ran from 1952 to 1957—that made him a ley’s influential articles “Notes of a Radical Lesbian”
household name. (1969), “Gay is Good” (1970), and “Lesbianism and
The hosting of Life Is Worth Living, which won Sheen the Women’s Liberation Movement” (1970) offered a
an Emmy in 1952, enabled him to promote religion and radical link between the women’s liberation and gay
American values by speaking—sometimes humorously— liberation movements. In her characteristically angry
on such diverse topics as modernity, fatigue, science, tone, she asserted that lesbians must strive for under-
handling teenagers, psychiatry, and God. As he had done standing, rather than toleration and superficial accep-
since the 1930s, Sheen continued to denounce Marxism tance. For Shelley, true women’s liberation is connect-
as a counterfeit religion. In 1953, coincidentally nine ed with the practice of lesbian sexuality because only
days before the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Sheen in the complete rejection of patriarchy can women find
presented a televised eulogy that parodied Marc Antony’s their freedom.
funeral oration in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Friends, Martha Shelley (née Altman) was born into a Jewish
Soviets, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury family on December 27, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York.
Stalin, not to praise him.” In the tract Smokescreens (1983), A self-described “loner” in high school, she felt like an
Christian fundamentalist producer Jack Chick argues that outsider until she joined the New York chapter of the
Sheen’s anticommunism was part of a postwar Vatican lesbian organization Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) and
conspiracy to shift attention away from the Catholic became part of the fledgling gay rights movement. By
516 S helley, Mar tha
the late 1960s, the young radical had found her voice. Shepard, Matthew
She legally changed her name to Martha Shelley in honor Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one-year-old college stu-
of her favorite poet, Percy Shelley, became the president dent in Wyoming, was brutally murdered in October
of the DOB, participated in numerous antiwar protests, 1998, the victim of an antigay hate crime, a robbery, or
and joined the more radical Student Homophile League both, depending on who tells the story. Publicity sur-
on the Barnard College campus. When the league failed rounding the murder brought national attention to the
to adequately address lesbians’ concerns, Shelley and issue of hate crimes.
other young militants formed the anarchical and short- Born on December 1, 1976, in Casper, Wyoming,
lived Gay Liberation Front in 1969. She later moved to Matthew Wayne Shepard grew up in a middle-class home
Oakland, California, where she worked briefly with the and attended the American School in Switzerland. In 1995,
ill-fated California Women’s Press Collective. She has after studying at Catawba College in Salisbury, North
continued to publish articles, essays, and poems, includ- Carolina, and Casper College, he enrolled as a political
ing the verse collections Crossing the DMZ (1981) and science major at the University of Wyoming. Sometime
Lovers and Mothers (1982). after midnight on October 7, 1998, Shepard got a ride with
Shelley defied the conservatism creeping into some of two men he had met at a bar and who may have lured him
the nation’s most high-profile consciousness-raising or- away by pretending to be gay. He was driven to a rural area
ganizations. By appropriating the language of other civil of Laramie and subsequently robbed, severely beaten and
rights activists, she likened the situation of lesbians in the pistol-whipped, and left to die tied to a fence in freezing
women’s and gay rights movements to the state of African weather. Eighteen hours later, he was found barely alive
Americans in larger society. In the late 1960s, radical by a passerby. Shepard, who suffered extensive lacerations
lesbians found themselves at a crossroads. Believing that and a fractured skull, died at Poudre Valley Hospital, in
it could undermine the credibility of the entire women’s Ft. Collins, Colorado, on October 12.
movement itself, Betty Friedan’s National Organization At Shepard’s funeral, the notorious “Reverend”
of Women (NOW) took a decidedly hostile approach to Fred Phelps shocked the nation by staging an antigay
lesbianism. Gay rights organizations had similarly con- protest, carrying inflammatory placards with slogans
sidered lesbianism something of a distraction. In response, such as “GOD HATES FAGS.” Shepard’s attackers were
Shelley co-founded the Lavender Menace, later renamed Russell Henderson, who pleaded guilty to felony murder
Radicalesbians, with NOW defector Rita Mae Brown in and kidnapping, and Aaron McKinney, who was found
1970. The organization’s founding manifesto, titled “The guilty at trial. The two gave conflicting statements
Woman-Identified Woman,” called for the inclusion of about their motives for the crime. During the trial,
lesbians in the larger women’s liberation movement. Al- they used the “gay panic defense,” arguing temporary
though Radicalesbians folded the following year, NOW insanity caused by homophobia after Shepard had
incorporated lesbian rights into its charter.
Kelly L. Mitchell
See also: Counterculture; Feminism, Second-Wave; Feminism,

Third-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Gay Rights Movement; Lesbi-
ans; National Organization for Women; Sexual Revolution;
Stonewall Rebellion.
Further Reading
Clendinen, Dudley, and Adam Nagourney. Out for Good: The
Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1999.
Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Les-
bian Equal Rights, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins,
1992.
Shelley, Martha. “Gay is Good.” In Out of the Closets: Voices of
Gay Liberation, ed. Karla Jay and Allen Young, 31–34. New
York: New York University Press, 1992.
Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student vi-
———. “Notes of a Radical Lesbian.” In Women’s Rights in the ciously murdered in 1998, is memorialized in a candlelight
United States: A Documentary History, ed. Winston E. Lang- vigil. The incident became a cause célèbre in the gay rights
ley and Vivian C. Fox, 283–84. Westport, CT: Greenwood movement and spurred demands for stronger federal hate-
Press, 1994. crime legislation. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)
S hock Jock s 517
propositioned them. At one point, they stated that the topics that promote racism, homophobia, exploitation of
motive behind the crime was strictly robbery, a detail women, and the ridicule of disabled people. While many
some later emphasized in arguing that the incident did angry listeners simply file complaints with the FCC,
not rate as a hate crime. Both men were sentenced to others have taken more dramatic action. The number
two consecutive life sentences, McKinney without the of suspects in the 1984 murder of Denver-based shock
possibility of parole. jock Alan Berg was so great that sixty police officers had
Shepard’s parents later founded the Matthew Shepard to be assigned to the case. Berg’s violent death brought
Society, dedicated to promoting tolerance. In 2002, national attention to the shock jock phenomenon and was
the murder and its aftermath were the subject of two the basis for Eric Bogosian’s award-winning play Talk
television films, The Matthew Shepard Story by NBC and Radio (1987; film version, 1988).
The Laramie Project by HBO, the latter based on an off- Shock jocks are especially popular among young
Broadway play. In 2007, Congress passed the Matthew adult males. In addition to Stern, the most audacious
Shepard Act (officially the Local Law Enforcement Hate radio personalities include Steve Dahl, a Chicago DJ who
Crimes Prevention Act), but it was vetoed by President proposed making a “cocktail” of the corpses left floating
George W. Bush (as an amendment to the Defense Autho- after Hurricane Katrina; Mike Church, a regular target of
rization bill). The measure would have expanded federal the Southern Anti-Defamation League for his distasteful
hate-crime law to include incidents motivated by bias comments against the South; Todd Clem, also known as
against gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Bubba the Love Sponge, arrested in 2001 after slaughter-
ing a live pig on the air; Opie and Anthony, fired after
Michael Johnson, Jr. joking that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been
killed in an automobile accident; Tom Leykis, who re-
See also: Gay Rights Movement; Hate Crimes; Phelps, Fred. vealed the name of the woman who accused basketball star
Kobe Bryant of rape in July 2003; and Mancow Muller,
Further Reading who sent rival talk show host Howard Stern a box of ex-
Loffreda, Beth. Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the After- crement. A handful of women have managed to succeed
math of Anti-Gay Murder. New York: Columbia University in the field. One is Liz Wilde, a Floridian who promotes
Press, 2000. “Blow It Out Yer Ass” Fridays. Another is “The Radio
Lynch, John. “Memory and Matthew Shepard: Opposing Ex- Chick,” Leslie Gold, whose New York show features titil-
pressions of Public Memory in Television Movies.” Journal of lating skits like “20 Questions with a Hooker.”
Communication Inquiry 31:3 (July 2007): 222–38. Some critics blame shock jocks for a “renaissance of
Matthew Shepard Society Web site. www.matthewshepard vulgarity” in American society. Others see shock jocks as
.org. a by-product of a society that has lost its moral compass.
Ott, Brian L., and Eric Aoki. “The Politics of Negotiating Public Radio and television pioneer Steve Allen speculated in
Tragedy: Media Framing of the Matthew Shepard Murder.” his Vulgarians at the Gate (2001) that Stern and his “toilet
Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5:3 (Fall 2002): 483–505. talk fraternity” were being used by media conglomerates
Patterson, Romaine, and Patrick Hinds. The Whole World Was to grab ratings. Civil discourse may not sell, but con-
Watching: Living in the Light of Matthew Shepard. New York: troversy certainly does. Most shock jocks started out as
Advocate Books, 2005. Top 40 DJs and continue to serve the same commercial
interests.
While Congress continues to boost FCC fines to
Shock Jock s more than $300,000 per violation, free speech advocates
“Shock jocks,” provocative radio talk show hosts or disc equate the tighter restrictions with a new brand of Mc-
jockeys, are known for speaking in a deliberately of- Carthyism. Survey research suggests that a majority of
fensive manner and treating their callers rudely. Most listeners prefer radio personalities who “push the limits.”
commonly associated with controversial radio person- Many argue that radio is no more explicit than network
ality Howard Stern, the term has become a pejorative television or cable programs. In fact, some First Amend-
label for irreverent broadcasters whose on-air behav- ment experts have complained that shock jocks are being
ior is meant to shock and offend the general listener. punished for broadcasting sexually explicit bits that are
Although such radio shows remain popular, they have perfectly acceptable on daytime TV.
been increasingly subjected to fines and sanctions by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a trend Cindy Mediavilla
that caused Stern to move his show to an unregulated
satellite radio station. See also: Censorship; Federal Communications Commission;
Typically, shock jocks engage their audience in con- Hurricane Katrina; McCarthyism; Political Correctness;
versations about the more prurient aspects of sex as well as Speech Codes; Stern, Howard; Talk Radio.
518 Sider, Ron
Further Reading government programs—in conjunction with charitable

Allen, Steve. Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch giving—in order to redress economic inequalities. These
Radio—Raising the Standards of Popular Culture. Amherst, views, along with his sometimes strident criticisms of
NY: Prometheus Books, 2001. American society, have led detractors to accuse him of
Hilliard, Robert, and Michael C. Keith. Dirty Discourse: Sex and anti-Americanism, simplistic and utopian economic
Indecency in American Radio. Ames: Iowa State Press, 2003. theorizing, and/or outright Marxism. Religious conser-
O’Connor, Roy. Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio. San vatives have mounted a sustained attack against Sider
Francisco: AlterNet Books, 2008. since the mid-1970s, most notably through Christian
reconstructionist David Chilton’s Productive Christians
in an Age of Guilt Manipulators (1981).
S i d e r, Ro n Sider has modified aspects of his views in response to
The Canadian-born theologian and author Ron Sider these criticisms. Later writings reflect a growing appre-
became prominent among Christian evangelicals dur- ciation for market economies and an increasing emphasis
ing the 1970s for his attacks on the wealthy, on indiffer- on the impact of personal choice on individual success.
ence toward poverty, and on the perceived complacency The link between individual morality and poverty, along
of many North American Christians. As a professor at with his belief in the ability of Christianity to transform
Philadephia’s Messiah College, he wrote Rich Christians economically detrimental personal behavior, has led Sider
in an Age of Hunger (1977), a polemical work that sold to support faith-based social programs. This endorsement,
more than 350,000 copies and generated intense debate along with his opposition to abortion and same-sex mar-
over the relationship between Christianity and econom- riage, has drawn condemnation from liberals within and
ics, and over the relative impact of structural factors and beyond the Christian community.
personal choices in determining individual success or Robert Teigrob
failure. Like Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis, Sider com-
bined evangelicalism and leftist politics in a way that See also: Abortion; Campolo, Anthony “Tony”; Canada; Chris-
earned great popularity on college and seminary cam- tian Reconstructionism; Compassionate Conservatism; Evan-
puses, as well as rebukes from all points on the political gelicalism; Faith-Based Programs; Marxism; Religious Right;
spectrum. Same-Sex Marriage; Wallis, Jim; Wealth Gap.
Ronald James Sider was born on September 17, 1939,
in Stevensville, Ontario, and raised in a Brethren in Christ Further Reading
household. An offshoot of the Mennonites, the Brethren Chilton, David. Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipula-
in Christ sect emphasizes pacifism, simple living, and the tors: A Biblical Response to Ron Sider. Tyler, TX: Institute for
importance of community, ideas that inform all of Sider’s Christian Economics, 1981.
later work. He received his BA from Waterloo Lutheran Martin, Paul. “Prophet or Siren? Ron Sider’s Continued Influ-
University, Ontario, and his Master’s of Divinity and PhD ence.” Religion & Liberty 10:1 (January and February 2000):
in history from Yale University. In 1968, he took up his 11–13.
teaching position in Philadelphia, choosing to live in an Robbins, John. “Ron Sider Contra Deum.” Trinity Review
impoverished neighborhood of that city. In 1972, Sider (March–April 1981): 1–6.
served as secretary of Evangelicals for McGovern and the Sider, Ron. Just Generosity: A New Vision for Overcoming Poverty
following year helped found Evangelicals for Social Ac- in America. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999.
tion, an organization that called for a biblical response ———. Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study.
to combating racism and poverty. His appeal at the Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977.
1984 Mennonite World Conference to send nonviolent
Christian peacekeeping forces into zones of conflict led
to the creation of Christian Peacemaker Teams, an orga- Silent Majority
nization that has participated in sometimes controversial The term “Silent Majority” was a rhetorical device first
interventions in the Middle East, Chechnya, Haiti, and used by President Richard Nixon in a televised speech
Chiapas, Mexico. on November 3, 1969, to cast the protesters of the Viet-
Sider has published more than twenty books, includ- nam War as not representative of average Americans.
ing three updated versions of Rich Christians, as well The context was his attempt to restore public support
as numerous articles for Christianity Today, Sojourners, for his policy to seek “peace with honor” rather than
PRISM, and other moderate and progressive religious immediately withdraw U.S. forces. In that address, Nix-
serials. His work is unified by its attention to the on appealed to “the great silent majority of my fellow
systemic forces that underlie individual and regional Americans” and asked them to help him “end the war
poverty, the hypocrisy he sees in evangelicals who ig- in a way that we could win the peace.” His strategy was
nore issues of social justice, and the need for enhanced to make the antiwar demonstrators seem like a small
Simpsons, The 519
but loud minority out of step with the rest of American Further Reading
society, which believed in the fight to stop the spread of Black, Conrad. Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full. New York:
communism in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. PublicAffairs, 2007.
During his first months in office in 1969, the presi- Genovese, Michael A. The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics in
dent established the Nixon Doctrine for implementing Turbulent Times. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990.
“Vietnamization,” a plan to shift the war burden from the McNamara, Robert S. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of
U.S. military to Vietnamese armed forces. Later, Nixon Vietnam. New York: Times Books, 1995.
traveled to the region and met with American troops
and the president of South Vietnam. Despite his efforts
to decrease American involvement in the increasingly Simpsons, The
unpopular conflict, antiwar protests continued at home. The Simpsons, an animated television series created by
Moreover, newspaper revelations of the My Lai massacre cartoonist Matt Groening, has been highly popular and
(in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers controversial since its premiere in 1989. In following
had been killed by U.S. soldiers) inflamed protesters, the lives of Homer, Marge, and their children, Bart,
further complicating efforts to secure public support for Lisa, and Maggie, The Simpsons pokes fun at a variety
his war agenda. of social, political, and economic issues, including ju-
It did not go unnoticed by Nixon that the protest venile delinquency, alcoholism, race relations, gender
movements included some of the same youthful, counter- roles, consumerism, and class divisions. The show’s so-
culture elements that were part of the earlier civil rights cial commentary generally draws criticism from conser-
movement. He and many conservative politicians believed vatives and praise from liberals, but its depiction of a
that media coverage of these “agitators” had skewed the modern family has found allies on the political right as
public perception of their breadth and popularity. Most well. In 2007, the cartoon series was the basis for the
Americans, Nixon argued, were not only loyal supporters movie, The Simpsons, which was widely received.
of the Cold War policy of containment but also opponents Groening’s series first appeared as a recurrent seg-
of the domestic riots and marches that threatened the so- ment on The Tracey Ullman Show (1987–1990) and then
cial status quo of race relations and gender roles. Nixon’s became a weekly series on the Fox television network
speech also appealed to veterans of past wars, many of in 1989. Each member of the Simpson family provides
whom viewed war protesters as unpatriotic. fodder for satirical humor. Homer is more interested in
In general, Nixon’s argument resonated with blue- drinking Duff Beer and eating donuts than in interact-
collar workers. On May 8, 1970, in a show of support for ing with his family. Marge is an understanding, patient
Nixon’s war policies, helmeted construction workers, in housewife but has a darker side and is secretly ambitious.
a demonstration organized by the president of the Build- Bart is an irreverent, self-described underachiever and is
ing and Construction Trades Council, wielded wrenches continuously in trouble for bucking authority. Lisa is a
against antiwar students in New York City. After beating budding feminist, saxophone player, and vegetarian.
up students, the workers then marched to city hall and The other residents of the Simpsons’ fictional
raised the American flag that had been lowered to half- hometown—Springfield, USA—also play a significant
mast to mourn the victims of the Kent State shootings role in many of the storylines. Homer works at a nuclear
four days earlier. power plant under the management of the greedy Mr.
The “Silent Majority” claim was an integral part Burns and his assistant Mr. Smithers, allowing for plot
of the Republican strategy to win support of the white lines exposing the sinister side of capitalism. Krusty the
working class, especially in the Midwest and the South. Klown, the children’s favorite entertainer, is an off-stage
Strategists also argued that media coverage of the war alcoholic and compulsive gambler, which the show often
was unbalanced, offering excessive coverage to dissenting uses to comment on the hypocrisy of entertainment and
groups and thus displaying a liberal media bias. Simi- the media. Ned Flanders, the Simpsons’ neighbor, is an
larly, when Jerry Falwell established the Moral Majority, evangelical Christian who is constantly trying to save
the idea being communicated was that anything not in Homer and his family. In a 2005 episode, Marge’s sister
accord with the conservative viewpoint was outside the Patty falls in love, comes out as a lesbian, and decides
mainstream. to marry.
Angie Maxwell Although Simpsons satire often comes at the expense of
the political right, some conservatives have commended
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Cold War; Communists and the show’s portrayal of a stable nuclear family and of re-
Communism; Counterculture; Falwell, Jerry; Media Bias; ligion. Homer and Marge’s marriage is often depicted as
Moral Majority; My Lai Massacre; Nixon, Richard; Republi- dysfunctional, but the couple continues to stay together.
can Party; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam War; The character of Ned Flanders also finds support among
War Protesters. conservatives. Although he is an evangelical Christian and
520 Smok ing in P ublic
is often ridiculed for his perpetual positive attitude, he as a “Group A” carcinogen. In 2006, Surgeon General
is also portrayed as empathetic and kind. With its com- Richard Carmona warned that ETS is “more pervasive
mitment to satirizing everyone, The Simpsons has found than we previously thought” and “a serious health hazard
audiences on both sides of the political fence, and the that can lead to disease and premature death in children
series has drawn the attention of scholars as well. and nonsmoking adults.” Carmona argued that ventila-
tion systems like the ones used in restaurants do not
Jessie Swigger eliminate secondhand smoke.
In the wake of the first warnings against smoking
See also: Campolo, Anthony “Tony”; Comic Books; Comic by the Surgeon General’s office, the tobacco industry in
Strips; Evangelicalism; Family Values; Lesbians; Nuclear 1958 founded the Tobacco Institute, a think tank that
Age; Race; Stay-at-Home Mothers. would devote itself to disputing the scientific data on
smoking. Its efforts would be offset, however, by those of
Further Reading various antismoking groups in the late 1960s and 1970s,
Groening, Matt. The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite including Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), founded
Family. New York: HarperPerennial, 1997. in 1968; Group Against Smokers’ Pollution (GASP),
Irwin, William, Mark T. Conrad, and Aeon J. Skoble, eds. The founded in 1971; and Fresh Air for Non-Smokers (FANS),
Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’Oh of Homer. Chicago: Open founded in 1979.
Court, 2001. The antismoking lobby scored an early victory in
Pinsky, Mark, and Tony Campolo. The Gospel According to the 1972, when Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, became
Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World’s Most Animated Family. the first municipalities in the nation to restrict smok-
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. ing in public buildings. The anti-ETS movement was
bolstered four years later by a ruling of the New Jersey
Superior Court that affirmed the right of Donna Shimp,
Smok ing in Public an employee of Bell Telephone and the plaintiff in the
Beginning in the 1970s, the issue of smoking tobacco case, to work in a smoke-free office environment. In
in indoor public facilities has pitted libertarians against 1986, the U.S. General Services Administration banned
health advocates across the United States. For many op- smoking in federal buildings. In 1988, Congress banned
ponents of government-imposed restrictions on smok- smoking on domestic airline flights of two hours or less,
ing, lighting up a cigarette symbolizes individualism extending the ban two years later to longer flights.
and freedom of choice. Smoking bans thus are seen as an By the mid-1980s, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco
attack on civil liberties and an example of “Big Brother” Company was publishing editorial advertisements in
policing. On the other hand, for those concerned about national publications in an attempt to block pending
the health risks of involuntary (secondhand) smoking— smoking ordinances across the country. Titles included
otherwise known as environmental tobacco smoke “Smoking in Public: Let’s separate fact from friction,”
(ETS)—the public good warrants smoking bans in pub- “Second-Hand Smoke: The Myth and the Reality,”
lic transportation facilities, workplaces, and even res- “Workplace Smoking Restrictions: A trend that never
taurants and bars. By 2007, half of all Americans lived was,” “The Second-Hand Smokescreen,” and the like.
in states or local communities that had implemented In a two-pronged approach, the campaign cast doubt on
smoking ordinances. scientific claims about the health risks associated with
U.S. Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney in 1957 be- ETS by suggesting that the data are inconclusive, and
came the first U.S. federal official to declare a causal link framed the issue of smoking in public as one that can be
between smoking and lung cancer, but it was not until resolved by individuals applying “common sense” and
seven years later that smoking was officially declared a “politeness.” One ad characterized smoking bans as a
health hazard. A report issued in January 1964 by Sur- form of “segregation,” implying that smokers were being
geon General Luther L. Terry’s Advisory Committee on stripped of their civil rights.
Smoking and Health compelled Congress the following Perhaps most controversial has been the debate over
year to require health warning labels on all cigarette smoking in restaurants and bars. In 1995, tobacco giant
packages. By 1972, the Surgeon General’s office began Philip Morris provided the seed money for the establish-
warning about ETS. ment of the Guest Choice Network (later the Center for
In 1986, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, as well as Consumer Freedom), a lobbying organization to oppose,
the National Research Council of the National Academy among other things, government-imposed smoking bans
of Sciences, produced the results of a number of studies in restaurants. Generally, the hospitality industry has
that linked ETS with lung cancer in nonsmokers. Reit- emphasized market principles, arguing that proprietors
erating the health risks of ETS, the U.S. Environmental should have the authority to decide whether or not to
Protection Agency in 1993 classified secondhand smoke allow smoking in their establishments and that custom-
Soc ial Sec ur it y 521
ers can decide for themselves whether or not to patronize board decision to declassify homosexuality as a psycho-
them. In 1994, controversially, California became the logical malady, Socarides and seven other psychiatrists
first state to pass legislation that banned smoking in all demanded a second vote. APA members, they argued,
buildings open to the public, including bars and restau- had been misled because a letter about the referendum
rants (though the measure did not fully go into effect mailed to them by the board and signed by APA leaders
until 1998). New York City’s 2003 smoking ordinance was conceived and paid for by the National Gay Task
also banned smoking in bars and restaurants. One of Force. Indeed, the task force, which had been formed in
the strictest smoking bans went into effect in Hawaii in October 1973 to “work for liberation of gay people and
2006, forbidding outdoor smoking less than 20 feet (6.1 a change in public attitudes,” spent $3,000 on printing
meters) from any door, window, or ventilation system of and mailing the letter, a detail that was not at the time
a hotel, restaurant, or bar. disclosed to the APA rank and file. In May 1975, an ad
Roger Chapman hoc committee of the APA rejected the request for a new
vote, ruling that it was “opposed to the use of referenda
See also: Koop, C. Everett; Science Wars; Tobacco Settlements. to decide on scientific issues.” But Socarides’s faction
saw the first vote as a case in which a scientific issue had
Further Reading been decided by a referendum—and one manipulated by
Hilts, Philip J. Smokescreen: The Truth behind the Tobacco Industry political activism.
Cover-up. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996. His detractors (much of the mental health profession
Schaler, Jeffrey A., and Magda E. Schaler, eds. Smoking: Who Has as well as gay rights activists) believed that Socarides
the Right? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998. perpetuated the suffering of his patients by convincing
Sullum, Jacob. For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and them that homosexuality was something that had to be
the Tyranny of Public Health. New York: Free Press, 1998. “fixed.” His supporters (social conservatives and certain
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Respiratory Health Effects religious groups) regarded him as a brave scientist who
of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders. Bethesda, followed where his research findings led and offered “re-
MD: National Institutes of Health, 1993. parative therapy” to help people overcome a pathological
U.S. Surgeon General. The Health Consequences of Involuntary illness. Critics dismissed his claim to have “cured” 35
Smoking. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and percent of his gay patients.
Human Services, 1986. Socarides wrote numerous books, including The
Overt Homosexual (1968) and Homosexuality: A Freedom Too
Far (1995). His gay son, Richard, was a White House
Socarides, Charles adviser on lesbian and gay issues to President Bill Clin-
Psychiatrist and author Charles Socarides argued in 1973 ton. Socarides, who died on December 25, 2005, was
that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) “sacri- convinced that he had failed his son by not providing
ficed our scientific knowledge” when it stopped listing the kind of family atmosphere necessary for heterosexual
homosexuality as a mental illness. Regarding same-sex development.
desire as a “neurotic adaptation,” Socarides devoted his ca- Roger Chapman
reer to the “treatment and prevention” of homosexuality.
A native of Brockton, Massachusetts, Charles Wil- See also: Clinton, Bill; Gay Rights Movement; Gays in the
liam Socarides was born on January 24, 1922. At age Military; Hay, Harry; Milk, Harvey; Lesbians; Same-Sex
thirteen, inspired by the writings of Sigmund Freud, he Marriage; Science Wars; Sodomy Laws; Stonewall Rebellion;
decided to become a psychiatrist. A graduate of Harvard White, Reggie.
College (1945), New York Medical College (1947), and
the psychoanalytical clinic and research center at Co- Further Reading
lumbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons Bayer, Ronald. Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics
(1952), he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during of Diagnosis. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
the Korean War. While maintaining a private practice Erzen, Tanya. Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversion
in New York City, he taught psychiatry at the Albert in the Ex-Gay Movement. Berkeley: University of California
Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx (1960–1996). Press, 2006.
Near the end of his career, in 1992, Socarides co-founded Socarides, Charles W. “How America Went Gay.” America,
the National Association for Research and Therapy of November 18, 1995.
Homosexuality, based in Encino, California, a nonprofit
group “dedicated to affirming a complementary, male-
female model of gender and sexuality.” Social Security
After APA members in April 1974 voted 5,845 to The Social Security program—signed into law by Presi-
3,810 (out of 17,910 eligible voters) to uphold the 1973 dent Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935—was created to
522 Soc ial Sec ur it y
provide retired workers with a stable income. It has Ideological Viewpoints

grown into one of the largest economic responsibilities As America’s largest and most expensive social welfare
of the U.S. federal government, accounting for nearly program, Social Security has been a source of almost
one-quarter of the government’s annual spending. From constant contention in the culture wars. In the 1980s,
the program’s inception to 2008, over $10 trillion was President Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David
paid out in benefits. Stockman, referred to the Social Security program as
Social Security is a form of social insurance to which “the inner fortress of the welfare state” that the con-
workers and their employers contribute a percentage of servative movement would seek to dismantle. Social
the workers’ wages. Upon the retirement, disability, or conservatives believe that the family rather than the
death of a worker, the federal government pays a regular government ought to provide such economic support.
cash benefit to the worker or his or her surviving depen- However, because the program is designed around the
dents. Benefits are not computed strictly on an actuarial family as the economic unit, some social conservatives
basis (returns are not based strictly on considerations have been won over. Gary Bauer, the founder of the
of individual equity), but elements of social policy are socially conservative Family Research Council and a
factored in as well (what policymakers call concern for Republican candidate for president in 2000, defended
social adequacy). For example, Social Security benefits are Social Security on the grounds that its benefit struc-
weighted so that the retirement benefit is proportion- ture (especially the spousal benefit) encourages tradi-
ately higher for low-wage workers than for high-wage tional families.
workers. Fiscal conservatives complain that Social Security
taxes are onerous, and that government is an inefficient
History provider of economic security compared to private mar-
The Social Security Act of 1935 created only a retire- kets. They argue that America would be better served
ment benefit and only for the individual worker. Only by a privatized system of economic security rather than
about half the jobs in the economy were covered under one sponsored by the government. Advocates of small
the original 1935 legislation. Major amendments ad- government, such as libertarians, opposed on principle
opted in 1939 changed the nature of the system from an to government involving itself in issues of economic se-
individual retirement program to a family-based ben- curity, characterize Social Security and similar programs
efit, by the addition of dependent and survivor benefits. as part of a patronizing “nanny state.”
The provision of spouses’ benefits, in particular, was Liberals, on the other hand, argue that government
premised on the model of the typical 1930s-era fam- has an obligation to ensure a basic foundation of economic
ily, which featured a working father and a stay-at-home security for its citizens. Social Security has long been
mother. viewed as a principal achievement of the liberal welfare
Between 1950 and 1972, the program expanded state and is fiercely defended by the Democratic Party
dramatically, providing coverage to new classes of oc- as one of its signal political achievements. Some on the
cupations, significantly increasing the value of benefits, political left complain that the program is not gener-
and adding new types of benefits. Cash disability benefits ous enough, and that it should be structured more like
were made available in 1956, and health insurance for traditional European social welfare programs. Linking
the elderly was provided under Medicare in 1965. In benefits to work means that existing inequities in the
1972, the program allowed for regular annual increases in workplace—such as lower wages and participation rates
benefits to keep pace with the cost of living. Since then, for African Americans and women—will be mirrored in
financing concerns have slowed policy expansion. the retirement benefits under the system. Accordingly,
The impact of Social Security on the economic status some liberals complain that the program does not provide
of the elderly has been dramatic. Prior to the program, compensatory features for women and minorities to offset
the majority of the elderly in America lived in some prior discrimination in the workplace. Feminists argue
form of economic dependency—they were too poor to be that the spousal benefit implicitly supports patriarchal
self-supporting. In 2006, only 10 percent of the nation’s families. Some critics argue that the system is unfair to
elderly were living in poverty, a much lower rate due in African Americans because their shorter life expectancies
large part to Social Security. It is also the nation’s prin- mean less in retirement benefits.
cipal disability program, with 8 million people receiving The division between private versus government-
disability benefits in 2006 and another 7 million receiv- sponsored social support is one of the main political fault
ing survivors’ benefits. Of Social Security’s 48 million lines in the culture wars. It pits the conservative ideals
beneficiaries in 2006, more than 3 million were children of individual responsibility and the pursuit of individual
receiving benefits as dependents of insured workers. In equity against the liberal ideals of collective responsibility
2008, some 50 million people received $600 billion in and concern for the less fortunate. The designers of the
annual benefits under the program. Social Security program tried to strike a balance between
Sodomy L aws 523
these two sets of ideals, with elements of both built into Further Reading
the system. But attacks from both ends of the political Altman, Nancy J. The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision
spectrum have been commonplace throughout Social Se- to Bush’s Gamble. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.
curity’s history. Since about the late 1980s, the critiques Berkowitz, Edward D. America’s Welfare State: From Roosevelt
from the left have tended to fade, and the critiques from to Reagan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
fiscal conservatives and libertarians have tended to be more 1991.
prominent than critiques from social conservatives. Diamond, Peter A., and Peter R. Orszag. Saving Social Security:
A Balanced Approach. Washington, DC: Brookings Institu-
Long-Term Solvency and the Push tion, 2004.
for Privatization Ferrara, Peter J., and Michael Tanner. A New Deal for Social
The most active criticism of the Social Security sys- Security. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1998.
tem revolves around fiscal issues. The fiscal critique has Social Security Administration Web site. www.socialsecurity
gained traction in the early twenty-first century given .gov.
the uncertain future solvency of the system. Because the
financing of Social Security is highly sensitive to demo-
graphic changes, as the Baby Boom generation enters S o d o my L a w s
its prime retirement years, the financial demands on the Sodomy laws prohibiting various forms of nonrepro-
system will be severe. In its 2007 report, the board of ductive sexual activity once existed in the penal codes
trustees for the system projected that the program will of every U.S. state, but only fourteen maintained them
fall short of full funding by the year 2041. by 2003, the year in which the U.S. Supreme Court in
Social Security thus faces a long-range solvency chal- Lawrence v. Texas declared all such laws unconstitutional
lenge that may require a tax increase or benefit reductions on the grounds that they violated a person’s right to pri-
in the future. Debates about the future of Social Security vacy. Because of the sexual practices they targeted, sod-
are likely to involve issues of cost and intergenerational omy laws effectively criminalized gays and lesbians and
fairness, as future taxpayers may be asked to bear greater thereby hindered their inclusion in mainstream society
burdens or future beneficiaries to accept lesser benefits as respectable, law-abiding citizens.
than prior cohorts. Sodomy laws have both religious and historical roots.
Such uncertainty has provided a renewed opportunity Prohibitions against same-sex intercourse, for example,
for conservative critics to argue for privatization of the are found in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. English
system. Privatization means that some or all of the tax law criminalized such behavior, establishing a precedent
revenues financing the program would be diverted from for colonial American jurisprudence to do the same. The
the government’s accounts and invested in the stock mar- mid-twentieth century, however, saw increasing diver-
ket. Thus, a private equity account of some type would gence among the states regarding sodomy laws. Led by
replace some or all of the benefits offered by the Social Illinois in 1961, certain states rescinded their sodomy
Security program. laws for consenting adults. Others expanded the scope
In 2001, newly installed President George W. Bush of these laws to include some heterosexual behaviors as
signaled his intention to transform the system by shift- well as same-sex acts between women. One notable battle
ing large segments of its financing to the private equity over such laws occurred in California in 1975, when
market. Bush appointed a special commission of experts sodomy was decriminalized by a one-vote margin in the
to recommend ways to introduce private accounts into the state senate. The conservative backlash led to the Briggs
system and campaigned hard for this idea at the start of Amendment ballot initiative in 1978, which sought (but
his second term in 2005, but he was unable to generate failed) to deny employment to gay and lesbian school-
a political consensus in support of his proposals. teachers in California.
Although there have been critics of the program Sodomy laws continued to be a flashpoint for social
throughout its history, Social Security has enjoyed a conservatives and gay rights groups. During the peak of
remarkable degree of public support. Its design has the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when male-male sex acts
seemed to accord well with the values of the majority of were under attack as a health risk, the Supreme Court in
American workers and taxpayers. Whether this consensus Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) upheld the states’ prerogative
will endure as the solvency problem deepens remains to to criminalize sodomy. The Court thereby resisted recog-
be seen. nizing a right to privacy for gays and lesbians expansive
Larry W. DeWitt enough to protect consensual sexual activity, as it had
done previously for heterosexuals. Social conservatives,
See also: Bush Family; Federal Budget Deficit; Generations already wary of the Court’s expansive interpretation of
and Generational Conflict; New Deal; Reagan, Ronald; Tax privacy so key to the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision on
Reform; Welfare Reform. abortion, embraced the Bowers ruling.
524 Sokal Af fair
Although sodomy laws were rarely enforced by the a comic pastiche that combined “vague rhetoric about
1980s, in some areas openly gay citizens were automati- ‘nonlinearity,’ ‘flux’ and ‘interconnectedness’” while in-
cally presumed to be guilty of sodomy, and thus were sisting “physical ‘reality,’ no less than social ‘reality,’ is
regarded by some as criminals. Such stigmatization at bottom a social and linguistic construct.” In footnotes,
led to a number of court decisions depriving gays and he claimed that the mathematical axioms of choice and
lesbians of child custody rights or adoption privileges. equality stemmed from pro-choice, pro-equality “liberal
Others lost their jobs for allegedly practicing sodomy. feminists” and that New Age theories of the collective
Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which overturned Bowers after unconscious were the basis of cutting-edge research into
just seventeen years, was therefore monumental in end- quantum gravity, citing Rebecca Goldstein’s novel The
ing the association of homosexuality with criminality. In Mind-Body Problem (1983) as a definitive text on the sub-
his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the majority ject. More important, perhaps, the submission lavished
decision, complaining that the Court “has taken sides in praise on the editors of Social Text and called for scientists
the culture war” in favor of the “so-called homosexual and mathematicians to subordinate their work to the
agenda.” Scalia went on to argue that the Lawrence deci- left-wing political program.
sion means state laws against same-sex marriage, bigamy, After Social Text published the paper in its spring/
adult incest, and prostitution are now subject to being summer 1996 issue on “The Science Wars,” Lingua Franca
challenged. published Sokal’s essay revealing the hoax in its May/June
Phil Tiemeyer issue. The editors of Social Text responded by calling Sokal
a “deceptive” and “difficult, uncooperative author,” and
See also: AIDS; Bryant, Anita; Douglas, William O.; Family his article as “a little hokey,” “somewhat outdated,” and
Values; Gay Rights Movement; Judicial Wars; Milk, Harvey; “not really our cup of tea.” (At the same time, one editor
Roe v. Wade (1973); Same-Sex Marriage. refused to believe it was a hoax, instead maintaining that
Sokal simply had “a folding of his intellectual resolve.”)
Further Reading They refused to publish Sokal’s afterword defending and
Eskridge, William N., Jr. Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in explaining his paper.
America, 1861–2003. New York: Viking, 2008. Meanwhile, the Sokal hoax was invoked by count-
Franke, Katherine M. “The Domesticated Liberty of Law- less popular and academic critics of postmodernism as
rence v. Texas.” Columbia Law Review 104:5 (June 2004): definitive proof of the field’s vacuousness. Still, Sokal was
1399–1426. at pains to point out that “at most it reveals something
Ireland, Doug. “Republicans Relaunch the Antigay Culture about the intellectual standards of one trendy journal”
Wars.” Nation, October 20, 2003. and to insist there should not be a “science war” but an
“exchange of ideas . . . to promote a collective search for
the truth.”
Sokal Affair The following year, Sokal and French physicist Jean
The “Sokal Affair” of the late 1990s was a literary con- Bricmont together published Fashionable Nonsense, a book-
flagration that followed the publication of New York length critique of the misuse of science by prominent
University physicist Alan Sokal’s paper “Transgressing postmodernists and a philosophical defense of scientific
the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics realism. The book led to more critiques of postmodernism
of Quantum Gravity” in the postmodern cultural stud- in the popular press, but little response from the cultural
ies journal Social Text. Sokal revealed that the piece was studies community, which had largely written off Sokal
a hoax, designed to determine if a leading journal would as a mocking critic.
“publish . . . nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) Aaron Swartz
it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.” A
front-page article in the New York Times announced that See also: Anti-Intellectualism; Foucault, Michel; Postmodern-
the answer was “yes,” setting off a heated debate over ism; Science Wars.
the intellectual substance of postmodernism.
A dedicated physicist and unabashed old leftist (he Further Reading
frequently quotes Noam Chomsky and taught math for Bérubé, Michael. Rhetorical Occasions: Essays on Humans and
the Sandinistas), Sokal had been disturbed by claims that the Humanities. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
the “academic left” no longer believed in the ability of Press, 2006.
science to obtain objective truth. (If one concedes that Editors of Lingua Franca. The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook
truth is simply an artifact of power, Sokal argued, it the Academy. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, 2000.
would be impossible to criticize power as being untruth- Sokal, Alan, and Jean Bricmont. Fashionable Nonsense: Post-
ful.) After considering the best way to respond, he finally modern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science. New York: Picador,
settled on parody. Sokal spent several months writing 1998.
Souther n B ap tis t Convention 525
Soros, George as his advocacy of needle exchange programs, medical

A billionaire financier, entrepreneur, and philanthro- marijuana, and medical-assisted suicide. The American
pist, George Soros is known not only for several high- public became more familiar with him during the 2004
profile financial deals but also for his writings on poli- presidential election, when he donated millions of dol-
tics and economics. In the late 1970s, he began his long lars to organizations such as MoveOn.org to oppose the
campaign of promoting social and political reform in reelection of George W. Bush. In The Bubble of Ameri-
Eastern Europe, but at the beginning of the twenty- can Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power
first century, his outspoken opposition to the policies (2003) and The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the
of President George W. Bush made him a prominent War on Terror (2006), Soros has characterized the Bush
figure in the American culture wars. administration’s foreign policy as delusional, arguing
Born György Schwartz on August 12, 1930, in that it has undermined America’s greatness through
Budapest, Hungary, Soros experienced the Nazi oc- violations of human rights and actions representative
cupation and escaped the Holocaust by concealing his of closed societies.
Jewish ethnicity. At age seventeen, he moved to Eng-
land, where he earned a degree from the London School Susan Pearce
of Economics (1952) and came under the influence of
the philosopher Karl Popper. After immigrating to the See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Bush Family; Cold War;
United States in 1956, he worked for a number of years Communists and Communism; Globalization; Holocaust;
as an arbitrage trader and then co-founded Quantum Human Rights; Medical Marijuana; Prison Reform; Septem-
Fund (1969), which emerged as one of the world’s most ber 11; Soviet Union and Russia; War on Drugs.
lucrative hedge funds. This was followed by the estab-
lishment of Soros Fund Management (1973), a highly Further Reading
successful international investment fund he continues Carter, Terry. “Mr. Democracy.” ABA Journal, January 2000.
to chair. Two of its controversial deals were a currency Kaufman, Michael T. Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic
speculation in the British pound and the Malaysian Billionaire. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
ringgit during the 1990s that resulted in the devalua- Open Society Institute Web site. www.soros.org.
tion of both currencies. In the former case, he was said
to have earned $1 billion in one day by speculating that S o u t h e r n B a p t i s t C o nve n t i o n
the pound would decline in value. His best-selling book
The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market Organized in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, the South-
(1988) is a treatise on investing. ern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the largest Protestant
Profoundly influenced by Popper’s The Open Society denomination in the United States, the second-largest
and Its Enemies (1945), Soros applied his wealth to fos- religious group in the United States (after the Roman
tering reform in “closed societies” such as South Africa, Catholic Church), and the largest Baptist group in the
China, and the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc. His world. In 2008, the SBC claimed more than 16 million
Open Society Institute (OSI) was founded in 1979 to members, worshipping in over 42,000 churches in the
champion the creation of civil societies in countries United States. Although SBC churches are highly con-
shedding totalitarian systems. Operating in more centrated in the American South, the denomination has
than fifty countries, OSI continues to support educa- expanded to include congregations in every U.S. state
tion, human rights, economic development, women’s and throughout the world.
concerns, and public health. His founding of Central The SBC has figured prominently in the rise of the
European University in his native city of Budapest in Christian Right since the 1980s, but historically it has
1991 was with the intention of training new public and been minimally involved in American politics. Southern
academic leaders in the rapidly transforming countries Baptists faced controversy in their early history (over
of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet slavery, denominational structure, and missionary activity
Union. In Opening the Soviet Union (1990), Soros claimed that split Northern and Southern Baptists, for example),
some credit for the downfall of communism; he had but had little capacity or inclination for political-cultural
supported the Solidarity trade union movement in Po- engagement before the mid-twentieth century. The
land and the Charter 77 human rights organization in traditional marginalization of the South weakened SBC
Czechoslovakia, both of which helped foster the demise capability for national influence before post–World
of the Soviet bloc. War II economic renewal. Moreover, Southern Baptists
In the United States, OSI has initiated programs to encountered difficulties in national mobilization due to
promote reform in criminal justice, immigration, and their decentralized church polity (congregational, as-
youth empowerment. Some of Soros’s positions have run sociational, confessional) and some internal tendencies
counter to the viewpoints of political conservatives, such toward separatism.
526 Souther n B ap tis t Convention
Southern Baptists first strongly embraced political- religious persecution, terrorism, anti-Semitism, and rac-
cultural engagement after evangelical leaders like Billy ism. Other resolutions, however, proved to be polarizing,
Graham, Carl F.H. Henry, and Charles Fuller spearheaded including affirmations of Ronald Reagan, Operation
efforts to bring national revival and cultural renewal Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Boy Scouts
in the 1940s. Enthusiasm for confronting secularism of America’s leadership policies, the ban on homosexual-
was later bolstered by supporting Christian intellec- ity in the military, border control (though with social
tual rationale, such as Richard John Neuhaus’s book on and economic justice for legal and illegal immigrants),
church-state relations, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Israeli sovereignty (though calling for internation-
and Democracy in America (1984). ally just treatment of Israelis as well as Palestinians).
As SBC willingness to engage with society grew, The SBC has also stirred controversy for boycotting
denominational transformation brought the organiza- the Walt Disney Company and subsidiaries for pro-gay
tion into the political and cultural spotlight. Beginning policies and programs (1997–2005), confining pastoral
in 1961, the denomination split between theologically leadership to men, and stating that wives should submit
liberal/moderate and conservative/fundamentalist camps, graciously to their husbands (just as husbands must love
with the former holding ascendance until 1979 and the their wives as Christ loved the church).
latter maintaining preeminence in the years since. In the Although the SBC is politically conservative overall,
so-called Conservative Resurgence or Fundamentalist its size, structure, and diffuseness has over the years al-
Takeover, conservatives from 1979 on engineered succes- lowed for variation in political approaches among leaders,
sive SBC presidential victories and installed supporters members, and affiliated organizations. Thus, SBC resolu-
in key positions on boards and seminaries. In addition, tions are suggestive but nonbinding. The large tent of
conservatives reformed denominational institutions to en- the SBC has accommodated those with nontraditional
able greater unity on doctrinal orthodoxy, especially bib- theological positions (i.e., Pat Robertson’s Charismati-
lical inerrancy and infallibility. The SBC today remains cism) and those with vastly differing political positions
largely conservative, albeit with internal tension between (from Jerry Falwell to Rick Warren).
liberals/moderates and old-line conservatives (who object
to perceived SBC creedalism and centralization) that oper- Erika Seeler
ate through local and national splinter entities.
The internal SBC theological struggle has had See also: Boy Scouts of America; Falwell Jerry; Gays in the Mili-
political implications as well, explaining such seeming tary; Graham, Billy; Immigration Policy; Israel; Pornography;
paradoxes as the SBC’s initial support and later criti- Reagan, Ronald; Religious Right; Right to Die; Robertson, Pat;
cism of Roe v. Wade (1973) and the competing ranks of Roe v. Wade (1973); Same-Sex Marriage; Stem-Cell Research;
politically liberal members (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Walt Disney Company; Warren, Rick; Women in the Military.
Richard Gephardt, Al Gore) versus conservative ones
(Newt Gingrich, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, and Further Reading
Trent Lott). Since 1979, the SBC has become more po- Ammerman, Nancy. Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious
litically active, typically supporting conservative causes Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention. New Brunswick,
through agencies like the Ethics and Religious Liberty NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
Commission. Although the SBC includes members Dockery, David S., ed. Southern Baptists and American Evangeli-
with diverse political leanings and endorses political cals: The Conversation Continues. Nashville, TN: Broadman
activism according to biblical values over party lines, & Holman, 1993.
it has also proven to be an important Republican Party Southern Baptist Convention official Web site. www.sbc.net.
constituency. Yarbrough, Slayden A. Southern Baptists: A Historical, Ecclesio-
The SBC opposes abortion, euthanasia, human clon- logical, and Theological Heritage of a Confessional People. Brent-
ing, electively aborted embryonic stem-cell research, wood, TN: Southern Baptist Historical Society, 2000.
pornography, premarital sex, homosexuality, same-sex
marriage, sexuality and violence in the media, gambling,
and alcohol/tobacco/drug use. It supports homeschool- S ov i e t U n i o n a n d R u s s i a
ing, school choice, voluntary prayer and religious After centuries of autocratic czarist rule, the 1917 Bol-
expression in public schools, capital punishment, and shevik Revolution brought Russia under communist
the appointment of conservative federal judges. Some control, leading to the establishment of the Union of
SBC resolutions have been relatively uncontroversial, Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Following the So-
supporting environmental care, human rights, hunger viet regime’s implosion, triggered by reforms initiated
relief, voluntary organ donation, disaster assistance, by Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSR in
and benevolence (prison, homeless, and AIDS victim 1991 fragmented into a dozen independent republics
ministries); while renouncing sex trafficking, genocide, with Russia as the dominant country. Whether Czar-
Sov ie t Union and Ru ssia 527
ist Russia, Red Russia, or New Russia, this nation has President Harry Truman wrote in his diary, “It is certainly
traditionally been mistrusted by Americans and often a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s
characterized as the polar opposite of the United States. did not discover this atomic bomb.” As it turned out,
Long before it became a communist dictatorship, Soviet espionage penetrated the Manhattan Project, which
Russia was widely viewed by Americans as a land of tyr- would enable Russia to accelerate its own development
anny—Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of atomic weaponry. Once Russia acquired the bomb—
(1858), for instance, referred to Russia in this fashion. which it tested successfully for the first time on August
Earlier, the Monroe Doctrine (1823) and its assertion of 29, 1949—the two superpowers embarked on a nuclear
American dominance of the Western Hemisphere was for- arms race. Already the Cold War had begun, largely due
mulated in part as a warning to Russia, which at the time to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
was colonizing Alaska and maintaining a fort as far south
as what is today Sonoma County, California. And in his Culture Wars
much-quoted study Democracy in America (1820–1840), As the Cold War played out and became a part of the
Alexis de Tocqueville refers to the United States and culture wars, Americans largely regarded Russia as the
Russia as “two great nations in the world, which started opposite of what the United States stood for. The term
from two points,” the former by “the plowshare” and the “un-American” was a synonym for communist, mean-
latter by “the sword.” ing like the Soviet Union. Conservative culture war-
riors often branded their liberal opponents as being
World War I to Early Cold War un-American or “far left.” As the Soviet Union’s official
Although the American journalist and socialist John atheist stance was emphasized, the phrase “one nation
Reed wrote a celebratory account of the Bolshevik Rev- under God” was inserted in the American flag pledge
olution—Ten Days That Shook the World (1919)—most in 1954, and “In God We Trust” inscribed on U.S. cur-
of his countrymen regarded the communist takeover of rency in 1957, precipitating debates on the separation
Russia as a tragedy. Moreover, Russia’s unilateral with- of church and state. The first stirrings of the Religious
drawal from World War I and its signing of a separate Right were related to the Christian opposition to Soviet
peace with Germany (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in curtailment of religious freedom, as evangelists such as
1918) were viewed as an act of treachery to the West- Billy Hargis preached against communism (in 1964 he
ern alliance, in particular Great Britain and the United published The Far Left, and Why I Fight for a Christian
States. With a civil war raging in Russia, the United America) and conducted ministry activities such as re-
States kept a military intervention force inside the coun- leasing hot air balloons with attached Bible verses over
try from 1918 to 1920. Meanwhile, the first Red Scare Soviet bloc nations.
in the United States led to the roundup of “radicals” of For many cold warriors, the authoritarian Soviet
Eastern European descent and their deportation to Rus- system with its restrictions on individual freedom was
sia on a ship nicknamed the “Soviet Ark.” what America was opposing. That was the message of the
Not until 1933, under President Franklin Roosevelt, Freedom Train, which from 1947 to 1949 traversed the
did the United States formally recognize the Soviet United States, stopping at major cities so that Americans
government. During the decade of the Great Depres- could view original copies of the Bill of Rights and other
sion, many progressives were negatively labeled “fellow “documents of liberty.” In 1950, Life magazine reported
travelers” and “pinks” for making investigatory trips to the forty-eight-hour “communist takeover” of Mosinee,
the Soviet Union and then writing favorable assessments Wisconsin, a drama staged by the American Legion to
of planned economy. Violent labor disputes, such as the underscore the freedom that would be lost under a Soviet-
1934 Electric Auto-Lite strike in Toledo, Ohio, were like system of government. The lesson was even less subtle
denigrated by conservative businessmen as “Bolshevik.” in Red Nightmare (1957), a U.S. government propaganda
In 1939, the Soviet government signed a nonaggression film. Meanwhile, Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Two Concepts
pact with the Nazi regime in Germany, inspiring the of Liberty” (1958) prompted an intellectual debate over
term “red fascism.” Following Hitler’s 1941 invasion the distinction between negative liberty (freedom from
of Russia, however, the Soviet Union became an ally, as restraint of the state, which the United States emphasized)
heralded in the U.S. government’s “Why We Fight” film, and positive liberty (freedom to have what is necessary
The Battle of Russia (1943). At the same time, Hollywood to reach one’s full potential, which communists claimed
produced a number of positive films about Russia, includ- to advance).
ing Mission to Moscow (1943), The North Star (1943), and Americans largely viewed Russia as totalitarian and
Song of Russia (1944). barbaric, based on news reports about its secret police (the
Nonetheless, the U.S.-Soviet wartime alliance was Committee for State Security, known as the KGB), Stalinist
characterized by mutual mistrust. On July 25, 1945, purges, system of concentration camps (the gulag), harass-
after the United States’ first successful atomic bomb test, ment and imprisonment of dissidents (such as writers,
528 Sov ie t Union and Ru ssia
scientists, and intellectuals), and tight control over Eastern Hope and Disappointment
Europe (including the brutal crackdowns on Hungary in In a commencement address at American University
1957 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). Nikita Khrushchev, on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy called on
who became the Soviet leader after Stalin’s death in 1953, Americans to reexamine their attitudes about the Soviet
reinforced this negative image when he banged his shoe people. “No government or social system is so evil that its
on a table during a debate at the General Assembly of people must be considered as lacking in virtue,” Kennedy
the United Nations on October 12, 1960, and at various said. Although communism is “repugnant,” he went on,
times said of the capitalist Western world, “We will bury Americans may nevertheless “hail the Russian people for
you.” The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an American televi- their many achievements—in science and space, in eco-
sion cartoon show that aired from 1959 to 1964, satiri- nomic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of
cally portrayed the stereotype of sinister Russian behavior courage.” Both sides, he insisted, have a “mutual abhor-
with the characters Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, an rence of war.” Later, during the Moscow summit of May
unsavory espionage duo that was hopelessly evil as well as 1972, President Nixon offered similar sentiments, stat-
incompetent. Some Americans thought President Ronald ing, “In many ways, the people of our two countries are
Reagan was too provocative when on March 8, 1983, he very much alike . . . large and diverse . . . hard-working . . .
publicly declared the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” but a strong spirit of competition . . . a great love of music
many agreed with him when he denounced as “savagery” and poetry, of sports, and of humor . . . open, natural, and
the 269 deaths caused by the Soviet downing of a South friendly. . . .” Both sides, explained Nixon, want “peace
Korean commercial airliner on September 1, 1983, after and abundance” for their children. Such hope was the
it had veered into Russian air space. theme of “Leningrad” (1989), a song by Billy Joel about
Americans long regarded Russians as backward and two Cold War kids who grow up on different sides of
technologically inferior. This was despite the Soviet the Atlantic but later meet in Russia, share a laugh, and
achievements of detonating a hydrogen bomb on Au- embrace.
gust 12, 1953; launching the first artificial satellite on Perhaps one of the greatest American disappoint-
October 4, 1957; and conducting the first manned orbit ments during the Cold War was the 1978 Harvard com-
of the earth on April 12, 1961. During the July 1959 mencement address by the Russian dissident Alexander
“kitchen debate” at a trade exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Solzhenitsyn. The author of A Day in the Life of Ivan
vice president Richard Nixon boasted of the superiority of Denisovich (1962) and The Gulag Archipelago (1973),
American consumer goods while hinting that the Soviet among other works, Solzhenitsyn used the occasion to
Union was below Western standards. The film comedy criticize Soviet tyranny but also to argue that Western
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966), society, due to its “spiritual exhaustion,” was no model to
about a Russian submarine accidentally running aground follow. Since Solzhenitsyn had for two years been living
off of Nantucket Island in Massachusetts, conveyed the in exile in the United States, his words were taken as a
view that the Soviets posed a danger that was canceled condemnation of American culture in particular. Later,
out by their own incompetence. For observant Americans, during the 1980s, as Gorbachev introduced the reforms
the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 underscored of glasnost (openness about social problems) and perestroika
Soviet vulnerability as the Kremlin sought some tactical (restructuring of the economy), Americans gradually
way to offset the disadvantage of its lagging weapons hoped that their former rival might become Westernized.
delivery systems. When the two superpowers conducted After the demise of the Soviet Union on December 25,
the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, some Americans 1991, President George H.W. Bush suggested that the
grumbled that NASA had to give away trade secrets in United States and the new Russia could begin a long era
order for the joint space venture to work. The Soviet space of friendly cooperation.
station Mir (1986–2001) was the butt of American jokes, By Western democratic standards, the first leaders of
even the subject of slapstick humor in the Hollywood post-USSR Russia—Boris Yeltsin (1991–1999), Vladi-
film Armageddon (1998), because of its patchwork repairs mir Putin (2000–2008), and Dmitri Medvedev (2008– )
and various mishaps, including a fire. The explosion of —have proven to be autocratic. The Yeltsin years were
the Chernobyl nuclear reactor on April 26, 1986, which characterized by “economic shock therapy” and “bandit
spewed radiation across Europe, was later attributed to capitalism” in which oligarchs and mafia ruled over a
Soviet design flaws as well as mismanagement. Many chaotic shift toward privatization. In October 1993,
conservatives remain convinced that a main reason the Yeltsin dissolved the Duma (Russian parliament) and
Soviet Union came to a sudden end is that it was unable then ordered tanks to shell the building when some of the
to keep up with American technological advances, espe- legislators refused to leave. Stephen Cohen, a professor of
cially after Reagan’s March 1983 announcement of the Russian studies, at the time deplored the Bill Clinton ad-
Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based antiballistic ministration for “supporting” Yeltsin’s behavior. Cohen
missile system. and others also criticized the “missionary economists”
Sowell , T homa s 529
from the West who pushed for market reforms in Russia S o we l l , T h o m a s

with apparently little concern for the consequent social An African-American economist who favors laissez-faire
upheaval. In September 2000, the Republican-dominated policies, Thomas Sowell has studied race, politics, and
U.S. Congress issued a 209-page report titled Russia’s economics from an international perspective while casti-
Road to Corruption: How the Clinton Administration Exported gating liberals (whom he dubs “the anointed”) for striv-
Government Instead of Free Enterprise and Failed the Russian ing to build a society that offers economic justice (which
People, which concluded: “Russia today is more corrupt, he denigrates as “cosmic justice”). A multicultural con-
more lawless, less democratic, poorer, and more unstable servative, Sowell has been at odds with black activists
than it was in 1992.” Eight years later, after two terms of who resent his strong attacks on affirmative action pro-
the George W. Bush administration, an equally negative grams. Often called a polemicist by critics, he has been
report could have been issued about “Putinism.” accused of overstating his arguments and for showing
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, little empathy for the plight of the economically disad-
Russia gave tacit approval to the United States to use vantaged. Others view him as a brave iconoclast who has
air bases in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia attacked political correctness with candor and logic.
in the military campaign to oust the Taliban regime in The culture wars, according to Sowell, represent a
Afghanistan and to search for Osama bin Laden. How- continuation of a battle that has been waged for the past
ever, Russia did not approve of the United States going two hundred years between two opposing ideological
to war against Iraq in 2003. Relations between the two conceptions of human nature: the “constrained” versus
countries have suffered primarily due to the eastward the “unconstrained.” As explained in his writings, the
expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization constrained view (adopted by conservatives) regards hu-
(NATO) and Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from man nature as tragically flawed and social problems as a
the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2001, in fact of life; the unconstrained view (adopted by liberals)
conjunction with its intention of setting up a missile- regards human nature as perfectible and social problems
defense system in Eastern Europe. In May 2007, Putin as challenges that can be solved.
referred to the foreign policy of the United States and Sowell was born on June 30, 1930, in Gastonia,
its NATO allies as kin to that of the Third Reich. U.S. North Carolina, and grew up in New York. After serving
defense secretary Robert Gates responded that “one Cold in the U.S. Marines (1951–1953), he attended Howard
War was quite enough.” Looking back in July 2007, University (1954–1955), Harvard University (AB, 1958),
Gorbachev observed, “We all lost the Cold War,” explain- Columbia University (am, 1959), and the University
ing that the subsequent American “winner complex” has of Chicago (PhD, 1968). At the last institution, Sowell
led Washington to adopt an aggressive and misguided came under the sway of Milton Friedman, the leading
foreign policy. Some Russian intellectuals have dubbed exponent of laissez-faire economics. Although Sowell
the United States “the new Soviet Union.” worked as an economist for the U.S. Department of Labor
(1961–1962) and the American Telephone & Telegraph
Roger Chapman Company (1964–1965), he spent most of his career in
academia, teaching at Rutgers University (1962–1963),
See also: American Exceptionalism; Central Intelligence Howard University (1963–1964), Cornell University
Agency; Cold War; Communists and Communism; Cuba; (1965–1969), Brandeis University (1969–1970), and the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Hiss, Alger; Marxism; McCarthy- University of California at Los Angeles (1970–1980). He
ism; Rosenberg, Julius, and Ethel Rosenberg; Strategic De- has also been long affiliated with the Hoover Institution
fense Initiative. on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford Univer-
sity. Since the 1980s, he has been a widely syndicated
Further Reading newspaper columnist and has written articles for major
Cohen, Stephen. Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post- magazines and journals.
Communist Russia. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. His books include Affirmative Action: Was It Necessary
Fried, Richard M. The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are in Academia? (1975), The Economics and Politics of Race:
Coming! Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold War America. New An International Perspective (1983), Preferential Politics: An
York: Oxford University Press, 1998. International Perspective (1990), The Vision of the Anointed:
Goldgeier, James M., and Michael McFaul. Power and Purpose: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (1995), The
U.S. Policy Toward Russia after the Cold War. Washington, Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999), Affirmative Action Around
DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. the World: An Empirical Study (2004), Black Rednecks and
LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2006. White Liberals: And Other Cultural and Ethnic Issues (2005),
Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. and A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political
Ostrovsky, Arkady. “Enigmas and Variations: A Special Report Struggles (2007). He has also published an autobiography,
on Russia.” Economist, November 29, 2008. A Personal Odyssey (2000).
53 0 Speech Codes
In his writings and lectures, Sowell has denounced The intention was to curb the “soft racism” that creates
as fallacious the assumption that economic disparities a “hostile environment” for learning. According to ar-
constitute discrimination per se. Inequality, he insists, is guments rooted in critical race and legal theories, overt
largely due to negative “cultural patterns” that undermine hostility toward minorities by the dominant culture tends
self-development. He has been especially critical of af- to suppress the speech rights of those belonging to socially
firmative action, labeling it reverse discrimination. Such marginalized groups. Generally, speech codes were part
policies, he asserts, contribute to racial tensions, nurture of the larger goal of promoting multiculturalism.
political grievances, confer victimhood status on their By 1997 half of college campuses had promulgated
recipients, and in the end make minorities economically some form of speech codes, which were largely patterned
worse off. Sowell has also been critical of the American on restrictions against sexual harassment. The catalyst for
education system, believing that standards have been speech codes was the news media’s sensational coverage
lowered in order to accommodate political correctness. of campus episodes, including the 1990 expulsion of a
He has been critical of Harvard’s affirmative action pro- student at Brown University who was found to have used
gram, stating that it has been harmful to many blacks slurs against blacks, homosexuals, and Jews. Earlier, in
by putting them in a situation for which they were not 1986, a Yale University student made the news for spoof-
academically prepared. Sowell insists that since other ing the school’s annual Gay and Lesbian Awareness Days
minority groups have been mainstreamed in American (GLAD) by passing out satirical fliers advertising BAD
society, including the Irish and Italians, the same op- (for Bestiality Awareness Days).
portunity exists for blacks. While speech codes generally do not bar all offensive
Roger Chapman speech, they have sought to prevent and punish speech
directed at and found offensive by the listener due to his
See also: Affirmative Action; Bell Curve, The; Friedman, Mil- or her respective race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and/or
ton; Multicultural Conservatism; Political Correctness; Race; sexual orientation. The issue is often about etiquette and
Victimhood. to what extent it should be codified. The controversy sur-
rounding campus speech codes centers on the restriction
Further Reading of speech and expression that critics believe undermines
Kilson, Martin. “Anatomy of Black Conservatism.” Transition academic freedom during discussions on social issues
59 (1993): 4–19. that pertain to minority populations. Many conservatives
Magalli, Mark. “The High Priests of the Black Academic argue that speech codes typically favor liberal discourse
Right.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 9 (Autumn at the expense of conservative and libertarian viewpoints.
1995): 71–77. Some of the same critics, however, called for the dismissal
Sowell, Thomas. A Personal Odyssey. New York: Free Press, of Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado profes-
2000. sor who provoked controversy after characterizing the
———. “A Personal Odyssey from Howard to Harvard and victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks as “little
Beyond.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 30 (Winter Eichmanns.”
2000/2001): 122–28. Proponents of speech codes equate offensive expres-
Stewart, James B. “Thomas Sowell’s Quixotic Quest to Deni- sion with “fighting words,” or speech not protected by
grate African American Culture: A Critique.” Journal of the U.S. Constitution. In 1942, for instance, the Supreme
African American History 91:4 (Fall 2006): 459–66. Court in Chaplinksy v. New Hampshire ruled against fight-
ing words that “tend to incite an immediate breach of
the peace.” Opponents dismiss speech codes as “political
Speech Codes correctness” thats restrict offensive opinions, which they
Speech codes, as adopted by many American colleges regard as a violation of individual freedom and the central
and universities, prohibit “hate speech” by faculty, staff, tenet of American political and social life that allows the
or students, with the purpose of promoting a positive airing of unpopular viewpoints. College Republicans, in
education environment free of expressions that could be a bold challenge to the restrictions imposed by speech
regarded as “marginalizing” racial and ethnic minori- codes, have held “affirmative action bake sales” in which
ties, women, homosexuals, and others. The Foundation cookies are sold to whites at a higher price than to mi-
for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), founded in norities. Such demonstrations offer a purposefully hostile
1998, has over the years joined the American Civil Lib- message to not only teach against affirmative action, but
erties Union in opposing campus speech codes, arguing to flaunt free speech.
that they violate the First Amendment. U.S. courts have invalidated speech codes when they
Speech codes were introduced by university admin- have been found to be too vague, too broad, or discrimi-
istrators beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s in natory toward a particular viewpoint. Speech codes are
response to incidents of bigotry on college campuses. deemed too vague when an individual must guess as
Spock , Benjamin 531
to what conduct is or is not prohibited. In an effort to See also: Academic Freedom; American Civil Liberties Union;
prohibit nonprotected speech (such as fighting words), Censorship; Churchill, Ward; Diversity Training; Gender-
they penalize individuals for protected speech such as Inclusive Language; Hate Crimes; Multiculturalism and Ethnic
political advocacy or expressions of opinion; and they Studies; Political Correctness; Race; Sexual Harassment; Vic-
are discriminatory if otherwise constitutionally protected timhood; Zero Tolerance.
speech or expression of opinion is punishable because
the governing body considers the message politically Further Reading
offensive or distasteful. Cleary, Edward J. Beyond Burning the Cross: The First Amend-
Earlier versions of speech codes were struck down ment and the Landmark R.A.V. Case. New York: Random
at both the state and federal levels. In Doe v. University House, 1994.
of Michigan (1981), a federal district court ruled against Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Understanding Words That
the university’s speech codes, which were used against Wound. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.
someone who had argued that women are biologically FIRE—Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Web
programmed to be caregivers. The same court in UWM site. www.thefire.org.
Post Inc. v. Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin Gould, Jon B. Speak No Evil: The Triumph of Hate Speech Regula-
(1991) rejected the Board of Regents’ argument that tion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
speech codes were necessary to stop harassment of Shiell, Timothy C. Campus Hate Speech on Trial. Lawrence: Uni-
minorities, stating that the “commitment to free ex- versity Press of Kansas, 1998.
pression must be unwavering” despite the “many situ-
ations where, in the short run, it appears advantageous
to limit speech to solve pressing social problems, such Spock , Benjamin
as discriminatory harassment.” The ruling went on to Referred to as “Dr. Spock, the baby doc,” pediatrician
declare “the suppression of speech” as “governmental and psychiatrist Benjamin Spock became a leading
thought control.” authority on childrearing with his best-selling book
In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), the U.S. Supreme The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946),
Court indirectly weighed in on the controversy of campus which has sold tens of millions of copies in nearly forty
speech codes when it overturned a municipal ordinance foreign languages. Many social conservatives blame
that criminalized the display of any symbol likely to Spock’s permissive childrearing principles for the ex-
provoke “anger, alarm or resentment in others on the cesses of the counterculture generation. Spock further
basis of race, creed, religion or gender.” This case focused alienated conservatives by demonstrating against the
on the actions of a juvenile who had allegedly burned a Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race in the 1960s
cross on the lawn of an African-American neighbor. The and 1970s.
Court ruled that prohibiting symbols such as a burning Benjamin McLane “Benny” Spock was born on
cross or swastika constituted viewpoint discrimination, May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Connecticut. During his
a violation of the First Amendment. In the wake of that undergraduate years at Yale University (BA, 1925), he
ruling, many campuses had to modify or discard their won a gold medal in rowing at the 1924 Olympic Games
speech codes. The same year of that decision Senator in Paris. After attending the Yale University School
Larry Craig (R-ID) introduced legislation that would of Medicine (1925–1927), and Columbia University’s
have cut off federal funding to any college that imposes College of Physicians and Surgeons (MD, 1929), he
speech rules. completed residencies in pediatrics and psychiatry at
In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office two New York hospitals. He served as a psychiatrist in
of Civil Rights entered the debate on speech codes when the U.S. Navy during World War II and, after publish-
it stipulated that speech codes focusing on harassment ing his landmark work on childrearing, went on to hold
“must include something beyond the mere expression positions at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person (1947–1951), University of Pittsburgh (1951–1955),
finds offensive.” During the mid-2000s an estimated and Western Reserve University in Cleveland (1955–
700 American colleges and universities maintained some 1967). By the mid-1950s, Dr. Spock was an influential
form of speech codes. A great many lower-level schools public figure with several magazine columns and his
have also enforced speech codes as part of bans on offen- own television show. He died on March 15, 1988, in
sive conduct and harassment. Some schools have begun San Diego, California.
experimenting with “free speech zones,” select areas of Spock was influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theories
campus where student protests and demonstrations can of child development and brought these concepts to a
be carried out with minimal disrupting potential. broad audience, using everyday language and a friendly
tone. He questioned the widely accepted view that
Traci L. Nelson parents should limit the amount of praise or affection
532 Spock , Benjamin
they show children, and argued against the rigid feeding Spr ingsteen, Bruce
schedules advocated by most pediatricians. Although Musician, songwriter, and sometime social commentator
opponents charged that his “child-centered” model Bruce Springsteen was born on September 23, 1949, in
spoils children and exhausts parents, Spock’s ideas were Freehold, New Jersey. After growing up in an unhappy,
widely adopted. uncommunicative, blue-collar family and being deemed
Spock entered the political arena in 1960 by an- ineligible for the military draft, he signed with Colum-
nouncing his support for John F. Kennedy’s presiden- bia Records in 1972 and assembled his legendary E
tial bid. Two years later, amid mounting concern over Street Band. Two albums with relatively poor sales were
nuclear testing, he joined the National Committee for followed by Born to Run (1975), which captured a huge
a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE, or Scientists Against audience. As the band’s concert performances reached
Nuclear Energy). In 1967, he marched with the Rever- unprecedented success, fanfare increased to near-manic
end Martin Luther King, Jr., against the Vietnam War. heights with its seventh album, Born in the USA (1984).
That year Spock resigned from SANE, as his increas- Although he began as an apolitical chronicler of a New
ingly radical stance alienated its leadership circle. The Jersey adolescent culture of cars, boardwalks, and ennui,
following year, Spock was convicted in federal court Springsteen eventually was drawn closer to social issues
of aiding and abetting the draft-resistance movement and politics.
and sentenced to two years in prison; the verdict was In 1981 Springsteen began his long sponsorship
later overturned. In 1972, Spock ran for president of of Vietnam Veterans of America, using his concerts to
the United States as the nominee of the People’s Party, champion local food banks, condemn plant closings, and
getting on the ballot in ten states and winning nearly alert audiences to the poverty and despair that lay beneath
80,000 votes on a platform of disarmament, free uni- the American dream. “Born in the USA,” Springsteen’s
versity education and health care, and the legalization 1984 anthem, was a lament for the shoddy treatment of
of abortion and marijuana. Vietnam veterans. Yet both Democratic and Republican
Spock’s critics argued that his “permissiveness” was politicians, and even intellectual pundits such as George
to blame for the social upheaval of the 1960s. In a widely Will, misinterpreted the song to be a jingoistic celebra-
publicized sermon, for example, conservative Christian tion of America. After Ronald Reagan tried to enlist
preacher Norman Vincent Peale charged that Spock’s him in his “Morning in America” reelection campaign,
childrearing advice had resulted in a lack of respect for Springsteen became more outspoken in his opposition to
authority on the part of baby boomers. Concurring, Reaganomics, plant closings, and hypocritical expressions
James Dobson, an evangelical who would later establish of patriotism.
Focus on the Family, wrote Dare to Discipline (1970) to Tiring of the pressures of rock superstardom, Spring-
counter Spock. steen explored less popular musical avenues after 1986.
In the 1970s, Spock faced criticism by such feminists In doing so, he deepened his connections to both contem-
as Gloria Steinem, for proposing that girls and boys porary and earlier leftist causes. In 1985, he supported
should be raised differently and for assigning the major- the Live Aid performances to bring attention to Third
ity of parenting responsibilities to women. Although World poverty and lent his voice to the Sun City protest
he apologized for his sexism, Spock never accepted the against apartheid. He was also a leader of an unsuccessful
charge of permissiveness and argued that critics misun- attempt to prevent the closure of a 3M factory in his old
derstood the balance between freedom and boundaries hometown. Some of his later albums, such as The Ghost
that he endorsed. of Tom Joad (1995) and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Ses-
Manon Parry sions (2006), paid tribute to the idealistic radicalism of
novelist John Steinbeck and folksinger Pete Seeger. In
See also: Abortion; Counterculture; Dobson, James; Family the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist at-
Values; Generations and Generational Conflict; Health Care; tacks, Springsteen revived his connection to heartland
Kennedy Family; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Nuclear Age; sensibilities in The Rising (2002).
Steinem, Gloria; Third Parties; War Protesters. In 2004, publicly endorsing a candidate for the first
time, Springsteen gave an eleven-state “Vote for Change”
Further Reading concert tour on behalf of Democratic presidential candi-
Bloom, Lynn Z. Doctor Spock: Biography of a Conservative Radical. date John Kerry. The following year, Republican leaders
Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. in the U.S. Senate blocked a resolution commemorating
Maier, Thomas. Dr. Spock: An American Life. New York: Har- the twentieth anniversary of the album Born to Run. Later,
court Brace, 1998. Springsteen condemned President George W. Bush’s
Spock, Benjamin, and Mary Morgan. Spock on Spock: A Memoir response to Hurricane Katrina, calling him “President
of Growing Up with the Century. New York: Pantheon Books, Bystander.” During the 2008 presidential election he per-
1985. formed at campaign rallies in support of Barack Obama’s
Star r, Kenne th 533
candidacy, in between songs imploring crowds, “I want

my country back, I want my dream back.”
Perhaps Springsteen’s most important contribution
in the culture wars has been to popularize a class analysis
of American life and opportunity. Most notably, he has
portrayed the blue-collar characters of his songs as cling-
ing desperately to their version of the American dream
in the face of depredation from powerful interests and an
uncaring government.
Douglas Craig
See also: Bush Family; Globalization; Hurricane Katrina;

Kerry, John; Obama, Barack; Reagan, Ronald; Seeger, Pete;
September 11; Steinbeck, John; Supply-Side Economics;
Vietnam War; Will, George.
Further Reading
Corn, David. “Springsteen for Change.” Nation, October 25,
2004.
Cowie, Jefferson, and Lauren Boehm. “Dead Man’s Town, ‘Born
in the U.S.A.,’ Social History, and Working-Class Identity.” Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr testifies to the House Judi-
American Quarterly 58:2 (June 2006): 353–78. ciary Committee in November 1998 that President Bill Clinton
Levy, Joe. “Bruce Springsteen: The Rolling Stone Interview.” had engaged in obstruction of justice during the investigation
into his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewin-
Rolling Stone, November 1, 2007. sky. (Luke Frazza/AFP/Getty Images)
Marsh, Dave. Bruce Springsteen: Two Hearts. New York: Rout-
ledge, 2004.
serve as President George H.W. Bush’s solicitor general
of the United States (1989–1993).
S t a r Wa r s On August 5, 1994, a three-judge panel called on
See Strategic Defense Initiative Starr to replace Robert B. Fiske in the Whitewater inves-
tigation, a federal probe into a failed real estate develop-
ment in Arkansas during the 1970s that involved Bill
S t a r r, Ke n n e t h and Hillary Clinton. It was no secret that Republicans
As an independent counsel beginning in August 1994, were displeased with Fiske’s initial findings, and political
Kenneth Starr directed the federal investigation into an pressure was brought to bear in finding a more aggressive
Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater that had in- figure to serve as independent counsel.
volved Bill Clinton before he became president. The $52 Other matters came up during the course of the in-
million probe revealed a sex scandal that led to Clinton’s vestigation, including the allegedly improper termination
impeachment. The 445-page Starr Report (1998), issued of staff at the White House travel office (referred to as
by Starr’s office and later released over the Internet by Travelgate) and purported White House mishandling of
the Republican-controlled Congress, recounted in sala- FBI files (Filegate).
cious detail Clinton’s affair with White House intern In 1994, an Arkansas resident named Paula Jones
Monica Lewinsky. filed a lawsuit against President Clinton, claiming that
Kenneth Winston Starr, the son of a Church of Christ he had sexually harassed her when he was the governor.
minister, was born on July 21, 1946, in Vernon, Texas. Jones’s lawyers, financed by conservative operatives,
He grew up in San Antonio and later attended George questioned Clinton about his relationship with various
Washington University (AB, 1968), Brown University women, including Lewinsky, in an effort to establish a
(MA, 1969), and Duke University School of Law (JD, pattern about his behavior that would give credence to
1973). After serving as a law clerk for Chief Justice War- their client’s charge. Under oath, Clinton denied having
ren E. Burger (1975–1977), he practiced with a private illicit relationships with the women.
firm in Washington, D.C., before taking a position in Starr then shifted his investigation to prove that Clin-
the U.S. Justice Department (1981–1983) during the ton had committed perjury in the Jones case. Although
Ronald Reagan administration. Reagan appointed him Starr did in the end prosecute some figures involved with
as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Whitewater, Clinton’s impeachment had nothing to do
Columbia Circuit (1983–1989), a position he resigned to with the real estate scandal but centered on perjury and
53 4 Starr, Kenneth
obstruction of justice about a consensual sexual relation- S t ay - a t - H o m e M o t h e r s

ship with Lewinsky. “A woman’s place is in the home,” goes the old adage,
In a 1998 nationally televised interview, First Lady but for years American women of all income levels have
Hillary Clinton referred to Starr and his investigation worked inside and outside the home, providing for their
as part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Defenders of families in myriad ways. In the 1960s and 1970s, how-
the president, such as political adviser James Carville, ever, debates about stay-at-home mothers and working
regarded Starr as “sex-obsessed.” Critics in general char- mothers became a central cultural issue. While many
acterized the Starr investigation as a “sexual inquisition.” women worked outside the home during World War II,
Joe Conason in Big Lies (2003) dismissed The Starr Re- they were expected to become housewives and consum-
port as “conservative public pornography.” Indeed, wire ers once the fighting stopped. Some rebelled against this
reports quoting the document warned that the contents cultural expectation, and the women’s movement of the
“may be OFFENSIVE to some readers,” as every sexual 1960s and 1970s placed working women in the center
episode between the president and the intern was recorded of a political debate. Outspoken feminists such as Betty
at least twice, in some cases three and four times. Friedan advocated for women’s right to be employed
Critics viewed Starr’s investigation as “slash and outside the home and to receive equal pay and status
burn” politics, a witch hunt that, in pornographic detail with men in the workplace.
and at great expense to taxpayers, crossed lines of decency A popular cultural image of the 1980s and 1990s
in delving too far into the private life of an individual. was working mothers as “supermoms” who balanced
Defenders of Starr argue that the person to blame is full-time work, home life, and child care. The num-
Clinton, who perjured himself to hide his moral short- ber of working mothers continued to rise through
comings. In The Death of Outrage (1998), the conservative the 1980s and peaked in the mid-1990s. Still, First
commentator William J. Bennett hailed Starr as a man Lady Hillary Clinton’s remark in 1992 that “I could
of great integrity and suggested that outrage should be have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but
directed at Clinton’s impropriety. what I decided to do was fulfill my profession” caused
While Starr’s critics emphasize a need in politics to outrage among many social conservatives. By the early
separate the public figure from the private person, noting 2000s, media articles were highlighting reports about
that a president’s job performance is what is important, women who left high-powered careers to become stay-
Starr’s supporters emphasize that the private person is at-home moms.
inseparable from the public figure and that a president’s The stay-at-home mom movement drew women
character is vitally linked to job performance. who never worked outside the home as well as those
Starr, who in 2004 became the dean of Pepperdine who chose to temporarily or permanently leave careers
University School of Law, has characterized himself a vic- in order to care for young children. This movement
tim of undeserved notoriety, lamenting that the political sought to gain recognition for the work women per-
fallout from his investigation has harmed his chances of form inside the home, and for the role they play in
ever being appointed to the Supreme Court. In a 2005 facilitating the lives of all family members. According
interview he said that, throughout the investigation, he to some analysts, the market value of a stay-at-home
compared his plight with that of Apostle Paul but made mom is roughly equivalent to a professional salary.
it his aim to be “upbeat” like Teddy Roosevelt. Starr is Thus, for some families, a stay-at-home parent may be
the author of First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in more economically and socially feasible than having
American Life (2002). two working parents.
Roger Chapman Some observers argue that professional women who
leave their careers to become stay-at-home moms do so
See also: Bennett, William J.; Clinton, Bill; Clinton, Hillary; because American society has not provided adequate
Clinton Impeachment; Helms, Jesse; Pornography; Sexual support for dual-income families, such as affordable
Harassment; Thomas, Clarence; Victimhood. child care. Unlike European societies that are structured
around family needs, the American system is based on the
Further Reading outdated model that full-time employees have a partner
Bennett, William J. The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the at home responsible for childrearing, social obligations,
Assault on American Ideals. New York: Free Press, 1998. and the household. Also, since working mothers are still
Schmidt, Susan, and Michael Weisskopf. Truth at Any Cost: Ken disproportionately in charge of the majority of home and
Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton. New York: Harper- child care duties, an extra burden falls on them. Expen-
Collins, 2000. sive child care options, lack of family-friendly policies
Toobin, Jeffrey. A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex in the workplace, long commutes, schools that dismiss
Scandal That Brought Down a President. New York: Random before the end of the work day, lack of flexibility from
House, 1999. a spouse’s employer, poor maternity/paternity leave op-
Steinem, Glor ia 535
tions, and lack of support from spouses all may contribute motion picture starring Henry Fonda in 1940. The main
to a woman’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom, or a character of the novel lives on in Woody Guthrie’s song
man’s decision to be a stay-at-home dad. “Tom Joad” (1940) and Bruce Springsteen’s album The
Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).
Tanya Hedges Duroy After a stint as a war correspondent, Steinbeck
published the novel Cannery Row (1945), a subtle
See also: Christian Coalition; Clinton, Hillary; Equal Rights condemnation of Monterey’s middle-class hypocrisy
Amendment; Family Values; Feminism, Second-Wave; Femi- and materialism. Progressives condemned the book for
nism, Third-Wave; Focus on the Family; Friedan, Betty; failing to expose the system as he did in The Grapes of
Palin, Sarah; Religious Right. Wrath. Conservatives complained that he was criticizing
American society at a time when soldiers were sacrific-
Further Reading ing their lives in World War II. Feminists criticized
Bolton, Michelle K. The Third Shift: Managing Hard Choices the misogynistic portrayal of the character Kate Ames
in Our Careers, Homes, and Lives as Women. San Francisco: in East of Eden (1952), a Cain and Abel morality tale set
Jossey-Bass, 2000. in California’s Salinas Valley. The work reached a wide
McKenna, Elizabeth Perle. When Work Doesn’t Work Anymore: audience as a 1955 film starring James Dean. The Winter
Women, Work, and Identity. New York: Dell, 1998. of Our Discontent (1961), Steinbeck’s last fiction work,
Morgan Steiner, Leslie. Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career- was a reaction to the television quiz show scandals of the
Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families. 1950s and explores the theme of moral relativism.
New York: Random House, 2006. The nonfiction works Sea of Cortez (1941) and The Log
Peskowitz, Miriam. The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides from the Sea of Cortez (1951), which record his adventures
What Makes a Good Mother? Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2005. collecting marine samples, established Steinbeck’s place
as an early advocate of the environmental movement,
emphasizing the interconnectivity of all living things.
Steinbeck , John His travelogues Travels with Charley (1962) and America
The novelist and social commentator John Steinbeck, and Americans (1966) explore physical and cultural aspects
winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born of the United States. In the former, he bristles at a racist
on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He attend- incident he witnessed in New Orleans involving white
ed Stanford University (1919–1925) but never gradu- women intimidating a black child as she enters a previ-
ated. A New Deal Democrat, Steinbeck used his writing ously segregated school. In one of his last controversies
to explore economic and moral problems. Although his Steinbeck was criticized by war protesters for wearing
writings were generally praised for how they portrayed army fatigues during a 1966 visit to Vietnam. Shortly
the poor and downtrodden with dignity and compas- before Steinbeck’s death in New York City on December
sion, critics on the right accused him of being overly 20, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the
critical and unpatriotic. Critics on the left found him Medal of Freedom.
either too sentimental or not radical enough. Roger Chapman
Steinbeck’s first literary success was Tortilla Flat
(1937), a collection of stories about a band of Mexican See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Civil Rights
Americans in Monterey coping with the Great Depres- Movement; Communists and Communism; Environmental
sion. The economic downturn of the 1930s greatly shaped Movement; Feminism, Second-Wave; Guthrie, Woody, and
the author’s art and politics. So, too, did his first wife, Arlo Guthrie; Labor Unions; Marxism; Migrant Labor; New
a Marxist and Communist Party member. During this Deal; Relativism, Moral; Vietnam War.
period, Steinbeck attended radical meetings and labor
rallies and even visited the Soviet Union. His novels of Further Reading
the Depression, In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer:
Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939), focus on A Biography. New York: Penguin, 1990.
the struggles of common people in an unjust economic Wartzman, Rick. Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Ban-
system. His stories were based on labor unrest he actually ning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. New York:
witnessed, but the mostly Mexican migrants he encoun- PublicAffairs, 2008.
tered were changed to white characters.
Steinbeck is known most of all for The Grapes of Wrath,
which depicts Depression-era Americans struggling for Steinem, Glor ia
a better life. The work was condemned in Congress and Feminist, activist, writer, and longtime editor of Ms.
today remains one of the nation’s top fifty banned books. Magazine, Gloria Steinem first earned notoriety for a
The Pulitzer Prize–winning novel was released as a major 1963 article detailing her undercover experience as a
53 6 Steinem, Glor ia
“bunny” at the New York Playboy Club. She went on to 2000, when, at age sixty-six, after stating for years that
become the public face of American feminism. a woman did not need a man, she married.
Gloria Steinem was born on March 25, 1934, in
Toledo, Ohio, where she had a middle-class upbringing. Alexandra DeMonte
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Smith College (1956) and
a postgraduate fellow in India (1957–1958), she devoted See also: Abortion; Central Intelligence Agency; Feminism,
her career to writing and editing, first for the Independent Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Friedan, Betty; Hef-
Service for Information (1959–1960), which turned out to ner, Hugh; Lesbians; Morgan, Robin; Ms.; National Organi-
be funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and zation for Women; Pornography.
then for the magazines Glamour (1962–1969), New York
(1968–1972), and Ms. (1972–1987). Her books include Further Reading
the essay collections Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions Daffron, Carolyn. Gloria Steinem. New York: Chelsea House,
(1983), Revolution from Within (1992), and Moving beyond 1988.
Words (1993), as well as a biography of Marilyn Monroe Farrell, Amy Erdman. Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the
entitled Marilyn (1986). Promise of Popular Feminism. Chapel Hill: University of North
Steinem first encountered the feminist movement Carolina Press, 1998.
in 1969 during an assignment for New York magazine, Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Move-
covering an abortion speak-out and rally sponsored by ment Changed America. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
the Redstockings, a radical feminist group. The event Stern, Sydney Landensohn. Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics
resonated with Steinem, who secretly had had an abortion and Mystique. Secaucus, NJ: Carol, 1997.
while in college. The rally also illuminated and connected
issues of sexism and patriarchy for her, fundamentally
changing the direction of her life. In December 1971, a S t e m - C e l l Re s e a r c h
committed feminist, Steinem helped launch the first issue Stem cells are present in all animal life forms. In hu-
of Ms., as a supplement to New York magazine. mans, they possess two important properties that differ-
Ms. was established in its own right the following entiate them from most other cells in the human body:
year, with Steinem as editor. The publication proved (1) they are unspecialized but under the right condi-
highly successful at first, but its popularity dwindled tions can develop into many of the almost 200 different
by the 1980s. While receiving praise and attracting types of specialized cells in the body (such as brain cells
previously uninterested women into the second-wave or red blood cells); and (2) they are able to divide and
feminist movement, Ms. was also under constant criticism renew themselves for long periods of time. Because of
from both feminists and antifeminists. Radical feminists these properties, stem cells have the potential to grow
disapproved of the magazine’s carrying advertisements, replacements for cells that have been damaged or that a
arguing that it was too conservative, mainstream, and person’s body no longer creates on its own. This, accord-
slanted toward white women. Others complained that ing to scientists, could lead to revolutionary treatments
it focused excessively on lesbianism. or cures for many diseases and conditions that have long
Whatever the controversies, the popularity of the stymied medical science, including Parkinson’s disease,
magazine brought public attention to Steinem, whose Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, heart disease, burns, spinal
intelligence, composure, sense of humor, and charm cord injury, diabetes, and arthritis. However, the thera-
helped make her a media darling. Through her public peutic promise of stem cells is tempered by the moral
appearances and writings, she argued for legalized abor- objections many people have to one of the most promis-
tion and crusaded against sexism, while making women’s ing areas of stem-cell research, that involving human
liberation seem logical and beneficial for both sexes. Many embryonic stem cells (hESC).
of Steinem’s feminist peers accused her of hijacking the
movement, however, denigrating her as a late arrival to Science
the cause, criticizing her less-than-aggressive style, and There are two types of stem cells in the human body:
attempting to discredit her achievements and activism adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem
by criticizing her femininity and physical attractiveness. cells, also called somatic cells, are found in small num-
The Redstockings and Betty Friedan, the well-known bers among differentiated cells and are used by the body
feminist activist and co-founder of the National Orga- to repair and replace the cells needed in the tissue in
nization for Women (NOW), falsely accused Steinem which they are found: for instance, hematopoietic stem
of having worked for the CIA (a distortion based on cells are found in the bone marrow and can differenti-
the secret subsidy of the media organization she earlier ate into all the types of blood cells found in the body.
worked for) and using Ms. to collect personal informa- Research and treatments involving adult stem cells are
tion about feminists. Steinem also stirred controversy in much less controversial than those involving hESC,
Stem - Cell Research 537
and therapies such as bone marrow transplantation (he- it allowed research to continue (since the original embryos
matopoietic stem-cell transplantation, practiced since used to create existing stem-cell lines were already dead).
the 1960s) have become commonplace in modern medi- Nevertheless, the restrictions were viewed as serious
cine. Scientific use of adult stem cells is relatively uncon- impediments to the development of stem-cell research
troversial because the cells come from consenting adult in the United States, because many of the existing stem-
donors or from umbilical cord blood and do not require cell lines proved unsuitable for research and because the
destruction of an embryo. However, their therapeutic federal government is a major source of funding for most
potential is limited because each type of adult stem cell medical research. Many prominent scientists spoke out
can develop only into limited types of cells, and because in favor of removing these restrictions, as did celebrities
adult stem cells are relatively rare in the body and are affected by diseases targeted by stem-cell researchers, in-
not easily cultured (duplicated) in the laboratory. cluding actor Michael J. Fox (Parkinson’s disease), the late
Embryonic stem cells are believed to hold much actor Christopher Reeve (spinal cord injury), and former
greater therapeutic promise because of their ability to First Lady Nancy Reagan (whose husband suffered from
differentiate into any type of cell and because they are easy Alzheimer’s disease). Two arguments often put forward
to culture in the lab. Mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) for raising the restrictions in federal funding are that al-
were first isolated and cultured in 1981 by the British lowing individual religious beliefs to restrict scientific
scientist Sir Martin John Evans, and independently that research is a violation of the separation of church and state,
same year by Gail R. Martin, a professor of anatomy at and that it is immoral to restrict potentially life-saving
the University of California in San Francisco. Human research due to the objections of a few individuals (who,
embryonic stem cells were first successfully cultivated after all, would themselves be allowed to benefit from
in 1998, when James Thomson, a cell biologist at the any cures thus discovered).
University of Wisconsin, successfully generated hESC President Bush remained firm in his refusal to expand
from blastocysts (pre-embryonic balls of cells). federal funding for stem-cell research, and in July 2006
and June 2007 vetoed bills that would have permitted
Controversy federal funding for research using new stem-cell lines.
It is the source of human embryonic stem cells, rath- Given the vacuum created by the restrictions on federal
er than their therapeutic potential, that makes them funding, some U.S. states devoted substantial funding to
controversial. As the name implies, hESC are created promote stem-cell research, hoping to become scientific
from human embryos, and the process of creating hESC leaders in the field and to cash in on the profits avail-
destroys the embryo. For persons who believe that able from successful therapies, as well as being poised to
life begins at conception (the official position of the capitalize on federal funding when it becomes available.
Catholic Church and many fundamentalist denomina- California was the first state to do so, passing Proposition
tions), destroying an embryo is as repugnant as killing 71 (the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initia-
an adult human being. Advocates of hESC argue that tive) in November 2004. The measure provided $3 bil-
this is selective morality (or political grandstanding) lion in funding for stem-cell research, to be allocated to
because opponents of stem-cell research seem not to California universities and research institutes. New York
be bothered by the fact that thousands of embryos are State followed suit by earmarking $600 million in the
destroyed annually by fertility clinics, simply because state budget over ten years to support stem-cell research.
they are no longer wanted or needed. Such embryos are In New Jersey, however, a bill that would have provided
created through in vitro fertilization (fertilization of an $450 million for stem-cell research was defeated by vot-
egg by a sperm outside a woman’s body, in a test tube ers in November 2007, partly due to a well-organized
or the equivalent) in order to help infertile couples con- opposition campaign supported by, among others, New
ceive, and many more embryos are created than will be Jersey Right to Life (an anti-abortion organization) and
needed for each individual couple. Advocates of hESC the Catholic Church.
argue that couples should be allowed to donate the In November 2007 two scientists, Junying Yu in
excess embryos to scientific research rather than have Wisconsin and Shinya Yamanaka in Tokyo, announced
them destroyed. that they had independently developed a technique, called
Stem-cell research is not prohibited in the United “direct reprogramming,” that processes human skin cells so
States, but for a period of time was severely limited by that they take on many of the qualities of stem cells, most
restrictions on federal funding. In August 2001, Presi- important being capable of differentiating into any type of
dent George W. Bush announced that federal funding cell in the body. While this discovery may provide a means
for hESC research would be limited to the stem-cell lines to develop hESC therapies without requiring the destruc-
(populations of cells grown from a single embryo) already tion of embryos (and was hailed as such by spokespersons
in existence, a decision he justified as a compromise: it for the Bush administration and the Catholic Church),
would not encourage further destruction of embryos, but much more research will be required before it is known
53 8 Ster n, Howard
if the direct reprogramming technique will result in the See also: Censorship; Federal Communications Commission;
development of useful therapies. Shortly after becoming Political Correctness; Shock Jocks.
president, Barack Obama rescinded Bush’s restrictions on
stem-cell research. Further Reading
Sarah Boslaugh Cegielski, Jim. The Howard Stern Book: An Unauthorized,
Unabashed, Uncensored Fan’s Guide. Secaucus, NJ: Carol,
See also: Abortion; Bush Family; Catholic Church; Science Wars. 1994.
Colford, Paul D. Howard Stern: King of All Media—The Unau-
Further Reading thorized Biography. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
Herold, Eve. Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontlines. New Lucaire, Luigi. Howard Stern, A to Z: The Stern Fanatic’s Guide to
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. the King of All Media. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.
Humber, James M., and Robert F. Almeder, eds. Stem Cell Menell, Jeff. Howard Stern: Big Mouth. New York: Windsor,
Research. Totawa, NJ: Humana Press, 2004. 1993.
Parson, Ann B. The Proteus Effect: Stem Cells and Their Promise for Stern, Howard. Miss America. New York: Regan Books, 1995.
Medicine. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ———. Private Parts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Ster n, Howard Stewar t, Jon

America’s most prominent shock jock, talk show host The American actor, writer, and comedian Jon Stewart
Howard Stern has pushed the limits of social discourse is best known for his work as the host of a “fake news”
on the radio while claiming to champion liberty and program on the cable television channel Comedy Cen-
freedom. Popular especially among young white males, tral. Born Jonathan Stewart Leibowitz on November
Stern’s raunchy and provocative syndicated morning 28, 1962, in New York City and raised in New Jersey,
show has consistently ranked number one in audience he attended the College of William and Mary (BS, psy-
ratings. chology, 1984) and then held a series of odd jobs before
Howard Allen Stern was born on January 12, 1954, launching a career in New York as a stand-up comedian
on Long Island, New York. After studying communi- in 1986. He went on to work on various television and
cations at Boston University (BS, 1976), where he was film projects and published a volume of comic essays,
fired from the campus radio station for broadcasting Naked Pictures of Famous People (1998), before becoming
a racially inappropriate skit called “Godzilla Goes to host of The Daily Show in 1999.
Harlem,” Stern began a career as a professional disc On the nightly program, Stewart satirizes current
jockey. For about a decade, he perfected his irreverent events and popular culture; his usual targets are politi-
radio persona at several stations on the East Coast. In
1985, he moved to New York City’s WXRK-FM, where
his outrageous style was allowed to flourish. In 2005,
his show was syndicated in forty-five media markets.
His employer, Infinity Broadcasting, paid a steep price
for Stern’s unbridled creativity, however. In the twenty
years he worked there, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) fined Infinity over $2 million for
indecency.
To his fans, Stern is a master of his craft, has helped to
liberate American culture from puritanical oppression, and
is one of radio’s most skilled interviewers. His critics argue
that his crude, “in your face” style has debased society.
The self-proclaimed “King of All Media” abandoned
traditional radio in early 2006, opting instead to join
Sirius satellite radio, where he could broadcast unfettered
by federal regulations. It remains to be seen whether
his show will thrive in an uncensored environment. As
veteran comic Tom Dreeson commented before Stern’s
Jon Stewart hosts a half-hour satirical news program called
first satellite broadcast, Howard’s “kind of humor might The Daily Show on cable television’s Comedy Central chan-
only be funny because it was forbidden.” nel. Viewer polls suggest that the show is an important source
of news among young people. (Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
Cindy Mediavilla for Comedy Central)
Stone, Oli ver 53 9
cians and the media. The show’s popularity skyrocketed events and for presenting the assassination as a vast con-
as a result of its special “Indecision 2000” coverage of the spiracy. Eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
2000 presidential election and since then has won several argued that some of Stone’s productions amount to “dra-
Peabody and Emmy awards. George W. Bush’s reelection matic license . . . corrupted by ideology.”
inspired the sequel, “Indecision 2004.” Although The Stone, whose father was a Jewish-American stockbro-
Daily Show has poked fun at people of many political ker and his mother a French Catholic, was born in New
persuasions, conservatives have charged that most of its York City on September 15, 1946. After a year attending
humor comes at the expense of Republicans. When tele- Yale University (1964–1965), Stone wrote the semi-
vision and radio host Bill O’Reilly interviewed Stewart autobiographical novel A Child’s Night Dream, which
on his Fox News show in September 2004, he accused did not get published until 1997. He taught English
Stewart of playing to a left-leaning audience, despite in Saigon, Vietnam, then served a year in the merchant
Stewart’s declaration that his program does not have “an marine and traveled to Mexico. In 1967, Stone joined the
agenda of influence.” U.S. Army and was soon deployed to Vietnam, where he
Although media watchers note that The Daily Show has was twice wounded in battle. Afterward, he studied film
cultural and political significance—primarily for getting under director Martin Scorsese at New York University,
young people to think about politics and current events— graduating in 1971. With Midnight Express (1978), a film
Stewart insists that his program is strictly intended as about an American drug smuggler’s ordeal in a Turkish
comedy. Nevertheless, The Daily Show has become an in- prison, Stone won the Academy Award for Best Screen-
creasingly popular venue for important figures in politics play. Stone wrote and directed the horror film The Hand
and the press. Democratic politicians have found it an (1981) and wrote the screenplays for Conan the Barbarian
especially congenial environment; both John Edwards and (1982), Scarface (1983), Year of the Dragon (1985), and 8
John Kerry made appearances on the show prior to their Million Ways to Die (1986).
2004 bids for the White House, for example. In 1986, drawing on his experiences in Vietnam,
Stewart further circulated his brand of political sat- Stone wrote and directed Platoon, which won Academy
ire with his best-selling America (The Book): A Citizen’s Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. In that pro-
Guide to Democracy Inaction (2004), a work he co-authored duction, Stone aimed to debunk the “sacred mission”
with Ben Karlin and David Javerbaum. Publisher’s Weekly concept of war and instead show the “true and gritty, from
named America book of the year, commending it for of- the inside out.” In a surreal scene that reflects the My
fering “a serious critique of the two-party system, the Lai massacre, a Vietnamese village is gratuitously razed
corporations that finance it and the ‘spineless cowards in and its inhabitants murdered. Stone also won an Acad-
the press’ who ‘aggressively print allegation and rumor emy Award (Best Director) for Born on the Fourth of July
independent of accuracy and fairness.’ ” But Wal-Mart (1989), a film that features the struggles of a paraplegic
refused to carry the book in its stores because it features Vietnam veteran who becomes an antiwar activist. Stone’s
a doctored photograph with the heads of the Supreme Heaven and Earth (1993), which explores the war from the
Court justices attached to naked bodies. The opposite perspective of a Vietnamese woman, was not as successful
page has paper-doll cutouts of robes, and the reader is as his other films about the Vietnam War.
asked to “Restore their dignity by matching each justice Stone’s films also criticize American culture and chal-
with his or her respective robe.” lenge historical interpretations of events. In Wall Street
Charlotte Cahill (1987), he sharply criticizes the greed that infests the
American marketplace. In Talk Radio (1988), he explores
See also: Bush Family; Campaign Finance Reform; Censorship; the anger and rage of shock jocks and many Americans.
Election of 2000; Kerry, John; Media Bias; O’Reilly, Bill; Re- The Doors (1991) romanticizes rock singer Jim Morrison
publican Party; Talk Radio; Wal-Mart. while highlighting the excesses of the counterculture.
Natural Born Killers (1994) is a satirical commentary on
Further Reading American violence and its connection with mass media.
Peyser, Mark, and Sarah Childress. “Red, White, and Funny.” Stone’s JFK (1991), based on the book Crossfire: The
Newsweek, December 29, 2003. Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs (1989), created a
“10 Questions for Jon Stewart.” Time, September 27, 2004. firestorm of controversy. The film implies that the gov-
ernment was culpable in a vast conspiracy to kill President
John F. Kennedy in order to prevent the withdrawal of
S t o n e , O l i ve r troops from Vietnam. Nixon (1995), a surprisingly sympa-
Controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone has raised important thetic portrayal of the Watergate president, was criticized
social questions and explored many topics that have been for its nebulous implication that Nixon was involved in
part of the culture wars. His film on John F. Kennedy’s the CIA assassination plot against Castro that was some-
assassination was criticized for its loose portrayal of real how connected with the Kennedy assassination.
540 Stonewall Rebellion
Stone’s World Trade Center (2006) is based on the than symbolic importance for the gay rights movement.
experience of two Port Authority officers trapped under It also signified the movement’s embrace of “gay libera-
the debris of one of the collapsed towers following the tion,” which was characterized by more radical goals and
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City. militant tactics than the assimilationist aspirations and
It received praise for its poignant and patriotic undertones peaceful political strategies of other gay rights activists.
and has been criticized by those who believe the film’s The movement made several major breakthroughs on
release was the exploitation of a tragedy. As President the heels of Stonewall and the activism that it inspired,
George W. Bush’s two terms in the White House drew including the 1973 decision of the American Psychiat-
to a close, Stone came out with W (2008), a biopic work ric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of
of the forty-third president that a reviewer in The New mental disorders.
Yorker declared “soulless.” Gary Mucciaroni
Matthew C. Sherman and Roger Chapman See also: Civil Rights Movement; Feminism, Second-Wave;
Feminism, Third-Wave; Gay Rights Movement; Parks, Rosa;
See also: Bush Family; Conspiracy Theories; Counterculture; Police Abuse; Socarides, Charles; Transgender Movement;
Kennedy Family; My Lai Massacre; Nixon, Richard; Revi- Vietnam War.
sionist History; Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.; September 11;
Shock Jocks; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Further Reading
War; War on Drugs. Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Plume, 1994.
Marotta, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality. New York: Twayne,
Further Reading 1995.
Riordan, James. Stone: The Controversies, Excesses, and Exploits of Teal, Donn. The Gay Militants. New York: Stein and Day, 1971.
a Radical Filmmaker. New York: Hyperion, 1995.
Silet, Charles P., ed. Oliver Stone: Interviews. Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 2001. S t r a t e g i c D e f e n s e I n i t i a t i ve
Toplin, Robert Brent. Oliver Stone’s USA: Film, History, and Con- A Cold War defense program initiated in the early
troversy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. 1980s by President Ronald Reagan, the Strategic De-
fense Initiative (SDI)—popularly referred to as “Star
Wars”—was based on a plan to use space-based weap-
Stonewall Rebellion ons to shoot down potential incoming missiles from
The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall re- the Soviet Union. While some blamed the program for
bellion, took on mythic importance for the gay rights heightening Cold War tensions and intensifying the
movement. In the early morning hours of June 28, nuclear arms race, others credited it for hastening the
1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar lo- decline of the Soviet Union.
cated in Greenwich Village, New York City. Raids of The primary focus of SDI was to be large lasers
nightclubs and other venues frequented by gays were orbiting Earth that could shoot down airborne Soviet
common in large American cities during the middle de- missiles before they could enter American territory.
cades of the twentieth century, when repression of ho- Reagan inaugurated the program in a speech on March
mosexuality and gender-bending were at their height. 8, 1983, stating, “I call upon the scientific community
Bar patrons ordinarily complied with orders to leave the who gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents
premises and passively accepted arrest if they were un- to the cause of mankind and world peace; to give us the
able to produce identification. On this particular night, means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent
however, the patrons, many of whom were transvestites, and obsolete.” About two weeks later, Reagan delivered
resisted the police action, and a raucous crowd joined another speech in which he called the Soviet Union an
them outside the bar. Part of the legend of Stonewall is “evil empire.” These two speeches launched a period of
that the mood of some of the gay patrons was especially new intensity in the nuclear arms race.
sour because of the recent death of Judy Garland, a gay The nickname “Star Wars,” which was given to the
icon whose funeral had been held in New York earlier program by its critics, brought complaints from film-
that day. The riots lasted for six days, with police and maker George Lucas, creator of the hugely popular movie
gays locked in violent clashes that included throwing series of the same name, which features intergalactic
bricks and other objects, setting fires, and damaging po- battle but with an ultimate message of compromise and
lice vehicles and other property. cooperation. Although opponents of SDI used the name
Much like Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a Star Wars to deride the program as science fiction, some
bus, the Stonewall rebellion came to symbolize the active proponents also used the term, in the belief that science
resistance of an oppressed group. But Stonewall had more fiction has inspired many real-life technologies.
Strau ss, Leo 5 41
SDI originated with the development of a laser that Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist
made use of nuclear and x-ray technologies. The laser attacks, this time under the title National Missile De-
was brought to fruition in the late 1970s at Lawrence fense; the name was changed to Ground-Based Midcourse
Livermore National Laboratory in California, by scientist Defense in 2002. New technologies developed under this
Peter Hagelstein. The development team, called the O program remain in the testing stage.
Group, was descended from the efforts of Edward Teller,
who had co-founded the laboratory in 1949 for research Benjamin W. Cramer
on advanced weapons systems. SDI was to use laser tech-
nology against Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Cold War; Communists
(ICBMs) that could deliver nuclear warheads. and Communism; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Nuclear Age;
The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) Oppenheimer, J. Robert; Reagan, Ronald; Science Wars; Sep-
was established in 1984 to foster further research. The tember 11; Soviet Union and Russia; Teller, Edward.
organization was headed by U.S. Air Force Lieutenant
General James Adam Abrahamson, a former director of Further Reading
the NASA Space Shuttle program. No SDI system was Broad, William J. Star Warriors: A Penetrating Look into the Lives
ever fully implemented, but research by SDIO led to tech- of the Young Scientists Behind Our Space Age Weaponry. New
nological advances in computer technology, sensors, and York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
miniaturized components that have found other applica- FitzGerald, Frances. Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star
tions in military development and communications. Wars, and the End of the Cold War. New York: Simon &
The doctrine underlying SDI was “strategic defense,” Schuster, 2000.
as opposed to the Cold War offensive strategy of “mutu- Lakoff, Sanford, and Herbert F. York. A Shield in Space? Tech-
ally assured destruction.” Among the critics of SDI was nology, Politics, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Berkeley:
physicist Hans Bethe, who had worked on development University of California Press, 1989.
teams for the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb in the Linenthal, Edward T. Symbolic Defense: The Cultural Significance
early years of the Cold War. Bethe and others claimed that a of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Urbana: University of Illinois
space-based laser system would be scientifically impractical Press, 1989.
and prohibitively expensive, and the Soviets could easily
destroy it or eliminate its usefulness by deploying decoy
missiles. Based on his experience with weapons of mass Strauss, Leo
destruction, Bethe believed that the Cold War could be re- A political philosopher cited as one of the intellectual
solved through diplomacy rather than new technologies. leaders of American neoconservatism, Leo Strauss was
Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev strongly opposed born September 20, 1899, near Marburg, Germany. He
SDI, and the program became a major agenda item at studied classical and political philosophy under such
his October 1986 summit with Reagan in Reykjavik, prominent figures in the field as Ernst Cassirer, Edmund
Iceland. In December 1987, the two leaders signed the Husserl, and Martin Heidegger. His study of Thomas
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which pro- Hobbes led him to England, where he remained after
ponents of SDI regarded as a sign of success. Supporters the rise of Nazism, taking a teaching position at Cam-
of the program later suggested that it helped bring about bridge University. In 1937, he emigrated to the United
the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, as the very threat States, where he taught at the New School for Social
of a space-based system shed light on the deficiencies of Research in New York City (1938–1948) and the Uni-
Soviet defenses. Opponents of SDI instead argue that versity of Chicago (1949–1968).
Gorbachev’s reforms and larger sociopolitical trends are By the time of his death on October 18, 1973, Strauss
responsible for the Soviet Union’s dissolution. Some even had come to influence a number of conservative-oriented
suggest that SDI prolonged the Cold War because it gal- American intellectuals and political activists, including
vanized the Kremlin hardliners, hindering Gorbachev’s Allan Bloom, William J. Bennett, Irving and William
reforms and overtures for peace. Kristol, Alan Keyes, Carnes Lord, and Norman Podho-
President George H.W. Bush kept the SDI project retz, all founding members of neoconservatism. Many of
alive, but President Bill Clinton in 1993 shifted the fo- Strauss’s followers were strong promoters of President
cus from missile-based global to ground-based regional George W. Bush’s plan to invade Iraq.
defense systems and redesignated SDIO as the Ballistic Critics of the neoconservative movement claim that it
Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). Also in 1993, it represents a Straussian “conspiracy” to control American
was revealed that a breakthrough SDI test in 1984 had foreign policy, and some liberals claim that Strauss’s theo-
been faked—the targeted missile carried a homing beacon ries are antidemocratic and encourage a “fascist” tyranny
that enabled the interceptor to shoot it down easily. The of the “wise.” Supporters of Strauss have suggested that
Star Wars concept was revived by President George W. his critics are guided by anti-Semitism.
5 42 Str uc turalism and Pos t-Str uc turalism
Strauss himself engaged in no political activity, its underlying system. Whereas parole is arbitrary, langue
preferring the life of a scholar-philosopher. He was is structured. For example, although two persons may use
critical of modern philosophy and social science. Instead, different parole (such as a case in which one speaks English
he sought a return to the earlier perspectives of classi- and the other Chinese), they nonetheless share the same
cal Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle and Jewish langue. The same thought process gives rise to different
tradition as reflected in the Bible. His studies of the forms of speech. Thus, the work of the linguist commit-
seventeenth-century philosophers Baruch Spinoza and ted to the tenets of structuralism is to cut through the
Thomas Hobbes led him to conclude that modern phi- surface parole and discover the underlying langue.
losophy and science did not refute the claims of religion, The impact of Saussure’s methodology for under-
and that the conflict between religion and science is fated standing human language cannot easily be overstated.
to remain perpetual. Almost immediately upon its publication, Saussure’s
Strauss distrusted liberalism, modernity, and Cours swept through higher education on both sides of
multiculturalism. He argued that uncritical praise of the Atlantic, and into other fields such as anthropology,
democratic culture leaves unchallenged the weaknesses of literature, and psychology. Saussurian linguistics bred a
“mass culture,” which diminishes the value of the pursuit sense of optimism into the humanities and human sci-
of excellence as a human ideal. To learn about human- ences, as it was seen as offering a new form of progress
ity’s highest values, Strauss and many of his followers for studies in these fields.
encourage a return to the “great books” of the ancient By way of example, if language is rule-governed,
and medieval tradition. and if works of literature are but extended acts of lan-
Martin J. Plax guage, then works of literature are also rule-governed.
So, despite the fact that in literature there are a myriad
See also: American Century; Anti-Semitism; Bennett, William of different characters, events, and narrative styles, the
J.; Bush Family; Great Books; Keyes, Alan; Kristol, Irving, structuralist would maintain that they all contain the
and Bill Kristol; Neoconservatism; Podhoretz, Norman. same, or very similar, structures. The Marxist structural-
ist might claim that works of literature create their plot
Further Reading and corresponding tension by combining or juxtaposing
Drury, Shadia B. Leo Strauss and the American Right. New York: different social classes. All stories that address romantic
St. Martin’s, 1997. love between two people of different social classes, for
Lenzner, Steven, and William Kistol. “What Was Leo Strauss example, share the same structuralist core. A Freudian
Up To?” Public Interest, Fall 2003. structuralist might hypothesize that the structure be-
Norton, Anne. Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire. neath such stories is a psychological one playing off our
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. pre-linguistic egos, especially the desire to preserve one’s
West, Thomas. “Leo Strauss and American Foreign Policy.” life. This approach contrasts sharply with multicultural
Claremont Review of Books, April 25, 2005. interpretations of texts, in which it is presupposed that
autobiographical details of both the author and reader
of a text make any single, universal meaning impossible.
Structuralism and Post- It contrasts even more sharply with deconstructionist
Structuralism methodologies that remove the author completely from
Structuralism is a method of analysis and philosophi- the realm of meaning. According to such methodologies,
cal approach to the understanding of human endeavors meaning is created by the reader alone, and in no case
from language to literature and politics. According to does a reader uncover a preexisting meaningful structure
this perspective, all of human-created reality, despite created by the author.
any apparent complexity, can be reduced to more simple Structuralism became especially influential in the
basic facts or principles that remain the same regard- field of anthropology. In such works as The Elementary
less of a person’s race, culture, gender, or ethnicity. This Structures of Kinship (1949) and La Pensée Sauvage (The
stands in direct opposition to poststructuralist meth- Savage Mind, 1962), French anthropologist Claude Lévi-
odologies, especially deconstructionism, which harshly Strauss utilized structuralist methodology to address
criticize structuralism and insist that humanity is far core issues in anthropology. He argued, for example,
less unified than the structuralist would suppose. that both the scientific engineer and the pre-scientific
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is the “savage” share the same theoretical core. The concept of
originator of structuralism. Saussure’s most important kinship, he argued further, is reducible to the exchange
work, Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General of women consistent with the prohibition against incest;
Linguistics, 1916), begins by distinguishing between bound by that prohibition, the exchange encourages
langue and parole (roughly “language” and “speech”). Pa- social cooperation and peaceful communication across
role (the spoken or written word) is public, and langue is clans. Thus, Lévi-Strauss concludes, kinship can be used
Student Con ser vati ves 5 43
to explain the origins of much larger phenomena such as S t u d e n t C o n s e r v a t i ve s

politics and even religion. If at times less vocal than their liberal and radical coun-
In another realm, Joseph Campbell applied struc- terparts, student conservatives have stood at the social,
turalistic methodology to the study of myth, arguing political, and intellectual vanguard of the American
in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) that all hero culture wars since at least the 1960s. During that tu-
myths, regardless of culture, have the same structure. multuous decade, they clashed with the New Left and
Specifically, they involve a hero born in an ordinary world the hippie counterculture, which they viewed as a radi-
who is called to an extraordinary one. Upon entering the cal, permissive, and secular movement corrosive to the
extraordinary world, the hero wins a battle and returns to traditions and values of American society. Between the
the ordinary world with newly acquired gifts and skills 1970s and the 2000s, student conservatives broadened
that he bestows on friends or clansmen. their efforts to combat issues such as abortion, femi-
A major blow to structuralism came at the height nism, and gay rights. In these disputes, they enjoyed
of its European popularity when, in 1966, the French the increasingly lavish support of conservative benefac-
philosopher Jacques Derrida delivered a paper that was tors and institutions. This support, and the centrality
highly critical of the movement. Derrida’s paper prompt- of universities to the culture wars, nurtured a growth
ed persistent questioning regarding the theoretical core in the number, organization, and influence of student
of structuralism. Chief among the concerns of objectors conservatives during this period.
is the strong disavowal of history and historical circum- Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the first sig-
stance that pervades structuralist studies. Structuralists, nificant conservative student organization, played a vital
it is said, view the facts of particular cultures as the role in the 1960s. Guided by adult conservatives like Wil-
unnecessary, arbitrary parole and that the essence lies in liam F. Buckley, Jr., and William Rusher, YAF brought
the langue that lies beneath—though it is not clear why together a diverse group of conservative students from
historical or cultural facts are to be minimized or labeled hundreds of college campuses. Its founding document,
“arbitrary.” Others criticize the structuralist approach for the Sharon Statement (1960), stressed the importance of a
its unwarranted insistence upon “essential” properties limited government to the preservation of liberty, moral
of human phenomena. For example, some structuralist order, and tradition. The 1964 presidential campaign
critiques seem to assume that there is a genuine property of Republican Barry Goldwater energized conservative
of “maleness” and “femaleness” such that all persons have students, and YAF members such as Robert Croll and
just one or the other, and that the two are complete, John Kolbe worked aggressively to spread Goldwater’s
clearly defined categories. Postmodern feminists, among conservative message. YAF’s student journal, the New
others, object to this view, regarding it as a veiled attempt Guard, publicized the group’s political activities and
to buttress arbitrary, culturally defined values. provided a forum for the discussion of conservative ideas
The methodologies that replaced structuralism tend on campus.
to capitalize on these objections. Post-structuralism and Young conservatives responded aggressively to the
postmodern methodologies emphasize, contrary to struc- emergence of a new cadre of student radicals in the 1960s.
turalist tenets, the importance of contingent cultural and The New Left and the hippie counterculture capitalized
historical artifacts upon meaning. Deconstructionists di- on a growing opposition to the Vietnam War in the
rectly challenge the alleged immutability of the so-called mid-1960s to advance their political and cultural agenda
structure that underlies an observed system, and attempt on many college campuses. Student conservatives, many
to show how anything “beneath” the surface text can itself themselves opposed to the draft, answered by staging
be deconstructed. counterdemonstrations in support of the war and in op-
Craig Hanson position to the student radicals. “Bleed-ins” encouraged
students to donate blood for the troops, and “bake-ins”
See also: Deconstructionism; Multiculturalism and Ethnic raised money to send them cookies. College conservatives
Studies; Paglia, Camille; Postmodernism; Relativism, Moral. challenged the protests of student leftists at places such
as Columbia University in 1968, when they blocked
Further Reading student radicals from taking over the university library.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: They led a campaign against the National Student As-
New World Library, 2008. sociation, which they believed had become a political
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: front for the New Left. Other organizations such as the
University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Free Campus Movement, founded at the University of
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Elementary Structure of Kinship. Boston: Southern California in 1968, and the Community of the
Beacon Press, 1971. Right, organized at Stanford University in 1969, pro-
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. LaSalle, vided opportunities for student conservatives to counter
IL: Open Court, 1998. the collegiate left.
544 Student Con ser vati ves
R. Emmett Tyrrell, a graduate student in history internships by a growing body of conservative think tanks
at Indiana University, founded in 1967 a conservative and foundations, including the Intercollegiate Studies
journal, The Alternative, which used satire and mockery Institute (1953), the Heritage Foundation (1973), and
in its attack on the New Left’s influence at IU. He later American Collegians for Life (1988). In addition, Morton
helped orchestrate an electoral victory for conservatives Blackwell’s Leadership Institute (1979) has provided
and the removal of the leftists from key student govern- leadership training, while James Dobson’s Focus on the
ment positions at the school. The journal proved even Family Institute (1995) has assisted evangelical conserva-
more successful. Later renamed the American Spectator, tive students.
the journal continued to target the New Left and youth Conservative colleges such as Hillsdale College in
counterculture while playing an ecumenical role of sorts Michigan and Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and
for conservatism. Anticipating larger trends in the Ameri- Catholic conservative colleges like the University of
can right, its pages brought traditionalist and libertarian Dallas and Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio,
conservatives together with a new group of disenchanted have provided safe havens for the training of student
liberals called neoconservatives, united behind a grow- conservatives and future culture warriors. conservative
ing disgust over the cultural and political direction of Christian colleges, such as Indiana Wesleyan University
American liberalism. and Taylor University in Indiana, have also contributed to
Hostility to abortion rights, the feminist movement, training articulate young conservatives. The founding in
gay rights, affirmative action, busing, and the drug cul- 2000 of Patrick Henry College, a conservative Christian
ture nurtured a growth in the number of conservative college in Purcellville, Virginia, dedicated to changing
students in the 1970s and 1980s. Christian student con- American culture, testifies to the continued salience of
servatives found abortion, legalized by the U.S. Supreme student conservatives to the culture wars.
Court in Roe v. Wade (1973), a particularly galvanizing is-
sue. Many students on the right, especially young women, Daniel Spillman
participated in annual Right to Life marches and rallies
on campuses and in capital cities. In the 1970s, young See also: Affirmative Action; Buckley, William F., Jr.; Counter-
conservative women also fought against the feminist culture; Equal Rights Amendment; Feminism, Third-Wave;
movement and the Equal Rights Amendment, which Gay Rights Movement; Heritage Foundation; Hillsdale Col-
they believed would undermine the biological roles of lege; Neoconservatism; New Left; Roe v. Wade (1973); Rusher,
the sexes and threaten the traditional family structure. William A.; Vietnam War.
Some female students, such as Mary Eberstadt at Cornell
University and Heather MacDonald at Yale University, Further Reading
in the early 1980s shifted rightward in reaction to liberal Andrew, John A., III. The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans
ideas they encountered during their undergraduate and for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics. New Bruns-
graduate years. wick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997.
Many future conservative leaders worked for right- Eberstadt, Mary, ed. Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom
wing campus periodicals. At Dartmouth College, for Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys. New York:
example, Dinesh D’Souza developed his writing skills as Threshold Editions, 2007.
editor of the Dartmouth Review, an independent conserva- Lantzer, Jason S. “The Other Side of Campus: Indiana Univer-
tive student publication that relentlessly assailed liberal sity’s Student Right and the Rise of National Conservatism.”
stances, particularly the women’s and gay rights move- Indiana Magazine of History, June 2005.
ments. D’Souza would become a leading culture warrior Micklethwait, John, and Adrian Wooldridge. The Right Nation: Con-
and conservative commentator in the 1990s and 2000s. servative Power in America. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.
While attending the University of Virginia during the Schneider, Gregory. Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans
late 1980s, Rich Lowry, a future editor of the National Re- for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right. New York:
view, wrote for the conservative Virginia Advocate (founded New York University Press, 1999.
in 1986). Overall, there was a dramatic expansion in the
number of conservative student publications at the cam-
puses of Harvard, Yale, and Duke, among others. These Students for a Democratic
student periodicals proved effective training grounds for Society
future conservative leaders of the culture wars. Founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1960, Students for
Since the 1980s, student conservatives have con- a Democratic Society (SDS) was a radical student orga-
tinued to fight on the front lines of the culture wars, nization that flourished in the last half of the 1960s. It
particularly over the issues of abortion, homosexuality, was the largest and most influential organization of the
and affirmative action. For the cause of battling liberal- New Left movement, which called for radical social and
ism, they have been provided grants, fellowships, and political change in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Student s for a Democ ratic Soc ie t y 5 45
The SDS grew out of the student branch of the League ment with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a
for Industrial Democracy, a socialist educational organi- weapons research outlet affiliated with the U.S. Depart-
zation. The group’s founding members drew inspiration ment of Defense. The conflict escalated when Columbia
from both the civil rights movement and organized labor. officials announced plans to build a new gymnasium on
At the initial meeting in Ann Arbor, they elected Robert land originally intended for low-cost housing in Harlem.
Alan Haber as president (officially field secretary). At the The protests, including the takeover of several university
group’s first convention in June 1962, it approved the buildings, finally prompted the administration to scrap
Port Huron Statement, a manifesto (named for the town plans for the gymnasium and end its affiliation with the
in which the gathering was held) drafted chiefly by co- IDA. The widely publicized events at Columbia also
founder, staff member, and Haber’s successor as president, put the SDS in the public spotlight and attracted new
Tom Hayden. Beginning with the often-quoted words, members to the organization.
“We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest The growing influence of the SDS on American
comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfort- college campuses convinced many of its supporters that
ably to the world we inherit,” the document declared an a social revolution was possible. As expectations rose,
“agenda for a generation”: working for full civil rights however, the group became increasingly divided. As early
for African Americans, an end to poverty, more politi- as 1966, the Progressive Labor Party (PL), a Maoist group
cal involvement on the part of college students, and the committed to communist principles, had begun using
pursuit of true democracy and freedom in the world. SDS as a recruitment vehicle and organized the Worker
In its early years, the SDS focused its efforts largely Student Alliance (WSA) to push its agenda. Although
on economic inequality. One of its better-known efforts the vast majority of SDS members were anticommunist,
was the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP), a they were also reluctant to expel communists from the
campaign for community organizing among unemployed group. The Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), led
whites in major northern cities. At the group’s 1964 by Bernardine Dohrn, Mark Rudd, and others, organized
annual meeting, a split developed between supporters in opposition to the WSA and tried to prevent what its
of ERAP and those who wanted to emphasize campus leaders viewed as a hostile takeover of the organization by
organizing. The majority sided with the ERAP support- the WSA. They were particularly troubled by the hostility
ers, but the drive toward campus activism would become of many WSA members toward the Black Panthers.
increasingly important for SDS members. The conflict came to a head at the 1969 SDS national
The group did not focus heavily on the Vietnam War convention in Chicago, where the WSA moved to take
until 1965, after President Lyndon Johnson escalated control of the national SDS. Led by Dohrn, the RYM
the conflict under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The faction voted to expel the PL from the convention and
group’s membership grew slowly between 1960 and subsequently walked out of the building, leaving the SDS
1965, but the spike in U.S. troop deployment to Vietnam with two sets of leaders. The split at the 1969 convention
resulted in a massive increase in SDS membership. Local was the death knell for SDS, which would hold no further
SDS chapters sprang up all over the country, mostly as annual conventions. The RYM faction formed the radical
a result of student opposition to the war. Members or- Weather Underground Organization, known popularly as
ganized demonstrations on college campuses to protest the Weathermen, organized around the goal of a revolu-
U.S. involvement and the draft, and teach-ins to educate tion that would overthrow the U.S. government. Believ-
fellow students. The SDS staged one of the first national ing that a revolutionary political party per se would be
demonstrations against the war in April 1965, a protest ineffective, the group’s leaders called for militant direct
that drew around 20,000 people to Washington, D.C. action to bring about the demise of the federal govern-
Meanwhile, the organization itself was changing in dra- ment. The Weathermen remained active until 1975, at
matic ways. Members voted to remove the anticommunist which time the New Left effectively collapsed.
planks from the SDS charter, and the organization moved Decades after its demise, however, the SDS con-
its headquarters from New York to Chicago, reflecting tinued to influence the social and cultural changes that
the desire of many members to make the group more transformed America. By organizing students around an
national. agenda of radical social and political change, the group
The year 1968 was also important for the SDS. In helped lay the groundwork for the cultural battles that
the spring of that year, members waged a series of ral- would be a legacy of the 1960s. Indeed, in 2006, a group
lies, teach-ins, and marches to protest continuing U.S. of former SDS members teamed with college students to
involvement in Southeast Asia. On April 26, the orga- advocate a revival of the group. They envisioned a multi-
nization sponsored a one-day strike in which approxi- issue organization that would unite students across the
mately one million students participated. At Columbia country to support an agenda of leftist causes, including
University in New York City, the local SDS chapter opposition to various forms of military action, support
joined with other groups to protest the school’s involve- for protective environmental legislation, and a critique
546 Summers, L aw rence
of global current trade agreements. By the end of 2006, one, sided with the president in the 2005 public dispute,
the new SDS boasted hundreds of chapters on college the faculty of the arts and sciences, by a vote of 218 to
campuses and thousands of members. 185 (with 18 abstentions), formally expressed its lack
Blake Ellis of confidence in Summers’s leadership. When a second
vote of no confidence was scheduled the following year,
See also: Black Panther Party; Chicago Seven; Civil Rights he announced that he would step down at the end of the
Movement; Cold War; Communists and Communism; Coun- 2006 school year.
terculture; Hayden, Tom; Hoffman, Abbie; Marxism; New Supporters of Summers regard him as a reformer who
Left; Vietnam War; War Protesters. made enemies on campus because he violated “political
correctness” and speech codes while demanding higher
Further Reading academic standards and denouncing grade inflation. His
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: opponents argue that he was primarily undone by his
Bantam, 1987. arrogant and insensitive behavior and top-down man-
Isserman, Maurice. If I Had a Hammer: The Death of the Old agement style.
Left and the Birth of the New Left. New York: Basic Books, Roger Chapman
1997.
Miller, James. Democracy in the Streets: From Port Huron to the See also: Academic Freedom; Anti-Semitism; Israel; Multi-
Siege of Chicago. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, culturalism and Ethnic Studies; Muslim Americans; Political
1994. Correctness; Soviet Union and Russia; Speech Codes; Victim-
Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. New York: Random House, 1973. hood; West, Cornel.
Further Reading
S u m m e r s , L aw r e n c e Bradley, Richard. Harvard Rues: Lawrence Summers and the
An economist, academic, and former government of- Battle for the World’s Most Powerful University. New York:
ficial, Lawrence “Larry” Summers served five years as HarperCollins, 2005.
president of Harvard University before resigning in Lewis, Harry. Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University
February 2006 after a series of disputes with school fac- Forgot Education. New York: Public Affairs, 2006.
ulty over sensitive political and social issues. Born Law- Wilson, Robin. “The Power of Professors.” Chronicle of Higher
rence Henry Summers on November 30, 1954, in New Education, March 3, 2006.
Haven, Connecticut, he studied at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (BS, 1975) and Harvard (PhD,
1982), where in 1983 he became the youngest tenured Supply-Side Economics
professor. After serving as chief economist of the World Supply-side economics is an approach pioneered in the
Bank (1991–1993) and secretary of the treasury (1999– 1970s that stresses the role of tax cuts in creating eco-
2001) in the administration of President Bill Clinton, nomic incentives and in fostering economic growth.
he was appointed president of Harvard. Although some Supply-side economics is commonly set in opposition to
attributed his demise as president to failing to apply a the demand-side perspective of Keynesian and monetar-
corporate approach in campus governance, and others ist economics.
blamed his shielding of a fellow Harvard economist ac- The intellectual foundations of supply-side econom-
cused of defrauding the federal government while serv- ics are attributed to economist Arthur Laffer’s work, and
ing as a consultant for Russian market reform, many especially to a drawing executed on a cocktail napkin that
portrayed him as a victim of the culture wars. Jude Wanniski later called the “Laffer Curve” in his book
Summers’s tenure as university president was charac- The Way the World Works (1978). The curve depicts a
terized by a series of public gaffes. Most incendiary was relationship between tax rates and tax revenue, showing
his January 2005 statement that women are underrepre- that each level of tax revenue corresponds to two levels
sented in the fields of mathematics and science for reasons of tax rates, one high and one low. Supply-siders argue
of “intrinsic aptitude.” In 2001, he had challenged the that the tax rates prevailing in the United States are in
prominent African-American professor Cornel West to the top section of the curve. They argued at the time
apply more scholarly rigor in his work. An insulted West that a decrease in those rates would not only increase
left Harvard for what he regarded as a more respectful people’s income and incentives to work but also increase
environment at Princeton University. The following year, the amount of tax revenue collected by the government.
Summers offended Muslim students by characterizing Thus, a tax cut would pay for itself without requiring
them as anti-Semitic for lobbying Harvard to divest stock any adjustment in government spending.
in companies that do business in Israel. Supply-side economics is often referred to as “trickle-
Although the student body, by a margin of three to down” economics because it is hypothesized that a de-
Sy mbionese Liberation A r my 5 47
crease in the marginal tax rate will provide incentives Wanniski, Jude. The Way the World Works: How Economies Fail
for entrepreneurs to hire more workers, as they receive and Succeed. New York: Basic Books, 1978.
higher revenues and profits. Thus, the increase in income
created by the decrease in tax rates would be passed on
to the rest of society from the top down. Supply-side S y m b i o n e s e L i b e r a t i o n A r my
assumptions formed the economic foundation of Ronald The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a militant
Reagan’s campaign platform in 1980 and were heavily political group that carried out a series of violent crimes,
implemented throughout his presidency. including murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and the
Despite its endorsement by Nobel Prize laureate planting of bombs, in the San Francisco Bay area during
Robert Mundell, supply-side economics found relatively the first half of the 1970s. “Death to the fascist insect
little support in the academic community. The Nobel that preys upon the life of the people” was the group’s
Prize–winning economist and liberal commentator Paul slogan. Although the SLA was denounced by the Berke-
Krugman has been one of the most vocal opponents of ley student newspaper and most leftist radicals, conser-
supply-side economics. In his book Peddling Prosperity vatives regarded it as symptomatic of counterculture ex-
(1994), Krugman observes that no economics depart- cesses. At the time, some radicals hypothesized that the
ment at any major American university has a specifically SLA was a creation of the FBI to discredit the left.
supply-side orientation. Through his books and op-ed Made up of about a dozen members, predominantly
pieces in the New York Times, Krugman has sought to con- white and middle class, the SLA proclaimed the goal of
vince the American public that supply-side economics is unifying “oppressed people” to fight against “the capital-
an ideology disguised as scientific theory. This sentiment ist state and all its value systems.” The group’s logo was
echoed George H.W. Bush’s characterization of supply- a seven-headed cobra, symbolizing the seven principles of
side economics in 1980 as “voodoo economics” and the Kwanzaa. Their leader, known as Field Marshal Cinque,
confession of Reagan budget director David Stockman in was Donald DeFreeze, a black escaped convict and pur-
The Triumph of Politics (1986) that supply-side econom- ported schizophrenic.
ics was a ploy to justify tax cuts for the wealthy. In the The notoriety of the SLA was based on two dramatic
realm of popular culture, Al Franken introduced “Supply- crimes. One was the assassination on November 6, 1973,
Side Jesus,” a cartoon figure portraying Jesus Christ as of Marcus Foster, the black superintendent of the Oakland
a wealthy individual providing employment to poorer school system, because he favored student identification
people through his thirst for luxury items. cards. The second was the February 4, 1974, kidnapping
The emphasis on tax cuts in the economic policies of of Patricia “Patty” Hearst, the nineteen-year-old heiress
President George W. Bush, in particular the elimination of the Hearst newspaper chain.
of the estate tax and the reduction of the tax on capital In compliance with her captors’ ransom demand,
gains, has been interpreted by some as a revival of supply- Hearst’s parents established a $2 million charity fund
side economics. In each year of the Bush administration and distributed food to over 30,000 people. In April,
following the first tax cuts in 2002, the Congressional however, the SLA released a tape in which Hearst declared
Budget Office (CBO) forecast long-term budget deficits that she had taken the name Tania and enlisted in the
and increased national debt. The Democratic Leadership terrorist army. She was photographed participating in a
Committee, interpreting the CBO reports to mean that bank robbery that left one bystander dead, and a warrant
the tax cuts had failed to generate new wealth, declared for her arrest was issued immediately. She was captured
the death of supply-side economics in 2003. in September 1975 and convicted of bank robbery six
month later despite her claims of being brainwashed. Her
Quentin Hedges Duroy seven-year prison sentence was commuted by President
Jimmy Carter after she had served twenty-one months.
See also: Bush Family; Democratic Party; Federal Budget Deficit; She was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton
Franken, Al; Krugman, Paul; Norquist, Grover; Reagan, Ron- in January 2001.
ald; Republican Party; Tax Reform; Wall Street Journal, The. Six SLA members were killed in a shootout with Los
Angeles police on May 17, 1974. After two more bank
Further Reading holdups, the group disbanded, its remaining members
Bartlett, Bruce, and Timothy P. Roth, eds. The Supply-Side Solu- either arrested or gone underground. In 1999, former
tion. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1983. SLA member Kathleen Soliah, alias Sarah Jane Olson, was
Krugman, Paul. Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense arrested. In October 2001, fearing that a fair trial would
in the Age of Diminished Expectations. New York: W.W. Nor- be impossible in the post-9/11 climate, she reluctantly
ton, 1994. pleaded guilty to having placed bombs under police
Stockman, David. The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolu- cars in 1977 with the intention to kill. In November
tion Failed. New York: Harper and Row, 1986. 2002, the last known SLA fugitive, James Kilgore, was
548 Sy mbionese Liberation A r my
captured in South Africa. And in February 2003, four Further Reading

former SLA members were given prison sentences for the Graebner, William. Patty’s Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s
1975 robbery murder in which Hearst had participated; America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
some of them had earlier served time for the Hearst Hearst, Patricia, with Alvin Moscow. Every Secret Thing. Garden
kidnapping. City, NY: Doubleday, 1982.
Roger Chapman Pearsall, Robert Brainard, ed. The Symbionese Liberation Army:
Documents and Communications. Amsterdam: Rodopi N.V.,
See also: Clinton, Bill; Conspiracy Theories; Counterculture; 1974.
Kwanzaa; Marxism; Presidential Pardons; September 11;
Stone, Oliver; Victimhood.
See also: American Century; Cold War; Communists and
Communism; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Health Care; Kerouac,
Jack; Labor Unions; McCarthy, Joseph; McCarthyism; Neo-
conservatism; New Deal; Republican Party; Schlafly, Phyllis.
Ta f t , Ro b e r t A . Further Reading
Nicknamed “Mr. Republican,” Robert A. Taft was a Hayes, Michael T. “The Republican Road Not Taken: The
conservative U.S. senator from Ohio who opposed the Foreign-Policy Vision of Robert A. Taft.” Independent Review
New Deal, advocated a noninterventionist foreign poli- 8:4 (2004): 509–25.
cy, and supported McCarthyism Kirk, Russell, and James McClellan. The Political Principles of
Robert Alphonso Taft was born on September 8, 1889, Robert A. Taft. New York: Fleet, 1967.
in Cincinnati, the eldest son of William Howard Taft (the Patterson, James T. Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft.
only person to have served as both president of the United Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
States and chief justice of the Supreme Court). Educated at Robinson, Phyllis. Robert A. Taft: Boy and Man. Cambridge,
Yale University (BA, 1910; MA, 1936) and Harvard Law MA: Dresser, Chapman and Grimes, 1963.
School (LLB, 1913), Taft practiced law and set his sights
on the White House but failed to secure the Republican
nomination for president in 1940, 1948, and 1952. Ta l k R a d i o
Taft had a full public career: assistant counsel for Her- A daily staple of millions of Americans, talk radio since
bert Hoover’s U.S. Food Administration (1917–1919); the late 1980s has emerged as one of the most influen-
Ohio House of Representatives (1921–1926); Ohio Senate tial media in the United States. Indeed, by 2007, more
(1931–1932); and U.S. Senate (1939–1953). than 80 percent of all AM radio stations included at
He began his tenure in the Senate opposed to President least one talk show in their broadcast lineup. In fact,
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, which he talk radio during the first decade of the twenty-first cen-
regarded as socialistic, and in the postwar period he worked tury was so popular that it supported more than 1,200
to reduce Roosevelt’s legacy. Thus, with Representative “all-talk” shows. These programs are often political in
Fred A. Hartley, Jr. (R-NJ) as co-author, he introduced nature, usually polemical, and make little effort at be-
the Taft-Hartley Act, a measure to curb labor activity by ing objective.
scaling back the Wagner Act (1935). Passed on July 23, Although some historians credit regional call-in
1947, over President Harry Truman’s veto, Taft-Hartley shows and early game shows as the inspiration behind talk
included a provision requiring unions to adhere to an radio, the format was not widely adopted until the 1960s,
eighty-day “cooling off” period prior to going on strike when stations such as KABC in Los Angeles and KMOX
during times of national emergencies. That same year, Taft in St. Louis switched to all talk. Pioneering talk radio
campaigned against a plan for compulsory health insurance, personalities included Long John Nebel, whose offbeat
denouncing it as “the federalization of medicine.” broadcasts featured discourses on UFOs and voodoo; Joe
Taft urged the United States to maintain a strong Pyne, a political conservative who supported the Vietnam
military without diplomatic alliances and foreign en- War and abhorred hippies; Mort Sahl, a liberal political
tanglements. He put forth his views in A Foreign Policy satirist who enjoyed poking fun at Richard Nixon; and
for Americans (1951). One of his concerns was that that the Bill Ballance, host of the “Feminine Forum,” the first
Cold War might turn the United States into a “garrison so-called topless or sex talk program.
state” with the undermining of national liberty. Taft In talk radio, show hosts typically begin their broad-
was staunchly against communism, but he supported casts by introducing a provocative topic, often taken from
the Marshall Plan with misgivings and opposed Senate that day’s headlines or instigated as part of a conversation
ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. with an on-air guest. Listeners are then encouraged to
The postwar Red Scare brought out Taft’s strongest call in with their comments and questions. Depending
partisan instincts. After Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) on the host, content may focus on one or more of the fol-
alleged that the State Department had been infiltrated by lowing topics: general issues, politics, sports, “hot talk”
communists, Taft encouraged him to “keep talking.” It (also known as “shock jock”), popular culture, finance,
is believed that Taft counseled Eisenhower not to stifle home improvement, psychology and relationships, and
McCarthy because McCarthy’s claims were damaging to “specialty” topics such as computers, cars, and travel.
Democrats. Taft died of cancer in New York City on July Fans generally tune in to hear how their favorite host
31, 1953. At least one biographer is convinced that had will react to caller comments.
Taft still been a member of the Senate, he would not have The most popular topic of on-air conversation by far
voted to censure McCarthy in 1954. has been politics. Of Talkers Magazine’s top 100 talk radio
Roger Chapman hosts in 2007, 40 percent identified their programs as
549
55 0 Talk Radio
politically conservative, moderate, or progressive. Until revealed that nearly 75 percent of listeners voted in the
1987, all radio content in the United States was regu- 2006 election and that 58 percent were registered as
lated by the Fairness Doctrine, a federal law requiring independents.
broadcasters to provide balanced coverage of important National Public Radio personality Diane Rehm has
controversial issues. Once the law was repealed, however, described talk radio as America’s “electronic backyard
many hosts felt free to begin promoting specific political fence,” where listeners can discuss issues anonymously
and social agendas, resulting in some decidedly one- over the air. On the other hand, she warned, talk radio can
sided programming. As Mary Beal, on-air personality be “a provocative and even dangerous medium, capable of
and former board member of the National Association representing an extreme form of democracy,” particularly
of Radio Talk Show Hosts, once said, “I don’t care if I in the hands of radio hosts “who attempt to use talk shows
have a balanced viewpoint, because any opinion can be to spread their own political or social dogma.” Especially
challenged by the people who call in.” worrisome are the “radio activists” who agitate their au-
The true power of unregulated talk radio became ap- diences by emphasizing only one side of whatever issue
parent in 1992, when presidential candidates Bill Clinton they are discussing. Newsday media critic Paul Colford
and Ross Perot both made optimum use of the medium has asserted that these types of on-air hosts are nothing
in their campaigns. According to a Congressional Quarterly more than “ambassadors in the culture of resentment.”
study, listeners learned more about the nominees through Likewise, Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times has called
talk radio than any other medium. Many voters who had Limbaugh and his imitators the “tough guys and mean
felt disenfranchised by the electoral process suddenly felt girls of AM talk,” who use bullying tactics, instead of
empowered because the candidates had come to them. solid reasoning, to get their point across.
Rush Limbaugh, a leading figure in American talk
radio since the 1980s, is an outspoken conservative who Cindy Mediavilla
vociferously expounds on the “evils” of homosexuality,
feminism, environmentalism, and liberalism in general. See also: Bennett, William J.; Clinton, Bill; Donahue, Phil;
In 1992, his syndicated program the Rush Limbaugh Show Federal Communications Commission; Limbaugh, Rush; Me-
was heard on 529 stations across the country. Within dia Bias; National Public Radio; Perot, H. Ross; Shock Jocks;
three years, he not only had expanded his reach to 660 Stern, Howard; Terkel, Studs.
stations, but he was credited with single-handedly help-
ing the Republicans regain control of Congress. “I believe Further Reading
that the most effective way to persuade people is to speak Douglas, Susan J. “Letting the Boys Be Boys: Talk Radio,
to them in a way that makes them think that they reached Male Hysteria, and Political Discourse in the 1980s.” In
certain conclusions on their own,” he has said. By 2007, Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio, ed.
Limbaugh was the most popular radio broadcaster in the Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio, 485–503. New York:
nation, with more than 13 million people tuning in to Routledge, 2002.
his show at least once a week. Godfrey, Donald G., and Frederic A. Leigh, eds. Historical
Despite his popularity, Limbaugh is by no means Dictionary of American Radio. Westport, CT: Greenwood
the only conservative voice on the radio dial. During the Press, 1998.
first decade of the 2000s, right-wing commentator Sean Hoyt, Mike. “Talk Radio: Turning Up the Volume.” In Taking
Hannity had a weekly audience of 12 million, while the Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Mass Media and
self-proclaimed “firebrand conservative” Michael Savage Society, ed. Alison Alexander and Janice Hanson, 62–67. 2nd
spoke regularly to more than 8 million listeners. On the ed. Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1995.
more liberal side has been Ed Schultz, a “progressive” Pease, Edward C., and Everette E. Dennis, eds. Radio: The Forgot-
broadcasting from Fargo, North Dakota; as well as Randi ten Medium. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995.
Rhodes, a mainstay of the left-leaning radio network Air
America. Other well-known radio talk show personalities
include “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger, who dispenses family Ta x R e f o r m
advice as well as political opinions; Christian broadcaster Taxes have been the subject of political controversy in
Mike Gallagher; and “shock jocks” Howard Stern, Man- the United States since the founding of the nation. From
cow, and Opie & Anthony. 1776 to World War I, tariffs and excise taxes were the
Talk radio has been called “the working people’s primary sources of revenue for the federal government.
medium.” According to a 2004 Pew Research Center The income tax was unknown until the Civil War, when
study, 17 percent of the American public regularly tune it was implemented briefly, then discontinued until
in to call-in radio shows. Of these, most are middle-aged 1894. President Grover Cleveland convinced Congress
men who are well educated and consider themselves to lower tariffs and substitute a modest tax on incomes
conservative. Talkers Magazine’s 2007 talk radio survey to recoup revenues, but in 1895 the Supreme Court
Ta x Refor m 551
ruled the income tax unconstitutional, at least if it was cuts. Despite the measure’s unpopularity, however, the
based on income derived from property (Pollock v. Farm- 1990 budget laid the groundwork for a significant reduc-
ers’ Loan & Trust Company). As a reaction to the gov- tion in the deficit after Bush left office.
ernment’s inability to balance the federal budget in the Early in the administration of President Bill Clinton,
ensuing years, Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amend- Congress passed the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Bill,
ment, giving it the power to lay and collect taxes on any which attempted to reduce the federal budget deficit
form of income; the amendment was ratified in 1913. through both tax increases and spending cuts. Clinton’s
The modern tax reform movement is often said to call for a tax increase was a direct repudiation of the eco-
have been launched in 1978 with the passage of Proposi- nomic philosophies of his two Republican predecessors,
tion 13 in California, a ballot referendum that dramati- suggesting that the tax policies of Ronald Reagan and
cally lowered property taxes in the state. Proposition 13 George H.W. Bush came at the price of high deficits.
was successful in part because there had been dramatic Clinton raised most of the new revenue with an array of
increases in the state property tax just prior to the ballot higher taxes on upper-income Americans and corpora-
measure. The California government had not actually tions, and more than half of the new taxes fell on families
increased tax rates, but huge increases in property values making more than $200,000 a year.
had suddenly pushed property assessments much higher President George W. Bush made cutting taxes the top
than they had been. Since property taxes are based on a priority of his administration after he was inaugurated in
proportion of assessed value, Californians were paying 2001. His plan reduced all federal income tax rates, raised
considerably more in property taxes even without an the child credit, gave a break to married couples, and re-
increase in the property tax rates. pealed the federal tax on large estates. The largest portion
Tax reduction referenda also succeeded in a number of the cuts, however, came from lowering the income tax
of other states, including Illinois, Massachusetts, and rates for all income groups—from 15 percent, 28 percent,
Michigan. Buoyed by the success of these state tax reform 31 percent, and 36 and 39.6 percent to 10 percent, 15
measures, conservatives sought to reduce taxes even fur- percent, 25 percent, and 33 percent, respectively.
ther following the election of Ronald Reagan as president A controversial tax reform enacted in 2001 was a
in 1980. The Reagan budget of 1981 represented a major reduction in the federal estate tax. Since the estate tax is
ideological shift from the budgets over the previous half imposed on an estate only after someone has died, crit-
century and was one of the most significant presidential ics of the estate tax refer to it as the “death tax.” Before
legislative initiatives in American history. The tax cuts the 2001 cuts, the estate tax was imposed on only those
in the 1981 federal budget were the largest to that time, estates valued at more than $1 million. As of 2006, the
representing over 2 percent of the gross domestic product figure was raised to $2 million, and as of 2009 to $3.5
(GDP). million, with the tax scheduled to disappear completely
Another significant change in policy during the in 2010 and then resume in 2011 at the 2001 level. Thus,
Reagan years came with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, under the legislation, the effective transfer tax rate fell
which made major changes in how income was taxed. from a peak of 55 percent in 2001 to 50 percent in 2002
The measure simplified the tax code, broadening the and to 45 percent by 2007, but it would rise again to
tax base and eliminating a number of tax shelters and 55 percent in 2011. Proponents of the estate tax argue
other preferences. The top tax rate was lowered from 50 that it is an important source of revenue for the federal
percent to 28 percent, and the bottom rate was raised government and is necessary to a system of progressive
from 11 percent to 15 percent—the only time in U.S. taxation because it affects large estates only. Opponents
history that the income tax rate was reduced for the top of the legislation argued further that a higher effective
tier while simultaneously increased in the bottom tier. transfer tax encourages the wealthy to make billions of
The act also reduced the capital gains tax to the same rate dollars in charitable donations each year, since the dona-
for ordinary income, and it increased incentives to invest tions substantially reduce taxes on large estates.
in owner-occupied housing rather than rental housing,
thus raising the home mortgage interest deduction. The Patrick Fisher
legislation, which was seen as revenue neutral, passed by
a large bipartisan majority in Congress. See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Bill; Contract with America;
Deficit levels increased dramatically during the Corporate Welfare; Norquist, Grover; Privatization; Reagan,
1980s, and President George H.W. Bush was faced with Ronald; Social Security; Supply-Side Economics; Wall Street
record deficits. Despite having campaigned in 1988 on a Journal, The.
pledge of “read my lips, no new taxes,” Bush reluctantly
agreed in a budget summit to a deficit reduction package Further Reading
in the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. The law raised Peters, B. Guy. The Politics of Taxation. Cambridge, MA: Black-
taxes and imposed new user fees in return for entitlements well, 1991.
552 Televangelism
Steinmo, Sven. Taxation and Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale lists hoping to use the airwaves to expand their flock. In
University Press, 1993. 1960, Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson purchased
Wildavsky, Aaron, and Naomi Caiden. The New Politics of the a television station in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and
Budgetary Process. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2001. formed the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)—
now the Family Channel and the largest religious network
in America. During a 1963 telethon, Robertson asked
Te l ev a n g e l i s m for 700 people to pledge money to keep the station sol-
With ties to mid-nineteenth-century tent revivals, tel- vent. These designated saviors became the foundation
evangelism in contemporary America pursues new con- of Robertson’s show The 700 Club, which premiered in
verts through the mass media. Widely associated with November 1966 with the Reverend Jim Bakker as host.
bombastic preaching, gospel revelry, and sometimes faith Bakker, a Pentecostal, also co-hosted a CBN show with
healing, the “electronic church” is not merely the busi- his singer-wife, Tammy Faye. The Bakkers left CBN for
ness of evangelical Christians. As a particularly North the Trinity Broadcasting Network, where they began the
American phenomenon, it also reflects social, cultural, PTL (for Praise the Lord) Club, a variety show emulating
and economic currents. At its core, televangelism is so- the Tonight Show. The program and the Bakkers moved to
cially conservative, underscoring the traditional nuclear their own PTL Network, founded in 1974. Also joining
family in its anti-abortion, antigay, and antifeminist the ranks of televangelists in the 1960s were the Reverend
stances. Promoting the Religious Right’s social and po- Jerry Falwell, an independent Baptist, and his Old-Time
litical agenda to a mostly lower-middle-class audience, Gospel Hour, as well as Jimmy Swaggart’s Pentecostal
televangelism plays a major role in mobilizing conserva- show, the Jimmy Swaggart Telecast.
tive Christians, ushering them into the political arena to The 1980s ushered in an era of politically oriented
press for legislated morality. televangelism. Initially against mixing politics and re-
While liberal Protestants tend toward relativism, ligion, Falwell changed his position with the founding
conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists believe of the Moral Majority in 1979. An evangelical political
in salvation only for those “born again” in accordance lobby group, the Moral Majority gained a pulpit for
with their exacting interpretation of the Bible—a simple its views on Falwell’s Old-Time Gospel Hour. Touting
theological message conducive to broadcasting. In the American exceptionalism and the wickedness of secular
1920s, secular radio stations gave free airtime to reli- humanism, Falwell pushed for social and political change
gious programs; mainline Protestant and Catholic groups as the group’s leader, making valuable connections with
filled most of it, forcing evangelical and fundamentalist Republicans, especially President Ronald Reagan. Seek-
Christians to pay for their broadcasts. Frustrated, the ing the support of the Religious Right, Reagan hosted
National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1944 televangelists at the White House and gave his 1983
formed the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) to “evil empire” speech (applying that term to the Soviet
fight the radio monopoly held by liberal churches. This Union) at an NAE meeting. Indeed, politically minded
arrangement remained in place until 1960, when all televangelists like Falwell took credit for Reagan’s
airtime was made available for purchase. Stations tended election victory in 1980. Fearing televangelists’ politi-
to favor conservative Christian televangelists, who were cal influence over their viewers, liberals responded by
eager to pay, and the situation quickly changed. Since forming a progressive advocacy group, People for the
that time, evangelicals have dominated the religious American Way, to protest the blurring between church
airwaves in America. and state.
In the 1950s, evangelical preachers began a shift At the same time, the 700 Club added Robertson’s
from radio to television. Among the first to do so was ultra-conservative political opinions on feminism, abor-
the Reverend Billy Graham, a Southern Baptist and the tion, gay rights, and labor unions to his apocalyptic
television preacher of choice for mainline evangelicals. predictions. Robertson’s first foray into politics came
In televising his “crusades,” Graham showed that TV in April 1980 with “Washington for Jesus,” a day of
was a medium that could be used to stir up religious prayer and conservative political messages. In 1986, he
enthusiasm. Gaining celebrity status as the spiritual began a grassroots campaign to become the Republican
adviser to American presidents from Harry S. Truman presidential candidate. With his “invisible army” of
to George W. Bush, Graham legitimized evangelicalism, viewers, Robertson said he would run if 3 million people
on the wane since the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in 1925. petitioned and offered monetary support for a campaign.
During his Cold War crusades, Graham proselytized us- In 1987, he formally announced his intentions to run,
ing American fears of nuclear annihilation, as evidenced leaving CBN to his son. Controversy dogged Robertson’s
by such sermon titles as “The End of the World” (1950) bid, as questions over his education and military service
and “Will God Spare America?” (1953). uncovered falsehoods, and it was clear by 1988 that vic-
Graham proved to be a role model for other evange- tory was impossible. Robertson threw his support behind
Teller, Edward 553
George H.W. Bush, returned to CBN, and founded the Howley, Kevin. “Prey TV: Televangelism and Interpellation.”
Christian Coalition in 1989. Journal of Film and Video 53:2–3 (2001): 23–37.
The late 1980s was a difficult time for televangelists, Sine, Tom. Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture
as Robertson’s campaign was hurt by sex and money scan- Wars. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995.
dals surrounding televangelist superstars Jim Bakker and
Jimmy Swaggart. In 1987, Bakker was accused of paying
off a woman with whom he had had extramarital sex. Te l ev i s i o n
The following year, he was indicted on charges of fraud See Media Bias
and tax evasion for allegedly diverting millions of dollars
through Heritage USA, PTL’s investment arm. Convicted
on twenty-four criminal counts, he was sentenced to forty- Te l l e r, E d w a r d
five years in prison (of which he served five). Also in 1988, A physicist whose work led to the development of the
Jimmy Swaggart, whose Pentecostal Assemblies of God hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller was also a primary vi-
ministry was said to have generated $150 million annu- sionary of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense
ally at its peak, became the object of another sex scandal, Initiative (SDI). He is remembered by his detractors
as photos of him with a prostitute surfaced. Swaggart as “Dr. Strangelove”—the unstable presidential ad-
resigned from his ministry after confessing an obsession viser in the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name
with pornography during a tear-soaked telecast. (1964)—while admirers credit him with helping the
In the pursuit of “getting right with God,” tel- United States win the Cold War.
evangelists implore their viewers to contribute to their Born on January 15, 1908, in Budapest, Hungary,
ministries so they can fulfill the tenets of the “health-and- Teller obtained his doctorate in theoretical physics at the
wealth” gospel: faith in God will bring material rewards. University of Leipzig in Germany (1930) but left Ger-
For critics, televangelism and the gaudy lifestyle of its many for Denmark and then the United States with the
practitioners symbolize unadulterated greed—a view rise of Adolf Hitler. He taught at George Washington
reflected in a significant decline in viewer ratings and University (1935–1941) and worked on the Manhattan
lampooned in the Genesis hit single, “Jesus He Knows Project during World War II to help develop the atomic
Me” (1991). The rock star and international humanitar- bomb. He remained at the Los Alamos National Labora-
ian Bono, among others, has criticized televangelists for tory in New Mexico after the war, later moving to the
practicing a faith devoid of social justice. University of California, Berkeley (1953–1970). A co-
Revived in the 1990s, televangelism remains very founder of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
much alive and politically active in the United States. California, he served as its associate director (1954–1958,
Both Robertson and Falwell were visible during the 1992, 1960–1975) and director (1958–1960).
1996, and 2000 national elections. The old guard may Teller testified against physicist and former Manhat-
have given way to new televangelists, such as Joel Osteen tan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer at a 1954
and his “prosperity gospel,” but liberals continue to warn security board hearing, and Oppenheimer eventually
of televangelism’s influence over Christian voters and to lost his security clearance. Observers believed that Teller
criticize its narrow view of American society. wished to topple Oppenheimer for not fully supporting
his efforts to develop the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer
Anna Zuschlag had chaired the General Advisory Committee of the
Atomic Energy Commission, which in 1949 advised
See also: American Exceptionalism; Christian Radio; Church against proceeding with the H-bomb, citing moral and
and State; Evangelicalism; Falwell, Jerry; Fundamentalism, technical concerns. In 1952, however, the United States
Religious; Graham, Billy; Reagan, Ronald; Religious Right; detonated the world’s first hydrogen bomb, based in part
Robertson, Pat; Secular Humanism. on Teller’s design. Teller faced widespread condemnation
for his testimony against Oppenheimer.
Further Reading Known for opposing nuclear test bans, downplay-
Alexander, Bobby C. Televangelism Reconsidered: Ritual in the Search ing the effects of radioactive fallout, and designing
for Human Community. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994. submarine-launched nuclear bombs, Teller faced a hostile
Bruce, Steve. Pray TV: Televangelism in America. New York: counterculture movement on the Berkeley campus. Stu-
Routledge, 1990. dent activist Jerry Rubin once threw a custard pie in his
Frankl, Razelle. Televangelism: The Marketing of Popular Religion. face. More serious was the student tribunal of November
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. 23, 1970, which conducted a hearing, attended by hun-
Hadden, Jeffrey K. “The Rise and Fall of American Televange- dreds, to discuss campus ties to the military-industrial
lism.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social complex. Teller was singled out as “a leading sparkplug
Science 527 (May 1993): 113–30. . . . for an even greater nuclear arsenal,” and police had
55 4 Ten Commandment s
to hold back a rowdy crowd that attempted an assault on

the physicist’s home.
In 1979, after an accident at the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, Teller testified be-
fore Congress in defense of atomic energy and to counter
statements by Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader against the
nuclear industry. The next day, Teller suffered a heart
attack, which he later blamed on Fonda in a two-page
advertisement in the Wall Street Journal (July 1, 1979).
Equally controversial was Teller’s lobbying for SDI,
the nuclear defense system widely referred to as Star
Wars. The system was to use laser devices stationed in
outer space that would shoot down incoming missiles.
Although many scientists regarded SDI as technically un-
feasible, Teller was able to persuade Defense Department
officials and President Reagan, who announced a long-
term development program in March 1983. Teller died
on September 9, 2003, in Stanford, California, just weeks
after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Roger Chapman
See also: Cold War; Counterculture; Fonda, Jane; Kubrick,

Stanley; McCarthyism; Nader, Ralph; Nuclear Age; Oppen-
heimer, J. Robert; Reagan, Ronald; Science Wars; Strategic
Defense Initiative; Three Mile Island Accident.
Further Reading
Goodchild, Peter. Edward Teller: The Real Dr. Strangelove. Cam- Members of the Religious Right kneel in prayer at a monu-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. ment to the Ten Commandments inside the state courthouse
Teller, Edward, with Judith L. Shoolery. Memoirs: A Twentieth- in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2003. Chief Justice Roy S. Moore
Century Journey in Science and Politics. Cambridge, MA: was removed from office for defying a federal court order to
Perseus, 2001. remove the monument. (Gary Tramontina/Getty Images)
toward other humans (honoring parents and prohibitions

Te n C o m m a n d m e n t s against murder, adultery, stealing, giving false testimony,
The culture wars have brought an ongoing series of legal and coveting).
battles and public debates between the Religious Right The Decalogue emerged as a potent symbol during
and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union over the Cold War with the release of the Hollywood film
the appropriateness and constitutionality of displaying The Ten Commandments (1956). The director of the film,
the Ten Commandments on public property such as Cecil B. DeMille, viewed the story of the Decalogue as a
schools, courthouses, and capitol grounds. metaphor of American freedom in contrast to the Soviet
According to the Hebrew Bible (or Christian Old Union. In the film’s prologue, DeMille explains, “The
Testament), the Ten Commandments—also known as theme of this picture is whether men ought to be ruled by
the Decalogue (Greek for “ten words”)—are part of the God’s law or whether they are to be ruled by the whims
Law that Moses received on stone tablets from God on of a dictator. . . . Are men the property of the state or are
Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20:2–14; Deuteronomy 5:6–18). Since they free souls under God? This same battle continues
there are different ways of numbering the commandments throughout the world today.” In the meantime, with
(Roman Catholics and Lutherans have one system, while financial backing from DeMille, the Fraternal Order of
Jews and the Orthodox and Reformed churches have an- the Eagles donated thousands of Decalogue statues across
other), the way in which one displays the Decalogue may the country, including a six-foot (1.8-meter) granite
betray a religious preference. The Ten Commandments, monument that was placed on the grounds of the Texas
all sides agree, specify duties toward God (prohibition State Capitol in Austin in 1961.
of polytheism and the making of idols, the proper use of Although the New Testament deemphasizes the He-
God’s name, and observance of the Sabbath) and duties brew Law, certain conservative Christians favor the Ten
Terkel , Stud s 555
Commandments. Some assert that the Decalogue inspired ence to Moses and his Law. The eastern pediment at the
the Bill of Rights, and many argue that the Ten Com- back outside of the building, they point out, features
mandments were the basis of common law and American the three great lawgivers of ancient Eastern civilization:
jurisprudence—a view most legal scholars regard as an Confucius, Moses (holding a tablet without inscription),
exaggeration at best. The Christian Reconstructionist and Solon. The pediment also includes allegorical figures,
Rousas J. Rushdoony, in his two-volume commentary all symbolic of law. The wooden doors of the courtroom
on the Ten Commandments, The Institutes of Biblical have a design depicting two tablets, one engraved with
Law (1973), argues that the Decalogue is foundational the Roman numerals I through V and the other VI
for establishing a Christian theocracy. The Religious through X, otherwise without inscription. The marble
Right, although influenced by Rushdoony, mainly sought frieze bordering the high ceiling inside the courtroom
to bolster its argument that America was founded as a depicts eighteen lawgivers in history: Menes, Hammu-
Christian nation. rabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius,
In Stone v. Graham (1980), the U.S. Supreme Court and Octavian (the south wall); Justinian, Mohammed,
overturned a Kentucky law that required a copy of the Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Wil-
Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom of its liam Blackstone, John Marshall, and Napoleon (north
public schools, with the notation: “the fundamental legal wall). Directly above the seat of the chief justice on the
code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the east wall, there are two figures, one with tablets, whom
United States.” The court ruled that such a requirement proponents of the Decalogue say represents Moses with
had no secular purpose and promoted religion rather than the Ten Commandments. According to a letter by the
the teaching of history. That decision did not settle the designer Adolph Weinman, dated October 31, 1932, the
matter, however, because it suggested that displaying the two figures represent “Majesty of the Law and the power
Decalogue in a different context might be permissible. of Government” and the “figure of Law, resting on the
Following the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High tablet of the ten amendments [sic] to the Constitution
School in Littleton, Colorado, a number of states proposed known as the ‘Bill of Rights.’” Because of that letter, some
the posting of the Ten Commandments in historical dis- suggest that the engravings on the wooden doors symbol-
plays at public schools. In 2003, Alabama chief justice ize the Bill of Rights and not the Ten Commandments.
Roy S. Moore was removed from the bench for defying Undaunted, Decalogue proponents have questioned the
a higher court’s order to remove a 2.5-ton (2,273-kilo) authenticity of the Weinman letter, which is on file in
granite Decalogue monument inside his courthouse. the Supreme Court archives.
Although Moore’s appeal to the Supreme Court went Roger Chapman
unanswered, other Decalogue cases were later heard.
In McCreary County, Kentucky et al. v. ACLU (2005), See also: Christian Reconstructionism; Cold War; Moore, Roy
the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 against two Kentucky S.; Religious Right.
county executives who ordered framed copies of the Ten
Commandments, in the language of the King James Further Reading
Bible, displayed in two courthouses. Based on the word- Green, Steven K. “The Fount of Everything Just and Right?
ing of the enabling resolution, the majority of the justices The Commandments as a Source of American Law.” Journal
saw this action as promoting religion. In contrast, the of Law and Religion 14:2 (1999–2000): 525–58.
same court in Van Orden v. Perry (2005) ruled 5–4 that Nadel, Alan. “God’s Law and the Wide Screen: The Ten Com-
the granite Decalogue memorial on the grounds of the mandments as Cold War ‘Epic.’” PMLA 108:3 (May 1993):
state capitol in Austin is constitutionally permissible 415–30.
because the context of its placement was not religious. Pollitt, Katha. “Stacked Decalogue.” Nation, September 22,
The fact that the Texas monument was installed by a 2003.
private group and had been in place for over four decades Wright, Melanie J. Moses in America: The Use of Biblical Narrative.
without public objection contributed to the favorable New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
ruling. Moreover, the Texas monument depicts a Jewish
Star of David as well as a Christian symbol and features
eleven, possibly twelve, commandments, all indicative Te r ke l , S t u d s
of nonsectarianism. Writer, journalist, and broadcaster Studs Terkel won
Proponents of the public display of the Decalogue popular and critical acclaim for his published interviews
argue that the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washing- of ordinary Americans who shared their life experiences,
ton, D.C., includes the Ten Commandments as part of reflecting on the Great Depression, World War II, race,
its decor, making it appropriate as well for lower courts working life, the American Dream, and death and dy-
across the land. Opponents answer that nowhere does ing. Many of his oral histories were the product of the
the ornamentation in the Supreme Court give prefer- Studs Terkel Program (1952–1997), a five-day-a-week
55 6 Terkel , Stud s
radio show on station WFMT in Chicago. Terkel, who publishing an oral history about his life’s observations,
characterized his own ideology as “socialism with a hu- Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times (1977). Years
man face,” often used his interviews to draw out liberal later this was followed by other self-reflections: Touch
themes. He liked to joke that he and Richard Nixon had and Go (2007) and P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime
one thing in common: recognition of the importance of of Listening (2008). In a revised edition of Talking to My-
the tape recorder. In October 2007, Terkel published an self, Terkel ends with “The Ultimate Fantasy: My First
op-ed piece in the New York Times that criticized Presi- Inaugural Address.” In this “speech,” pretending to have
dent George W. Bush’s domestic surveillance program. been an independent candidate elected as the forty-first
The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Louis Terkel president of the United States, he promises: “I shall not
was born in the Bronx, New York, on May 16, 1912, and at any time during this brief talk use the words Family,
he grew up in Chicago—where he would spend much of Flag, God, or Country. Nor shall I use the phrase Standing
his life. As a young man, he was nicknamed after Studs Tall. I am your President, not your Phys Ed instructor. I
Lonigan, a character in the trilogy of novels about life assume . . . that you believe in the faith and in those ideas
in that city by James Farrell. During the Great Depres- that evoke the spirit of free thoughtful beings in a free,
sion, Terkel attended the University of Chicago (PhB, thoughtful society.” Denigrating the Reagan administra-
1932; JD, 1934) and worked briefly with the Chicago tion, the period of which he characterizes as a time when
Repertory Theater (1937) and the radio division of the the nation’s intelligence was “assaulted,” he goes on to
Federal Writers’ Project (1938). After overseas duty with attack the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. “May I
the Red Cross during World War II, he hosted Studs’ add a personal note here?” he continues. “Mine will not
Place (1949–1953), a folksy current events show on the be an Imperial Presidency.” Terkel died at age ninety-six
new medium of television. During the McCarthy era, he on October 31, 2008.
was briefly accused of past communist activities (because
he had signed petitions against Jim Crow and the poll Rachel Donaldson and Roger Chapman
tax), but with no lasting impact on his career. In 1956
he published his first book, Giants of Jazz, a series of See also: Bush Family; Cold War; Labor Unions; McCarthyism;
biographical sketches of jazz artists. New Deal; Nixon, Richard; Nuclear Age; Reagan, Ronald;
The collection of oral histories for which Terkel Watergate.
became best known began with Division Street: America
(1967), presenting Chicago as a microcosm of contempo- Further Reading
rary American life. This was followed by Hard Times: An Baker, James T. Studs Terkel. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Oral History of the Great Depression (1970) and Working: Barsamian, David. “Studs Terkel.” Progressive, November
People Talk about What They Do and How They Feel about 2004.
What They Do (1974), which became controversial for Chambers, Aaron. “History from the Bottom Up.” Illinois Issues,
its uncensored language and frank views. He returned December 2001.
to investigating Americans’ views of their nation in Parker, Tony. Studs Terkel: A Life in Words. New York: Henry
American Dreams: Lost and Found (1980), focusing on Holt, 1996.
the hopes and disillusionment that have come with the Terkel, Studs. Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times. New
American Dream. York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
Terkel won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Good War”: ———. Touch and Go: A Memoir. New York: New Press,
An Oral History of World War II (1984). Deeply critical 2007.
of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
for their opposition to labor causes and their contempt
of New Deal legacies, he revisited the idea of Ameri- T h a n k s g i v i n g D ay
can dreams in The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the An American national holiday observed annually on the
American Dream (1988), focusing on the effects of social fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is typical-
division. He continued on the theme of American social ly a time in which families gather to partake of a large
divisions in Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel meal featuring roasted turkey with all of the trimmings.
About the American Obsession (1992). In the years since, Since the history of Thanksgiving is rooted in differ-
he published Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by ent places and dates, culture warriors have debated its
Those Who Lived It (1995) and Will the Circle Be Unbroken? meaning. Presidents on occasion have politicized the
Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for Faith (2001). holiday by associating it with their agendas, and Native
He also conducted a post–September 11th investigation Americans have used the occasion to offer revisionist
on how people respond to difficult times in Hope Dies history pertaining to the European conquest of North
Last (2004). America.
Terkel also turned the microphone on himself, Determining when and where the first American
T hink Tank s 557
Thanksgiving was held is a controversy that has divided prompting Time magazine to editorialize that it was “one
red states and blue states. Traditionally most Americans of the most palpably political Thanksgiving messages.”
associate the origins of Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims The following year, the liberal Christian Century refused
sharing a harvest feast with native peoples at Plymouth, for the first time to publish a presidential Thanksgiving
Massachusetts, in 1621. In Virginia, officials point to an address, objecting to Johnson’s use of the occasion to
earlier date, December 4, 1619, as the first Thanksgiv- promote the Vietnam War.
ing; on that day, it is said, colonists at Berkeley Planta- In 1970, Native American groups began the tradition
tion, on the James River near current-day Charles City, of a Thanksgiving protest vigil at Plymouth, calling the
offered prayers of thanks for their safe arrival in the New holiday a “Day of Mourning.” In 2005, members of the
World. Multiculturalists suggest even older Thanksgiv- Wailkikie tribe met at San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island to
ings, pointing to events that occurred by the French hold an “Unthanksgiving Day” ceremony. Bear Lincoln
in Florida (1564) and the Spanish in Texas (1598). All of the tribe stated, “It was a big mistake for us to help
agree that days of thanksgiving were observed at different the Pilgrims survive that first winter. They betrayed us
times in many parts of the American colonies and early once they got their strength.” In her essay on the meaning
republic. George Washington announced official days of of Thanksgiving, the Rutgers University anthropologist
thanksgiving in 1789 and 1795. After some important Janet Siskind argues, “The stuffed turkey represents the
Union victories during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln Native Americans, sacrificed and consumed in order to
proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November 1863 as a bring civilization to the New World.”
nationwide day of gratitude, although some southerners
would thereafter refer to the national holiday as “a damned Roger Chapman
Yankee institution.”
While social conservatives argue that Christianity and See also: American Civil Religion; Christmas; Columbus Day;
“family values” represent the true meaning of Thanksgiv- Founding Fathers; Great Society; Red and Blue States; Rock-
ing, others insist that the holiday is strictly secular. In his well, Norman.
painting Freedom from Want, part of a 1943 series on the
Four Freedoms, Norman Rockwell presents a Thanksgiv- Further Reading
ing scene of a family gathered around a table with a turkey Appelbaum, Diana Karter. Thanksgiving: An American Holiday,
platter. Although Rockwell does not offer any overt signs An American History. New York: Facts On File, 1984.
of religiosity, that aspect is readily apparent in Newell Sigal, Lillian. “Thanksgiving: Sacred or Profane Feast?” Mytho-
Conyers Wyeth’s painting The Thanksgiving Feast (1945), sphere 1:4 (1999): 451–61.
a scene of the Pilgrim Thanksgiving with a Puritan elder Siskind, Janet. “The Invention of Thanksgiving: A Ritual of
holding a Bible. Religious conservatives emphasize the American Nationality.” In Food in the USA: A Reader, ed.
theistic wording of Thanksgiving proclamations issued Carole M. Counihan, 41–58. New York: Routledge, 2002.
over the years, including ones by Washington and Lin-
coln. Those who regard Thanksgiving as a secular holiday
argue that harvest festivals were not generally viewed as T h i n k Ta n k s
sacred events. Some academics recognize Thanksgiving as A think tank is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organiza-
a part of American civil religion with the turkey dinner tion that devotes a significant portion of its activities
symbolizing a sacramental meal. to public policy analysis. Think tanks identify policy
In 1939, swayed by retailer lobbyists seeking to ex- issues, evaluate ideas, and design public policies.
tend the Christmas shopping season, President Franklin As originally employed, the term “think tank” re-
Roosevelt moved up the date of Thanksgiving by one week. ferred to secret locations where U.S. military planners
This prompted criticism from traditionalists, including and scientists met to discuss strategy during World War
the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, who argued that the II. Use of the term in reference to organizations for the
date for “a sacred religious day” should not be changed clandestine meeting of minds did not come into wide-
“on the specious excuse that it will help Christmas sales.” spread use until the proliferation of such institutions in
Some state governors refused to comply with the calen- the mid-1970s. Until then, they were commonly referred
dar change, while pundits dubbed the competing dates to as policy-planning organizations, policy-planning
“Democratic Thanksgiving” and “Republican Thanksgiv- groups, elite policy-planning networks, public policy in-
ing.” After Roosevelt announced in 1941 that he would stitutes, government policy consultants, policy scientists,
restore the traditional date, Congress made it law. research institutes, research brokers, issue networks, civil
In the years since, the holiday occasionally became society organizations, public interest groups, research
politicized by presidential speeches. In 1966, for ex- centers, or public policy research organizations. Early
ample, President Lyndon B. Johnson made his Great think tanks in America that remain prominent to the
Society program the theme for his Thanksgiving address, present day include the Brookings Institution (1916),
55 8 T hink Tank s
an independent social science and public policy research ficials and high-level advisers in the George W. Bush
organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., and administration as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had
(1919), founded by Herbert Hoover at Stanford Univer- been members of the Project for the New American
sity, his alma mater. Century (PNAC), a think tank founded in 1997 that
called for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hus-
Orientation and Funding sein. As members of the Bush administration, Rums-
Think tank independence is derived from the organi- feld and Wolfowitz were in a position to sway foreign
zations’ IRS classification—501(c)3—which forbids policy.
any nonprofit organization from engaging in partisan Aside from ideology, think tanks differ in terms of
campaign activities, challenging political candidates, their focus on local, national, or foreign policy issues. As
or influencing legislation as a significant part of its ac- of 2008, there were more than 3,500 think tanks located
tivities. At times they are originators of policy, at oth- around the world, with more than half based in the Unit-
er times merely consultants to legislators. Still, many ed States. A majority of U.S. think tanks are located in
think tanks have an explicit ideological proclivity that academic communities, and about one-third—the most
orients their research. A case in point, the Manhattan visible ones—are located in Washington, D.C.
Institute for Policy Research, founded in 1978, consid- An integral part of the “third sector” between gov-
ers individual responsibility and a greater role for the ernment and the private (for-profit) sector, think tanks
private sector the impetus behind its policy positions maintain an important relationship with the public. Their
for stronger criminal penalties; a corporation-friendly staff members are often perceived as third-party or neutral-
legal system; school vouchers; tax relief; and an end to policy spokespeople—intellectuals who are not beholden
welfare, disability benefits, and race- and gender-based to partisan, industry, or special interests. They inform,
affirmative action. educate, and at times advocate policy viewpoints, presum-
Ideologically oriented think tanks forge ties with ably with the public’s interests in mind. Their ideological
funders who value a range of policy viewpoints. For preferences, however, are mediated in large measure by
example, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal- their policy position vis-à-vis the economy. Conservative
oriented think tank of economic analysis, receives three- and libertarian think tanks advocate a limited welfare state
quarters of its revenues from foundations and unions that and an unfettered market, with the idea that this is the
support a robust welfare state and equitable distribution kind of environment in which individual responsibility and
of resources. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative success will flourish. Liberal and mainstream think tanks
counterpart of EPI, generates research in support of free- tend to be critical of the market’s shortcomings, especially
market principles, a limited welfare state, individual in regard to the distribution of resources (wealth, educa-
responsibility, and a strong national defense. Heritage’s tion, health care, etc.) and the federal government’s role
institutional funding from foundations and corporations (or lack thereof) in facilitating their distribution.
represents 25 percent ($9 million) of its budget, but con- Whether located in academic settings or not, think
siderably more than EPI’s $3.7 million annual budget. tanks engage in basic social science research similar to
that done in universities. President Lyndon Johnson’s
Functions War on Poverty, for example, was heavily influenced by
Think tanks also function as repositories of policy ex- government and think tank research. Two decades later,
pertise where analysts, based on their technical knowl- think tanks like the Manhattan Institute and the Ameri-
edge and experience, seek to inform, clarify, dissuade, can Enterprise Institute (AEI) published research that
and persuade policymakers and the public. They serve questioned the legitimacy of the welfare state and general
as a kind of revolving door for federal bureaucrats and assistance in particular, leading to sweeping reforms.
politicians, who find a home there when their govern- Think tanks are differentiated from their academic
ment careers are over. Former President Gerald Ford, research counterparts by several organizational features.
Judge Robert Bork, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Members of think tanks do not have teaching duties, and
Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Representative their writings and general performance are not scrutinized
Newt Gingrich (R-GA) all have found second careers at through the peer-evaluation system. Much of their un-
conservative think tanks. Think tanks also train young complicated research is aimed at policymakers, newspaper
minds for future careers as congressional staffers or ap- editors, and the public. The research methodology may
pointed bureaucrats in the executive branch. Whether be less than rigorous at times, but there is little to stop
as training grounds for future public officials or insti- “think tankers” or journalists from reporting erroneous
tutional homes to former ones, think tanks succeed in information or misleading conclusions. Moreover, media
extending their policy preferences when former staffers access and training place them in the spotlight more often
join or rejoin the federal government. Such senior of- than their academic counterparts. Thus, think tankers’
T hird Par ties 55 9
See also: Affirmative Action; Education Reform; Global

Warming; Heritage Foundation; Immigration Policy; Priva-
tization; School Vouchers; Social Security; Tax Reform; War
on Poverty; Wealth Gap; Welfare Reform.
Further Reading
Abelson, Donald E. Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact
of Public Policy Institutes. Montreal: McGill-Queens University
Press, 2002.
Burch, Philip H. Reagan, Bush, and Right-Wing Politics: Elites,
Think Tanks, Power, and Policy. Part A: The American Right
Wing Takes Command: Key Executive Appointments. Greenwich,
CT: Jai Press, 1997.
McGann, James G., and R. Kent Weaver, eds. Think Tanks and
Civil Societies: Catalysts for Ideas and Action. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction, 2000.
President Ronald Reagan addresses a meeting of the Heri- Ricci, David M. The Transformation of American Politics: The New
tage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank based Washington and the Rise of Think Tanks. New Haven, CT: Yale
in Washington, D.C., in 1986. The policy research organiza- University Press, 1993.
tion was founded in 1973 but rose to prominence during the Stefancic, Jean, and Richard Delgado. No Mercy: How Conservative
Reagan administration. (Diana Walker/Time & Life Pictures/
Getty Images)
Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America’s Social Agenda.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
policy ideas have a distinct advantage over those of their

academic counterparts. T hird Par ties
Despite their media access, think tanks engage in a Third parties in American politics, also referred to as in-
variety of other activities to disseminate their messages. dependent parties, are minority political organizations
They organize conferences, seminars, and policy briefings offered as alternatives to the Democrat and Republican
for media and policymakers alike, at which panels of ex- mainstream. Although their candidates generally have
perts comment on proposed or pending legislation. Many little chance of winning a major election—in the entire
of these events are co-sponsored with similarly oriented history of American national elections, only eight third-
think tanks, which cite each other’s work in support of party presidential candidates earned more than 10 per-
a particular viewpoint—though not always objectively cent of the popular vote—third parties field candidates
or accurately. For example, a misleading claim by the to raise issues and perspectives that might otherwise go
Heritage Foundation that $5.4 billion had been spent on unaddressed in a political campaign. Controversially,
welfare since the War on Poverty was cited in the research third-party candidates can be “spoilers” in a close con-
of such like-minded think tanks as the CATO Institute test, handing victory to the party that would have oth-
and the National Center for Policy Analysis and repeated erwise placed second.
in many newspapers and television news broadcasts. The culture wars, it can be argued, have been fostered
Think tanks also promote their views and findings by by a two-party system that has represented the middle of
submitting opinion pieces to newspaper editorial pages. the political spectrum with no serious competition from
And they also write succinct policy briefs with marketable the far left or far right, creating conditions in which both
messages for federal officials, intended to sway legislators Republicans and Democrats feel that it is imperative to
and executive branch policymakers. elevate partisanship and exaggerate differences in order
Among the many key issues on which think tanks to attract voters. True or not, this has not prevented third
have helped influence public perceptions, legislation, parties in the post–World War II era from providing an
and policymakers are global warming (both concern and outlet for fringe groups, dissenters, independents, and
skepticism); incarceration rates; standardized educa- those whose ideology falls outside the political main-
tional testing; privatization of Social Security; economic stream. Still, most postwar third parties have been ad
inequality analysis; restrictive welfare reform; energy hoc and short-lived, often dominated by a high-profile
and telecommunications deregulation; regressive and figure and passing from the scene with changing politi-
progressive taxation; increased immigration restrictions; cal circumstances.
free-trade treaties; and foreign military intervention. In 1948, the Democratic Party, headed by incumbent
President Harry Truman, experienced dissension in its
Sergio Romero ranks, leading to the creation of two independent parties:
560 T hird Par ties
the Progressive Party and the States’ Rights Democratic The 1992 presidential election marked a return for a
Party (or “Dixiecrats”). The former, led by former Vice large number of third-party candidates, particularly among
President Henry Wallace, took an anti-anticommunist conservatives. Independent Texas billionaire Ross Perot
position, opposing Truman’s Cold War policies and his was a true “spoiler” in the election, winning almost 20
tough stance against the Soviet Union. The latter, headed million popular votes, many of which would have gone to
by South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, was a the incumbent George H.W. Bush, whose 39 million votes
result of several southern Democrats walking out of that fell short of Bill Clinton’s nearly 45 million. Perot, who
year’s Democratic National Convention in protest over ran a strong campaign against the federal budget deficit,
proposals to repeal Jim Crow. Polls and pundits predicted global free trade, and Washington “insider” politics, actu-
that Truman would lose the race against the Republican ally led the pre-election polls at one point in the months
challenger, Thomas Dewey. Fortunately for Truman, the leading up to the election. In the end, Perot did not win
Progressive Party suffered the stigma of being supported any Electoral College votes despite garnering 18.9 percent
by the Communist Party USA. As for the threat posed of the popular vote. Other third-party candidates taking
by Thurmond, it was strictly limited to the South and Republican votes that year were Libertarian Andre Mar-
turned out to be less damaging than expected. Truman rou, Populist Bo Gritz, and Howard Phillips of the U.S.
won with 49.5 percent of the popular vote. Thurmond, Taxpayers Party (later renamed the Constitution Party).
however, remained popular enough in his state to serve in In 1998, Ross Perot returned with a new third party,
the U.S. Senate from 1954 to 2003, first as a Democrat, the Reform Party, this time pulling only slightly more
then as a Republican. than 8 million votes. Also emerging that year was Ralph
In 1968, a new pro-segregationist party, the Ameri- Nader, the consumer advocate and former Democrat
can Independent Party (later renamed the American who was drafted by the liberal environmentalist Green
Party), ran George Wallace for president, the frequent Party, spent $5,000 on his campaign, and won just under
Democratic governor of Alabama. Wallace’s strategy 700,000 votes (or 0.7 percent). New Age scientist John
was to press the issue of racial segregation and prevent Hagelin was nominated by the liberal Natural Law Party,
Democrat Hubert Humphrey or Republican Richard winning 0.1 percent of the vote. Beyond the presidential
Nixon from attaining a majority of the Electoral College election, the Reform Party that same year successfully ran
vote, forcing the election to be decided by the House professional wrestler Jesse Ventura for the governorship
of Representatives. Wallace won 46 Electoral College of Minnesota.
votes and 13.5 percent of the popular vote, essentially In the 2000 presidential election, third parties
undermining Humphrey’s support; Nixon won by about were a key factor in the outcome. Although losing the
a half-million votes. popular vote to Vice President Al Gore by 543,895
During the 1972 election, in which Nixon won re- votes, Republican nominee George W. Bush won the
election by a landslide, the American Party ran California Electoral College 271 to 266. Nader took 2.7 percent of
congressman John Schmitz as its candidate, winning more the popular vote—a total of 2.8 million—for the Green
than 1 million votes. The Libertarian Party, which would Party, which many analysts believe tipped the election
later become the largest third party in the United States, to Bush. The Reform Party, which was successful enough
nominated California philosopher John Hospers as its can- in 1996 to get federal funding for its campaign, split
didate but would appear on the ballot in only two states. in two and nominated two different candidates at the
Although Hospers received only 3,700 votes, an elector same party convention. Republican Pat Buchanan, one
from Virginia, Roger MacBride, cast his vote for Hospers Reform Party nominee, took 450,000 votes, and liberal
and his running mate, Theodora Nathan. Also in the 1972 Reform nominee John Hagelin took 83,700 votes. The
election, Gus Hall made his debut as Communist presiden- Electoral College decision came down to the state of
tial candidate, receiving 25,595 votes; he would run for the Florida, which was plagued by logistical problems. In
office three more times (1976, 1980, and 1984). the end, Bush was officially declared the winner in that
In 1980, former House Republican chairman John state by 537 votes.
Anderson, a U.S. representative from Illinois, garnered Christopher D. Rodkey
6.6 percent of the popular vote as an independent presi-
dential candidate, taking away votes primarily from the See also: Commoner, Barry; Communists and Communism; Dem-
Republican Party; this barely detracted from Ronald ocratic Party; Election of 2000; Hall, Gus; Nader, Ralph; Perot,
Reagan’s landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter, H. Ross; Republican Party; Ventura, Jesse; Wallace, George.
however. Libertarians, meanwhile, fared better than in
the past, gaining just over 1 percent of the vote with can- Further Reading
didate Ed Clark; and the Citizens Party, a liberal Demo- Bibby, John F., and L. Sandy Maisel. Two Parties—Or More?
cratic splinter group led by scientist and environmentalist The American Party System. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview
Barry Commoner, gained 0.3 percent of the vote. Press, 2003.
T homa s, C larence 5 61
Klobuchar, Lisa. Third Parties: Influential Political Alternatives. Committee preempted daytime soap operas and com-
Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point Books, 2008. peted with the World Series for viewers. The ensuing
Lentz, Jacob. Electing Jesse Ventura: A Third-Party Success Story. investigation, which drew national attention to the issue
Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2002. of sexual harassment, revealed a number of contradictory
Reynolds, David. Democracy Unbound: Progressive Challenges to the statements by both sides, resulting in a “he said, she said”
Two Party System. Boston: South End Press, 1997. situation. Years later, journalist David Brock dramati-
cally confessed his role in a conservative disinformation
campaign to smear Hill in support of Thomas. After the
T homas, Clarence Judiciary Committee ended its investigation, Thomas’s
The second African American appointed to the U.S. Su- nomination was sent to the full Senate without a recom-
preme Court (1991), one of its most controversial nomi- mendation. On October 15, 1991, Thomas was confirmed
nees, and among its most conservative members, Clar- by a 52-48 vote, the narrowest margin for a Supreme
ence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948, in Pin Point, Court nominee in the twentieth century.
Georgia. Raised by his grandfather, he was taught to On the Court, Thomas applies a strict constructionist
believe that hard work is the path to success. After a approach to interpreting the Constitution, believing that
brief stint at a Catholic seminary in Missouri, Thomas Court rulings should be based on what the Constitution
earned a bachelor’s degree (1971) from Holy Cross Col- literally states, rather than on inference. He argues that
lege in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he co-founded the intent of the drafters of the Constitution weighs
the Black Student Union. He earned a law degree from more heavily than stare decisis, or the record of previous
Yale Law School in 1974. Court decisions. Some commentators have suggested
Following law school, Thomas was assistant attor- that Thomas has no judicial philosophy of his own but
ney general in Missouri (1974–1977), corporate counsel merely follows the opinions of the rigorous conservative
for the Monsanto Company (1977–1979), legislative and textualist Justice Antonin Scalia. According to Sca-
assistant for U.S. Senator John Danforth (1979–1981), lia, Thomas “doesn’t believe in stare decisis, period” but
assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department is very willing to reexamine precedent if he thinks the
of Education (1981–1982), and chair of the U.S. Equal “line of authority is wrong.” For this reason, critics view
Employment Opportunity Commission (1982–1990). In Thomas as a justice guided by ideology rather than by
1990, President George H.W. Bush nominated him to established case law.
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Justice Thomas’s voting record has been conserva-
Circuit. tive, as he has ruled against race-based affirmative action
With the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall— programs, school busing, partial-birth abortion, prison
the first African American to serve on the Supreme reform, gay rights, and minority voting districts. He also
Court—President Bush saw an opportunity to place a tends to have a narrow interpretation of the Commerce
decidedly conservative jurist on the Court and nominated Clause (Article I, section 8) but a broad interpretation of
Thomas to fill the position in 1991. The move outraged the Second Amendment. In Kelso v. City of New London,
many in the black community, who regarded it as a slight Connecticut (2005), he dissented from the majority who
to have Thomas replace the man who, as an attorney for gave a broad interpretation of the eminent domain provi-
the NAACP, had won the landmark 1954 school segrega- sion of the Fifth Amendment. In Bush v. Gore (2000), he
tion case Brown v. Board of Education. voted with the majority in overruling Florida’s electoral
Thomas’s nomination was opposed by such organiza- procedures, thereby throwing his support to the son of the
tions as the NAACP, Urban League, and National Bar man who had appointed him to the Supreme Court.
Association because of his opposition to affirmative ac- Thomas’s jurisprudence does not prevent him from
tion and general fears that he would undermine the gains adopting a liberal position on very specific issues. He
achieved by the civil rights movement. The National has been known to promote a broad interpretation of the
Organization for Women and other groups supporting First Amendment’s free speech provision, except when
women’s access to abortion were concerned that Thomas it concerns cross burnings. In U.S. v. Bajakajian (1998),
would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. The American Bar he joined the Court’s four liberals in the first-ever deci-
Association expressed reservations about his judicial abil- sion to strike down a federal statute based on the Eighth
ity, citing his lack of experience, and gave him a split Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. He also believes
rating between “qualified” and “not qualified.” in a broad interpretation of the Fifth Amendment’s
During Thomas’s confirmation proceedings, Demo- Self-Incrimination Clause. In U.S. v. Hubbell (2000),
cratic staffers leaked an FBI report to the press concerning he argued that self-incrimination should be expanded
sexual harassment charges filed against the nominee by a to include revealing incriminating evidence.
former employee at the Office of Civil Rights, Anita Hill.
Television coverage of hearings by the Senate Judiciary James W. Stoutenborough
5 62 T hompson, Hunter S .
See also: Affirmative Action; Brock, David; Bush Family; Bus- when The Nation magazine published his gritty but
ing, School; Election of 2000; Gay Rights Movement; Hill, conventional account of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle
Anita; Judicial Wars; Lynching; National Association for the gang. Gonzo journalism per se is said to have been born
Advancement of Colored People; National Organization for in 1970 when Thompson, on assignment for Scanlan’s
Women; Prison Reform; School Vouchers. Monthly, submitted his raw notes for an essay on the
Kentucky Derby and his editor deemed the manuscript
Further Reading brilliant. The same style, with the drunk or stoned au-
Foskett, Ken. Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence thor raging at the center of the narrative, became a staple
Thomas. New York: Morrow, 2004. of Rolling Stone magazine, which originally published the
Gerber, Scott Douglas. First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clar- two “Fear and Loathing” works that came to be regarded
ence Thomas. New York: New York University Press, 2002. as commentaries on the death of the American Dream.
Hill, Anita Faye, and Emma Coleman Jordan. Race, Gender, and In the Las Vegas piece, which introduces the author as
Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings. New Raoul Duke, Thompson covers an antidrug conference
York: Oxford University Press, 1995. while constantly stoned himself. In the latter piece, his
Merida, Kevin, and Michael Fletcher. Supreme Discomfort: The Di- coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign was primar-
vided Soul of Clarence Thomas. New York: Doubleday, 2007. ily a satire on the homogenous mainstream media.
Thomas, Clarence. My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir. New York: Although some have compared Thompson with Mark
Harper, 2007. Twain, Jack Kerouac, and even F. Scott Fitzgerald, insist-
ing that the raucous storyteller was an American original
who provided an antidote to the inauthentic aspects of
T hompson, Hunter S. modern society, others characterize his writings as drug-
The eccentric and iconoclastic journalist Hunter S. induced egocentric outpourings. Thompson’s public per-
Thompson emerged in the late 1960s as a voice of the sona, featuring a cigarette holder, dark sunglasses, garish
counterculture with a unique and irreverent perspective attire, and stoned demeanor, was satirized as the Uncle
on random subject matter—from the Hell’s Angels and Duke character in the Doonesbury comic strip by Gary
the Kentucky Derby to the Las Vegas gambling scene Trudeau. On February 20, 2005, Thompson shot himself
and presidential election campaigns—while inventing to death in Woody Creek, Colorado; a few weeks later,
a genre of New Journalism known as “gonzo journal- his comic-strip counterpart did the same. The escapades
ism.” Thompson was a hard-drinking, drug-using free of Hunter S. Thompson have been the subject of several
spirit who once ran for county sheriff in Colorado as the films, including Where the Buffalo Roam (1980), starring
“Freak Party” candidate, maintained his membership Bill Murray as Thompson; a screen adaptation of Fear
in the National Rifle Association (NRA), and for years and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), starring Johnny Depp;
served as a board member of the National Organiza- Alex Gibney’s documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of
tion for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008); and another adaptation
The son of an insurance agent, Hunter Stockton of a Thompson book, The Rum Diary (2010), again star-
Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on July ring Depp.
18, 1937. After a stint in the air force (1956–1958), Roger Chapman
he wrote for newspapers in New York and New Jer-
sey. This was followed by work as a South American See also: Comic Strips; Counterculture; McGovern, George;
correspondent for the National Observer (1961–1963). Nation, The; National Rifle Association; New Journalism;
Later, Thompson developed his journalism style as a War on Drugs; Wolfe, Tom.
contributor to alternative periodicals, chiefly The Nation
(1964–1966) and Rolling Stone (1970–1999), and was Further Reading
also a syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Exam- McKeen, William. Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter
iner (1985–1989). Thompson’s magazine work was the S. Thompson. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
basis for his many books—Prince Jellyfish (1960); Hell’s Nocera, Joseph. “How Hunter Thompson Killed New Journal-
Angels (1966); Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972); ism.” Washington Monthly, April 1981.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973); The Perry, Paul. Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga
Great Shark Hunt (with Ralph Steadman, 1979); The of Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press,
Curse of Lono (1983); Generation of Swine (1988); Songs 2004.
of the Doomed (1999); Screwjack (1991); Better Than Sex Thompson, Anita. The Gonzo Way. Golden, CO: Fulcrum,
(1993); The Proud Highway (1997); The Rum Diary 2007.
(1998); Fear and Loathing in America (2000); and Kingdom Wenner, Jann, and Corey Seymour. Gonzo: The Life of Hunter
of Fear (2002). S. Thompson: An Oral Biography. New York: Little, Brown,
Thompson’s career breakthrough came in 1966, 2007.
T hur mond , Strom 5 63
T h r e e M i l e I s l a n d Ac c i d e n t exposure from the accident was said to be akin to receiving

The worst nuclear accident in U.S. history occurred in a full set of chest x-rays, while psychologists attributed
March 1979, at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generat- the residents’ physical symptoms to an increase in stress
ing Station, Unit 2 (TMI-2), near Middletown, Penn- following the event. Although the medical effects of the
sylvania, triggering vigorous public debate about the accident were a matter of some dispute, the sociopolitical
safety of nuclear power. Throughout the 1970s, prior consequences were clearly felt in the farthest reaches of
to the accident, nuclear power had been widely hailed government, industry, and society.
as a clean source of energy. Despite opposition by some
antinuclear protest groups, the air of optimism was ex- Gwendolyn Laird
emplified by the nation’s seventy-two operating nuclear
power plants and nearly a hundred others under con- See also: Carter, Jimmy; Environmental Movement; Fonda,
struction. Jane; Nuclear Age; Teller, Edward.
Early in the morning of March 28, the steam genera-
tors of TMI-2, used to remove the intense heat created Further Reading
by nuclear reaction, broke down when an unidentified Goldsteen, Raymond L., and John K. Schorr. Demanding De-
malfunction caused their water supply to stop. Pressure mocracy After Three Mile Island. Gainesville: University of
inside the nuclear reactor began to increase. Plant opera- Florida Press, 1991.
tors attempted to reduce the pressure by opening a valve Houts, Peter S., et al. The Three Mile Island Crisis: Psychological,
at the top of the reactor, but afterward the valve failed to Social, and Economic Impacts on the Surrounding Population. Uni-
close promptly. Water that cooled the reactor’s core began versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.
to leak out, causing the core to overheat and release an U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Fact Sheet: The Accident
unknown quantity of radiation into the air. at Three Mile Island. Washington, DC: Office of Public Af-
Experts from state and federal agencies arrived within fairs, 2004.
hours to monitor radiation levels and determine the cause
of the accident. Two days later, as scientists from the U.S. T hurmond, Strom
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) researched the
possibility of a hydrogen explosion inside the reactor, The Democratic governor of South Carolina from Janu-
Governor Richard Thornburgh advised expectant moth- ary 1947 to January 1951, a 1948 third-party presiden-
ers and young children to leave the area. Although it was tial candidate, a U.S. senator for forty-eight years (from
determined the following day that a lack of oxygen within December 1954 to December 2002, except for nine
the reactor would prevent any explosion, thousands of months), first as a Democrat and then as a Republican,
people had already fled the area. On April 1, with the Strom Thurmond in 1997 became the longest-serving
situation under control, President Jimmy Carter visited member in the U.S. Senate to that time. (His record was
the site, inspiring confidence and relief among govern- broken in 2006 by Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia.)
ment officials and civilians alike. Thurmond served in the Senate until shortly after his
In the aftermath of the accident, many Americans one-hundredth birthday. He was involved in many is-
expressed a heightened fear of nuclear power and distrust sues during his decades as a legislator, but as a central
of the government. The sentiments were reinforced by a figure in southern politics during a period of sweeping
recently released film, The China Syndrome (1979), star- change, he was best known for his opposition to deseg-
ring Jane Fonda, about a near meltdown at a nuclear regation.
plant. Due in part to a wave of local activism, TMI-2 was James Strom Thurmond was born on December 5,
permanently closed and by 1993 completely defueled. In 1902, in Edgefield, South Carolina, the son of a locally
the meantime, power companies experienced a decline prominent Southern Baptist family. He graduated from
in private investment across the board. Lobbyist groups Clemson College (BS, 1923), returned home to farm
and picket lines of local residents spearheaded a political and teach school, was tutored in law by his father (an
movement that resulted in new legislation on nuclear attorney and politician), and practiced law. He entered
regulation and modifications within the NRC. Citizens politics, resigned a judgeship to serve in World War II,
across the country organized campaigns to prevent the and in 1946 was elected governor of South Carolina. He
nuclear industry from entering their communities. generally was progressive, even on race, but then op-
The effects of radiation around TMI-2 were carefully posed integration of the military. In 1948, he opposed
monitored in the years following the accident. Some area the Democratic Party’s strong civil rights plank and ran
residents claimed to have suffered from skin irritation, unsuccessfully for president as a member of the breakaway
nausea, and an increase in cancer rates. More than a dozen Dixiecrats (or States’ Rights Democrats).
independent studies, however, supported the govern- Thurmond was appointed to the U.S. Senate as a
ment’s claim that health effects were minimal. Radiation Democrat in 1954, completing the term of Charles E.
564 T hur mond , Strom
revealed that he had fathered a biracial daughter when

he was in his early twenties—confirming a rumor that
had been circulating for years. Essie Mae Washington-
Williams announced that she had been born in 1925, the
daughter of Thurmond and Carrie Butler, a young maid
in the Thurmond household. Although she indicated re-
ceiving monetary support from the senator over the years,
including payment of her college tuition, some observers
speculated that the maid might have been raped. In 2007
it was revealed that the great-grandfather of the Reverend
Al Sharpton, a black activist from New York, had been
the slave of one of Thurmond’s ancestors.
Abraham D. Lavender
See also: Byrd, Robert C.; Civil Rights Movement; Democrat-

ic Party; Goldwater, Barry; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Lott, Trent;
Race; Republican Party; Sharpton, Al; Thomas, Clarence;
Truman, Harry S.
Further Reading
Bass, Jack. Strom: The Turbulent Political and Personal Life of Strom
Opposing the anti–Jim Crow plank of the Democratic Party Thurmond. New York: Public Affairs, 2006.
platform in 1948, South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond Cohodas, Nadine. Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern
ran for president as a Dixiecrat. He went on to serve in the
Change. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1994.
U.S. Senate from 1954 to 2002, eventually switching from
Democrat to Republican. (Tony Linck/Time & Life Pictures/ Washington-Williams, Essie Mae. Dear Senator: A Memoir by
Getty Images) the Daughter of Strom Thurmond. New York: Regan Books,
2005.
Daniel, who had resigned. Thurmond stepped down in

April 1956 to fulfill a campaign promise, won reelection Till, Emmett
without opposition that November, and was returned to The death of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African
office every six years for the next seven terms. In 1964, as American who was brutally murdered on August 28,
the civil rights movement swept the nation, Thurmond 1955, in Mississippi for speaking to a white woman,
switched from Democratic to Republican, supported caused widespread outrage and gave impetus to the civil
Barry Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson for president, rights movement. The quick acquittal of the two ac-
and from that point forward played a major role in the cused murderers, both white men, made the case a sym-
“southern strategy” to maintain segregation. As African bol of southern injustice.
Americans became registered voters in increasing num- Born on July 25, 1941, Emmett Louis Till was raised
ber, however, Thurmond gradually softened his position by his Mississippi-born mother in the integrated suburbs
on race, hired black staff members, supported the Martin of Chicago. When visiting his uncle’s family in Money,
Luther King, Jr., holiday, voted in favor of Clarence Mississippi, he failed to take seriously the Jim Crow ways
Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court in 1991, of the South. A few days after arriving in the summer of
and provided dedicated constituent service equally to 1955, Till and some other teenagers visited a grocery store
whites and blacks. Even so, some continued to remember to buy candy. Exactly what happened inside the store is
the 1948 presidential race. In 2002, during the senator’s uncertain, but it was reported that Till either whistled
one-hundredth birthday celebration, Republican senator at, flirted with, or physically grabbed the white woman
Trent Lott of Mississippi publicly boasted that Thurmond behind the counter, Carolyn Bryant. When the woman’s
had won Alabama in 1948, adding, “And if the rest of husband, Rob Bryant, returned from out of town a few
the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had days later, he and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, allegedly
all these problems over all these years, either.” A media dragged Emmett out of bed at 2:30 in the morning, took
firestorm followed, with even President George W. Bush him to a nearby farm, beat him brutally, and shot him
calling Lott’s comments inappropriate. to death. Three days later, Till’s body, tied with barbed
Six months after retiring from the Senate, Thurmond wire to a 70-pound (32-kilo) cotton-gin fan, was found
died on June 26, 2003. In December of that year, it was in the Tallahatchie River.
To b a c c o S e t t l e m e n t s 565
The public funeral for Emmett Till, held back in To b a c c o S e t t l e m e n t s

Chicago, was attended by 50,000 mourners. His mother, Faced with legal proceedings in the 1990s, major Amer-
Mamie Till, refused to have a closed casket because she ican cigarette manufacturers decided to settle out of
wanted to “let the world see what I’ve seen.” Her son’s court, paying state governments billions of dollars to
face had been beaten beyond recognition. A picture of the offset the taxpayer cost of treating diseases related to
open casket was published in Jet magazine, searing the smoking. These tobacco settlements raise philosophical
memory of all who viewed it. The murder, occurring one questions about corporate responsibility and personal
year after Brown v. Board of Education and a few months responsibility. Not only is there the ambiguity of count-
prior to the Montgomery bus boycott, contributed to the ing the fiscal cost of smoking, but not all of the settle-
burgeoning sentiment in the African-American commu- ment money has been used for its intended purposes.
nity to actively oppose institutionalized racism. Furthermore, the settlements have greatly benefited the
The trial of Bryant and Milam, which began on major tobacco companies.
September 19 at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse, On March 23, 1994, in the first government lawsuit
received national attention and was closely monitored of its kind, Mississippi attorney general Mike Moore
by the NAACP and African-American journalists. An sued the major U.S. cigarette producers to recover costs
eighteen-year-old farm boy testified that he saw a pickup incurred by his state in treating smoking-related diseases.
truck pull up to a shed; Bryant, Milam, and two other The defendants were blamed for placing cigarettes into
whites sat in the cab, with Emmett and two black men sit- the “stream of commerce” despite knowing that they
ting in the back. Later, screams were heard coming from were hazardous even when used as intended, that some
the shed. The boy’s uncle identified Milam and Bryant smoking-related health care costs would be shifted to
as the kidnappers. An all-white jury heard the evidence the taxpayers, and “that the State itself thereby would
and delivered its not-guilty verdict in a little over one be harmed.” Prior to the Mississippi lawsuit, complaints
hour. Four months afterward, Bryant and Milam, then seeking compensation for damages caused by exposure
safe from prosecution, admitted to the murder in a paid to harmful substances, such as asbestos, were brought as
interview for Look magazine. private class actions. By 1998, bolstered by damaging
Nearly fifty years after the murder, based on new documents released after the cigarette manufacturer Lig-
evidence in Keith Beauchamp’s documentary film The gett broke ranks in early 1996, Minnesota, Florida, and
Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (2004), the federal gov- Texas had joined Mississippi in settling similar lawsuits.
ernment launched an investigation. According to the In November of that year, the attorneys general of the
film, Bryant and Milam had accomplices, some of whom remaining forty-six states finalized the Master Settlement
were still living. Although new criminal charges could Agreement (MSA), resolving all of their outstanding
not be filed under federal law because of the statute of claims against the tobacco companies.
limitations, they could be pursued at the state level. In The MSA had two related purposes: to reimburse
March 2006, the FBI forwarded its updated findings the states for their past smoking-related health care
to Mississippi officials for possible legal action, but the costs, incurred mainly under the Medicaid program,
following year a state grand jury closed the case without and to fund programs aimed at reducing smoking in the
issuing any new indictments. future. Including the four separately negotiated settle-
ments, the defendants agreed to pay out $246 billion
E. Michael Young and Roger Chapman to the states over twenty-five years. Other provisions of
the MSA imposed restrictions on tobacco advertising
See also: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Civil Rights and lobbying, required the tobacco companies to pay for
Movement; Hate Crimes; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Lynching; tobacco education and smoking cessation and prevention
Morrison, Toni; National Association for the Advancement programs, and granted compensation to tobacco farm-
of Colored People; Parks, Rosa; Philadelphia, Mississippi; ers for lost sales caused by cigarette price increases—of
Vigilantism. forty to forty-five cents per pack—permitted to fund the
settlement pool. In return, the states pledged not to seek
Further Reading recovery of smoking-attributable public health care costs
Huie, William Bradford. “The Shocking Story of Approved incurred after 1998.
Killing in Mississippi.” Look, January 1956. The tobacco settlements were negotiated against the
Metress, Christofer. The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documen- backdrop of a broader culture war between smokers and
tary Narrative. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, nonsmokers, a war launched in 1964 when the surgeon gen-
2002. eral issued the first official report linking cigarette smoking
Till-Mobley, Mamie, and Christopher Benson. Death of Innocence: to coronary and lung disease. While smokers argue that
The Story of a Hate Crime That Changed America. New York: they have a right to consume a legal product, nonsmokers
One World Ballantine Books, 2003. argue that they have a right to avoid exposure to tobacco
566 Tor t Refor m
smoke. But the key issue for public policymakers in the als and corporations. Traditionally, monetary punitive
tobacco settlements was that smokers use taxpayer-financed damages have a twofold purpose: to provide compensa-
health care services for which they do not fully pay. tory relief to the victim and, perhaps more important, to
The $246 billion payout was based on estimates of punish the guilty party severely enough to discourage a
gross increases in public health care costs. The amounts repeat of the infraction.
the states recovered were not offset by savings they real- Beginning in the 1970s, tort reform has been pro-
ized in the form of lower pension benefits for smokers moted by political conservatives, backed by the lobbying
or by the considerable public revenue generated by state of corporate interests, who argue that American society
sales and excise taxes on cigarettes. Nor were any ad- has been suffering a “litigation explosion” characterized
justments made for the Medicaid program’s matching by “fraudulent lawsuits.” According to those in favor of
provision, whereby the federal government pays at least limiting the punishment in tort cases, private enterprise
half of the costs states incur in serving their eligible (including the medical profession) is preyed upon by
populations. Moreover, studies show that only 53 percent greedy trial lawyers, who collect on average 20 percent
of the $39.4 billion dispersed by the tobacco companies of the award, which leads to an overall increase in the
through 2004 was allocated to state programs directly price of goods and services. This perspective regards tort
related to smoking and health—the remainder was spent cases as “litigation tyranny.” The other side, which argues
elsewhere, either held in reserve or budgeted for other that liability lawsuits are a means to hold injury-causing
uses, such as teacher pay raises. parties accountable, refers to tort as “corporate account-
Perhaps the biggest winners were the tobacco com- ability.” consumer activist Ralph Nader, in fact, has
panies. Because nonparticipating cigarette manufacturers characterized the “reform” of tort reform as a euphemism
must start contributing to the settlement pool if their for “the perversion of justice” by corporations. In short,
market share exceeds a predetermined threshold, the MSA the controversy of tort reform pits economic interests
protects the major companies against expansion by com- against consumer interests.
petitors and new entry. In the meantime, cigarette price The tort reform movement was formally launched in
increases have more than offset the settlement costs. 1986 with the formation of the American Tort Reform
Association (ATRA), which was backed by hundreds of
William F. Shughart II manufacturers, trade associations, and insurance compa-
nies. In 1994, after Republicans gained control of the
See also: Health Care; Smoking in Public; Tort Reform; House of Representatives for the first time in decades,
Whistleblowers. efforts for tort reform were pushed hard. In the Senate,
however, filibustering in 1994, 1995, and 1998 pre-
Further Reading vented tort-reform legislation from going to the floor
Dixon, Lee, and James Cox. State Management and Allocation of for a vote. In 1996, a tort-reform bill was passed by both
Tobacco Settlement Revenue, 2002. Washington, DC: National houses, but it was vetoed by President Bill Clinton. Two
Conference of State Legislatures, 2002. years later a watered-down tort-reform bill was heading
Gruber, Jonathan. “Tobacco at the Crossroads: The Past and to passage, but it was ultimately defeated after Senator
Future of Smoking Regulation in the United States.” Journal Trent Lott (R-AL) tried to quietly insert a handwritten
of Economic Perspectives 15:2 (2001): 193–212. provision that would have added further liability protec-
McKinley, Andrew, Lee Dixon, and Amanda Devore. State tion to Baxter Healthcare Corporation, a large biomedical
Management and Allocation of Tobacco Settlement Revenue, 2003. company in his state.
Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislatures, The case that has often been cited as an example of
2003. why there needs to be tort reform is the $2.7 million
Stevenson, Taylor P., and William F. Shughart II. “Smoke and verdict issued in 1994 in New Mexico to a woman who
Mirrors: The Political Economy of the Tobacco Settlements.” sued McDonald’s after receiving third-degree burns
Public Finance Review 34:6 (2006): 712–30. from a spilt cup of coffee that had been served at the
Viscusi, W. Kip. Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Postmortem on the Tobacco restaurant’s drive-through window. Often left out of the
Deal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. telling of this story is the fact that the elderly woman
Wilson, Joy Johnson. Summary of the Attorneys General Master (she was seventy-nine when the injury occurred) had
Tobacco Settlement Agreement. Washington, DC: National initially sought $10,000 to pay for her medical bills (her
Conference of State Legislatures, 1999. injuries led to painful skin grafts on her thighs, groin,
and buttocks, as well as eight days in the hospital), but
McDonald’s refused to settle. During the subsequent trial
To r t Re f o r m it was learned that over a ten-year period the restaurant
Tort reform refers to the trend toward limiting large chain had received 700 complaints about injuries pertain-
monetary awards in liability cases concerning individu- ing to coffee that was served hotter than at most other
T ran sgender Movement 5 67
restaurants. The jury decided on $2.7 million for puni- the advantage over the harmed individual as they use time
tive damages because that was the amount McDonald’s and legal maneuverings to wear down the person, inducing
takes in for two days’ worth of coffee sales. Afterward, the individuals to accept a lower amount and agree to silence
judge reduced the amount to $640,000. In the end, the in order to bring the legal dispute to an end.
plaintiff and McDonald’s settled out of court, probably
for a lower amount. Anthony C. Gabrielli and Roger Chapman
Tort reform gained momentum during the George
W. Bush administration, which asserted that limiting See also: Medical Malpractice; Nader, Ralph; Tobacco Settle-
liability was necessary for decreasing the overall costs of ments.
medical care. It was argued that tort reform would lead
to a more efficient health care system because doctors Further Reading
would not have to do extra procedures to “cover” them- Abraham, Kenneth. The Liability Century: Insurance and Tort Law
selves from possible liability and would not have to pay from the Progressive Era to 9/11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
so much for malpractice insurance. Bush’s call for cap- University Press, 2008.
ping awards at $5 million led to the passage of the Class Bogus, Carl T. Why Lawsuits Are Good for America: Disciplined
Action Fairness Act of 2005, allowing federal oversight Democracy, Big Business, and the Common Law. New York:
of certain kinds of class-action lawsuits. New York University Press, 2001.
the question of liability has been an ongoing con- Levy, Robert. Shakedown: How Corporations, Government, and
troversy for years. Since cigarette packs dating back to Trial Lawyers Abuse the Judicial Process. Washington, DC:
1965 have had health-warning labels, tobacco companies Cato Institute, 2004.
steadfastly maintained that smokers have only themselves Nader, Ralph. No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of
to blame for ignoring the risks of smoking. Juries more Justice in America. New York: Random House, 1996.
often than not agreed, as from the 1950s to the early Olson, Walter. The Litigation Explosion: What Happened When
1990s the tobacco companies won all but two of the 930 America Unleashed the Lawsuit. New York: Truman Talley
lung-cancer cases. Beginning in the 1980s, however, Books, 1992.
stricter liability standards were put in play. This led to Ruschmann, Paul. Tort Reform. Philadelphia: Chelsea House,
the $246 billion Master Settlement Agreement (1998) 2006.
between forty-six states and the major tobacco compa-
nies. States were to use the settlement funds to offset the
medical costs of smoking-related diseases and to educate T r a n s g e n d e r M ove m e n t
young citizens about the dire consequences of smoking. The umbrella term “transgender” refers to people who
Critics of the tobacco settlement noted the high fees express their gender differently from the cultural norm.
the tort attorneys garnered from the deal—five attorneys The transgendered include (1) cross-dressers and trans-
involved with the Texas tobacco settlement, for example, vestites (sometimes known as drag queens and drag
collected $3.3 billion in fees. Similar criticism was aimed kings), individuals who adopt gender expressions cul-
at John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential turally inconsistent with their gender (such as wearing
nominee and 2008 presidential candidate, who as a trial apparel and accessories associated with the opposite sex);
lawyer had earned millions of dollars trying product li- (2) transsexuals, those who have opted for hormone treat-
ability cases. Edwards was able to deflect criticisms of ments and sex-reassignment surgery to physically alter
profiting on the suffering of others by relating personal their sex; (3) the intersexed, persons who were born with
stories of individuals harmed by faulty products or medi- sexual anatomy that is both male and female (constitut-
cal malpractice. Tort law, he insisted, was a way to hold ing one out of every 2,000 individuals); and (4) gay men
corporations accountable. He thus framed tort reform as and lesbians who identify themselves as transgendered.
motivated by “corporate greed” and the desire not to be In the culture wars the transgender movement has cam-
held accountable for misdeeds. paigned to promote civil rights for people who do not
There are those who believe that tort law should fall into the traditional male/female dichotomy and to
be strengthened because the legal process, as currently put a stop to what they call “transphobia” and “gender
practiced, allows corporations to lessen the sting of ac- terrorism,” the societal pressure (including violence) to
countability. For instance, the large awards juries require enforce “gender normativity.”
corporations to pay are routinely reduced on appeal. In The transgender movement in the United States
most cases the parties eventually agree to confidential out- dates back to the 1966 riots at Compton’s Cafeteria in
of-court settlements. In addition, by forcing the silence of San Francisco, involving some fifty protesters opposing
the plaintiff in these settlements, the corporation avoids perceived prejudice against the transgendered. Three
being held publicly accountable, and hence its business years later there was a riot at the Stonewall Inn night-
practices are not held in question. Business interests have club on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New
568 T ran sgender Movement
York, involving transgendered and homosexual patrons sectors to educate people about transgender issues. The
resisting a police raid of their social hangout. Prior to goal is to achieve dignity in public policies, court systems,
that, Christine Jorgensen’s sex-reassignment surgery in media, literature, and corporations.
1952 was widely publicized, and she remained in the In their quest to remove any lingering stigma, ac-
public spotlight with a nightclub act and the publication tivists have raised questions about the diagnostic term
of her life story (1967), which was made into a movie in that the American Psychiatric Association continues to
1970. During the early 1970s Jorgensen spoke on many apply to transgender cases: “gender identity disorder.”
college campuses, telling of how she had been born a Health professionals view this heading, which is pub-
“female” in a male body (and initially named George). In lished in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
the meantime, there was the debut of Virginia Prince’s Disorders, as necessary and positive, for it enables access
Transvestia magazine (1960). Further legitimating the to medical care, some of which is covered by health in-
transgendered were medical texts such as Harry Benja- surance. The transgender movement sees this appellation
min’s Transsexual Phenomenon (1966) and John William as implying that transgendered people are abnormal or
Money and Richard Green’s Transexualism and Sex Reas- pathological.
signment (1969). Jordon Johnson
The transgender movement did not coalesce po-
litically until the 1980s and 1990s, even though people See also: Androgyny; Gay Rights Movement; Jorgensen, Chris-
have been challenging gender stereotypes throughout tine; Kinsey, Alfred; McCloskey, Deirdre; Rodman, Dennis;
history. Since then, some dozens of cities have enacted Stonewall Rebellion; Women’s Studies.
laws protecting the rights of the transgendered. In 1991,
Minnesota was the first state to pass such an antidiscrimi- Further Reading
nation measure. This was followed by Rhode Island, New Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of
Mexico, California, Illinois, Maine, Hawaii, Washington, Us. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Iowa, Vermont, Califia, Pat. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. San Fran-
Colorado, and Oregon. Some activists have pushed for cisco: Cleis Press, 1997.
hate crime legislation to punish those who violently Currah, Paisley, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Price Minter.
target the transgendered. Transgender rights have been Transgender Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
promoted by various organizations, including the Inter- Press, 2006.
national Foundation for Gender Education (founded in Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warrior: Making History from Joan
1984), the Transgender Law and Policy Institute (founded of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.
in 2000), and the National Center for Transgender Equal- Stryker, Susan, and Stephen Whittle. The Transgender Studies
ity (founded in 2003). Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Ironically, the transgender movement has faced
resistance from certain members of the lesbian, gay, and
bisexual community. Whereas the transgender movement Truman, Harr y S.
is about gender identity, the gay rights movement is An unassuming Democratic senator from Missouri,
about sexual orientation: although there are transgender compromise choice as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, others running mate in 1944, and thirty-third president of
see themselves as heterosexual. But by and large trans- the United States upon FDR’s death the following year,
gender rights have been part of the broader gay rights Harry Truman proved to be a highly and enduringly
movement. controversial figure for several reasons, including his or-
People who are physically transitioning and modi- der to drop atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II
fying their bodies through hormone treatments and/or and setting the United States on the course of the Cold
surgical procedures can face difficult challenges such as War to “contain” the Soviet Union. Truman was deeply
employment and housing discrimination—for instance, committed to the New Deal and argued for a continua-
in 2007 the City Commission of Largo, Florida, voted tion of domestic reform in the closely contested election
to dismiss its city manager after he announced plans to of 1948, which he won against all odds.
have sex-change surgery. There have also been cases in The son of a livestock farmer, Harry S. Truman was
which the transgendered have been denied medical care born in Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884. He did not at-
or mistreated by health care professionals—the 2001 tend college, but served in World War I as a commander
documentary film Southern Comfort tells the story of a of an artillery battalion in France. Upon returning to Mis-
female-to-male transsexual who had difficulty getting souri, he worked in banking, shared a haberdashery busi-
treatment for his cervical and ovarian cancer. The trans- ness, tended a farm, and entered politics as part of Tom
gender movement has been dedicated to working with Pendergast’s Democratic machine in Kansas City. After
health care professionals, lawmakers, and public-service serving as a Jackson County judge (1922–1924, 1926–
T ur ner, Ted 569
1934), he was elected to the U.S. Senate (1935–1945) as fiery populist. Calling the GOP “the party of privilege,”
the candidate of the state Democratic machine. he characterized the Republican record from 1921 to
Senator Truman made a mark during wartime mobi- 1933 as one of “depression, poverty, and despair” and
lization as chairman of the Special Committee to Investi- blamed his own political woes on the “do-nothing”
gate the National Defense Program (widely known as the Republican-controlled Congress. Democrats, Truman
Truman Committee), which rooted out fraud and waste argued, believe that “prosperity begins with looking after
in government contracting, saving taxpayers an estimated the little fellow.” The day after the election, Truman was
$15 billion. During the 1944 presidential campaign, captured in a photograph that would become an icon of
he was chosen as Roosevelt’s running mate to replace modern American politics: holding a copy of the Chicago
the controversial vice president Henry A. Wallace. The Tribune, a conservative newspaper he loathed, Truman
Democrats easily won that election, but Roosevelt died beamed at the erroneous front-page headline: “DEWEY
of a massive stroke only five months later. On April 12, DEFEATS TRUMAN.”
1945, Truman was sworn in as president, having served Within two years, the United States would be
a mere eighty-two days as vice president. He won the bogged down in the unpopular Korean War, a conflict
presidency in his own right in 1948, upsetting Republi- that would end in stalemate. “To err is Truman” was a
can Thomas E. Dewey. Truman died at age eighty-eight common refrain during his last years in office. His decline
on December 26, 1972, in Kansas City. in popularity was hastened by his firing of General Doug-
Truman’s first major decision as president was to use las MacArthur in April 1951 for persistently advocating
atomic weapons against Japan, ending World War II with more drastic measures against the Korean communists.
the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. In April of the following year, Truman nationalized the
Later, revisionist historians would question the morality U.S. steel industry to avoid a strike and maintain produc-
of that decision and Truman’s motives. In his memoirs, tion during the war; the U.S. Supreme Court declared
Truman argued that he authorized the bombings to save the move unconstitutional. President Truman gained a
American lives by bringing the war to an end at the earliest reputation for sticking to his convictions through thick
possible time. Critics have questioned whether the cost in and thin; a sign on his desk in the Oval Office emphasized
civilian lives—estimated in the hundreds of thousands— presidential responsibility: “The buck stops here.”
was justified, whether the Japanese populace should have
been warned in advance of the attack, and whether the Eric J. Morgan
Japanese might have been close to surrendering anyway.
Still others have posited that the ulterior motive for drop- See also: Central Intelligence Agency; Cold War; Democratic
ping the bombs was a show of force to the Soviet Union, Party; Enola Gay Exhibit; Health Care; Hiroshima and Naga-
seen as a prospective rival in the postwar era. saki; New Deal; New Left; Nuclear Age; Oppenheimer, J. Rob-
Indeed, as he served out the remainder of Roosevelt’s ert; Soviet Union and Russia; Third Parties; Vietnam War.
term, President Truman took measures to “contain” the
spread of communism. The Truman Doctrine, articulated Further Reading
by the president in a speech to Congress on March 12, Alperovitz, Gar. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the
1947, argued for economic and military aid to nations Architecture of an American Myth. New York: Alfred A.
struggling against communism so as to keep them out of Knopf, 1995.
the Soviet sphere of influence. Truman also helped create Hamby, Alonzo. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman.
the modern U.S. military and intelligence communities New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
with the National Security Act of 1947, which merged McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster,
the various war departments into the Department of De- 1992.
fense and established both the National Security Council Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards. The First Cold Warrior: Harry Tru-
and the Central Intelligence Agency. Truman’s contain- man, Containment, and the Making of Liberal Internationalism.
ment doctrine garnered ongoing criticism in American Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2006.
society, especially during America’s later involvement in Truman, Harry S. Memoirs. 2 vols. Garden City, NY: Double-
the Vietnam War. day, 1955–1956.
Despite public opinion polls and the predictions of
virtually every political commentator, Truman defeated
Dewey in the 1948 presidential contest by a margin of T u r n e r, Te d
49.5 percent to 45.1 percent, earning the nickname “Give The place of media mogul Ted Turner in America’s cul-
’em hell Harry” for his campaign style and tenacity. In his ture wars is difficult to categorize. As a rugged indi-
mind, the campaign was a mandate on the New Deal. In vidualist and wealthy proponent of free enterprise, he
a cross-country “whistle stop” tour, he addressed crowds is often identified with the conservative right. Through
from the back of a railroad car, presenting himself as a his generous philanthropy, directed largely at promot-
570 T ur ner, Ted
ing world peace and environmentalism, he is also widely the world. Other philanthropic causes he has supported
identified with left-leaning causes. include environmental education, protecting endangered
Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III was born on No- species, and reducing nuclear proliferation. Known vari-
vember 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up ously as “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth from the
in Savannah, Georgia, where his father ran a successful South” for speaking his mind, Turner seems to have
billboard-advertising company. He attended Brown enjoyed putting his money where his mouth is.
University (1956–1959), but did not graduate. After his
father’s suicide in 1963, Turner took over the business and James I. Deutsch
increased its profitability so much that he soon acquired
three southern radio stations and an Atlanta television See also: Endangered Species Act; Environmental Movement;
station (1968–1970). Taking advantage of emerging Fonda, Jane; Media Bias; Nuclear Age; United Nations.
satellite and cable technologies, Turner turned his TV
station into one of America’s first national “superstations” Further Reading
(1976–1979), challenging the supremacy of the ABC, Auletta, Ken. Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire. New
CBS, and NBC broadcast networks. York: W.W. Norton, 2004.
Turner took an even bolder step in 1980 by launch- Bibb, Porter. It Ain’t as Easy as It Looks: Ted Turner’s Amazing
ing the Cable News Network, a 24-hour news channel Story. New York: Crown, 1993.
that transformed television journalism. Since its found- Goldberg, Robert, and Gary Jay Goldberg. Citizen Turner:
ing, CNN has been accused of bias—both liberal and The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon. New York: Harcourt
conservative—further complicating Turner’s position Brace, 1995.
in the culture wars. Based on CNN’s success, the Turner
Broadcasting System (TBS) established other news and
entertainment outlets, including the Cartoon Network, T we n t y - S e c o n d A m e n d m e n t
Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, The Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitu-
and the Cable Music Channel (a short-lived attempt to tion, ratified on February 26, 1951, prohibits a president
counter what he regarded as the immorality of MTV). In from being elected more than twice, or serving as chief
1995, when TBS merged with Time Warner, Inc., Turner executive beyond two full terms plus two years of an in-
became vice chairman of the latter company. He resigned herited term. It was the first constitutional amendment
the position in 2003, however, disenchanted with Time of the postwar era, in the aftermath of the presidency
Warner’s merger with America Online (AOL). Beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected an unprec-
in 2002, Turner has expanded his business interests to edented four times (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944).
include solar energy and eco-friendly restaurants. Limiting a presidency to two terms was a priority
In addition to his success as a media mogul, Turner of the 80th Congress (1947–1948), the first time since
has also prospered as a sports entrepreneur. In 1976, he 1931 that Republicans controlled both houses. Democrats
acquired the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta at the time accused the GOP of seeking revenge against
Hawks basketball team—and later the Atlanta Thrashers Roosevelt and the legacy of the New Deal. The vote
hockey team—partly for his love of athletic competition on House Joint Resolution 27, which later became the
and partly to provide programming for his media empire. Twenty-Second Amendment, followed party lines—with
In addition, Turner has long been a world-class yachts- Republicans unanimously in favor in both houses and
man, captaining the yacht Courageous to victory in the Democrats overwhelmingly opposed. Of the forty-seven
1977 America’s Cup sailing championship. Democrats in the House who voted with the Republicans,
Turner has been married and divorced three times: all were southern opponents of the New Deal. Congress-
to Judy Nye (1960–1964), Jane Smith (1965–1988), and man Adolph Sabath (D-IL) characterized the vote as a
actress Jane Fonda (1991–2001). Turner’s relationship “pitiful victory over a great man now sleeping on the
with Fonda, the former leftist activist, raised additional banks of the Hudson.” A combination of Republican-
questions about his political and cultural allegiances. dominated and southern state legislatures ensured the
Sometimes calling himself a conservative liberal and necessary support from three-quarters of the states. After
sometimes a liberal conservative, Turner has regularly the amendment was ratified, Rep. Joseph Martin (R-MA)
defied convention and expectations. An avid hunter, he declared it “a victory for the people and . . . a defeat for
also strongly supports conservation and sustainability, totalitarianism and the enemies of freedom.”
particularly on the 2 million acres (809,000 hectares) he Proponents of presidential term limits argue that
owns in six states and Argentina (making him the largest George Washington established a precedent by stepping
private landowner in North America). Turner surprised aside after two terms as chief executive, an unwritten
many observers in 1998 by pledging $1 billion to sup- rule that was followed by all presidents until FDR. The
port the work and causes of the United Nations around Twenty-Second Amendment, they believe, corresponds
T went y-Second A mendment 571
with the intentions of the nation’s founders to safeguard See also: Clinton, Bill; Contract with America; Democratic
the presidency from becoming a dictatorship. Opponents Party; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; Founding Fathers; New Deal;
of the amendment argue that it weakens the executive Reagan, Ronald; Republican Party; Truman, Harry S.
branch, reducing a president to lame-duck status imme-
diately following reelection. Furthermore, they contend, Further Reading
such a restriction limits the power of the people to decide Lemelin, Bernard. “Opposition to the 22nd Amendment: The
and may force an unwanted change of leadership during National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency and Its
a time of national crisis. Activities, 1949–1951.” Canadian Review of American Studies
Presidents of both parties have criticized the Twen- 29 (1999): 133–48.
ty-Second Amendment, among them Harry Truman, Neale, Thomas H. “Presidential and Vice Presidential Terms
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. and Tenure.” Congressional Research Service Report, February
Truman and Eisenhower were in favor of term limits for 26, 2001.
members of Congress but not for the president. Reagan, Ronald, et al. Restoring the Presidency: Reconsidering the
Twenty-Second Amendment. Washington, DC: National Legal
Roger Chapman Center for the Public Interest, 1990.
(1980). Finally, Kaczynski was responsible for the deaths
of a computer-store owner (Sacramento, California, 1985),
an advertising executive who worked for a company that
handled Exxon’s public relations following the Exxon
Valdez oil spill (New Jersey, 1994), and a timber lob-
Unabomber byist (Sacramento, 1995). Other bombs were defused or
Dubbed the Unabomber after his early choice of targets detonated without injury.
(un = universities; a = airlines), recluse and former math- In January 22, 1998, after a federal judge refused to
ematics professor Ted Kaczynski killed three people and allow Kaczynski to act as his own counsel, he pleaded
injured twenty-three others in a nationwide bombing guilty to the bombings in order to thwart his attorneys,
spree that spanned nearly two decades (1978–1995). The who planned to present a “mental defect” defense. He
rationale behind the attacks was an antitechnology ide- was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without
ology that Kaczynski outlined in a 35,000-word mani- parole. In March 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected
festo—“Industrial Society and Its Future”—as published the Unabomber’s appeal for a new trial.
by the Washington Post and New York Times in September Two competing views of Kaczynski have persisted
1995. In his treatise, the Unabomber argued that tech- in the public dialogue. According to one, he was an
nology aids big government and big business and fosters “evil genius” who reduced people to abstract figures and
tyranny, all of which must be opposed by revolutionaries killed them for supporting the advancement of the tech-
advancing “WILD nature.” He criticized both conserva- nological society. Thus, he has been widely characterized
tives and liberals, the former for supporting technology as an anarchist, libertarian, eco-terrorist, “product of the
that erodes traditional values and the latter for advocating sixties,” and a man with views on the environment like
social solutions dependent upon technology. Some have those of Al Gore or Lewis Mumford. According to the
speculated that the Unabomber issued his manifesto to other view, Kaczynski is mentally ill, a diagnosed para-
regain the spotlight after the media began focusing atten- noid schizophrenic who in childhood suffered as a social
tion on the Oklahoma City bombing, but it led to his ar- misfit, later suffered harm as a guinea pig in an extensive
rest in April 1996 after his younger brother, recognizing Harvard psychological experiment that may have been part
Kaczynski’s writing style, tipped off authorities. of a CIA mind-control program (known as MKULTRA),
Theodore John Kaczynski, born in Chicago on May and once considered having a sex-change operation to be
22, 1942, was raised in an atheistic, blue-collar family in able to get close to a woman, all of which reduced him to
a Chicago suburb, where he graduated from high school hate-filled rage.
at age sixteen as a National Merit Scholarship finalist; Roger Chapman
his IQ had been measured at 167. He went on to study
mathematics at Harvard University (BS, 1962) and the See also: Central Intelligence Agency; Ecoterrorism; Gore, Al;
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (MS, 1965; PhD, McVeigh, Timothy.
1967). After a short time teaching mathematics at the
University of California at Berkeley (1967–1969), he Further Reading
surprised his colleagues by abruptly resigning. Kaczynski Chase, Alston. Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an
eventually took up residence in a small, primitive cabin American Terrorist. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
near Lincoln, Montana. Even in this rustic setting he Gibbs, Nancy, Richard Lacayo, Lance Morrow, Jill Smolowe,
could not escape from the technological society, whether and David Van Biema. Mad Genius: The Odyssey, Pursuit,
it was snowmobilers in the nearby woods or commercial and Capture of the Unabomber Suspect. New York: Warner
airliners flying overhead. After a logging company built Books, 1996.
a road near his cabin, he turned violent. Kaczynski, Theodore John. The Unabomber Manifesto: Indus-
Kaczynski’s homemade bombs, most bearing the trial Society and Its Future. Berkeley, CA: Jolly Roger Press,
initials “FC” for Freedom Club, were packages either 1996.
mailed or hand placed. They caused injuries on or near Waits, Chris, and Dave Shors. Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted
the campuses of Northwestern University (1978, 1979), Kaczynski. Helena, MT: Helena Independent Record/Mon-
Vanderbilt University (1982), the University of California tana Magazine, 1999.
at Berkeley (1982, 1985), the University of Michigan at
Ann Arbor (1985), the University of California at San
Francisco (1993), and Yale University (1993). A bomb United Nations
ignited but did not explode inside the cargo hold of Founded in 1945 and headquartered in New York City,
an American Airlines jet (Chicago–Washington, D.C., the United Nations (UN) is an international organiza-
flight, 1979), while another exploded at the Chicago tion that promotes collective security, human rights,
home of the president of that same airline company economic and cultural exchange, and humanitarian re-
572
United Nation s 573
lief. The organization, with an annual operating bud- world body” foretold in the Book of Revelation might
get of over $4 billion, is staffed by 8,900 civil servants signify the UN, they explained. Later, President George
and directed by a secretary general. From its inception H.W. Bush unwittingly reinforced the suspicions of the
through 2008, the UN grew from a body of 52 member Religious Right when he pronounced at the end of the
states to 192. Each member state has one vote in the Cold War a “new world order.” Robertson’s New World
General Assembly, but the organization’s power resides Order (1991) offered updated commentary. Meanwhile, a
in the fifteen-seat Security Council, on which the Unit- network of rural gun enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists,
ed States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China have alarmed over the prospect of a world government perhaps
permanent membership status that includes veto power. ushered in by the UN, formed the militia movement for
Over the years the United States has played a major role the purpose of preparing for battle.
in the UN while providing on average 25 percent of its The major opposition to the UN, however, has not
funding. In the culture wars, conservatives are generally been the radical right but mainstream conservatives and
critical of the UN, believing that it is too bureaucratic, moderates. After 1962, with the UN’s infusion of new
sometimes corrupt, and a threat to American sovereign- member states from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East,
ty. Liberals often emphasize multilateralism as opposed the United States no longer had an automatic majority
to unilateralism, arguing that the UN is the last best and often lost votes in the General Assembly. Reflecting
hope for world peace. a North-South split rather than the Cold War East-West
Most Americans, despite earlier tendencies toward split, the UN began voicing criticism of the superpowers
isolation, initially regarded the establishment of the UN (especially the United States) and multinational corpora-
as a positive development. According to a 1947 Gallup tions. Under such circumstances, the General Assembly
poll, 65 percent wanted their country to “take an active officially equated Zionism (Jewish self-determinism)
part in world affairs.” In 1949, the UN was regarded with racism, and authoritarian countries such as Libya
with either general or qualified approval by 61 percent. took turns chairing the human rights committee. Dan-
As the Cold War intensified, a 1950 poll indicated that iel Patrick Moynihan, who served a short stint as a U.S.
half of Americans believed a reorganized UN minus the representative to the UN, afterward wrote A Dangerous
membership of the Soviet Union and its satellite nations Place (1978) to tell what he thought of that world body.
would be better able to maintain world peace, but five In 1984, denouncing the “tyranny of the Third World,”
years later only 35 percent clung to that position. Indeed, Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) persuaded her col-
59 percent of the public indicated in 1965 that without leagues to approve her amendment limiting the U.S.
the UN there probably would have already been World contribution to the UN and its agencies from 25 percent
War III. However, Cold War politics hampered the to 20 percent unless consensus-basis decision making
functionality of the UN as the Soviet Union exercised its were introduced. From 1966 to 1990, the United States
veto power more than any other member of the Security exercised the veto seventy-two times, more than any other
Council—103 times during the organization’s first two member of the Security Council. In 1992, Washington
decades. refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the UN initiative on
In the early 1960s the John Birch Society was stri- global warming.
dently conducting its “Get the US out of the UN and the By the end of the Cold War, conservatives had
UN out of the US” campaign. According to group leader reached a consensus that the UN needed to be either
Robert Welch, communists had conceived the UN for reformed or abandoned. During the 1990s, as chair of
the ultimate purpose of establishing a world government. the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jesse
Welch denigrated the UN as “The House That Hiss Helms (R-NC) began blocking the U.S. dues to the UN.
Built,” a reference to Alger Hiss, a State Department of- In 1996, Helms wrote an article in Foreign Affairs arguing
ficial who had been a delegate at the founding of the UN that the UN, a “quasi-sovereign entity” that “represents
in San Francisco and who five years later was convicted an obvious threat to U.S. interests,” cannot be “radically
of falsely testifying that he had not passed classified in- overhauled . . . without the threat of American with-
formation to the Soviet Union. In addition, G. Edward drawal.” In contrast, the following year the broadcaster
Griffin, a member of the John Birch Society, wrote of Ted Turner established the United Nations Foundation
the “Communist infiltration” of the UN in The Fearful with a $1 billion personal contribution, the amount of
Master: A Second Look at the United Nations (1964). membership payments the United States was in arrears.
Religious fundamentalists such as Billy Hargis and Turner indicated that the United Nations was one of his
Carl McIntire also cast the United Nations as part of a favorite organizations, and he credited it with helping
communist conspiracy. They were later joined by Hal the world survive the Cold War.
Lindsey, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, and Pat Robertson, The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq renewed debate
all of whom framed the issue in an eschatological fashion, about the effectiveness of the United Nations. Support-
suggesting a link between Satan and the UN. The “one ers of the Bush administration argue that following the
574 USA PAT R IOT Ac t
Gulf War (1991), the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had

defied with impunity numerous UN resolutions. More-
over, the Oil for Food scandal, involving Iraqi bribery of
UN officials, proved the extent of corruption in the UN
bureaucracy. However, critics of Bush’s unilateral action
say it tragically diminished the authority of the UN.
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction proved nonexistent,
corroborating what UN inspectors had said all along.
John Calhoun and Roger Chapman
See also: Cold War; Hargis, Billy; Helms, Jesse; Hiss, Alger;
Human Rights; Israel; John Birch Society; Kyoto Protocol;
Militia Movement; Moynihan, Daniel Patrick; Premillennial
Dispensationalism; Soviet Union and Russia; Turner, Ted. The USA PATRIOT Act divides Americans between those
who believe its surveillance provisions are an unacceptable
Further Reading violation of privacy rights—such as this protester at the 2004
Gold, Dore. Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Democratic Convention—and those who believe they are vital
Global Chaos. New York: Crown Forum, 2004. to national security. (Michael Springer/Getty Images)
Helms, Jesse. “Saving the UN: A Challenge to the Next
Secretary-General.” Foreign Affairs 75:5 (September–October passed—280–138 (House) and 89–10 (Senate)—making
1996): 2–8. permanent all but two of the original sections of the law.
Mingst, Karen A., and Margaret P. Karns. The United Nations Under the PATRIOT Act’s counterterrorism provi-
and the Post–Cold War Era. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, sions, federal authorities (generally the FBI) are granted
2005. greater latitude to tap telephone calls (including voice
Montgomery, David. New World Government Exposed! Sultan, mail) and Internet communications; search financial, tax,
WA: Montgomery, 2002. medical, library, and school records; monitor the activities
O’Sullivan, Christopher. The United Nations: A Concise History. of foreigners inside U.S. borders; and conduct “sneak and
Malabar, FL: Krieger, 2005. peek” searches of homes or businesses (including virtual
Shawn, Eric. The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages networks). By issuing a National Security Letter (NSL),
America’s Security. New York: Sentinel, 2006. federal investigators may demand certain information
from an institution without court approval. In addition,
the new criminal designation of “domestic terrorism” was
U S A PAT R I O T Ac t established, raising concern among civil libertarians that
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, it could be used for inappropriate purposes against politi-
2001, Congress passed legislation referred to as the USA cal activists (such as abortion protesters, environmental
PATRIOT Act—Uniting and Strengthening America activists, and antiwar demonstrators).
by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) op-
and Obstruct Terrorism—precipitating a political clash posed the USA PATRIOT Act from its inception, rais-
over national security and civil liberties. While propo- ing particular concern about the monitoring of libraries,
nents of the measure emphasized the need for strong under Section 215, which allowed federal agents to access
counterterrorism measures, critics warned of a wholesale information on the reading activities of patrons. The
expansion of domestic surveillance. ACLU also objected to Section 206, pertaining to “rov-
The PATRIOT Act, amending the Foreign Intelli- ing” wiretaps—under this provision, the government may
gence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Electronic Communica- obtain a warrant to monitor all communication devices
tions Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), the Computer Fraud used by a suspect (including those shared with others)
and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Family Education Rights with no safeguards to restrict the monitoring of actual
and Privacy Act (FERPA), and other federal statutes, was communication activities.
overwhelmingly passed by Congress—357–66 (House) Concerns about government surveillance were height-
and 98–1–1 (Senate)—and signed into law by President ened on December 18, 2005, when the New York Times
George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. Although there broke a story that the National Security Agency (NSA)
was no public hearing or congressional debate on the had been conducting eavesdropping since early 2002,
legislation, a sunset proviso was added due to concerns without search warrants, of international telephone calls
raised about civil liberties. In March 2006, the USA and electronic mail originating from the United States. In
PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act was response, Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), the Senate’s
USA PAT R IOT Ac t 575
sole nay voter of the original PATRIOT Act, proposed a See also: American Civil Liberties Union; New York Times, The;
motion of censure against President Bush. Justifying his Privacy Rights; September 11.
actions based on the 2001 congressional resolution autho-
rizing him to carry out the War on Terror, Bush admitted Further Reading
to authorizing the NSA wiretaps. “Why did we bother Ball, Howard. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001: Balancing Civil
debating the Patriot Act if President Bush could make up Liberties and National Security: A Reference Handbook. Santa
his own rules about spying on U.S. citizens?” the ACLU Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
bristled in a full-page ad in the New York Times (January Etzioni, Amitai. How Patriotic is the Patriot Act? Freedom Ver-
5, 2006). According to a Washington Post–ABC opinion sus Security in the Age of Terrorism. New York: Routledge,
poll that week, two out of three Americans believed the 2004.
government was violating privacy rights; 75 percent of Foerstel, Herbert N. The Patriot Act: A Documentary and Reference
Republicans considered it acceptable, while 61 percent of Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.
Democrats deemed it unacceptable. Gerdes, Louis I. The Patriot Act: Opposing Viewpoints. Detroit,
Roger Chapman MI: Greenhaven Press, 2005.
See also: Abortion; Buchanan, Pat; Christian Coalition; Gay
Rights Movement; Humphrey, Hubert H.; Medical Marijua-
na; Schwarzenegger, Arnold; Third Parties; Wellstone, Paul.
Further Reading
Ve n t u r a , J e s s e Keillor, Garrison. ME: By Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente. New York:
Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler and ac- Viking, 1999.
tor, was unexpectedly elected governor of Minnesota in Lentz, Jacob. Electing Jesse Ventura: A Third-Party Success Story.
1998 as the Reform Party candidate. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002.
Born James George Janos on July 15, 1951, the son of a Ventura, Jesse. Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political
steamfitter and a nurse, Ventura is a native of Minneapolis, Pawns and Media Jackals. New York: Pocket Books, 2000.
Minnesota, where he attended public school. He served as a ———. I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from
U.S. Navy Seal from 1969 to 1975, including active duty the Bottom Up. New York: Villard Books, 1999.
in Vietnam. He attended community college during the Ventura, Jesse, and Heron Marquez. Jesse Ventura Tells It Like It
mid-1970s but dropped out after one year. It was around Is: America’s Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Govern-
this time that he took up bodybuilding and, after a series of ment. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner, 2002.
odd jobs (including a brief stint as bodyguard for the Roll-
ing Stones) became a professional wrestler under the name
Jesse “The Body” Ventura. By the early 1980s, he was one of Victimhood
the most popular “bad guys” in the World Wrestling Fed- Victimhood entails the experience of suffering, which
eration. After blood clots in his lungs ended his wrestling sometimes serves as the basis of legal, political, and/or
career, he appeared in several action films, including two cultural claims. At least since the 1970s, recognizing
with another future governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. a group’s cultural distinctiveness, including the inju-
Ventura began his political career as mayor of Brook- ries it has sustained, has emerged as a central demand
lyn Park, Minnesota (1991–1995), and later worked as a of social movements on the American left. Second-wave
radio talk show host. Running for Minnesota governor on feminists declared that the “personal is political,” call-
a platform of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism, he ing on survivors of rape and incest to transform their
won a stunning victory on election day. He served from private experiences into public speech. Other identity
1999 to 2003 and did not seek a second term. groupings followed suit: gays and lesbians “came out” en
As governor, Ventura also found time to work as masse; families and friends who lost loved ones to AIDS
a commentator for pro wrestling and the XFL football created massive quilts to bear witness to their loss; and
league, and he wrote several books. When the Reform the descendants of African slaves invoked the legacy of
Party came under the influence of Pat Buchanan and the Middle Passage. In response to these developments,
drifted toward a more conservative platform, Ventura conservatives warned against a “culture of victimhood”
quit the party in 2000, ultimately aligning himself with overshadowing American national identify and turning
the Independence Party of Minnesota. the country into “a nation of victims.”
Ventura’s decisions as governor attracted bipartisan In a society where identity politics has become in-
criticism, though mostly from the right for his support creasingly central, victimhood offers moral authority,
of medical marijuana, gay rights, and abortion rights, as visibility, and, in some cases, political clout. It says to a
well as his opposition to organized religion and the flag public composed largely of strangers: “Attention must
pledge. He stirred further controversy when he sharply be paid to us. You must recognize and honor that which
criticized pundits on both sides who politicized the 2002 makes us different from you, and you must be acquainted
funeral for Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone. Ventura with our culture and history, including our sufferings.”
was the subject of a popular satire by Minnesota-based Before the rise of the gay liberation movement, for ex-
humorist Garrison Keillor, who released a book featuring ample, the stories of gay and lesbian lives were private
a Ventura-like character named Jimmy “Big Boy” Valente and personal; today, the “coming-out story” has become
who becomes a politician. a master narrative of collective identity. Even so, not all
After leaving office, Ventura hosted a short-lived individuals who have suffered have identified themselves
cable TV talk show called Jesse Ventura’s America, and as victims, such as the many victims of rape who never
in 2004 he was recruited by a fellow navy veteran for come forward to report their injuries for fear of stigma
a lecture series and study group at Harvard University. or retaliation.
Ventura also served on the board for Operation Truth, a The relationship between individual experiences of
support organization for veterans of the Iraq War. pain and suffering and claims to group victimhood is not
straightforward. Being a member of a victimized group
Benjamin W. Cramer does not necessarily make that individual a victim. Some
576
Vidal , Gore 577
groups identify on the basis of past victimhood even they maintain that it is society’s ethical duty to recognize
though many members of those groups did not them- and even identify with the suffering of others.
selves endure pain or suffering. American-born Jews, for
example, may identify with the victims of the Holocaust Arlene Stein
even though they did not personally experience the
tragedy. Similarly, blacks who did not personally suffer See also: AIDS; Anti-Semitism; Civil Rights Movement; Fem-
from slavery argue that they are nonetheless victims of its inism, Second-Wave; Feminism, Third-Wave; Gay Rights
legacies; for that reason many African-American leaders Movement; Holocaust; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies;
have called for reparations. Race; Sex Offenders; Sexual Assault.
One important controversy surrounding the politics
of victimhood has centered on the question of whether Further Reading
traumatic events can be forgotten and then remembered Berlant, Lauren. The Queen of America Goes to Washington City.
later in life. That debate has focused on memories of child- Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.
hood sexual abuse, though it extends to other traumas Furedi, Frank. Therapy Culture. London: Routledge, 2003.
as well. A “repressed memory” is a memory of an event, Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. New York: Hough-
frequently traumatic, that is stored by the unconscious ton Mifflin, 1999.
mind but outside conscious awareness. Some theorize Prager, Jeffrey. Presenting the Past: Psychoanalysis and the Sociol-
that such memories may be “recovered” and integrated ogy of Misremembering. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
into consciousness years or decades after the event, often Press, 1998.
through therapy. The accused and their allies, on the other Sykes, Charles. A Nation of Victims. New York: St. Martin’s
hand, have tried to demonstrate the relative ease with Press, 1992.
which “false memories” have been deliberately implanted
by therapists and other authority figures.
Conservatives such as radio talk show host and writer Vidal, Gore
Charles Sykes have been critical of victimhood status, The novelist, screenwriter, and essayist Gore Vidal has
believing it is used to justify irresponsible behavior. In A provoked considerable controversy as a public intellec-
Nation of Victims (1992), Sykes argues that “I am not re- tual with iconoclastic views, including his major the-
sponsible; it’s not my fault” is a common refrain employed sis that the United States has drifted from a republi-
by compulsive gamblers, co-dependents in dysfunctional can form of government to an empire—specifically, “a
relationships, and even obese people “oppressed” by nar- garrison state.” American aggression, Vidal maintains,
row airline seats. Sykes and other conservatives excoriate provoked the Oklahoma City bombing of April 1995
the psychiatric profession for inventing new “disease” and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, actions
categories and creating a “therapeutic culture” that he regards as justifiable. Openly homosexual, Vidal was
turns everyday difficulties into certified psychological one of the first American writers to treat same-sex pref-
problems. There are those on the left who find fault with erence as normal; other public figures scorned him for
victim-based politics as well. For example, the sociologist his sexual orientation.
Frank Furedi has decried efforts relegating victimization The son of an airline executive and an actress, Eugene
as “a kind of disease” that can be passed on to the next Luther Gore Vidal, Jr., was born on October 3, 1925,
generation; and the feminist/queer theorist Lauren Ber- in West Point, New York. After graduating from the
lant has suggested that the pervasiveness of “victim-talk,” Phillips Exeter Academy (1943) and serving in the U.S.
and the personalization of political discourse in general, Army during World War II (1943–1946), he worked
is impoverishing the public sphere. briefly as a book editor at E.P. Dutton while beginning
Most liberals maintain, however, that the politiciza- a writing career in earnest. He ran unsuccessfully for
tion of victimhood signals a democratization of culture. Congress as a Democrat in New York (1960) and later
They argue, for example, that the Holocaust in American for a Senate seat in California, losing the primary to Jerry
consciousness is a response to the earlier suppression of Brown (1982). He served as a member of the President’s
the subject—much like the suppression of talk of ho- Advisory Committee on the Arts (1961–1963), hosted
mosexuality, sexual abuse, and other previously taboo the television program Hot Line (1964), and co-founded
topics. Before victimhood was widely discussed in pub- the New Party (1968–1971) and co-chaired the People’s
lic, individual and group injuries were stigmatized and Party (1970–1972), both centered on opposition to the
hidden. By highlighting victimization, identity groups Vietnam War. Vidal is the grandson of the progressive
turn stigma into honorable marks of difference. In a Oklahoma senator Thomas P. Gore and is a distant cousin
multicultural society, they contend, the distinctiveness of Al Gore. The author of nearly fifty books, he has pub-
of group identities, which may be linked to a history of lished two autobiographies, Palimpsest (1995) and Point
injury or persecution, should be preserved. Moreover, to Point Navigation (2006).
578 Vidal , Gore
An early public controversy Vidal faced was the since 1890, when a number of Native Americans were
brouhaha over The City and the Pillar (1948), one of the slaughtered at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.” Timothy
first novels that treated homosexuality as mainstream. McVeigh’s truck bombing of the federal building in
Although it was a best-seller, most reviews were nega- Oklahoma City (1995) was a “revolutionary act” in re-
tive. For a time, Vidal’s subsequent novels did not sell venge for Waco, maintains Vidal, who nonetheless thinks
well, partly because literary critics refused to review any much of the real story has been suppressed. The attacks
books by an author who would promote the gay lifestyle. of September 11 he categorizes with the Oklahoma City
Later, in the essay “Pink Triangle and Yellow Star,” Vidal bombing: just recompense. Some have criticized Vidal
suggested that the persecution of homosexuals was on for promoting conspiracy theories in much of his analysis,
par with anti-Semitism. Vidal returned to the theme of including his assertion that President George W. Bush
homosexuality in the satirical novel Myra Breckenridge knew the attacks of September 11 were coming.
(1968), about a Hollywood homosexual male who has a
sex-change operation. This was followed by its sequel, Roger Chapman
Myron (1974). In 1968, while on live television during
the coverage of the Democratic National Convention in See also: Buckley, William F., Jr.; Conspiracy Theories; Gay
Chicago, Vidal and the conservative activist William F. Rights Movement; Kerouac, Jack; Mailer, Norman; McVeigh,
Buckley, Jr., verbally clashed: Buckley, after being called Timothy; Revisionist History; Ruby Ridge Incident; Septem-
a “pro-crypto-Nazi,” denounced Vidal as a “queer.” After ber 11; Waco Siege; War Protesters; Wounded Knee Incident.
writing a critical review on Norman Mailer’s The Prisoner
of Sex (1971), calling it “three days of menstrual flow,” Further Reading
Vidal appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, where Mailer Altman, Dennis. Gore Vidal’s America. Malden, MA: Polity,
accused him on the air of ruining the Beat writer Jack 2005.
Kerouac by going to bed with him. Harris, Stephen. Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels and the Shaping
Other than his essays—he won the National Book of American Consciousness. Lewistown, NY: Edwin Mellen
Award for United States: Essays, 1952–1992 (1993)—Vid- Press, 2005.
al’s long-term reputation will most likely be staked on Kaplan, Fred. Gore Vidal: A Biography. New York: Doubleday,
his “Narratives of Empire” series, consisting of seven 1999.
historical novels that offer a revisionist perspective: Wash-
ington, D.C. (1967), Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), Lincoln
(1984), Empire (1987), Hollywood (1997), and The Golden V i e t n a m Ve t e r a n s A g a i n s t
Age (2000). These works tell the story of two fictional t h e Wa r
American families across the generations while focusing The organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War
on the development of the United States into an empire. (VVAW), founded in 1967 by members of the U.S.
In the essay collection Inventing a Nation: Washington, Ad- armed forces returning home from the Vietnam War,
ams, Jefferson (2003), Vidal demythologizes the founders. opposed the continuation of American involvement in
A recurring theme in his writing is political ambition what it regarded as a civil war that posed no threat to
and the acquisition of power. This was explored in the U.S. security. Although most of its members had vol-
plays The Best Man (1960), based on his novel about the unteered for military service, they became radicalized
behind-the-scenes doings of a presidential nomination, after concluding that the war was immoral and not win-
and An Evening with Richard Nixon (1972). Likewise in nable. They considered themselves “winter soldiers,” in
the novel Messiah (1955), the author tells the story of a contrast to the “sunshine patriots” who offered bravado
future American dictator who comes to power by the aid without confronting “the ugly truth” about the Viet-
of an adoring media. nam War. The Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of
More recently, Vidal has stirred controversy with July (1989) is based on the autobiography of Ron Kovic,
political essays on American foreign policy, domestic a Vietnam “wheelchair” veteran, and concludes with
security, and terrorism. These anthologized writings, the VVAW protest march during the 1972 Republican
including The Last Empire: Essays, 1992–2000 (2001), National Convention. The organization, which never
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So disbanded, inspired the formation of the Iraq Veterans
Hated (2002), and Imperial America: Reflections on the United Against the War in 2004.
States of Amnesia (2004), condemn neoconservatism and An antiwar advertisement in the February 1971 issue
the expansion of federal domestic security. Vidal links of Playboy helped double VVAW membership to 20,000;
the federal attacks at Ruby Ridge (1992) and Waco 10 percent were soldiers still deployed in Vietnam. Stories
(1993) with Operation Desert Storm (1991) and U.S. circulated of entire platoons belonging to the VVAW,
foreign intervention in general. Waco, he argues, was “the with some soldiers wearing its insignia—an upside-down
largest massacre of Americans by their own government rifle with a helmet on top (the symbol of death)—on their
Vie tnam Ve teran s Memor ial 579
uniforms. The group’s membership peaked in 1972 at at Yale University, the $8 million, privately financed
25,000. Although they were latecomers to the antiwar monument was dedicated on November 13, 1982. The
movement, VVAW activists were generally more radical most visited memorial in Washington, D.C., the site
and angrier than student protesters. was baptized by fire in the culture wars.
U.S. attorney general John Mitchell, who served The memorial was the inspiration of Jan Scruggs,
under President Richard M. Nixon during the height who had served in the war as a rifleman. He envisioned a
of the antiwar movement in the early 1970s, publicly memorial that listed by name every military person who
denounced the VVAW as the most dangerous group in died in the conflict, spanning the years 1957 to 1975.
the United States. The FBI, through its controversial Eventually, a total of 650,000 individuals made monetary
Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), moni- donations for the project. On July 1, 1980, President
tored the VVAW practically from its inception and over Jimmy Carter approved the allocation of two acres (0.81
the years infiltrated many chapters with informants. In hectares) on Constitution Gardens (located between the
July 1972, eight VVAW leaders were indicted for con- Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial) for
spiring to disrupt the upcoming Republican National the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Convention in Miami. Although the idea for the memorial was widely fa-
A week-long demonstration by the VVAW in the vored, the unveiling of Lin’s design led to acrimonious
nation’s capital in April 1971, culminating in a ceremony debate. Opponents argued that it reflected an attitude of
in which decorated veterans threw away their medals, shame toward the war. The design called for the wall to be
came to be regarded as a pivotal protest event of the era. set into an embankment, and critics argued that it should
The incident was restored to public attention in 2004 be built above ground, not below. They also contended
when John Kerry, a former navy lieutenant and VVAW that the color should be white, not black. Moreover, the
activist, ran as the Democratic candidate for president of austere monument was said to lack patriotic ambience.
the United States. In that election, a group calling itself Those in favor of Lin’s design—many of whom preferred
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth raised questions about a nonpolitical memorial, so as not to honor war—said
Kerry’s war record and at the same time condemned that it reflected the nobility of sacrifice.
him for his role as a VVAW spokesman, specifically his The New York Times praised the “extreme dignity and
April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations restraint” of Lin’s vision, but industrialist and later presi-
Committee, in which he raised the issue of American dential candidate H. Ross Perot, who donated $160,000
war crimes. The book Unfit for Command (2004) and film for the design competition, regarded the winning entry
documentary Stolen Honor (2004) were part of this attack as a disgrace. Novelist Tom Wolfe denounced the design
against Kerry. as “a tribute to Jane Fonda” and the committee that ap-
Roger Chapman proved it the “Mullahs of Modernism.” The conservative
magazine National Review declared it “Orwellian glop”
See also: Bush Family; Cold War; Fonda, Jane; Kerry, John; My and called on the Reagan administration to halt the proj-
Lai Massacre; Nixon, Richard; Silent Majority; Stone, Oliver; ect. Others described it as “a black gash of shame.”
Vietnam War; War Protesters; Watergate; Wayne, John. James Watt, the secretary of the Department of Inte-
rior, resisted issuing a groundbreaking permit and did so
Further Reading only after demanding that an American flag and statue be
Hunt, Andrew E. The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans added. In another compromise, two brief inscriptions, a
Against the War. New York: New York University Press, prologue and epilogue, were added to the wall of names.
1999. After a three-day prayer vigil at the National Cathedral
Kerry, John, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The New in which the names of all the war dead were read, the
Soldier. New York: Collier, 1971. memorial was officially dedicated in a ceremony attended
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Web site. http://www. by more than 150,000 people.
vvaw.org. The flag, on a sixty-foot (18.3-meter) staff, was added
in 1983, and Frederick Hart’s bronze sculpture of three
American soldiers was installed the following year; both
V i e t n a m Ve t e r a n s M e m o r i a l were placed to the side of the wall, rather than in front
Located on the Washington Mall in the nation’s capi- of it, as Watt had desired. After years of more debate, a
tal, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a V-shaped, black sculpture honoring women veterans was added in 1993.
granite wall, measuring 400 feet (122 meters) long, in- A plaque was placed in the plaza area in 2004, stating,
scribed with the names of the more than 58,000 veter- “We honor and remember their sacrifice.” In 2006, an
ans who lost their lives in the Vietnam War, listed in underground visitor center was approved, but some vet-
the chronological order in which they died. Designed by erans denounced it as a reminder of Viet Cong tunnels.
Maya Lin, who at the time was an architectural student For most visitors over the years, however, the power of
580 Vie tnam War
Designer Maya Lin stands alongside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial shortly after its dedication in 1982. The innovative original
design met with resistance, and several elements were added. (James P. Blair/National Geographic/Getty Images)
walking along the wall, finding the name of a loved one in the struggle against communist North Vietnam.
inscribed on the surface, and reaching out to touch it has Combat troops arrived in 1965 and reached a peak of
triumphed over the design dispute. almost 550,000 in 1969. By the time U.S. troops were
withdrawn after the Paris peace accords of 1973, almost
Roger Chapman 58,000 had died. The fact that the war was so long and
so costly, ending essentially in American defeat, yielded
See also: American Civil Religion; Anti-Intellectualism; Fon- historical interpretations that evolved very differently
da, Jane; National Review; Perot, H. Ross; September 11 Me- from those of other American wars. Initial journalistic
morial; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam War; and scholarly accounts in the aftermath of previous con-
Watt, James; Wolfe, Tom; World War II Memorial. flicts typically highlighted the nobility of U.S. interests,
the bravery of U.S. armed forces, and the strength of
Further Reading national effort and support. The first reflections on the
Scruggs, Jan C., and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam War, by contrast, evinced a sense of disillusion
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper and Row, and frustration.
1985.
Historical Interpretation and
Conservative Revision
V i e t n a m Wa r Even before the fighting was over, historian Arthur
Only one war over Vietnam ended when North Viet- Schlesinger, Jr., wrote about the folly of Washington
namese forces captured Saigon in April 1975. Conflict policymakers, who had an unreasonable confidence in
over the meaning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and America’s ability to shape global affairs and little ap-
the implications of it continued to be waged in Ameri- preciation for how local issues affected the Third World.
can culture and politics for the rest of the twentieth cen- Such misperceptions were magnified by an unshaken be-
tury and into the early years of the twenty-first. lief that communist movements had to be fought every-
The U.S. military presence in Vietnam began in where and at all times. By 1979, with the publication
the 1950s, when the first aid and advisers were sent to of George Herring’s America’s Longest War, a standard
support the Diem regime in Saigon, South Vietnam, historical interpretation of the Vietnam experience had
Vie tnam War 5 81
formed: the war was wrong, the war was unwinnable, every engagement with the enemy. The media had been
and U.S. policymakers pursued it out of a flawed com- responsible for distorting the truth, he maintained, and
mitment to contain global communism at all costs. the cause was not lost until the United States withdrew
The conventional wisdom on the Vietnam War was in 1973 and then failed to supply the South Vietnamese
challenged in the conservative ascendancy of the 1980s. army. President George H.W. Bush, in his inaugural ad-
Revisionist historians asserted that America had been dress in 1989, returned to Ford’s theme, declaring that
morally obligated to support the South Vietnamese. “the lesson of Vietnam is that no great nation can long
They also argued that the U.S. military could have won afford to be sundered by a memory.” President Bill Clin-
the war had it not been hampered by civilian leadership, ton affirmed that view when, during the announcement
the antiwar protest movement, and the media’s portrayal of the normalization of relations with Vietnam in 1995,
of the war on television. he said: “Whatever divided us before let us consign to
No grand consensus has emerged between the two the past.” President George W. Bush, however, returned
camps and the competing views of the war, though his- to the idea that the United States had withdrawn from
torians generally favor the standard interpretation. In the war too soon.
any event, the place of the Vietnam War in America’s
culture wars is not entirely reflected in the evolution of Cinematic Interpretations and the
scholarship and academic interpretation. During the early Vietnam Syndrome
stages of U.S. involvement, it was generally expected that Many Americans have acquired their understanding
the outcome would be another in a long line of noble of Vietnam from films made about the war. Cinematic
American victories. The ultimate failure of the U.S. representations of Vietnam, mediated through the eyes
military effort thus prompted a deep questioning of the of screenwriters and directors, have mirrored and influ-
nature of America itself. enced the wider cultural and political memories. The
In the years following the war, with the help of Green Berets (1968) was John Wayne’s effort to portray
movies, television, novels, and public rhetoric, the na- the honorable nature of America’s role in Vietnam; this
tion created a set of evolving and competing collective was a hard sell during the same year as the Tet Offensive,
memories of Vietnam and its lessons. Pundits and politi- as American public opinion was turning rapidly against
cians on both sides of the culture wars began to draw very the war. It was not until the late 1970s that major stu-
different conclusions about the nature of America’s role dio productions about the war began to appear—among
in world affairs. For those on the left, one of the lessons them such notable releases as Coming Home (1978), The
of Vietnam was that U.S. military force should be used Deer Hunter (1978), and Apocalypse Now (1979). Each of
only sparingly and with a clear purpose in the world these films echoed the growing national sense that the
arena, lest the tragedy of Vietnam be repeated. For those war was a mistake. The first two focused on the treat-
on the right, the failure in Vietnam rested with those ment of veterans.
who protested U.S. involvement and failed to allow the The Rambo series and Red Dawn exemplify the 1980s
armed forces to complete the job. conservative challenge to the conventional wisdom about
During the early years of the Vietnam War, presi- Vietnam. In First Blood (1982), the first of the Rambo
dential rhetoric called for Americans to unite and not to movies, the lead character is a Vietnam veteran who com-
second-guess the decision of American intervention. In plains that “somebody wouldn’t let us win” and bristles
1975, a few weeks before the final North Vietnamese over the lack of respect accorded to returning veterans.
victory, President Gerald Ford told Americans that the In the sequel, Rambo: First Blood II (1985), and a series
pre-Vietnam “sense of pride” could not be achieved by of other mid-1980s movies, the heroes go back to Viet-
“refighting a war that is finished as far as America is nam to rescue soldiers still held in Vietnamese prisons.
concerned.” President Jimmy Carter tended to avoid Red Dawn (1984), depicting an invasion of America’s
broad discussions of the legacy of Vietnam, focusing heartland by Soviet, Cuban, and Nicaraguan forces after
instead on the plight of veterans. In his final State of the U.S. withdrawal from NATO and a communist takeover
Union address, Carter boasted about the nation’s ability to in Mexico, attempted to show the consequences of the
“separate the war from the warrior” and provide Vietnam left’s reluctance to adopt an aggressive foreign policy
veterans with a proper, if deferred, homecoming. after Vietnam.
The rhetoric of President Ronald Reagan urged a new The issues raised by the Vietnam movies of the 1980s
slant on the meaning and public perception of the con- corresponded with the ongoing political debate about
flict. During the 1980 presidential campaign, he called the “Vietnam syndrome” and Reagan’s foreign policy
the Vietnam War a “noble cause” and urged Americans objectives. Conservative intellectuals led an assault on
not to submit to “feelings of guilt” about it. In 1985, the Vietnam syndrome, shorthand for a collective sense
President Reagan contended that America “did not lose of caution about America’s involvement in the world. For
the war” after all, arguing that the U.S. military had won the left, that sense of caution seems a positive legacy of the
5 82 Vie tnam War
Vietnam experience, helping avert other reckless military Martin, Andrew. Receptions of War: Vietnam in American Culture.
adventures, injecting a sense of realism into the choice of Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
national interests, and focusing attention on the moral McMahon, Robert. “Contested Memory: The Vietnam War
consequences of American foreign policies. For the right, and American Society, 1975–2001.” Diplomatic History 26:2
the Vietnam syndrome fosters undue restraint on military (2002): 159–84.
and covert actions and impedes the pursuit of American Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and
interests in the world. During the 1980 presidential American Democracy, 1941–1966. Boston: Houghton Mif-
campaign, Reagan called on the nation to “rid ourselves flin, 1967.
of the Vietnam syndrome” in order for America to regain Summers, Harry G., Jr. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the
its rightful place as leader of the free world. His admin- Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982.
istration’s failure to gain congressional or widespread Turner, Fred. Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American
public support for its actions in Central America suggests, Memory. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.
however, that Reagan was unsuccessful in changing the
national mood. By the end of his term, a national defense
commission wrote that the loss in Vietnam “still casts a Vigilantism
shadow over U.S. intervention anywhere.” In the United States, extralegal justice—or taking the
Almost all public opinion polls since 1969 have law into one’s own hands—has been associated with civ-
shown that a majority of Americans believe the Vietnam il rights abuses such as lynching. But in the 1960s and
War to have been a mistake. That belief, it has been 1970s, different vigilante activities were used to pro-
suggested, has influenced the public’s perception of test laws and practices that discriminated based on race,
most or all American military actions since 1975. But ethnicity, and gender. New forms of vigilantism that
policymakers on the right, particularly the neoconserva- have emerged in recent years include cyber-vigilantism,
tives, have tried to reshape the lessons of the Vietnam in which the focus is online sexual predators, terrorists,
War. Following the U.S. victory in the 1991 Persian and fraudulent activities on the Internet.
Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush declared that Members of the legal community view vigilantism
America had “kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for as a social reaction to a perceived breakdown in law. Po-
all.” The caution that was a legacy of Vietnam resurfaced, litical scientists define it as violence aimed at changing
however, after the collapse of the humanitarian mission to the current political establishment. Psychologists tend
Somalia in 1993. And surprisingly, conservatives resisted to consider a vigilante’s motive before judging whether
President Bill Clinton’s use of military action in Eastern the action is antisocial or in the interest of society. Nev-
Europe to stop ethnic cleansing in the civil wars that ertheless, several typical, shared characteristics generally
erupted as Yugoslavia disintegrated into independent define vigilantism. It is more often a group activity than
nations. an individual act, for the purpose of changing or main-
In the run up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in taining the status quo, often through force or violence.
2003, protestors again raised the specter of Vietnam, Since the overall goal is to restore or preserve the social
but a majority of Americans supported President George order rather than destroy it, vigilante organizations are
W. Bush’s plan to invade a foreign country. The ensuing not necessarily considered hate groups, gangs, or terror-
counterinsurgency and civil war in Iraq eventually turned ists. Also, since vigilante activity typically ceases once its
public opinion against U.S. involvement there, and many immediate goal is fulfilled, vigilantism is not regarded
Americans contemplated the possible parallels with the as a social movement.
Vietnam War. A common target of vigilantes is perceived criminals.
John Day Tully Many vigilantes seek to punish individuals they believe
have broken the law but have not been brought to justice.
See also: American Century; Carter, Jimmy; Cold War; Com- These vigilantes believe that the criminal justice system
munists and Communism; Ford, Gerald; My Lai Massacre; fails to mete out appropriate punishments. This type of
Nixon, Richard; Reagan, Ronald; Revisionist History; Viet- vigilantism is contradictory in nature because the vigi-
nam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Veterans Memorial; lante responds to violence with violence. Crime-control
War Powers Act; War Protesters. vigilantes tend to favor capital punishment and oppose
gun control laws, and some believe that self-defense is
Further Reading legally justified not only in response to direct threats to
Hellman, John. American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam. New personal safety but also in response to minor trespassing
York: Columbia University Press, 1986. on personal property.
Herring, George. America’s Longest War: The United States and Some vigilantes see themselves as moral crusaders.
Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, They might oppose abortion or deny civil rights for eth-
2001. nic minorities or immigrants. For example, the activities
Voegelin, Er ic 5 83
of the Minuteman Movement, which has patrolled the social control, while liberals view vigilantism as a viola-
U.S.-Mexican border to curtail the flow of illegal im- tion of the due process rights guaranteed by the U.S.
migrants, was castigated by President George W. Bush Constitution. Vigilantism may become a more politically
as vigilantism. In 1998, New York governor George charged issue as conservative politicians continue to run
Pataki called the murder of an abortion doctor “an act on platforms that support harsh penalties for crime and the
of terrorism.” criminalization of illegal immigration and abortion.
Vigilantism can be viewed as both constructive and
destructive. It is destructive because it undercuts due Stephanie L. Kent and Candace Griffith
process so that the targets of vigilantism are persecuted
without being proven guilty in a court of law. Vigilantism See also: Civil Rights Movement; Comic Books; Ecoterrorism;
is often violent. Unlike the use of force by police, which Gangs; Goetz, Bernhard; Guardian Angels; Hate Crimes;
is subject to rules and regulations, vigilante violence is Illegal Immigrants; Lynching; Militia Movement; Opera-
uncontrolled. Liberals who support a justice system that tion Rescue; Philadelphia, Mississippi; Rudolph, Eric; Sex
protects due process rights for the accused tend to regard Offenders.
vigilantism as unwarranted and destructive.
Others believe that vigilantes provide a necessary Further Reading
service to society. To some, vigilantes are victims of so- Culberson, William C. Vigilantism: Political History of Private
ciety who seek retribution for their suffering. Some view Power in America. New York: Greenwood, 1990.
vigilantism as useful because it tries to correct societal Hine, Kelly D. “Vigilantism Revisited: An Economic Analysis
and governmental flaws. Since the rise of television, mov- of the Law of Extra-Judicial Self-Help, or Why Can’t Dick
ies, and comic books after World War II, cultural icons Shoot Henry for Stealing Jane’s Truck?” American University
such as the Lone Ranger, Superman, Rambo, and Dirty Law Review 47 (1998): 1221–55.
Harry suggest that extralegal violence is a legitimate way Johnston, Les. “What Is Vigilantism?” British Journal of Crimi-
to solve problems. nology 36 (1996): 220–36.
Political conservatives, especially those who favor Tucker, William. Vigilante: The Backlash Against Crime in
harsh punishments for crime and oppose abortion and America. New York: Stein and Day, 1985.
gun control, are more likely to see vigilantism as con-
structive. Some supporters of these causes see vigilantism
as a legitimate way of addressing what the law does not Vo e g e l i n , E r i c
currently criminalize. Some political analysts foresee an A political philosopher, Eric Voegelin specialized in
increase in vigilantism if more Americans favor personal the Western political and spiritual ideas that he called
responsibility for actions over ensuring the due process “the Mediterranean tradition.” He contributed to the
rights of those accused of crimes. While no hard data exist American culture wars by arguing that liberalism has
on the frequency of vigilantism, the increase in political links with totalitarianism. Born Eric Herman Wilhelm
polarization of citizens suggests a trend in support of Voegelin on January 3, 1901, in Cologne, Germany, he
vigilante activity. studied and taught at the University of Vienna (PhD,
Changes in public perception of crime may also 1922) before escaping from Nazi Austria in 1938. He
increase support for vigilantism. While crime rates have became an American citizen in 1944 and held positions
decreased significantly in recent years, fear of crime at Louisiana State University (1943–1958), the Univer-
among Americans has increased, with personal handgun sity of Munich (1958–1969), and the Hoover Institu-
sales rising as a result. In response to this increased fear tion (1969–1985).
of crime, harsher punishments for street crimes have been Although many of Voegelin’s writings, including
implemented, primarily based on demands by conserva- the multivolume Order and History (1956–1987), are
tive politicians and their constituents. These harsh laws, beyond the reach of general readers, conservative leaders
including mandatory minimum sentences for drug of- such as William F. Buckley, Jr., succeeded in popular-
fenses and “three strikes” laws, are seen as excessive by izing the philosopher’s indictment of utopian schemes
political liberals. Conservatives who support these laws and, by extension, liberal politics. In his study of the
may be more likely to support vigilantism that uses harsh relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity,
punishments above those specified by law. Voegelin concluded that Gnosticism (an early variant of
Definitions of vigilantism vary, but most scholars Christianity) was the consequence of alienation resulting
agree that vigilantism involves the extralegal use of force from the failed quest to find spiritual transcendence in
to either change or maintain the status quo. The debate the material world. He extended his conclusion to the
regarding vigilantism is whether it is a constructive or modern era, suggesting that totalitarianism, or any other
destructive activity. Conservatives are more likely to see situation in which leaders of a state attempt to create an
vigilantism as a useful way to supplement legal forms of ideal society, is Gnostic in essence.
584 Voting R ight s Ac t
Conservative intellectuals, co-opting his ideas to into law the Voting Rights Act (VRA), passed by Con-
advance their political undertakings, typically quote gress two days earlier to protect the rights of black vot-
from chapter four of Voegelin’s The New Science of Politics ers. Although the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S.
(1952), where he criticizes attempts to create heaven on Constitution, ratified in 1870, granted the right to vote
earth: “The problem of an edios [form] in history . . . without regard to “race, color, or previous condition of
arises only when Christian transcendental fulfillment be- servitude,” African Americans in the South were often
comes immanentized [literalized]. Such an immanentist denied this right, even after the passage of the Civil
hypostasis of the eschaton [the fulfillment of end times], Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964. The VRA pro-
however, is a theoretical fallacy.” Exploiting that reflec- hibited any voting requirements with a discriminatory
tion as a condemnation of liberalism, Buckley recast it in purpose or effect, and gave the federal government un-
soundbite form: “Don’t Immanentize the Eschaton!” precedented authority to reject any election practices
This Voegelin-inspired nugget was Buckley’s cam- that could keep minorities from voting. Since its initial
paign slogan in his 1965 bid to become mayor of New passage, the VRA has been extended and amended in
York, running against the Republican liberal candidate 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006.
John Lindsay. Buckley, a candidate of the newly formed On March 7, 1965, millions of Americans watched
Conservative Party, received only 13 percent of the vote. on television as state troopers using tear gas, bullwhips,
The group Young Americans for Freedom, which Buckley and billy clubs spurred their horses into a crowd of
helped form in 1961, also made use of the slogan. The peaceful civil rights protestors marching on the Edmund
twentieth-anniversary issue of Buckley’s National Review Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marchers had
credited Voegelin with helping to establish the philo- been demonstrating for black voter rights in the South.
sophical foundations of the modern American conserva- At a joint session of Congress eight days later, President
tive movement. Ironically, Voegelin, a rejecter of “isms,” Johnson adopted the refrain of the anthem of the civil
did not wish to be associated with conservatism. rights movement, stating, “Their cause must be our cause,
Voegelin’s assertion that the misappropriation of reli- too. Because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of
gious symbols constitutes the major error of modern times us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry
can serve as a critique against the conservative movement’s and injustice. And we shall overcome.” The voting rights
embrace of the Religious Right. Christian conservatives bill that Johnson sent to Congress on March 17 sought
have criticized Voegelin’s writings for reflecting a nega- to reverse almost a century of opposition to the Fifteenth
tive bias against Christianity and failing to highlight its Amendment.
positive contributions to Western civilization. Critics of the VRA objected to the federal govern-
Voegelin died on January 19, 1985, leaving political ment’s interference in the state and local election process.
theorists with texts to ponder. It has been argued that his Further, southern whites knew that it represented the
writings are actually radical and not conservative. Some potential for a tremendous shift in political power. In
have associated Voegelin with the political philosopher Selma, for example, home to 15,000 blacks and 14,000
Leo Strauss, who also emigrated to America while fleeing whites, the enfranchisement of minority voters gave
from Nazism. African Americans new and real political opportunity.
Roger Chapman Almost immediately after being into signed into law, the
VRA was challenged in federal court by several southern
See also: American Civil Religion; Buckley, William F., Jr.; states. In the case of South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966),
National Review; New Deal; Religious Right; Student Con- the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legislation, ruling
servatives; Strauss, Leo. that Congress did have the power to suspend literacy
tests previously required of African-American voters,
Further Reading particularly since illiterate whites had never been denied
Federici, Michael P. Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order. Wilm- the vote.
ington, DE: ISI Books, 2002. Passage of the VRA inspired creative political re-
Jardine, Murray. “Eric Voegelin’s Interpretation(s) of Modernity: sponses at the state level. Redistricting, for example,
A Reconstruction of the Spiritual and Political Implications became a tactic used by politicians eager to control the
of Voegelin’s Therapeutic Analysis.” Review of Politics 57 outcome of statewide elections. Redrawn boundary lines
(1995): 581–605. sometimes created predominately white or African-
Voegelin, Eric. The New Science of Politics: An Introduction. Chi- American districts whose proponents were accused of
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1952. gerrymandering. The city of Atlanta, Georgia, with a 52
percent African-American population, was split into three
smaller, predominantly white districts that opponents
Vo t i n g R i g h t s Ac t argued gave whites an unfair number of congressional
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed seats. When the U.S. Department of Justice intervened,
Voting R ight s Ac t 5 85
the districts were redrawn yet again to give African fraud. Liberal critics believe that this trend goes against
Americans more representation. Critics have argued that the spirit of the VRA, arguing that the true motive be-
the tendency to carve “minority” congressional districts hind the requirement for ID cards is to place obstacles
results in political polarization based on race because, in the way of largely Democratic voters—minorities, the
in the “majority” districts, the usually white elected poor, and the elderly (people less likely to have a driver’s
members to Congress can safely ignore issues that are license and naturally reluctant to spend money acquiring
important to minority voters because they are not of equal the necessary documentation). That concern was rebuffed
concern to constituents. 6–3 by the Supreme Court, which in April 2008 upheld
Although Congress voted in July 2006 to reautho- the Indiana law.
rize the VRA for another twenty-five years, some critics, Sara Hyde
mostly Republican, suggested that the law had outlived
its usefulness. They contended that the provision requir- See also: Civil Rights Movement; English as the Official Lan-
ing certain jurisdictions to seek permission from the U.S. guage; Great Society; Johnson, Lyndon B.
Justice Department prior to making any change in local
election laws was bureaucratic overkill. Certain critics Further Reading
also objected to the VRA’s multilingual requirement for Epstein, David L., Richard H. Pildes, Rodolfo O. de la Garza,
when there are many foreign-speaking voters, believing and Sharyn O’Halloran, eds. The Future of the Voting Rights
that ballots written in English should suffice. Despite Act. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006.
the objections, President George W. Bush signed the Grofman, Bernard, and Chandler Davidson, eds. Controversies
extension on July 27. in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective. Wash-
In the meantime, states such as Indiana passed ington, DC: Brookings Institute, 1992.
laws requiring voters to bring to the polls government- Kotz, Nick. Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Lu-
produced picture identification cards (e.g., a driver’s ther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America. Boston:
license), arguing that such a measure would reduce voter Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
cult members inside and federal agents outside. The FBI
viewed it as a barricade situation, in which the Davidians
were seen as perpetrators who shot and killed federal law
enforcement officers, possessed hundreds of firearms and
countless rounds of ammunition, and were led by a man
Wa c o S i e g e whose mental stability was in question. The Davidians,
The Waco siege of February–April 1993, a fifty-one- on the other hand, saw themselves as standing on a moral
day standoff between federal agents and the Branch and spiritual high ground against the earthly law of the
Davidians, a religious cult led by David Koresh, out- U.S. government. For the Branch Davidians, surrendering
side Waco, Texas, was one of the longest and largest meant either renouncing their beliefs or literally handing
police actions in U.S. history, involving nearly 700 lo- themselves over to Satan.
cal, state, and federal law enforcement personnel. The Twenty-two days into the standoff, federal agents
fiery end of the situation was viewed by many politi- began using tactics to coax the Davidians out, such as
cal conservatives, especially those of the militia move- cutting the electricity and flooding the area at night with
ment, as the result of an unnecessary and inordinate bright lights and annoying sounds to cause sleep depriva-
use of government force. tion. On the forty-fifth day, Koresh promised to come
The Branch Davidians, a sect of the Seventh Day Ad- out after he had documented his understanding of the
ventists dating to 1929, had come under federal scrutiny Seven Seals. By that time, however, U.S. attorney general
for alleged firearms violations. Taking a millennialist Janet Reno had approved a plan to force the Davidians
interpretation of the Bible, believing in a restoration of out with tear gas. During the raid on the morning of
the Davidic Kingdom, Koresh and his followers lived April 19, the compound caught fire. According to the
in a secluded community they called Mount Carmel, FBI, thirty-five people left the compound during the
about 15 miles (24 kilometers) east of Waco, where they standoff, nine survived the fire, five bodies were found
awaited the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Koresh, who freshly buried (from the gunfight on February 28), and
became the group’s leader in 1988, emphasized apoca- seventy-five were found burned to death.
lyptic doctrines, focusing on the Book of Revelation and Several issues concerning the standoff were disputed
the meaning of its Seven Seals. Revelation predicts that a in the aftermath, including the purpose of the David-
chosen one, identified as the “Lamb of God,” will open the ians’s large inventory of weapons, which side shot first
seals and initiate an apocalyptic confrontation with God. on February 28, and which side was responsible for the
Koresh claimed to have had a vision in 1989 in which it April 19 fire. The FBI initially denied charges that it
was revealed that he was this chosen one and that God’s had fired pyrotechnic grenades into the compound but
confrontation would be with the United States. later admitted that it had. The incident also generated
On February 28, 1993, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, sympathy for the Davidians among various members
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) attempted to of the citizens’ militia movement, including Timothy
serve warrants to search the Davidian compound for il- McVeigh, whose April 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred
legally stockpiled weapons and to arrest Koresh for abus- P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was, in
ing children. As warrants were being served, however, part, revenge for what happened at Waco.
gunfire from the compound was said to have resulted in
the deaths of four ATF agents and the wounding of more Robert R. Agne
than a dozen others. In addition, five Davidians were
killed and four others, including Koresh, were injured in See also: Gun Control; Liddy, G. Gordon; McVeigh, Timothy;
the exchange. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Militia Movement.
took over as the lead law enforcement agency at the site.
Negotiators tried to convince Koresh over the telephone Further Reading
to surrender peacefully while a hostage rescue team sur- Docherty, Jayne Seminare. Learning Lessons from Waco: When the
rounded the compound with tanks. Parties Bring Their Gods to the Table. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
The situation became a standoff when, on the second University Press, 2001.
day of negotiations, Koresh reneged on an agreement that Lewis, James R., ed. From the Ashes: Making Sense of Waco. Lan-
he come out of the compound in exchange for a one-hour ham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994.
airing of his teachings on the Seven Seals over the Chris- Tabor, James D., and Eugene V. Gallagher. Why Waco? Cults and
tian Broadcasting Network. After the broadcast, minutes the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. Berkeley: University
before he was to come out, Koresh claimed that God spoke of California Press, 1995.
to him and told him to wait. This brought the negotia- Wright, Stuart, ed. Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on
tions to an impasse and produced a conflicting view of the the Branch Davidian Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago
situation—as well as a kind of culture clash—between the Press, 1995.
586
Wall Stree t Journal, The 5 87
Wa l l S t re e t J o u r n a l , T h e in 1902 by Clarence Walker Barron, who eventually

With an average daily paid circulation of more than 2 left his publishing companies, including the Journal, to
million, the Wall Street Journal is the second-widest- his adopted daughter, Jane Waldron Bancroft. In 2007,
circulating newspaper in the United States (exceeded Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch—owner
only by USA Today) and, with the Financial Times of of the conservative Fox News Channel among many
London, the most influential financial daily in the Eng- other holdings—acquired Dow Jones & Company for
lish-speaking world. The New York–based paper was more than $5 billion (paying $60 per share for stock
first published in 1889, converted from a stock and that had been trading for $36). Under the ownership
bond trade sheet called the Customer’s Afternoon Letter. of the Bancroft family, the Journal had been allowed to
Over the course of the twentieth century, the Journal— operate with a level of editorial independence cherished
published by Dow Jones & Company until December by the staff, which made the News Corporation takeover
2007, when it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News a source of concern to it. Before the deal was completed,
Corporation—emerged as one of the nation’s most re- therefore, the Bancroft family exacted an agreement from
spected dailies, read and relied on by business lead- Murdoch that the Journal’s editorial page would retain
ers, government officials, and professionals. Although its independence and that a wall would be maintained
known for its rigidly neoconservative editorial page, the between the editorial and news departments. Some ob-
Journal over the years has enjoyed a sterling reputation servers nevertheless predicted that it was only a matter of
among readers of all political stripes for its balanced and time before Murdoch would compromise the journalistic
informative news and business articles, as well as long integrity of the paper, making it “more Wall Street,
and sometimes whimsical feature pieces, all packaged in less journal.”
a gray and dull format without sports section, comics, The Wall Street Journal became a major American
or photographs. newspaper under the guidance of managing editor Ber-
The financial information and publishing firm Dow nard Kilgore (1942–1967), who broadened its focus from
Jones & Company, of which the Wall Street Journal was the traditional emphasis on business, stocks, and bonds
the longtime flagship, was founded in 1882 by three to encompass domestic and international economics,
journalists, Charles H. Dow, Edward D. Jones, and politics, and society. Near the end of Kilgore’s watch,
Charles M. Bergstresser. The company was purchased the paper’s circulation surpassed 1 million. Although
typically conservative in its editorial pronouncements—
supportive of tax cuts and supply-side economics and
against welfare programs, communism, and tort attor-
neys—the Journal has at times gone against the grain of
conservative thinking. In 1968, for example, the paper
recommended an end to the Vietnam War. The Journal
also supported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe
v. Wade (1973) legalizing abortion.
Robert L. Bartley, chief of the Journal’s editorial page
from 1972 to 2002, created controversy by putting his
conservative stamp on the paper, once declaring, “Journal-
istically, my proudest boast is that I’ve run the only edito-
rial page in the country that actually sells newspapers.”
Some African Americans, however, have charged that the
Journal’s stance against major civil rights legislation, af-
firmative action programs, and the Martin Luther King,
Jr., national holiday signifies long-running racism. The
Journal has taken significant heat in recent years on the
issue of immigration, supporting a “pathway to citizen-
ship” for illegal aliens, which many conservatives regard
as “amnesty” for lawbreakers.
Todd Scribner and Roger Chapman

The venerable Wall Street Journal, America’s leading finan-
cial daily, is guided by unabashedly “free market and free
people” principles. Here the paper reports on the takeover See also: Affirmative Action; Civil Rights Movement; Immi-
of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company, by media gration Policy; Media Bias; Murdoch, Rupert; Neoconserva-
mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2007. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Im- tism; Roe v. Wade (1973); Supply-Side Economics; Vietnam
ages) War.
588 Wallace, George
Further Reading black students from entering; he finally stepped aside at

Dealy, Francis X. The Power and the Money: Inside the Wall Street the behest of a federal attorney and the National Guard.
Journal. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1993. Claiming that he was defending states’ rights from federal
Rosenberg, Jerry Martin. Inside the Wall Street Journal: The His- judicial activism, Wallace was popular among white Ala-
tory and the Power of Dow Jones & Company and America’s Most bamians, but two further incidents marred his reputation
Influential Newspaper. New York: Macmillan, 1982. nationwide. In September 1963, four black girls died after
Scharff, Edward. Worldly Power: The Making of the Wall Street white extremists bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Journal. New York: A Plume Book, 1986. Church in Birmingham; Wallace was accused of fanning
“Waiting for Gigot: Blacks May Applaud the Changing of the the racial hatred that led to the incident. And in March
Guard at the Wall Street Journal.” Journal of Blacks in Higher 1965, demonstrators marching in support of black voting
Education 36 (Summer 2002): 72–74. rights were violently dispersed by police as they crossed
Wall Street Journal Web site. www.online.wsj.com. Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; again, blame
accrued to the state’s segregationist governor.
Barred by the Alabama state constitution from run-
Wa l l a c e , G e o r g e ning for a second term as governor in 1966 (a restriction
One of the most controversial political figures of the later lifted), Wallace convinced his wife, Lurleen Burns
1960s and 1970s, George Wallace was a Democratic Wallace, to run for the office, which she won. She died two
governor of Alabama notorious for his outspoken defi- years later, however, and George Wallace was reelected
ance of antisegregationist policies and court orders be- in his own right in 1970. After serving two more terms,
fore settling on a more moderate conservative agenda. and a hiatus in the early 1980s, Wallace put together an
As a populist figure, he was one of the first politicians unlikely coalition of blacks and whites, recanted his seg-
to resonate with white blue-collar voters, who lauded regationist past, and won a final term in 1982.
him as a southerner who stood up to federal encroach- In national politics, meanwhile, Wallace had run for
ments on states’ rights and rebuffed hippie hecklers in president in 1964 as a conservative defender of “law and
his campaign appearances. Others loathed him as a race- order” and family values, and an opponent of welfare,
baiter and potential fascist. Some believe that Wallace’s communism, and the youth counterculture. He avoided
main role in the culture wars was as a harbinger of the the overtly racist rhetoric he had used as governor, but
conservative agenda of Richard Nixon, and later Ronald critics asserted that his attacks against “welfare queens”
Reagan and Newt Gingrich. and inner-city riots were thinly veiled racial slurs. Still,
Born George Corley Wallace in Clio, Alabama, on Au- Wallace’s skill and wit on the campaign trail attracted
gust 25, 1919, he studied law at the University of Alabama significant support in his campaigns for president. In
(LLB, 1942). A lawyer, part-time boxer, and flight engineer 1964, he made a surprisingly strong showing in the Wis-
in the Pacific Theater during World War II (1942–1945), consin primary, but lost the Democratic nomination to
Wallace began his political career as a progressive Demo- Lyndon Johnson. Running as a third-party candidate in
crat. Returning to Alabama after the war, he served as as- 1968, representing the American Independent Party, he
sistant attorney general (1946–1947), representative in the came close to throwing the election to the House of Rep-
state assembly (1947–1953), and judge in the third judicial resentatives when he carried five southern states despite
district (1953–1959). His lifelong dream of becoming vice-presidential running mate Curtis LeMay’s unpopular
governor was shattered, if only temporarily, when John Pat- stance on the use of nuclear weapons. Running as a Demo-
terson defeated him in the 1958 Democratic gubernatorial crat again in 1972, he won the Florida primary but was
primary. Wallace attributed the defeat to his opponent’s felled in an assassination attempt while campaigning that
extreme views on race relations, which he copied in his May, leaving him partially paralyzed for life.
successful 1962 bid for the governorship against “Big Jim” He became a born-again Christian in the late 1970s,
Folson. Wallace occupied the governor’s office for a total and his racial views mellowed with age. In private en-
of four terms (1963–1967, 1971–1979, and 1983–1987), counters, he apologized to civil rights leaders Rosa Parks,
while entering national politics as a presidential aspirant John Lewis, Coretta Scott King, and Ralph Abernathy
four times (1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976). for his segregationist policies and rhetoric. Wallace died
As governor, Wallace became a leading opponent in Montgomery on September 13, 1998.
of the civil rights movement. In his January 14, 1963,
inaugural address, he famously pledged to uphold “seg- Philippe R. Girard
regation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation
forever.” Another promise to oppose desegregation in See also: Civil Rights Movement; Counterculture; Democratic
schools, by standing at the schoolhouse door if neces- Party; Gingrich, Newt; Johnson, Lyndon B.; LeMay, Curtis;
sary, led to a televised confrontation at the University of McGovern, George; Parks, Rosa; Race; Reagan, Ronald; Re-
Alabama later that year in which he attempted to bar two publican Party.
Wal - Mar t 589
Further Reading the family, persistent poverty in the United States, and
Carter, Dan T. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins global poverty. Wallis has advocated on behalf of these
of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American causes through a nationwide lecture circuit in a town-
Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. meeting style to stimulate discussion about issues of
Lesher, Stephen. George Wallace: American Populist. Reading, faith and social justice. Many of his social concerns are
MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994. shared by the evangelists Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, and
Rohler, Lloyd. George Wallace: Conservative Populist. Westport, Rick Warren.
CT: Praeger, 2004. Susan Pearce
Wallace, George C. Stand Up for America. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1976. See also: Boy Scouts of America; Campolo, Anthony “Tony”;
Civil Rights Movement; Counterculture; Evangelicalism;
Falwell, Jerry; Fundamentalism, Religious; Religious Right;
Wa l l i s , J i m Sider, Ron; Students for a Democratic Society; Vietnam War;
Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners magazine, is an evan- Warren, Rick.
gelical pastor-activist whose work is devoted to apply- Further Reading
ing biblical principles to causes of poverty and social Mangu-Ward, K. “God’s Democrat.” Weekly Standard, April
justice. He is known for his prophetic style in address- 11, 2005.
ing social problems. Wallis, Jim. God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the
Wallis was born into an evangelical family, affili- Left Doesn’t Get It. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
ated with the Plymouth Brethren, on June 4, 1948, near ———. Revive Us Again: A Sojourner’s Story. Nashville, TN:
Detroit, Michigan. Exposed to the 1960s counterculture Abingdon, 1983.
during his youth, he quit the Boy Scouts, grew his hair ———. The Soul of Politics: A Practical and Prophetic Vision for
long, and was profoundly unsettled by the Detroit race Change. New York: New Press, 1994.
riots in 1967. He attended the University of Michigan ———. Who Speaks for God? An Alternative to the Religious
(BS, 1970), where he joined the Students for a Demo- Right—A New Politics of Compassion, Community, and Civility.
cratic Society (SDS) and participated in the antiwar and New York: Delacorte, 1996.
civil rights movements. Sensing that evangelicalism was
ignoring real-life concerns, Wallis turned to the Sermon
on the Mount for his guide. Wa l - M a r t
At Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois A retailer that sells consumer goods and groceries at low
(1970–1972), he and other students formed a Christian prices, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., in 2008 operated more
community emphasizing radical discipleship and started than 4,000 stores in fifty states with 1.4 million em-
the magazine Post-American, later renamed Sojourners. ployees (while also maintaining 3,000 overseas stores
The group, called the Sojourners Community, eventu- with 620,000 employees), making it the world’s larg-
ally moved to the nation’s capital to address injustice at est company and private-sector employer. Known for its
local and national levels. Sojourners has devoted itself to large, box-shaped stores—including Wal-Mart super-
concerns of the urban poor such as housing, food, tutoring centers and discount stores, Neighborhood Markets, and
children, and gentrification. Sam’s Club warehouses—the company has for years been
In 1995, Wallis helped form a national “Call to a source of controversy in the American culture wars.
Renewal,” uniting faith-based communities and leaders Although designated the “most admired company”
across the theological spectrum to overcome poverty. by Fortune magazine (2003 and 2004), hailed by inves-
Based in evangelical Protestantism but with political tors for its eleven 100 percent stock splits (1971–1999),
commitments at the progressive end of the political mentioned approvingly in Gretchen Wilson’s debut hit
spectrum, he has been consistently critical of the politics single “Redneck Woman” (2004; with its lines, “Victo-
of the Religious Right. At the same time, he insists that ria’s Secret, well their stuff’s real nice / But I can buy the
Democrats must incorporate a concern for moral values. same damn thing on a Wal-Mart shelf half price”), and
His double-edged sword approach to political criticism praised by conservative think tanks for saving the average
is evident in his best-selling book God’s Politics: Why American family $2,500 annually (2007), Wal-Mart has
the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (2004). also been a subject of vilification. The company has been
Wallis’s activism has aroused opposition in fundamental- spoofed as “Stuff Mart” in the VeggieTales animation
ist and conservative Christian circles; Jerry Falwell, for film Madame Blueberry (1998), portrayed as a mistrusting
example, likened him to Hitler. and ungenerous employer in Barbara Ehrenreich’s book
Sojourners in 2006 launched “The Covenant for a Nickel and Dimed (2001), criticized for lacking social
New America” campaign to address social responsibil- responsibility in Robert Greenwald’s “mockumentary”
ity for such recurring problems as the breakdown of film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), and
590 Wal - Mar t
lampooned as an Orwellian nightmare in the musical cheaper labor costs (sometimes using sweatshops) at the
satire Walmartopia (2007). expense of American jobs (and consequently providing
In the mid-2000s, the company began an effort to China an easy in-road to the U.S. market); (2) providing
soften its public image by adding three women and two inadequate pay and benefits to its workers (wages often
blacks to its board of directors; announcing improved near the federal poverty level), encouraging them to rely
health benefits for its employees; calling for an increase on government social services (in 2008, only 52 percent of
in the federal minimum wage; and promising major en- Wal-Mart employees were on company-sponsored health
vironmental initiatives, some of which provoked social insurance), discriminating against female and minority
conservatives to criticize Wal-Mart for capitulating to employees (in 2001, a nationwide class-action lawsuit
“political correctness.” pertaining to gender discrimination was filed against
Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton and based in Wal-Mart on behalf of 1.6 million past and present female
Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart is a company operat- employees), and sometimes cheating workers of pay that
ing with “red state” values, having originated in the is due (in 2008, the company agreed to an out-of-court
South and originally restricting store openings to small settlement of between $352 million and $640 million
towns with population sizes of 5,000 or less. From the for violating wage and labor laws in forty-two states); (3)
onset, women employees were paid less than men and disrupting the social fabric of local communities by driv-
not considered for management positions because it was ing “mom-and-pop” stores out of business while exacting
assumed that they were farm wives, not “bread winners” enormous tax breaks (about $4 million per site, accord-
or careerists. The anti-union Walton designated his em- ing to a 2004 estimate); and (4) monopolizing retailing
ployees “associates” to promote management and store to the point that consumer choices are limited (dubbed
workers as a team. As he bought in bulk from producers “Wal-Martization”) while policing American culture by
(not wholesalers), he passed on the discount to consum- refusing to carry items it finds objectionable.
ers, realizing that it would lead to higher sales volume Critics such as Wal-Mart Watch suggest that the
and greater profitability. Also, in terms of stocking its consumer savings the company provides are undermined
shelves, the company has relied on “family values” as a by the burden that is placed on taxpayers. From this
guide, following red-state sensibilities (media materials perspective, Wal-Mart is not paying its fair share since
containing nudity and any recorded music with parental it relies on government—federal, state, and local—to
warning labels are banned; as was the “morning after” or subsidize its operation through tax abatements (which
Plan B contraceptive pill until courts overruled). are seldom granted to small businesses) and social services
Soon after Walton retired as chief executive officer in provided to Wal-Mart employees who are not receiving a
1988—he was succeeded by David Glass (1988–2000), living wage. According to Everyday Low Wages: The Hid-
H. Lee Scott, Jr. (2000–2009), and Michael T. Duke den Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart, a February 2004 report
(2009– )—the company rose to higher levels, becoming prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Education
the nation’s number one retailer in 1990 and opening its and Workforce Committee, Wal-Mart employees that
first overseas store in Mexico City the following year. By year possibly cost the federal government $2.5 billion in
1995, Wal-Mart was present in all fifty states, operating social services including Medicaid, food stamps, housing
1,200 stores. In the 2000s, as Wal-Mart expanded in major subsidies, and free school lunches. Defenders of Wal-
urban centers of the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and West Mart dispute the report, calling it partisan research, and
Coast, criticism of the company ramped up. Fostering the emphasize the $4 billion the company paid in taxes that
negative image of Wal-Mart has been the United Food and year. No matter, they say, Wal-Mart is not obligated to
Commercial Workers Union, which in 2005 launched the pay higher wages and benefits for unskilled labor. Some
Wake-Up Wal-Mart campaign. In 2000, the meat cutters state governments, however, think Wal-Mart should be
at a Wal-Mart store in Jacksonville, Texas, had actually forced to pay for social services utilized by its employees
voted to join this union, but soon afterwards Wal-Mart if it refuses to upgrade benefits. In 2006, for example,
headquarters announced that it no longer needed butch- Maryland, specifically targeting Wal-Mart, passed a law
ers since it would start buying prepackaged “case-ready” requiring any company with 10,000 or more employees to
meat from wholesalers. (On the overseas side, Wal-Mart devote 8 percent of its payroll toward health insurance or
in 2005 closed a profitable store in Quebec, Canada, after else reimburse the state for medical services rendered; the
employees voted to unionize, but in 2006 it reluctantly measure was later overturned for violating federal law.
agreed to accept unionization of its stores in China.)
The debate concerning Wal-Mart is largely about Roger Chapman
American-style capitalism in the era of globalization and
to what degree social responsibility is to be connected See also: Censorship; China; Environmental Movement; Fam-
with it. Critics fault Wal-Mart for (1) price-squeezing ily Values; Globalization; Health Care; Illegal Immigrants;
its 56,000 suppliers and accelerating outsourcing for Labor Unions; Red and Blue States; Wealth Gap.
Walt Disney Company 5 91
Further Reading Under the Sea (1954), Old Yeller (1957), Toby Tyler (1960),
Bianco, Anthony. The Bully of Bentonville: How the Cost of Wal- The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), Son of Flubber (1963),
Mart’s Everyday Low Prices Is Hurting America. New York: and That Darn Cat! (1965).
Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press, 2006. Disney and ABC tapped into the growing baby
Head, Simon. “Inside the Leviathan.” New York Review of Books, boom market by premiering the Mickey Mouse Club, an
December 16, 2004. hour-long children’s afternoon program that ran five
Vedder, Richard K., and Wendell Cox. The Wal-Mart Revolution: days a week from 1955 to 1959. Not only did the Club
How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy. help guarantee Mickey Mouse’s place in popular culture,
Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006. but it also proved to be a bonanza for advertisers, who
Wake-Up Wal-Mart Web site. www.wakeupwalmart.com. used Disney characters to sell a myriad of kid-friendly
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Web site. www.walmartstores.com. products. Jack Gould, TV critic for the New York Times,
groused that he had never seen “a children’s program—or
an adult’s for that matter—that was quite as commercial
Wa l t D i s n ey C o m p a ny as Mr. Disney’s.”
Synonymous with the best and worst of American Almost everything associated with the Disney name
culture, depending on who is being asked, the Walt became an instant success. In 1966 alone, some 240
Disney Company—originally called Walt Disney Pro- million people watched a Disney movie, 100 million a
ductions—continues to flourish long after the death of week watched a Disney television show, 80 million read
its namesake in 1966. Launched in 1923 as a producer a Disney book, 50 million listened to Disney records,
of silent cartoons, the company has gone on to produce and 7 million visited Disneyland. The New York Times
and market motion pictures, television programs, theme eulogized Walt Disney as “probably the only man to
parks, music, books, comics, and character merchandise have been praised by both the American Legion and the
under one internationally renowned brand name. Those Soviet Union.” Indeed, one of the Soviet premier Nikita
businesses, combined with its ownership of the Ameri- Khrushchev’s disappointments about his 1959 visit to
can Broadcasting Company (ABC), cable networks, film the United States was his inability to visit Disneyland
studios, sports franchises, and other leading brands and due to security concerns.
companies, have made Disney a leading “multimedia Despite this popularity—or perhaps because of it—
corporation” of the twenty-first century. As adored as its the company has consistently attracted critical scrutiny.
movies and theme parks remain for millions of consum- In a 1965 letter to the Los Angeles Times, UCLA librarian
ers worldwide, however, the company has not escaped and faculty member Frances Clarke Sayers famously ac-
ridicule for its commercialism, pop-culture romanti- cused Disney of debasing the “traditional literature of
cism, and unfair labor practices. Beginning in 1996, childhood.” “Every story is sacrificed to the ‘gimmick’
Disney was boycotted for more than eight years by the . . . of animation,” she argued, and called Disney’s
conservative Southern Baptist Convention because of its “cliché-ridden” books “laughable.” Since then, the terms
support of gay rights and for permitting “Gay Days” at “Disneyfication” and “Disneyization” have been used as
Disney World. pejoratives to describe places and concepts that are overly
The first major breakthrough for the California-based simplified, sanitized, or blatantly romanticized. Disney
company came in 1928 with the appearance of a scrappy theme parks, including Disney World in Orlando,
little mouse named Mickey in the cartoon animation Florida (which opened in 1971), have been especially
Steamboat Willie. Over the next decade, Mickey Mouse maligned for presenting an unrealistically homogenized
starred in almost a hundred films, ensuring economic world in which everyone is happy. Disney World’s
stability for the company despite the Great Depression. EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of
Further success came with Disney’s first full-length Tomorrow, which opened in 1982, has been criticized for
animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), its uncritical promotion of “futuristic technologies,” its
which became the highest-grossing movie of its time and excessively advertised corporate sponsorship of particular
won a special Academy Award for “screen innovation.” pavilions, and its sugar-coated “American Adventure”
Profits from the film were used to build Disney Studios history lesson, which presents a national narrative void
in Burbank, California. of controversy.
One of the first major motion picture producers to go For many, “The Happiest Place on Earth” is actually
into television, Disney launched the series Disneyland on a ruthless corporation that exploits its workers and goes
ABC in October 1954. An entertaining mix of cartoons to “greedy” lengths to enforce its copyright protections.
and live-action features, the show unabashedly promoted In 1993, as Disney faced criticism for underpaying its
upcoming Disney films and the new theme park Dis- lower-level workers and taking advantage of sweatshops
neyland, which opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California. in developing countries, corporate head Michael Eisner
Family-oriented Disney films included 20,000 Leagues was the highest-paid CEO in the United States, receiv-
5 92 Walt Disney Company
ing a $203 million salary-and-benefits package. Over Wa r o n D r u g s

the years, various nonprofits have called for a boycott of As a much-debated culture wars issue, the U.S. war on
Disney products. In 2001, the company held the dubious drugs has engendered two opposing positions: generally
distinction of being named “Sweatshop Retailer of the speaking, conservatives emphasize law enforcement,
Year” by the Canadian Labour Congress. The National while liberals emphasize rehabilitation treatment and
Labor Committee in New York, which tracks American education. For the first group, the drug problem is a
corporate use of sweatshop labor, once called Disney one criminal issue that necessitates a reduction in the sup-
of the “greediest sweatshop abusers.” Also generating ply of all illegal substances—tracking down and arrest-
negative publicity has been the company’s aggressive ing distributors; seizing their supplies; and carrying out
approach in going after violators of Disney copyright. In military interdiction wherever necessary, including for-
1989, for example, it threatened legal action against three eign countries, to eliminate the source of drugs. For the
day-care providers in Florida for having unauthorized second group, the drug problem is primarily a public
murals with Disney characters. In 1997, the company health issue that is best solved by curbing the demand
demanded remuneration from the U.S. Postal Service for drugs. Beyond issues of emphasis and ideology, the
for plans to print commemorative postage stamps with two sides have also debated vigorously over the very suc-
Disney characters; the stamps were never issued. cess or failure of the war on drugs: while one side points
Christian groups, such as the American Family to the decline in drug abuse by young people, the other
Association and the Catholic League for Religious and notes that Americans continued to lead the world in
Civil Rights, have also attacked Disney for abandoning its consumption of marijuana and cocaine in 2008.
“wholesome” image by releasing violent and controversial Although federal regulation of illicit drugs dates to
films, such as Pulp Fiction (1994) and Priest (1995), through the early 1900s, when the Harrison Narcotics Act (1914)
its subsidiary production company Miramax. Controversy limited the manufacture, importation, and distribution
also centered on some the content of certain animated of opiates and cocaine to medical and scientific uses, the
films—including Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), in modern war on drugs began during the administration
which Jessica Rabbit’s dress blows up, revealing that she of President Richard Nixon. A disdainer of the counter-
is not wearing underwear, and Lion King (1994), with its culture movement, in particular its permissiveness and
alleged homosexual characters and a dust cloud that spells irreverence toward authority, Nixon singled out drugs as
“SEX.” In 1996, the national convention of Southern Bap- “a serious national threat” during a speech to Congress
tists voted to boycott all Disney theme parks and stores on July 14, 1969. The following year, Congress passed
after the company agreed to offer health care coverage to the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control
the partners of gay employees and because of its unofficial Act, consolidating the nation’s drug laws and establish-
hosting of “Gay Days” (every first Saturday in June since ing five categories of illegal substances and the penalties
1991) at Disney World. In 1997, when the company’s for their distribution. On June 17, 1971, declaring il-
TV network ballyhooed Ellen DeGeneres’s coming out licit substances “public enemy No. 1,” Nixon called for
as a lesbian on the sitcom Ellen, the ban was expanded to a “war on drugs.” In 1973, he established by executive
include all Disney publications, movies, and radio and order the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to
television shows. The boycott, which lasted until 2005, had head the federal effort in “an all-out global war on the
no apparent impact on Disney, however, as the popularity drug menace.”
of its products continued to soar. During the 1980s, as cocaine use became more
Cindy Mediavilla prevalent in American society, Congress passed the
Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), establish-
See also: Blackface; Family Values; Gay Capital; Labor Unions; ing mandatory prison sentences for drug offenders and
Outing; Southern Baptist Convention; Wildmon, Donald. broadening the government’s ability to seize the assets
of drug dealers. The provision for stiffer federal penal-
Further Reading ties, following a trend introduced by New York in the
Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagina- 1970s, led to a lengthening of the average drug-related
tion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. prison sentence from 48.1 months in 1980 to 84 months
Griffin, Sean. “Curiouser and Curiouser: Gay Days at Disney in 1990. Between 1985 and 1992, federal law enforce-
Theme Parks.” Rethinking Disney: Private Control, Public ment agencies hauled in billions of dollars from seized
Dimensions, ed. Mike Budd and Max H. Kirsch, 125–50. assets, but not without complaints about violations of due
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. process as agents confiscated money and vehicles often
Schweizer, Peter, and Rochelle Schweizer. Disney: The Mouse based on circumstantial evidence.
Betrayed. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1998. Following the fatal cocaine overdose of University
Smoodin, Eric, ed. Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom. of Maryland basketball star Len Bias in 1986, Congress,
New York: Routledge, 1994. at the urging of House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill,
War on Pover t y 5 93
Jr. (D-MA), passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Contro- Staunch critics of the war on drugs regard it as a
versially, this new law brought race politics into the mix failure on par with Prohibition and recommend that
by making a legal distinction between crack cocaine and marijuana, the most commonly used illicit drug, be
powder cocaine, establishing stiffer penalties for pos- decriminalized or legalized. According to the National
session of the former, which was especially prominent Household Survey on Drug Use and Health, 20.4 mil-
among poor urban blacks. (Following years of acrimoni- lion Americans (8.3 percent of the population) engaged
ous debate, federal mandatory sentencing guidelines for in illegal drug use in 2006. Of those, 14.8 million
crack were reduced in 2007.) people (representing 6 percent of the population) used
The decade of the 1980s marked the beginning of a marijuana, which accounted for nearly 44 percent of the
major effort to warn schoolchildren of the harm of drugs. total 1.8 million drug arrests. Since marijuana is officially
In 1983, the Los Angeles Police Department began the considered a “gateway drug” that leads to the abuse of
D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) pilot pro- more dangerous substances—and since it is increasing
gram, aimed at fifth and sixth graders, to teach against in potency (between 1999 and 2006 the plant’s active
substance abuse. The program would later expand to ingredient, THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, reportedly
other grade levels and be adopted nationally as well as doubled from 4.6 percent to 8.8 percent)—calls for its
overseas. In 1984, First Lady Nancy Reagan introduced legalization are met with sharp rejoinders.
the slogan “Just Say No” as a public campaign to combat
the peer pressure often associated with drug usage. Five Roger Chapman
years later, with heroin emerging as the new problem
drug, President George H.W. Bush bolstered efforts at See also: Bennett, William J.; Counterculture; Drug Testing;
drug deterrence by creating the Office of National Drug Hoffman, Abbie; Leary, Timothy; Medical Marijuana; Nixon,
Control Policy and appointing William J. Bennett as the Richard; Prison Reform; Reagan, Ronald; Zero Tolerance.
nation’s first “drug czar.”
Skeptics over the years have characterized the various Further Reading
antidrug programs as alarmist and ineffectual. Others Benavie, Arthur. Drugs: America’s Holy War. New York: Haworth
cite a University of Michigan survey titled Monitoring Press, 2006.
the Future, which indicated that while 54.2 percent of Bennett, William J., John J. Dilulio, and John P. Walters. Body
high school seniors used illicit drugs in 1979, the figure Count—and How to Win America’s War against Crime and
dropped to 38.5 percent in 1988 and 32.5 percent in Drugs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
1990, rose to 42.4 percent in 1997, and then declined Jonnes, Jill. Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of
to 36 percent in 2007—all said to be the result of the America’s Romance with Illegal Drugs. New York: Scribner,
war on drugs. 1996.
Some have argued that the war on drugs has been Miller, Joel. Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying
an inordinate economic burden. According to the New America. Nashville, TN: WND Books, 2004.
York Times, the federal government in 2007 spent $1.4 Provine, Doris Marie. Unequal Under Law: Race in the War on
billion on foreign antidrug assistance, including aerial- Drugs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
spray eradication of coca crops in the Andes; $7 billion
on drug enforcement overseas and at home; and $5 billion
on education and treatment to curb American drug use. Wa r o n P ove r t y
Although the annual budget of the DEA increased from The War on Poverty, an effort by President Lyndon
less than $75 million in 1973 to $2.4 billion in 2008, Johnson to reverse what he regarded as a vicious cycle
and its manpower expanded from 1,470 special agents in American life, was part of the Great Society domestic
to 5,235 during that same period, cocaine, heroin, and agenda. In his first State of the Union address on January
other illicit substances continued to be smuggled into 8, 1964, Johnson announced, “This administration to-
the country. (Many drugs also originate in the United day, here and now, declares unconditional war on pover-
States, including marijuana, PCP, mescaline, ecstasy, ty in America.” The war, he explained, would be fought
methamphetamine, and various prescription painkillers.) “in city slums and small towns, in sharecropper shacks
Meanwhile, the number of drug-related federal incarcera- and in migrant labor camps, on Indian reservations,
tions increased from 40,000 in 1980 to nearly 500,000 among whites as well as Negroes, among the young as
in 2008. In the period from 1985 to 2000, nonviolent well as the old, in the boom towns and in the depressed
drug offenses accounted for 65 percent of the rise in the areas.” At the time, an estimated one out of five Ameri-
federal prison population. In 2008, federal and state gov- can families—or nearly 35 million residents—was liv-
ernments spent nearly $55 billion keeping 2.3 million ing in poverty.
drug offenders behind bars. New York that year spent In March 1964, the White House sent to Congress
$500 million housing its drug-related convicts. the Economic Opportunity Act, a $970 million measure,
594 War on Pover t y
people were displaced from jobs as others were lifted to

gainful employment. The financial costs of the Vietnam
War ultimately undermined the War on Poverty, but
many of the programs associated with it continued after
Johnson left office.
In a diary entry when he was president, Ronald
Reagan expressed his intention to undo Johnson’s Great
Society (rather than the New Deal). “LBJ’s war on
poverty,” Reagan wrote, “led us to our present mess.”
Another conservative Republican icon, Barry Goldwater,
likewise stated in a 1986 interview, “A lot of our present
problems stem from what Lyndon Johnson had passed
by the Congress.” Reagan’s remedy was to cut back on
government social programs and allow supply-side eco-
nomics, activated by tax cuts for the wealthy, to stimulate
business growth and create jobs. According to Reagan
conservatives, the War on Poverty expanded the welfare
rolls, institutionalized poverty, and reinforced the “social
pathology” of the ghetto.
Roger Chapman
President Lyndon Johnson beams with pride after signing
the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, a centerpiece of his
War on Poverty and Great Society. The expansion of federal See also: Compassionate Conservatism; Ehrenreich, Barbara;
social programs in the 1960s gave way to a major ideological Goldwater, Barry; Great Society; Harrington, Michael; John-
shift by the 1980s. (Arnold Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/ son, Lyndon B.; Migrant Labor; New Deal; Reagan, Ronald;
Getty Images) Supply-Side Economics; Tax Reform; Welfare Reform.
representing 1 percent of the total federal budget. Re- Further Reading

publican opponents of the bill advised southern Demo- Collins, Sheila. Let Them Eat Ketchup! The Politics of Poverty and
crats that the antipoverty program was primarily a civil Inequality. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1996.
rights package tailored for blacks, hoping the issue of Gilder, George. Wealth and Poverty. New York: Basic Books,
race would undermine Dixiecrat support. But Senator 1981.
Robert F. Kennedy denied that blacks were the principal Unger, Irwin. The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of
recipients, arguing, “After all, Negroes comprise only the Great Society Under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. New York:
20 percent of the poor in this country.” The measure Doubleday, 1996.
eventually passed. Witkin, Gordon. “Great Society: How Great Has It Been?”
In many respects, the War on Poverty was politically U.S. News & World Report, July 2, 1984.
conservative in orientation. The program addressed pov-
erty as the consequence of too many individuals without
adequate job skills and/or proper work habits. Thus, the Wa r P o we r s Ac t
newly created Office of Economic Opportunity aimed Introduced by Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-NY) after the
to increase self-reliance by having local “community 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, the War Powers Act
action” organizations train poor people. A more liberal (or Resolution) of 1973 was an attempt by Congress
program would have guaranteed citizens an annual in- to limit presidential war-making powers and to ensure
come, strengthened the rights of labor unions, penalized greater congressional control of the nation’s armed forc-
businesses for shifting factories to regions of cheap labor, es. In a larger context, the act represented a desire on the
and addressed the problem of corporate downsizing due part of legislators to recoup some of its authority over
to automation. In fact, leftists generally regarded the War the military that had been lost to the executive branch
on Poverty as essentially an effort to stifle social unrest. since the start of World War II in 1941. As scholars
Statistics show that between 1965 and 1969, the contend, the act was not just a reaction to the Vietnam
official poverty rate in the United States dropped from War, but the fruition of an evolutionary debate on the
17.3 percent of the population to 12.1. It is estimated war powers of Congress and the president that had been
that only 10 percent of that reduction was due to ris- going on for decades.
ing employment and the overall improvement of the The War Powers Act was passed over President
economy. On the other hand, the “manpower training” Richard Nixon’s veto on November 7, 1973, with the
aspect of the program did not seem to help because some House of Representatives and the Senate voting 284–135
War P rotes ters 5 95
and 75–18, respectively. The law requires the president Wa r P r o t e s t e r s

to consult Congress before military forces are sent into In the aftermath of World War II, as the United States
combat abroad or to areas where hostilities are likely. sought a return to normal life, the Cold War and nuclear
It also requires the president to report in writing forty- arms race fractured the peace and created a growing fis-
eight hours after troops are deployed. Under the act, sure in American society. War protesters emerged to op-
the president must end the use of military force within pose the growing strategic reliance on atomic weaponry
sixty days, and for another thirty days beyond that if the and then to oppose the Vietnam War (1964–1975). Be-
president certifies to Congress in writing that the safety tween June 1963 and May 1968, a total of 104 antiwar
of the force so requires. Unless Congress authorizes a demonstrations were held across the United States, in-
continuation of the deployment through a declaration of volving 680,000 participants and 3,258 arrests. Later
war, a concurrent resolution, or appropriate legislation, came protests against the Gulf War (1990–1991) and
it cannot be continued beyond ninety days. the Iraq War (2003– ). Throughout the postwar era, the
Nixon believed that the law could potentially harm American peace movement itself has often been motley,
the nation in times of crisis. He argued further that it with participants ranging from pacifists who oppose war
granted Congress authority over troop deployments in in general to activists who simply oppose a particular
violation of Article II of the Constitution, which explic- war. In addition, solidarity has been strained when other
itly grants such powers to the executive. Proponents of “social justice” issues—such as civil rights, feminism,
the measure regarded it as a check on the power of the globalization, environmentalism, and animal rights—
president to commit the country to military action by have been incorporated into the protest.
exercising the constitutional authority of Congress to At the same time, to protest war while troops are
declare war under Article I. deployed in combat is viewed by many as unpatriotic and
In April 1975, President Gerald Ford became the unconscionable. On occasion, war protesters have been
first commander in chief to adhere to the act, submit- accused of bringing aid and comfort to the enemy—as in
ting four reports to Congress that announced the use the actress Jane Fonda’s July 1972 visit to North Viet-
of armed forces to evacuate refugees and U.S. nationals nam, during which she met with North Vietcong officials
from Cambodia and Vietnam. Again on May 15, 1975, and sang an antiwar song while posing for pictures in
President Ford reported to Congress that he ordered U.S. front of an anti-aircraft gun. War protesters insist that
forces to rescue the crew of the ship Mayagüez, which dissent is a privilege and an expression of democracy, and
had been seized by Cambodian navy patrol boats. All claim that they truly care for the soldiers because they
told, presidents have submitted approximately 120 such seek their quick and safe return. Nevertheless, “Support
reports to Congress under the legislation. the Troops” bumper stickers are widely understood as
Despite its flaws and controversies, the War Powers political statements against those who would voice an-
Act has not been amended since its passage. The consti- tiwar sentiments.
tutionality of the law, however, has been debated vigor-
ously. Arguments range from the claim that it violates Radioactive Fallout and the Rise
the separation of powers to the claim that a congressional of the New Left
declaration of war applies only to total war and not a The American antinuclear movement was spurred in the
military police action. Nevertheless, in every instance 1950s by the research of Washington University biolo-
since passage of the act, presidents have been granted gist Barry Commoner, who documented the ecological
their requests for authorization to use force consistent consequences of radioactive fallout from above-ground
with the provisions of the resolution without a formal nuclear testing. In 1957, Norman Cousins (editor of the
declaration of war. Saturday Review), A.J. Muste (formerly of the Ameri-
Michael A. Vieira can Workers Party), and Benjamin Spock (the popular
pediatrician and author) founded the Committee for a
See also: Ford, Gerald; Nixon, Richard; Vietnam War. Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) in opposition to atomic
testing. SANE is credited with encouraging adoption
Further Reading of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963 and went on
Bobbitt, Philip. “War Powers: An Essay on John Hart Ely’s War to play an active role in the anti–Vietnam War effort.
and Responsibility: Constitutional Lessons of Vietnam and Its After- During the 1980s, SANE began its Nuclear Weapons
math.” Michigan Law Quarterly 92:6 (May 1994): 1364–400. Freeze Campaign, seeking to pressure the United States
Fisher, Louis. Presidential War Powers. Lawrence: University of and the Soviet Union to stop producing and upgrading
Kansas, 1995. atomic weapons. SANE opposed the Gulf War in the
Stern, Gary M., and Martin Halperin, eds. The U.S. Constitution early 1990s and changed its name to Peace Action in
and the Power to Go to War: Historical and Current Perspectives. 1993.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Old Left groups such the War Resisters League
596 War P rotes ters
(WRL), founded in 1923, were the first to mobilize program called COINTELPRO to disrupt the Weath-
against the Vietnam War. In New York City on May ermen and other protest groups.
16, 1964, the WRL sponsored an antiwar demonstra- The counterculture movement in opposition to the
tion involving a dozen young men who burned their Vietnam War and the draft was fueled as well by the
draft cards. The major thrust of the Vietnam-era anti- songs of some of the most popular musicians of the day,
war movement, however, was the rise of the New Left, from Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963), The
specifically SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (1965), and Pete Seeger’s
founded by Tom Hayden in 1962; and the Yippies “Knee Deep in the Big Muddy” (1967) to Arlo Guthrie’s
(Youth International Party), founded by David Del- “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” (1967), The Doors’ “Un-
linger and Jerry Rubin in 1967. The latter group known Soldier” (1968), and Glen Campbell’s “Galveston”
was largely responsible for coordinating the National (1969). A highlight at the Woodstock Music and Arts
Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) and Festival in August 1969 was the electric-guitar rendition
its massive three-day protest in Washington, D.C., in of the “Star Spangled Banner” performed by Jimi Hendrix
October 1967. Billed as “Stop the Draft Week,” the (a former paratrooper), which mimicked the sounds of
event involved the burning of draft cards outside the falling bombs and air raid sirens. Meanwhile, country
U.S. Justice Department and a march from the steps of singer Merle Haggard released “Okie from Muskogee”
the Lincoln Memorial to the front of the Pentagon. This (1969), an antiprotest song featuring the lines, “We don’t
protest marked a militant, if peaceful, turn in the 1960s burn our draft cards down on Main Street.”
peace movement, with a stated purpose to “Confront In 1969, John Lennon of the Beatles and his wife,
the War Makers.” According to various estimates, the Yoko Ono, conducted a widely publicized “Bed-In for
protesters numbered between 70,000 and 200,000. In Peace” at hotels in Amsterdam and Montreal, dramatiz-
front of photographers who made the image famous, ing the popular antiwar slogan of the time “Make love,
the protesters placed flowers in the barrels of the rifles not war” and offering a new one: “All we are saying is
held by soldiers guarding the complex. Signs bearing give peace a chance.” That same year, Lennon and Ono
the face of President Lyndon B. Johnson read: “WAR conducted a Christmastime antiwar billboard campaign
CRIMINAL.” More than 680 participants were arrested, across the United States as well as in Europe—the signs
including novelist Norman Mailer, who went on to write read “WAR IS OVER! / IF YOU WANT IT / Happy
Armies of the Night (1968), a Pulitzer Prize–winning Christmas from John & Yoko”—and released a hit single
account of the demonstration. titled “Give Peace a Chance.” In 1971, Crosby, Stills,
Nash & Young released the song “Ohio,” with the somber
“Rage” and Counterculture lyrics “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming” and “four dead
In August 1968, Yippie and SDS leaders organized a in Ohio,” alluding to the National Guard shootings at
major demonstration in Chicago in conjunction with Kent State University on May 4, 1970.
the Democratic National Convention. Richard Daley,
the Democratic mayor of Chicago, was also against the Gulf War and Iraq War
war but assured those attending the convention: “As The Gulf War was over and done before peace activists
long as I am mayor of this city, there’s going to be law had time to effectively mobilize. On January 12, 1991,
and order in Chicago.” Approximately 6,000 National Congress voted to authorize military action to remove
Guardsmen were mobilized, and there was violence in Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and by February 27, 1991,
the street when the protesters violated the 11:00 p.m. the war was declared finished. Nevertheless, demon-
curfew or ventured where they did not have a permit strations against U.S. involvement were held in San
to demonstrate. At one point, a riotous confrontation Francisco and Washington, D.C. A number of soldiers
outside the convention hall was captured by television who refused to go to war were given legal assistance by
news cameramen as municipal police clubbed protest- the WRL. The recognized “anthem” of the Gulf War
ers in the head and dragged them into paddy wagons. was Bette Midler’s Grammy-winning single “From
There were a total of 668 arrests during the week of a Distance” (1990), with the lines (written by Julie
protests. The following year, organizers of the demon- Gold), “From a distance / I just cannot comprehend /
stration, known as the Chicago Eight (later Chicago What all this fighting’s for” and “God is watching us /
Seven), were put on trial for conspiracy and inciting ri- From a distance.”
ots. While the court trial was taking place, the Weath- Although the terrorist attacks of September 11,
ermen, a splinter of the SDS, launched the “Days of 2001, generally unified the country, an antiwar move-
Rage” street protest in Chicago (October 8–11, 1969). ment quickly got under way. The Washington, D.C.–
“Bring the War Home” was their slogan as they resort- based Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)
ed to violence and vandalism. Meanwhile, FBI director was founded three days after the attacks. This group,
J. Edgar Hoover initiated a secret counterintelligence designating itself anti-imperialist, led a number of peace
War Toys 5 97
rallies in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. The pro- Wa r Toy s

gressive advocacy group MoveOn.org, founded in 1998, During the 1950s, the widespread use of plastics en-
quickly launched the MoveOn Peace campaign, calling abled American toy manufactures to cheaply expand
for a “restrained and multi-lateral response to the attacks.” their line of products, including new designs of war toys.
In November 2002, the California-based CODEPINK: Although most boys have played with toy soldiers since
Women for Peace was formed, launching its activist ancient times, a debate on the appropriateness of war
activities with a four-month, all-day vigil in front of the toys accelerated as the Vietnam War turned unpopular
White House. As the George W. Bush administration in the mid-1960s. The debate continues to the present,
mobilized for war against Iraq, protesters coined the with opponents arguing that war toys glorify violence,
slogan “No Blood for Oil.” At that point, however, many manipulate patriotic symbols, and impose military so-
Americans identified with the sentiments of county singer cialization. Moreover, critics believe, they promote ag-
Toby Keith’s post–September 11 fight song, “Courtesy gression and antisocial behavior in children. Defenders
of the Red, White, and Blue” (2002). of war toys insist that they give children a healthy outlet
In 2003, ten days before the start of the Iraq War, for acting out good over evil and provide a healthy ca-
country radio stations stopped playing the songs of the tharsis for violent impulses.
Dixie Chicks after band member Natalie Maines com- In 1964, which marked the debut of Parents for
mented during a London concert that she was “ashamed” Responsibility in the Toy Industry and their annual
that President George W. Bush was from her state of protest at the American Toy Fair in New York, the toy
Texas. Ted Koppel, the anchor of ABC’s Nightline, found manufacturer Hassenfeld Brothers (later renamed Hasbro)
himself in controversy in 2004 when his program took introduced what would become the most recognized war
forty minutes to read the names of the Americans who toy in American history: the GI Joe “action figure.” An
had so far died in the Iraq War; critics saw this as a 11.5-inch (29-centimeter) boy’s doll with twenty-one
thinly veiled antiwar message. In August 2005, Cindy bendable joints, the masculine-looking polyvinyl GI
Sheehan, who had lost a son in Iraq, camped outside Joe, featuring a facial scar, sported a U.S. military uni-
Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, maintaining a twenty- form (with elements from all four services) and could be
six-day vigil with thousands of others. One newspaper outfitted with a variety of plastic war “accessories” (sold
columnist in the Indianapolis Star referred to the war separately). Two years later, a group of mothers at the
demonstrations as “adolescent temper tantrums.” Others toy fair demonstrated in Mary Poppins costumes and
called the protesters “anarchists.” Sheehan was scorned brandished black umbrellas carrying the inscription,
by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh “Toy Fair or Warfare.” Also in 1966, the Children’s Peace
with the words “We all lose things.” Union, founded by a fifth grader, demonstrated in front
of a department store on Fifth Avenue in New York City
Roger Chapman carrying signs that read, “War Toys Kill Minds” and
“Constructive Toys, Not Destructive Toys.” In 1969,
See also: Chicago Seven; Commoner, Barry; Counterculture; Parents Against the Encouragement of Violence picketed
Fonda, Jane; Hoffman, Abbie; My Lai Massacre; New Left; the American Toy Fair, calling into question the social
Rock and Roll; September 11; Students for a Democratic So- benefit of war toys. It was during this period that the
ciety; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam War. Sears catalog stopped offering war toys.
As the news from Vietnam worsened, the GI Joes
Further Reading grew beards and were retooled into the “Adventure Team”
CODEPINK Web site. www.codepink4peace.org. to hunt wild animals or search for buried treasure. In
DeBenedetti, Charles, and Charles Chatfield. An American 1971, California passed legislation, signed into law by
Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, Governor Ronald Reagan, that prohibited the manufac-
NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. ture or sale of “torture toys,” including toy bombs and
Epstein, Barbara. “The Antiwar Movement during the Gulf grenades. At the 1972 American Toy Fair, a group of
War.” Social Justice (1992): 115–37. Vietnam veterans joined Parents for Responsibility in the
Garfinkle, Adam. Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Toy Industry to discourage retailers from stocking their
Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: St. Martin’s Press, shelves with war toys. Although some observers thought
1995. war toys were making a comeback during the Christmas
Harris, Nancy, ed. The Peace Movement. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven season of 1974, a spokesman for the Toy Manufacturers
Press, 2005. of America reported that there were fewer on the market
Katz, Milton S. Ban the Bomb: A History of SANE, the Committee then than in the mid-1960s. By 1978, GI Joe was tem-
for a SANE Nuclear Policy. New York: Praeger, 1987. porarily pulled off of the market, unable to compete with
Sheehan, Cindy. Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through Heartache Kenner’s 4-inch- (10-centimeter-) tall Star Wars action
to Activism. New York: Atria Books, 2006. figures, establishing the trend for smaller figures.
598 War Toys
The decade of the 1980s witnessed the introduction of toy guns for real ones. In 1994, after a boy in Brooklyn,
new lines of action figures, including Mattel’s He-Man and New York, was fatally shot by police who mistook his
Masters of the Universe (1981), Tonka’s GoBots (1983), toy gun for a genuine weapon, Toys “R” Us announced
and Hasbro’s Transformers (1984). Critics said they were that it would stop selling realistic toy guns.
even more violent than GI Joe. The War Resisters League, After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and
known for its logo of a broken rifle, picketed Coleco of the start of the War on Terror, the debate on war toys
Hartford, Connecticut, for introducing the Rambo doll, continued afresh. CODEPINK, a women’s peace move-
an action figure based on the main character of Sylvester ment founded in 2002 in opposition to the Iraq War,
Stallone’s films First Blood (1982) and Rambo: First Blood protested against retailers selling war toys, including
Part II (1985). On the West Coat, the Eugene, Oregon– violent video games. During the 2005 Christmas season,
based Families for Survival began hosting Peace Toy Fairs CODEPINK launched Operation “Stick It to ’Em” by
to publicize alternatives to war toys, capping off events encouraging its followers to place warning stickers on
with a burial ceremony in which war toys are given last toys in stores: “Surgeon General’s Warning: Violent Toys
rites. In actuality, thanks to government deregulation = Violent Boys.” The group also recommended a “buy
pushed by President Ronald Reagan, changes in children’s and return” tactic in order to register complaints to store
television programming made possible by the relaxation of managers about violent toys while creating longer lines
content rules by the Federal Communications Commission in customer service departments.
(FCC) gave war toys a commercial resurrection. Although Roger Chapman
the Federal Trade Commission in 1977 concluded that
some television advertising aimed at children is inherently See also: Barbie Doll; Comic Books; Federal Communications
unethical, the FCC permitted the airing of violent war Commission; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
cartoons featuring toy products as the main characters.
In 1982, a GI Joe cartoon commercial promoted the Further Reading
toy’s rebirth (at 3.5 inches [9 centimenters]), and Marvel Chapman, Roger. “From Vietnam to the New World Order:
comics began publishing G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero The GI Joe Action Figure as Cold War Artifact.” In The
(1982–1994). These were followed by two GI Joe cartoon Impact of the Cold War on American Popular Culture, ed. Elaine
mini-series on television, A Real American Hero (1983) McClarnand and Steve Goodson, 47–55. Carrollton: State
and The Revenge of Cobra (1984); and later, five times a University of West Georgia, 1999.
week, The Pyramid of Darkness (1985) and Arise, Serpentor, Clark, Eric. The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battles for
Arise (1986). In 1986, Hasbro enjoyed $185 million in America’s Youngest Consumers. New York: Free Press, 2007.
sales for GI Joes, and the following year saw the release of Paige-Carlsson, Nancy, and Diane E. Levin. Who’s Calling the
G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987). The success of the GI Joe TV Shots? How to Respond Effectively to Children’s Fascination with
series inspired other war programs, including a cartoon War Play and War Toys. Philadelphia: New Society, 1990.
promoting Transformers (1984–1987) that reportedly Regan, Patrick. “War Toys, War Movies, and the Militarization
averaged eighty-three acts of violence per episode. The of the United States, 1900–85.” Journal of Peace Studies 31:1
Illinois-based National Coalition on Television Violence (February 1994): 45–58.
reported a 350 percent increase in the sale of war toys from
1982 to 1985, noting that the five top-selling products of
the mid-1980s all had their own violent cartoon program. Wa r h o l , A n d y
In 1984 alone, some 214 million units of action figures The painter, photographer, writer, and filmmaker Andy
were sold. In 1988, Congress passed the Children’s Tele- Warhol was a prominent figure in the Pop Art move-
vision Act to curb the involvement of toy manufacturers ment beginning in the 1960s. Determined to achieve
in children’s programming, but President Reagan vetoed fame and fortune through commercial art, Warhol mass-
the legislation on First Amendment grounds. produced his works, which focused on food, money, sex,
Meanwhile, toy guns, some in the shape of military violence, and celebrity. Noted for his trademark silver
assault rifles, began to look so realistic that children wig and the observation that “In the future everyone
waving them were occasionally shot by law enforcement will be famous for fifteen minutes,” Warhol remains a
officers who thought they were acting in self-defense. controversial cultural figure.
Thus, a number of states passed legislation during the The son of Czechoslovakian immigrants, he was born
1980s aimed at regulating toy guns. New York, New Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh,
Jersey, Connecticut, and California, as well as a number Pennsylvania. After obtaining a fine arts degree in 1949
of municipalities, simply outlawed the manufacture or at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie
sale of toy guns. Congress approved the Federal Toy Gun Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, he went to New York
Law (1988), requiring toy guns to feature a bright orange and earned a reputation for the blotted-line technique he
plug. Despite this remedy, police continued to mistake used in commercial advertisements in Glamour, Vogue, and
War ren, E arl 599
Harper’s Bazaar magazines. He won the Art Director’s a Norwegian immigrant father and a Swedish immigrant
Club Medal for a shoe advertisement in 1957 and was mother. After studying law at the University of Califor-
later hailed by Women’s Wear Daily as “the Leonardo da nia, Berkeley (BA, 1912; JD, 1914), he worked for the
Vinci of the shoe trade.” Associated Oil Company and later a law firm. His career
From the 1960s onward, Warhol pursued his ca- was interrupted by service in World War I (1917–1918),
reer as a pop artist and gained international acclaim for after which he entered politics in his home state, serving
his canvases depicting popular consumer items such as as district attorney (1925–1939), state attorney general
Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles, mocking (1939–1943), and governor (1943–1953). His election
the banality of commercial homogenization. In 1962, to the governorship followed his support of President
he founded a New York City studio called The Factory, Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans
where his “art workers” silk-screened hundreds of super- during World War II; he later expressed regret for that
star images, including ones of Elizabeth Taylor and Mari- position in his autobiography, published after his death.
lyn Monroe. In 1968, having survived a gun blast from In 1948, Warren ran as Thomas Dewey’s vice-presidential
the radical feminist Valerie Solanas, founder of SCUM nominee in the Republican Party. He sought the GOP
(Society for Cutting Up Men), Warhol turned to death- nomination for president in 1952, but lost to Dwight
image art on race riots, car accidents, electrocutions, and Eisenhower, who appointed him to the Supreme Court
the atomic bomb. Condemned by some critics as life- because of his loyalty in delivering California’s votes.
less, nihilist, and even dangerous, his work was lauded Later, Eisenhower remarked that the Warren appoint-
by others as a powerful representation of a consumerist ment was his greatest mistake as president.
culture driven by mass advertising and obsessions with The year after becoming chief justice, Warren
sex and violence. presided over the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of
A prolific film producer, Warhol made sixty-one Education (1954), a unanimous decision that declared
underground movies from 1963 to 1972. Many of his racial segregation in schools unconstitutional. The ruling,
projects, such as Blow Job (1963) and Chelsea Girls (1966), which Warren wrote, overturned the “separate but equal”
deal with pornographic and homoerotic themes (Warhol doctrine on which institutional segregation had been
himself was gay). Although sometimes tedious and lack- legally based since the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
ing a storyline, but with brilliant color photography and Warren’s interpersonal skills enabled the justices to reach
in-camera editing, his movies attracted a generation of unanimity in Brown, all the more remarkable considering
experimental filmmakers, including Jean-Luc Godard and the ideological divisions and personality conflicts that
Norman Mailer. Warhol died on February 22, 1987, in were represented on the bench. Associate justices Hugo
New York City after gall bladder surgery. Black and William Douglas initially favored a forceful
ruling that would declare school segregation unconsti-
Selina S.L. Lai tutional, while factional rivals Robert Jackson and Felix
Frankfurter, though morally opposed to school segrega-
See also: Cold War; Counterculture; Feminism, Third-Wave; tion, were unsure as to whether or not the Constitution
Gay Capital; Mailer, Norman; Nuclear Age; Pornography. allowed the judiciary to outlaw it. Moderates on the
court, including Harold Burton and Tom Clark, could
Further Reading have ruled either way on Brown.
Bockris, Victor. The Life and Death of Andy Warhol. New York: Warren believed that the justices had to reach a
Bantam Books, 1989. unanimous decision in order for the ruling to carry
Pratt, Alan R., ed. The Critical Response to Andy Warhol. Westport, weight. He knew that white southerners would fight
CT: Greenwood, 1997. any attempts by the federal government to desegregate
schools, and he feared that any dissenting or even separate
concurring opinions could spur greater resistance. Thus,
Wa r r e n , E a r l Warren wrote a concise majority opinion that declared
The fourteenth chief justice of the United States (1953– school segregation to be unconstitutional, but also al-
1969), Earl Warren became a lightning rod in the cul- lowed the South to desegregate its schools gradually.
ture wars for the controversial decisions issued by the Years later, some liberals would criticize Brown for being
Supreme Court during his tenure. The most notable too moderate and accommodating toward segregationists;
cases, addressing issues of civil rights, individual free- others believed that the ruling spurred a white southern
dom, separation of church and state, and voting rights, backlash more than it helped desegregate schools. Over
were seen as shifting the high court—and the nation— time, most conservatives and liberals would concede that
in a liberal direction, prompting conservative critics to the decision was inherently correct.
deplore what they regarded as “judicial activism.” The Warren Court issued several other important
He was born on March 14, 1891, in Los Angeles to rulings that broadly interpreted the Constitution and
6 00 War ren, E arl
Conservatives mounted a campaign to “Impeach Earl

Warren,” and Republican presidential candidate Rich-
ard Nixon in 1968 made the Warren Court and judicial
activism an issue in his campaign.
In the meantime, Warren had also become associated
with the commission he headed—which was named for
him—under appointment by President Lyndon Johnson
in 1963 to investigate the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy that November. The commission’s report,
issued in September 1964, became ever controversial for
its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in
carrying out the shooting.
Earl Warren retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in
1969, succeeded as chief justice by Warren Burger. To
conservatives, he represented the wrongs of liberal America
and pushed the country away from law and toward dis-
order. Liberals, on the other hand, applauded the major
rulings of the Warren Court. While they recognized that
The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren
(front row, center)—posing here in 1953—is said to have Warren might not have been the outstanding legal scholar
marked a distinct shift toward liberal “judicial activism.” Its that some other justices were, they saw him as the first
historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ended chief justice to take an active role in enforcing minority
school segregation. (George Tames/New York Times Co./ and individual rights, even if he had to issue unpopular
Getty Images) verdicts to do so. Not long after Warren retired, Yale
professor Joseph Bishop argued that few of the Warren
increased the Supreme Court’s power to protect minori- Court’s important decisions were “palatable to a large seg-
ties and individuals’ rights. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the ment of the population, including a great many highly
justices held that the First Amendment’s guarantee of vocal politicians. . . . But in these areas it is my judgment
the separation of church and state made even nonde- . . . that (1) the Court was right, and (2) most people knew
nominational school prayers unconstitutional—a ruling it was right.” To Warren, the Constitution guaranteed
that many Americans criticize to the present day. Also certain basic rights for all Americans, and with the Su-
in 1962, the Warren Court declared in Baker v. Carr that preme Court’s verdicts in cases like Brown, Engle, Baker,
states must divide their electoral districts proportionally Griswold, and Miranda, he helped grant them. Warren
to ensure that every person’s vote counts equally; this died on July 9, 1974.
marked a departure from a 1946 ruling in which the Aaron Safane
high court stated that federal courts could not interfere
with states’ apportionment of districts. The Warren See also: Birth Control; Brown v. Board of Education (1954);
Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) that mar- Church and State; Communists and Communism; Conspiracy
ried couples can purchase contraceptives, a historic and Theories; Eisenhower, Dwight D.; John Birch Society; Judi-
far-reaching opinion that declared a constitutional right cial Wars; Kennedy Family; Miranda Rights; Nixon, Rich-
to personal privacy for the first time. And in Miranda v. ard; Reparations, Japanese Internment; School Prayer.
Arizona (1966), the court declared that the law requires
police officers to inform suspects of their right to remain Further Reading
silent and have an attorney present during questioning. Lewis, Frederick P. The Context of Judicial Activism: The Endur-
Conservatives roundly criticized Warren for many of ance of the Warren Court Legacy in a Conservative Age. Lanham,
these decisions. They criticized the Griswold ruling for MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
extrapolating a right to privacy not explicitly granted in Pollack, Jack Harrison. Earl Warren: The Judge Who Changed
the text of the Constitution. And the Miranda decision, America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979.
they feared, would make it too difficult for police officers Powe, Lucas A., Jr. The Warren Court and American Politics.
to fight crime. In these and other landmark rulings, they Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
charged Warren with engaging in “judicial activism” and Press, 2000.
overstepping the limits of the Supreme Court’s authority. Tushnet, Mark, ed. The Warren Court in Historical and Political
In 1957, in fact, Senator William Jenner (R-IN) proposed Perspective. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,
legislation that would limit the appeals the court could 1993.
accept, so that some of the Supreme Court’s power would Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Earl Warren. New York: Double-
be transferred to the executive and legislative branches. day, 1977.
Washington Times, The 6 01
Wa r r e n , R i c k of 2002, signed into law by President Bush. The legisla-

A Southern Baptist pastor, popular evangelical preacher, tion authorized the IRS to impose a “fair market rental”
and best-selling writer, Rick Warren is the founder of a cap from that day forward, but to allow past excessive
West Coast megachurch called Saddleback and the au- deductions to stand. Satisfied, the IRS withdrew its ap-
thor of The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here peal of the Warren case, avoiding the issue of church-state
For? (2002). A theological and political conservative, constitutionality.
Warren is also widely viewed as an alternative voice to During the 2008 presidential election Warren
the Religious Right. hosted a forum at Saddleback in which he separately
The son of a minister, Richard Duane “Rick” Warren interviewed John McCain and Barack Obama. The
was born on January 28, 1954, in San Jose, California. He questions largely pertained to social issues, such as when
was educated at California Baptist College (BA, 1977), human life begins and the definition of marriage. War-
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MA, 1979), ren also asked each candidate to describe their greatest
and Fuller Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1989). In 1980, moral failings. Some observers criticized the event as
he founded the Saddleback Community Church in Lake imposing a “religious test” on presidential candidates.
Forest, California, near Los Angeles, which twenty-five Later, Obama caused a furor among certain liberals, in-
years later had more than 80,000 members. Prior to es- cluding gay activists, for choosing Warren to deliver the
tablishing Saddleback, Warren served as youth evangelist invocation during the inauguration. Warren’s political
at the California Southern Baptist Convention, Fresno visibility, some observers have suggested, casts him as
(1970–1974); associate pastor at First Baptist Church of the Billy Graham of the twenty-first century.
Norwalk, California (1974–1976); and assistant to the
president at the International Evangelism Association in Roger Chapman
Fort Worth, Texas (1977–1979).
Warren has been viewed as an alternative to the Re- See also: Abortion; AIDS; Bush Family; Campolo, Anthony
ligious Right for a message perceived as more inclusive “Tony”; Church and State; Global Warming; Judicial Wars;
and less negative. The Purpose-Driven Life, which sold 22 Religious Right; Same-Sex Marriage; Southern Baptist Con-
million copies in its first two years of publication, has vention; Tax Reform; United Nations.
inspired Christians for its “can-do” message. Rather than
focus primarily on abortion, same-sex marriage, stem-cell Further Reading
research, and liberal judges, Warren has spoken out on Darman, Jonathan. “An Inexact Analogy.” Newsweek, January
the plight of the poor, whom he says are mentioned some 12, 2009.
2,000 times in the Bible. Interviewed by the Philadelphia Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Cellular Church.” The New Yorker,
Inquirer in 2006, Warren complained, “[T]he last 100 September 12, 2005.
years . . . the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, Mair, George. A Life with Purpose: Reverend Rick Warren, the
it’s been known for what it’s against,” adding, “I’m so Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time. New York: Berkeley Books,
tired of Christians being known for what they’re against.” 2005.
Warren has launched a ministry to address the problem Steptoe, Sonja. “The Man with the Purpose.” Time, March 29,
of poverty and AIDS in Africa, using 90 percent of his 2004.
book royalties to fund such projects. To the disappoint-
ment of the Religious Right, he joined a handful of other
evangelicals in petitioning President George W. Bush to
Wa sh i n g t o n T i m e s , T h e
address the problem of global warming and participated The newspaper equivalent of the Fox News Channel
in a United Nations prayer event. in terms of conservative ideology, the Washington Times
Earlier, Warren had gained notoriety for taking the was founded in May 1982 by the Reverend Sun Myung
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to court and inadvertently Moon, head of the Unification Church, whose followers
jeopardizing federal tax exemptions for clergy housing are sometimes referred to as Moonies. The previous year,
(which costs the U.S. government as much as $500 mil- the Washington Star ceased operations after 128 years of
lion annually). After the IRS determined in 1996 that publication, giving the Washington Post a monopoly status
Warren’s “parsonage exemption” exceeded the rental in the nation’s capital at a time when London and Paris
value of his new home, the pastor filed suit to protest the had nine and thirteen daily newspapers, respectively. In
cap on the amount of the deduction. The U.S. Tax Court founding the Washington Times, Moon sought to fill the
ruled in Warren’s favor in 2000, but the IRS appealed to void left by the Star and increase his church’s political
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San influence in American culture. The paper began publica-
Francisco, which began questioning the constitutional- tion one day after he was convicted of tax fraud, an offense
ity of the deduction itself. In the meantime, Congress that led to an eighteen-month prison sentence.
unanimously passed the Clergy Housing Clarification Act Known as the “Moonie paper” by its detractors,
6 02 Washington Times, The
the Washington Times has been a prominent voice in the Wa t e r g a t e

culture wars, promoting the pro-life movement, sexual Watergate is the popular designation for the dramatic
abstinence, and family values while criticizing political political scandal and constitutional crisis that culmi-
correctness, feminism, gay rights, rap music, and public nated in the resignation of Richard Nixon as president
schools. Its conservative editorials are mirrored by its of the United States on August 9, 1974. The sequence
op-ed columns, which are written by conservatives such of events got its name from the Watergate hotel and of-
as L. Brent Bozell, Georgie Anne Geyer, Nat Hentoff, fice complex in Washington, D.C., where five burglars
John Leo, Oliver North, A.M. Rosenthal, Cal Thomas, were caught in June 1972 breaking into the headquar-
and Thomas Sowell. In 1997, the paper began publishing ters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
a weekly section called “Family Times,” providing a fo- The break-in and White House cover-up that ensued
rum for, among others, James Dobson and his evangelical led to a constitutional showdown between the executive
Christian group Focus on the Family. The Unification branch and Congress in televised public hearings by a
Church’s interference in the newspaper’s editorials led to Senate investigating committee in spring and summer
the resignation of James Whalen, the paper’s first editor, 1973 and a series of revelations, in both those hearings
in 1984. Three years later, editorial page editor William and the media, that deeply shook the American people’s
Cheshire quit for the same reason, as have others. faith in government. The entire incident brought an in-
The Washington Times was a strong voice against tensification of the culture wars due to Nixon’s lack of
communism during the last decade of the Cold War, political transparency and the lasting bitterness of many
supporting President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Republicans toward the Democrats who demanded
Initiative and launching a public fundraiser for the Contra White House accountability.
fighters in Nicaragua after Congress ended federal sup- The road to Watergate began in 1971 with the
port. “Read the Paper Moscow Hates” was one of its early formation of the White House Plumbers, a secret inves-
advertisement slogans. tigative force tasked to prevent the disclosure of classified
The paper also had a role in the events leading to the information to the media. The group was established in
impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Its first article reaction to the leak of the top-secret Pentagon Papers to
about Clinton’s alleged extramarital affairs, written by the New York Times by former Pentagon insider Daniel
Jerry Seper, appeared on July 30, 1991, seven years before Ellsberg in June 1971. Members of the Plumbers group
the Monica Lewinsky story broke. The paper published were enlisted during Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign
nearly 400 articles about Whitewater, the Arkansas real to obtain sensitive campaign information from the
estate deal with which the Clintons were associated prior Democratic opposition. It was later revealed that a plan
to his presidency. The paper was also consistently critical to conduct electronic surveillance of DNC headquarters
of the Clinton administration’s policies. in the Watergate building was approved by U.S. attorney
It is estimated that the Unification Church spent up general John Mitchell, who also chaired the Committee
to $1 billion in the Washington Times’s first decades to to Re-Elect the President (CRP or “CREEP”).
keep afloat a paper that never exceeded a circulation of During the early morning of June 17, 1972, munici-
126,000, while the Post was enjoying profitability with pal police were called to the Watergate complex after a
750,000 daily copies sold. Even so, the Washington Times security guard noticed a piece of tape on a door latch that
has been influential by providing a forum for conservative kept it unlocked. Upon entering the DNC offices, the
agenda setters. President George W. Bush praised the pa- police discovered five men hiding under desks, carrying
per, calling it “the conscience” of the nation’s capital. fifty rolls of film and equipment used for electronic sur-
veillance—unconventional gear for burglars. These men
Roger Chapman and two others were indicted by a grand jury for burglary
and attempted interception of telecommunications.
See also: Bush Family; Clinton, Hillary; Clinton Impeach- One of the men arrested at the Watergate was James
ment; Cold War; Dobson, James; Family Values; Fundamen- McCord, Jr., who had worked for the CIA and FBI, and
talism, Religious; Iran-Contra Affair; North, Oliver; Sowell, was now officially employed as chief of security for CRP.
Thomas; Strategic Defense Initiative. A notebook he was carrying proved especially damag-
ing, as it contained the telephone number of E. Howard
Further Reading Hunt, who directed the break-in and had direct ties to
Edwards, Lee, ed. Our Times: The Washington Times 1982– the White House. As was later revealed, the White House
2002. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2002. quickly began its cover-up of the incident by buying
Gorenfeld, John. Bad Moon Rising: How the Reverend Moon Created the silence of the Watergate burglars. The obstruction
The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right. Sausalito, of justice continued in succeeding months, involving
CA: PoliPointPress, 2008. senior White House officials, including John Dean,
Washington Times Web site. www.washtimes.com. counsel to the president; H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief
Wat t , James 6 03
of staff; John Ehrlichman, assistant to the president for of a Republican-controlled Congress for the Democrats’
domestic affairs; Jeb Magruder, deputy director of CRP; handling of Watergate.
and, ultimately, President Nixon himself. The White Maria T. Baldwin
House remained untouched into the fall and Nixon won
a landslide reelection, but matters began to unravel in See also: Clinton Impeachment; Colson, Chuck; Democratic
March 1973 after McCord sent a letter to Judge John J. Party; Felt, W. Mark; Ford, Gerald; Iran-Contra Affair; Liddy,
Sirica, who was presiding over the case, stating that the G. Gordon; McGovern, George; Nixon, Richard; Presidential
Watergate defendants were under political pressure to Pardons; Republican Party; Woodward, Bob.
plead guilty and that other unidentified persons were also
involved in the break-in. Later McCord named names, Further Reading
including Dean and Magruder, exposing the depth of Emery, Fred. Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the
the political scandal. Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
After Dean was implicated in the scandal, he sought Genovese, Michael A. The Watergate Crisis. Westport CT:
immunity in exchange for testimony before the Senate Greenwood Press, 1999.
Watergate Committee. In dramatic televised testimony Kutler, Stanley. Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes. New York:
in June 1973, Dean directly implicated President Nixon Touchstone, 1998.
in the cover-up and indicated that there was a secret Lasky, Victor. It Didn’t Start with Watergate. New York: Dell,
tape-recording system in the Oval Office. The latter 1977.
claim was verified by White House deputy assistant Olson, Keith W. Watergate: The Presidential Scandal that Shook
Alexander Butterfield, touching off a battle for the tapes America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
between the Senate and the president, who refused to
turn them over on grounds of executive privilege. The
constitutional showdown climaxed in the so-called Wa t t , J a m e s
Saturday Night Massacre, in which Special Prosecutor As President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the interior
Archibald Cox, who had issued a subpoena for the case, (1981–1983), James Watt infuriated environmental-
was fired and high-level Justice Department officials ists for advocating the exploitation of natural resources,
resigned. The White House did turn over transcripts of championing the development of federal land, and loos-
the tapes, albeit edited and with gaps. Both the Senate ening environmental regulations. He once likened the
and the general public were outraged, leading to calls for philosophy of the environmental movement to that of
Nixon’s impeachment. In July 1974, the U.S. Supreme Nazi Germany. During the first year of his tenure in the
Court ordered Nixon to turn over all the pertinent tapes, Interior Department, the Sierra Club wilderness advo-
which ultimately proved the president’s involvement cacy group organized a “Dump Watt” campaign, gath-
in a cover-up. Any lingering support the president had ering 1.1 million signatures on a petition calling for his
in the Senate evaporated, ensuring that he would be dismissal. In the end, however, it was his controversial
convicted under the articles of impeachment approved remarks about political correctness that led to Watt’s
by the House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974. abrupt resignation.
Nixon resigned on August 9, before the matter reached James Gaius Watt was born on January 31, 1938, in
the full House. Lusk, Wyoming. After attending the University of Wyo-
President Gerald Ford, who succeeded to the presi- ming (BS, 1960; JD, 1962), he began his political career as a
dency, promptly granted Nixon a blanket pardon for his legislative assistant and later a speechwriter to U.S. Senator
involvement in the Watergate scandal, sparing him a Milward L. Simpson (R-WY). Watts went on to various
possible prison sentence. By accepting the pardon, Nixon positions in the federal government, including deputy
confirmed his guilt. The legacy of Watergate continues assistant secretary of the interior (1969–1972). He also
to cast a long shadow on American politics, leaving many directed the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Founda-
citizens less trusting of government. Many people have tion (1977–1980), a property rights organization affiliated
continued to argue that Nixon was no different than with the anti-environmental Wise Use Movement.
most other politicians; he just happened to get caught. One of two members of the New Right in Reagan’s
Indeed, that lack of trust has revealed itself during the first cabinet, Watt became a focus of controversy for op-
course of subsequent political scandals involving the posing many of the environmental regulations that the
White House, whose very nomenclature evokes Water- Department of the Interior was bound to uphold. In 1982,
gate—Contragate (the Iran-Contra Affair), Koreagate, the department announced plans for selling 35 million
Travelgate, Monicagate, and others. With regard to the acres (14 million hectares) of federal land, but the ensuing
Monica Lewinsky scandal, it has been suggested that the storm of criticism from both liberals and conservatives
impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton forced him to withdraw the proposal. He also supported
in 1998–1999 represented political retribution on the part the removal of environmental restrictions on offshore
604 Wat t s and Los A ngeles R iot s, 19 65 and 1992
oil drilling, attempted to open Alaska and other coastal neighborhood of south-central Los Angeles. The out-
and wilderness areas for energy exploration, curtailed the breaks sparked extensive debate among scholars, the
expansion of the national park system, and halted new media, and the general public. At the center were the
additions to the endangered species list. Watt’s policies issues of race and economic inequality in America.
grew out of his commitment to the commercial develop- The 1965 riots began with a routine traffic stop on
ment of lands controlled by the federal government. In the evening of August 11 that triggered violence between
support of this outlook, he cited the Bible, saying it “calls residents and the police. After five more days of street
on us to occupy the lands until Jesus returns.” fighting, looting, burning, and other destruction, Presi-
Watt was also controversial for his socially conser- dent Lyndon B. Johnson sent in some 16,000 National
vative views, which were related to his Christian funda- Guard troops to quell the rioting. The uprising officially
mentalism. He once declared that there were two types left 34 people dead, more than 1,100 injured, and over
of people in the country, “liberals” and “Americans.” He $200 million in property damage.
tried to ban female employees at his department from President Johnson and California governor Edmund
wearing pantsuits. In 1982, he invoked his authority over (Pat) Brown established commissions to determine the
the National Mall in Washington in order to cancel a cause of the rioting. Their reports, as well as the studies of
Beach Boys concert scheduled to take place there, arguing a number of scholars, pointed to several underlying issues.
that the group did not represent American values. During Police brutality was central to most explanations. The Los
a press conference on September 21, 1983, he sarcastically Angeles Police Department was regarded as perhaps the
highlighted the diversity of an advisory panel that he most violent and virulently racist in the United States;
had appointed, explaining, “We have every kind of mix the city’s African-American and Mexican-American
you can have . . . a black . . . a woman, two Jews, and a communities had complained about city police for years.
cripple,” adding, “And we have talent.” Watt resigned Inadequate, overcrowded, segregated housing, segregated
on October 9 of that year, a consequence of the public schools, high unemployment and poverty, and the lack
backlash prompted by those remarks. of effective antipoverty programs all contributed to the
After leaving the government, Watt worked as a feelings of isolation and helplessness that led many blacks
business consultant, only to be indicted in 1995 on eigh- in Watts to participate in the violence.
teen felony counts of perjury and obstruction of justice One of the important social consequences of the
related to an investigation of his lobbying practices. He Watts riots of 1965 was a white backlash. Days prior to
eventually pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge, the outbreak of violence, President Johnson had signed
for which he was fined $5,000 and sentenced to 500 hours the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When the riots erupted,
of community service. many whites retreated from support of further civil
Charlotte Cahill rights initiatives, and many of Johnson’s Great Society
programs, particularly those aimed at cities and racial
See also: Arnold, Ron; Endangered Species Act; Environmen- minorities, faced increasing opposition. White flight
tal Movement; Forests, Parklands, and Federal Wilderness; from downtown urban centers to suburban neighborhoods
Fundamentalism, Religious; Multiculturalism and Ethnic gained momentum after Watts and subsequent rioting in
Studies; Political Correctness; Reagan, Ronald; Vietnam Vet- Detroit, Newark, and elsewhere in 1966–1968.
erans Memorial. In April 1992, Los Angeles again exploded in vio-
lence over issues of race and police brutality. The riots of
Further Reading 1992 were larger and broader in scope than those of 1965,
Bratton, Susan Power. “The Ecotheology of James Watt.” En- resulting in 52 persons killed, some 2,300 injured, and
vironmental Ethics 5 (Fall 1983): 225–36. over $1 billion in property damage. This time, however,
“James Watt Lashes Back at Critics.” U.S. News & World Report, more Latinos than blacks participated in the riots, and the
June 14, 1982. violence took place throughout the city of Los Angeles,
Short, C. Brant. Ronald Reagan and the Public Lands: America’s not just in Watts.
Conservation Debate, 1979–1984. College Station: Texas A&M Despite some fundamental differences between the
University Press, 1989. events, the similarities were clear to many observers—
Watt, James, and Doug Wead. Courage of a Conservative. New as noted in the film documentary Straight from the Streets
York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. (1999), produced by Keith O’Derek and Robert Corsini.
The 1992 rioting was triggered by a not-guilty verdict
against the police officers who had beaten black motorist
Wa t t s a n d L o s A n g e l e s R i o t s , Rodney King in an incident captured on videotape and
19 6 5 a n d 19 92 viewed by the general public through media coverage. Is-
For six days in August 1965, and again for six days in sues of race and economic inequality once again outraged
April and May 1992, violence erupted in the Watts the city’s poor minority communities. The rioters were
Way ne, John 6 05
primarily blacks and Latinos who felt left out of American

society. The economy of south-central Los Angeles had
been in steep decline, with unemployment and poverty
chronically high and getting worse.
One of the strongest similarities between the 1965
and 1992 riots was that both set off a national debate
over racial inequality, poverty, and the role of the fed-
eral government. President George H.W. Bush and
other conservatives blamed the violence on the legacies
of the Great Society and other federal attempts to aid
residents of inner cities. In their view, the promises of
federal programs created unrealistic expectations among
inner-city residents, as well as a culture of dependency on
government. Liberals blamed the federal retrenchment
and abandonment of the cities in the 1980s, arguing that
it was the reduction of Great Society programs by the
Reagan administration, not the programs themselves,
Film icon John Wayne—seen in his Oscar-winning role as
that had led to the frustrations and anger that boiled over Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969)—was a staunch Repub-
again in Los Angeles. lican and a larger-than-life symbol of patriotism, heroism, and
The debates surrounding the riots reflected a politi- traditional American values during the antiwar turbulence of
cal, cultural, and racial divide in the United States. In the 1960s. (Keystone/Getty Images)
1965, many whites, especially conservatives, responded
to the events in Los Angeles by blaming blacks for their cinematic support of the Vietnam War, even though he
own conditions and urging a return to law and order. had declined to serve in World War II.
Blacks and liberal whites encouraged more economic Wayne began his career as a fill-in and stunt actor
aid to inner cities to improve the prospects for housing at local studios in California. He dropped out of college
and employment. Twenty-seven years later, conservatives to pursue acting and had his first starring role in The Big
blamed black and Latino residents and liberal social pro- Trail (1930). Appearing in more than 250 films—and
grams for inner-city ills, while liberals blamed the lack starring in 142 of them—he, perhaps more than any other
of federal participation in those areas. actor, tapped into the folklore of the American West
and the imagery of a new frontier. Most often, he was a
Robert Bauman gun-wielding, whiskey-drinking hero who imposed his
will in a quest for righteousness, whether on the frontier
See also: Bush Family; Compassionate Conservatism; Great So- or the battlefront. His characters championed good over
ciety; Hispanic Americans; Johnson, Lyndon B.; King, Rod- evil, overcame adversity at great odds, and gallantly op-
ney; Police Abuse; Reagan, Ronald; War on Poverty; Welfare posed all foes in films that generally offered stereotyped
Reform. portrayals of Indians, women, and others. Among his
western classics are John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), She Wore
Further Reading a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Searchers (1956); How-
Gooding-Williams, Robert, ed. Reading Rodney King, Reading ard Hawks’s Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959); and
Urban Uprising. New York: Routledge, 1993. Henry Hathaway’s True Grit (1969), for which Wayne
Horne, Gerald. Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s. won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995. Wayne was well on his way to establishing himself in
Viorst, Milton. Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. New York: Hollywood when World War II broke out in December
Simon & Schuster, 1979. 1941. Unlike other actors his age, such as Clark Gable
and Henry Fonda, Wayne chose not to enlist in the armed
forces, fearing that he would be too old to make a come-
Way n e , J o h n back in movies after the fighting. The decision elicited
Born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907, in sharp criticism, which perhaps led him to cultivate the
Winterset, Iowa, the film star John Wayne—popularly persona of a super patriot.
referred to as “the Duke”—was a cultural icon who ap- Wayne’s staunch Republican and anticommunist
peared mostly in westerns and war movies. His rugged, views extended into his work. In 1951, he appeared in
masculine image and the heroic frontier individualism Big Jim McLain, which gave a favorable impression of
of many of his roles were said to epitomize the American the House Committee on Un-American Activities and
spirit. In the culture wars, Wayne is remembered for his its pursuit of communists. In 1968, Wayne co-directed
606 Wealth Gap
and starred in The Green Berets, one of the few films of the A major contributing factor to the wealth gap is
time to openly support the Vietnam War. Critics thought the income gap. According to 2005 federal tax data,
the film too political, considering the high casualty rate the combined income of the top 300,000 Americans
of the war, but Wayne was intent on displaying his sup- was nearly equivalent to the total income of the bottom
port for the troops with a film tribute. To right-wing 150 million of the nation. The top income group had
supporters of the war and the U.S. government, Wayne earnings 440 times higher than the average individual
was a hero once again. Others contended that his own of the bottom half; thus, the top 1 percent received
patriotic role in the film, as well as in the public eye, at- nearly 20 percent of the total national income. Also in
tempted to deflect attention from the fact that he avoided 2005, 12.6 percent of the population, representing 37
wartime service. Wayne died of lung and stomach cancer million people, was officially classified as poor (earn-
on June 11, 1979. ing below $19,806 for a family of four). All told, the
Margaret Dykes income gap in America nearly doubled between 1980
and 2005, a chasm wider than at any time since the
See also: Cold War; Communists and Communism; McCarthy- late 1920s.
ism; Political Correctness; Republican Party; Vietnam War. While it is universally agreed that free enterprise
enriches more people than any other system of exchange,
Further Reading it is also argued that the capital used for investment
Roberts, Randy, and James Olson. John Wayne: American. New purposes, which stimulates economic growth, is largely
York: Free Press, 1995. connected with income inequality and the related prob-
Wills, Gary. John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity. New lem of “wage stagnation.” Even more problematic than
York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. income inequality, however, is the intergenerational
transmission of assets and liabilities, which results in
concentrations of wealth for the few and debt for many.
We a l t h G a p In the long run, critics argue, such entrenched dispar-
The term “wealth gap” refers to the economic disparity has the potential to undermine both capitalism and
ity between the richest people in the United States— democracy because the “have nots” constituting the
the top 10 percent—and the rest of the population. majority of the population will have fewer economic
The wealth gap has widened considerably since the late opportunities and less political influence. Bill Gates,
1970s, with each decade resulting in the rich having Sr., executive director of the Bill and Melinda Gates
a larger percentage of the nation’s total wealth. In the Foundation and father of the richest man in America,
culture wars, this phenomenon has been the subject of contends that estate taxes are a “valuable tool of democ-
vigorous debate and statistical interpretation. racy” because they serve as an economic recalibration.
Liberals argue that the widening wealth gap repre- During the presidency of George W. Bush, however, the
sents an unhealthy trend, entrenching privilege and power federal estate tax was eliminated, allowing the wealthy
while retarding equal opportunity and social mobility. to pass on more of their inheritance to their heirs and
Those sharing this concern suggest that tax reform is thus perpetuating the widening wealth gap.
necessary to narrow the wealth gap, since those who have Those who disagree with Gates emphasize individual
benefited the most from society should be required to give liberty, arguing that personal life choices play a major role
more back. Long-term inequities should be addressed, in economic affairs. For example, studies of Americans
some argue, by policies such as affirmative action to foster who have achieved millionaire status indicate that a stable
greater competition. Conservatives argue that since more marriage is an important factor of economic success; the
wealth is being created, the ones responsible for making poorest households, by contrast, are inordinately headed
this happen should enjoy the direct benefit and not be by single parents, usually female. Critics of Gates’s “tool
punished with higher tax rates. Affirmative action, they of democracy” argument, such as the late economist Mil-
contend, is reverse discrimination that inhibits competi- ton Friedman, argue that increasing taxes serves only to
tion and fails to address the behavioral and cultural dif- increase the power of the central government and, there-
ferences that are the root cause of the wealth gap. fore, the threat to personal liberty. In any event, the clear
According to 2004 statistics issued by the U.S. Fed- trend in America since the 1980s has been significant
eral Reserve Board, the wealthiest 10 percent of American tax cuts on unearned income, such as inheritances and
families owned 63 percent of the nation’s total family capital gains, and tax hikes on wage income. In the 1990s
assets. By other indicators, the wealthiest 10 percent of and 2000s, the Internal Revenue Service reported that
Americans in 2003 owned 85 percent of all outstanding a growing number of wealthy Americans avoid paying
stocks and financial securities and 90 percent of all busi- federal taxes by utilizing intricate tax shelters, exemp-
ness assets. At the same time, 10 percent of the least well tion schemes not possible for people of lower incomes.
off owned few or no assets. From 1979 to 1997, the richest 1 percent of Americans
Weekly Standard , The 6 07
enjoyed a more than 250 percent increase in after-tax Munger, Frank. Laboring Below the Line: The New Ethnography of
income (from $263,700 to $677,900), while their share Poverty, Low-Wage Work, and Survival in the Global Economy.
of all federal tax payments climbed from 15.5 percent New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002.
to 23 percent. Neckerman, Kathryn M. Social Inequality. New York: Russell
Many argue that the wealth gap not only separates Sage Foundation, 2004.
Americans by socioeconomic class, but also increases
segregation among ethnic groups. In the early 2000s,
an estimated 7 million Americans were living in “white” We e k l y S t a n d a rd , T h e
gated communities, while homelessness was on the rise— First published on September 18, 1995, the Weekly Stan-
up 100 percent from the previous decade, according to dard is a neoconservative magazine with a circulation of
some estimates. Residential segregation increases the about 55,000 and a reported annual deficit of $1 mil-
exposure of poor and ethnic minorities to the problems lion or more. The magazine’s debut was inspired by the
that plague high-poverty neighborhoods. Declining 1994 federal elections, which for the first time in four
public health, job prospects, and environmental condi- decades gave the Republican Party control of Congress.
tions in urban areas where the poor and minorities are Interpreting that result as a sea change in American pol-
increasingly concentrated have cumulative effects that itics—signaling a “lasting” political realignment—the
substantially impact all aspects of development, as well neoconservative commentator William Kristol decided
as the future income potential of the children being raised to start a magazine of “opinion journalism” for the pri-
in those communities. Thus, poverty is passed on from mary purpose of influencing Washington policymakers
generation to generation while at the top strata of society to help set the nation on a new path. During the presi-
wealth concentration increases. dency of George W. Bush, the Standard was said to be
Indeed, the black-white wealth gap is the most the White House’s magazine of choice.
persistent and well-documented cleavage in American Owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the
society. According to New York University economist Weekly Standard is by its own definition an “iconoclasti-
Edward Wolff in 2003, the average American black cally conservative” counterpart to the “iconoclastically
family takes in just 60 percent of the earnings and holds liberal” New Republic. Edited by Kristol and Fred Barnes,
a mere 18 percent of the wealth of the average white the Standard is primarily a neoconservative platform that
family. And according to a 2005 study, black children promotes an aggressive U.S. foreign policy in harmony
make up 90 percent of the long-term poor in the United with Kristol’s Project for a New American Century.
States and continue to be alienated from the experience Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
of upward mobility within and across generations that is the magazine, which reportedly had been on the brink of
the privilege of white children. A child born in poverty folding, gained a renewed sense of purpose. The follow-
has about a 7 percent chance of reaching the top fifth ing September, conservative journalist and politician Pat
of income earners, while a child born to the top fifth of Buchanan announced the start-up of his own magazine,
income earners has a 42 percent chance of being in the the American Conservative, wishing to offer a competing
top fifth as an adult. conservative voice to the Standard. Buchanan complained,
“The movement has been hijacked and turned into a
Holona LeAnne Ochs and Roger Chapman globalist, interventionist, open-borders ideology, which
is not the conservative movement I grew up with.”
See also: Affirmative Action; Bankruptcy Reform; Executive To mark the tenth anniversary of his magazine,
Compensation; Friedman, Milton; Great Society; Tax Reform; Kristol edited a collection of what he deemed the best
War on Poverty; Welfare Reform. reflective political essays he had published to date, titled
The Weekly Standard: A Reader, 1995–2005 (2005). In
Further Reading the foreword, Kristol notes that numerous people speak
Bowles, Samuel, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne Groves. of his magazine as if it were part of a sinister conspiracy,
Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success. replete with articles published “in code . . . to advance a
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. surreptitious agenda.” Dismissing the conspiracy theo-
Danziger, Sheldon, Peter Gottschalk, Russell Sage Foundation, rists, he writes, “Sometimes a magazine is really just a
and Population Reference Bureau. “Diverging Fortunes: magazine.”
Trends in Poverty and Inequality.” In The American People: Over the years, the magazine has advised the Repub-
Census 2000, ed. Reynolds Farley and John Haaga, 449–72. lican Party to discard its anti-abortion plank (editorial,
New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005. September 1995); castigated Hillary Clinton’s book It
Lardner, James, and David A. Smith, eds. Inequality Matters: Takes a Village (article by P.J. O’Rourke, February 1996);
The Growing Economic Divide in America and Its Poisonous mocked and ridiculed President Bill Clinton throughout
Consequences. New York: Free Press, 2005. the Monica Lewinsky scandal (capped by David Tell’s
608 Welfare Refor m
parody of an Italian opera, March 1999); urged regime through the mid-twentieth century without dramatic
change in Iraq as early as November 1997 (“Saddam Must changes. Welfare was tolerated by conservatives largely
Go” editorial by Kristol and Robert Kagan); articulated because of the preponderance of local control and the
the importance of American protection of Israel (article modest financial impact on local economies.
by Charles Krauthammer, “At Last Zion,” May 1998); By the early 1960s, middle-class whites and Wash-
and defended the torture of terrorism suspects (a cover ington policymakers were influenced by Michael Har-
article by Krauthammer, December 2005). rington’s best-selling book on poverty, The Other America
(1962). President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on
Roger Chapman Poverty” in 1964, and welfare came to be seen as an enti-
tlement—something deserved by poor families that met
See also: Abortion; Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; American Cen- formal eligibility requirements. With a significant push
tury; Buchanan, Pat; Clinton Impeachment; Contract with from community organizers and the U.S. Supreme Court,
America; Gingrich, Newt; Israel; Kristol, Irving, and Bill the status of welfare as a “property right” was cemented
Kristol; Murdoch, Rupert; Neoconservatism; September 11. around 1970. By the early 1970s, however, disillusioned
liberals, such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, peeled away
Further Reading from the left, forming the neoconservative movement, in
Alterman, Eric. “Kristolizing the (Neoconservative) Movement.” reaction to this new trend toward entitlements.
Nation, February 12, 2007. Neoconservatives thought the excesses of welfare
Kristol, William, ed. The Weekly Standard: A Reader, 1995–2005. had corrupted liberalism and that a new perspective was
New York: HarperCollins, 2005. needed. They argued for greater personal responsibility
McConnell, Scott. “The Weekly Standard’s War.” American and more reliance on market incentives. In time, this
Conservative, November 21, 2005. movement would lead conservatives such as George
Weekly Standard Web site. www.weeklystandard.com. Gilder and Charles Murray to call for welfare’s abolition,
“What Is Bill Kristol Up To?” Human Events, December 21, attacking what they took to be welfare’s perverse incen-
1995. tives for nonwork and out-of-wedlock childbearing.
By the time Ronald Reagan ran for president in
1980, talk of “welfare queens” was common. And
We l f a r e Re f o r m indeed, there would be poster children for the cause.
The debate over welfare in America for much of the Jacqueline Williams, a mother of fourteen children
twentieth century was characterized by variations of two receiving welfare in the District of Columbia, engaged
opposing arguments: the progressive or liberal concern in a public spat with Washington Mayor Marion Barry.
of collective responsibility versus the conservative resis- The mayor publicly criticized her fertility, but Williams
tance to individual dependency. These two positions on claimed a God-given right to reproduce. In 1987, while
the topic of public assistance have continued to be de- pregnant with her fifteenth child, she commented to a
bated in America’s culture wars, despite evolving social Washington Post reporter, “I don’t intend to stop until
understandings of motherhood, family, and the govern- God stops me. . . . I don’t want to mess up my body
ment’s role in the economy. with birth control.” Opponents of welfare could not
Prior to the New Deal, state-sponsored pensions for have imagined a better case to bolster their argument.
mothers were largely premised on the idea of providing Although liberal scholars such as William J. Wilson
stable homes for children of widows. Yet even these have linked underlying social structures to persistent
popular programs, implemented in forty-four states by poverty and the emergence of an urban underclass, the
1930, faced the criticism that cash assistance inevitably general public seemed more persuaded by conservatives’
corrupts its recipients by destroying their work ethic explanations that focused instead on the counterproduc-
and, in turn, their children’s work ethic. Even during the tive behaviors of poor people.
Great Depression, cash relief was limited out of a con- Never amounting to more than 1–1.5 percent of the
cern, expressed even by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, federal budget, welfare garnered a disproportionate share
that its fostering of dependency undermines individual of public attention through the 1980s and 1990s. Presi-
integrity and self-sufficiency. dent Bill Clinton’s effort to govern from the center and
Aid to Dependent Children, created in 1935 under his mantra of “ending welfare as we know it” represented
the Social Security Act, allowed substantial state control an attempt to have it both ways. Welfare was to take on
over the size of payments and eligibility rules in an effort the trappings of reciprocal responsibility through work
not to violate local norms of deservedness. Despite the requirements and personal responsibility agreements,
debate over deserving versus undeserving poor, a distinc- and there would be a sixty-month maximum lifetime
tion that relied heavily on race and subjective evaluations limit. In a return to mid-twentieth-century practice,
of recipients’ lifestyles, federally backed welfare continued welfare authority was substantially transferred to the
Well s tone, Paul 609
states, working within loose federal parameters. Devo- We l l s t o n e , P a u l

lution to the states facilitated a renewed role for local Considered the most liberal member of the U.S. Sen-
norms in determining welfare eligibility. Although this ate at the turn of the twenty-first century, Democrat
was not stepping back in time to the overtly discrimi- Paul Wellstone of Minnesota represented the populist
natory days of the 1940s and 1950s, it nonetheless put left until his tragic death in a plane crash on October
state policymakers in a position to tailor their welfare 25, 2002. He spoke out for the working poor, backed
programs. universal health care, opposed oil drilling in the Arctic
Liberals’ concern that states would become much National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and twice voted
stingier in providing welfare was largely allayed by a against going to war in Iraq (1991, 2002). The contro-
provision in the law that required states to substantially versy over his funeral reflected the intensity of the cul-
maintain the level of investment they had been making ture wars at the time.
in their respective welfare programs prior to 1996. In Paul David Wellstone, the son of Jewish immigrants
addition, robust economic growth through the end of the from Ukraine, was born on July 21, 1944, in Washington,
1990s helped achieve a more than 50 percent reduction D.C., and raised in northern Virginia. After receiving a
of the national welfare caseload by the end of that decade. BA (1965) and a PhD (1969) in political science from the
Instead of crediting the economy, however, conservatives University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he taught
pointed to mandates in the law as the primary cause of political science at Carleton College, a small liberal arts
the caseload reduction. institution in Northfield, Minnesota (1969–1990).
Studies of people leaving welfare show that post- In 1981, Wellstone co-authored Powerline: The First
welfare employment is sporadic for many, low-paying Battle in America’s Energy War, presenting the viewpoint
for nearly all, and often without health insurance. If of farmers opposed to a power line crossing agricultural
liberals feel a sense of vindication by such findings, con- fields in west-central Minnesota. After running unsuc-
servatives tend to claim that even low-level employment cessfully for state auditor in 1982, Wellstone achieved his
is better than a lifestyle of unemployment and welfare first electoral victory in the 1990 Senate race. Endorsed
dependency. by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), he defeated
Debates about welfare have moved largely off the Rudy Boschwitz, a two-term Republican incumbent who
public stage and into seminar rooms, where the out- had become increasingly conservative. Boschwitz com-
comes of the 1996 legislation have been dissected by mitted a damaging tactical error during the campaign
policy analysts. Media attention has faded, and much of by issuing what came to be known as the “Jew letter,” a
the public assumes the problem has been fixed. This is mailing that went out to thousands of Jewish voters call-
reflected in a decline in the number of newspaper stories ing Wellstone a “bad Jew” for marrying a gentile and not
on the subject as well as in public opinion polls. In that raising his children as Jews. (Boschwitz was Jewish, too.)
respect, the waxing and waning public attention to the The letter is said to have had a negative effect.
issue of welfare follows a well-known trajectory. Wellstone’s very arrival in Washington, D.C., was
rancorous, beginning with his refusal to shake hands
Greg M. Shaw with archconservative Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC).
(During his college days in North Carolina, Wellstone
See also: Clinton, Bill; Compassionate Conservatism; Contract had come to loathe Helms for his opposition to the civil
with America; Corporate Welfare; Faith-Based Programs; rights movement.) In one of his most controversial mo-
Harrington, Michael; Health Care; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Neo- ments, Wellstone held a press conference at the Vietnam
conservatism; New Deal; Reagan, Ronald; War on Poverty. Veterans Memorial to denounce U.S. participation in the
Persian Gulf War. (Wellstone voted against the use of
Further Reading force before Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and before
Gilder, George. Wealth and Poverty. New York: Basic Books, the Iraq War in 2002.) The memorial had never been
1981. used for a political purpose, and veterans’ groups voiced
Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Poverty in the United disapproval.
States. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Wellstone comfortably won reelection in 1996, again
Kilty, Keith M., and Elizabeth A. Segal, eds. The Promise of facing off with Boschwitz, who made an unsubstantiated
Welfare Reform: Political Rhetoric and Reality of Poverty in the charge that as a college student the incumbent had burned
Twenty-First Century. New York: Haworth Press, 2006. the American flag. Wellstone later ran an exploratory
Murray, Charles. Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950– campaign for the presidency and published The Conscience
1980. New York: Basic Books, 1986. of a Liberal (2001), an intentionally ironic play on Barry
Wilson, William J. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Goldwater’s title, The Conscience of a Conservative (1960).
Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago In his third run for the Senate, Wellstone was op-
Press, 1987. posed by Norman Coleman, the former mayor of St.
610 Wes t , Cor nel
Paul. In the midst of the campaign, while on the way

to a funeral, Wellstone, his wife, daughter, and five
others died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota. The
memorial service, held in Minneapolis and nationally
televised, was marred by politically charged eulogies and
the booing of certain Republicans, prompting a walkout
by Governor Jesse Ventura and others. Some linked the
Democrat’s subsequent loss of the Senate to that fracas.
In the words of Garrison Keillor, host of the radio pro-
gram Prairie Home Companion, “The Democrats stood up
in raw grief and yelled and shook their fists and offended
people.” Coleman easily defeated former vice president
Walter Mondale, the DFL’s replacement candidate, for
the Senate seat.
Tony L. Hill Professor and author Cornel West decries the “racist patriar-
chy” of American society and the negative stereotypes it has
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Conspiracy Theories; Demo- placed on the black community. West has referred to himself
cratic Party; Flag Desecration; Franken, Al; Goldwater, Barry; as a “non-Marxist socialist” and “radical democrat.” (Richard
Health Care; Helms, Jesse; Mondale, Walter; Ventura, Jesse; Alan Hannon/Getty Images)
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
required reading on many college campuses. In it he
Further Reading argues that African Americans have accepted the nega-
Lofy, Bill. Paul Wellstone: The Life of a Passionate Progressive. Ann tive stereotypes imposed on them by white Americans
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. and have consequently suffered from a lack of self-worth
McGrath, Dennis J., and Dane Smith. Professor Wellstone Goes to and hope for the future that has descended into cultural
Washington: The Inside Story of a Grassroots U.S. Senate Cam- nihilism. In his judgment, as articulated in Beyond Euro-
paign. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. centrism and Multiculturalism (1993), the solution depends
Wellstone, Paul David. The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the on the revival of a “race-transcending” progressive politi-
Compassionate Agenda. New York: Random House, 2001. cal coalition.
West has criticized black churches for supporting
gender inequality and for being hostile to homosexu-
We s t , C o r n e l als. He is also critical of whites, particularly Jews, for
Scholar and theologian Cornel West, a prominent Af- abandoning blacks after the heyday of the civil rights
rican-American voice in the culture wars, advocates a movement, a topic further discussed in a work he co-
progressive Christianity that incorporates some Marxist authored with Rabbi Michael Lerner, Jews and Blacks: A
ideals, believing that the black community in particular Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America (1995).
has accepted a religious worldview that is too politically In Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperial-
conservative. This has been the theme of many of his ism (2004), the sequel to Race Matters, West accuses and
writings, including Black Theology and Marxist Thought condemns American political leaders for participating in
(1979), Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolu- worldwide economic exploitation, state repression, and
tionary Christianity (1982), and The Ethical Dimensions of political imperialism.
Marxist Thought (1991). Following the publication of Race Matters, West
Cornel Ronald West was born on June 2, 1953, in was invited to join the African and African American
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and raised in a Baptist household. He Studies program at Harvard. He left in 2002 after the
spent his teenage years in Sacramento, California, where newly installed university president, Lawrence Summers,
he was attracted to the black nationalism of Malcolm X criticized him for engaging in too many nonscholarly
and participated in civil rights demonstrations. He later activities in the political and pop culture arenas. West
attended Harvard University (AB, 1973) and Princeton had worked on the Million Man March in 1995, served
University (MA, 1975; PhD, 1980). West has taught as an adviser to Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential cam-
philosophy of religion at Union Theological Seminary paign, and recorded hip-hop CDs. Upon returning to the
in New York (1977–1983, 1988), the Yale Divinity Princeton University faculty, he continued his outside
School (1984–1987), Princeton University (1988–1994, pursuits, such as making a cameo appearance in the film
2002–present), and Harvard University (1994–2002). Matrix Reloaded (2003) and supporting Al Sharpton’s
Race Matters (1993), West’s best-known work, is 2004 presidential bid.
Wey r ich , Paul M . 611
Conservatives such as David Horowitz have charged causes. Weyrich continued to cultivate the Christian
West with publishing writings of poor quality and fos- base among political conservatives, joining with the
tering relativism and political correctness on campus. Reverend Jerry Falwell to create the Moral Majority
In spite of such criticisms, West continues to receive in 1979.
numerous campus speaking invitations, furthering the Through the 1980s and 1990s, Weyrich also
view of conservatives that American academic life is tapped into the power of mass media, writing for and
dominated by the left. co-publishing the Conservative Digest and hosting a daily
Martin J. Plax television talk show called Direct Line. In 1993, to counter
what many conservatives consider a liberal bias in media,
See also: Academic Freedom; Bradley, Bill; Horowitz, David; he launched National Empowerment Television (NET),
Malcolm X; Marxism; Million Man March; Multiculturalism an issues-orientated cable network with a conservative
and Ethnic Studies; Neoconservatism; Rap Music; Relativ- perspective on politics. Weyrich later left the network,
ism, Moral; Sharpton, Al; Summers, Lawrence. renamed America’s Voice, when he clashed with network
head Bob Sutton over a plan to include both liberal and
Further Reading conservative views on NET.
Cowan, Rosemary. Cornel West: The Politics of Redemption. Malden, In February 1999, Weyrich issued an open letter to
MA: Polity, 2003. conservative leaders in which he called for a major shift
Horowitz, David. “Cornel West: No Light in His Attic.” Salon, in the focus of political efforts. American society could
October 11, 1999. not be rescued from the corrupting influence of liberal-
Johnson, Clarence Sholé. Cornel West and Philosophy: The Quest ism, he wrote, and social conservatives should therefore
for Social Justice. New York: Routledge, 2003. redirect their energies from reforming America to seg-
Kimball, Roger. “Dr. West and Mr. Summer.” National Review, regating themselves from society at large. They should
January 28, 2002. create “a sort of quarantine,” Weyrich said, creating
West, Cornel. The Cornel West Reader. New York: Basic Civitas their own schools and other institutions. His letter was
Books, 1999. precipitated by the Senate’s failure to remove President
Bill Clinton from office in 1999 following his impeach-
ment in the House. If a “moral majority” truly existed,
Wey r i c h , P a u l M . he lamented, then Clinton should have been driven out
One of the architects of the New Right, social activist of office. Consequently, he continued, “I believe that we
and political commentator Paul Weyrich was instru- probably have lost the culture war.”
mental in shaping the message of American conserva- In his latter years, Weyrich worked to influence pub-
tives. A key figure in several organizations, including lic policy under the auspices of the Council for National
the Krieble Institute (a training ground for democratic Policy and the Free Congress Foundation, organizations
reformers in Eastern Europe), and a variety of causes, that include some of the most powerful conservatives in
such as tax reform, he was best known for his defense of the United States. He died on December 18, 2008.
social conservative values, including opposition to abor-
tion and homosexuality. Weyrich viewed America as a Daniel Melendrez
cultural battleground where competing ideologies pit
conservatives against liberals. Though Catholic, Wey- See also: Abortion; Clinton Impeachment; Evangelicalism;
rich was widely seen as an important strategist for the Family Values; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gay Rights
Religious Right. Movement; Heritage Foundation; Media Bias; Moral Major-
Born Paul Michael Weyrich on October 7, 1942, in ity; Religious Right.
Racine, Wisconsin, he attended the University of Wis-
consin at Parkside (AA, 1962) and began his career in Further Reading
journalism, reporting for the Milwaukee Sentinel and for Cromartie, Michael, ed. No Longer Exiles: The Religious New Right
radio station WAXO in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1973, in American Politics. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public
Weyrich and Edwin Feulner—with financial backing Policy Center, 1993.
by Joseph Coors of the beer-brewing family—created Gizzi, John. “Weyrich’s Back!” Human Events, November 10,
the Heritage Foundation, a public policy research in- 2000.
stitute in Washington, D.C. He followed this up with Utter, Glenn H., and James L. True. Conservative Christians and
the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, an Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara,
organization that explored the fundraising possibilities CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
of direct mail and discovered a resource for political Weyrich, Paul M., and Connaught Marshner, eds. Future 21:
activism: the recruiting and training of evangelical Directions for America in the 21st Century. Greenwich, CT:
Christians to campaign for conservative candidates and Devin-Adair, 1984.
612 W his tleblowers
W h i s t l e b l o we r s Dodd had spent more than $200,000 of campaign funds

Individuals who report misdeeds involving fraud, waste, for personal use. When the story broke, much negative
or abuse in government agencies and private corpora- attention was focused on those who leaked the informa-
tions are known as whistleblowers. More formally iden- tion, and the whistleblowers ultimately were criticized
tified as “ethical resisters” and often recognized as the in a report by the Senate Ethics Committee for “a breach
political descendants of muckrakers, whistleblowers are of the relationship of trust between a Senator and his
generally credited for putting the good of society ahead staff.” The evidence was so damaging, however, that on
of the organization that would benefit by wrongdoing. June 23, 1967, the Senate passed a motion of censure
At the same time, however, whistleblowers are some- against Dodd.
times viewed as suspect characters (informants, trai- The following year, A. Ernest Fitzgerald, a civilian
tors, or simply disgruntled employees) operating with financial analyst at the Pentagon, informed a congressio-
ulterior motives (political partisanship, revenge against nal subcommittee headed by Senator William Proxmire
a supervisor, the desire to collect reward money, etc.). (D-WI) that the Lockheed Corporation’s development of
Laws have been passed to shield whistleblowers from the air force C-5A cargo plane was leading to cost overruns
employer retribution, but that has not always kept them of some $2 billion. Fitzgerald’s testimony came after his
from being harassed, transferred, demoted, or fired. superiors had told Congress that there were no concrete
Prominent whistleblowers in the culture wars have figures to report on that project. This incident under-
included the medical researcher A. Dale Console, who scored the collusion that sometimes occurs between the
in 1960 informed Congress of deceptive drug testing Pentagon and defense contractors—officers who are not
by the pharmaceutical industry; Daniel Ellsberg, who strict about reducing costs and addressing quality control
leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971; New York City are more likely to land a job with a private contractor
police officer Frank Serpico, who in the early 1970s following retirement from the military. Attempts were
exposed corruption in the department; W. Mark Felt, made to oust Fitzgerald, but he won in court with the
the Watergate informant known as Deep Throat; Karen help of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1981, he
Silkwood, the technician who documented safety viola- and others formed the Project on Military Procurement
tions at an Oklahoma nuclear power plant in 1974; Jef- to aid whistleblowers in reporting waste and inefficiency
frey Wigand, a former tobacco executive who in 1995 in defense contracting.
revealed the manipulation of nicotine levels in cigarettes; The consumer activist Ralph Nader, who had been
Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who reported a failure of assisted in the 1950s and 1960s by insiders of the au-
the bureau to investigate terrorist leads weeks prior to tomotive industry when he investigated car safety, was
the attacks of September 11, 2001; and army captain one of the first to defend whistleblowers. In January
Ian Fishback and specialist Joseph Darby, both of whom 1971, Nader promoted the cause of whistleblowers at the
turned over information about detainee abuse at the Abu Conference on Professional Responsibility held in Wash-
Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003. ington, D.C. In his report, Nader hailed whistleblowers
During the Civil War, whistleblowers were encour- as society’s “last line of defense . . . against . . . secretive
aged to report government contractors selling “shoddy” and powerful institutions.” Nader went on to establish
war supplies to the Union army. With that in mind, the Coalition to Stop Government Waste, which was
Congress passed the False Claims Act (1863), authorizing largely a support organization for whistleblowers. His
citizens and civil servants to sue fraudulent contractors for call for the legitimization of whistleblowers also inspired
a portion of the recovered money. That law, in an updated the founding in 1977 of the Project on Official Illegality
form, remains in effect to the present day. In the wake of (later renamed the Government Accountability Project),
the Watergate scandal, Congress in 1978 passed the Civil which provided the legal defense for Daniel Ellsberg over
Service Reform Act, giving protections to federal whistle- his release of the top-secret Pentagon Papers.
blowers. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush approved The most controversial whistleblowers are those deal-
a bill establishing an office of special counsel to inves- ing with national security issues. In 1971, six months
tigate alleged incidents in which federal whistleblowers after Nader’s endorsement of whistleblowers, Ellsberg
were punished for making disclosures. Whistleblower became a cause célèbre for exposing government decep-
protection was added to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 tions on the Vietnam War by turning over to the New
to protect private-sector employees who report violations York Times the Vietnam Study Task Force’s secret history
of federal health, safety, and environmental laws. (1945–1967), otherwise known as the Pentagon Papers.
In one dramatic episode of the mid-1960s, two The work, comprising forty-seven volumes, was writ-
former staffers of Senator Thomas Dodd (D-CT) copied ten by thirty-six analysts and historians and revealed a
incriminating documents from the files of their old behind-the-scenes analysis that the war was not going
boss and handed them over to syndicated newspaper well and that—contrary to what the American public was
columnist Jack Anderson. The records indicated that being told at the time—it probably could not be won. In
W hite, Reg g ie 613
2006, the New York Times reported an illicit eavesdrop- playing days at the University of Tennessee, he earned the
ping program being carried out by the National Security nickname “Minister of Defense” for his dual identity as
Agency, while the Washington Post broke the story of a a minister and hard-charging lineman. After a false start
secret network of overseas CIA detention centers. In all with the Memphis Showboats of the now defunct United
three of these incidents, individuals without authorization States Football League, he played in the National Football
provided secret information to the media for the purpose League with the Philadelphia Eagles (1985–1992), Green
of exposing government abuse. From the perspective of Bay Packers (1993–1999), and Carolina Panthers (2000).
officials within the executive branch of government, such He was elected to the Pro Bowl a record thirteen straight
individuals are engaging in sabotage. Others contend times (1986–1998) and twice was named NFL defensive
that on too many occasions the government uses security player of year (1987 and 1998). He helped the Packers
classification to avoid public accountability. win Super Bowl XXXI (January 1997). Upon retirement,
Much whistleblowing is a natural consequence of the he held the NFL record for most career sacks. In 2006, he
increase in federal regulation of the business sector, begin- was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
ning in the 1960s and 1970s with the establishment of Throughout his football career, White practiced his
new federal agencies (such as the Equal Employment Op- faith openly and with evangelical fervor. He initiated
portunity Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, regular post-game prayer circles and, after tackling play-
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Mining ers on the field, would ask them, “Are you all right with
Enforcement and Safety Administration, and Consumer Jesus?” Off the field, he devoted his time to inner-city
Product Safety Commission) to protect workers, consum- religious charities and reaching out to gang members,
ers, the general public, and the natural environment. Often drug addicts, and convicts. In 1992, he spoke at the
it has been whistleblowers who have reported violations Billy Graham Greater Philadelphia Crusade, urging ra-
of federal law—either workers in a firm that failed to fol- cial unity and cooperation between urban and suburban
low regulations or bureaucrats whose federal agency was churches. In reaction to the spate of arsonist attacks on
derelict in enforcement. black churches throughout the South during the 1990s,
Roger Chapman he challenged American society to address the nation’s
race problem and confront white supremacists.
See also: Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; Central Intelligence Agency; His critics, emphasizing a side of White they regarded
Felt, W. Mark; Nader, Ralph; New York Times, The; Occupa- as bigoted and hateful, noted that in his March 1998
tional Safety; Privatization; September 11; Tobacco Settle- address to the Wisconsin state legislature, he listed the
ments; Tort Reform; Vietnam War; Watergate. “gifts” of different races in what were perceived as primi-
tive stereotypes. Gays and lesbians were especially offended
Further Reading by his statement, “Homosexuality is a decision; it’s not a
Alford, C. Fred. Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational race.” The Religious Right, in particular the Christian
Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Coalition and Focus on the Family, rallied behind White,
Devine, Thomas. “The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989: commending him for the courage to declare his biblical
Foundation for the Modern Law of Employment Dissent.” convictions and not fret over political correctness. Others,
Administrative Law Review 35 (1999): 531–79. however, suggested that the largely white conservative
Glazer, Myron Peretz, and Penina Migdal Glazer. The Whistle- groups exploited White to advance “pro-family” positions
blowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry. New that otherwise smacked of bigotry. On December 26, 2004,
York: Basic Books, 1989. at age forty-three, White suddenly died of pulmonary
Johnson, Robert Ann. Whistleblowing: When It Works—and Why. sarcoidosis, a respiratory disease.
Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003. Roger Chapman
Katel, Peter. “Protecting Whistleblowers.” CQ Researcher, March
31, 2006. See also: Censorship; Christian Coalition; Civil Rights Movement;
Focus on the Family; Fundamentalism, Religious; Gay Rights
Movement; Graham, Billy; Political Correctness; Religious
W hite, Regg ie Right; Speech Codes; Stern, Howard; White S upremacists.
One of professional football’s greatest defensive players,
Reggie White made headlines in the culture wars when Further Reading
he equated homosexuality with the nation’s moral decline White, Reggie, with Jim Denney. Reggie White in the Trenches:
and said that he found offensive any comparison of the The Autobiography. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1997.
gay rights movement with the civil rights movement. White, Reggie, with Andrew Peyton Thomas. Fighting the
Reginald Howard White, an African American and Good Fight: America’s “Minister of Defense” Stands Firm on
an ordained Baptist minister, was born on December 19, What It Takes to Win God’s Way. Nashville, TN: Thomas
1961, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. During his collegiate Nelson, 1999.
614 W hite Supremac is t s
W hite Supremacists During the 1970s, the UKA was active in Michigan
Political groups based on the ideology that whites con- through the efforts of grand dragon Robert Miles, who
stitute a superior race are known as white supremacists, ended up serving prison time for a plot to bomb empty
though they typically view themselves as white nation- school buses to thwart integration through busing.
alists. Such movements comprise disparate elements, The Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
representing a complex array of racist positions. While founded in 1974 by David Duke, attempted to bring
some white supremacists advance their cause through the Klan above ground and mainstream (“from the cow
peaceful means, utilizing free speech and seeking to ap- pasture to hotel meeting rooms” was the theme) by
pear mainstream (emphasizing that they are about “her- emphasizing nonviolence and legal means for advancing
itage” and not hate), many others overtly resort to vio- white nationalism. Catholics were now deemed accept-
lence against minorities and openly identify themselves able, though not Jews. Duke was more likely to be seen
as racist. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center in a suit and tie than in a white robe and hood, but he
(SPLC), a civil rights organization based in Montgom- also sold books denying the occurrence of the Holocaust.
ery, Alabama, which since 1971 has been monitoring Duke’s loose network included Bill Wilkinson’s Louisiana
“hate groups,” there are six major categories of white Knights, Don Black’s Alabama Knights, Louis Beam’s
supremacists in America today: Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Texas Knights, and Tom Metzger’s California Knights.
white nationalist, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist Dissension was the norm for these individuals. At odds
skinhead, and Christian Identity. with Duke’s vision of a “moderate” KKK, Wilkinson
in 1975 formed the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux
Ku Klux Klan Klan, which committed itself to violently confronting
An obvious player in the white supremacist movement civil rights marchers. In the early 1980s, Metzger left to
is the KKK, which originated during post–Civil War form the neo-Nazi underground group the White Aryan
Reconstruction and violently enforced Jim Crow seg- Resistance (WAR), enlisting violent racist skinheads.
regation throughout the South. The Klan had an un- The 1970s marked the decline of the KKK, but not
expected resurgence during the 1920s, as it spread into its disappearance. According to the SPLC, in 2008 there
the Midwest as part of the “nativist movement,” oppos- were 155 KKK groups in thirty-four states with a total
ing blacks, Eastern European and Asian immigrants, membership of 5,000–8,000. The states with the most
Catholics, Jews, and even flappers. The third era of the KKK chapters were Texas (20), Tennessee (12), Missis-
Klan began largely in response to the Supreme Court sippi (11), Ohio (10), and Kentucky (8).
decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which
overturned school segregation. In 1955, Eldon Lee Ed-
White Nationalist and Neo-Confederate
wards in Georgia founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Groups
Klans (U.S. Klans). On September 29 of the following In 1980, David Duke founded the National Associa-
year, the U.S. Klans held a rally of 3,000 with a pageant tion for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP),
cross-burning on Stone Mountain, Georgia, site of the which he billed as a civil rights group for whites that
1915 rebirth of the KKK. By the late 1950s, the or- was no more racist than the National Association for the
ganization had spread to nine states, and its members Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In contrast
were responsible for carrying out assaults, bombings, to Duke’s outwardly peaceful approach, F. Glenn Miller
and cross-burnings. of the North Carolina Knights founded in the same year
The largest KKK organization in the 1960s and the paramilitary organization the White Patriot Party,
1970s was the United Klans of America (UKA), head- which would become unraveled by 1987 with its leader
quartered in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and led by imperial on the lam after violating his probation by declaring
wizard Robert Shelton. At its peak in 1965, the UKA “total war” on Jews, African Americans, and the federal
had an estimated membership of 30,000. In its violent government. Meanwhile, in 1989, Duke was elected to
opposition to the civil rights movement, the UKA beat the Louisiana House of Representatives as a Republi-
up Freedom Riders and firebombed their buses in An- can, despite the opposition of national party leaders. In
niston, Alabama (May 14, 1961); dynamited the 16th 1990, he lost a race for a U.S. Senate seat. During that
Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing campaign, Duke said, “I believe the time has come for
four girls and injuring over twenty others (September 15, equal rights for everyone in this country, even for white
1963); and murdered civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo near people.”
Selma, Alabama (March 25, 1965). Operating indepen- Calling for segregation of the races, Duke in 1984
dently of the UKA, the White Knights of the Ku Klux produced a national map designating eight peripheral
Klan, Mississippi, committed similar violence, including regions for “unassimilable minorities” and the remain-
the slaying of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) der of the land (the vast majority) to be inhabited by
activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi (June 21, 1964). whites. The proposed eight minority states were Francia
W hite Supremac is t s 615
(a tract of land near the Maine-Canada border for French skinheads, who are known to physically attack minori-
Canadians); West Israel (Long Island and Manhattan for ties and homosexuals as well as desecrate synagogues,
Jews); Minoria (the non-Jewish part of metropolitan New view themselves as the shock troops that will usher in
York for Puerto Ricans, southern Italians, Greeks, and the neo-Nazi revolution. Christian Identity is a religious
people from the eastern and southern Mediterranean); ideology (a mutated version of British Israelism) that
New Cuba (Miami and Dade County, Florida, for Cuban places whites (the Aryans) as the true children of Israel,
Americans); New Africa (the southern half of Louisiana, Jews as the mixed-race children of Satan, and people of
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida for African color as subhuman. Many adherents of Christian Identity
Americans); Alta California (a sliver of the Southwest belong to the militia network Posse Comitatus, which
from California to the tip of Texas for “documented” rejects state and federal authority, based on the notion
Mexican Americans); Navahona (a portion of New Mexico that the county is the highest level of government and
for American Indians); and East Mongolia (Hawaii for the sheriff the top law enforcement official—numerous
Asian Americans). Posse members, who refuse to pay federal income tax,
Many whites over the years have joined the Council have had shootouts with federal agents.
of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which is considered to The early lineage of the radicalized right can be traced
be the largest white nationalist group. The St. Louis, to William Dudley Pelley, founder of the Silver Legion
Missouri–based organization was founded in 1985. The (or Silver Shirts), centered in Asheville, North Carolina
group’s lineage, detractors note, is the former Citizens’ (1933); Gerald L.K. Smith, founder, among other things,
Councils of America, which during the 1950s and 1960s of the Christian Nationalist Crusade, headquartered in St.
opposed desegregation. CCC officials insist that their Louis (1942); Willis Carto, founder of the Liberty Lobby,
group is not racist, but the group’s Web site does identify located in California (1955); Robert Welch, founder
the United States as a “European country” and Americans of the John Birch Society, established in Indianapolis
as “a European people,” an unmistakable expression of (1958); and Robert DePugh, founder of the Minutemen,
whiteness. According to the SPLC, in 2008 there were based in Norborne, Missouri (early 1960s). These groups
125 white nationalist groups in thirty-four states plus embraced global conspiracy theories, with most linking
the District of Columbia. Of the total white national- communism to Jews. With such radicalism in mind,
ist groups, about fifty were CCC chapters, operating President John F. Kennedy gave a speech on November
in twenty-one states. Another white nationalist group 18, 1961, in which he called critical attention to “those
with state chapters is the European-American Unity and fringes of our society” that “sow the seeds of doubt and
Rights Organization (EURO), founded in 2000 by David hate” and launch “crusades of suspicion.”
Duke and initially called the National Organization for Although the pro-Nazi Silver Shirts disbanded after
European-American Rights (NOFEAR). the United States became involved in World War II (and
The neo-Confederate groups, mostly centered in the Pelley in 1942 went to prison on sedition-related charg-
South and largely represented by the League of the South es), its influence would continue with many of its former
(LOS), could be classified as espousing white regionalism. followers in California and the Pacific Northwest joining
Founded in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1994 by Michael the Christian Identity movement. In addition, former Sil-
Hill for the stated goal of “a free and independent south- ver Shirts member Henry Beach in 1969 founded a Posse
ern republic,” the LOS asserts that southern culture, due group in Portland, Oregon. During the 1950s and 1960s
to its Anglo-Celtic heritage, is distinctive and superior to Wesley Swift, a former Klansman and associate of Smith,
mainstream American culture. The LOS is a nonviolent was the most influential Christian Identity preacher with
organization, but critics suggest that white supremacy is his Church of Jesus Christ-Christian (CJCC) in California.
its main agenda. In 2001, there were an estimated 9,000 Swift inspired Robert Butler, the one-time national direc-
members nationwide. In 2008, the SPLC counted 104 tor of the Christian Nationalist Crusade, to establish the
LOS chapters in eighteen states, including South Carolina Aryan Nations (1973), which was run as the political arm
(29), Florida (14), and Georgia (9). of the CJCC from a compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
For years, prior to forfeiting its property after losing a
Neo-Nazi, Racist Skinhead, and Christian lawsuit in 2000, the Aryan Nations annually hosted the
Identity Groups largest gathering of white supremacists.
Anti-Semitism is the tie that binds neo-Nazi, racist In 1959, George Lincoln Rockwell founded the
skinhead, and Christian Identity adherents. The neo- American Nazi Movement in Arlington, Virginia, call-
Nazi movement champions the ideals of Adolf Hitler ing for the extermination of “Jewish traitors” and the
and Nazi Germany, expresses hatred of Jews, and warns expulsion of blacks to Africa. The group was renamed
of a worldwide Zionist conspiracy, even asserting that the National Socialist White People’s Party, but it
the United States federal government is a ZOG (Zionist imploded following the assassination of Rockwell by a
Occupied Government). The European-inspired racist disgruntled member (August 25, 1967). In 1970, Frank
616 W hite Supremac is t s
Collin founded the National Socialist Party of America, Schlatter, Evelyn A. Aryan Cowboys: White Supremacists and the
which made the news that same year by attempting a Search for a New Frontier, 1970–2000. Austin: University of
demonstration march in Skokie, Illinois, a largely Jew- Texas Press, 2006.
ish suburb of Chicago. American television viewers got Southern Poverty Law Center Web site. www.splcenter.org.
a glimpse of racist turbulence in November 1988 as it Young, Mitchell. White Supremacy Groups. Detroit, MI: Green-
watched talk show host Geraldo Rivera get his nose bro- haven Press, 2008.
ken while trying to break up an on-air brawl involving
neo-Nazi skinheads of the American Front, antiracist
skinheads, blacks, and Jews. Wildmon, Donald
One of the most notorious neo-Nazis was William The founder and executive director of the American
Pierce, a former physics professor and follower of Rock- Family Association (AFA), an evangelical Christian or-
well. In 1970, he joined the National Youth Alliance, ganization, the Reverend Donald E. Wildmon pioneered
originally Willis Carto’s Youth for Wallace. Pierce, who the use of boycotts by conservative Protestants and fun-
envisioned a United States inhabited only by white people damentalists against advertisers on television programs
for the preservation of the race, led a faction in establish- with content identified as offensive to traditional Chris-
ing the neo-Nazi group National Alliance (1974). Under tian moral standards. He later expanded his watchdog ac-
the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, he published the tivities to other entertainment and artistic media. In the
race-war novel, The Turner Diaries (1978). Five years later, culture wars, Wildmon’s highest achievement was draw-
the Order (or Silent Brotherhood) was formed by Robert ing public attention to the controversial art photos of
Mathews in Metaline Falls, Washington, patterning itself Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano in the 1980s,
on a cell by the same name featured in Pierce’s novel. The which led to a national debate on the public funding of
Order went on to engage in robbery, counterfeiting, and the arts by the National Endowment for the Arts. Wild-
murder, including the gunning down of Alan Berg (June mon has also called for eliminating government funding
18, 1984), a Denver radio talk show host who criticized of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
neo-Nazism. Later, Timothy McVeigh, inspired by a pas- Donald Ellis Wildmon was born on January 18,
sage in The Turner Diaries, carried out the truck bombing 1938, in Dumas, Mississippi. He graduated from Millsap
of a federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 College in Jackson, Mississippi (BA, 1960) and Emory
people (April 19, 1995). University in Atlanta (MDiv, 1965). After serving in the
According to the SPLC, in 2008 there were 207 U.S. Army (1961–1963), he was ordained in the United
known neo-Nazi groups in forty-two states, with the Methodist Church (1964) and pastored at congregations
most concentrated in California (13), Texas (12), and in various Mississippi towns until 1977, when he estab-
Michigan (11). there were also ninety racist skinhead lished the National Federation for Decency, predecessor
groups in twenty-six states, including California (21), of the AFA.
Pennsylvania (11), New Jersey (12), and Florida (6). Of Organizationally, the Tupelo-based AFA consists of
the thirty-six Christian Identity groups scattered across a legal arm, the AFA Center for Law and Policy, and an
twenty-five states, considerably weakened following the advocacy arm, AFA Action. The nonprofit organization
2004 death of Robert Butler, some 20 percent were based syndicates a half-hour radio program called AFA Report,
in California (7). aired by some 1,200 stations; and the AFA itself operates
Roger Chapman about 200 stations through noncommercial educational
licenses controlled by the American Family Radio Net-
See also: Anti-Semitism; Aryan Nations; Civil Rights Move- work, launched in 1987. Wildmon has taken advantage
ment; Confederate Flag; Duke, David; Militia Movement; of federal law to operate his stations at full power and
Montana Freemen; Philadelphia, Mississippi; Race; Rock- broadcast over several of the “liberal and secular” National
well, George Lincoln; Ruby Ridge Incident; Vigilantism. Public Radio (NPR) stations.
Wildmon has written more than eighteen books,
Further Reading primarily in the genre of Christian inspiration, including
Barkun, Michael. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Stand Up to Life! A Man’s Reflection on Living (1975) and
Christian Identity Movement. Rev. ed. Chapel Hill: University Following the Carpenter: Parables to Inspire Obedience in the
of North Carolina Press, 1997. Christian Life (1997). His book The Home Invaders (1985)
Newton, Michael. The Ku Klux Klan: History, Organization, offers an analysis of television and the general media,
Language, Influence and Activities of America’s Most Notorious which the jacket proclaims a “mind-polluting tide seek-
Secret Societies. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. ing to submerge us all!”
Ridgeway, James. Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan The People for the American Way, often in opposition
Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture. to the AFA, suggests that Wildmon’s definition of “inde-
New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1990. cent” means anything not in accordance with his Christian
Will , George 617
worldview and political preferences, including “television, States. In 1976, he also became a weekly columnist for
the separation of church and state, pornography, ‘the Newsweek. Expanding his commentary to television, he
homosexual agenda,’ premarital sex, legal abortion, the joined Agronsky and Company (1977–1984) and ABC’s
National Endowment for the Arts, gambling, unfiltered This Week (1981–present).
Internet access in libraries, and the removal of school- In addition to publishing several collections of his
sponsored religious worship from public schools.” columns, Will has written several books on politics and
Over the years, Wildmon’s boycott and decency world affairs, including Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Gov-
campaigns have targeted such corporations as Allstate ernment Does (1983); The New Season: A Spectator’s Guide to
Insurance, American Airlines, Citigroup, Coca-Cola the 1988 Election (1987); Restoration: Congress, Term Limits,
Company, Eastman Kodak, Ford Motor Company, Kraft and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy (1992); The Wo-
Foods, PepsiCo., and Wal-Mart; such television shows as ven Figure: Conservatism and America’s Fabric: 1994–1997
Desperate Housewives, Ellen, Nightline, NYPD Blue, Rose- (1997); With a Happy Eye But . . . : America and the World,
anne, and Saturday Night Live; the film Last Temptation 1997–2002 (2002); and One Man’s America: The Pleasures
of Christ and others; and pop culture figures including and Provocations of Our Singular Nation (2008). A commit-
radio “shock jock” Howard Stern and singer Madonna. ted Chicago Cubs fan who frequently makes references to
Critics maintain that AFA boycotts are largely ineffective baseball in his commentary, he also wrote about the sport
and serve primarily to generate publicity and funds for in Men at Work (1992) and Bunts (1998). Will has won
the organization. a number of journalism awards, including the Pulitzer
Chip Berlet Prize for commentary in 1977.
Strongly influenced by Aristotle, Edmund Burke,
See also: Censorship; Evangelicalism; Family Values; Funda- John Henry Newman, and Benjamin Disraeli, Will
mentalism, Religious; Mapplethorpe, Robert; Media Bias; rejects the libertarian version of conservatism in favor of
National Endowment for the Arts; National Public Radio; traditionalism, sometimes called “Tory conservatism.”
Public Broadcasting Service; Religious Right; Serrano, An- His emphasis on the public good over individual interest,
dres; Sexual Revolution. and the values of justice and equality of opportunity, has
led him to oppose uncontrolled free-market capitalism
Further Reading and support certain taxes, welfare programs, and civil
AFA Online Web site. www.afa.net. rights laws. Will’s desire to use government to achieve
Boston, Rob. “In Don We Trust?” Church & State, May 2001. social ends has its limits, however, as evidenced by his op-
Dedman, Bill. “Bible Belt Blowhard.” Mother Jones, October position to efforts to bring about racial equality through
1992. affirmative action, busing, and quotas.
Wildmon, Donald, with Randall Nulton. Don Wildmon: The As a traditionalist, Will has sought to preserve
Man the Networks Love to Hate. Wilmore, KY: Bristol Books, historic practices, institutions, and values and promote
1989. individual virtue. Government, in his view, has the re-
sponsibility to regulate activities, such as pornography,
drugs, abortion, and surrogate motherhood, that threaten
Will, George these elements. He also argues for limitations on freedom
An influential political commentator, George Will has of speech and states that some forms of sexual behavior
provided a conservative perspective on American poli- should not be tolerated. Will carries these views of do-
tics and culture as well as international affairs since the mestic affairs into his understanding of foreign policy,
1970s. His eloquent, self-confident style and strong where he advocates a nationalist stance and the need for
opinions have generated criticism from both the left and U.S. leaders to explain to Americans why and when the
the right. citizenry must sacrifice personal interests for the security
George Frederick Will was born on May 4, 1941, in of the larger community.
Champaign, Illinois. He received his education at Trin- Libertarian conservatives have criticized Will’s sup-
ity College (BA, 1962), Oxford University (MA, 1964), port of big government and rejection of the free market.
and Princeton University (PhD, 1967). After teaching Liberals have argued that he is inconsistent and has an
political philosophy at Michigan State University and inadequate concept of justice. He has also been accused
the University of Toronto, he served from 1970 to 1972 of ethical lapses, particularly for his undisclosed par-
on the staff of U.S. Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO). Will ticipation in Ronald Reagan’s preparation for the 1980
began his career in journalism as Washington editor for campaign debate with Jimmy Carter and his commentary
the conservative journal National Review from 1972 to on the 1996 presidential race while his wife served in the
1975. As a member of the Washington Post Writers campaign of Republican nominee Robert Dole.
Groups beginning in 1974, his columns became syndi-
cated in more than 450 newspapers across the United Gary Land
618 William s, W illiam Appleman
See also: Abortion; Affirmative Action; Carter, Jimmy; Na- of empire. In The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959),
tional Review; Reagan, Ronald; War on Drugs. he outlined late-nineteenth-century policies, such as the
Open Door policy in China, that belied the image of a
Further Reading nation averse to global power. In The Contours of American
Burner, David, and Thomas R. West. Column Right: Conservative History (1961), Williams expanded his critique, locat-
Journalists in the Service of Nationalism. New York: New York ing the designs of American imperialism in antebellum
University Press, 1988. mercantilism and leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and
Chappell, Larry W. George F. Will. New York: Twayne, 1997. Andrew Jackson. In The Roots of the Modern American Em-
Francis, Samuel T. “The Case of George Will.” Modern Age 30:2 pire (1969), Williams attributed the nation’s imperialism
(1986): 141–47. during the Gilded Age to agricultural interests rather
Neuchterlein, James. “George Will and American Conserva- than simply industrial concerns. Thus, he presented the
tism.” Commentary 76 (1983): 35–43. United States as a nation with a history of voluntarily
Rozell, Mark J. “George F. Will’s ‘Tory Conservatism.’ ” In selling its democratic birthright for a mess of capitalist
American Conservative Opinion Leaders, ed. Mark J. Rozell and pottage. Once set on the path to empire, the American
James F. Pontuso, 13–28. Boulder, CO: Westside, 1990. nation had little choice but to suppress national libera-
tion movements—a betrayal of the ideals of the American
Revolution.
Williams, William Appleman Critics such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., have de-
Issuing a devastating—some said “un-American”— nounced Williams’s interpretation of U.S. imperialism as
reinterpretation of U.S. foreign relations, William dogmatic and poorly documented. Schlesinger and others
Appleman Williams became a leading figure in the “re- have noted, for example, that Williams’s research did not
visionist school” of American diplomatic history. As op- include manuscript collections outside the United States
posed to the standard depictions of the United States as that might have challenged his unilateral depiction of
a benevolent and benign Cold War power containing U.S. imperialism.
Soviet aggression, from Williams’s pen came the chron- The Organization of American Historians elected
icles of a conniving imperialist tyrant driven to global Williams president of the professional association in
expansion by its own economic avarice. 1980. That same year, he published his retrospective,
Born on June 12, 1921, in Atlantic, Iowa, Williams Empire as a Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character
seemed the quintessential patriotic young American, of America’s Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts About
enrolling at the U.S. Naval Academy and late in World an Alternative, using it to challenge Reagan conservatism.
War II serving as an executive officer in the Pacific, He died two years after his retirement from teaching, on
where he earned a Purple Heart. His outlook began to March 8, 1990.
change after the war, however, when the navy reassigned Richard C. Goode
him to flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas, where
he recognized the injustice of racial segregation and See also: American Exceptionalism; Chomsky, Noam; Cold
began to work with African Americans, Quakers, and War; Reagan, Roland; Revisionist History; Schlesinger, Ar-
communists to promote integration. For his efforts, his thur M., Jr.; Soviet Union and Russia.
superiors reprimanded him, the FBI threatened him,
and local officials physically assaulted him. After his Further Reading
military discharge, he earned a PhD in history at the Berger, Henry W. A William Appleman Williams Reader. Chicago:
University of Wisconsin at Madison (1950) and later Ivan R. Dee, 1992.
served on its faculty (1957–1968). He taught history at Buhle, Paul M., and Edward Rice-Maximin. William Apple-
a number of institutions, chiefly Oregon State University man Williams: The Tragedy of Empire. New York: Routledge,
(1968–1988), from which he retired. 1995.
In most history books of the time, the United States
unintentionally acquired global power as a consequence
of World War II. Catapulted into power by the war, the Wilson, Edmund
story went, isolationist and peace-loving Americans had Once praised by Gore Vidal as “America’s best mind,”
little choice but to develop a “realist” foreign policy and Edmund Wilson was a widely respected literary critic
pragmatically wield power for good in the containment of and social commentator. His most commercially suc-
the Soviet Union. Thus, global politics forced an unwill- cessful work, a collection of stories titled Memoirs of
ing and disinterested America to serve as the architect Hecate County (1946), was for a time banned as obscene.
and enforcer of a new world order, a mission the United As a political progressive, Wilson participated in the
States never sought and often detested. culture wars as a critic of capitalism, the Cold War, and
Williams, instead, described a long-term pursuit the increasing specialization of literary studies.
Winf rey, Oprah 619
The bookish Wilson, whose ancestors enjoyed promi- W i n f r ey, O p r a h

nence in Puritan New England, was born on May 8, 1895, Television superstar, magazine publisher, actress, and
in Red Bank, New Jersey. After studying literature at writer Oprah Winfrey, widely known by her first name
Princeton University (AB, 1916), where he befriended F. alone, is said to be the highest-paid entertainer in the
Scott Fitzgerald, he served in World War I as a hospital world, the first African-American billionaire (net worth
orderly in France. After the war, he served as editor of exceeding $1.4 billion in 2006), and the most influen-
Vanity Fair magazine (1920–1921) and later worked on tial woman in the media industry. Although Winfrey’s
the staffs of the New Republic, The New Yorker, and the wealth and influence derive in large measure from own-
New York Review of Books. His works of criticism, many ership of her own multimedia production company,
of them collections of magazine articles, focused primar- called Harpo, the foundation of her success is said to
ily on literature, politics, and culture, and earned him a be the ability to connect on a personal level with audi-
reputation as the preeminent cultural critic of his time. ences of her Emmy-winning daytime talk show and the
Fascinated with Marxism, Wilson wrote To the Fin- readers of her magazine. At the same time, her emotion-
land Station (1940), tracing three centuries of socialist centered approach and the ways in which she has used
development, capped by Vladimir Lenin’s arrival in Rus- her influence have also made her the target of criticism
sia at the start of the Bolshevik Revolution. In Patriotic in the culture wars.
Gore (1962), he analyzes American literature of the Civil Orpah (later spelled Oprah) Gail Winfrey was born
War era, concluding that the nation’s desire for order on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. After
is based largely on a hunger for power. In reaction to studying speech communication and performing arts at
personal difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service— Tennessee State University (BA, 1976), she spent several
he refused to file tax returns from the mid-1940s to years in broadcasting and became the host of WLS-TV’s
mid-1950s—he wrote The Cold War and the Income Tax AM Chicago in 1984. It soon became the highest-rated
(1963), complaining that high taxes were a consequence talk show in Chicago, and two years later, renamed the
of the Vietnam War. In The Fruits of the MLA (1968), he Oprah Winfrey Show, entered national syndication. Win-
scorns that organization’s “hyphen-hunting” (emphasis frey went on to star in film adaptations of Alice Walker’s
on “ethnic” literature) and output of academic editions The Color Purple (1985) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved
of unimportant literary works. His critique inspired the (1998), which she co-produced. In 1996, she introduced
creation of the Library of America editions. a segment on her television show called Oprah’s Book
Wilson’s cause célèbre was Memoirs of Hecate County, Club, which dramatically increased the sale of books
published by Doubleday in 1946. In it, the unnamed male she recommended (many of them the “great books”), a
narrator, while offering misogynistic stories that take place phenomenon that came to be called the “Oprah Effect.”
in a fictitious New York suburb, graphically recounts nu- In 2000, she founded O, The Oprah Magazine, which
merous sexual relations. During the obscenity trial initiated reached a paid monthly circulation of 2.7 million cop-
by the New York Society for the Improvement of Morals, ies within two years. In 2004, Winfrey became the first
literature professor Lionel Trilling argued that the book’s African American to be included in BusinessWeek’s list of
redeeming value was its study of good and evil. Wilson lost the Fifty Most Generous Philanthropists. In 2006, she
the case on appeal in 1948, when the U.S. Supreme Court announced a three-year deal with XM Satellite Radio to
rendered a 4–4 decision, with one justice not participat- launch a new channel called Oprah & Friends. And in
ing. The book was therefore banned in New York State 2008, she announced plans for a new cable TV network:
for several years. Wilson died at the age of seventy-seven OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.
on June 12, 1972. The Oprah Winfrey Show began with a somewhat
Roger Chapman sensationalist bent, featuring such provocative guests as
nudists, transsexuals, white supremacists, sex offenders,
See also: Book Banning; Censorship; Cold War; Great Books; and the like. As the program found its niche and audi-
Kubrick, Stanley; Marxism; Multiculturalism and Ethnic Stud- ence, it became less provocative, but nonetheless gained
ies; Pornography; Tax Reform; Vidal, Gore; Vietnam War. a reputation as a “group-therapy session.” Oprah added
a personal touch with frank confessions, talking about
Further Reading her weight problem and revealing that she had been
Karolides, Nicholas J., Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova. 100 sexually abused as a child and tried crack cocaine as a
Banned Books: Censorship History of World Literature. New young adult.
York: Checkmark Books, 1999. In 1996, she was sued by a group of Texas cattle
Menand, Louis. “Missionary.” The New Yorker, August 8 and producers for airing a show on mad cow disease, after
15, 2005. which beef sales declined significantly at grocery stores
Meyers, Jeffrey. Edmund Wilson: An Autobiography. Boston: nationwide. Winfrey was accused of unfairly disparaging
Houghton Mifflin, 1995. beef by having an animal rights activist on the program
620 Winf rey, Oprah
and raising public awareness of mad cow disease, which Illousz, Eva. Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery: An Essay
had infected millions of cows in Great Britain. Supporters on Popular Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
argued that she was exercising her right to free speech; Oprah.com: Live Your Best Life Web site. www.oprah
critics said she was guilty of making unreasonable and un- .com.
substantiated claims regarding beef. The case was thrown Squire, Corrinne. “Empowering Women? The Oprah Winfrey
out by the U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas. Show.” In Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader, ed. Charlotte
In 2007, with Winfrey drawing 60 million viewers Brunsdon, Julie D’Acci, and Lynn Spigel, 98–113. New York:
to her program every day, critics contended that she was Clarendon Press, 1997.
not doing enough to effectuate progressive social change.
Her unwillingness to address complex social issues, such
as racism, sexism, and class warfare, earned her the label Wo l f, N a o m i
“Mammy” from cultural critics such as the University Feminist author Naomi Wolf is known for her best-sell-
of Maryland sociologist Patricia Hill Collins. Rather ing first book, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are
than lead nuanced discussions on social and structural Used against Women (1991), regarded as one of the cen-
inequities in American society, Oprah focused on the tral texts of third-wave feminism. The “beauty myth,”
promotion of “self healing” and “personal change.” Such she argues, is not about physical appearance but the con-
an approach, argued her critics, ignores the long-standing ditioning of female behavior in order to maintain male
societal structures that enable social ills to continue and dominance in society. Through an examination of the
fails to promote the necessary social or political trans- cosmetic industry, fashion magazines, eating disorders,
formation. On the other hand, Winfrey’s expressions of diets, silicone breast implants, and cosmetic surgery,
concern about sexual predators led to federal legislation Wolf argues that such cultural controls make women
in 1993. Meanwhile, an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey subject to outside approval and censure, replacing tradi-
Show became a must for any candidate seeking success on tional religious and sexual taboos with new forms of re-
the presidential campaign trail. The host rarely uttered a pression. Moreover, she sees the “beauty myth” as part of
word regarding her own political preferences until 2007, a backlash against the gains of the feminist movement.
when she publicly endorsed Barack Obama, the U.S. sena- Wolf calls for a reinterpretation of beauty as “noncom-
tor from Illinois. Her appearances with Obama during petitive, nonhierarchical, and nonviolent.”
the Democratic primary campaign drew large crowds, Born on November 12, 1962, in San Francisco, Wolf
and her support was regarded as especially influential studied English literature at Yale University (BA, 1984)
among women voters.
Even Winfrey’s philanthropic efforts have been the
subject of debate. In 2007, she opened an all-girls school
in South Africa to much fanfare, with skeptics disparag-
ing the venture from the outset as a publicity stunt and
public relations tactic. When allegations of physical and
sexual abuse emerged shortly after the school’s opening,
critics charged that Oprah had failed by not properly
screening and monitoring the staff. Her philanthropic
efforts, meanwhile, had been far-reaching for years. Since
its founding in 1998, Oprah’s Angel Network alone had
raised more than $50 million for international charity.
In 2005, BusinessWeek estimated Oprah’s philanthropic
contributions at some $250 million.
Danielle R. Vitale and Valerie Palmer-Mehta
See also: Animal Rights; Blackface; Doctor Phil; Donahue,

Phil; Great Books; Morrison, Toni; Obama, Barack; Sex Of-
fenders; Transgender Movement; White Supremacists.
Further Reading
Third-wave feminist Naomi Wolf argues in her acclaimed
Garson, Helen. Oprah Winfrey: A Biography. Westport, CT:
1991 book The Beauty Myth that “beauty” is a paternalistic
Greenwood Press, 2004. social construct perpetuated by popular culture, industry, and
Harris, Jennifer, and Elwood Watson. The Oprah Phenomenon. the legal and medical communities to exploit and suppress
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. women. (Michael A. Smith/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Wolfe, Tom 621
and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (1984–1987). A pects of American society, targeting some of its most en-
prolific writer of both books and essays, Wolf has been in- during institutions while snubbing liberal orthodoxy. A
terviewed extensively in print and on television. Her other social conservative, Wolfe famously dubbed the 1960s
writings include Fire with Fire: The New Female Power the “Me Decade.”
and How It Will Change the Twenty-first Century (1993), Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr., born on March 2, 1931,
which examines the feminist movement and argues that in Richmond, Virginia, earned a bachelor’s degree from
“victim” feminism must be replaced by “power” feminism Washington and Lee University (1951) and a PhD in
that “hates sexism without hating men”; Promiscuities: The American Studies from Yale (1957); his doctoral dis-
Secret Struggles of Womanhood (1997), which decodes popu- sertation focused on communist influences on American
lar culture’s mixed sexual messages that stigmatize girls writers from 1929 to 1942. Wolfe worked as a journal-
and women; Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected ist for various newspapers, but he is best known for his
on the Journey to Motherhood (2001), which discusses how magazine articles, essays, nonfiction books, and novels;
society simultaneously sentimentalizes pregnancy and several of the latter were made into Hollywood films.
fails to support mothers; The Tree House: Eccentric Wisdom In 1963, Wolfe investigated Southern California’s
from My Father on How to Live, Love, and See (2005), which custom car culture for Esquire magazine but struggled to
recounts the advice of her father, writer Leonard Wolf, write an article. Facing a deadline, he wrote a long letter
on living and creativity; and The End of America: A Letter to his editor explaining what he had found, and the let-
of Warning to a Young Patriot (2007), which warns how ter was subsequently printed almost verbatim, launch-
America could slip into fascism. ing Wolfe on what he called “New Journalism,” a style
Because her writings bridge journalism and academ- also used by writers such as Truman Capote, Hunter S.
ics, Wolf has been variously criticized for self-indulgent Thompson, and Norman Mailer. Unlike traditional jour-
reflections, overstating statistics, and watering down nalism, in which the reporter remains an inconspicuous
feminism to make it more inclusive. Her stint as a paid observer and objective nonentity, New Journalism inter-
consultant to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign raised jects the writer’s personality and subjective point of view.
eyebrows, and Gore received unfavorable publicity after Wolfe took this approach in several books documenting
Time magazine reported Wolf’s advice to have the can- the radical youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
didate dress as an “alpha male” to attract female voters. The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamlined Baby
In 2004, Wolf accused the literary critic Harold Bloom (1965), a collection of nonfiction pieces, was Wolfe’s
of sexually inappropriate behavior when she was an un- first longer work of New Journalism, though he gained
dergraduate at Yale. Two years later the Jewish feminist greater notoriety with the publication of The Electric Kool-
was again in the news when she reported having a vision, Aid Acid Test (1968) and The Pump House Gang (1968).
under hypnosis, of Jesus Christ, a claim questioned by Novelistic treatments of real events, these works provided
both the Religious Right and the Jewish community. a descriptive account of the lifestyle of the 1960s coun-
terculture. Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine
Rebecca Nicholson-Weir (1976) included one of his most widely cited essays, or
at least its catchphrase, “The Me Decade and the Third
See also: Beauty Pageants; Feminism, Second-Wave; Femi- Great Awakening.”
nism, Third-Wave; Gore, Al; Paglia, Camille; Religious Wolfe addressed race relations in Radical Chic and
Right; Sexual Assault; Stay-at-Home Mothers; Victimhood. Mau-Mau-ing the Flak-Catchers (1970) and A Man in Full
(1998), sexual mores in Hooking Up (2000), modern art
Further Reading and architecture in The Painted Word (1975) and From
Foster, Patricia. Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Bauhaus to Our House (1981), and the hedonism of college
Soul. New York: Anchor Books, 1995. campuses in the novel I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004). His
Gotschall, Mary G. “Poisoned Apple.” National Review, July portrayal of NASA and its fledgling space program, as
8, 1991. well as the mores and exploits of the astronauts training
Greene, Gayle. “The Empire Strikes Back.” Nation, February for the moon missions, was the focus of The Right Stuff
10, 1992. (1979), which won a National Book Award and was
Wolf, Naomi. “The Silent Treatment.” New York Magazine, made into a popular movie. The Bonfire of the Vanities
March 1, 2004. (1987), a fictional indictment of the greed of the 1980s,
was also made into a film. The audiobook Ambush at
Fort Bragg (1997), promoted as a negative critique of
Wo l f e , To m television newscasters, was a morality tale against gays
A leading exponent of “New Journalism,” and famous in the military.
for wearing white suits at every public appearance, the Wolfe has been frequently interviewed for his views
flamboyant author Tom Wolfe has chronicled many as- on cultural issues. His opinions range from the humor-
622 Women in the Militar y
ous to the caustic, showing particular disdain for liberal ing pregnant servicewomen. The number of women in the
academics, the New Left, anticapitalist pontifications, U.S. armed services more than doubled over the course
and political correctness. He once stated that Alexander of the decade. Despite the reforms, however, the move-
Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago will be regarded as ment toward gender equality stopped short of allowing
one of the most important works of history because it women to hold combat positions. Moreover, until 1994,
unalterably linked socialism and concentration camps. women could not be assigned anywhere there was even
the threat of combat, hostile fire, or capture equal to that
Kirk Richardson and Roger Chapman of a combat area, regardless of their vocations. Between
1992 and 1994, restrictions against women serving on
See also: Civil Rights Movement; Communists and Commu- combat aircraft and naval vessels were lifted (submarines
nism; Counterculture; Gays in the Military; New Journalism; excluded); such restrictions remained in place for direct
New Left; Political Correctness; Race; Sexual Revolution; ground combat, leaving women still ineligible for posi-
Thompson, Hunter S. tions in infantry, armor, field artillery, and all special
operations divisions.
Further Reading Such exclusions have not kept American service-
Bloom, Harold. Tom Wolfe. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, women out of harm’s way, however, as eleven of the fifteen
2001. women who died in the Persian Gulf War (1991) fell in
Ragen, Brian Abel. Tom Wolfe: A Critical Companion. Westport, combat situations. And as the 2003 experiences of Pfc.
CT: Greenwood, 2002. Jessica Lynch in the Iraq War dramatically attest, keep-
Scurra, Dorothy, ed. Conversations with Tom Wolfe. Jackson: ing women out of combat occupations does not always
University Press of Mississippi, 1990. shield them from direct ground combat. Captured in Iraq
Shomette, Doug, ed. The Critical Response to Tom Wolfe. Westport, on March 23, 2003, the twenty-year-old Lynch was the
CT: Greenwood, 1992. only survivor of an insurgent attack on her Humvee in a
maintenance convoy on the road near Nasiriyah. In releas-
ing the video of her rescue, the Pentagon acknowledged
Wo m e n i n t h e M i l i t a r y the extraordinary interest the public had taken in Lynch’s
American women have been part of the nation’s regu- plight. The extensive coverage of her ordeal was seen by
lar standing forces since passage of the Women’s Armed some as a reflection of public ambivalence about daughters
Services Integration Act in 1948, but it was not until serving in combat situations. Between 2003 and 2007,
the abolition of the separate women’s corps in each of over 160,500 women served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
the major service branches in the 1970s and the intro- meaning in those theatres of war one in seven soldiers were
duction of mixed-gender basic training by the air force female. In Iraq during that period, seventy-one female
(1976), navy (1992), and army (1993) that the U.S. soldiers died and another 450 were wounded.
armed forces have approached anything near gender in- The U.S. military has often been accused of holding
tegration. By 2000, women made up 20 percent of all its women to different standards of conduct than it does
military personnel. its men. Throughout the 1980s, for example, female
Opponents of gender integration in the military service members were investigated and dismissed under
have argued that the lowering of physical requirements suspicion of homosexuality at a much higher rate than
necessary to accommodate women diminishes force their male counterparts. Lt. Kelly Flinn, the first bomber
strength and readiness, and that combat effectiveness is pilot in the Air Force, resigned in 1997 under threat of
compromised by the complications of mixing men and court-martial for adultery. Her defenders argued that
women in the field. Proponents dismiss such arguments while she had engaged in an affair with a married man,
as antiquated, believing that proper tactics, training, and adultery was routinely ignored among male officers; thus,
use of technology can more than compensate for female it was said, prosecuting Flinn for that offense was sexist
physical limitations. Men and women, they argue further, and discriminatory. Flinn’s critics countered that it was
can effectively work together if that is the professional her failure to follow orders in continuing the affair that
expectation communicated and enforced by all leaders. constituted an untenable breach of military order, and
Proponents of women serving fully in all military roles, that such an offense was uniformly punished regardless
including combat, argue that commanders should not be of gender.
restricted in how to deploy their troops. A series of scandals in the 1990s and early 2000s
Major changes were instituted during the 1970s, as revealed the extent of sexual harassment and abuse of
Congress opened the federal service academies to women; women in the services, and the consistent failure of their
the army, navy, and air force began admitting women to commanders to prosecute offenders. Dozens of women
flight training; and several discriminatory regulations and went public in June 1991 with accounts of sexual assault
policies were revised, including the practice of discharg- at the September 1990 convention of Tailhook, a popular
Women ’s Studies 623
private organization for naval aviators. Although many plinary academic discipline that focuses on the lives and
of these women had reported the incidents to their com- experiences of women, as well as theories about gender.
manders, there had been no investigation. Public embar- More than 700 programs have been offered on college
rassment over this failure was great enough to prompt campuses nationwide in the three decades since the
the resignation of Secretary of the Navy H. Lawrence inception of the first women’s studies program at San
Garrett, but, according to a report issued by the inspec- Diego State University in 1969. In the meantime, the
tor general in September of 1992, the navy’s subsequent National Women’s Studies Association was founded in
investigation of the allegations was poorly conducted and 1977 to promote women’s studies at all levels of educa-
concealed evidence in an effort to avoid bad publicity. tion, from preschool to doctorate programs. Proponents
Four years later, the army suffered its own scandal when of women’s studies cite inclusiveness and the expansion
it was reported that male drill sergeants had demanded of knowledge as justification for the field, whereas crit-
sex from female trainees at the Aberdeen Proving Ground ics suggest that such an approach fosters political cor-
in Maryland. Throughout the Iraq War, which began in rectness while unwittingly marginalizing the study of
2003, there were reports numbering in the thousands women by ghettoizing it as a narrow field of academe.
of sexual harassment and rape of female soldiers by men In the 1960s, as scholars and activists explored areas
in their units. In 2004, Spc. Suzanne Swift was court- of interest and research that included female voices and
martialed for desertion after she went AWOL from the perspectives, there was a demand to integrate these new
army while home on leave from Iraq; she claimed she findings in higher education. There was likewise a desire
had been forced into sexual relations with a commanding to create a formal space in the academic world, which had
officer and did not want to return to duty. been largely dominated by male history, achievements,
Critics of gender integration in the military, such and perspectives, to include the study of women, gender,
as senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Charles Robb and women’s achievements. At the same time, there was
(D-VA) during the 1990s, blamed sexual misconduct on a sense that women’s studies could boost female repre-
policies that place men and women in the same training sentation on college faculties. From these concerns and
situations. After the Tailhook and Aberdeen incidents, interests grew women’s studies classes that dealt with
Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) introduced a bill international women’s issues in history, literature, art,
to ban co-ed basic training, but the proposal was opposed and feminist theory. Many colleges and universities now
by the heads of the major service branches. Proponents have women’s studies programs and departments, and
of integrated military training and units, such as Senator students are able to pursue a major, minor, or graduate
Olympia Snow (R-MA), argue that women will be treated degree in women’s studies.
with less respect if they are not subject to the same regime As American academia has come under attack by
as their male counterparts. conservatives since the 1980s for being too liberal and
overly concerned with the study of minorities and women,
Holly Alloway the field of women’s studies—in particular its feminist
content—has been widely criticized as radical. The
See also: Gays in the Military; Sexual Harassment; Southern negative stereotypes associated with feminists have often
Baptist Convention. been directed at the faculty, students, and curriculum of
women’s studies. Critics argue, for example, that women’s
Further Reading studies is largely antimale and against traditional values.
Fenner, Lorry M., and Marie de Young. Women in Combat: Civic “Why is there not men’s studies?” they ask. Those who
Duty or Military Liability? Washington, DC: Georgetown support the inclusion of women’s studies in academia
University Press, 2001. contend that mainstream classes generally focus on men
Mitchell, Brian. Women in the Military: Flirting with Disaster. and male culture, making them normative.
Washington, DC: Regency, 1998. Another widely debated issue has to do with the
Nelson, T.S. For Love of Country: Confronting Rape and Sexual balance between scholarship and activism. While the
Abuse in the U.S. Military. New York: Hawthorn Maltreat- advent and growth of women’s studies as an academic
ment and Trauma Press, 2002. discipline has been influenced by the feminist movement,
Zeigler, Sara L., and Gregory G. Gunderson. Moving Beyond G.I. some individuals believe women’s studies focuses unduly
Jane: Women and the U.S. Military. Lanham, MD: University on social activism rather than intellectual advancement.
Press of America, 2005. On the other hand, many radical proponents feel that
women’s studies is too theoretical and elitist, minimizing
its real-world effectiveness.
Wo m e n ’s S t u d i e s The designation “women’s studies” itself has been the
Women’s studies, with roots in the feminist and social subject of debate. Some think the term is too limiting,
movements of the 1960s and 1970s, is an interdisci- considering that much of current theory and research
624 Woodward , Bob
has to do with broader issues of gender, femininity, and Prize for its Watergate coverage. In August 1974, Nixon
masculinity, thereby encompassing the experiences and resigned from office to avoid impeachment.
identities of women, men, and transgendered persons The young investigative duo followed up their news-
rather than just women. To reflect this multifaceted ap- paper series with the best-selling book All the President’s
proach, programs at some institutions have been renamed Men (1974), an overview of their Watergate investiga-
“women’s and gender studies” or simply “gender stud- tion, and The Final Days (1976), an account of Nixon’s
ies.” Those who prefer to keep “women” (or some form resignation. In the movie version of All the President’s
of it) in the designation are fearful that referring only to Men (1976), Robert Redford plays Woodward. In 1990,
“gender studies” will diminish the emphasis on women, the executive director of the Richard Nixon Library and
both in the program of study and in the academic space Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California, called Woodward
for them. “not a responsible journalist” and indicated that he would
Alexandra DeMonte be denied access to the library’s holdings—a statement
that was later retracted, but an indication of lasting bit-
See also: Academic Freedom; Feminism, Second-Wave; Femi- terness. In 2003, Woodward and Bernstein sold their
nism, Third-Wave; Men’s Movement; Multiculturalism and Watergate papers to the University of Texas at Austin
Ethnic Studies; Transgender Movement. for $5 million. In 2005, Watergate again became the
focus of national debate when W. Mark Felt, the former
Further Reading associate director of the FBI, revealed himself as “Deep
Baumgardner, Jennifer, and Amy Richards. Manifesta: Young Throat,” Woodward’s secret inside source during the
Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus investigation.
and Giroux, 2000. After Watergate, Woodward became an editor at
Boxer, Marilyn. When Women Ask the Questions: Creating Women’s the Post and was allowed to pursue special projects. His
Studies in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University embarrassment as an editor in overseeing Janet Cooke’s
Press, 1998. 1980 coverage of a child heroin addict, a story that won
Grewal, Inderpal, and Caren Kaplan, eds. An Introduction to a Pulitzer Prize but later turned out to be a fabrication,
Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World. New York: was later offset by his team coverage of the September
McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2002. 11 attacks that earned the Post a Pulitzer Prize in 2002.
Howe, Florence, ed. The Politics of Women’s Studies: Testimony from Most of his time as an editor has been spent writing books:
30 Founding Mothers. New York: Feminist, 2000. Wired: The Short and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984); Veil:
The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (1987); The Com-
manders (1991); The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House
Wo o d w a r d , B o b (1994); The Choice: How Clinton Won (1996); Shadow:
As a reporter for the Washington Post, Bob Woodward Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate (1999); Maestro:
helped to break the story of the Watergate scandal, Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom (2001); Bush at War
leading to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation (2002); Plan of Attack (2004); The Secret Man: The Story
and ushering in a new era of hard-charging investiga- of Watergate’s Deep Throat (2005); State of Denial (2006);
tive journalism. Woodward later evolved into an “in- and The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-
sider journalist” known for his prolific output of books 2008 (2008). He also co-authored The Brethren: Inside the
on powerful people and institutions in the nation’s Supreme Court (1979) and The Man Who Would Be President:
capital. Dan Quayle (1992).
The son of a judge, Robert Upshur Woodward was Woodward’s books rely on anonymous “deep back-
born on March 26, 1943, in Geneva, Illinois, and grew ground” interviews with top officials. Critics, such as
up in nearby Wheaton. A graduate of Yale University David Corn of the Nation magazine, contend that such an
(1965), he served in the U.S. Navy as a communications approach relegates Woodward to the role of a stenogra-
officer (1965–1970). After one year as a reporter for the pher, and one who can be easily manipulated by political
Montgomery Sentinel in Rockville, Maryland, he joined players who parcel out information and “spin” the story in
the Washington Post. On June 17, 1972, ten months after accordance with a rehearsed message. In the introduction
being hired by the Post, Woodward began collaborating of The Agenda, Woodward maintains, “I believe there is a
with fellow reporter Carl Bernstein on investigating the place for reporting that aspires to combine the thorough-
break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National ness of history with the immediacy of journalism.”
Committee in the Watergate hotel complex in Washing- In Bush at War and Plan of Attack, Woodward
ton, D.C. Woodward and Bernstein’s dogged pursuit of provided laudatory accounts of the George W. Bush
the details, after many other reporters lost interest, even- administration and its decision to invade Iraq in 2003,
tually revealed connections between the burglars and the but State of Denial and The War Within were more hard-
White House. In 1973, the Post was awarded the Pulitzer hitting books.
World Counc il of C hurches 625
Woodward had been criticized for holding back in- factual coverage of same-sex marriages might be com-
formation from the public. For example, he did not expose bined with the position that such marriages are inherently
the illegal sale of arms to the Contras in the 1980s until wrong and ungodly.
after a congressional investigation was launched. And he Conservative Christians who subscribe to World re-
did not reveal Colin Powell’s opposition to Operation gard it as a spiritual alternative to the secular news media
Desert Storm, the name for the 1991 attack on Iraq, until that ignores the Bible. Liberal readers, both Christian and
after Congress voted approval. When Bush administra- non-Christian, argue that such a religious focus can lead
tion officials wanted to leak the identity of CIA operative to reporting that is biased and inaccurate.
Valerie Plame to retaliate against her husband, Joseph Nevertheless, World continues to interpret the news
Wilson, for his criticism of their rationale for invading in its unique fashion, offering many readers conservative
Iraq in 2003, Woodward was one of the first reporters to Christian guidance in their understanding of current
receive the information, although he did not make use affairs.
of it. He did not reveal his knowledge of the leak until Joseph Gelfer
well after Plame’s identity became public, but his crit-
ics saw it as confirming his chumminess with the Bush See also: Bush Family; Compassionate Conservatism; Evangel-
administration. icalism; Family Values; Fundamentalism, Religious; Media
Roger Chapman Bias; Religious Right; Same-Sex Marriage; Secular Human-
ism; Washington Times, The.
See also: Bush Family; Central Intelligence Agency; Felt, W.
Mark; Iran-Contra Affair; Liddy, G. Gordon; Media Bias; Further Reading
Nixon, Richard; September 11; Watergate; Whistleblowers. Beckerman, Gal. “God Is My Co-Author.” Columbia Journalism
Review, September/October 2004.
Further Reading Moll, Rob. “World Journalism Institute Changes Its Focus.”
Corn, David. “Who’s in Charge?” Nation, March 3, 2003. Christianity Today, June 7, 2004.
———. “Woodward Revised.” Nation, October 2, 2006. Olasky, Marvin. Telling the Truth: How to Revitalize Christian
Evan, Thomas, Rich Wolffe, and John Barry. “The Woodward Journalism. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1996.
War.” Newsweek, October 9, 2006. World Magazine Web site. www.worldmag.com.
Havill, Adrian. Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein. Secaucus, NJ: Carol, 1993.
Jensen, Carl. Stories That Changed America: Muckrakers of the 20th Wo r l d C o u n c i l o f C h u r c h e s
Century. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2000. The World Council of Churches (WCC) is an interna-
tional ecumenical organization dedicated to many social
justice issues, including pacifism and peaceful conflict
Wo r l d resolution, the eradication of poverty, the rights of op-
World magazine, established in 1986, is a national pressed peoples, and environmental preservation. The
weekly news magazine that serves as a conservative stated goal of the WCC is to promote Christian uni-
Christian counterpart to Time and Newsweek. Its editor, ty, which it advances through ecumenism, an effort to
Marvin Olasky, popularized the phrase “compassionate bring all churches into a visible unity in one faith and
conservatism,” served as an adviser to Texas gubernato- one eucharistic fellowship. Critics, however, character-
rial candidate George W. Bush in the mid-1990s, and ize it as a leftist organization masking a radical socialist
later became the provost of King’s College, an evangeli- or communist agenda behind acts of faith.
cal school in Manhattan. The magazine has been contro- Founded in August 1948, the World Council of
versial in the culture wars for its rigid stance on family Churches now represents approximately 550 million
values, abortion, and homosexuality. Christians in 340 churches, denominations, and fellow-
World describes itself as striving for “factual ac- ships from 100 countries and territories worldwide—
curacy and biblical objectivity, trying to see the world including most orthodox churches, and many Anglican,
as best we can the way the Bible depicts it,” and notes: Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and Protestant Refor-
“Journalistic humility for us means trying to give God’s mation denominations. The Roman Catholic Church,
perspective.” In 1999, the publishers of World founded although it shares a relationship with the WCC through
the World Journalism Institute with the aim of training a joint working group, is not a member.
its reporters; it has since expanded its mission to “recruit, An assembly and 158-member central council whose
equip, place and encourage journalists who are Christians officers make up an executive committee govern the
in the mainstream newsrooms of America.” The institute WCC, which has no legislative power over its member
has been criticized for teaching “directed reporting,” or organizations. The WCC is intended to facilitate dialogue
skewing objectivity with religious beliefs. For example, among internal member and other external organizations.
626 World War II Memor ial
To this end, the WCC has convened the Programme the nation’s values by paying homage to the men and
to Combat Racism and many convocations bringing women who fought in the war to preserve freedom.
together various religions, all aimed at providing a theo- Inspiration for the memorial is credited to Roger
logical response to pluralism. Though the bulk of the Durbin, a World War II army veteran who in 1987 com-
WCC’s membership resides in developing nations in the plained to U.S. representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) that
Southern Hemisphere, its primary donors are European the Marine Corps Iwo Jima statue, the sole “good war”
Protestant churches. monument in Washington, D.C., does not adequately
Due in part to its membership constituency and ac- honor all of those who fought in the war. On May 25,
tive political advocacy, the WCC often adopts positions 1993, President Bill Clinton signed legislation authoriz-
counter to those of the United States and other Western ing a national World War II monument; two years later,
developed nations. The WCC has increasingly become he dedicated the mall site for the project. The design, site
involved in international public policy matters, taking selection, and fundraising process prompted a number of
many controversial positions. During the 1970s, for ex- lawsuits and twenty-two rounds of acrimonious public
ample, it received criticism for its Programme to Combat hearings. Tom Brokaw’s best-selling book The Greatest
Racism and alleged funding of liberation movements, Generation (1998), a tribute to World War II veterans,
guerrillas, and terrorist groups, including the Patriotic gave a timely boost to the memorial’s backers.
Front of Zimbabwe. In recent years, the WCC has urged A sunken granite and bronze complex in the classical
divestment from Israel; called for a relaxation of U.S., architectural style, the memorial is situated on 7.4 acres
British, and European Union sanctions on the Hamas (3.0 hectares) adjacent to the Rainbow Pool on the east-
government in Palestine; apologized for the 2003 invasion ern end of the Reflecting Pool. It features two five-story
of Iraq, calling it a violation of norms of justice and human arches with 10-foot-wide (3-meter) bronze laurel wreaths
rights; criticized the U.S. position on global warming; overhead (representing the Atlantic and Pacific theaters);
registered disapproval of United Nations’ reforms backed fifty-six pillars adorned with oak and wheat wreaths (for
by the United States; deplored global economic disparities, the industrial and agricultural war output of each state,
calling on developed nations to forgive foreign debt; and territory, and the District of Columbia); 4,000 gold stars
blamed racism for the half-hearted response to the global on the Freedom Wall (each representing 100 war dead);
HIV/AIDS crisis and the Hurricane Katrina disaster on twenty-four bas relief panels (depicting Americans during
the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. the war, overseas and at home); four bronze eagles; a victory
Traci L. Nelson medal inlayed on the floors; Americans flags on poles; and
various fountains and inscriptions. A majority of the fund-
See also: AIDS; Catholic Church; Global Warming; Hurricane ing was provided by corporations and private individuals,
Katrina; Israel; McIntire, Carl; Multiculturalism and Ethnic the result of a drive spearheaded by Senator Robert Dole
Studies; United Nations. (R-KS), himself a decorated veteran of the war.
Opposition to the memorial was mounted by the Na-
Further Reading tional Coalition to Save Our Mall, World War II Veterans
Lefever, Ernest W. Nairobi to Vancouver: The World Council of to Save the Mall, conservation groups, architects, and civil
Churches and the World, 1975–1987. Lanham, MD: University rights activists. These groups wanted the memorial locat-
Press of America, 1987. ed off to the side, in Constitution Gardens, arguing that
Vermaat, J.A. Emerson. The World Council of Churches and Politics. the space between the shrines honoring the two greatest
New York: Freedom House, 1989. presidents—the founder of the nation (Washington) and
World Council of Churches Web site. www.wcc-coe.org. the emancipator of the slaves (Lincoln)—should not be
disrupted by a massive structure having nothing to do
with national development. As a compromise, St. Florian
Wo r l d Wa r I I M e m o r i a l modified the memorial’s silhouette by lowering the plaza
After years of debate, the National World War II Me- and fountains six feet (1.8 meters) below ground level.
morial, located in the heart of the National Mall in Regarding World War II as the pivotal event that ushered
Washington, D.C., was dedicated on Memorial Day in in the American Century, establishing the United States
2004. Designed by Friedrich St. Florian, the $195 mil- as a redeemer nation to the world, proponents countered
lion memorial has been criticized for its imperial gran- that the center of the mall was a perfectly appropriate site
diosity (some suggest reminiscent of Nazi architecture) for the memorial.
and for crowding the civic space between the Lincoln Roger Chapman
Memorial and the Washington Monument, a perceived
desecration of the American core values the vista has See also: American Century; American Civil Religion; Brokaw,
traditionally venerated. Others argue that the memo- Tom; Clinton, Bill; Generations and Generational Conflict;
rial is appropriately designed and positioned, affirming September 11 Memorial; Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Wounded K nee Inc ident 627
Further Reading Native Americans, apart from federal rule, in order to

Goldberger, Paul. “Down at the Mall.” The New Yorker, May reestablish a traditional tribal organization centered on
31, 2004. the chiefs and spiritual leaders.
Mills, Nicolaus. Their Last Battle: The Fight for the National World The senior U.S. senator of South Dakota, Democrat
War II Memorial. New York: Basic Books, 2004. George McGovern, freshly defeated in the 1972 presi-
National WWII Memorial Web site. www.wwiimemorial. dential election, arrived at the scene of conflict only to be
com. largely rebuffed by AIM. McGovern was remembered for
Tolson, Jay. “Scenes from the Mall.” U.S. News & World Report, having stated that past wrongs against Native Americans
September 18, 2000. should be forgotten. “It is ridiculous to talk about trea-
ties abrogated by an act of Congress over a hundred years
ago,” he had complained. During the standoff with federal
Wo u n d e d K n e e I n c i d e n t authorities, AIM declared the independence of the Oglala
During the early months of 1973, the village of Wound- Sioux Nation and specified that its boundaries were in
ed Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in accordance with the Treaty of Laramie (1868).
South Dakota, was the scene of a seventy-one-day armed The government side of the standoff was being
rebellion against the federal government by militants of handled by the Department of Justice. Because the oc-
the American Indian Movement (AIM) led by activist cupiers were armed, President Richard Nixon chose to
Russell Means. A highly charged site for Native Ameri- deploy hundreds of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
cans, Wounded Knee was the scene of an 1890 bloody and U.S. Marshals Service agents. However, being acutely
standoff between a group of the Oglala Sioux and the aware of public empathy with the activists, he sought to
U.S. Army’s Seventh Calvary in which between 150 resolve the situation peacefully; despite those intentions,
and 200 Indian men, women, and children were killed two AIM members were killed during the siege. As the
(along with about 25 soldiers)—an incident variously negotiations ensued, federal agents carried out a series of
referred to as the Wounded Knee Massacre and the Bat- paramilitary operations designed to exhaust the occupiers.
tle of Wounded Knee, depending on who is recounting The protesters finally surrendered on May 8, accomplish-
the episode. The 1973 incident drew international ating little more than publicizing their grievances. Nixon’s
tention, exposing the lingering tension between Ameri- supporters praised the federal government’s patience and
can Indians and the federal government as well as rifts restraint throughout the ordeal. In the aftermath of the
among Indian peoples themselves. incident, 185 activists were indicted by federal grand
On February 28, 1973, between 200 and 300 Indian juries for their part in the rebellion, Wilson’s govern-
activists, primarily armed with deer-hunting rifles, seized ment remained intact, hostility between AIM and the
Wounded Knee to protest the poor living conditions FBI continued, and Indians disagreed over the tactics
on Indian reservations and the perceived corruption of employed by AIM.
reservation officials. One of the first acts of the protest-
ers was to visit and pray over the mass grave of 1890. Gwendolyn Laird and Roger Chapman
Others raided the reservation’s trading post and museum,
destroying artifacts such as a nineteenth-century govern- See also: American Indian Movement; Deloria, Vine, Jr.;
ment ledger of cattle receipts in which Indian recipients McGovern, George; Nixon, Richard.
were listed by made-up vulgar names.
AIM members believed that the Wounded Knee trib- Further Reading
al chairman Richard (Dick) Wilson and his supporting Dewing, Rolland. Wounded Knee: The Meaning and Significance of
Sioux council represented an illegitimate puppet regime, the Second Incident. New York: Irvington, 1985.
which they referred to as “white Wounded Knee.” Protest Hendricks, Steve. The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle
leaders presented three demands to the U.S. government: for the Soul of Indian Country. New York: Thunder’s Mouth
(1) restore and honor 371 broken treaties; (2) reform Press, 2006.
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); and (3) conduct an O’Neal, Floyd A., June K. Lyman, and Susan McKay, eds.
investigation of the corruption at Wounded Knee. The Wounded Knee 1973: A Personal Account by Stanley David
ultimate goal of AIM was to secure self-government for Lyman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
Chinese students who died in the June 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre.
Young’s songs “Southern Man”—from the album
After the Gold Rush (1970)—and “Alabama”—from Har-
vest (1972)—painted the picture of a South filled with
Yo u n g , N e i l ignorance and racial prejudice. In rebuttal, the southern
Since his debut in the mid-1960s, the Canadian-born band Lynyrd Skynyrd produced the rock classic “Sweet
singer, songwriter, and guitarist Neil Young has been Home Alabama” (1974). Young also spoke out against the
known for some of the most powerful social protest drug scene, as in his recording “The Needle and the Dam-
songs in rock music, targeting with his unmistakable age Done” (1972). “I am not a preacher,” he explained,
high, warbly voice everything from commercialism to “but drugs killed a lot of great men.”
war to racism to drug abuse. His artistic output includes MTV banned the music video of Young’s “This
almost five dozen albums, as well as song videos and Note’s for You” (1988) because it lampooned artists shil-
films. Regarded as one of the premier rock guitarists of ling goods for money. He produced “Let’s Roll” (2001)
all time, nominated for an Oscar, a member of the board as a tribute to the passengers of Flight 93 who tried to
of directors of Farm Aid (an organization that helps retake the plane from the terrorists who had hijacked it
small, family-owned farms survive in an era of factory on September 11, 2001. And on his album Living with
farming), and a part owner of the model-train company War (2006), he recorded “Let’s Impeach the President”
Lionel, Young is considered the godfather of grunge in response to President George W. Bush’s policies and
music. Throughout his eclectic career, he has partici- the war in Iraq.
pated in the culture wars while offering commentary in Kirk Richardson
his original way.
He was born Neil Percival Young on November 12, See also: Bush Family; Canada; Censorship; China; Dylan, Bob;
1945, in Toronto, Canada. By the time he was in high Factory Farms; Nelson, Willie; Rock and Roll; September 11;
school, he was a fixture on the music scene of Winnipeg, Vietnam War; War on Drugs; War Protesters.
where he became friends with future band mate Stephen
Stills and the folksinger Joni Mitchell. In 1966, Young’s Further Reading
band Buffalo Springfield, playing out of Los Angeles, McDonough, Jimmy. Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography. New York:
scored a hit with “For What It’s Worth,” one of the Anchor Books, 2002.
most acclaimed antiwar songs of the 1960s. In 1970, Petridis, Alexis. Neil Young. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press,
as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, he wrote 2000.
“Ohio” in response to the Kent State shootings of May Rogan, Johnny. Neil Young: The Complete Guide to His Music.
4, 1970. The song was banned on many radio stations London: Omnibus, 2006.
because of its harsh stance against the Vietnam War Williamson, Nigel. Journey Through the Past: The Stories Behind
and open contempt for President Richard M. Nixon. the Classic Songs of Neil Young. San Francisco: Backbeat
Years later, in concert, Young dedicated “Ohio” to the Books, 2002.
628
During the late 1980s, Zappa, who was strongly
anticommunist, took an interest in the political changes
taking place in Eastern Europe and visited the Soviet
Union for the first time. In 1990, he was especially wel-
comed in Czechoslovakia, where he enjoyed cult status
Zappa, Frank and befriended Václav Havel, the leader of the Velvet
A politically active, highly prolific, internationally ac- Revolution. When the country was under Soviet control,
claimed rock musician and composer, Frank Zappa, Zappa’s antitotalitarian song “Plastic People” (1967)
founder of the “freak rock” band Mothers of Invention had inspired the first underground Czech band, the
(1966–1969) and a longtime solo performer, produced Plastic People of the Universe. Havel briefly appointed
more than sixty albums, including Freak Out! (1966), Zappa the country’s Special Ambassador to the West
the first double rock album; Absolutely Free (1967); We’re on Trade, Culture, and Tourism, a mission that ended
Only in It for the Money (1968); Lumpy Gravy (1968); abruptly after Zappa publicly referred to U.S. Vice
Sheik Yerbouti (1979); Tinsel Town Rebellion (1981); and President Dan Quayle as “stupid,” triggering a protest
Jazz from Hell (1986). His two biggest hits were “Don’t from U.S. secretary of state James Baker (whose wife was
Eat the Yellow Snow” (1974) and “Valley Girl” (1982). a co-founder of PMRC). Zappa died of prostate cancer
Zappa’s output was characterized by an eclectic blend of on December 6, 1993, and was posthumously inducted
rock, rhythm and blues, jazz, doo-wop, classical music, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
and avant-garde music, as well as irreverent and satiri-
cally smutty lyrics. His songs offered satirical commen- Roger Chapman
tary on everything from police states, human sexuality,
televangelists, Catholics, “Jewish princesses,” hippies, See also: Catholic Church; Censorship; Counterculture; Fun-
and cocaine users to commercialism, suburbia, war pro- damentalism, Religious; Pornography; Quayle, Dan; Record
testers, the Beatles, and anything else he considered Warning Labels; Rock and Roll; Soviet Union and Russia.
hypocritical or banal.
Born Frank Vincent Zappa into a Catholic Italian- Further Reading
American family on December 21, 1940, in Baltimore, Miles, Barry. Zappa: A Biography. New York: Grove, 2004.
Maryland, he spent his formative years in California,
where he became interested in musical composition,
arrangement, and recording production. In 1962, still Z e r o To l e r a n c e
a struggling artist, he was set up by a San Bernardino Zero tolerance indicates a strict enforcement of rules
undercover police detective to produce an audio-only sex or laws and that behaviors such as drug use, sexual ha-
tape, leading to ten days in jail for “conspiracy to commit rassment, or academic cheating will not be acceptable
pornography.” That run-in with the law made Zappa a under any circumstance. Such “get tough” policies are
lifelong cynic toward authority and a champion of free implemented in a wide range of settings, from schools
speech. Fear of arrest made him militantly intolerant of to courts to the workplace. Zero tolerance may be for-
drug use in his band. mally codified in rules or laws, but the term is also used
In the culture wars, Zappa opposed the Parents’ informally to imply that certain behaviors are complete-
Music Resource Center (PMRC), founded in 1985 by ly forbidden.
Tipper Gore, the wife of then senator Al Gore, and Schools are a primary site of zero tolerance policies,
other concerned mothers to lobby against “porn rock”; due to the passage of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act
the PMRC called for warning labels with “decency” rat- of 1994, which requires all schools receiving federal fund-
ings to appear on record covers. Zappa spent $70,000 ing to expel any student who brings a weapon or drugs to
on a personal campaign against PMRC, viewing it as school. By 1998, three out of four of the nation’s schools
a threat to free speech. In September 1985, he testified had zero tolerance policies in place. In response, suspen-
before the Senate Commerce, Technology, and Trans- sion and expulsion rates rose nationwide. However, actual
portation Committee, denouncing PMRC for imposing rates of school crime remained flat during the 1990s,
the values of religious fundamentalism; he later referred leading critics to question whether increasing punish-
to PMRC and its supporters as “cultural terrorists.” In ment was really the appropriate policy change. Stories
the months after his testimony, he released the album emerged of students suspended for drawing pictures of
Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, which features weapons, pointing fingers like guns, or bringing over-
“Porn Wars,” a twelve-minute track of sound bites from the-counter medications to school.
the hearing, juxtaposed in a way to make his opponents Many school administrators, parents, and the gen-
sound ridiculous. eral public tend to support strict policies in the name
629
63 0 Z inn, Howard
of school safety and protecting children. High-profile oracle of the left in the realm of historical interpre-
school shootings, such as the one at Columbine High tation. He has played a prominent role in the civil
School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999, created the im- rights movement, antiwar movements, and other so-
pression that schools across the country were no longer cial causes.
safe, even in communities with little violence. Such Born on August 24, 1922, to an immigrant working-
incidents encourage the public to favor tough penal- class family in Brooklyn, New York, Zinn was a shipyard
ties for minor offenses in hopes of preventing similar worker as a young adult. World War II altered the direc-
tragedies. tion of his life, however, as he enlisted in the U.S. Air
The American Bar Association has opposed zero Force as a bombardier. His service included the devastat-
tolerance policies, charging that the “one size fits all” ing napalm bombing of Royan, France, shortly before the
punishments deprive people of their basic due process war’s end, an experience that lastingly informed his view
rights. Zero tolerance, whether in schools, courts, or other of war. Taking advantage of the postwar GI Bill, Zinn
settings, ignores the critical factor of context. Without earned a PhD in history from Columbia University in
careful examination of circumstances, civil liberties ad- 1958. Shortly before finishing his degree requirements,
vocates contend, uniform punishments may be applied Zinn accepted a teaching position at Spelman College
unfairly. in Atlanta, Georgia. He eventually became chair of the
In addition to education scholars and civil liberties history department.
groups, zero tolerance has conservative critics. A National Living in the South during the early stages of the
Review article charges that zero tolerance is an outgrowth civil rights era, Zinn quickly immersed himself in the
of “political correctness,” noting that a Kansas student movement. When young activists launched the Student
was suspended for drawing a Confederate flag and his Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960,
parents’ licensed gun was confiscated. Some critics from they invited Zinn to serve on the advisory executive
the right have suggested that zero tolerance policies exist board. He chronicled the organization’s early work in
so that people of color cannot complain that they are be- SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964). One year before that
ing punished unfairly, and thus everyone receives severe book appeared, however, Zinn’s involvement in regional
punishments. While supporters of zero tolerance policies and campus activism led the Spelman administration to
argue that they promote fairness, people from privileged fire him for “insubordination.” He then taught political
backgrounds are more likely to use legal recourse to chal- science at Boston University. Continuing his involve-
lenge rigid applications of rules or laws. ment in the struggle for civil rights, he participated in
the Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964) and the Selma
Karen Sternheimer March (1965). With the escalation of the Vietnam con-
flict, Zinn added antiwar protest to his activism, writ-
See also: American Civil Liberties Union; Confederate Flag; ing Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal (1967). More than
Drug Testing; National Review; Political Correctness; School thirty years and twenty books later, still highly active,
Shootings; War on Drugs. Zinn was a leading critic of President George W. Bush’s
“War on Terror.”
Further Reading Zinn’s magnum opus is A People’s History of the United
Derbyshire, John. “The Problem with ‘Zero.’ ” National Review, States (1980), which retells the nation’s history from the
May 28, 2001. perspective of oppressed and disenfranchised groups—
Halloway, John H. “The Dilemma of Zero Tolerance.” Educa- from Native Americans and slaves to immigrant laborers
tional Leadership 59 (2001): 85. and women—rather than the ruling elites. In it, Zinn
Skiba, Russel J., and Reece L. Peterson. “The Dark Side of Zero eschews any pretense of “objectivity” or “neutrality,”
Tolerance: Can Punishment Lead to Safe Schools?” Phi Delta instead striving to reintroduce voices long concealed from
Kappan 80 (1999): 372–76. cultural consciousness by orthodox histories. The mis-
Sternheimer, Karen. Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About sion of the historian, he believes, is to take sides, giving
Today’s Youth. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, voice to the racially, economically, and philosophically
2006. disinherited of America’s past.
To counteract the stultifying effects of conven-
tional and militaristic history, Zinn celebrates the life
Zinn, Howard and deeds of rebels and dissidents. These marginal and
Since the early 1960s, Howard Zinn has been an ac- “unimportant” individuals can be seen as the real heroes
tivist intellectual, practitioner of civil disobedience, who gave life to authentic democracy. Far from being a
and America’s foremost radical historian. More so than pessimistic rant against injustice, Zinn’s work is decid-
even Eric Foner or Noam Chomsky, Zinn has been the edly optimistic about the future. Critics, of whom there
Z inn, Howard 631
are many, regard A People’s History as overly simplified See also: Academic Freedom; Civil Rights Movement; Revision-
revisionist history. They say that in Zinn’s book, eco- ist History; September 11; Vietnam War; War Protesters.
nomic avarice explains nearly every U.S. war, and that
most of the civil rights movements are presented with- Further Reading
out appreciation for their theological vision. Despite its Joyce, Davis. Howard Zinn: A Radical American Vision. Amherst,
detractors, however, the work remains required reading MA: Prometheus Books, 2003.
in many college history programs and has appeared in Kazin, Michael. “Howard Zinn’s History Lessons.” Dissent,
numerous revised editions and reprints. Spring 2004.
Zinn, Howard. The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and
Richard C. Goode Democracy. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997.
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Oprah.com: Live Your Best Life Web site. www.oprah.com. Social Security Administration Web site. www.socialsecurity.gov.
Panda’s Thumb Web site. www.pandasthumb.org. Southern Baptist Convention official Web site. www.sbc.net.
PBS Web site. www.pbs.org. Southern Poverty Law Center Web site. www.splcenter.org.
People for the American Way Web site. www.pfaw.org. TimesWatch Web site. www.timeswatch.org.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Web Tom DeLay Web site. www.tomdelay.com.
site. www.peta.org. Toward Tradition Web site. www.towardtradition.org.
Perverted Justice Web site. www.Perverted-Justice.com. U.S. English, Inc., Web site. www.us-english.org.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America Web site. www U.S. Food and Drug Administration Web site. www.fda.gov.
.plannedparenthood.org. Vermont Progressive Party Web site. www.answers.com.
ProEnglish Web site. www.proenglish.org. Vietnam Veterans Against the War Web site. www.vvaw.org.
Progressive Christians Uniting Web site. Wake-Up Wal-Mart Web site. www.wakeupwalmart.com.
www.progressivechristiansuniting.org. Wall Street Journal Web site. www.online.wsj.com.
Project for the New American Century Web site. www. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Web site. www.walmartstores.com.
newamericancentury.org. Washington Times Web site. www.washtimes.com.
Promise Keepers Web site. www.promisekeepers.org. Weekly Standard Web site. www.weeklystandard.com.
Rainbow PUSH Coalition Web site. www.rainbowpush.org. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation web
Reason Foundation Web site. www.reason.org. site. www.benning.army.mil/whinsec.
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Web site. Willie Nelson Official Web site. www.willienelson.com.
www.riaa.com. World Council of Churches Web site. www.wcc-coe.org.
School of the Americas Watch web site. www.soaw.org. World Magazine Web site. www.worldmag.com.
Index
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations
AAUP. See American Association of abortion (continued) abortion (continued)

University Professors human rights and, 1:265, 266 Thomas, Clarence, and, 1:252; 2:561
AAUW. See American Association of judicial wars and, 1:289, 290 Ventura, Jesse, and, 2:576
University Women Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 vigilantism and, 2:418, 483, 582, 583
ABA. See American Bar Association Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304 Wall Street Journal and, 2:587
Abbey, Edward, 1:120, 149, 163, 188–89, LaHaye, Tim and Beverly, and, 1:313 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601
190 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Washington Times and, 2:602
Abbott, Jack Henry, 2:335 Madonna and, 2:333 Weekly Standard and, 2:607
Abdnor, James, 2:347 McGovern, George, and, 2:347 Weyrich, Paul M., and, 2:611
Abernathy, Ralph, 2:588 media and, 2:351 Will, George, and, 2:617
Abington v. Schempp (1963), 1:18; 2:466, men’s movement and, 2:355 World magazine and, 2:625
494, 495, 496 militia movement and, 2:359 See also birth control
ABOR. See Academic Bill of Rights Moral Majority and, 2:367, 368 Abrahamson, James Adam, 2:541
abortion, 1:1–3 National Endowment for the Arts and, Abrahamson, Jill, 1:252
ACLU and, 1:19 2:386 Abramoff, Jack, 1:67, 132, 314; 2:406,
antipornography campaigners and, 2:437 NOW and, 2:389 463
biotech revolution and, 1:42 NPR and, 2:390 Abrams, Elliot, 2:394, 395
Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51 O’Connor, Sandra Day, and, 2:415 abstinence, 1:14, 63, 75; 2:508, 509, 602
Bryant, Anita, and, 1:55 Operation Rescue and, 2:418–19 Abu Ghraib, 1:3–5; 2:378, 494, 612
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56, 62 O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 Abzug, Bella, 1:199; 2:372
Bush, George H.W., and, 1:62 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:423 Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR), 1:5, 7,
Bush, George W., and, 1:63 Palin, Sarah, and, 2:423 264
Campolo, Anthony “Tony,” and, 1:68 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:428 academic freedom, 1:5–7
Canada and, 1:69 Planned Parenthood and, 2:431–32, 509 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27
Catholic Church and, 1:75, 76 privacy rights and, 1:19, 140, 289; Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57
Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81 2:431, 443, 573 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Progressive Christians Uniting and, 2:445 Commager, Henry, and, 1:108–9
Christian Identity movement and, 2:483 Promise Keepers and, 2:447 gender-inclusive language and, 1:210
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458, 469 Hillsdale College and, 1:253
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 red and blue states and, 2:461 Holocaust and, 1:259
Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104 “rednecks” and, 2:462 homeschooling and, 1:261
counterculture and, 1:122 Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463 Irvine, Reed, and, 1:280; 2:344
DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 Pipes, Daniel, and, 2:431
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Religious Right and, 2:466, 467 revisionist history and, 2:470–71
Dobson, James, and, 1:138, 139 Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 September 11 and, 1:92–93; 2:344, 504
Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139 right to die and, 2:474, 491 speech codes and, 2:530
Douglas, William O., and, 1:140 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474, 552 Accuracy in Academia (AIA), 1:280; 2:344
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 Roe v. Wade and, 2:479 Accuracy in Media (AIM), 1:279; 2:350,
Election of 2008 and, 1:156 role of medicine in, 2:474 400, 448
ERA and, 1:165 Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483 Acheson, Dean, 1:27; 2:344
evangelicalism and, 1:68, 166 Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490 ACLJ. See American Center for Law and
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171; 2:503 Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 Justice
family values and, 1:172 science wars and, 2:500 ACLU. See American Civil Liberties Union
FDA and, 1:187 secular humanism and, 2:501 acquired immune deficiency syndrome. See
feminism and, 1:177, 179 sexual assault and, 2:511 AIDS
Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:179 Sider, Ron, and, 2:518 ACT UP. See AIDS Coalition to Unleash
Focus on the Family and, 1:184 social theory on, 1:268 Power
Ford, Gerald, and, 1:188 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 ACTV. See American Coalition for
Friedan, Betty, and, 1:199 Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 Traditional Values
generational conflict and, 1:212 Steinem, Gloria, and, 2:536 ADA. See Americans for Democratic Action
Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 stem-cell research and, 2:537 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety
Gore, Al, and, 1:225 student conservatives and, 2:543, 544 Act (2006), 2:510
Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:247 televangelism and, 2:552 Adams, John, 1:192
I -1
I-2 Index
Adams, Robert McCormick, 1:161 African Americans (continued) Agriculture Department, U.S. (USDA),
Adams, Samuel, 1:192 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 158, 159 1:162, 168, 185
Adbusters, 1:128 evangelicalism and, 1:165, 166 AIA. See Accuracy in Academia
Addams, Jane, 1:17 Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:172–73 AIDS, 1:13–14
Adequate Income Act (1971), 1:86 Founding Fathers and, 1:193 Bono and, 1:48
Adkins, Janet, 1:297 Great Books and, 1:229, 230 Brown, Helen Gurley, and, 1:53
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1:7–8, 228, 229, Guardian Angels and, 1:231 comic strips and, 1:108
230, 271 Hill, Anita, and, 1:252 conspiracy theories and, 1:117
Adolescent and Family Life Act (1981), Israel and, 1:281 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171
2:508 Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282–83 FDA and, 1:186
advertising, 1:77, 80, 122; 2:591, 599, Jewish Americans and, 1:29 feminism and, 1:179
616 Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 Foucault, Michel, and, 1:191, 192
Advocates, The (TV program), 2:484 Kwanzaa and, 1:308 gay rights and, 1:206
AEI. See American Enterprise Institute Lee, Spike, and, 1:317–18, 318 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248
AFA. See American Family Association lynching and, 1:330 Hudson, Rock, and, 1:208
affirmative action, 1:8–10 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334 Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304
Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40 Malcolm X and, 2:335–36 Kushner, Tony, and, 1:307
Bush, George W., and, 1:63 men’s movement and, 2:356 LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315
Bush, Jeb, and, 1:62 Million Man March and, 2:362–63 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Morrison, Toni, and, 2:369 Mapplethorpe, Robert, and, 2:337, 386
D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:144 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371 medical marijuana and, 2:353
Duke, David, and, 1:146 MTV and, 1:283 Moral Majority and, 2:367
Ford, Gerald, and, 1:188 Muslim Americans and, 2:377, 378 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 Nation of Islam and, 2:382–83 2:386
Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 New Left and, 2:398 outing and, 2:421
Lott, Trent, and, 1:327 O.J. Simpson trial and, 2:369, 417–18, Penn, Sean, and, 2:425
multicultural conservatism and, 2:373 417 Reagan, Ronald, and, 1:14; 2:459
NAACP and, 2:384 O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 science wars and, 2:500
NOW and, 2:389 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427 sex education and, 2:508, 509
race and, 2:452 police abuse and, 1:44, 45, 94, 95, 300, sexual revolution and, 2:513
Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:465 301–2; 2:426, 434, 584, 588, 604 sodomy laws and, 2:523
Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 prison and, 2:442 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
Sowell, Thomas, and, 2:529, 530 racial profiling and, 1:301–2; 2:384, 442, victimhood and, 2:576
speech codes and, 2:530 453, 454 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601
student conservatives and, 2:544 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:430 World Council of Churches and, 2:626
think tanks and, 2:558 Rockwell, Norman, and, 2:477–78 AIDS Action Council, 1:24
Thomas, Clarence, and, 1:252; 2:561 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:513–14, 514 AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT
Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 Social Security and, 2:522 UP), 1:186, 192, 206, 323
wealth gap and, 2:606 U.S. military and, 1:210 Ailes, Roger, 1:265; 2:420
Will, George, and, 2:617 victimhood and, 2:576, 577 AIM. See Accuracy in Media; American
Affluent Society, The (Galbraith), 1:203 Voting Rights Act and, 2:584–85 Indian Movement
Afghanistan, 1:4, 73, 77, 78, 98, 101, 102, Wal-Mart and, 2:590 Air America radio network, 1:196; 2:550
117, 123, 157, 201, 213, 296, 317; Weaver, Randy, and, 2:482 Air Force, U.S., 1:209, 210, 247, 318;
2:378, 395, 429, 489, 503, 504, 505, white supremacists and, 2:614–15 2:376, 489, 541, 622
529, 622 Williams, William Appleman, and, 2:618 al-Qaeda, 1:78, 87, 117, 201; 2:489, 503,
AFL. See American Federation of Labor See also civil rights; race, racism 504, 505
AFL-CIO, 1:85, 243, 244, 267, 311, 312 African diaspora, 1:10, 25, 235 ALA. See American Library Association
See also American Federation of Labor; See also Afrocentrism Albert, Richard, 1:121
Congress of Industrial Organizations African Origin of Civilization, The (Diop), Albright, Madeleine, 1:17
Africa, 1:10, 11, 14, 48, 60, 72, 274, 282, 1:11 Alcatraz Island, 1:22, 184; 2:557
601; 2:388, 573, 601 Africans, The (film), 1:11, 82; 2:388 Alcoholics Anonymous, 2:402
African, The (Courlander), 1:235 Afrika Bambaata, 2:456 Alexander, Jane, 1:14–15; 2:387
African Americans Afrocentrism, 1:10–11, 308; 2:335, 382, ALF. See Animal Liberation Front
ACLU and, 1:18 435, 493 Algeria, 1:194
Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 Against Interpretation and Other Essays Ali, Muhammad, 1:15–16; 2:369
AIDS and, 1:13 (Sontag), 1:325 “Alice’s Restaurant” (Guthrie), 1:233;
basketball and, 2:478 age discrimination, 1:11–12, 240 2:596
“black flight” and, 2:452 See also senior citizens Alien Registration Act (1940), 2:504
Black Panther Party and, 1:44 Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Alinksy, Saul, 1:310
Bob Jones University and, 1:47 1:11 Alito, Samuel, 1:74, 290; 2:391, 416
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 Age of Discontinuity, The (Drucker), 2:444 All in the Family (TV program), 1:316
communism and, 1:111 Agent Orange, 1:148, 279 All the President’s Men (film), 1:15; 2:461
Confederate flag and, 1:114, 115, 115 Agnew, Spiro Theodore, 1:12–13, 27, 187, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and
conservatism and, 1:298; 2:373 279, 288; 2:350, 401, 440 the Roots of Middle East Terror (Kinzer),
culture studies and, 2:452 Agozino, Rich, 1:90 2:504
Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 Agricultural Labor Relations Act (1975), Allaway, Edward Charles, 2:497
Election of 2000 and, 1:154 1:81 Allen, James, 1:330
Index I-3
Allen, Steve, 2:517 American Conservative magazine, 1:57; Anti-Defamation League, 1:29, 239, 314,
Allen, Woody, 1:325 2:607 315
Allende, Salvador, 1:78; 2:493 American Conservative Union, 1:81; 2:484 Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986), 2:593
Alliance for Bio-Integrity, et al. v. Donna American Dilemma, An: The Negro Problem anti-intellectualism, 1:8, 27–28, 68; 2:462
Shalala, et al. (2000), 1:214 and Modern Democracy (Myrdal), 1:60 anti-Semitism, 1:28–29
Alperovitz, Gar, 1:254 American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Aryan Nations and, 1:31
Alpert, Richard, 1:317 1:200, 298; 2:373, 395, 500, 558 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57, 155
Alterman, Eric, 2:351, 381 American exceptionalism, 1:20, 21–22; Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58
Altman, Robert, 1:121 2:378, 492, 552 Christian Coalition and, 1:88
AMA. See American Medical Association American Family Association (AFA), 1:15, Christian Identity movement and, 2:482
Amaechi, John, 1:208 49, 91, 171, 205, 207, 208, 290, Christian radio and, 1:89
Ambush at Fort Bragg (Wolfe), 1:210; 2:621 325; 2:337, 386, 437, 467, 507, 592, Demjanjuk, John, and, 1:134
America Online (AOL), 2:357, 530 616–17 Duke, David, and, 1:146
“America the Beautiful” (Berlin), 1:233 American Federation of Labor (AFL), 1:311 Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173; 2:382
American Academy of Pediatrics, 1:245; American Federation of Teachers, 1:80, 312 Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215
2:413 American Humanist Association, 1:297; hate crimes and, 1:28, 29; 2:495
American Airlines, 2:572, 617 2:368, 501 Holocaust and, 1:258–59
American Anthropological Association, American Independent Party, 1:319; Israel and, 1:281
1:276; 2:350 2:560, 588 Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:283
American Association of University American Indian Movement (AIM), LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315
Professors (AAUP), 1:5–6, 7, 253 1:22–24, 105, 133, 276; 2:462, 627 militia movement and, 2:359, 360
American Association of University American Indian Religious Freedom Act Million Man March and, 2:362
Women (AAUW), 1:37; 2:512 (1978), 1:23 Muslim Americans and, 2:377
American Bandstand (TV program), 2:476 American Legion, 1:161; 2:377, 429, 468, Podhoretz, Norman, and, 2:432
American Bar Association (ABA), 1:71; 527 revisionist history and, 2:471
2:561, 630 American Library Association (ALA), 1:49 Rockwell, George Lincoln, and, 2:477
American Center for Law and Justice American Medical Association (AMA), 1:1, Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
(ACLJ), 1:18–19; 2:475 243–44, 245; 2:352, 353 speech codes and, 2:530
American Century, 1:16–17, 21; 2:626 American Mercury magazine, 1:57, 227 Summers, Lawrence, and, 2:546
See also Project for the New American American Nazi Party, 2:477, 615 Vidal, Gore, and, 2:578
Century American Psychiatric Association (APA), white supremacists and, 2:614, 615–16
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 1:206, 209, 320; 2:521, 540, 568 See also Holocaust; Israel; Jews
1:17–20, 18 American Psychological Association (APA), AOL. See America Online
Academic Bill of Rights and, 1:5 1:211 APA. See American Psychiatric Association;
Americans with Disabilities Act and, American Public Health Association, American Psychological Association
1:24 1:244, 304 apartheid, 1:171, 298; 2:339, 367, 449,
Boy Scouts and, 1:49 American Society for the Prevention of 532
Budenz, Louis F., and, 1:59 Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), 1:26 Apocalypse Now (film), 2:581
capital punishment and, 1:70, 215, 216 American Spectator, 1:51, 99; 2:544 Apple, 2:358
Christmas and, 1:91 Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), Aptheker, Herbert, 1:236
church and state and, 1:92; 2:366–67 1:110, 203; 2:343, 344, 403, 493 Aquinas, Thomas, 1:7
comparable worth and, 1:113 Americans for Tax Reform, 2:405–6 Arab Americans, Arabs, 1:239, 281; 2:454,
creationism and intelligent design and, Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 503, 505
1:124, 125 1:11, 24, 109 Arab-Jewish War, 1:280
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 America’s Longest War (Herring), 2:580 Arabian American Oil Company, 2:489
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171; 2:503 Amish, 1:260 Arad, Michael, 2:505, 506
homosexuals and, 1:207 Amnesty International, 1:4, 34, 48, 69, Arafat, Yassir, 1:29, 282; 2:486
judicial wars and, 1:290 266 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska,
Loving, Richard and Mildred, and, 1:329, Amos ‘n’ Andy (TV program), 1:46 1:164, 190; 2:423, 489, 609
329 AN. See Aryan Nations Arendt, Hannah, 2:394
Manson, Marilyn, and, 2:336 Andersen, Margaret, 1:229 Argentina, 1:213; 2:570
Miranda rights and, 2:364 Anderson, Jack, 1:279; 2:612 Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972), 2:471
Murrow, Edward R., and, 2:377 Anderson, John, 2:560 Argonne National Laboratory, 1:239
O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 androgyny, 1:24–25, 139, 283; 2:422 Aristotle, 2:542, 617
police abuse and, 2:433 Angelou, Maya, 1:25–26; 2:362, 369 Armageddon (film), 2:528
record warning labels and, 2:460 Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on Armey, Dick, 1:118, 195; 2:386, 386
Robertson, Pat, and, 2:475 National Themes (Kushner), 1:307–8; Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the
school prayer and, 2:495 2:480 Novel as History (Mailer), 2:334, 398,
secular humanism and, 2:501 Anglicans, 1:192 596
speech codes and, 2:530 Animal Liberation Front (ALF), 1:148, arms control, 1:102, 144, 249; 2:346, 394,
Ten Commandments and, 2:554 149, 164; 2:427 430, 432, 440, 449, 531, 532, 556,
USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574, 575 animal rights, 1:26–27, 149, 168, 197, 595
whistleblowers and, 2:612 202; 2:426–27, 595, 619 Army, U.S.
American civil religion, 1:20–21, 193; Annis, Edward R., 1:244 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73
2:557 Answers in Genesis, 1:125, 125 civil rights movement and, 1:94
American Coalition for Traditional Values anthropology, 2:542 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98
(ACTV), 1:313, 314; 2:466 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 2:529 drama and, 1:326
I-4 Index
Army, U.S. (continued) Baden-Powell, Robert S.S., 1:50 Beach Boys, 2:604
gays in the military and, 1:208, 210 Baehr v. Lewin (1993), 2:486 Beal, Mary, 2:550
McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341, 343, 344 Baez, Joan Chandos, 1:33, 121, 147, 233, Beam, Louis, 2:614
McVeigh, Timothy, and, 2:349 242; 2:476 Beasley, David, 1:115
My Lai massacre, 2:378–79 Bahnsen, Greg, 1:90 Beat Generation, 1:217, 246, 294–95, 324,
nuclear age and, 2:408 Bailey, F. Lee, 2:417 325; 2:449
School of the Americas and, 2:493 Baker, Howard, 1:164, 177 Beatles, 1:77, 121; 2:476
torture of prisoners by, 1:3 Baker, James, 2:629 Beauchamp, Keith, 2:565
women and, 2:622, 623 Baker, Josephine, 1:194 Beauty Myth, The: How Images of Beauty Are
Arnold, Hap, 1:161 Baker, Susan, 1:246; 2:459, 629 Used Against Women (Wolf), 2:620, 620
Arnold, Ron, 1:29–30, 163 Baker v. Carr (1962), 2:600 beauty pageants, 1:38–39; 2:513
Arrow, Tre, 1:30–31 Bakke, Allan, 1:9 See also Miss America pageant
Arthur, Beatrice, 1:316 Bakker, Jim, 1:108, 166, 171; 2:552, 553 Becker, Frank, 2:496
Aryan Nations (AN), 1:31; 2:360, 482, Bakker, Tammy Faye, 1:171; 2:552 Beginning or the End, The (film), 2:408
615 Baldwin, James, 2:334 Behe, Michael J., 1:39–40, 125
Asante, Molefi Kete, 1:10 Baldwin, Roger, 1:17 Belarus, 1:28
Ashcroft, John, 2:445, 473 Ball, Robert, 1:244 Belgium, 1:160
Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union Ballance, Bill, 2:549 Bell, Jamie, 1:25
(2002), 2:437 Balmer, Randall, 1:165 Bell, Terrell, 1:150
Asia, 1:10, 221, 274; 2:377, 486, 573 Bambara, Toni Cade, 2:369 Bell Curve, The: Intelligence and Class
Asian Americans, 1:135, 144, 203, 204; Bamboozled (film), 1:46 Structure in American Life (Herrnstein
2:374, 399, 452, 467, 614 Bancroft, Jane Waldron, 2:587 and Murray), 1:40–41, 2:452
Asimov, Isaac, 2:501 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Bell Telephone, 2:520
ASPCA. See American Society for the Consumer Protection Act (2005), 1:34, Bellah, Robert, 1:20, 193
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 35–36 Bellecourt, Clyde, 1:22
Assassination of Joe McCarthy, The (Evans), Bankruptcy Act (1898), 1:35 Beloved (Morrison), 1:230; 2:369, 620
2:342 Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Ben-Shalom v. Secretary of the Army (1980),
assisted suicide. See right to die Judgeship Act (1984), 1:35 1:209
AT&T, 1:175 bankruptcy reform, 1:34–36 Benedict XVI (Pope), 1:76, 125
At Any Price: How America Betrayed My Bankruptcy Reform Act (1978), 1:35 Benham, Phillip, 2:418
Kidnapped Daughters for Saudi Oil Banks, Dennis, 1:22 Benjamin, Harry, 2:568
(Roush), 2:489 Baraka, Amiri, 1:318 Bennett, Janet M., 1:138
ATF. See Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Barber, Benjamin R., 2:504 Bennett, Milton J., 1:138
Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Barbie doll, 1:36–37, 37 Bennett, William John, 1:8, 41, 87, 193,
Athey, Ron, 2:387 Barnes, Fred, 2:607 229, 253, 305; 2:387, 388, 435, 465,
Atkins v. Virginia (2002), 1:71 Barnes, Roy, 1:115 534, 541, 593
Atlantic Monthly magazine, 1:248; 2:504 Barnett, Marilyn, 1:299 Benson, Lloyd, 2:451
Atlas Shrugged (Rand), 1:58; 2:455 Barnum, P.T., 1:38 Bentley, Elizabeth, 1:111; 2:515
atomic bomb. See Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Barone, Michael, 1:216 Benton-Banai, Eddie, 1:22
nuclear age Barr, Bob, 1:100 Berg, Alan, 2:517, 616
Atomic Energy Commission, U.S., 2:408, Barr, Judi, 1:149 Berg, Nick, 1:4
419, 553 Barr, William, 2:464 Berg v. Claytor (1977), 1:209
Atsinger, Edward, III, 1:90 Barrett, J. Michael, 1:322 Bergstresser, Charles M., 2:587
Attorney General’s Commission on Barron, Clarence Walker, 2:587 Berlant, Lauren, 2:577
Pornography, 2:436, 460 Barry, Marion, 2:608 Berlin, Isaiah, 2:527
Atwater, Harvey Leroy (Lee), 1:31–32, 32, Bartlett, Roscoe, 2:623 Berlin Wall, 1:103, 292
265; 2:481 Bartlett, Steve, 2:386 Berman, Ronald S., 2:387
Auchter, Thorne, 2:414 Bartley, Robert L., 2:587 Bernal, Martin, 1:11; 2:435
Audacity of Hope, The: Thoughts on Reclaiming Baruch, Bernard, 2:408 Bernstein, Carl, 1:131, 176–77; 2:624
the American Dream (Obama), 2:411 Barzun, Jacques, 1:211 Bernstein, Leonard, 1:28
Audio Home Recording Act (1992), 2:460 baseball, 1:62, 208; 2:570, 617 Berry, Chuck, 2:475
Australia, 1:125, 215, 221; 2:375, 490 Bases v. Rees (2008), 1:71 Berthold, Richard, 1:7
Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1:235; 2:378 basketball, 1:50, 208; 2:478, 570 Bessie, Alvah, 1:257
automobile industry, 1:32–33, 259, 284; Basquiat, Jean, 1:226 Bethe, Hans, 2:541
2:380, 612 Bass, Lance, 2:421 Beulah (TV program), 1:46
automobile safety, 1:32–33, 130, 198; Batista, Fulgencio, 1:127 Bhagavad Gita, 2:419
2:380, 612 Batman, 1:106 BIA. See Bureau of Indian Affairs
Avalon, Frankie, 2:476 Battistone, Sam, 1:46 Biafra, Jello, 1:41–42; 2:449
Away Down South (Cobb), 1:114 Battle for the Mind, The (LaHaye), 1:313; Biaggi, Mario, 2:386
Ayers, William, 1:158; 2:423 2:466 Bias, Len, 2:592
Battle of Little Bighorn, 1:133 Bias (Goldberg), 2:350
B-1 bomber, 1:73; 2:409 Battle of Russia, The (film), 2:527 Biberman, Herbert J., 1:257
B-52 bomber, 2:409 Bauer, Gary, 1:290, 314; 2:522 Bible, 1:211; 2:336, 365, 439, 445, 455,
Baby Boom Generation, 1:212, 213, 286, Baumgardner, Jennifer, 1:179 495, 526, 542, 552, 604
323; 2:398, 465, 523, 532, 591 Bawer, Bruce, 2:373 Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490
Baby Doll (film), 2:512 Bay of Pigs, 1:78, 102, 127, 292; 2:401 Biddle, Livingston L., 2:385
Backlash (Faludi), 2:355 Beach, Henry, 2:615 Biden, Joe, 1:157, 158; 2:411
Index I-5
Big Jim McLain (film), 2:605 Black Sabbath, 1:246 Boyce, William D., 1:49
Big Lies (Conason), 2:534 black separatism, 1:172–73, 173; 2:377, Boyer, Paul, 2:408
Bigelow, Albert, 2:409 382–83 Boys in the Band (film), 2:513
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2:358, blackface, 1:46–47 Bozell, L. Brent, 1:57; 2:342, 602
606 Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of BPP. See Black Panther Party
Billings, Robert J., 2:466 Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight bra burning, 1:38; 2:368
Billy Elliot (film), 1:25 Against America’s Enemies (Evans), 2:342 Bracero Program, 1:272; 2:359
bin Laden, Osama, 1:78, 87, 201, 296, blacklisting, 1:258, 325; 2:338, 344, 425, Bradlee, Ben, 1:280
321; 2:411, 489, 503, 529 502 Bradley, Tom, 1:301
bioethics, 2:500 Blackmun, Harry, 2:479 Bradley, William Warren, 1:50–51; 2:610
biological determinism, 2:350, 422 Blackwater Worldwide, 2:445 Brady, James and Sarah, 1:232, 232; 2:391
biotech revolution, 1:42–43, 213–14; Blackwell, Morton, 2:544 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
2:500, 526 Blake, James F., 2:424 (1993), 1:232, 232, 2:360
See also stem-cell research Blanco, Kathleen, 1:270 Bramwell, Austin, 2:391
Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex- Branch Davidians, 2:349, 586
(2002), 1:67, 109 Conservative (Brock), 1:51, 252 Brandeis, Louis, 1:140; 2:443
birth control, 1:43–44 Block, Herbert, 2:342, 343 Branden, Nathaniel, 2:455
abortion and, 1:1, 3 Blondie (comic strip), 1:107, 108 Brando, Marlon, 1:295, 325
ACLU and, 1:19 Bloom, Allan, 1:8, 229, 298; 2:394, 452, Brandywine v. Mainline Radio (1972), 2:348
antipornography campaigners and, 2:437 465, 541 Braun, Wernher von, 1:258
biotech revolution and, 1:42 Bloom, Harold, 1:218; 2:621 Brawley, Tawana, 2:514
Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 Bloom County (comic strip), 1:108, 145 Brazil, 1:213, 231
Catholic Church and, 1:74–75 blue laws, 1:135 BRC. See Black Radical Congress
China and, 1:85 Blumenthal, Sidney, 1:141 Breaking Rank (Stamper), 2:442
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 Bly, Robert, 2:355 Breathed, Berke, 1:108, 145
DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 Board of Education of Independent School Breaux, John, 1:327
Democratic Party and, 1:136 District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Bremer, L. Paul, 1:249
Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139 Earls (2002), 1:143 Brennan, William J., 1:6, 181
Douglas, William O., and, 1:140 Bob Jones University, 1:47, 47–48, 227, Brentar, Jerome, 1:134
FDA and, 1:186, 187; 2:513 260, 300, 313, 327; 2:339, 440, 466 Bricmont, Jean, 2:524
feminism and, 1:177 Boeing Company, 1:29, 119 Brig, The (Brown), 1:326
Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 Bogosian, Eric, 2:517 Briggs, John, 2:361
Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:247 Bohnet, Newell, 1:46 Briggs Initiative, 1:55; 2:523
judicial wars and, 1:289 Boland Amendment (1983), 1:278, 279 Briggs v. Elliott (1952), 1:54
Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334 Bolling v. C. Melvin Sharpe (1954), 1:54 Bright Room Called Day, A (Kushner), 1:307
Moral Majority and, 2:367 Bolshevik Revolution, 2:526, 527, 619 Brinkley, Douglas, 2:426
National Review and, 2:391 Bond, Julian, 2:384 Briseno, Theodore, 1:301, 302
Packwood, Bob, and, 2:422 Bono, 1:48, 248; 2:476, 553 Broadcast News (film), 1:52
Palin, Sarah, and, 2:424 book banning, 1:49, 76; 2:501, 512, 535, Brock, David, 1:51–52, 252; 2:561
Planned Parenthood and, 2:431 618, 619 Brokaw, Tom, 1:52, 212; 2:626
privacy rights and, 1:44, 140, 289; Book of Daniel, The (Doctorow), 2:480 Brontë, Charlotte, 2:362
2:431, 443, 600 Bookchin, Murray, 1:162 Brooke, Edward, 1:104
role of medicine in, 2:474 Boomtown Rats, 2:497 Brookings Institution, 2:444, 557
secular humanism and, 2:501 Boondocks (comic strip), 1:108 Brooks, David, 2:400
sex education and, 2:508, 509 Border Patrol, U.S., 2:359 Brooks, Garth, 1:123
sexual revolution and, 2:513 Borjas, George, 1:273 Broomfield, Nick, 1:181
Supreme Court and, 1:44; 2:479, 600 Bork, Robert H., 1:19, 290, 293, 323; Broun, Heywood, 2:515
Wal-Mart and, 2:590 2:443, 487, 558 Browder, Earl, 1:111; 2:341
See also abortion; condoms Born, Max, 2:419 Browder v. Gayle (1956), 2:424
Birth of a Nation (film), 1:317 Born in the USA (album), 2:476, 532 Brown, David, 1:53
Bishop, Joseph, 2:600 Born on the Fourth of July (film), 2:539, 578 Brown, Dee, 1:121
Black, Don, 2:614 Boschwitz, Rudy, 2:609 Brown, Edmund G. “Pat,” 2:403, 458, 604
Black, Hugo, 2:599 Boumediene v. Bush (2008), 1:4 Brown, Helen Gurley, 1:36, 52–53; 2:513
Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Bourgeois, Roy, 2:493 Brown, Jerry, 2:369
Classical Civilization (Bernal), 1:11; Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), 1:206; 2:523, Brown, Kenneth, 1:326
2:435 524 Brown, Michael, 1:270
Black Book, The, 2:369 Bowie, David, 1:24–25 Brown, Norman O., 2:432
“Black Boy Looks at the White Boy, The” Bowling for Columbine (film), 1:69; 2:336, Brown, Oliver, 1:53
(Baldwin), 2:334 351, 366, 497 Brown, Rita Mae, 1:320; 2:516
Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? Bowling for Morgan (film), 2:414 Brown Berets, 1:256; 2:454
(Madhubuti), 1:116 Boy George, 1:25 Brown Scare, 1:310; 2:342–43
Black Panther Party (BPP), 1:18, 44–45, Boy Scouts of America (BSA), 1:49–50, Brown University, 2:530
83, 96, 121, 127, 184, 264, 308; 178, 206; 2:526, 589 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
2:344, 382, 454, 545 Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act (1954), 1:18, 53–54, 60, 64, 65, 94,
Black Power movement, 1:10, 15, 44, 96; (2002), 1:50 111, 115, 153, 256, 276, 289; 2:383,
2:399, 468, 476 Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), 1:50, 464, 495–96, 561, 565, 599, 600, 614
Black Radical Congress (BRC), 1:45–46 206 See also segregation
I-6 Index
Brownmiller, Susan, 1:261 Bush, George Herbert Walker (continued) Bush, George W. (continued)
Bryan, William Jennings, 1:201 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227 France and, 1:194
Bryant, Anita, 1:55, 172; 2:361 Horton, Willie, and, 1:264, 265 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198
Bryant, Carolyn, 2:564 Iran-Contra affair and, 1:279 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217
Bryant, Kobe, 2:517 Japanese internment and, 2:467 global warming and, 1:218, 219
Bryant, Rob, 2:564, 565 judicial wars and, 1:290 Gore, Al, and, 1:226
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 1:16 King, Rodney, and, 1:301 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227, 228; 2:552
BSA. See Boy Scouts of America Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305 gun control and, 1:233
Buchanan, Patrick Joseph, 1:12, 13, 56, Liddy, G. Gordon, and, 1:322 Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239
56–57, 58, 62, 134, 155, 177, 196, Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 health care and, 1:245
220, 273, 274; 2:359, 387, 428, 560, militia movement and, 2:360 Hightower, Jim, and, 1:250
576, 607 National Endowment for the Arts and, Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270
Buchwald, Art, 1:194 2:386, 387 illegal immigrants and, 1:272; 2:359
Buck Rogers (comic strip), 1:107 neoconservatism and, 2:395 Japan and, 1:284
Buckley, Christopher, 2:412 Norquist, Grover, and, 2:406 judicial activism and, 2:444
Buckley, William Frank, Jr., 1:8, 13, Penn, Sean, and, 2:425 judicial wars and, 1:289, 290
57–58, 58, 215, 229, 253, 286, 295; Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:560 Kerry, John, and, 1:295, 296
2:342, 344, 390, 391, 448, 455, 483, presidential pardons and, 1:62, 279; Kyoto Protocol and, 1:309
484, 493, 543, 578, 583, 584 2:440, 441 Lee, Spike, and, 1:318
Budapest, Hungary, 2:525 Quayle, Dan, and, 2:423, 451 Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321
Budde, Ray, 1:79 Republican Party and, 2:469 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323
Buddhism, 1:121, 218, 295 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:552 Lott, Trent, and, 1:327; 2:564
Budenz, Louis Francis, 1:58–59, 111; 2:515 Soviet Union and, 2:528 Madonna and, 2:333
Budget Enforcement Act (1990), 2:551 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:541 Matthew Shepard Act and, 2:517
Budget Reconciliation Bill (1993), 2:551 supply-side economics and, 2:547 McCain, John, and, 2:339, 340
Bullard, Robert Doyle, 1:59–60 tax reform and, 1:62; 2:406, 551 McGovern, George, and, 2:347
Bunche, Ralph, 1:60 Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 Mexico and, 2:356
Bundy, Ted, 1:183 Thomas, Clarence, and, 1:251, 330; 2:561 Microsoft and, 2:358
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and United Nations and, 2:573 military funerals and, 2:429
Explosives, U.S. (ATF), 2:391, 392, 586 Vietnam War and, 2:581, 582 Moore, Michael, and, 2:366
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), 1:23; 2:627 War on Drugs and, 2:593 NAACP and, 2:384
Burger, Warren E., 2:464, 533, 600 Watts and Los Angeles riots and, 2:605 Nation, The, and, 2:381
Burgess, Anthony, 1:307 whistleblowers and, 2:612 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Burke, Edmund, 2:617 Bush, George W., 1:62, 63–64 2:387
Burney, Leroy E., 2:520 Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:16 National Review and, 2:391
Burros, Daniel, 2:401 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 neoconservatism and, 2:395, 541
Burroughs, William S., 1:120, 217, 246, 294 bankruptcy reform and, 1:35 New Deal and, 2:397
Burton, Dan, 1:262 Bob Jones University and, 1:47 New York Times and, 2:400, 401
Burton, Harold, 2:599 Bono and, 1:48 Norquist, Grover, and, 2:406
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Brown), Bradley, Bill, 1:51 NRA and, 2:391
1:121 Brokaw, Tom, and, 1:52 Obama, Barack, and, 2:412
Bush, George Herbert Walker, 1:61–62 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 obscenity and, 1:176
ACLU and, 1:19 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 occupational safety and, 2:415
affirmative action and, 1:9 censorship and, 1:77 PBS and, 2:448
Americans with Disabilities Act and, 1:24 Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:82 Penn, Sean, and, 2:425, 426
Angelou, Maya, and, 1:26 civil liberties and, 2:344 presidential pardons and, 2:440, 441
Atwater, Lee, and, 1:31, 32, 32 Cold War and, 1:103 privatization and, 2:445
Bennett, William, and, 1:41 compassionate conservatism and, 1:113, Progressive Christians Uniting and, 2:446
Brokaw, Tom, and, 1:52 114; 2:625 Rather, Dan, and, 2:456, 457, 457
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56 counterculture and, 1:122 Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463
Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57 Cronkite, Walter, and, 1:126 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201
Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:81 Cuban Americans and, 1:224 Religious Right and, 1:91; 2:466
China and, 1:85 Dean, Howard, and, 1:129 Republican Party and, 2:469
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Dean, John, and, 1:131 rock and roll and, 2:476
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 Rove, Karl, and, 2:480, 481
Cold War and, 1:102, 103 Democratic Party and, 1:136 Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483
comic strips and, 1:108 Dixie Chicks and, 1:123; 2:597 same-sex marriage and, 2:487
compassionate conservatism and, 1:113 Dobson, James, and, 1:139 Schiavo, Terri, and, 2:491
DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 education reform and, 1:150 September 11 and, 2:503
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Election of 2000 and, 1:153–55; 2:376, sex education and, 1:14; 2:508
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 380, 448, 465, 560 Social Security and, 2:523
ecoterrorism and, 1:148 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 158 Soros, George, and, 2:525
environmental movement and, 1:59 faith-based programs and, 1:169–70 Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:532
FDA and, 1:186 Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173 stem-cell research and, 2:537
Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:180 federal budget deficit and, 1:173, 174 Stewart, Jon, and, 2:539
Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 forests, parklands, and federal wilderness Stone, Oliver, and, 2:540
Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217 and, 1:190–91 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:541
Index I-7
Bush, George W. (continued) busing, school, 1:64–65, 136, 188, 260, capitalism, 1:75, 85, 119, 135, 200, 203,
supply-side economics and, 2:547 293, 327; 2:346, 404, 468, 469, 544, 229, 306, 311; 2:338, 345, 404, 455,
Supreme Court and, 2:416 561, 614, 617 456, 468, 519, 528, 547, 590, 606,
tax reform and, 1:63; 2:397, 470, 547, Butler, Carrie, 2:564 618, 622
551, 606 Butler, Judith, 1:192 Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman and
Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 Butler, Richard, 2:482 Friedman), 1:200; 2:444
USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574, 575 Butler, Richard Girnt, 1:31 Capote, Truman, 1:295, 324; 2:398, 621
Vidal, Gore, and, 2:578 Butler, Robert, 2:615, 616 Capp, Al, 1:107
Vietnam War and, 1:62, 287; 2:456, Butterfield, Alexander, 2:603 Captain America (comic), 1:106
457, 457, 581, 582 Butts, Calvin, 2:456 Carcieri, Donald, 2:353
vigilantism and, 2:583 Byrd, James, Jr., 1:239, 330 Carlin, George, 1:176
Voting Rights Act and, 2:585 Byrd, Robert C., 1:65–66; 2:441, 563 Carmichael, Stokely, 1:121, 310; 2:399
Warren, Rick, and, 2:601 Byrds, The, 2:596 Carmona, Richard H., 2:413, 520
Washington Times and, 2:602 Carroll v. Princess Anne (1968), 1:18
Weekly Standard and, 2:607 Cabey, Darrell, 1:222, 223 Carson, Rachel Louise, 1:71–72, 110, 162;
Woodward, Bob, and, 2:624 Caen, Herb, 1:295 2:499
Young, Neil, and, 2:628 Calderone, Mary, 2:508 Carter, Fred, 1:84
Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630 California Carter, James Earl, Jr., 1:72–74
Bush, John Ellis (Jeb), 1:62–63, 154; 2:491 war toys and, 2:597 China and, 1:85
Bush, Prescott Sheldon, 1:61 white supremacists and, 2:616 Christian radio and, 1:89
Bush, Samuel Prescott, 1:61 California, University of Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:97
Bush Doctrine, 1:64; 2:424 at Berkeley, 2:334, 374, 399, 547, 553, 572 Dean, Howard, and, 1:129
Bush family, 2:505 at Davis, 1:9 Democratic Party and, 1:136; 2:346
Bush (G.H.W.) administration, 1:24, 41, at Los Angeles, 1:277 education reform and, 1:150
304; 2:533 at San Francisco, 2:537, 572 environmental movement and, 1:72, 149
Bush (G.W.) administration California State University, 2:497 evangelicalism and, 1:166
American Century and, 1:16, 82 Californians for Biblical Morality, 1:313; FDA and, 1:186
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57 2:466 Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182
Canada and, 1:69 Calley, William L., Jr., 2:379 Focus on the Family and, 1:183
CIA and, 1:78, 82; 2:441, 482 Cambodia, 1:264; 2:405, 468, 594, 595 Ford, Gerald, and, 1:188
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 Camp David Accords, 1:73 Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267
conservative social policy and, 1:63 campaign finance reform, 1:67–68, 77, Huntington, Samuel P., and, 1:269
conspiracy theories and, 1:117 109, 119, 132, 250; 2:339, 499 Israel and, 1:281
Dean, John, and, 1:131 Campbell, Glen, 2:596 Japanese internment and, 2:467
Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 157 Campbell, Joseph, 2:543 Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293
faith-based programs and, 1:170 Campolo, Anthony “Tony,” 1:68; 2:518, 589 Liddy, G. Gordon, and, 1:322
federal budget deficit and, 1:173 Campus Watch, 1:6; 2:344, 431 Love Canal and, 1:328
global warming and, 1:219 Canada, 1:30, 69, 84, 127, 146, 160, 163, Mondale, Walter, and, 2:364
Gore, Al, and, 1:226 213, 220, 231, 272, 303–4; 2:348, Moral Majority and, 2:367
Heritage Foundation and, 1:249 356, 488, 490, 590, 596, 628 Nelson, Willie, and, 2:393
Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270 cancer, 1:185, 214, 328; 2:334, 353, 499, Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405
Iraq and, 1:82 500, 520, 567 nuclear age and, 2:409
Krugman, Paul, and, 1:306 capital punishment, 1:69–71, 70; 2:434 presidential pardons and, 1:73, 322;
Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321 Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 2:440, 441, 547
New York Times and, 1:401–2 Bush, George W., and, 1:62 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:560, 617
Penn, Sean, and, 2:426 Canada and, 1:69 Religious Right and, 2:466
privatization and, 2:445 Christian reconstructionism and, 1:90 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139 Three Mile Island and, 2:563
right to die and, 2:407 Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 Vietnam Veterans Memorial and, 2:579
Rove, Karl, and, 2:480, 481 Gilmore, Gary, and, 1:215–16 Vietnam War and, 2:581
Russia and, 2:529 Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257 Carter administration, 1:24; 2:385, 394,
same-sex marriage and, 2:421 human rights and, 1:265 395, 409
science wars and, 2:499, 500 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:335 Carto, Willis, 2:615, 616
September 11 and, 2:503 McVeigh, Timothy, and, 2:349 Carver, Raymond, 1:325
special-interest groups and, 1:67 media and, 2:351 Carville, James, 2:534
think tanks and, 2:558 O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 Cash, Johnny, 2:393
tort reform and, 2:567 police misconduct and, 2:434 Cassady, Neal, 1:218, 295
torture and, 1:3–4 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 Cassavetes, John, 1:325
United Nations and, 2:573, 574 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, and, 2:480 Cassirer, Ernst, 2:541
war protesters and, 2:597 Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483 “Castle Doctrine,” 2:391
Woodward, Bob, and, 2:625 Ryan, George, and, 1:71; 2:434, 484–85 Castro, Fidel, 1:78, 102, 127, 224, 292,
Bush v. Gore (2000), 1:155; 2:464, 465, Saudi Arabia and, 1:69; 2:489 293; 2:456
561 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 Castro, Rául, 1:127
Bushnell, Ben, 1:215 sex offenders and, 2:510 Caswell, Scott, 2:414
business, 1:97, 110, 162, 245, 282; 2:397, social theory on, 1:268 Catch-22 (Heller), 1:247, 248
414, 468, 572, 594, 613 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Catholic Church, 1:74–76
See also corporations vigilantism and, 2:582 abortion and, 1:1–2; 2:479
I-8 Index
Catholic Church (continued) censorship (continued) charter schools, 1:79–80, 152

American founding and, 1:192 film industry and, 1:258 Chávez, César, 1:80–81, 256, 311;
biotechnology and, 1:42 Guthrie, Woody, and, 1:233 2:358–59
birth control and, 1:44 Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:247 Chavez, Hugo, 2:475
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56 homosexuals and, 1:207 Chavez, Linda, 1:272; 2:373
Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57 Kubrick, Stanley, and, 1:307 Chayefsky, Paddy, 1:326
Budenz, Louis F., and, 1:59 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Chechnya, 2:518
Chávez, César, and, 1:80; 2:358 MPAA and, 2:370–71 chemical industry, 1:72, 162, 186, 214,
Chick, Jack, and, 1:84 National Endowment for the Arts and, 328; 2:499
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 2:336–37, 385, 386, 437, 507 Cheney, Lynne Ann, 1:11, 81–83, 82;
Christian radio and, 1:89; 2:515, 552 New York Times and, 2:401 2:387, 388, 470
church and state and, 1:92 record warning labels and, 2:459–60 Cheney, Mary, 1:81, 82, 83, 298, 320;
Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104 rock and roll and, 2:476, 628 2:421
comic books and, 1:106 sexual revolution and, 2:512, 513 Cheney, Richard Bruce, 1:16, 81–83, 82,
creationism and intelligent design and, shock jocks and, 2:517 131, 156, 176, 197, 219, 298, 320,
1:124, 125 Soviet Union and, 2:527–28 321, 323; 2:347, 402, 405, 421, 426,
Democratic Party and, 1:135 Stern, Howard, and, 2:538 445
discrimination and, 1:169 Census of 2000, 1:321, 329; 2:452 Chernobyl, 2:410, 528
drama and, 1:326 Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Cheshire, William, 2:602
evangelicalism and, 1:166 (CDFE), 1:29, 163 Chiang Kai-shek, 1:85
film industry and, 1:215, 325; 2:370, 371 Center for the Study of Popular Culture, Chicago, University of, 1:200, 271, 303
Frank, Barney, and, 1:195 1:5, 7, 264 Chicago Seven, 1:83–84, 218, 242, 257;
Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2:596
Ginsberg, Allen, and, 1:218 U.S. (CDC), 1:13, 44; 2:413 Chicago Tribune, 2:569
Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:295 Central America, 1:278; 2:367, 582 Chick, Jack Thomas, 1:84–85; 2:440, 515
Kevorkian, Jack, and, 1:297 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), child care, 1:86, 132, 172, 287; 2:364,
LaHaye, Tim, and, 1:314 1:77–79 488, 534, 608
Madonna and, 2:333, 333 American Century and, 1:16 Child Online Protection Act (1998), 1:278;
McCarthy, Eugene, and, 2:340 Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 2:437
McCarthyism and, 2:344 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57 Children’s Defense Fund, 1:97, 232
National Review and, 2:391 Bush administration and, 1:78, 82; Children’s Internet Protection Act (2000),
premillennial dispensationalism and, 2:441, 482, 625 1:278
2:440 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 Children’s Television Act (1988), 2:598
presidential elections and, 1:86 Cheney, Dick, and, 1:82 Chile, 1:78; 2:400, 493
Religious Right and, 2:466, 467 Cold War and, 1:101 Chiles, Lawton, 1:62
Republican Party and, 2:468 conspiracy theories and, 1:116 Chilton, David, 1:90; 2:518
right to die and, 2:407 Cronkite, Walter, and, 1:126 China, People’s Republic of, 1:85–86
Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483 Cuba and, 1:127 anticommunist movement and, 1:258
Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490 Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61
Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 capital punishment and, 1:69
School of the Americas and, 2:493–94 Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98
school prayer and, 2:495 LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315 Cold War and, 1:101, 102
sex offenders and, 2:510 LSD and, 1:317 communism and, 1:111
sexual revolution and, 2:513 Nation, The, and, 2:381 FDA and, 1:187
Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 neoconservatism and, 2:394 genetically modified foods and, 1:213
size of, 2:525 New York Times and, 2:401 global warming and, 1:219
social theory on, 1:268 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489 globalization and, 1:221, 222
stem-cell research and, 2:537 secret prisons and, 1:4 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:249
white supremacists and, 2:614 Steinem, Gloria, and, 2:536 John Birch Society and, 1:286
World Council of Churches and, 2:625 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569 Kyoto Protocol and, 1:309
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Unabomber and, 2:572 marriage names in, 2:337
Rights, 1:91; 2:592 Watergate and, 1:177; 2:602 McCarthyism and, 2:343, 344
Cato Institute, 2:444, 559 Central Intelligence Agency Information McIntire, Carl, and, 2:348
CBN. See Christian Broadcasting Network Act (1984), 1:197 New York Times and, 2:401
CCC. See Council of Conservative Citizens CFR, The (Courtney), 1:116 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:338, 405
CDC. See Centers for Disease Control and Chafets, Zev, 2:400 nuclear age and, 2:409
Prevention Chambers, Whittaker, 1:59, 78, 111, 256; Robertson, Pat, and, 1:88
CDFE. See Center for the Defense of Free 2:343, 406, 455 Soros, George, and, 2:525
Enterprise Chandler, Russell, 2:396 United Nations and, 2:573
Celestine Prophecy, The, 2:396 Chandler Act (1938), 1:35 Wal-Mart and, 2:590
censorship, 1:76–77 Chandler v. Miller (1997), 1:143 Williams, William Appleman, and,
academic, 1:5, 6 Chaney, James, 1:29, 330; 2:429, 430 2:618
ACLU and, 1:19 Chao, Elaine, 1:249 Young, Neil, and, 2:628
Biafra, Jello, and, 1:42 Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), 2:436, China, Republic of, 1:85, 102
book banning and, 1:49 530 China Syndrome, The (film), 1:184, 242;
comic books and, 1:106 Charen, Mona, 1:126 2:563
FCC and, 1:174–76 Charles, Norman, 1:23 Chirac, Jacques, 1:194
Index I-9
Chisholm, Shirley Anita St. Hill, 1:86 church and state (continued) civil rights (continued)
Cho, Seung-Hui, 2:496 Ten Commandments and, 2:554–55 homosexuals and, 1:205, 206, 207, 210
Choice Not an Echo, A (Schlafly), 1:116 Warren, Earl, and, 2:599 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262, 263
Chomsky, Avram Noam, 1:86–88, 87, 103, Church of Jesus Christ-Christian (CJCC), human rights and, 1:265–66
259, 321; 2:351, 400, 504, 524, 630 1:31; 2:615 Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:266, 267
Chong, Tommy, 1:143 Churchill, Ward LeRoy, 1:7, 92–93; 2:504, Israel and, 1:281
Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), 530 Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282
2:466, 474, 475, 552, 586 Churchill, Winston, 1:100, 103 Japanese internment and, 2:467
Christian Century magazine, 1:166, 227; CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency Jews and, 1:29
2:402, 495, 557 Citizens Party, 1:109; 2:560 John Birch Society and, 1:286
Christian Coalition, 1:68, 88–89, 92, 139, Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287
171, 290; 2:368, 386, 447, 463, 463, (USCIS), 1:274 Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293
466, 469, 474, 475, 475, 507, 552, City and the Pillar, The (Vidal), 2:578 Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292
613 City College of San Francisco, 2:374 Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293
Christian Coalition, The: Dreams of City Lights Publishers, 1:121, 218 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:299–300
Restoration, Demands for Recognition “City of New Orleans” (Goodman), 1:234 King, Rodney, and, 1:302
(Watson), 1:88 civil liberties, 1:3, 57, 63–64, 109, 195, Ku Klux Klan and, 2:614
Christian Heritage College, 1:313; 2:466 204, 226, 290, 310, 316; 2:344, 363, labor unions and, 1:312
Christian Identity movement, 1:31; 2:360, 377, 416, 443, 461, 467, 471, 510, Lear, Norman, and, 1:316
365, 482, 483, 614, 615 520, 574, 630 lesbians and, 1:320
Christian Manifesto, A (Schaeffer), 2:467, See also American Civil Liberties Union; literature and, 1:324
490 domestic spying; free speech; Lott, Trent, and, 1:327
Christian radio, 1:89–90, 104, 138, 183, libertarianism; specific constitutional Loving, Richard and Mildred, and, 1:329
201, 314; 2:347–48, 466, 515, 550, amendments lynching and, 1:330
552, 616 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 2:467 MacKinnon, Catharine, and, 2:332
Christian reconstructionism, 1:90–91; civil rights, 1:93–96 Malcolm X and, 1:235; 2:335
2:518, 555 ACLU and, 1:17–18 Marxism and, 2:338
Christianity Today magazine, 1:166, 227 Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 McGovern, George, and, 2:346
Christmas, 1:91, 91 Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:15, 16 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347
Christopher, Warren, 1:301 American Indian Movement and, 1:22 Mexican Americans and, 2:359
Chrysler, 1:312 Angelou, Maya, and, 1:25 Millett, Kate, and, 2:361
Church, Frank, 1:78 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 Million Man March and, 2:362
Church, Mike, 2:517 Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 Mondale, Walter, and, 2:364
church and state, 1:92 Black Panther Party and, 1:44–45 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371
ACLU and, 1:18–19 Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 multicultural conservatism and, 2:373
American civil religion and, 1:20–21 Bob Jones University and, 1:47 Muslim Americans and, 2:377
Boy Scouts and, 1:50 Bork, Robert, and, 1:290 NAACP and, 2:383
Bush, George W., and, 1:63 Boy Scouts and, 1:50 Nation of Islam and, 2:382
Catholic Church and, 1:74 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60 National Review and, 2:390
Christian radio and, 1:89 Bush, Prescott, and, 1:61 neoconservatism and, 2:394
Christian reconstructionism and, 1:90 Chávez, César, and, 1:81 New Left and, 2:398, 399
Christmas and, 1:91, 91 Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86 New York Times and, 2:401
clergy housing and, 2:601 Commager, Henry, and, 1:109 Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:403
Cold War and, 2:527 communism and, 1:111, 116 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404
compassionate conservatism and, 1:114 compassionate conservatism and, 1:114 NOW and, 2:388, 389
creationism and, 1:124 counterculture and, 1:120, 121 Obama, Barack, and, 2:412
Democratic Party and, 1:135 Deloria, Vine, and, 1:133 Parks, Rosa, and, 2:424
education reform and, 1:150, 152 Democratic Party and, 1:135–36 Philadelphia, Miss., and, 2:429–30
faith-based programs and, 1:169–70 disability and, 1:276 police abuse and, 1:95, 300; 2:433
Founding Fathers and, 1:192, 193 domestic spying and, 2:434 racial profiling and, 2:454
homeschooling and, 1:260–61 Douglas, William O., and, 1:140 Rather, Dan, and, 2:456
judicial wars and, 1:288–89 DuBois, W.E.B. and, 1:144 “rednecks” and, 2:462
Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Duke, David, and, 1:146 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:465
Moore, Roy S., and, 2:366–67 Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146 Religious Right and, 2:466
Moral Majority and, 2:367 Dylan, Bob, and, 1:147 Republican Party and, 2:468
O’Hair, Madalyn Murray, and, 2:416 Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 rock and roll and, 2:476
O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 environmental movement and, 1:59–60 Rockwell, Norman, and, 2:477–78
Religious Right and, 2:466 evangelicalism and, 1:166 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502
Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514
school prayer and, 2:494–96 feminism and, 1:178 “Silent Majority” and, 2:519
school vouchers and, 2:498 gay rights and, 1:96; 2:516 Students for a Democratic Society and,
secular humanism and, 2:501 generational conflict and, 1:212 2:545
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 Thomas, Clarence, and, 2:561
stem-cell research and, 2:537 “Greatest Generation” and, 1:52 Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:563–64
Supreme Court and, 1:92, 193; 2:416, hate crimes and, 1:239; 2:564 transgender movement and, 2:567–68
600 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 vigilantism and, 2:582
televangelism and, 2:552 Hoffmann, Abbie, and, 1:257 Voting Rights Act and, 2:584
I-10 Index
civil rights (continued) Clergy Housing Clarification Act (2002), Clinton, William Jefferson Blythe, IV
Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 2:601 (continued)
Wallace, George, and, 2:588 Cleveland, Grover, 2:550 Microsoft and, 2:357
Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 Cleveland Elementary School, 2:497 Morrison, Toni, and, 2:369
War on Poverty and, 2:594 Clinton, Chelsea, 1:98 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:372
war protesters and, 2:595 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 1:96, 97, 97–99, Nader, Ralph, and, 2:380
Warren, Earl, and, 2:599 99 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Watts riots and, 2:604 Brock, David, and, 1:51 2:387
West, Cornel, and, 2:610 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56 National Endowment for the Humanities
White, Reggie, and, 2:613 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 157–58; and, 2:388
Will, George, and, 2:617 2:411, 412, 423 neoconservatism and, 2:395
World War II memorial and, 2:626 family values, 1:172 New Deal and, 2:397
Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630, 631 Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:180 New York Times and, 2:400
See also discrimination; gay rights; race, health care and, 1:245 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405
racism Kennedy family and, 1:294 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427
Civil Rights Act (1964), 1:95, 96 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 presidential pardons and, 2:440, 441, 547
affirmative action and, 1:8–9 marriage names and, 2:337 rap music and, 2:456
age discrimination and, 1:11 McCain, John, and, 2:339 Republican Party and, 2:469
Americans with Disabilities Act and, 1:24 New Deal and, 2:397 same-sex marriage and, 2:486
Brown v. Board of Education and, 1:54 New York Times and, 2:400 sexual harassment and, 1:51, 99, 100;
Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 Starr, Kenneth, and, 2:533–34 2:512
Democratic Party and, 1:136 stay-at-home mothers and, 2:534 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
ERA and, 1:165 Weekly Standard and, 2:607 Starr, Kenneth, and, 1:97, 99, 100;
faith-based programs and, 1:169 Clinton, William Jefferson Blythe, IV, 2:533–34, 533
Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223 1:96–97 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:541
Great Society and, 1:230 Angelou, Maya, and, 1:25 talk radio and, 2:550
Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 Bennett, William, and, 1:41 tax reform and, 2:551
Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292 Brock, David, and, 1:51 Terry, Randall, and, 2:418
Malcolm X and, 2:335 Brokaw, Tom, and, 1:52 tort reform and, 2:566
NAACP and, 2:383 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56 Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:571
NOW and, 2:389 Bush family and, 1:61, 62 Vietnam War and, 2:581, 582
Obama, Barack, and, 2:412 Bush, George H.W., and, 2:560 Weekly Standard and, 2:607
Republican Party and, 2:468 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 welfare and, 2:608
Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 Campolo, Anthony “Tony,” and, 1:68 World War II memorial and, 2:626
sexual harassment and, 2:511 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 Clinton administration, 1:14, 48, 118;
Voting Rights Act and, 2:584 China and, 1:85 2:528, 546
Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Cold War and, 1:103 Clinton impeachment, 1:51, 66, 96, 97,
Act (1980), 1:24 Contract with America and, 1:118 99–100, 120, 132, 136, 141, 142,
Civil Service Commission, 1:206 Democratic Party and, 1:136; 2:346 182, 195, 278, 326, 327; 2:339, 426,
Civil Service Reform Act (1978), 2:612 Drudge Report and, 1:141, 142, 278 464, 465, 469, 533–34, 533, 602,
Civil War, U.S., 1:20, 21, 114, 115, 135, Election of 2008 and, 1:158 603, 611
165, 180; 2:391, 439, 468, 550, 557, environmental movement and, 1:60 Clooney, George, 2:344
612, 619 FDR memorial and, 1:196–97, 196 Closing Circle, The: Nature, Man, and
CJCC. See Church of Jesus Christ-Christian federal budget deficit and, 1:174 Technology (Commoner), 1:110
Clark, Ed, 2:560 forests, parklands, and federal wilderness Closing of the American Mind, The (Bloom),
Clark, Kenneth, 1:54 and, 1:190 1:229; 2:452, 465
Clark, Marcia, 2:417 Founding Fathers and, 1:193 Clymer, Adam, 2:400
Clark, Tom, 1:111; 2:343, 599 Frank, Barney, and, 1:195 CNP. See Council for National Policy
Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 Coast Guard, U.S., 1:127, 270
World Order, The (Huntington), 1:103, gay rights and, 1:206, 209; 2:521 Cobb, James C., 1:114
269; 2:504 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216, 217 Cobb, John, Jr., 2:445
class, social, 1:40, 150, 152, 177, 179, 310, global warming and, 1:219 Cochran, Johnnie, 2:417
321; 2:373, 389, 390, 399, 413, 423, Gore, Al, and, 1:226 Cochran, Thad, 1:331; 2:430
438, 452, 456, 462, 468, 470, 497, Great Society and, 1:230 CODEPINK: Women for Peace, 2:597,
519, 533, 535, 552, 607, 608, 620 gun control and, 1:232 598
Class Action Fairness Act (2005), 2:567 Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 Coffee, Linda, 2:479
Clay, aka Ali v. United States (1971), 1:15 health care and, 1:243, 245 Coffin, William Sloane, 1:316
Clean Air Act (1969), 1:159 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 Cohen, Stephen, 2:528
Clean Air Act (1970), 1:148, 162, 163 Hightower, Jim, and, 1:250 Cohn, Roy, 1:308; 2:480
Clean Water Act (1972), 1:148, 162 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign Cold War, 1:101–4
Clean Water Act (1977), 1:159 and, 1:98 academic freedom and, 1:6
Clear Channel Communications, 1:76–77, Hillsdale College and, 1:253 Afghanistan and, 2:504
175 Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282, 283 American Century and, 1:16
Clearwater, Frank, 1:23 judicial wars and, 1:290 American civil religion and, 1:20
Cleaver, Eldridge, 1:45 Kwanzaa and, 1:308 American exceptionalism and, 1:21
Clem, Todd, 2:517 Liddy, G. Gordon, and, 1:322 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27
Clements, Bill, 2:481 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 arts funding and, 2:385
Index I-11
Cold War (continued) Cold War (continued) Communications Decency Act (1996), 1:278
Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57 “Silent Majority” and, 2:519 communism, communists, 1:110–12
Bush family and, 1:61 Soviet Union and, 2:527 academic freedom and, 1:6
censorship and, 1:76 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 1:102; ACLU and, 1:17, 59
Chambers, Whittaker, and, 1:79 2:540, 541 America–China relations and, 1:85
China and, 1:85 Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549 American civil religion and, 1:20
Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Teller, Edward, and, 2:553 American exceptionalism and, 1:21
Christmas and, 1:91 Ten Commandments and, 2:554 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56
CIA and, 1:77, 78 Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57, 58
comic books and, 1:106 third parties and, 2:560 Budenz, Louis F., and, 1:58–59
Commager, Henry, and, 1:108 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:560, 568 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60
communism and, 1:110, 111 United Nations and, 2:573 Bush, Prescott, and, 1:61
conspiracy theories and, 1:115 war protesters and, 2:595 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66
country music and, 1:123 Washington Times and, 2:602 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73
Cuba and, 1:102, 224 Williams, William Appleman, and, Catholic Church and, 1:74
drama and, 1:326 1:102; 2:618 censorship and, 1:76
Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 Wilson, Edmund, and, 2:618 Chambers, Whittaker, and, 1:79
environmental movement and, 1:148 Cole, Bruce, 2:387 Cold War and, 1:100–104
feminism and, 2:389 Cole, Lester, 1:257 comic books and, 1:106
film and, 1:325 Cole, USS, 2:503 Commager, Henry, and, 1:108
Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 Coleman, Diane, 2:407 conspiracy theories and, 1:58, 91, 101,
Fukuyama, Francis, and, 1:269 Coleman, Norman, 1:196; 2:609, 610 111, 115–16, 148
Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223 Coler, Jack, 1:23 Cuba and, 1:127, 224
Graham, Billy, and, 1:227; 2:552 Colford, Paul, 2:550 Democratic Party and, 1:136
health care and, 1:243 Collateral Damage (film), 2:499 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171
Heller, Joseph, and, 1:248 Collier, Peter, 1:264 FCC and, 1:175
Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 Collin, Frank, 2:477, 616 film and, 1:325
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, 1:254 Collins, Judy, 1:83 Ford, Gerald, and, 1:187
Hiss, Alger and, 1:256 Collins, Patricia Hill, 2:620 Foucault, Michel, and, 1:191
Hollywood Ten and, 1:257–58 Colmer, William M., 1:327 France and, 1:194
human rights and, 1:265 colonialism, 1:10, 11, 60, 82, 201; 2:338, Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198
Hutchins, Robert M., and, 1:271 388, 486 Galbraith, John Kenneth, and, 1:203
Islamic fundamentalism and, 1:201 Color Additive Amendments (1960), 1:185 gay rights and, 1:205
Israel and, 1:280 Colorado, University of, 1:7, 92, 93, 105; Gingsberg, Allen, and, 1:217, 218
Japan and, 1:284 2:504, 517, 530 Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223
John Birch Society and, 1:286 Colson, Charles Wendell, 1:104–5, 177 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227
King, Martin Luther, Jr. and, 1:300 Columbia University, 1:7, 153, 218; Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236
Kubrick, Stanley, and, 1:307 2:486, 543, 545 Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237
labor unions and, 1:311 Columbine High School, 1:132, 260; Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239
LeMay, Curtis, and, 1:318–19 2:336, 392, 496, 497, 555, 630 Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242
literature and, 1:324 Columbus Day, 1:105 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248
LSD and, 1:317 Combs, Roberta, 1:88–89 Hiss, Alger, and, 1:256
Marxism and, 2:338 Comedy Central, 2:538, 538 Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257
McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:342 comic books, 1:84, 106–7; 2:349, 440, Hollywood Ten and, 1:257–58
McCarthyism and, 2:342 583, 598 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262, 263
McGovern, George, and, 2:345 comic strips, 1:107–8, 145; 2:562 human rights and, 1:265
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371 Coming Battle for the Media, The (Rusher), Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267
NAACP and, 2:383 2:484 Iran-Contra affair and, 1:278, 279
National Endowment for the Humanities Coming Home (film), 1:184; 2:581 Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279, 280
and, 2:387 Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead), 2:350 Japan and, 1:284
National Review and, 2:390 Commager, Henry Steele, 1:102, 108–9 John Birch Society and, 1:286
Nazis and, 1:258 Commentary magazine, 1:218, 305; 2:394, Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:295
Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:403 395, 422, 432–33, 432 Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305
Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403, 405 Commerce and Labor Department, U.S., La Follette, Robert, Jr., and, 1:310
Norquist, Grover, and, 2:406 1:174 labor unions and, 1:311
nuclear age and, 2:408–10 Commerce Department, U.S., 1:169 Marxism and, 2:338
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and, 2:419 Commission on Civil Rights, U.S., 1:276 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341–42
Pipes, Richard, and, 2:430 Commission on Obscenity and McCarthyism and, 2:342–45
Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458, 459 Pornography, 2:436 Moral Majority and, 2:367
Religious Right and, 2:466 Commission on Pornography, 2:466 NAACP and, 2:383
Republican Party and, 2:468 Committee to Re-elect the President National Endowment for the Humanities
rock and roll and, 2:475, 476 (CREEP), 1:177, 322; 2:602 and, 2:387
Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, and, 2:480 Common Cause, 1:109 National Review and, 2:390
Rusher, William A., and, 2:484 Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, neoconservatism and, 2:394, 395
School of the Americas and, 2:493 The (Spock), 1:183; 2:531 New Left and, 2:398
school prayer and, 2:494 Commoner, Barry, 1:109–10, 2:560, 595 New York Times and, 2:401
Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 Communications Act (1934), 1:89 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405
I-12 Index
communism, communists (continued) condoms, 1:14, 139, 304; 2:425, 500, 508, Congress, U.S. (continued)
nuclear age and, 2:408 509 human rights and, 1:278
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and, 2:419 Confederate flag, 1:114–15; 2:462, 630 illegal immigrants and, 1:272
Penn, Sean, and, 2:425 Confessore, Nicholas, 1:306 Indian casinos and, 1:275
Pipes, Richard, and, 2:430 Conflict in Education, The (Hutchins), 1:151 Individuals with Disabilities Education
premillennial dispensationalism and, Congo, 1:15, 78 Act and, 1:277
2:440 Congress, U.S. Iran-Contra affair and, 1:19; 2:406, 407
Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458, 459 abortion and, 1:2; 2:418, 479 Japanese internment and, 2:467
religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 academic freedom and, 1:7 Kerry, John, and, 1:296
Religious Right and, 2:466, 467 African Americans in, 1:86, 104 Kevorkian, Jack, and, 1:298
rock and roll and, 2:476 arts funding and, 2:385 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:300
Rockwell, George Lincoln, and, 2:477 automobile safety and, 2:380 La Follette, Robert, Jr., and, 1:310
Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, and, 2:480 bankruptcy reform and, 1:34–36 logging and, 1:30
Rusher, William A., and, 2:484 Boy Scouts and, 1:50 McCarthyism and, 2:342–44
Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 Buchanan, Patrick, and, 1:134 medical marijuana and, 2:353
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493, Bush, George W., and, 1:63 military recruiting and, 1:210
539 campaign finance reform and, 1:67–68 Muslim Americans and, 2:378
School of the Americas and, 2:493 capital punishment and, 1:71 National Air and Space Museum and,
school prayer and, 2:494 Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81 1:161
Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 children’s television and, 2:598 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Soros, George, and, 2:525 China and, 1:85 1:15, 248; 2:336, 337, 386, 386,
Soviet Union and, 2:526–28 Christian Coalition and, 1:88 387, 507
Students for a Democratic Society and, Christian radio and, 1:90 National Endowment for the Humanities
2:545 civil rights movement and, 1:95 and, 2:388
Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549 clergy housing and, 2:601 Nicaragua and, 2:406
third parties and, 2:560 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 nuclear age and, 2:554
Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569 Clinton impeachment and, 1:100; 2:533, occupational safety and, 2:414, 415
United Nations and, 2:573 603 PBS and, 2:448
Vietnam War and, 2:580–81 Cold War and, 1:101 Pledge of Allegiance and, 1:20
Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 Contract with America and, 1:118 pornography and, 2:436
Wallace, George, and, 2:588 corporate welfare and, 1:119 Puerto Rico and, 1:255
Washington Times and, 2:602 Dean, Howard, and, 1:129 Republican Party and, 2:468–69, 550,
Wayne, John, and, 2:605 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132–33 607
white supremacists and, 2:615 Democratic Party and, 1:136, 137 right to die and, 1:63
Williams, William Appleman, and, Dobson, James, and, 1:138–39 Rove, Karl, and, 2:482
2:618 education reform and, 1:150 Russia and, 2:529
Zappa, Frank, and, 2:629 Election of 2008 and, 1:159; 2:411 same-sex marriage and, 2:486, 487
See also McCarthyism; Marxism; Red Endangered Species Act and, 1:160 Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488, 488
Scare; socialism; Soviet Union English as the Official Language and, Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
Communist Control Act (1954), 2:343 1:160 Schiavo, Terri, and, 2:491
Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and Engels), environmental movement and, 1:164 School of the Americas and, 2:494
2:338 ERA and, 1:165 school prayer and, 2:494
Communist Party of the United States faith-based programs and, 1:169 science wars and, 2:499, 500
of America (CPUSA), 1:17, 59, 79, FCC and, 1:175; 2:517 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502
110–12, 144, 235–36, 241, 257, 258, FDA and, 1:185, 186 sex education and, 2:508, 509
262, 264, 315; 2:338, 341, 343, 344, Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:179 smoking and, 2:520
403, 419, 502, 535, 560 flag desecration and, 1:180, 181 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535
comparable worth, 1:113, 179, 299; 2:459, Ford, Gerald, and, 1:187–88 tax reform and, 2:550–51
534 forests, parklands, and federal wilderness Thanksgiving Day and, 2:557
compassionate conservatism, 1:63, 113–14, and, 1:190 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569
132; 2:397, 469, 625 Frank, Barney, and, 1:195 Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:570
Compassionate Conservatism (Olasky), 1:114 Freedom of Information Act and, USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574–75
Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), 1:197–98 Voting Rights Act and, 2:584, 585
2:592 General Accounting Office of, 1:186 War on Drugs and, 2:592–93
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and genetically modified foods and, 1:214 War on Poverty and, 2:593
Control Act (1970), 2:592 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216, 216, 217 War Powers Act and, 2:594–95
Comprehensive Emergency Response, global warming and, 1:219 Watergate and, 2:602
Compensation, and Liability Act Graham, Billy, and, 1:227 whistleblowers and, 2:612
(1980), 1:328 Gulf War and, 2:596, 625 women in the military and, 2:622
Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (1996), gun control and, 1:232–33; 2:391 See also House of Representatives, U.S.;
2:410 hate crimes and, 1:239, 240; 2:517 Senate, U.S.
Comstock, Anthony, 2:507 health care and, 1:243, 244, 245 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO),
Comstock Act (1873), 1:43 Heritage Foundation and, 1:249, 250 1:111, 310, 311
Comstock Laws (1878), 2:431 Hiss, Alger, and, 1:256 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1:86,
Conason, Joe, 2:534 Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257 93, 94, 223, 282; 2:361, 614
Concerned Women for America (CWA), Hollywood Ten and, 1:257–58 Congressional Quarterly, 2:550
1:90, 313, 314; 2:437, 466 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262 Connally, John, 2:347
Index I-13
Connor, Eugene (Bull), 1:94, 95; 2:433 Coover, Robert, 2:480 counterculture (continued)
Conscience of a Conservative, The (Goldwater), CORE. See Congress of Racial Equality Black Panther Party and, 1:44–45
1:223; 2:466, 609 Corn, David, 2:624 Chicago Seven and, 1:83–84
Conscience of a Liberal, The (Krugman), Cornell University, 2:512 Christian music and, 1:117
1:306 corporate welfare, 1:119, 190 country music and, 1:122
Conscience of a Liberal, The (Wellstone), Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), culture jamming and, 1:128
2:609 1:230, 326; 2:390, 447 Democratic Party and, 1:136
Console, A. Dale, 2:612 See also Public Broadcasting Service drug testing and, 1:143
conspiracy theories, 1:58, 91, 101, 111, corporations Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146
115–17, 134, 146, 148, 281, 286, bankruptcy reform and, 1:34–36 Dylan, Bob, and., 1:147
300, 310, 315, 322, 323, 325; 2:349, campaign finance reform and, 1:67, 250; Focus on the Family and, 1:183
359, 360, 392, 411, 416, 467, 482, 2:488 France and, 1:194
505, 515, 539, 547, 573, 578, 615 Catholic Church and, 1:75 generational conflict and, 1:212
Constitution, U.S. censorship and, 1:77 Ginsberg, Allen, and, 1:217–18
ACLU and, 1:18 Cuba and, 1:127 Gore, Al, and, 1:226
American civil religion and, 1:20 Democratic Party and, 1:135 graffiti and, 1:226
bankruptcy reform and, 1:34 diversity training and, 1:137 Guthrie, Woody, and, 1:233
Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 drug testing and, 1:142–43 Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:246–47
capital punishment and, 1:69 Ehrenreich, Barbara, and, 1:152 Heller, Joseph, and, 1:247–48
church and state and, 1:92 environmental movement and, 1:163 Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257
Douglas, William O., and, 1:140 executive compensation and, 1:167 homeschooling and, 1:260
English as the Official Language and, Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 Jesus People and, 1:285
1:160 globalization and, 1:38, 221 Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:294, 295
ERA and, 1:164–65 Holocaust and, 1:258–59 Kubrick, Stanley, and, 1:307
federal budget deficit and, 1:174 homosexuals and, 1:205 Leary, Timothy, and, 1:316–17
Felt, W. Mark, and, 1:177 Krugman, Paul, and, 1:306 lesbians and, 1:320
flag desecration and, 1:180–81 Kyoto Protocol and, 1:309 Liddy, G. Gordon, and, 1:322
Founding Fathers and, 1:192, 193 media and, 1:87, 175; 2:351 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334
Heritage Foundation and, 1:250 Moore, Michael, and, 2:365, 366 McGovern, George, and, 2:346
judicial wars and, 1:288–89 Nader, Ralph, and, 2:380 Medved, Michael, and, 2:354
McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341 National Endowment for the Arts and, Milk, Harvey, and, 2:361
Montana Freemen and, 2:365 2:385 moral relativism and, 2:465
NRA and, 2:391 National Public Radio and, 2:390 Morgan, Robin, and, 2:368
presidential pardons and, 2:440 New Left and, 1:242; 2:399 Ms. and, 2:372
privacy rights and, 2:443 occupational safety and, 2:414–15 Nelson, Willie, and, 2:393
right to die and, 2:473 premillennial dispensationalism and, neoconservatism and, 2:394
segregation and, 1:54 2:440 New Age movement and, 2:395
speech codes and, 2:530 Rove, Karl, and, 2:480 New Journalism and, 2:398, 562
Thomas, Clarence, and, 2:561 science wars and, 2:499–500 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404, 592
War Powers Act and, 2:595 tax reform and, 2:551 Pordhoretz, Norman, and, 2:432
Warren Court and, 2:599–600 think tanks and, 2:558 premillennial dispensationalism and,
See also specific amendments tobacco settlements and, 2:565–66 2:440
consumer culture, 1:41, 107, 128, 162, tort reform and, 2:566–67 punk rock and, 2:449
165, 194, 202, 221, 222, 304, 324, United Nations and, 2:573 Religious Right and, 2:466
325; 2:375, 449, 475, 519, 534, 535, whistleblowers and, 2:612 Republican Party and, 2:468
590, 591, 599, 628 See also corporate welfare; globalization; rock and roll and, 2:476
consumer movement, 1:32, 35; 2:364, 380, Microsoft; Wal-Mart; Walt Disney Rodman, Dennis, and, 2:478
566, 612, 613 Company sexual revolution and, 2:513
Consumer Product Safety Commission, Correll, John T., 1:161 “Silent Majority” and, 2:519
2:380, 613 Corsini, Robert, 2:604 Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:316, 531
containment, 1:101, 110, 265; 2:342, 398, Corvair, 1:32; 2:380 Stone, Oliver, and, 2:539
403, 419, 519, 568, 569, 581, 618 Cosby, Bill, 1:46 student conservatives and, 2:543, 544
Contemporary Christian Music, 1:48, 84, Cosell, Howard, 1:15 Symbionese Liberation Army and, 2:547
117–18, 286 Cosmopolitan magazine, 1:52, 53 Teller, Edward, and, 2:553
contraceptives. See birth control Coughlin, Charles, 1:89 Thompson, Hunter S., and, 2:562
Contract with America, 1:88, 118, Coulter, Ann Hart, 1:119–20, 126, 196, Wallace, George, and, 2:588
118–19, 216, 217, 249; 2:339, 406, 306; 2:342, 344, 350, 400 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589
427, 428, 469 Council for National Policy (CNP), 1:313; war protesters and, 2:596
Contract with the Earth, A (Gingrich), 1:216 2:611 Wolfe, Tom, and, 2:621
Contras, 1:116, 278, 279; 2:602, 625 Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), country music, 1:122–23; 2:392–93, 462,
See also Iran-Contra affair 1:327; 2:615 475, 596, 597
Controlled Substances Act (1970), 2:354 counterculture, 1:120–22 Couric, Katie, 2:424
Conyers, John, 2:425 American Indian Movement and, 1:22 Courlander, Harold, 1:235
Cooke, Janet, 2:624 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 Cours de linguistique générale (Saussure), 2:542
Coolidge, Calvin, 2:469 Atwater, Lee, and, 1:31 Course in Miracles, A, 2:396
Cooper, Gary, 2:455 Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 Court of Appeals, U.S., 1:10, 84, 176;
Coors, Joseph, 1:249; 2:611 Biafra, Jello, and, 1:41–42 2:601
I-14 Index
Courtney, Phoebe, 1:116 Crossing (McCloskey), 2:345 Dawkins, Richard, 1:125

Cousins, Norman, 2:409, 595 Crowell, Henry C., 1:89 Day, Dorothy, 1:237
Cowlings, Al, 2:417 Crucible, The (Miller), 2:344 Dayan, Moshe, 1:281
Cox, Archibald, 2:603 Cruel Peace, The (Inglis), 1:112 DDT, 1:71, 72, 148, 162; 2:499
Cox, Chris W., 2:391 Crumb, Robert, 1:121 De Genova, Nicholas, 1:7
CPB. See Corporation for Public Cruzan, Nancy, 2:473 De Haven, Hugh, 1:32
Broadcasting Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Health De-Valuing of America, The (Bennett), 1:41;
CPUSA. See Communist Party of the (1990), 2:473 2:387
United States of America Cuba, 1:22, 78, 101, 102, 116, 126–27, Dead Kennedys, 1:41–42; 2:449
Craig, Larry, 2:531 224, 249, 255, 266, 292; 2:338, 381, Dean, Howard Brush, III, 1:129, 129, 278;
Cramer, James, 1:306 401, 409, 426, 494 2:487
Crash Course on the New Age Movement, A Cuban Missile Crisis, 1:102, 127, 292, Dean, James Byron, 1:33, 130, 295; 2:535
(Miller), 2:396 293, 307; 2:409, 528 Dean, John Wesley, III, 1:130–31; 2:602,
Creation Museum, 1:125 Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs 603
creationism and intelligent design, 1:39– to Know (Hirsch), 1:229 Death of Outrage, The (Bennett), 1:41; 2:534
40, 47, 63, 77, 92, 123–26, 134, 165, Culture and Commitment: A Study of the death penalty. See capital punishment
201; 2:339, 445, 499, 500, 501 Generation Gap (Mead), 2:350 Death with Dignity Act (1994), 2:473
See also evolution culture jamming, 1:77, 127–28 Death with Dignity Act (1997), 1:298;
CREEP. See Committee to Re-elect the Culture Warrior (O’Reilly), 1:91 2:407
President Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America Debord, Guy, 1:128
Crepuscular Dawn (Virilio and Lotringer), (Hunter), 1:268 Debs, Eugene V., 2:488
1:42 currency, U.S., 1:19; 2:527 Declaration of Independence, 1:20
Crick, Francis, 1:110 Custer, George Armstrong, 1:133 Decline of American Power, The (Wallerstein),
crime, criminal justice Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian 1:16
Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40 Manifesto (Deloria), 1:22, 133 deconstructionism, 1:8, 10–11, 131–32,
Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 CWA. See Concerned Women for America 194, 325; 2:335, 438, 542, 543
capital punishment and, 1:69 Czechoslovakia, 1:258; 2:525, 528, 629 Decter, Midge, 2:394
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 “Deep Throat,” 1:176–77; 2:441, 612, 624
comic books and, 1:106 Daddy’s Roommate (Willhoite), 1:49 Deep Throat (film), 2:436, 437, 512
counterculture and, 1:176, 242, 317; Dahl, Steve, 2:517 Deer Hunter, The (film), 2:581
2:423, 547–48 Daily Show, The (TV program), 2:351, defense, defense spending, 1:101, 135, 136,
Democratic Party and, 1:136 538–39, 538 158, 226, 249, 322; 2:391, 394, 405,
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 Daily Worker (newspaper), 1:59, 79, 112, 428, 451, 469, 492, 558, 612
gun control and, 1:232 233 See also Strategic Defense Initiative
guns and, 2:391, 392 Dale, James, 1:50 Defense Department, U.S., 1:4, 209, 277;
Heritage Foundation and, 1:249 Daley, Richard, 1:83, 267; 2:596 2:395, 445, 494, 502, 545, 554, 569,
Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:263 Dallacroce, Michelle, 1:272 612, 622
Horton, Willie, and, 1:265 Dallas Theological Seminary, 1:201; 2:440 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 2:486
Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293 D’Amato, Alphonse, 2:386, 507 DeFreeze, Donald, 2:547
Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 Dangerous Place, A (Moynihan), 2:573 Degan, William, 2:482
militia movement and, 2:365 Daniel, Charles E., 2:564 DeGeneres, Ellen, 1:207, 320; 2:592
Million Man March and, 2:362 Daniels, Charlie, 2:346 DeLay, Thomas Dale, 1:72, 132–33; 2:386
Miranda rights and, 2:363–64 Daniels, Mitch, 2:444 Dellinger, David, 1:83; 2:596
New Right and, 2:451 Danson, Ted, 1:46 Deloria, Vine Victor, Jr., 1:22, 133–34
O.J. Simpson trial and, 2:417 Darby, John Nelson, 2:439 DeMar, Gary, 1:90
police corruption and, 2:433 Darby, Joseph, 1:3; 2:612 Dembski, William A., 1:125
prison reform and, 2:442 Darden, Christopher, 2:418 D’Emilio, John, 1:205
race and, 2:452 Dare to Discipline (Dobson), 1:138, 183; DeMille, Cecil B., 2:554
racial profiling and, 2:453–54 2:532 Demjanjuk, John, 1:134
Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 Dartmouth College, 1:276; 2:544 Democracy for America, 1:129
right to counsel and, 2:471, 472 Dartmouth Review, 1:143; 2:544 Democratic Leadership Committee, 2:547
Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514 Darwin, Charles, 1:124, 125, 200 Democratic Leadership Council, 1:96, 136,
Soros, George, and, 2:525 Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical 225, 237
think tanks and, 2:558 Challenge to Evolution (Behe), 1:39 Democratic National Committee (DNC),
vigilantism and, 1:222–23, 231; Das Kapital (Marx), 2:338 1:72, 104, 129, 129, 130, 176–77,
2:582–83 Dash, Samuel, 1:100 322; 2:602, 624
War on Drugs and, 2:592–93 Daughters of the American Revolution, Democratic National Convention of 1968,
white supremacists and, 2:614, 615, 616 1:34, 106, 180 1:83, 136, 218, 242, 257, 279; 2:335,
zero tolerance and, 2:629 Daughters of Bilitis, 1:206; 2:513, 515, 399, 433, 578, 596
Crips, 1:204; 2:499 516 Democratic National Convention of 2004;
Crisis of Conscience (Franz), 1:285 Davies, John W., 1:54 2:574
Croll, Robert, 2:543 Davis, Angela, 1:137–38, 236, 362 Democratic Party, U.S.
Cronkite, Walter Leland, Jr., 1:126; 2:457 Davis, Benjamin, 1:235 abortion and, 1:1
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, 2:476, 596, Davis, Gray, 1:182; 2:498, 499 Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12
628 Davis, Rennie, 1:83 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward Bradley, Bill, and, 1:50
(Marrs), 2:539 County (1952), 1:54 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56
Index I-15
Democratic Party, U.S. (continued) Democratic Party, U.S. (continued) DFL. See Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Byrd, Robert, and, 1:65, 66 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341 Dharma Bums, The (Kerouac), 1:121
campaign finance reform and, 1:67; 2:339 McCarthyism and, 2:343–44, 549 Diallo, Amadou, 2:514
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:72–73 McGovern, George, and, 2:345–47, 346 Dick Tracy (comic strip), 1:107
China and, 1:85 Mondale, Walter, and, 2:364 Dickerson v. U.S. (2000), 2:364
Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86 Moore, Michael, and, 2:366, 366 Didion, Joan, 2:398
Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:372 Diem, Ngo Dinh, 1:78
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 Nader, Ralph, and, 2:381 Dies, Martin, 1:175; 2:342
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 Nation, The, and, 2:381 Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry
Clinton impeachment and, 1:100; 2:603 National Endowment for the Arts and, is Killing Us (Cook), 1:168
Cold War and, 1:100, 101, 102 2:387 Digital Dirt (film), 1:142
communism and, 1:110, 111 Nelson, Willie, and, 2:393 Dillard, Angela D., 2:373
Confederate flag and, 1:115 neoconservatism and, 2:394, 395 Diop, Cheikh Anta, 1:11
Contract with America and, 1:118 New Deal and, 2:397 Dirksen, Everett, 2:493, 496
Cuba and, 1:127 New Left and, 2:399 Dirty Harry, 2:583
Cuban Americans and, 1:224 New York Times and, 2:400 disability, 1:69, 71, 196, 197, 231, 240,
Dean, Howard, and, 1:129–30, 129 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404–5 276–77, 294, 304; 2:405, 407, 473,
DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 Obama, Barack, and, 2:411–12 491, 517, 522, 558
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 presidential pardons and, 2:441 See also Americans with Disabilities Act
education reform and, 1:150 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458, 459 discrimination
Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 red and blue states and, 2:460 affirmative action and, 1:8–10
Election of 2000 and, 1:153–55; 2:380 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 age, 1:11–12
Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 157–59, Republican Party and, 2:468–69 AIDS and, 1:13–14
157; 2:509 Rove, Karl, and, 2:481, 482 anti-Semitism and, 1:28
FCC and, 1:175 Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488 Bob Jones University and, 1:47
FDA and, 1:186 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493 Boy Scouts and, 1:50
federal budget deficit and, 1:174 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 Brown v. Board of Education and, 1:53–54
Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:179–80 segregation and, 1:95 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60
Ford, Gerald, and, 1:188 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514 capital punishment and, 1:71
forests, parklands, and federal wilderness Social Security and, 2:522 Catholic Church and, 1:75
and, 1:190 Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:532 civil rights movement and, 1:93–96
Frank, Barney, and, 1:195 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 comparable worth and, 1:113
Freedom of Information Act and, 1:197 Stewart, Jon, and, 2:539 Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153
Galbraith, John Kenneth, and, 1:203 third parties and, 2:559–60 ERA and, 1:164–65
gay rights and, 1:207, 209 Thomas, Clarence, and, 1:330; 2:561 faith-based programs and, 1:169–70
Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216, 216, 217 Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:563–64, 564 Hillsdale College and, 1:253
global warming and, 1:219 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:568–69 homosexuals and, 1:55, 205–7
Gore, Al, and, 1:225 Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:570 housing and, 1:64–65
Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:575 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:299–300
gun control and, 1:232 Voting Rights Act and, 2:585 MacKinnon, Catharine, and, 2:332
Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237 Wallace, George, and, 2:588 Million Man March and, 2:362
Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 multicultural conservatism and, 2:373
health care and, 1:243, 245 Wal-Mart and, 2:590 NAACP and, 2:383–84
Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 Watergate and, 2:602, 603 Native Americans and, 1:275
Hightower, Jim, and, 1:250 Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609–10 New Left and, 2:398–99
Hill, Anita, and, 1:251 Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), NOW and, 2:389
Hispanic Americans and, 1:311 1:152, 237 political correctness and, 2:435
Horton, Willie, 1:264–65 Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), racial profiling and, 2:453–54
HUAC and, 2:342 1:196, 267; 2:340, 378, 609 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464
Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:266–67 Demon-Haunted World, The (Sagan), 2:396 same-sex marriage and, 2:486, 487
Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270 Deng Xiaoping, 1:85 sexual harassment and, 2:511–12
Israel and, 1:281 Denmark, 1:288 Sowell, Thomas, and, 2:530
Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282–83 Dennis, Eugene, 1:111, 235 speech codes and, 2:530–31
Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 Dennis v. U.S. (1951), 1:236 tax-exempt status and, 1:47, 73; 2:260,
judicial wars and, 1:290 Denny, Reginald, 1:301, 302 466
Kennedy family and, 1:292–94 Denton, Jeremiah, 2:508 transgender movement and, 2:568
Kerry, John, and, 1:295, 296, 296 Denver, John, 2:460 vigilantism and, 2:582
Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304 DePugh, Robert, 2:615 Voting Rights Act and, 2:584
Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305 Dereliction of Duty (Patterson), 1:210 Wal-Mart and, 2:590
Kyoto Protocol and, 1:309 Derrida, Jacques, 1:131; 2:543 women in the military and, 2:622
labor unions and, 1:311, 312 Dershowitz, Alan, 1:87 See also civil rights
LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315 Desert Solitaire (Abbey), 1:149, 189 Disraeli, Benjamin, 2:617
Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322, 323 détente, 1:102, 188, 305; 2:394, 395, 405 District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), 1:232
Lott, Trent, and, 1:327 Devil in Miss Jones, The (film), 2:436, 512 Disuniting of America, The: Reflections on
Mailer, Norman, and, 2:335 Dewey, John, 1:90; 2:501 a Multicultural Society (Schlesinger),
Malcolm X and, 2:335 Dewey, Thomas E., 1:101, 263; 2:494, 2:435
McCarthy, Eugene, and, 2:340 560, 569, 599 diversity training, 1:137–38, 280; 2:374
I-16 Index
divorce, 1:165, 183, 247; 2:355, 458, 492, Drug Efficacy Amendment (1962), 1:186 Duffy, Warren, 1:90
501 Drug Efficacy Study Implementation Dukakis, Michael Stanley, 1:19, 31, 32, 61,
Dixie Chicks, 1:77, 123; 2:597 (1968), 1:186 145, 238, 264, 265, 282, 296, 304;
Dixiecrats, 1:27, 95, 110, 135, 266, 327; Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. 2:380, 430, 469
2:336, 560, 563, 564, 594 (DEA), 2:353, 592, 593 Duke, Charles, 2:365
Dixon, Edgar D., 2:424 Drug Free Workplace Act (1988), 1:142 Duke, David Ernest, 1:145–46, 259;
DJ Danger Mouse, 1:77 drug testing, 1:142–43; 2:344 2:614, 615
Dmytryk, Edward, 1:257, 258 drugs, illegal Duke, Michael T., 2:590
DNA, 1:71, 213; 2:417, 510 AIDS and, 1:13, 14 Duke University, 1:240; 2:405, 544
DNC. See Democratic National Committee Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57 Dulles, Allen, 2:401
Do the Right Thing (film), 1:317, 318 Canada and, 1:69 Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and
Dobson, James Clayton, 1:89, 132, Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 Environmental Quality (Bullard), 1:59
138–39, 183–84, 290, 314; 2:446, comic strips and, 1:107, 108 Dungy, Tony, 1:208
447, 466, 487, 491, 532, 544, 602 counterculture and, 1:120, 121 Durang, Christopher, 1:326
Doctorow, E.L., 2:381, 480 Democratic Party and, 1:136 Duranty, Walter, 2:400
Dodd, Christopher, 1:157 Focus on the Family and, 1:183 Durban, Dick, 1:4
Dodd, Thomas, 2:612 Foucault, Michel, and, 1:192 Durbin, Roger, 2:626
Doe v. Bolton (1973), 1:140 Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200 Dworkin, Andrea Rita, 1:146, 247; 2:332,
Doe v. University of Michigan (1981), 2:531 gangs and, 1:203, 204 437
Doerfer, John, 1:175 heavy metal and, 1:246 Dylan, Bob, 1:34, 121, 147, 233; 2:476,
Dogma (film), 1:325 Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:247 596
Dohrn, Bernardine, 2:545 Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257
Doings and Undoings (Podhoretz), 1:295 Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:294, 295 Eagle, Jimmy, 1:23
Dole, Robert, 1:85, 88, 175, 217; 2:617, King, Rodney, and, 1:301 Eagle Forum, 1:165; 2:389, 492
626 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Eagleton, Thomas F., 2:346–47, 346
domestic spying, 1:64, 78, 198, 262, 266, Leary, Timothy, and, 1:316–17 Earle, Steve, 1:123
278, 293; 2:342, 434, 441, 486, 504, Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:324 Earth Day, 1:148, 163, 262
556, 574, 574, 613 literature and, 1:324 Earth First!, 1:148, 149, 163, 188–89,
Dominican Republic, 1:78, 255 Manson, Marilyn, and, 2:336 252, 253
Donahue, Phillip John, 1:139–40 McLuhan, Marshall, and, 2:348 Earth in the Balance (Gore), 1:72, 225
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” 1:97, 209, 209, Mexico and, 2:356 Earth Liberation Front (ELF), 1:30, 149,
210; 2:421 Million Man March and, 2:362 164; 2:427
Doomsday Clock, 2:408–9 Nelson, Willie, and, 2:392, 393 East of Eden (film), 1:130; 2:535
Doonesbury (comic strip), 1:107–8; 2:562 New Journalism and, 2:398 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1:148
Doors, The, 1:121; 2:596 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:423 Eastland, James O., 1:111; 2:401
Doors of Perception, The (Huxley), 1:121 Progressive Christians Uniting and, Easy Rider (film), 1:121
Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 2:403 2:446 Eberstadt, Mary, 2:544
Douglas, Kirk, 1:307 racial profiling and, 2:453 Eckerd, Jack, 1:104
Douglas, William Orville, 1:140, 175; rap music and, 2:455 Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching
2:443, 495, 599 Republican Party and, 2:469 (Foreman), 1:149
Douglas T. Smith et al. v. Board of School rock and roll and, 2:476 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 2:593,
Commissioners of Mobile County (1987), sexual revolution and, 2:512 594
2:501 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514 Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 2:445, 558
Douglas v. California (1963), 2:471 Soros, George, and, 2:525 Economic Recovery Tax Act (1981), 1:174
Dow, Charles H., 2:587 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Ecotage (handbook), 1:149
Dow Jones & Company, 2:587, 587 Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 ecoterrorism, 1:29, 30, 148–50, 163,
Dowd, Maureen, 2:400 student conservatives and, 2:544 188–89, 253; 2:426–27, 572
Downs, Anthony, 2:444 Thompson, Hunter S., and, 2:562 Ecuador, 1:255
Dr. Phil, 1:140–41 U.S. military and, 1:142 Ed Sullivan Show (TV program), 1:267;
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop vigilantism and, 2:583 2:476
Worrying and Love the Bomb (film), Will, George, and, 2:617 education
1:307, 319; 2:409, 553 Young, Neil, and, 2:628 academic freedom and, 1:5–7, 27
draft, military, 1:15, 19, 69, 73, 81, 86, Zappa, Frank, and, 2:629 affirmative action and, 1:8–10
96, 122, 165, 178, 188, 215, 233, zero tolerance and, 2:629 AIDS and, 1:14
304; 2:346, 382, 399, 441, 445, 492, See also marijuana, medical; War on Drugs anti-Semitism and, 1:28
532, 543, 545, 596 Dryfoos, Orvil E., 2:400 book banning and, 1:49
Draper, Theodore, 2:394 DSA. See Democratic Socialists of America Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51
Dreeson, Tom, 2:538 D’Souza, Dinesh, 1:143–44, 2:373, 504, Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57–58
Dresden, Germany, 1:254 544 capital punishment and, 2:484
dress codes, 1:77; 2:497 Du, Soon Ja, 1:301 Catholic Church and, 1:74
Drinan, Robert F., 1:195 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt, 1:54, censorship and, 1:77
Drinnon, Richard, 1:121 93, 144–45, 230; 2:381, 383 Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86
Drucker, Peter, 2:444 Duck and Cover (film), 1:64, 101, 180; Christian fundamentalism and, 1:47
Drudge, Matt, 1:278, 323 2:408 Christian reconstructionism and, 1:90
Drudge Report (Web site), 1:99, 141–42, 142 due process, 2:363, 377, 443, 471, 583, church and state and, 1:92
Drug Abuse Control Amendments (1965), 592, 630 civil rights movement and, 1:94, 95
1:186 Duffey, Joseph D., 2:387 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96
Index I-17
education (continued) education reform (continued) Election of 2008, 1:98–99, 129, 156–59,
compassionate conservatism and, 1:113 Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200 157; 2:411–12, 423–24, 448, 453,
counterculture and, 1:122 Great Books and, 1:229 505, 509, 532
creationism and intelligent design and, homeschooling and, 1:260–61 Electoral College, 1:154, 155, 159, 224,
1:40, 124–25 hooks, bell, and, 1:261 226; 2:340, 346, 411, 428, 460, 560
disability and, 1:276–77 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:423 Electric Auto-Lite strike, 1:59; 2:527
drug testing and, 1:142–43 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427 Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The (Wolfe),
D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:143–44 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 2:398, 621
gay rights and, 1:55, 206, 210 Educational Wastelands (Bestor), 1:151 Electronic Freedom of Information Act
Great Society and, 1:230 Edward, J. Gordon, 1:162, 163 (1996), 1:198
Heritage Foundation and, 1:250 Edwards, Bob, 2:377 Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 Edwards, Douglas, 1:126 (1965), 1:150, 151, 287; 2:508
Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267 Edwards, Edwin, 1:146 ELF. See Earth Liberation Front
Hutchins, Robert M., and, 1:271 Edwards, Eldon Lee, 2:614 Ellen (TV program), 1:205, 207; 2:617
Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282 Edwards, John, 1:157; 2:539, 567 Ellis, John Prescott, 1:154
Jehovah’s Witnesses and, 1:285 Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), 1:124 Ellis, Warren, 1:106
Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293 EEOC. See Equal Employment Opportunity Ellison, Keith, 2:378
Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322 Commission Ellsberg, Daniel, 1:104, 322; 2:602, 612
McLuhan, Marshall, and, 2:348 Egypt, 1:280; 2:489 employment
moral relativism and, 2:465 Ehrenreich, Barbara Alexander, 1:114, 152; affirmative action and, 1:8–10
multiculturalism and ethnic studies and, 2:381, 589 age discrimination and, 1:11–12
2:374 Ehrlich, Paul, 1:110 Americans with Disabilities Act and,
NAACP and, 2:384 Ehrlich, Robert, 2:353 1:24
National Endowment for the Humanities Ehrlichman, John, 1:130; 2:603 Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40
and, 2:387, 388 Eichmann, Adolph, 1:92 Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51
New Left and, 2:399 Eighth Amendment, 1:69, 70, 71; 2:561 Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86
NOW and, 2:389 Einstein, Albert, 2:409 civil rights movement and, 1:95
political correctness and, 2:434–35 Eisenhower, Dwight David, 1:153 Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153
privatization and, 2:444 American civil religion and, 1:20 faith-based programs and, 1:169–70
race and, 2:452 American exceptionalism, 1:21 feminism and, 1:177
Religious Right and, 2:466 American Indian movement and, 1:22 globalization and, 1:220–21
revisionist history and, 1:105; 2:435, 470 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 homosexuals and, 1:55, 204, 206; 2:523
Rove, Karl, and, 2:481 Cold War and, 1:101, 102, 103 immigration policy and, 1:274
Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 conspiracy theories and, 1:116 La Follette, Robert, Jr., and, 1:310
school busing and, 1:64–65 education reform and, 1:150 Million Man March and, 2:362
science and, 1:101, 124; 2:466, 499 FCC and, 1:175 Moore, Michael, and, 2:365
secular humanism and, 2:501 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227 NAACP and, 2:384
segregation and, 1:53–54 John Birch Society and, 1:286 NOW and, 2:389
sexual harassment and, 2:511, 512 McCarthyism and, 2:344 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458
Soros, George, and, 2:525 New Deal and, 2:397, 468 Social Security and, 2:522–23
Sowell, Thomas, and, 2:530 New York Times and, 2:400 transgender movement and, 2:568
speech codes and, 1:143, 280; 2:435, Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403, 404 Wal-Mart and, 2:590
530–31 nuclear age and, 2:408 War on Poverty and, 2:594
Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and, 2:419 Watts and Los Angeles riots and, 2:604,
structuralism and, 2:542 presidential pardons and, 2:440 605
student conservatives and, 2:543–44 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458 wealth gap and, 2:607
think tanks and, 2:558, 559 Rockwell, Norman, and, 2:478 welfare and, 2:609
War on Drugs and, 2:593 segregation and, 1:53, 54, 94 See also labor, labor unions
Washington Times and, 2:602 Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 End of History and the Last Man, The
women’s studies and, 2:623–24 Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549 (Fukuyama), 1:103, 112, 269
zero tolerance and, 2:629–30 Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:571 endangered species, 1:26
See also education reform; school prayer; Warren, Earl, and, 2:599 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1:148,
school vouchers Eisenhower administration, 1:127, 197; 159–60, 163, 190; 2:359
Education Amendments (1972), 2:511 2:385 Enemy at Home, The: The Cultural Left and Its
Education Bureau, U.S., 1:150 Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), 2:443 Responsibility for 9/11 (D’Souza), 1:144;
Education Department, U.S., 1:41, 73, Eisner, Michael, 2:591 2:504
150, 169, 229, 260; 2:466, 531 El Norte (film), 1:272 energy, renewable, 1:162
Education for All Handicapped Children El Salvador, 1:239, 272, 278; 2:493 Energy Department, U.S., 1:73; 2:410
Act (1975), 1:276 Election of 2000, 1:27, 62–63, 67, 113, energy policy
education reform, 1:150–52 136, 153–56, 154, 224, 225, 225, Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81, 82
Adler, Mortimer, and, 1:7–8 226, 277; 2:376, 380, 381, 384, 393, Election of 2008 and, 1:157, 159
Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40 448, 461, 464, 465, 466, 469–70, Engel, Steven, 2:495
Bennett, William, and, 1:41 480, 500, 539, 553, 560, 610, 621 Engel v. Vitale (1962), 1:18, 74, 92, 288;
Bush, George W., and, 1:62, 63 Election of 2004, 1:83, 129, 142, 251, 2:466, 494, 495, 496, 600
Bush, Jeb, and, 1:62 287, 289, 295–96; 2:366, 366, 421, Engels, Friedrich, 2:338
charter schools and, 1:79–80 466, 470, 476, 480, 481, 487, 500, England, 1:38, 49, 149, 231
Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:82 525, 532, 539, 579, 610 See also Great Britain
I-18 Index
English as the Official Language, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. evangelicalism (continued)
1:160–61, 217, 274; 2:356, 585 (EPA), 1:59, 72, 82, 132, 148, 163, Christian Coalition and, 1:88
Enlightenment, 1:265; 2:438, 446 186; 2:380, 397, 404, 520, 613 Christian music and, 1:117
Enola Gay exhibit, 1:161, 284 EPI. See Economic Policy Institute Christian radio and, 1:89–90
Enron Corporation, 1:34, 119, 167 Epperson, Stuart, 1:90 Christmas and, 1:91
Ensler, Eve, 2:511 Epperson v. Arkansas (1969), 1:124 Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104
environmental movement, 1:159–60, Epstein, Jason, 2:432 counterculture and, 1:122
162–64, 189–91 Equal Employment Opportunity Act country music and, 1:122, 123
animal rights and, 1:26 (1972), 1:11; 2:492 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132
Arnold, Ron, and, 1:29, 30 Equal Employment Opportunity Democratic Party and, 1:136
Carson, Rachel, and, 1:71–72 Commission, U.S. (EEOC), 1:9, 24, Dobson, James, and, 1:138
Cheney, Dick, and, 1:82 230; 2:404, 511, 512, 561, 613 Election of 2008 and, 1:158, 159
Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86 Equal Pay Act (1963), 1:11, 113; 2:492 Focus on the Family and, 1:183–84
Commoner, Barry, and, 1:109–10 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 1:2, 55, Founding Fathers and, 1:192
counterculture and, 1:121 164–65, 172, 177–78, 179, 199, 239, gender-inclusive language and, 1:211
Deloria, Vine, and, 1:133 313; 2:389, 466, 467, 469, 492, 544 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227–28
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Erikson, Erik, 1:199 Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236
Earth Day and, 1:148 Ervin, Sam, 1:177 heavy metal and, 1:246
ecoterrorism and, 1:148–50, 188–89 Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), 2:363, 471 homeschooling and, 1:260
Election of 2000 and, 1:155 Espionage Act (1917), 2:480 homosexuals and, 1:83
factory farms and, 1:168 Esquire magazine, 1:80, 247, 248; 2:334, Hunter, James Davison, and, 1:268
Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 621 Israel and, 1:281
Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200 Ethiopia, 1:147 Jehovah’s Witnesses and, 1:285
generational conflict and, 1:213 eugenics, 2:431 Jesus People and, 1:285–86
genetically modified foods and, 1:214 EURO. See European-American Unity and Jones, Bob, Jr., and, 1:47
Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216 Rights Organization LaHaye, Tim and Beverly, and, 1:313–14,
global warming and, 1:219 Europe 313
globalization and, 1:38, 220 academic freedom in, 1:6 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347
Gore, Al, and, 1:225–26 anti-Semitism in, 1:28 Moral Majority and, 2:367–68
government regulation and, 1:160, 218, Chernobyl and, 2:410, 528 New Age movement and, 2:396
219, 308–9; 2:499 child care and, 2:534 Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429
Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242 Cold War and, 1:100, 101, 102, 103 premillennial dispensationalism and,
Hightower, Jim, and, 1:250 colonialism and, 1:10, 105, 201 2:439
Hill, Julia “Butterfly,” and, 1:252–53 communism and, 1:111, 112 Promise Keepers and, 2:446–47, 446
Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257 DDT and, 1:72 Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463, 463
human rights and, 1:266 Duke, David, and, 1:146 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201
immigration policy and, 1:274 fascism in, 2:342 Republican Party and, 2:468, 469
Kyoto Protocol and, 1:308–9 genetically modified foods and, 1:214 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474, 475, 475
Leopold, Aldo, and, 1:319 Ginsberg, Allen, and, 1:218 Rove, Karl, and, 2:481
Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 globalization and, 1:221 Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490
Love Canal and, 1:328 Green Party and, 1:121 Sider, Ron, and, 2:518
McCain, John, and, 2:339 Internet and, 1:278 Simpsons, The, and, 2:519
militia movement and, 2:359 Islamic fundamentalism and, 1:201 Southern Baptist Convention and,
Nation, The, and, 2:381 Israel and, 1:280 2:525–26
Nelson, Willie, and, 2:392, 393 Murrow, Edward R., and, 2:376 student conservatives and, 2:544
New Age movement and, 2:395 Muslim Americans and, 2:377 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589
nuclear age and, 2:410, 563 neoconservatism and, 2:394 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601
Packwood, Bob, and, 2:422 nuclear age and, 2:409, 410 Weyrich, Paul M., and, 2:611
Palin, Sarah, and, 2:423 Obama, Barack, and, 1:158 Wildmon, Donald, and, 2:616
Progressive Christians Uniting and, 2:446 race and, 2:452 See also fundamentalism, religious;
race and, 1:45, 59–60 Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490 Religious Right; televangelism
Redford, Robert, and, 2:461, 462 social welfare and, 2:522 Evans, M. Stanton, 2:342
Republican Party and, 2:469 Soros, George, and, 2:525 Evans, Martin John, 2:537
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 war protesters and, 2:596 Evans, Medford, 2:342
science wars and, 2:499, 500 World Council of Churches and, 2:625 Evans, Sherman, 1:114
Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502 Europe, Eastern, 1:4, 100, 102, 103, 111, Evers, Medgar, 1:147
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 112; 2:430, 528, 529, 582, 611, 629 Everson v. Board of Education of the Township
Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 European Union, 1:69; 2:357, 358, 626 of Ewing, et al. (1947), 1:92, 193, 288;
Students for a Democratic Society and, European-American Unity and Rights 2:494
2:545 Organization (EURO), 1:146; 2:615 Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All
Turner, Ted, and, 2:570 evangelicalism, 1:165–66 Pay for Wal-Mart (report), 2:590
Unabomber and, 2:572 abortion and, 1:1, 2 evolution, 1:18, 39–40, 63, 84, 92, 104,
war protesters and, 2:595 ACLU and, 1:18 123–25, 132, 134, 166, 200, 260;
Watt, James, and, 2:603–4 Bono and, 1:48 2:466, 499, 500, 501, 508
whistleblowers and, 2:612, 613 Campolo, Anthony “Tony,” and, 1:68 See also creationism and intelligent design;
World Council of Churches and, 2:625 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:72, 73 Scopes “Monkey” Trial
See also ecoterrorism; global warming Chick, Jack, and, 1:84 Ewing v. California (2003), 2:442
Index I-19
Ex parte Grossman (1925), 2:440 family values, 1:171–72 Fashionable Nonsense (Sokal and Bricmont),
Executioner’s Song, The (Mailer), 1:70, 216; book banning and, 1:49 2:524
2:335 Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51 fast food, 2:413–14
executive branch, 2:504–5, 570–71, Cheney family and, 1:83 Fast Food Nation (Schlosser), 1:168
594–95, 602, 603, 613 Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Faubus, Orville, 1:94
executive compensation, 1:36, 167 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 Faurisson, Robert, 1:87, 259
existentialism, 1:194, 324 compassionate conservatism and, 1:113 FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation
Exner, Judith Campbell, 1:292 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 FCC. See Federal Communications
extraordinary rendition, 1:64; 2:505 Dobson, James, and, 1:138–39 Commission
Exxon Valdez oil spill, 2:572 Dr. Phil and, 1:141 FCC v. Pacifica (1978), 1:176
ExxonMobil, 1:167 drama and, 1:326 FDA. See Food and Drug Administration
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Thompson),
Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating ERA and, 1:165 1:121; 2:562
and Empire-Building (Drinnon), 1:121 evangelicalism and, 1:166 Fear of Flying (Jong), 2:385
factory farms, 1:26, 168–69; 2:392, 426, feminism and, 1:177, 178 Fearful Master, The: A Second Look at the
489 film and, 1:325; 2:354 United Nations (Griffin), 2:573
Fahrenheit 9/11 (film), 1:215; 2:351, 366, Focus on the Family and, 1:183–84 FEC. See Federal Election Commission
505 González, Elián, and, 1:224 federal budget deficit, 1:156, 173–74, 213,
FAIR. See Fairness and Accuracy in Gore, Al, and, 1:225, 226 216, 226, 306; 2:397, 406, 427, 459,
Reporting Heritage Foundation and, 1:249 547, 551, 560
Fair Deal, 1:101, 243; 2:397 homeschooling and, 260–61 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Fair Housing Amendment Act (1988), 1:24 Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 American Indian Movement and, 1:23;
Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 2:414 Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304 2:462, 627
Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (1966), LaHaye, Tim and Beverly, and, 1:313 Black Panther Party and, 1:44–45
1:186 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 Brown Scare and, 2:342
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), men’s movement and, 2:355 Budenz, Louis F., and, 1:59
1:280; 2:351, 420 Millett, Kate, and, 2:361 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60
Fairness Doctrine, 1:175, 236, 323; 2:347, multicultural conservatism and, 2:373 civil rights movement and, 1:95
550 NOW and, 2:389 Clinton administration and, 1:99; 2:533
faith-based programs, 1:104, 113, 114, Promise Keepers and, 2:446–47, 446 communism and, 1:6, 112
169–70, 322; 2:498, 518 Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451 conspiracy theories and, 1:116
False Claims Act (1863), 2:612 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 Counter Intelligence Program of, 1:262;
Faludi, Susan, 2:355 Religious Right and, 2:466 2:344, 434, 579, 596
Falwell, Jerry Lamon, 1:170, 170–71; Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 Dean, John, and, 1:130
2:466, 467 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474 ecoterrorism and, 1:149, 164, 189
abortion and, 1:2; 2:479 Rockwell, Norman, and, 2:477 environmental movement and, 1:30
ACLU and, 1:19 Rove, Karl, and, 2:481 FCC and, 1:175
AIDS and, 1:13 same-sex marriage and, 2:487 Felt, W. Mark, and, 1:176–77; 2:624
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:389, 492 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262–63
comic strips and, 1:108 school shootings and, 2:496 Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293
evangelicalism and, 1:166 sex education and, 2:508 lynching and, 1:330
Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182 sexual revolution and, 2:512, 513 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:343
Founding Fathers and, 1:193 Simpsons, The, and, 2:519 McCarthyism and, 2:343
homosexuals and, 1:207, 208 Social Security and, 2:522 Montana Freemen and, 2:365
LaHaye, Tim, and, 1:313, 314 stay-at-home mothers and, 2:534 New Left and, 2:399
Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314 televangelism and, 2:552 Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:403
Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Wallace, George, and, 2:588 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and, 2:419
McCain, John, and, 2:339 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 presidential pardons and, 2:441
McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347 Wal-Mart and, 2:590 rap music and, 2:456
Moral Majority and, 2:367, 519 Washington Times and, 2:602 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458
pornography and, 2:436–37 Wildmon, Donald, and, 2:616–17 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, and, 2:480
Progressive Christians Uniting and, World magazine and, 2:625 Ruby Ridge Incident and, 2:365, 482
2:445 Farber, Stephen, 2:371 Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483
religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 Fard, Wallace D., 2:377, 382 Said, Edward, and, 2:486
Republican Party and, 2:469 Farm Aid, 1:147; 2:393, 628 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502
September 11 and, 1:184; 2:503 Farmer, James, 1:86 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 farming, farmers, 1:80–81, 82, 111, Thomas, Clarence, and, 2:561
televangelism and, 2:552, 553 250, 272, 327; 2:356, 358–59, Till, Emmett, and, 2:565
Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 565, 609 USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574
Weyrich, Paul M., and, 2:611 See also factory farms; United Farm Waco siege and, 2:586
Family Channel, 2:552 Workers Union Watergate and, 2:602
Family Leave and Medical Emergency Act Farrakhan, Louis Abdul, 1:172–73, 173; whistleblowers and, 2:612
(1993), 1:50, 97 2:356, 362, 377, 382 Williams, William Appleman, and,
Family Matters (Guterson), 1:260 Farris, Michael, 1:260, 261 2:618
Family Research Council, 1:138, 171, 183, FAS. See Federation of Atomic Scientists See also Hoover, John Edgar
290; 2:522 fascism, 2:342, 343, 402, 493, 502, 621 Federal Coal Mine Safety Act (1952), 2:414
I-20 Index
Federal Communications Commission feminism (continued) Ferguson, Niall, 1:17

(FCC), 1:18, 76–77, 109, 174–76, Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:246, 247 Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, 1:120, 217, 218
323; 2:347, 348, 416, 447, 476, 517, hooks, bell, and, 1:261 Ferraro, Geraldine, 1:179–80; 2:364, 372,
538, 598 human rights and, 1:265, 266 412
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282 Ferris, William R., 2:387, 388
2:397 King, Billie Jean, and, 1:299 Feulner, Edwin J., 1:250; 2:611
Federal Election Campaign Act (1971), Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314 Fey, Tina, 2:424
1:67 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 50 Cent, 1:204
Federal Election Commission (FEC), 1:67; lesbians and, 1:320 Fifteenth Amendment, 2:584
2:463 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 Fifth Amendment, 1:19, 180, 257; 2:363,
Federal Emergency Management Agency literature and, 1:325 417, 443, 471, 502, 561
(FEMA), 1:116, 270, 327 MacKinnon, Catharine, and, 2:332 filibuster, 1:290; 2:335, 566
Federal Firearms Act (1938), 1:232 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:335 Filipinos, 2:358
Federal Flag Desecration Law (1968), 1:180 marriage names and, 2:337 film industry, films, 1:76, 181, 194, 207,
Federal Food, Cosmetic, and Drug Act Marxism and, 2:338 208, 214–15, 257–58, 317–18; 2:354,
(1938), 1:185 McCloskey, Deirdre, and, 2:345 365–66, 370–71, 407, 425–26, 436,
Federal Reserve Board, U.S., 2:455, 606 men’s movement and, 2:355 459, 461–62, 498–99, 539–40, 554,
Federal Toy Gun Law (1988), 2:598 Millett, Kate, and, 2:361–62, 361 581, 583, 591–92, 599, 605–6
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 1:76; Million Man March and, 2:362 Financial Times, 2:587
2:357, 598 Morgan, Robin, and, 2:368 Finley, Karen, 2:386
Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS), Morrison, Toni, and, 2:369 Fiorina, Morris, 1:268
2:408 Ms. and, 2:372 FIRE. See Foundation for Individual Rights
Feingold, Russell, 1:67; 2:574 NAACP and, 2:384 in Education
Feis, Herbert, 1:102 National Endowment for the Humanities firefighters, 2:503, 506
Feith, Douglas, 2:394, 395 and, 2:388 Firing Line (TV program), 1:8, 57, 229,
Felt, William Mark, 1:176–77; 2:441, neoconservatism and, 2:394 295; 2:448
612, 624 New Age movement and, 2:396 First Amendment, 1:49, 50, 77, 91, 92,
FEMA. See Federal Emergency Management New Left and, 2:398, 399 93, 140, 146, 175, 176, 180, 181, 182,
Agency NOW and, 2:389 240, 246, 278, 288, 330; 2:332, 336,
Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), 1:177, O’Connor, Sandra Day, and, 2:415 367, 437, 443, 494, 495, 498, 501,
198, 199; 2:388 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:422–23 502, 517, 530, 531, 561, 598, 600
feminism pornography and, 2:436, 437 fiscal conservatism, 1:171, 174, 248, 249;
abortion debate and, 1:1 premillennial dispensationalism and, 2:384, 385, 423, 447, 498, 522, 523,
Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 2:440 576
Barbie and, 1:36, 37 Progressive Christians Uniting and, fiscal liberalism, 1:66, 135, 136
beauty pageants and, 1:38 2:446 Fish, Hamilton, Jr., 1:322
Brown, Helen Gurley, and, 1:53 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458, 459 Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. (USFWS),
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 1:159, 163, 202
Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:81 Religious Right and, 2:466 Fishback, Ian, 2:612
Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86 Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 Fiske, Robert B., 2:533
Christmas and, 1:91 revisionist history and, 2:471 Fitzgerald, A. Ernest, 2:612
civil rights movement and, 1:96 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:552 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 1:194; 2:562, 619
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:97, 98 Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 1:165; 2:389, 492 flag desecration, 1:19, 62, 76, 136, 145,
comparable worth and, 1:113 second-wave, 1:177–78 180–81, 257; 2:469, 609
counterculture and, 1:121, 122 secular humanism and, 2:501 flag pledging, 1:18, 20, 92, 285; 2:494,
country music and, 1:123 sexual harassment and, 2:512 527, 576
DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 sexual revolution and, 2:513 Flag Protection Act (1989), 1:181
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Shelley, Martha, and, 2:515–16 Flanders, Ralph, 2:341
drama and, 1:326 “Silent Majority” and, 2:519 Flash Gordon (comic strip), 1:107
Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146 Social Security and, 2:522 Fleck, John, 2:386
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and, 1:152 Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 Fleiss, Heidi, 1:181–82
ERA and, 1:164–65 stay-at-home mothers and, 2:534 Flinn, Kelly, 2:622
evangelicalism and, 1:166 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 1:17
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171; 2:503 Steinem, Gloria, and, 2:535–36 Flynt, Larry Claxton, 1:100, 171, 182–83;
family values and, 1:171–72 structuralism and, 2:542, 543 2:436–37, 512
Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:179–80 student conservatives and, 2:543, 544 Focus on the Family, 1:14, 49, 83, 88, 139,
Focus on the Family and, 1:183 televangelism and, 2:552 171, 183–84, 208, 290, 302, 313;
Fonda, Jane, and, 1:184 third-wave, 1:178–79 2:466, 532, 602, 613
Foucault, Michel, and, 1:191, 192 victimhood and, 2:577 Focus on the Family (radio program), 1:89,
France and, 1:194 war protesters and, 2:595 138; 2:446
Friedan, Betty, and, 1:198–99 Washington Times and, 2:602 Focus on the Family Institute, 2:544
fur industry and, 1:202 West, Cornel, and, 2:610 Focus on the Family newsletter, 2:491
gay rights and, 1:205 Winfrey, Oprah, and, 2:620 folk music, 1:4, 34, 147, 233; 2:476, 502,
gender-inclusive language and, 1:210–11 Wolf, Naomi, and, 2:620, 621 596
Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 women’s studies and, 2:623 Follett, Ken, 2:427
Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236 See also Equal Rights Amendment; Folson, “Big Jim,” 2:588
Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237 women Fonda, Henry, 2:535, 605
Index I-21
Fonda, Jane, 1:34, 184, 185, 242; 2:554, Frankenchrist (album), 1:42 Friedman, Thomas L., 1:103, 221; 2:400
563, 570, 579, 595 Frankfurter, Felix, 1:54, 92, 256; 2:599 Friendly, Fred W., 2:376
Foner, Eric, 2:470, 630 Franklin, Benjamin, 1:192 Frist, Bill, 1:290
Food Additives Amendments (1958), Franklin, Karl, 1:31 Frohnmayer, John E., 2:386, 387
1:185 Franklin, Thomas E., 2:506 Froines, John, 1:83, 84
Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, From the Ashes. . .Nicaragua Today (film),
Protection Act (2004), 1:214 1:52 2:388
Food and Drug Act (1906), 1:185 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, From Dawn to Decadence (Barzun), 1:211
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 1:196–97 Froman, Sandra S., 2:391
1:63, 185–87, 213; 2:353, 431, 513 Franz, Raymond, 1:285 Frontline, 2:448
Foote, Shelby, 1:114 Fraser, Donald M., 2:346 FrontPageMagazine.com, 1:7, 264
Forbes, Malcolm, 2:421 Frederick, Ivan, II, 1:3 Frost, David, 1:228; 2:405
Forbes, Steve, 1:139 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, 1:6 Frost, Robert, 1:25
Ford, Gerald Rudolph, 1:12, 52, 73, 81, free market, 1:57, 85, 103, 113, 119, 163, Frye, David, 1:267
86, 89, 102, 103, 136, 140, 187–88, 168, 171, 172, 199, 200, 243, 249, FTC. See Federal Trade Commission
197; 2:405, 440–41, 448, 490, 558, 253, 269, 272, 306, 311, 322; 2:367, Fuchs, Klaus, 1:112; 2:343
581, 595, 603 373, 390, 405, 497, 529, 558, 606, Fuhrman, Mark, 2:417
Ford, Henry, 1:28; 2:402 617 Fukuyama, Francis, 1:16, 42, 103, 112,
Ford, Henry, II, 2:515 free speech 269; 2:394, 395
Ford, John, 2:605 ACLU and, 1:18 Fuller, Charles E., 1:89; 2:526
Ford, Michael, 2:490 book banning and, 1:49 fundamentalism, religious, 1:200–202
Ford administration, 1:24, 56; 2:385, 394 Brokaw, Tom, and, 1:52 ACLU and, 1:18
Ford Corporation, 1:259, 284; 2:617 censorship and, 1:76–77 Bob Jones University and, 1:47, 47
Ford Foundation, 1:271; 2:448 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Campolo, Anthony “Tony,” and, 1:68
Foreign Affairs journal, 1:101, 269; 2:573 Commager, Henry, and, 1:108 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:72, 73
foreign aid, 1:14; 2:508, 515, 569, 580 Douglas, William O., and, 1:140 Chick, Jack, and, 1:84; 2:515
Foreman, Dave, 1:149, 188–89 Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146 Christian reconstructionism and, 1:90
Foreman, George, 1:15 English as the Official Language and, Christmas and, 1:91
Forest Service, U.S., 1:30, 163, 188, 189, 1:161 creationism and intelligent design and,
319 flag desecration and, 1:180–81 1:124–26
forests, parklands, and federal wilderness, Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182 Deloria, Vine, and, 1:134
1:29, 30, 148–49, 159–60, 162–64, generational conflict and, 1:212 evangelicalism and, 1:165–66
188, 189, 189–91, 252–53, 319; Internet and, 1:278 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:170–71
2:603–4 MacKinnon, Catharine, and, 2:332 FCC and, 1:175
Forman, Milos, 1:182 Manson, Marilyn, and, 2:336 globalization and, 1:220
Fortier, Michael J., 2:349 Mapplethorpe, Robert, and, 2:337 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227–28
Fortson, Thomas S., Jr., 2:446 pornography and, 2:436, 437 Hauerwas, Stanley, and, 1:240–41
Fosdick, Dorothy, 2:394 sexual harassment and, 2:511, 512 heavy metal and, 1:246
fossil fuels, 1:218, 219, 250 shock jocks and, 2:517 homeschooling and, 1:260, 261
See also oil industry Thomas, Clarence, and, 2:561 Hunter, James Davison, and, 1:268
Foster, Marcus, 2:547 white supremacists and, 2:614 Islamic, 1:21, 200, 201, 321; 2:430, 489,
Foster, Vincent, 1:98, 99, 323 Will, George, and, 2:617 503, 504
Foster, William Z., 1:17, 111, 235 Winfrey, Oprah, and, 2:620 Israel and, 1:280
Foucault, Paul-Michel, 1:82, 191–92; Zappa, Frank, and, 2:629 Jehovah’s Witnesses and, 1:284–85
2:452 See also speech codes Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304
Foundation for Individual Rights in Free to Choose (TV program), 1:200; 2:448 Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321
Education (FIRE), 1:6; 2:530 free trade, 1:38, 97, 306, 312; 2:356, 428, McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347–48
Founding Fathers, 1:20, 192–93; 2:471, 488, 559, 560 Moral Majority and, 2:367–68
493, 571 See also globalization; North American Obama, Barack, and, 2:412
Fountainhead, The (Rand), 2:455 Free Trade Agreement Operation Rescue and, 2:418–19
Four Freedoms, 1:21, 265; 2:477, 557 Freed, Alan, 2:475 Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429
Fourteenth Amendment, 1:10, 54, 69, 71, Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Montana postmodernism and, 2:438
155, 240, 256, 329; 2:363, 383, 443, Office of Rural Health (2004), 1:170 premillennial dispensationalism and,
453, 464, 471, 479 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act 2:439
Fourth Amendment, 1:143; 2:443, 453, (FACE) (1994), 1:2; 2:418 Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463
479 Freedom of Information Act (1966), 1:197 Religious Right and, 2:466–67
Fox, Michael J., 2:537 Freedom of Information Act (1974), 1:109 rock and roll and, 2:476
Fox News, 1:66, 69, 93, 126, 142, 154, Freedom Riders, 1:94; 2:614 Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490
196, 216, 224, 265, 283, 322; 2:351, Freeman, Derek, 2:350 secular humanism and, 2:501
351, 375, 376, 407, 420, 482, 504, Freud, Sigmund, 2:521, 531 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
539, 601 Freundel, Barry, 1:314 stem-cell research and, 2:537
France, 1:186, 191, 194, 325; 2:337, 359, Friedan, Betty Naomi, 1:53, 121, 177, televangelism and, 2:552
377, 409, 573 178, 198–99, 313, 320; 2:362, 388, United Nations and, 2:573
Francione, Gary, 1:26 389, 501, 516, 534, 536 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589
Frank, Barnett, 1:195 Friedman, Milton, 1:199–200; 2:444, 448, Watt, James, and, 2:604
Franken, Alan Stuart, 1:120, 195–96, 250, 529, 606 Zappa, Frank, and, 2:629
322, 323; 2:366, 420, 547 Friedman, Rose D., 1:200; 2:448 See also evangelicalism; Religious Right
I-22 Index
fur, 1:26, 149, 197, 202; 2:426, 449 gay rights (continued) Giamatti, A. Bartlett, 1:208
Furedi, Frank, 2:577 McCain, John, and, 2:339 Giancana, Sam, 1:292
Furman v. Georgia (1972), 1:70, 215 Milk, Harvey, and, 2:360–61 Giant (film), 1:130
Future of Human Nature, The (Habermas), Millett, Kate, and, 2:362 Gibbs, Lois, 1:328
1:43 NAACP and, 2:384 Gibney, Alex, 2:562
Future Shock (Toffler), 2:439 NPR and, 2:390 Gibson, Charles, 2:424
outing and, 2:421 Gibson, Mel Columcille Gerard, 1:214–15,
Gable, Clark, 2:605 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:423 314; 2:354, 491
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 2:394 premillennial dispensationalism and, 2:440 Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), 2:471
Gaddis, John Lewis, 1:102, 103 privacy rights and, 1:140, 289; 2:443–44 Giger, H.R., 1:42
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1:110, 199, 203 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:459 Gilchrist, James, 1:272
Gallagher, Mike, 2:550 red and blue states and, 2:461 Gilder, George, 2:608
Gambia, 1:235 Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463 Gillespie, Marcia, 2:362
gambling, 1:138, 171, 274–75; 2:463, Religious Right and, 2:466, 467 Gilligan’s Island (TV program), 1:176
519, 526, 577 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474, 552 Gilmore, Gary Mark, 1:70, 215–16; 2:335
Gandhi, Mohandas, 1:80 same-sex marriage and, 2:487 Gingrich, Newton Leroy McPherson, 1:20,
gangs, 1:173, 203–4, 231, 262; 2:382, sexual revolution and, 2:513 62, 97, 100, 114, 118, 161, 195, 216,
455, 456, 499, 613 Shelley, Martha, and, 2:515–16 216–17, 249, 323; 2:390, 406, 428,
Gantt, Harvey, 1:248 Socarides, Charles, and, 2:521 448, 463, 469, 526, 558, 588
García, Romeo Lucas, 2:493 sodomy laws and, 2:523–24 Ginsberg, Irwin Allen, 1:20, 83, 121,
Gardner, John W., 1:109 Stonewall rebellion and, 2:513, 540 217–18, 242, 294, 295, 317; 2:512
Gardner, Martin, 2:396 student conservatives and, 2:543, 544 Gioia, Dana, 2:387
Gargan, Jack, 2:427 Thomas, Clarence, and, 2:561 Girl Scouts, 1:50, 178
Garland, Judy, 2:540 transgender movement and, 2:568 Girlfight (film), 1:25
Garrett, H. Lawrence, 2:623 Ventura, Jesse, and, 2:576 Gitmo. See Guantánamo Bay Detention
Garry, Charles, 1:83 Walt Disney Company and, 1:90, 205, Center
Garvey, Marcus, 2:335, 382 207; 2:526, 591, 592 Giuliani, Rudolph, 1:98, 156; 2:454, 503
Gates, Bill, 2:357, 358 Washington Times and, 2:602 GLAAD. See Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Gates, Bill, Sr., 2:606 White, Reggie, and, 2:613 Against Defamation
Gates, Daryl, 1:301 See also homosexuality, homosexuals; Glamour magazine, 1:252; 2:598
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 1:230; 2:369 lesbians; outing; same-sex marriage; Glass, David, 2:590
Gates, Robert, 2:529 sodomy laws; transgender movement Glass, Jackie, 2:418
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against gays in popular culture, 1:207–8 Glazer, Nathan, 1:237
Defamation (GLAAD), 1:207, 325 gays in the military, 1:97, 136, 205, 206, Glick, Jeremy, 2:420, 504
gay capital, 1:204–5 208–10, 209; 2:421, 469, 526, 621 “global village,” 2:348, 439
Gay Liberation Front, 1:241; 2:516 Gebhart v. Belton (1952), 1:54 global warming, 1:72, 163, 184, 218–20,
Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), 1:14 gender-inclusive language, 1:210–11 221, 225, 225, 226, 270, 308–9, 323;
gay rights, 1:205–7 General Electric, 2:351, 458 2:423, 499, 500, 559, 573, 601, 626
AIDS and, 1:13 General Motors (GM), 1:32, 259, 284; globalization, 1:220–22
Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51 2:366, 380, 427 American Century and, 1:17
Bryant, Anita, and, 1:55, 172 General Services Administration, U.S., Battle of Seattle and, 1:37–38
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56, 62 2:520 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58
Canada and, 1:69 Generation X, 1:212, 213 China and, 1:86
Cheney family and, 1:83 Generations (Strauss and Howe), 1:211 Cold War and, 1:103
civil rights movement and, 1:96 generations and generational conflict, corporate welfare and, 1:119
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96, 97 1:130, 131, 211–13, 237, 316; 2:350, culture jamming and, 1:128
counterculture and, 1:121, 122 364, 394, 398, 449, 475–76, 512–13, diversity training and, 1:137
Dobson, James, and, 1:138, 139 523, 532 drama and, 1:326
drama and, 1:326 Genesis Flood (Whitcomb and Morris), 1:124 family values and, 1:172
evangelicalism and, 1:2, 166 genetically modified foods (GMF), France and, 1:194
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 1:213–14; 2:347, 500 global warming and, 1:219, 221
family values and, 1:172 Geneva Convention, 1:3, 4 Hightower, Jim, and, 1:250
feminism and, 1:178 Genovese, Eugene, 1:112 human rights and, 1:266
Focus on the Family and, 1:183 Gentleman’s Agreement (film), 1:28 Japan and, 1:284
Frank, Barney, and, 1:195 Gentry, Kenneth, 1:90 Klein, Naomi, and, 1:303–4
gay capital and, 1:205 Geoghan, John, 2:510 Krugman, Paul, and, 1:306
gays in the military and, 1:209 George C. Marshall Institute, 2:500 Kyoto Protocol and, 1:309
Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237 Gephardt, Richard, 2:526 Marxism and, 2:338
hate crimes and, 2:516 Gere, Richard, 2:337 Mexico and, 2:356
Hay, Harry, and, 1:241 Germany, 1:28, 101, 134, 258–59, 262; New York Times and, 2:400
Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 2:343, 377, 394, 428, 467, 490, 527 Newton, Huey, and, 1:45
human rights and, 1:265, 266 Getino, Octavio, 1:325 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:428
judicial wars and, 1:289 Gettysburg Address, 1:20, 21 postmodernism and, 2:438
Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314 Geyer, Georgie Anne, 2:602 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201
LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315 G.I. Generation, 1:212, 213 Wal-Mart and, 2:590
lesbians and, 1:320 See also “Greatest Generation” war protesters and, 2:595
Marxism and, 2:338 GI Joe, 1:36; 2:597, 598 See also corporations; Seattle, Battle of
Index I-23
Globalization and Its Discontents (Stiglitz), Gore, Thomas P., 2:577 Gregory, Dick, 2:362, 426
1:221 Gore, Tipper, 1:225, 246; 2:459, 460, 629 Grenada, 1:101, 102, 108, 266
GM. See General Motors Gotti, John, 1:231 Griffin, David Ray, 1:117
GMF. See genetically modified foods Gotti, John A., Jr., 1:231 Griffin, G. Edward, 2:573
GMHC. See Gay Men’s Health Crisis Gottlieb, Alan, 1:30, 163 Griffin, Michael F., 1:2
Goad, Jim, 2:462 Gould, Jack, 2:591 Griffith, D.W., 1:317
Goals 2000: Educate America Act (1994), Gould, Stephen Jay, 1:125 Griffith, Michael, 2:514
1:151 government, big, 1:200, 243; 2:390, 394, Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971), 1:9
Gobie, Stephen, 1:195 397, 440, 458, 483, 490, 499, 572, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), 1:19, 44,
God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 593, 605 140, 289; 2:431, 443, 479, 600
Academic Freedom (Buckley), 1:57 See also Great Society; New Deal; social Groening, Matt, 2:519
Godard, Jean-Luc, 2:599 programs; welfare Growth of the American Republic (Commager
Godfather, The (film), 1:325 government, limited, 1:90, 135, 156, 223, and Morrison), 1:108
Goetz, Bernhard Hugo, Jr., 1:222–23; 2:514 322, 323; 2:397, 406, 420, 443, 451, Gruson, Sydney, 2:401
Goff, Kenneth, 1:116 461, 467, 512, 522, 543 Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), 1:10, 63
Gold, Julie, 2:596 Government Printing Office, 2:341, 372 Guantánamo Bay Detention Center
Gold, Leslie, 2:517 graffiti, 1:204, 226–27 (Gitmo), 1:3–5, 4, 82; 2:494, 505
Goldberg, Bernard, 2:350–51 Graham, Bill, 1:121 Guardian Angels, 1:223, 231
Goldberg, Whoopi, 1:46 Graham, William Franklin, Jr. “Billy,” Guarino, Michael, 1:42
Goldman, Ron, 2:417, 418 1:47, 48, 89, 166, 201, 227–28, 286, Guatemala, 1:77, 101, 127, 153, 272;
Goldstein, Al, 1:139; 2:512 303, 304; 2:347, 526, 552, 601, 613 2:401, 493
Goldstein, Rebecca, 2:524 Grant, Amy, 1:117 guerrilla theater, 1:257; 2:449
Goldwater, Barry Morris, 1:56, 57, 58, Grant, Robert, 2:466 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now?
85, 188, 200, 223, 223–24, 228, 236, grapes, boycott of, 1:80; 2:358 (Dillard), 2:373
286; 2:339, 361, 391, 394, 409, 441, Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck), 2:535 Guevara, Ernesto (Che), 1:127
458, 466, 468, 484, 492, 543, 564, Grateful Dead, 1:121; 2:476 Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing, 1:210
594, 609 Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), 1:10, 63 Gulag, 1:4; 2:527
Gonzales, Alberto, 1:164 Gravel, Mike, 1:157 Gulag Archipelago, The (Solzhenitsyn),
Gonzales, Rodolfo “Corky,” 1:256 Gray, L. Patrick, 1:130, 176 2:622
Gonzales v. Oregon (2006), 2:407 Gray, Wayne B., 2:415 Gulf War, 1:51, 61, 81, 108, 122, 148,
González, Elián, 1:224–25 great books, 1:7–8, 41, 82, 131, 228–30, 201; 2:349, 360, 425, 469, 486, 489,
Gonzalez v. Carhart (2007), 2:479 253, 271, 325; 2:361, 369, 374, 388, 503, 526, 574, 578, 582, 595, 609,
Gonzalez v. Oregon (2006), 2:473 422, 435, 438, 452, 542, 619 622, 625
Gonzalez v. Planned Parenthood (2007), Great Books of the Western World gun control, 1:231–33, 232
2:432, 479 (Encyclopedia Britannica), 1:7, 8, “rednecks” and, 2:462
Gonzalez v. Raich (2005), 2:354 228–29, 229, 230, 271 Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51
“gonzo journalism,” 2:398, 562 Great Britain, 1:103, 112, 186, 210, 246, Canada and, 1:69
Good Night, and Good Luck (film), 2:345, 259, 292; 2:342, 375, 377, 409, 444, Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97
377 449, 477, 490, 511, 523, 525, 527, Democratic Party and, 1:136
Goode, Virgil, Jr., 2:378 573, 620, 626 gangs and, 1:203, 204
Goodell, Charles, 1:288 Great Depression, 1:79, 80, 107, 135, 166, Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293
Goodman, Andrew, 1:29, 330; 2:429, 430 196, 200, 212, 230, 311; 2:397, 462, Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298
Goodman, Ellen, 1:36 468, 502, 527, 535, 555, 591, 608 McCain, John, and, 2:339
Goodman, Paul, 1:162; 2:432 Great Society, 1:136, 150, 203, 230–31, McVeigh, Timothy, and, 2:349
Goodman, Steve, 1:234 266, 267, 287; 2:346, 364, 384, 390, militia movement and, 2:359–60
Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of 394, 397, 447, 557, 593, 594, 604, Million Man March and, 2:363
Public Health (2003), 2:487 605 Moore, Michael, and, 2:365
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 1:52, 102, 305; Great White Hope, The (play), 1:14–15 NAACP and, 2:384
2:410, 459, 526, 528, 529, 541 Greater Generation, The: In Defense of the Baby NRA and, 2:391–92
Gore, Albert Arnold, Jr., 1:225–26 Boom Legacy (Steinhorn), 1:212 Ruby Ridge Incident and, 2:482
anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 “Greatest Generation,” 1:52, 212, 316; school shootings and, 2:496–97
Bradley, Bill, and, 1:50, 51 2:626 toy guns and, 2:598
Cuban Americans and, 1:224 See also G.I. Generation vigilantism and, 1:222–23; 2:582, 583
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Greece, 1:101 Waco siege and, 2:586
Election of 2000 and, 1:63, 153–55; Green, Bob, 1:55 zero tolerance and, 2:629, 630
2:380, 465, 560 Green, Richard, 2:568 Gun Control Act (1968), 1:232
environmental movement and, 1:72; Green Berets, The (film), 2:581, 606 Gunn, David, 1:2
2:500, 572 Green Day, 2:449 Gustavson, E. Brandt, 1:90
global warming and, 1:218, 219 Green Party, 1:30, 42, 121, 155, 250; Guterson, David, 1:260
Horton, Willie, and, 1:265 2:380, 393, 560 Guthrie, Arlo, 1:233–34; 2:596
Internet and, 1:277 Greenglass, David, 2:480 Guthrie, Woodrow Wilson, 1:233–34;
Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304 Greenpeace, 1:148, 163, 214; 2:500 2:502, 535
Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:428 Greenspan, Alan, 1:306; 2:455 Gutiérrez, José Angel, 1:256, 311
Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451 Greenwald, Robert, 1:257; 2:376, 589 Guyana, 1:116
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Greer, Germaine, 2:362
Vidal, Gore, and, 2:577 Greer, Will, 1:241 habeas corpus, 1:3, 64, 265
Wolf, Naomi, and, 2:621 Gregg v. Georgia (1976), 1:70, 215 Haber, Robert Alan, 2:545
I-24 Index
Habermas, Jürgen, 1:43 hate crimes (continued) Health Maintenance Organization and
Hackney, Sheldon, 2:387, 388 human rights and, 1:265 Resources Development Act (1973),
Hagelin, John, 2:560 Ku Klux Klan and, 2:614 1:244
Hagelstein, Peter, 2:541 Muslim Americans and, 2:378, 503 Hearst, Patricia, 2:547, 548
Haggard, Merle, 1:122; 2:596 Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429 Hearst, William Randolph, 1:227
Haiti, 1:13; 2:518 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514 Heath, Joseph, 1:128
Halberstam, David, 2:401 speech codes and, 2:531 heavy metal, 1:245–46; 2:336
Haldeman, H.R., 2:602 Thomas, Clarence, and, 2:561 Heckscher, August, 2:385
Hale, Sarah, 1:308 transgender movement and, 2:568 Hefner, Christie, 1:247
Haley, Alex Palmer, 1:235 white supremacists and, 2:614, 615 Hefner, Hugh Marston, 1:246–47; 2:332,
Hall, Gus, 1:112, 235–36, 262; 2:560 See also lynching 436, 512
Halliburton, 1:81, 119; 2:445 Hatfield, Mark O., 2:346 Heidegger, Martin, 1:43; 2:394, 541
Halperin, David, 1:192 Hathaway, Henry, 2:605 Heisenberg, Werner, 2:419
Halprin, Lawrence, 1:196 Hauerwas, Stanley Martin, 1:240–41 Hell, Richard, 2:449
Halsey, William, 1:254 Havel, Václav, 2:629 Heller, Joseph, 1:52, 247–48
Halter v. Nebraska (1907), 1:180 Hawks, Howard, 2:605 Hellman, Lillian, 1:184
Ham, Ken, 1:125 Hay, Henry, Jr., 1:241–42 Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
Hamburger, Christian, 1:288 Hayakawa, S.I., 1:160 (Thompson), 2:398, 562
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), 1:4 Hayden, Thomas Emmett, 1:83, 121, 184, Helms, Jesse Alexander, Jr., 1:14, 15, 48,
Hamilton, Alexander, 1:192 242; 2:399, 545, 596 85, 224, 240, 248–49; 2:336, 337,
Hamilton College, 1:93 Hayes, Denis, 1:163 385, 386, 507, 526, 573, 609
Hammer, Armand, 1:225 Hayford, Jack, 2:447 Help America Vote Act (2002), 1:155
Hand, W. Brevard, 2:501 Haynes, John Earl, 1:112 Hemenway, David, 1:233
Handler, Ruth, 1:36, 37 Hays, Lee, 2:502 Hemingway, Ernest, 1:194
Hanks, Nancy, 2:385 Hays, Samuel P., 1:162 Henderson, Oran K., 2:379
Hannity, Sean, 2:550 Head Start program, 1:230 Henderson, Russell, 2:516–17
Hantze, Karen, 1:299 Health, Education, and Welfare Hendrix, Jimi, 1:246; 2:476, 596
Harbison, John, 1:4 Department, U.S., 1:185 Henry, Carl F. H., 1:68; 2:526
Hardaway, Tim, 1:208 health, health care, 1:242–45 Hentoff, Nat, 2:602
Hargis, Billy James, 1:236–37; 2:348, access to, 2:418 Herbert, Anthony B., 2:379
527, 573 age discrimination and, 1:12 Heritage Foundation, 1:41, 92, 249–50;
Harlan, John Marshall, 2:464 AIDS and, 1:13 2:373, 500, 544, 558, 559, 559, 611
Harlins, Latasha, 1:301 Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51 Herman, Arthur, 2:342
Harper’s Bazaar magazine, 2:599 Canada and, 1:69 Herman, Edward S., 1:87; 2:351
Harper’s magazine, 1:108; 2:346 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 Hero with a Thousand Faces, The (Campbell),
Harrington, Edward Michael, 1:121, 152, Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 2:543
237, 242; 2:394, 608 Election of 2008 and, 1:157, 159 Herring, George, 2:580
Harrington, Michael F., 1:195 Fair Deal and, 2:397 Herrnstein, Richard J., 1:40; 2:452
Harris, Eric, 2:496 globalization and, 1:222 Hersey, John, 1:254, 284; 2:408
Harris, Katherine, 1:154 government regulation and, 2:499 Hersh, Seymour, 1:78; 2:378
Harris, Kevin, 2:482 Great Society and, 1:230 Heston, Charlton, 2:385, 392
Harris, Neil Patrick, 2:421 human rights and, 1:265 Hightower, James Allen, 1:250–51
Harrison Narcotics Act (1914), 2:492 Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293 Hill, Anita Faye, 1:51, 251, 251–52, 290;
Harry, Deborah, 2:337 Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 2:512, 561
Harry Potter (Rowling), 1:49 Koop, C. Everett, and, 1:304 Hill, Julia “Butterfly,” 1:252–53
Hart, Frederick, 2:579 McGovern, George, and, 2:347 Hill, Michael, 2:615
Hart, Gary Warren, 1:237–38 medical malpractice and, 2:352–53 Hillsdale College, 1:253; 2:544
Hart, Jeffrey, 2:391 Moore, Michael, and, 2:365, 366 Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 1:305; 2:394
Hart, Lois, 1:320 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:372 Hirabayashi v. U.S. (1943), 1:17
Hartley, Fred A., Jr., 2:549 obesity and, 2:413 Hiroshima (Hersey), 1:284; 2:408
Harvard University, 1:41, 144, 203, 249, Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:428 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1:161, 253–54,
256, 269, 298, 317; 2:353, 430, 528, right to die and, 2:472–74 284; 2:401, 402, 408, 419, 438, 568,
530, 544, 546, 572, 610 Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488 569
Harvest of Shame (TV program), 2:358, 377, Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 See also nuclear age
414 smoking and, 2:520, 565–66 Hirsch, E.D., Jr., 1:229
Harvey, David, 1:16 Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 Hispanic Americans, 1:80–81, 96, 135,
Harvey, Paul, 1:238–39 Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549 159, 203, 204, 231, 255–56, 269,
Harwit, Martin, 1:161 think tanks and, 2:558 273, 282, 310–11; 2:358–59, 373,
Hatch, Orrin, 2:508 tort reform and, 2:567 374, 413, 434, 452, 453, 454, 604,
Hatcher, Richard, 1:163 transgender movement and, 2:568 605
Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990), 1:239 Wal-Mart and, 2:590 Hiss, Alger, 1:59, 79, 103, 111, 256–57;
hate crimes, 1:239–40 welfare and, 2:609 2:343, 403, 404, 573
African Americans and, 1:239; 2:564–65 Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609 history, revisionist. See revisionist history
AIDS and, 1:13–14 whistleblowers and, 2:612 History of Sexuality, The (Foucault), 1:191,
anti-Semitism and, 1:28, 29; 2:495 See also Medicare 192
civil rights and, 1:239; 2:564 Health and Human Services Department, Hitchcock, Alfred, 2:422
homosexuality and, 1:239, 240; 2:516, 516 U.S., 1:63, 169, 185; 2:414, 511 Hitchens, Christopher, 2:426
Index I-25
Hitler, Adolf, 1:106, 145, 258, 259, 292, homosexuality, homosexuals (continued) Horton, William Robert (Willie), 1:32, 61,
307; 2:477, 527, 615 Jehovah’s Witnesses and, 1:285 145, 264–65; 2:469
See also Nazis, German Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 Hospers, John, 2:560
HIV. See human immunodeficiency virus Kinsey, Alfred, and, 1:302–3 House of Bush, House of Saud (Unger), 2:489
Hobbes, Thomas, 2:542 Kushner, Tony, and, 1:307–8 House of Representatives, U.S.
Hodges, Jim, 1:115 LaHaye, Tim, and, 1:313 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61
Hodsoll, Francis S.M., 2:385 lesbians and, 1:321 Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86
Hoffa, James R., 2:441 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323 Christian radio and, 1:89
Hoffman, Abbott Howard, 1:83, 121, 143, Mapplethorpe, Robert, and, 2:337 Christmas and, 1:91
257 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:344 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97
Hoffman, Julius, 1:83–84, 257 media and, 2:351 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98
Hofstadter, Richard, 1:109 men’s movement and, 2:355 Clinton impeachment and, 1:99; 2:533,
Holliday, George, 1:301 Milk, Harvey, and, 2:360–61 611
Hollywood, 1:17, 166, 181, 194, 208, multiculturalism and ethnic studies and, Committee on Un-American Activities
257–58; 2:343, 344, 420, 425, 455, 2:374 (HUAC) of, 1:17, 79, 111, 241,
458 National Endowment for the Arts and, 256, 257, 258, 262, 271, 310, 325;
See also film industry, films 2:386, 387 2:338, 342–43, 376, 403, 425, 441,
Hollywood Ten, 1:17, 257–58; 2:343, 344, Nelson, Willie, and, 2:393 458, 502, 605
425 New Left and, 2:398, 399 Contract with America and, 1:118
Hollywood the Dream Factory (Powdermaker), outing and, 2:421 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132
1:325 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:422 Election of 2006 and, 2:481
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 1:256 Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 159
Holocaust, 1:28, 87, 134, 146, 215, political correctness and, 2:435 electoral system and, 2:460, 560, 588
258–59, 280; 2:400, 471, 477, 525, pornography and, 2:332, 437 Endangered Species Act and, 1:159
577, 614 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458, 459 Enola Gay exhibit and, 1:161
Holt, John, 1:260 Rodman, Dennis, and, 2:478 ERA and, 1:178
Holy Virgin Mary (artwork), 2:507 same-sex marriage and, 2:487 Ethics Committee of, 1:67
Homeland Security Department, U.S., Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 flag desecration and, 1:180, 181
1:66, 270; 2:426, 445, 504 sex education and, 2:508 food industry and, 2:413
homeschooling, 1:47, 65, 89, 90, 125, 139, sexual revolution and, 2:513 Frank, Barney, and, 1:195
152, 172, 260–61, 314; 2:424, 483, shock jocks and, 2:517 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:197
501, 526 social theory on, 1:268 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216, 216, 217
homosexuality, homosexuals Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Gore, Al, and, 1:225
AIDS and, 1:13, 14 speech codes and, 2:530 health care and, 1:243, 244
American Psychiatric Association and, Stonewall rebellion and, 2:540 Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287
1:206, 209, 320; 2:521, 540 televangelism and, 2:552 Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292
androgyny and, 1:25 transgender movement and, 2:568 Lott, Trent, and, 1:327
Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 victimhood and, 2:576, 577 McCain, John, and, 2:339
Bob Jones University and, 1:47 Vidal, Gore, and, 2:577–78 McCarthy, Eugene, 2:340
book banning and, 1:49 Warhol, Andy, and, 2:599 McGovern, George, and, 2:346
Boy Scouts and, 1:49, 50 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Brock, David, and, 1:51 West, Cornel, and, 2:610 2:386, 387
Catholic Church and, 1:75, 76 Weyrich, Paul M., and, 2:611 National Endowment for the Humanities
Cheney family and, 1:83 White, Reggie, and, 2:613 and, 2:388
Chick, Jack, and, 1:84 white supremacists and, 2:615 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 women in the military and, 2:622 NPR and, 2:390
Christian Identity movement and, 2:483 World magazine and, 2:625 PBS and, 2:448
Christian radio and, 1:90 See also gay rights; lesbians; outing; same- privatization and, 2:445
Christian reconstructionism and, 1:90 sex marriage; sodomy laws Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451
conservatism and, 1:207; 2:373 Honduras, 2:493 record industry and, 1:77
country music and, 1:123 Honest Leadership and Open Government Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488, 488
creationism and, 1:125 Act (2007), 1:327 School of the Americas and, 2:494
Democratic Party and, 1:135 hooks, bell, 1:261–62 school prayer and, 2:496
diversity training and, 1:137, 138 Hoover, Herbert, 1:101, 197; 2:384, 549, Select Committee on Assassinations of,
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171, 207, 208; 558 1:300
2:503 Hoover, John Edgar, 1:44–45, 112, 176, tort reform and, 2:566
Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173, 173 239, 262–64, 263, 295, 300; 2:406, Wal-Mart and, 2:590
film and, 1:325 419, 596 War Powers Act and, 2:594
Focus on the Family and, 1:183 See also Federal Bureau of Investigation Watergate and, 2:603
Foucault, Michel, and, 1:191–92 Hoover Institution, 1:143, 268; 2:373, See also Congress, U.S.; Senate, U.S.
gay capital and, 1:204–5 529, 557, 583 housing, 1:59, 61, 64–65, 86, 95, 230,
Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 Hopwood v. Texas (1996), 1:10 282; 2:381, 551, 568, 589, 590, 604,
Ginsberg, Allen, and, 1:218 Horiuchi, Lon, 2:482 605
Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236 Horn, Clayton, 1:218 Housing and Urban Development
hate crimes and, 1:239, 240; 2:516, 516 Horner, Charles, 2:394 Department, U.S., 1:230
Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 Horowitz, David Joel, 1:5, 7, 122, 242, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)
Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:263 264; 2:344, 448, 611 (Coulter), 1:120; 2:350
I-26 Index
Howe, Neil, 1:211, 212 Hustler magazine, 1:100, 171, 182, 247; Immigration and Nationality Act (1952),
“Howl” (Ginsberg), 1:218; 2:512 2:436, 512 1:273
HUAC. See House of Representatives, U.S., Hustler v. Falwell (1988), 1:182 Immigration and Naturalization Service,
Committee on Un-American Activities Hutchins, Robert Maynard, 1:7, 228, 229, U.S. (INS), 1:224, 274; 2:453
of 271 immigration policy, 1:273, 273–74; 2:559
Huckabee, Mike, 1:156 Hutchinson, Asa, 1:47 Immigration Reform and Control Act
Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 1:49 Hutton, Ronald, 2:396 (1986), 1:272
Hudson, Rock, 1:208 Huxley, Aldous, 1:121 Improving America’s Schools Act (1994),
Hudson Institute, 2:395, 433 Hyde, Henry, 1:77, 100 1:150, 151
Huffington, Arianna, 2:401 Hyde Amendment, 1:2; 2:479 In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple
Hughes, Holly, 1:88; 2:386 Murder and Its Consequences (Capote),
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), “I Don’t Like Mondays” (song), 2:497 1:324; 2:398
1:13–14, 209, 315; 2:387, 421, 508 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou), In re Gault (1967), 1:19
See also AIDS 1:25 In re Quinlan (1976), 2:472
human rights, 1:265–66 IBM. See International Business Machines In the Belly of the Beast (Abbott), 2:335
American exceptionalism and, 1:21 Ice T, 2:456 In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (Mathiessen),
animal rights activism and, 1:26 Iceland, 1:163; 2:541 1:23
at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, 1:3 If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer (Simpson), In Whose Honor? (film), 1:276
Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 2:418 Incident at Oglala (film), 2:462
biotech revolution and, 1:42 Ifill, Gwen, 2:448 Inconvenient Truth, An (film), 1:219, 225,
Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 illegal immigrants, 1:272–73, 273; 2:356, 226
Bono and, 1:48 359 India, 1:219, 221, 309; 2:409
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 See also migrant labor Indian casinos, 1:274–76; 2:463
Catholic Church and, 1:75 Illinois, University of, 1:276 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988),
China and, 1:85 Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education 1:275
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 (1948), 1:92 Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 1:22
Cold War and, 1:102 IMF. See International Monetary Fund Indian Self-Determination and Educational
globalization and, 1:220, 222 immigrants Assistance Act (1975), 1:23
Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 Catholic Church and, 1:74 Indian sport mascots, 1:23, 133, 276
Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242 Democratic Party and, 1:135 Indiana University, 1:302; 2:544
Helms, Jesse, and, 1:249 English language and, 1:160, 161 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Holocaust and, 1:259 gangs and, 1:203, 204 (1975), 1:24, 276–77
Iran-Contra affair and, 1:278 Jewish, 1:28, 258 Indochina, 1:194
Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279 labor unions and, 1:312 Indonesia, 1:78, 101
Kristol, Bill, and, 1:306 multiculturalism and ethnic studies and, Industrial Revolution, 2:355
McCain, John, and, 2:339 2:374 Infinity Broadcasting, 2:538
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:372 Sanger, Margaret, and, 2:431 Information Agency, U.S., 1:58; 2:376
Nicaragua and, 2:406 white supremacists and, 2:614 Inglis, Fred, 1:103, 112
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, and, 2:477 Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630 Ingraham, Laura, 1:7
Saudi Arabia and, 2:266, 489 immigration Inhofe, James, 1:160, 219
Soros, George, and, 2:525 Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 Innis, Roy, 1:223
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57, 62 INS. See Immigration and Naturalization
United Nations and, 1:265; 2:572, 573 Cuba and, 1:127 Service, U.S.
World Council of Churches and, 2:626 Democratic Party and, 1:135 Inside Bureaucracy (Downs), 2:444
Human Rights Watch, 1:85, 266 Duke, David, and, 1:146 Institute for Creation Research, 1:124,
Humane Society, 2:426, 427 Election of 2008 and, 1:156 125, 313
Humphrey, Hubert Horatio, Jr., 1:12, 24, Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217 Institutes of Biblical Law, The (Rushdoony),
41, 110, 266–68; 2:340, 346, 364, globalization and, 1:221, 222 1:90; 2:555
404, 468, 560 Heritage Foundation and, 1:250 insurance industry, 1:32, 97, 244, 245;
Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 2:339, 352–53, 566
(1978), 1:267 Huntington, Samuel P., and, 1:269 intelligent design. See creationism and
Hungary, 1:103; 2:528 Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293 intelligent design
Hunt, E. Howard, 1:116; 2:602 Millennial Generation and, 1:213 Interior Department, U.S., 2:579, 603
Hunt, Michael, 1:16 Muslim Americans and, 2:377, 378 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,
Hunter, James Davison, 1:268–69 O’ Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 2:410, 541
Huntington, Samuel Phillips, 1:103, 269, Progressive Christians Uniting and, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 1:47, 73,
273; 2:504 2:446 236, 260; 2:384, 393, 466, 601, 606,
Hurley v. Irish American Gay, Lesbian and race and, 2:452 619
Bisexual Group of Boston (1995), racial profiling and, 2:453, 454 Internal Security Act (1950), 1:258
1:206 Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Hurricane Katrina, 1:114, 117, 164, Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490 2:358, 441
269–71, 270, 318, 327; 2:363, 401, September 11 and, 2:505 International Business Machines (IBM),
426, 429, 517, 532, 626 Soros, George, and, 2:525 1:259; 2:357
Hurt, William, 1:52 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 International Council of Christian
Hussein, Saddam, 1:61, 64, 123, 148, 282, vigilantism and, 2:582–83 Churches, 2:347, 490
321; 2:456, 486, 503, 558, 574 Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 International Foundation for Gender
Husserl, Edmund, 2:541 See also illegal immigrants; migrant labor Education, 2:345, 568
Index I-27
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 1:16, Iraq War (continued) isolationism, 1:57, 101; 2:347, 549, 573,
315 Dean, Howard, and, 1:129, 129 618
International Women’s Project, 1:11; Dean, John, and, 1:131 Israel, 1:280–81
2:388 Democratic Party and, 1:136 academic controversy and, 1:6, 7
Internet, 1:277–78 Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139 anti-Semitism and, 1:28–29
academic freedom and, 1:93; 2:344 Election of 2000 and, 1:155 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57
censorship and, 1:77 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 157, 159 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60
Clinton impeachment and, 2:533 Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73
creationism and intelligent design and, France and, 1:194 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87
1:125 Franken, Al, and, 1:196 Christian Identity movement and, 2:615
Focus on the Family and, 1:183 Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 Demjanjuk, John, and, 1:134
globalization and, 1:221–22 Gore, Al, and, 1:226 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171
Gore, Al, and, 1:27, 225 Japan and, 1:284 Frank, Barney, and, 1:195
Guardian Angels and, 1:231 Kerry, John, and, 1:296 Holocaust and, 1:258–59
Microsoft and, 2:357 Klein, Naomi, and, 1:304 Islamic fundamentalism and, 1:201
Murdoch, Rupert, and, 2:375 Kristol, Irving and Bill, and, 1:305–6 Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293
Nazism and, 2:477 Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321 Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314
New York Times and, 2:400 McGovern, George, and, 2:347 Moral Majority and, 2:367
Obama, Barack, and, 2:411 Millennial Generation and, 1:213 Muslim Americans and, 2:378
outing and, 2:421 Moore, Michael, and, 2:365, 366 neoconservatism and, 2:394
Paglia, Camille, and, 2:422 My Lai massacre and, 2:378 nuclear age and, 2:409
PBS and, 2:447 Nation, The, and, 2:381 Podhoretz, Norman, and, 2:432
politics and, 1:129, 129, 141 National Review and, 2:391 premillennial dispensationalism and,
pornography and, 2:436, 437 Nelson, Willie, and, 2:392, 393 2:439, 440
postmodernism and, 2:439 neoconservatism and, 2:395, 541 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:475
red and blue states and, 2:460–61 New York Times and, 2:400, 401 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
right to die and, 2:491 Obama, Barack, and, 2:411 September 11 and, 2:503
sex offenders and, 2:509, 510 Penn, Sean, and, 2:425, 426 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
vigilantism and, 2:582 Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429 Summers, Lawrence, and, 2:546
interventionism, 1:16–17, 58, 98, 101, privatization and, 2:445 Weekly Standard and, 2:608
102, 122, 201, 249, 255, 300; 2:393, Progressive Christians Uniting and, 2:446 World Council of Churches and, 2:626
395, 489, 527, 559, 578, 580, 581, Project for the New American Century See also anti-Semitism; Jews
582, 607, 610, 618 and, 2:558 Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, The
See also Iraq War; Vietnam War protests and, 2:433 (Mearsheimer and Walt), 1:281
Inuit, 1:202 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, 1:73
Iran, 1:69, 72, 73, 77, 101, 102, 127, 146, Republican Party and, 2:470 It Takes a Family (Santorum), 1:98, 172
153, 259, 278; 2:406, 426, 427, 489 Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483 It Takes a Village (Clinton), 1:98, 172; 2:607
Iran-Contra affair, 1:17, 19, 62, 73, 78, 99, Russia and, 2:529 Italian Americans, 1:105, 105; 2:467
198, 278–79; 2:406–7, 406, 441, 459 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489 Italy, 1:74, 77
Iranian Revolution, 1:78, 192, 201 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502 Ito, Lance, 2:417
Iraq September 11 and, 2:503 Ivins, Molly, 1:250, 323
Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Iwo Jima, 2:506, 626
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:99 torture and, 1:3, 4
Israel and, 1:280 United Nations and, 2:573–74 J. Edgar Hoover: Private and Confidential
Saudi Arabia and, 2:489 Ventura, Jesse, and, 2:576 (film), 1:263
United Nations and, 2:574 Vietnam War and, 2:582 Jackson, Alan, 1:123
weapons of mass destruction in, 1:64, 78; war protesters and, 2:595, 597, 598 Jackson, Andrew, 2:493, 618
2:401, 441, 482, 503, 574 Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609 Jackson, Henry M., 2:394, 395
Weekly Standard and, 2:608 women in the military and, 2:622, 623 Jackson, Janet, 1:76, 77, 176
See also Abu Ghraib; Gulf War Woodward, Bob, and, 2:624, 625 Jackson, Jesse, Jr., 1:250, 283
Iraq Veterans Against the War, 2:578 World Council of Churches and, 2:626 Jackson, Jesse Louis, 1:29, 86, 166, 173,
Iraq War Young, Neil, and, 2:628 282–83, 304; 2:362, 382, 412, 456,
academic freedom and, 1:7 Ireland, 1:74 491, 514
American Century and, 1:16 Iron John (Bly), 2:355 Jackson, Michael, 1:283–84
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57 Iron Man (comic book), 1:106 Jackson, Robert, 2:464, 599
Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 IRS. See Internal Revenue Service Jackson, Thomas Penfield, 2:357, 358
Bush, George W., and, 1:62, 64, 103 Irvine, Reed John, 1:279–80; 2:344, 350, Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974), 2:394
Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 400, 448 Jacob Wetterling Act (1994), 2:510
Canada and, 1:69 Irving, David, 1:259 Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), 2:436
censorship and, 1:77 “Is Science Too Big for the Scientist?” Jaffa, Harry, 2:394
Cheney, Dick, and, 1:82 (Tuve), 2:408 Jaffe, Sam, 1:126
Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Is Segregation Scriptural? (Jones), 1:47 Jameson, Fredric, 2:438
Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 Islam, 1:15, 21, 31, 73, 84, 144, 157, 200, Japan, 1:106, 107, 197, 231, 253–54, 284,
comic strips and, 1:108 201, 235, 269, 280, 321; 2:349, 292, 306, 318; 2:343, 408, 419, 428,
conspiracy theories and, 1:117 377–78, 427, 430, 486, 489, 503–4 438, 441, 504, 568, 569
corporate welfare and, 1:119 See also Muslim Americans; Nation of See also Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
Cronkite, Walter, and, 1:126 Islam reparations, Japanese internment
I-28 Index
Japanese Americans, 1:273; 2:504, 599 Johnson, Lyndon Baines (continued) Jordan, Colin, 2:477
Javerbaum, David, 2:539 Cold War and, 1:102 Jordan, June, 2:369
Javits, Jacob K., 2:594 conspiracy theories and, 1:116 Jordan, Michael, 2:478
Jay-Z, 1:77 Cronkite, Walter, and, 1:126 Jorgensen, Christine, 1:288; 2:512, 568
Jefferson, Thomas, 1:18, 135, 174, 192, Democratic Party and, 1:136 Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Legacy of
193; 2:378, 471, 495, 618 education reform and, 1:150 America’s Most Hated Senator (Herman),
Jefferson Airplane, 1:121; 2:476 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:197 2:342
Jeffreys, Sheila, 1:320 Galbraith, John Kenneth, and, 1:203 Journal of the American Medical Association,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1:18, 20, 84, 91, 92, Gardner, John W., and, 1:109 1:243, 285; 2:352, 497
284–85 Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223, 223, 224 Juba, Charles, 1:31
Jenkins, Jerry B., 1:281, 314; 2:440 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227 Judas Priest, 1:246
Jenkins, Philip, 1:21 Great Society and, 1:230; 2:397 Judeo-Christian values, 1:56, 193, 253,
Jenner, William, 2:600 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and, 2:545 300; 2:367, 492, 501, 523
Jennings, Waylon, 2:393 Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237 judicial activism, 1:56, 165, 232, 250,
Jesus Christ Superstar (album), 1:285 health care and, 1:244 289, 298, 322; 2:405, 416, 424,
Jesus People movement, 1:117, 118, Heritage Foundation and, 1:250 443–44, 464–65, 468, 469, 487, 492,
285–86 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:263 526, 561, 588, 599, 600, 600, 601
Jet magazine, 2:565 Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:266, 267 judicial wars, 1:288–91
Jews, 1:28–29 Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293 abortion and, 1:1–3; 2:431–32, 479
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:300 affirmative action and, 1:9–10
Christian Identity movement and, 2:483 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334 Boy Scouts and, 1:50
creationism and, 1:124 Marxism and, 2:338 capital punishment and, 1:69–71
Democratic Party and, 1:135 McCarthy, Eugene, and, 2:340 drug testing and, 1:143
Election of 2000 and, 1:155 McGovern, George, and, 2:346 gun control and, 2:391–92
Election of 2008 and, 1:159 Mondale, Walter, and, 2:364 Miranda rights and, 2:363–64
Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173, 173 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405
Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 National Endowment for the Arts and, privacy rights and, 2:443–44
Holocaust and, 1:258–59 2:384, 385 right to counsel and, 2:471–72
homeschooling and, 1:260 National Review and, 2:390, 391 right to die and, 2:472–74, 490–91
Israel and, 1:280–81 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404 same-sex marriage and, 2:486–87
Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314 nuclear age and, 2:409 segregation and, 1:53–54
Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 occupational safety and, 2:414 Warren, Earl, and, 2:599–600
religious fundamentalism and, 1:200, PBS and, 2:447 See also Supreme Court, U.S.
201 Podhoretz, Norman, and, 2:432 Junger, Ernst, 2:394
Religious Right and, 2:466 presidential pardons and, 2:440 Jungle Fever (film), 1:318
Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474 Republican Party and, 2:468 Justice Department, U.S., 1:76, 83, 134,
school prayer and, 2:495 Rockwell, Norman, and, 2:478 175, 293, 330; 2:352, 357, 358, 404,
social theory on, 1:268 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493 434, 440, 445, 482, 509, 584, 585,
Soviet emigration of, 2:394 Thanksgiving Day and, 2:557 596, 603, 627
United Nations and, 2:573 think tanks and, 2:558 Justice For All Act (2004), 1:71
victimhood and, 2:577 Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:564 juvenile delinquency, 1:106; 2:519
Weaver, Randy, and, 2:482 Voting Rights Act and, 2:584 juveniles, capital punishment and, 1:71
Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609 Wallace, George, and, 2:588
West, Cornel, and, 2:610 War on Poverty and, 2:593, 594 K Street Project, 1:67, 132
white supremacists and, 2:614, 615–16 war protesters and, 2:596 Kaczynski, Ted. See Unabomber
Wolf, Naomi, and, 2:621 Warren, Earl, and, 2:600 Kagan, Robert, 1:16, 17; 2:608
See also anti-Semitism; Israel Watts riots and, 2:604 Kanka, Megan, 2:510
JFK (film), 2:539 welfare and, 2:608 Kaptur, Marcy, 2:626
jihad, 1:201; 2:489 Johnson, Michael, 1:160 Karenga, Ron “Maulana,” 1:308
Jihad vs. McWorld (Barber), 2:504 Johnson, Phillip, 1:125 Karlin, Ben, 2:539
Jim Crow laws, 1:9, 25, 52, 289; 2:383, Johnson administration, 2:401, 457 Karols, Kenneth E., 1:209
556, 560, 564, 564, 614 Johnson v. Zerbst (1938), 2:471 Kassebaum, Nancy, 2:573
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Johnston, Jill, 1:320 Katz, Lawrence, 1:273
1:46 Johnston, William, 1:137 Kaufman, Irving, 2:408, 480
Jocko: A Legend of the American Revolution Jones, Bob, Sr., 1:227; 2:466 Kazan, Elia, 1:130
(Kroger), 1:46 See also Bob Jones University Kazmierczak, Steven, 2:497
Joel, Billy, 2:528 Jones, Dean, 1:104 Keating, Kenneth, 1:293
John Birch Society, 1:28, 58, 91, 148, Jones, Edward D., 2:587 Keeling, Charles David, 1:218
286–87, 313; 2:341, 342, 360, 414, Jones, Gayl, 2:369 Kefauver, Estes, 1:185
466, 467, 492, 496, 573, 615 Jones, James, 1:52 Keillor, Garrison, 2:576, 610
John Paul II (Pope), 1:62, 195 Jones, Jim, 1:116 Keith, Toby, 2:393, 597
Johnson, Gregory, 1:180 Jones, Paula Corbin, 1:51, 99, 100; 2:512, Kelly, Walt, 1:107, 108
Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 1:287–88 533 Kelsey, Frances, 1:186
affirmative action and, 1:8–9 Jones, Steven E., 1:117 Kelso v. City of New London, Connecticut
Bryant, Anita, and, 1:55 Jones Act (1917), 1:255 (2005), 2:561
civil rights and, 1:95, 96 Jong, Erica, 2:385 Kemp, Jack, 1:314
Clinton, Hillary, and, 2:412 Jordan, Barbara, 1:316 Kendall, Willmoore, 2:394
Index I-29
Kennan, George F., 1:100–101; 2:403 Kessler, David, 1:186–87 KKK. See Ku Klux Klan
Kennedy, Caroline, 1:158, 294 Kevorkian, Jack, 1:297–98; 2:407, 472 Klebold, Dyland, 2:496
Kennedy, Edward Moore, 1:150, 158, 244, Keyes, Alan Lee, 1:298–99, 305; 2:373, Klehr, Harvey, 1:112
292, 293–94; 2:451 395, 411, 541 Klein, Joe, 2:465
Kennedy, John, Jr., 1:294 Keyes, Maya, 1:298 Klein, Naomi, 1:128, 221, 303–4
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1:292–93 Keyhoe, Donald, 1:116 Kloss, Ilana, 1:299
affirmative action and, 1:8 Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967), 1:6 Knight, T.R., 2:421
American Century and, 1:16 Keynesian economics, 1:174, 199; 2:546 Knorr, Nathan Homer, 1:285
American exceptionalism and, 1:22 KGB, 2:480, 527 Koch, Edward I., 1:231
Bennett, William, and, 1:41 Khalilzad, Zalmay, 2:395 Koedt, Anne, 2:513
Catholic Church and, 1:74, 86 Khmer Rouge, 1:4, 264 Kolbe, John, 2:543
Cold War and, 1:101–2, 103 Khrushchev, Nikita, 1:112; 2:404, 528, Koon, Stacey, 1:301, 302
Cuba and, 1:127 591 Koop, Charles Everett, 1:14, 304–5; 2:520
FDA and, 1:186 Kilgore, Bernard, 2:587 Kopechne, Mary Jo, 1:293
Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200 Kilgore, James, 2:547 Kopp, James, 1:2
Galbraith, John Kenneth, and, 1:203 Killen, Edgar Ray, 2:429, 430 Koppel, Ted, 1:142; 2:597
health care and, 1:243 Kilpatrick, James J., 2:367 Koran, 2:378
Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:263 Kimball, Roger, 1:7, 122 Korea, North, 2:338, 409
Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267 King, Billie Jean, 1:299 Korea, South, 2:490, 528
Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 King, Coretta Scott, 2:588 Korean War, 1:85, 101, 111, 153; 2:408,
McLuhan, Marshall, and, 2:348 King, Don, 2:514 480, 569
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371 King, Larry, 1:299 Korematsu v. United States (1944), 2:467
Murrow, Edward R., and, 2:376 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1:299–301 Koresh, David, 2:586
New Deal and, 2:397 assassination of, 1:232, 267 Kosovo War, 1:283
New Left and, 2:398 Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 Koster, Samuel, 2:379
New York Times and, 2:400 Black Panther Party and, 1:44 Kovic, Ron, 2:578
Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403, 404 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60 Kraft Foods, 1:214; 2:617
NOW and, 2:389 civil rights movement and, 1:94–96; Kramer, Rita, 1:151
nuclear age and, 2:409 2:424 Krassner, Paul, 1:121
presidential pardons and, 2:440 communism and, 1:111 Krauthammer, Charles, 2:395, 400, 608
Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451 DuBois, W.E.B., and, 1:144 Kreis, August B., 1:31
Rockwell, Norman, and, 2:478 Dylan, Bob, and, 1:147 Kristofferson, Kris, 2:393
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493 evangelicalism and, 1:166 Kristol, Irving William, 1:237, 305,
Soviet Union and, 2:528 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 305–6; 2:394, 395, 541, 607, 608
Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 Founding Fathers and, 1:193 Kristol, William, 1:298, 305, 305–6;
white supremacists and, 2:615 Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 2:340, 394, 400, 541
Kennedy, Joseph, II, 1:294 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 Kroc, Ray and Joan B., 2:390
Kennedy, Joseph Patrick, 1:292 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262 Kroes, Neelie, 2:358
Kennedy, Joseph Patrick, Jr., 1:292 Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282 Kroger, Earl, 1:46
Kennedy, Patrick, 1:294 Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293 Kroker, Arthur, 1:43
Kennedy, Randall, 1:328 Kevorkian, Jack, and, 1:297 Krugman, Paul Robin, 1:200, 273, 306;
Kennedy, Robert Francis, 1:42, 98, 232, Lott, Trent, and, 1:327 2:400, 547
262, 267, 292, 293; 2:340, 354, 493, Malcolm X and, 2:335 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 2:614
594 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347 ACLU and, 1:17, 18
Kennedy, Susan P., 2:499 media and, 2:382 anti-Semitism and, 1:28, 29, 31
Kennedy administration, 1:95, 116; 2:346, Million Man March and, 2:362 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66
371, 385, 401, 493 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502 civil rights movement and, 1:94, 95
Kennedy family, 1:61, 263, 292–94; 2:498 Spock, Benjamin, and, 2:532 comic strips and, 1:107
Kennedy (J.F.) assassination, 1:42, 116, Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:564 Confederate flag and, 1:114
126, 187, 236, 244, 292, 293, 307; Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 Duke, David, and, 1:145–46
2:335, 382, 385, 456, 457, 539, 600 King, Rodney Glen, 1:301–2; 2:426, 434, Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262
Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), 1:69 604 lynching and, 1:330
Kenney, Barnaby C., 2:387 King, Stephen, 1:325 McVeigh, Timothy, and, 2:349
Kent State University, 2:399, 519, 596, King v. Smith (1968), 1:19 militia movement and, 2:360
628 Kingston, Maxine Hong, 1:178 New York Times and, 2:401
Kentucky Derby, 2:562 Kinsey, Alfred Charles, 1:205, 209, 241, Philadelphia, Miss., and, 2:429
Kentucky Fried Chicken, 1:168 302–3; 2:512 “rednecks” and, 2:462
Kenya, 2:503 Kinsey (film), 1:302 rock and roll and, 2:476
Kerouac, Jack, 1:120, 121, 217, 218, Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences (Reisman), Kubrick, Stanley, 1:307, 319; 2:409, 553
294–95; 2:334, 562, 578 1:303 Kucinich, Dennis, 1:157, 214; 2:393
Kerr, Robert, 1:243 Kinzer, Stephen, 2:504 Kudlow, Laurence, 1:306
Kerrey, Bob, 2:379 Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 1:305; 2:395, 558 Kuhn, Thomas S., 2:438
Kerry, John Forbes, 1:83, 129, 141, 142, Kirstein, Peter N., 1:7 Kunstler, William, 1:84
251, 287, 289, 295–97, 296; 2:366, Kissinger, Henry, 2:405, 558 Kurpiel, Robert, 1:7
386, 421, 481, 482, 487, 500, 532, Kitzmiller, Tammy, 1:125 Kurtz, Howard, 1:142
539, 579 Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board Kurtz, Paul, 2:501
Kesey, Ken, 1:120, 121; 2:398 (2005), 1:40, 125 Kurzweil, Ray, 1:42
I-3 0 Index
Kushner, Tony, 1:307–8; 2:480 LaHaye, Timothy F., 1:47, 201, 281, Legacy of Luna, The (Hill), 1:252
Kuwait, 1:61, 282; 2:489, 596 312–14, 313; 2:347, 440, 466, 573 Lehrer, Jim, 2:448
Kwanzaa, 1:11, 308; 2:547 Lakota, 1:23 Lehrer, Tom, 1:267
Kyoto Protocol, 1:219, 221, 308–9; 2:573 Lamb, Edward, 1:175 LeMay, Curtis Emerson, 1:318–19; 2:588
Lambda Legal, 1:207; 2:487 Lenin, Vladimir, 1:148; 2:430, 619
La Follette, Robert Marion, Jr., 1:310; Lamonte, Buddy, 1:23 Lennon, John, 1:91, 198; 2:476, 596
2:341, 342 Lampell, Millard, 2:502 Leo, John, 2:602
La Raza Unida, 1:256, 310–11 Land and Water Conservation Act (1964), Leopold, Rand Aldo, 1:162, 189, 319–20
labor, labor unions, 1:311–12 1:162 Lerner, Michael, 2:610
Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 1:312 Lerner, Monroe, 2:495
Brown Scare and, 2:342 Lane, Mark, 1:116 lesbians, 1:320–21
Budenz, Louis F., and, 1:59 Lang, K.D., 1:25 androgyny and, 1:25
campaign finance reform and, 1:67 LAPD. See Los Angeles Police Department Bryant, Anita, and, 1:55
Catholic Church and, 1:75 LaPierre, Wayne, 1:233; 2:391 Cheney, Mary, and, 1:81, 83
Chávez, César, and, 1:80–81 Lapin, Daniel, 1:215, 314–15; 2:354 Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139
China and, 1:85 Laramie Project, The (TV program), 2:517 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171; 2:503
civil rights movement and, 1:95 Lardner, Ring, Jr., 1:257 feminism and, 1:178
class and, 2:462 LaRouche, Lyndon Hermyle, Jr., 1:315 Friedan, Betty, and, 1:199
communism and, 1:111; 2:343, 527 Larry King Live (TV program), 2:427, 428 gay capital and, 1:204–5
Democratic Party and, 1:135 Larson, Bob, 2:476 gay rights movement and, 1:205–7
education reform and, 1:150 Last Temptation of Christ, The (film), 1:325; gays in the military and, 1:209, 209
FCC and, 1:175 2:617 hate crimes and, 1:240
globalization and, 1:38, 220, 222 Late, Great Planet Earth, The (Lindsey), Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298
Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223 2:440 King, Billie Jean, and, 1:299
Hall, Gus, and, 1:235 Latin America, 1:274, 325; 2:337, 338, Milk, Harvey, and, 2:360
Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239 372, 493 Millett, Kate, and, 2:362
health care and, 1:243, 244 Laurence, William, 2:401 Morgan, Robin, and, 2:368
Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 Lavandeira, Mario, 2:421 Ms. magazine and, 2:536
human rights and, 1:265, 266 Lavender Menace, 1:320; 2:516 multiculturalism and ethnic studies and,
Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267 law and order 2:374
illegal immigrants and, 1:272, 273 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56 New Left and, 2:399
Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 NOW and, 2:389
Klein, Naomi, and, 1:304 Election of 2008 and, 1:156 outing and, 2:421
La Follette, Robert, Jr., 1:310 illegal immigrants and, 1:272 popular culture and, 1:207–8
LaRouche, Lyndon H., Jr., and, 1:315 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322 pornography and, 2:437
Marxism and, 2:338 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404, 468 Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483
McCarthyism and, 2:343 NRA and, 2:391 same-sex marriage and, 2:487
Mexico and, 2:356 police abuse and, 2:433–34 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499
migrant labor and, 2:358–59 prison reform and, 2:442 sexual revolution and, 2:513
Murdoch, Rupert, and, 2:375 racial profiling and, 2:453 Shelley, Martha, and, 2:515–16
New Deal and, 2:397 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:465 Simpsons, The, and, 2:519
Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:402 Republican Party and, 2:468 transgender movement and, 2:568
NOW and, 2:389 right to counsel and, 2:471 victimhood and, 2:576
privatization and, 2:444 Wallace, George, and, 2:588 See also gay rights; homosexuality,
Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:465 Watts and Los Angeles riots and, 2:605 homosexuals; outing; same-sex
Robertson, Pat, and, 2:552 Lawrence, Cynthia, 1:36 marriage
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 Lawrence, D.H., 2:362, 512 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 2:542
Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Levine, Lawrence, 1:230
Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 2:541, 553 Lewinsky, Monica, 1:68, 97, 98, 99, 100,
Students for a Democratic Society and, Lawrence v. Texas (2003), 1:19, 140, 206, 141, 195, 253, 283; 2:533, 533, 534,
2:545 289; 2:416, 443, 487, 523, 524 602, 603, 607
Taft-Hartley Act and, 1:111, 311; 2:343, Lawson, John Howard, 1:257 Lewis, Anthony, 1:323
549 lawyers, 1:67; 2:339, 566, 567 Lewis, Bernard A., 1:321; 2:486, 504
Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 League of United Latin American Citizens Lewis, C.S., 1:104
Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569 (LULAC), 1:255, 311 Lewis, Jerry Lee, 2:475
Wal-Mart and, 2:590 Lear, Norman Milton, 1:315–16 Lewis, John, 1:95; 2:588
Walt Disney Company and, 2:591 Leary, Timothy Francis, 1:83, 121, 295, Leykis, Tom, 2:517
War on Poverty and, 2:594 316–17, 322 Libby, I. Lewis (Scooter), 1:16, 82; 2:395,
See also AFL-CIO; employment; migrant Lebanon, 1:73, 278; 2:459 441, 482
labor; United Automobile Workers Led Zeppelin, 1:246 Libertarian Party, 2:560
Labor Department, U.S., 1:9, 137; 2:371, Lee, Barbara, 2:508 libertarianism, 1:33, 57, 86, 87, 156, 200,
414 Lee, Robert, 1:175 246; 2:414, 423, 428, 444, 454–55,
Lacour, Claudia Brodsky, 2:369 Lee, Shelton Jackson “Spike,” 1:46, 480, 512, 520, 522, 523, 544, 558
LaFerber, Walter, 1:102 317–18, 318; 2:335 See also civil liberties
Laffer, Arthur, 2:546 Lee v. Weisman (1992), 2:496 Liberty, USS, 1:281
LaHaye, Beverly Jean, 1:312–14; 2:466, Left Behind series (LaHaye and Jenkins), Liberty Foundation, 2:367–68
573 1:47, 281, 313, 314; 2:440 Liberty Under the Soviets (Baldwin), 1:17
Index I-31
Liberty University, 1:170, 314 Lott, Chester Trent, 1:4, 326–28, 330; Manhattan Project, 1:112, 254; 2:343,
Libya, 2:573 2:430, 526, 564, 566 408, 419, 527, 553
Lichtenstein, Daniel, 2:495 Louisiana Purchase, 1:194 Manifest Destiny, 1:133
Licklider, J.C.R., 1:277 Love Canal, 1:225, 328 Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the
Liddy, George Gordon Battle, 1:177, 317, Lovelace, Linda, 2:437 Future (Baumgardner and Richards),
321–22 Loving, Richard Perry and Mildred Delores, 1:179
Liddy, James G., 1:322 1:328–29, 329 Manion, Clarence E., 2:466
Liebert, Judy, 2:463 Loving v. Virginia (1967), 1:328, 329, 329 Mankes v. Boy Scouts of America (1991), 1:50
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Lowell, Robert, 1:324 Mann, Horace, 1:90, 150
Fair and Balanced Look at the Right Lowith, Karl, 2:394 Mannheim, Karl, 1:211, 212
(Franken), 1:120, 195–96; 2:420 Lowry, Rich, 2:391, 544 Manson, Charles, 1:121
Life magazine, 1:16, 101; 2:416, 527 Lucas, George, 2:540 Manson, Marilyn, 2:336, 497
Lightner, Candy, 1:33; 2:369–70 Luce, Clare Booth, 2:515 Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and
Li’l Abner (comic strip), 1:34, 107 Luce, Henry, 1:16, 21 the Media (film), 1:87
Lilies of the Field (film), 1:325 Luciano, Felipe, 1:256 Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy
Limbaugh, Rush Hudson, III, 1:4, 52, Ludlam, Charles, 1:326 of the Mass Media (Chomsky and
98, 99, 141, 142, 148, 322–24, 323; LULAC. See League of United Latin Herman), 1:87; 2:351
2:339, 350, 354, 400, 405, 412, 514, American Citizens Mao Zedong, 1:85
550, 597 Lumumba, Patrice, 1:78 Mapplethorpe, Robert, 1:88, 248; 2:336–
Limited Test Ban Treaty, 2:595 Lynch, Jessica, 2:622 37, 386, 387, 513, 616
Lin, Maya, 2:505, 579, 580 lynching, 1:329–31; 2:393, 429–30, 495, March on the Pentagon, 2:399
Lincoln, Abraham, 1:20, 21, 185; 2:468, 582 March on Washington, 1:60, 95, 147, 228,
527, 557, 626 Lynd, Staughton, 2:432 300; 2:362, 381
Lincoln, Bear, 2:557 Lynyrd Skynyrd, 2:628 Marcuse, Herbert, 1:120, 162; 2:394, 432
Lindbergh, Charles, 1:28 Lyons, Lenore, 2:495 marijuana, medical, 1:51, 57; 2:353–54,
Lindh, John Walker, 1:123; 2:378 Lyons, Lisa, 2:337 576
Lindsay, John, 2:584 Lyotard, Jean-François, 2:438 See also drugs, illegal
Lindsey, Hal, 1:201; 2:440, 573 Marines, U.S., 2:429, 459, 512, 626
Lingua Franca journal, 2:524 MacArthur, Douglas, 1:101, 269; 2:401, Marou, Andre, 2:560
Linux, 2:357 569 marriage, interracial, 1:328–29, 329;
Lipstadt, Deborah E., 1:259 MacBride, Roger, 2:560 2:452
Liston, Sonny, 1:15 Macdonald, Andrew, 2:477, 616 marriage names, 1:179; 2:337–38, 372
Liteky, Charles and Patrick, 2:493 MacDonald, Heather, 2:544 Marrs, Jim, 2:539
literature, film, and drama, 1:46, 120–22, Machen, J. Gresham, 1:201 Marshall, George C., 1:153; 2:344
228–30, 247–48, 257–58, 307, MacKinnon, Catharine Alice, 1:146, 247; Marshall, John, 1:192
324–26; 2:369, 398, 408, 409, 422, 2:332, 437 Marshall, Robert, 1:189
512, 527, 528, 562, 577–78, 581, Mackris, Andrea, 2:420 Marshall, Thurgood, 1:53–54, 66, 330;
589–90, 618–19, 621–22 mad cow disease, 1:141; 2:619 2:383, 561
See also film industry, films Madame Blueberry (film), 2:589 Marshall Plan, 1:101, 194, 258; 2:403,
Lithuania, 1:28 MADD. See Mothers Against Drunk 549
Little, Rich, 1:267 Driving Marshals, U.S., 2:482, 627
Little Orphan Annie (comic strip), 1:107 Maddoux, Marlin, 1:89 Martin, Gail R., 2:537
Little Richard, 2:475 Madhubuti, Haki R., 1:116 Martin, Joseph, 2:570
Liuzzo, Viola, 2:614 Madison, James, 2:471 Marvel Comics, 1:106; 2:598
Live Aid, 1:48, 147; 2:476, 532 Madonna, 2:332–34, 333, 422, 425, 478, Marx, Karl, 1:110
Livingston, Robert, 1:100, 182 617 Marxism, 2:338–39
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Mafia, 1:231, 262, 293; 2:386 Afrocentrism and, 1:10
Prevention Act (2007), 2:517 Magnet, Myron, 1:113 American communism and, 1:111
Lockheed Corporation, 2:612 Magruder, Jeb, 2:603 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27
Lockheed Martin, 2:497 Mailer, Norman Kingsley, 1:52, 70, 83, Black Panther Party and, 1:44
Lockyer v. Andrade (2003), 2:442 120, 216, 295; 2:334–35, 362, 398, Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60
Log Cabin Republicans, 1:207; 2:373, 578, 596, 599, 621 Cuba and, 1:127
459 Maines, Natalie, 1:123; 2:597 DuBois, W.E.B., and, 1:144
logging, 1:26, 29, 30, 160, 163, 164, Makbeth (play), 1:326 Ehrenreich, Barbara, and, 1:152
188, 190, 252; 2:572 Making of the New Majority Party, The Foucault, Michel, and, 1:191, 192
Lolita (film), 1:307 (Rusher), 2:484 Great Books and, 1:229
Lolita (Nabokov), 2:512 malaria, 1:72 Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237
Lomax, Alan, 1:233 Malaysia, 2:525 Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242
Longwell, Robert, 1:210 Malcolm X, 1:44, 60, 127, 172–73, 235, Horowitz, David, and, 1:264
Lord, Carnes, 2:541 610; 2:335–36, 377, 382, 383, 462 Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305
Lord, M.G., 1:37 Malcolm X (film), 1:318; 2:335 Kwanzaa and, 1:308
Los Alamos, N. Mex., 1:254; 2:408, 419, Malthus, Thomas, 1:110 LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315
480, 553 Maltz, Albert, 1:257 Nation, The, and, 2:381
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Mamet, David, 1:326 Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:402
1:301–2; 2:378, 417, 434, 547, 593, Manchester, William, 1:52 Rockwell, George Norman, and, 2:477
604 Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515
Lotringer, Sylvère, 1:42 2:558 Sider, Ron, and, 2:518
I-32 Index
Marxism (continued) McGruder, Aaron, 1:108 media (continued)

Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 McGuire, Barry, 2:476 Hightower, Jim, and, 1:250
West, Cornel, and, 2:610, 610 McIntire, Carl Curtis, 1:18, 175; Hill, Julia “Butterfly,” and, 1:252
Wilson, Edmund, and, 2:619 2:347–48, 490, 573 homosexuals and, 1:205, 206, 207–8;
See also communism, communists McKenna, Kenneth, 1:246 2:513
Mary Worth (comic strip), 1:107 McKenzie, Linsey Dawn, 1:278 hooks, bell, and, 1:261
Maryland, 1:12, 264; 2:353, 590 McKinney, Aaron, 2:516–17 Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270
Mashantucket Pequot, 1:275 McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education intelligent design and, 1:125
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1:21 (1982), 1:124 Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279–80
Massachusetts Institute of Technology McLuhan, Herbert Marshall, 2:348–49, Jesus People and, 1:285
(MIT), 1:87, 87 439 Jorgensen, Christine, and, 1:288
Masters and Johnson, 1:139, 313 McNabb, Donovan, 1:324 King, Rodney, and, 1:301
Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in McPherson, Aimee Semple, 1:89, 165 Kristol, Bill, and, 1:305
America and How to Fight It (Hoover), McSally, Martha, 2:489 Lee, Spike, and, 1:317–18
1:112, 262; 2:406 McVeigh, Timothy James, 2:349, 360, lesbians and, 1:320–21
Mathews, Robert, 2:616 477, 496, 578, 586, 616 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322–24
Matlovich v. Secretary of the Air Force (1978), McWilliams, Carey, 2:381 Lott, Trent, and, 2:564
1:209 Me and Mickey D (film), 2:414 Love Canal and, 1:328
Mattachine Society, 1:206, 241; 2:513 Mead, Margaret, 1:303; 2:350 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341, 342
Mattel, Inc., 1:36, 37; 2:598 Means, Russell, 1:22; 2:627 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347–48
Matthiessen, Peter, 1:23 Mearsheimer, John J., 1:281 McLuhan, Marshall, and, 2:348–49
Mattson, Ingrid, 2:378 media Medved, Michael, and, 2:354
Maude (TV program), 1:316 Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 men’s movement and, 2:355
Mauer, Marc, 2:42 AIDS and, 1:13 Million Man March and, 2:362–63
Max, Peter, 1:121 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 Murdoch, Rupert, and, 2:375–76, 587,
Maxxam Corporation, 1:252 Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51 587
May, Andrew J., 2:441 Brock, David, and, 1:51 Nation of Islam and, 2:382
Mayer, Jane, 1:252 Brokaw, Tom, and, 1:52 Native Americans and, 1:22
McAteer, Edward A., 2:466 censorship and, 1:76–77 New York Times and, 2:399–402
McCain, John Sydney, III, 1:4, 67, 156, Chick, Jack, and, 1:84 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403–4, 405
157, 158, 175, 245, 296; 2:339–40, Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 North, Oliver, and, 2:407
395, 411, 412, 423, 481–82, 601 Christian radio and, 1:89–90 NOW and, 2:389
McCain-Feingold Bill, 1:67; 2:339 civil rights movement and, 1:94, 95; NPR and, 2:389–90
McCarran Act (1950), 1:17; 2:343, 344 2:519 O.J. Simpson trial and, 2:417
McCarran Committee, 2:502 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420–21
McCarthy, Eugene Joseph, 1:267; 2:340–41 Clinton impeachment and, 1:99 Palin, Sarah, and, 2:424
McCarthy, Joseph Raymond, 1:27, 61, 101, Common Cause and, 1:109 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427
112, 153, 175, 236, 239, 293, 305, Contract with America and, 1:118 PETA and, 2:426
310; 2:341–42, 342, 343, 343, 376, Coulter, Ann, and, 1:120 pornography and, 2:436–37
377, 381, 468, 477, 549 counterculture and, 1:121, 122 postmodernism and, 2:438, 439
McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and crime and, 2:442 prisoner abuse and, 1:4
Its Meaning (Buckley and Bozell), 1:57; Cronkite, Walter, and, 1:126 punk rock and, 2:449
2:342 culture jamming and, 1:127–28 Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451
McCarthyism, 1:6, 52, 58, 76, 79, 107, Dean, Howard, and, 1:129 Rather, Dan, and, 2:456–57, 457
108, 112, 153, 236, 241, 258, 264, Drudge Report and, 1:141, 142 red and blue states and, 2:460–61
271, 280, 295; 2:341–42, 342–45, Election of 2000 and, 1:154 Republican Party and, 2:469
376, 376, 383, 419, 431, 458, 480, Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 158 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474
484, 493, 517, 549, 556 environmental movement and, 1:30 Rodman, Dennis, and, 2:478
See also Red Scare evangelicalism and, 1:166 Rusher, William A., and, 2:483, 484
McCartney, Bill, 2:446 family values and, 1:172 Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488
McCartney, Paul, 2:426 Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), 1:71; 2:464 FCC and, 1:174–76 Schiavo, Terri, and, 2:473, 491
McCloskey, Deirdre, 2:345 feminism and, 1:178, 179 school shootings and, 2:496–97
McCloskey, Laura A., 2:345 Focus on the Family and, 1:183 science wars and, 2:500
McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), Franken, Al, and, 1:195–96 sexual harassment and, 2:512
2:494 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:197 Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514
McCord, James, Jr., 2:602, 603 fur industry and, 1:202 shock jocks and, 2:517
McCorvey, Norma, 1:212; 2:416, 418, 479 gangs and, 1:204 Simpsons, The, and, 2:519–20
McCreary County, Kentucky et al. v. ACLU Generation X and, 1:212–13 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
(2005), 2:555 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217 speech codes and, 2:530
McDonald, Lawrence P., 1:286 globalization and, 1:222 Steinem, Gloria, and, 2:536
McDonald’s Corporation, 1:168; 2:390, Gore, Al, and, 1:226 Stern, Howard, and, 2:538
413, 489, 566 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227 Stewart, Jon, and, 2:539
McDowell, Arthur, 1:279 Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236 Stone, Oliver, and, 2:539
McFarlane, Robert, 1:278, 279 Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 talk radio and, 2:549–50
McGovern, George Stanley, 1:238; Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239 televangelism and, 2:552–53
2:345–47, 346, 394, 627 Heritage Foundation and, 1:249, 250 think tanks and, 2:558–59
Index I-33
media (continued) Middle East (continued) military, U.S. (continued)

Thompson, Hunter S., and, 2:562 evangelicalism in, 2:518 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489, 503
Turner, Ted, and, 2:569–70 immigration policy and, 1:274 School of the Americas and, 2:493–94
Unabomber and, 2:572 Israel and, 1:280–81 segregation in, 1:153; 2:563
Vidal, Gore, and, 2:578 Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:541
Vietnam War and, 2:581 Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321 Students for a Democratic Society and,
Wal-Mart and, 2:590 Muslim Americans and, 2:377, 378 2:545
Walt Disney Company and, 2:591–92 Nation, The, and, 2:381 Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549
Watergate and, 2:602 Obama, Barack, and, 1:158 think tanks and, 2:557
Watts and Los Angeles riots and, 1:301; postcolonialism and, 1:10 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569
2:604 racial profiling and, 2:453, 454 Vietnam War and, 2:580–82
welfare and, 2:609 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 War on Drugs and, 2:592
Weyrich, Paul M., and, 2:611 Saudi Arabia and, 2:488–90 War Powers Act and, 2:594–95
whistleblowers and, 2:613 September 11 and, 2:503 whistleblowers and, 2:612
Wildmon, Donald, and, 2:616 study of, 1:6, 7, 321; 2:431 See also Air Force, U.S.; Army, U.S.; gays
Winfrey, Oprah, and, 2:619–20 United Nations and, 2:573 in the military; Marines, U.S.; Navy,
women in the military and, 2:622 Midler, Bette, 2:596 U.S.
World magazine and, 2:625 Migrant Health Act (1962), 2:414 military-industrial complex, 1:16, 87, 153;
See also Christian radio; talk radio; migrant labor, 1:80–81; 2:358–59, 377, 2:399, 408, 497, 499, 553
television 381, 414, 535 militia movement, 1:116, 286; 2:349,
media bias, 2:350–52, 351 See also illegal immigrants; immigration 359–60, 365, 482, 573, 586, 615
Media Matters for America, 1:51; 2:400, Mikuriya, Tod H., 2:353 Milk, Harvey Bernard, 2:360–61, 425
420 Milam, J.W., 2:564, 565 Millennial Generation, 1:212, 213
Media Research Center, 1:280; 2:400 Miles, Robert, 2:614 Miller, Arthur, 1:326; 2:344
Medicaid, 1:230, 243–44, 245; 2:565, military, U.S. Miller, Edward S., 2:441
566, 590 ACLU and, 1:18, 19 Miller, Elliot, 2:396
medical malpractice, 2:352–53 affirmative action and, 1:8 Miller, F. Glenn, 2:614
Medicare, 1:230, 243–44, 250, 287; Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:15 Miller, Frank, 1:106
2:397, 427, 428, 522 Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 Miller, Henry, 2:362, 512
Medina, Ernest, 2:379 Brown Scare and, 2:342 Miller, James, 1:192
Medved, Michael, 1:215, 314; 2:354 capital punishment and, 1:69, 70 Miller, Judith, 2:401
Medvedev, Dmitri, 2:528 Churchill, Ward, and, 1:93 Miller, Tim, 2:386
Meeropol, Robert and Michael, 2:480 Cold War and, 1:102 Miller, Zell, 1:115
Meese, Edwin, 1:249; 2:406, 436 drug testing and, 1:142 Miller v. California (1973), 1:278; 2:436
Meet the Press (radio program), 1:256 ecoterrorism and, 1:148 Miller v. Sullivan (1973), 2:386
Meet the Press (TV program), 1:52 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 Millett, Katharyn Murray (Kate), 1:261;
Megan’s Law, 1:51; 2:510 fitness and, 2:413 2:335, 361, 361–62
Mein Kampf (Hitler), 2:477 Fonda, Jane, and, 1:184 Milliken v. Bradley (1974), 1:65
Memoirs of Hecate County (Wilson), 2:618, GI Joe and, 2:597 Million Dollar Baby (film), 2:407
619 Heller, Joseph, and, 1:247–48 Million Man March, 1:172–73; 2:356,
Memorial Day, 1:20 Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, 1:253–54 362–63, 383, 610
Méndez v. Westminster (1946), 1:255–56 Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 Mills, C. Wright, 2:381
Menino, Thomas, 2:517 Internet and, 1:277 Mills, Wilbur, 1:243, 244
men’s movement, 2:354–56, 446–47, 446 Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279 Milosevic, Slobodan, 1:283
Merchant, Natalie, 1:295 Japan and, 1:284 Milton, Joyce, 2:480
Mere Christianity (Lewis), 1:104 Jehovah’s Witnesses and, 1:285 Mind-Body Problem, The (Goldstein), 2:524
Mesa-Bains, Amalia, 1:262 Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 Minersville School v. Gobitis (1940), 1:18
Metalious, Grace, 1:324 Jorgensen, Christine, and, 1:288 Mining Enforcement and Safety
Metzger, Tom, 2:614 Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:294, 295 Administration, 2:613
Mexican Americans, 1:80, 255, 256, 311; Kristol, Bill, and, 1:306 Minnow, Newton N., 1:176; 2:447
2:358–59, 399, 453, 535, 604 Kubrick, Stanley, and, 1:307 Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, 1:272;
Mexico, 1:127, 220, 266, 272; 2:356–57, LeMay, Curtis, and, 1:318 2:583
358–59, 428, 454, 518, 583, 590 Lott, Trent, and, 1:327 Minuteman Project, 2:356, 359
MFN. See most favored nation McCarthyism and, 2:344 Minutemen, 2:615
Mfume, Kweisi, 2:384 McGovern, George, and, 2:345, 347 Mir, 2:528
Miami and the Siege of Chicago (Mailer), Moore, Michael, and, 2:366 Miracle on 34th Street (film), 1:91
2:335 My Lai massacre and, 2:378–79 Miramax, 1:205; 2:592
Miami Herald, 1:238 New Left and, 2:399 Miranda rights, 2:363–64
Michigan, University of, 1:10, 63, 230; Nicaragua and, 2:406 Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 1:19;
2:384, 531, 572, 593 Nixon Doctrine and, 2:519 2:363–64, 471, 600
Mickens v. Taylor (2002), 2:472 nuclear age and, 2:408 Miss America pageant, 1:38–39, 55; 2:368
Microsoft, 1:83; 2:357–58 Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429 Mississippi Burning (film), 2:430
Middle East post-World War II, 2:458 Missouri v. Jenkins (1995), 1:65
Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57 privatization and, 2:445 MIT. See Massachusetts Institute of
Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:459 Technology
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 recruitment by, 1:210 Mitchell, Clarence, Jr., 2:383
Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Republican Party and, 2:469 Mitchell, George, 1:22
I-3 4 Index
Mitchell, Jerry, 2:430 Muhammad, Elijah, 1:172–73; 2:335, 377, Muste, A.J., 1:59; 2:595
Mitchell, John, 2:579, 602 382 Mutual Broadcasting System, 1:89
Mitchell, Joni, 2:628 Muhammad, Warith Deen, 1:173; 2:382 Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial
MLA. See Modern Language Association Muir, John, 1:189 Commission of Ohio (1915), 2:370
Mod Squad, The (TV program), 1:121 Muller, Mancow, 2:517, 550 My Lai massacre, 2:378–79, 519, 539
Modern Language Association (MLA), 1:210 multicultural conservatism, 1:143–44, Myrdal, Gunnar, 1:60
Mohegan Nation, 1:275 298; 2:373, 529–30 “Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm, The”
Mondale, Walter Frederick, 1:8, 179, 238; multiculturalism and ethnic studies, (Koedt), 2:513
2:364–65, 610 2:373–74
monetarism, 1:200 Adler, Mortimer, and, 1:7, 8 NAACP. See National Association for the
Money, John William, 2:568 Afrocentrism and, 1:10–11 Advancement of Colored People
Monkees, The (TV program), 1:121 American Indian Movement and, 1:22 Nabokov, Vladimir, 1:307; 2:512
Monkey Wrench Gang, The (Abbey), 1:149, Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:81 Nader, Ralph, 1:32, 42, 119, 155, 214,
163 Christmas and, 1:91 250, 251; 2:352, 380–81, 393, 415,
Monroe, Marilyn, 1:247 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 554, 560, 566, 612
Monroe Doctrine, 2:527 Columbus Day and, 1:105 NAE. See National Association of
Monsanto, 1:162, 213, 214; 2:561 Commager, Henry, and, 1:109 Evangelicals
Montana, 1:189; 2:353, 360, 572 communism and, 1:236 NAFTA. See North American Free Trade
Montana Freemen, 2:360, 365 counterculture and, 1:122 Agreement
Moody, Dwight L., 1:165 diversity training and, 1:137–38 Nagin, Ray, 1:270
Moody Bible Institute, 1:47, 89; 2:440 drama and, 1:326 Naked Public Square, The: Religion and
Moon, Sun Myung, 1:314; 2:601 D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:143–44 Democracy in America (Neuhaus), 2:526
Moore, Alan, 1:106 English as the Official Language and, NARAL Pro-Choice America, 1:290;
Moore, Michael, 1:38 1:160–61 2:443
Moore, Michael Francis (filmmaker), 1:69, feminism and, 1:178–79 see also National Abortion Rights Action
215, 250, 325; 2:336, 365–66, 366, gays in popular culture and, 1:208 League; National Association for the
489, 497, 505 globalization and, 1:221, 222 Repeal of Abortion Laws
Moore, Mike, 2:565 Great Books and, 1:228, 229 “Narratives of Empire” series (Vidal), 2:578
Moore, Roy Stewart, 1:314; 2:366–67, 554 Hillsdale College and, 1:253 NASA. See National Aeronautics and Space
Moraga, Cherríe, 1:178 Hispanic Americans and, 1:255–56 Administration
Moral Majority, 1:2, 73, 88, 90, 139, 166, Huntington, Samuel P., and, 1:269 Nasser, Gamel Abdel, 1:280
170, 170, 171, 182, 193, 247, 313; immigration policy and, 1:274 Nathan, Theodora, 2:560
2:367–68, 436, 437, 447, 466, 467, Japanese internment and, 2:467 Nathanson, Bernard, 1:2
474, 479, 519, 552, 611 literature and, 1:325 Nation, The magazine, 2:380, 381, 402,
moral relativism. See relativism, moral Mexico and, 2:356 403, 422, 426, 447, 562, 624
Morgan, Robin Evonne, 2:368–69 Morgan, Robin, and, 2:368 Nation at Risk, A (report), 1:80, 151, 229
Mormons, 1:200, 201 Muslim Americans and, 2:377 Nation of Islam, 1:15, 172–73, 173, 235;
Morris, Dick, 2:401 National Endowment for the Humanities 2:335, 356, 362, 377, 382–83, 383
Morris, Errol, 1:325 and, 2:388 Nation of Rebels (Heath and Potter), 1:128
Morris, Henry M., 1:124 political correctness and, 2:435–36 Nation of Victims, A (Sykes), 2:577
Morris, John, 1:124 postmodernism and, 2:438 National Abortion Rights Action League
Morrison, Jim, 1:55; 2:539 race and, 2:452 (NARAL), 1:1, 2
Morrison, Samuel Eliot, 1:108, 109 Said, Edward, and, 1:10; 2:486 National Academy of Sciences, 1:214,
Morrison, Toni, 1:179, 230; 2:369, 619 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493 218–19; 2:520
Morse, Wayne, 1:113 September 11 Memorial and, 2:506 National Aeronautics and Space
Mosaic, 1:277; 2:357 speech codes and, 2:530 Administration (NASA), 1:116, 126,
Moscone, George, 2:361 Strauss, Leo, and, 2:542 258; 2:408, 528, 621
Moskos, Charles, 1:209 structuralism and, 2:542 National Agricultural Chemicals
Moss, Annie Lee, 2:377 Thanksgiving Day and, 2557 Association, 1:72
Moss, John, 1:197 victimhood and, 2:577 National Air and Space Museum, 1:161,
most favored nation (MFN), 1:85; 2:394 Watt, James, and, 2:604 284
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), West, Cornel, and, 2:610 National Archives and Records
1:33; 2:369–70 World Council of Churches and, 2:626 Administration, 1:198
Motion Picture Association of America Mumford, Lewis, 2:374–75 National Association for the Advancement
(MPAA), 1:325; 2:370–71 Mundell, Robert, 2:547 of Colored People (NAACP), 2:383–84
MoveOn.org, 1:290; 2:525, 597 Murdoch, Keith Rupert, 2:375–76, 418, ACLU and, 1:17
Movie Ratings Game, The (Farber), 2:371 420, 587, 587, 607 blackface and, 1:46
Moyers, Bill, 1:197 Murphy Brown (TV program), 1:172; 2:451 Brown v. Board of Education and, 1:53–54;
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 2:371–72, 380, Murray, Charles, 1:40; 2:452, 608 2:561
573, 608 Murray v. Curlett (1963), 1:18; 2:416, 494, capital punishment and, 1:70, 215, 216
Mozilla, 2:357 495 civil rights and, 1:93, 94
MPAA. See Motion Picture Association of Murrow, Edward Roscoe, 2:341, 344–45, Confederate flag and, 1:114, 115
America 358, 376, 376–77, 414 conspiracy theories and, 1:116
Ms. (honorific), 2:372–73 Muslim Americans, 1:15, 172–73, 173, DuBois, W.E.B., and, 1:144
Ms. Magazine, 1:165, 179, 210; 2:368, 239, 260, 281; 2:335, 377–78, 382– Goetz, Bernhard, and, 1:223
372, 535, 536 83, 454, 505, 546 Loving, Richard and Mildred, and, 1:329
MTV, 1:283; 2:333, 449, 476, 570, 628 See also Islam; Nation of Islam Million Man March and, 2:362
Index I-35
National Association for the Advancement National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Native American Graves Protection and
of Colored People (NAACP) (continued) 1:159 Repatriation Act (1990), 1:23, 133
Parks, Rosa, and, 1:94; 2:383, 424 National Minimum Drinking Age Act Native Americans, 1:93, 96, 105, 121,
Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427 (1984), 2:370 133, 135, 184, 202, 204, 266, 275,
racial profiling and, 2:454 National Mobilization Committee to End 276, 325; 2:355, 374, 396, 399, 461,
Thomas, Clarence, and, 1:251; 2:561 the War in Vietnam, 1:242; 2:596 462, 463, 556, 557, 605, 627, 630
Till, Emmett, and, 2:565 National Oceanic and Atmospheric See also American Indian Movement;
National Association for the Advancement Administration (NOAA), 2:404 Indian casinos; Indian sport mascots
of White People, 1:146; 2:614 National Office Management Association, nativity scenes, 1:91, 91, 92
National Association for the Repeal of 2:372 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty
Abortion Laws (NARAL), 1:1, 177, National Organization for the Reform of Organization
199 Marijuana Laws (NORML), 2:393, 562 Navasky, Victor, 2:381
National Association of Evangelicals, 1:47, National Organization for Women (NOW), Navy, U.S., 1:209, 254; 2:379, 503, 512,
102; 2:552 1:1, 53, 113, 165, 176–77, 198, 199, 622, 623
National Association of Religious 313, 320; 2:361, 372, 388–89, 422, Nazis, German, 1:4, 28, 100, 106, 107,
Broadcasters, 2:475 447, 479, 516, 536, 561 110, 134, 258–59; 2:342, 394, 419,
National Audubon Society, 1:163 National Parent-Teacher Association, 431, 515, 525, 527, 603
National Bar Association, 2:561 1:150; 2:459 Nazism, 1:17, 18, 28, 31, 89, 114, 125,
National Center for Science Education, National Park Service, 1:30, 162; 2:362 134, 145, 246; 2:342, 344, 401, 477,
1:124 National Park Service Act (1916), 1:189, 541, 584, 614, 615–16
National Coalition to Abolish the Death 190 NCAA. See National Collegiate Athletic
Penalty, 1:70 National Public Radio (NPR), 1:42, 251, Association
National Collegiate Athletic Association 279; 2:351, 366, 377, 389–90, 550, NCC. See National Council of Churches
(NCAA), 1:276 616 NCSC. See National Council of Senior
National Committee for a Sane Nuclear National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), Citizens
Policy (SANE), 1:121; 2:398, 409, 1:89, 90; 2:552 NEA. See National Education Association;
532, 595 National Restaurant Association, 2:413 National Endowment for the Arts
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Review, 1:57, 79, 253, 286, 295; Nebel, Long John, 2:549
1:2, 75 2:340, 342, 344, 390–91, 395, 483, NEH. See National Endowment for the
National Council of Churches (NCC), 493, 544, 579, 584, 617, 630 Humanities
1:201; 2:347, 466 National Review Online, 1:120 Nelson, Cary, 1:6
National Council of Senior Citizens National Rifle Association (NRA), 1:232, Nelson, Gaylord, 1:148, 163
(NCSC), 1:243, 244 233; 2:391–92, 392, 423, 497, 562 Nelson, William Hugh (Willie), 2:392–93
National Education Association (NEA), National Right to Life Committee, 1:2; neoconservatism, 2:393–95
1:113, 150, 260, 276, 312 2:443, 479 academic freedom and, 2:344
National Educational Television (NET), National Science Foundation, 1:124 American Century and, 1:16
2:448 national security American exceptionalism and, 1:21
National Empowerment Television (NET), Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 American Spectator and, 2:544
2:611 Cold War and, 1:101 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:57
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), conspiracy theories and, 1:116 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58
1:14, 15, 88, 132, 230, 248, 287, 326; Freedom of Information Act and, 1:197, Cheney, Dick, and, 1:16, 81, 82
2:336, 384–87, 386, 437, 463, 507, 198 Cold War and, 1:103
616 George W. Bush administration and, communism and, 1:112
National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley 1:63, 64 compassionate conservatism and,
(1998), 2:386, 507 globalization and, 1:222 1:113
National Endowment for the Humanities Gore, Al, and, 1:225 counterculture and, 1:122
(NEH), 1:11, 41, 81, 82, 230, 268, gun control and, 1:232 Election of 2000 and, 1:155
287; 2:387–88 Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237
National Environmental Policy Act (1969), Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279 human rights and, 1:266
1:159, 162 Kerry, John, and, 1:296 Huntington, Samuel P., and, 1:269
National Farm Workers’ Association Mexico and, 2:356 Hutchins, Robert M., and, 1:271
(NFWA), 2:358 USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:344, 574, 574 Japan and, 1:284
National Firearms Act (1934), 1:232 Vidal, Gore, and, 2:578 Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298
National Football League, 1:208; 2:613 whistleblowers and, 2:612 Kristol, Irving and Bill, and, 1:305–6,
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Security Act (1947), 2:569 305
1:207, 210; 2:521 National Security Agency (NSA), 2:574, Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371,
National Guard, 1:62, 94, 287, 301; 575, 613 372
2:374, 399, 451, 456, 457, 588, 596, National Security Council (NSC), 1:101, multicultural conservatism and, 2:373
604 278–79; 2:395, 406, 569 New York Times and, 2:400
National Highway System Designation Act National Socialist Party of America, 1:18; Penn, Sean, and, 2:426
(1995), 1:33 2:477, 616 Pipes, Richard and Daniel, and,
National Highway Traffic Safety National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety 2:430–31
Administration (NHTSA), 1:32 Act (1966), 2:380 Podhoretz, Norman, and, 2:432, 432
national identity, 1:269; 2:435–36, 470, National Trails System Act (1968), 1:162 Rove, Karl, 2:480
471, 576 National Treasury v. Von Raab (1989), 1:143 Strauss, Leo, and, 2:541–42
National Labor Relations Act (1935), National Wildlife Federation, 1:163 Vidal, Gore, and, 2:578
2:342 National Youth Alliance, 2:616 Vietnam War and, 2:582
I-3 6 Index
neoconservatism (continued) NHTSA. See National Highway Traffic Nixon, Richard Milhous (continued)
Weekly Standard and, 2:607–8 Safety Administration Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493
welfare and, 2:608 Nicaragua, 1:77, 101, 102, 116, 266, 278; “Silent Majority” and, 2:518–19
NET. See National Educational Television; 2:388, 406, 602 Soviet Union and, 2:528
National Empowerment Television Nichols, Terry, 2:349 talk radio and, 2:549
Netherlands, 1:46; 2:345, 490, 596 Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556
Netscape, 2:357 America (Ehrenreich), 1:114, 152; Wallace, George, and, 2:560, 588
Neuhaus, Richard John, 2:526 2:589 War on Drugs and, 2:592
Nevins, Allan, 1:109 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 1:227, 303; 2:402–3 War Powers Act and, 2:594, 595
New Age, The: Notes of a Fringe Watcher Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1:43, 192 Warren, Earl, and, 2:600
(Gardner), 2:396 Nightline (TV program), 2:597, 617 Woodward, Bob, and, 2:624
New Age movement, 1:84, 121, 134, 226, 9–11 (Chomsky), 1:87; 2:504 See also Watergate
260; 2:393, 395–96, 524, 560 1999: Victory Without War (Nixon), 1:78 Nixon administration, 1:12, 56, 58, 67,
New Deal, 1:8, 57, 135, 174–75, 196, Nineteenth Amendment, 1:164 81, 106, 116, 176–77, 198, 247, 305,
200, 223, 224, 225, 230, 242, 256, Ninth Amendment, 1:298; 2:443, 479 322; 2:371, 385, 394, 401, 409, 457,
287, 310, 311; 2:342, 343, 344, 364, Niskanen, William, 2:444 464, 476, 484, 579
385, 397–98, 401, 402, 406, 458, Nixon, Richard Milhous, 2:403–5, 404 Nixon and the CFR (Courtney), 1:116
468, 492, 493, 535, 549, 556, 568, ACLU and, 1:19 Nixon Doctrine, 2:519
570, 608 affirmative action and, 1:9 NMFS. See National Marine Fisheries
New Frontier, 2:397 Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 Service
New Journalism, 1:324; 2:334, 398, 562, American Indian Movement and, 1:22, No Child Left Behind Act (2001), 1:45,
621 23; 2:627 50, 63, 150, 151, 152
New Left, 1:83, 127, 136, 162, 178, 203, anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies
236, 237, 242, 262, 264, 281, 310; Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 (Klein), 1:128, 303
2:334, 368, 381, 394, 398–99, 432, Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 NOAA. See National Oceanic and
449, 476, 543, 544–45, 596, 622 Chambers, Whittaker, and, 1:79 Atmospheric Administration
New Mexico, University of, 1:7 child care and, 2:364 Nobel Peace Prize, 1:60, 73, 219, 225,
New Pearl Harbor, The (Griffin), 1:117 China and, 1:85 226, 299; 2:484
New Republic magazine, 1:108; 2:607, 619 CIA and, 1:78 Nobel Prize in Economics, 1:199, 306
New Right, 2:389, 451, 469, 484, 603, Cold War and, 1:102 Nobel Prize in Literature, 2:369, 535
611 Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104 Noll, Mark, 2:490, 500
New Science of Politics, The (Voegelin), 2:584 comic strips and, 1:107 Nomani, Asra, 2:378
“New World Order,” 1:116–17; 2:359, Dean, John, and, 1:130–31 None Dare Call It Treason (Stormer), 2:342
360 Democratic Party and, 1:136 Noonan, Peggy, 2:424
New World Order (Robertson), 2:573 Earth Day and, 1:148 Norell, James O. E., 1:232
New York Conservative Party, 1:58; 2:584 Endangered Species Act and, 1:159 Norman, Larry, 1:117
New York Dolls, 2:449 FDA and, 1:186 NORML. See National Organization for the
New York Observer, 1:120; 2:400 Felt, W. Mark, and, 1:176–77 Reform of Marijuana Laws
New York Police Department (NYPD), Ford, Gerald, and, 1:187 Norquist, Grover Glenn, 2:397, 405–6,
1:143; 2:433, 514, 612 Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 463
New York Radical Women, 1:38; 2:368 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227, 228 North, Gary, 1:90
New York Review of Books, 2:432, 619 Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 North, Oliver Laurence, Jr., 1:17, 19, 108,
New York Times, The, 1:19, 54, 78, 81, 87, Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239 278; 2:406, 406–7, 441, 463, 602
98, 103, 108, 120, 148, 179, 188, health care and, 1:243, 244 North American Free Trade Agreement
200, 279, 280, 295, 298, 306, 323; Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262 (NAFTA), 1:33, 57, 97, 220, 221;
2:351, 369, 372, 399–402, 420, 426, Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:266, 267 2:356, 380, 428
524, 547, 556, 572, 574, 575, 579, Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
591, 593, 602, 612, 613 labor unions and, 1:312 (NATO), 1:16, 101, 153, 194; 2:529,
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), Leary, Timothy, and, 1:316 549
2:401 Liddy, G. Gordon, and, 1:322 Northern Illinois University, 2:497
New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), Lott, Trent, and, 1:326 Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line
2:401 Marxism and, 2:338 Co. (1984), 1:35
New Yorker magazine, 1:72, 120, 254; McCarthyism and, 2:343, 344 Northwest Forest Plan (1994), 1:190
2:375, 378, 411, 496, 540, 619 McGovern, George, and, 2:347 Norton, Eleanor Holmes, 1:18
Newkirk, Ingrid, 2:426 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:348 Not a Love Story (film), 1:304
Newman, John Henry, 2:617 My Lai massacre and, 2:379 Not Dead Yet, 2:407, 473, 491
Newman, Paul, 2:381 New Deal and, 2:397 Nova Express (Burroughs), 1:246
news reporting. See media Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:403 NOW. See National Organization for
NewsCorporation, 2:375, 587, 607 occupational safety and, 2:414 Women
See also Fox News PBS and, 2:448 NOW with Bill Moyers (TV program), 2:448
Newsday, 1:251; 2:400, 514 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427 NPR. See National Public Radio
Newsweek magazine, 1:90, 141, 200, 212, presidential pardons and, 2:440–41 NRA. See National Rifle Association
278, 288; 2:352, 379, 385, 405, 617, Rather, Dan, and, 2:457 NRB. See National Religious Broadcasters
625 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458 NRC. See Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Newton, Huey P., 1:44, 45; 2:369 Republican Party and, 2:468 U.S.
Next Christendom, The: The Coming Global rock and roll and, 2:628 NSA. See National Security Agency
Christianity (Jenkins), 1:21 Rusher, William A., and, 2:484 NSC. See National Security Council
Index I-37
Nu South Apparel, 1:114, 115 Ochs, Adolph S., 2:400 Operation Breadbasket, 1:282; 2:514
nuclear age, 2:408–10 Ochs, Phil, 1:83, 121 Operation Rescue, 1:2, 297; 2:418–19,
anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 O’Connor, John D., 1:177 443, 491
Cold War and, 1:101, 102, 112, 127, O’Connor, Sandra Day, 1:290; 2:415–16, Opie and Anthony, 2:517, 550
148, 292, 318–19, 343; 2:394, 403, 459, 473 Oppenheimer, Julius Robert, 1:254;
459, 480, 527, 528, 540–41, 568, O’Derek, Keith, 2:604 2:419–20, 553
569, 588, 595 O’Donnell, Rosie, 1:320 Oprah Winfrey Show (TV program), 1:141,
counterculture and, 1:130, 218, 242; Oestereich v. Selection Board No. 11 (1968), 207; 2:619–20
2:398, 595 1:19 O’Reilly, William James, 1:69, 91, 93,
environmental movement and, 1:110, Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck), 1:49; 2:535 196, 306; 2:350, 420–21, 465, 504,
148, 162, 163; 2:595 Of Paradise and Power (Kagan), 1:16 539
Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:224 Off with Their Heads (Morris), 2:401 Orendain, Antonio, 2:359
Graham, Billy, and, 1:227; 2:552 Office for National Service, 1:113 Organization of Petroleum Exporting
literature, film, and drama and, 1:130, Office of Economic Opportunity, 1:81; Countries (OPEC), 1:73; 2:489
184, 242, 307, 324 2:594 Orientalism (Said), 1:10; 2:486
Oppenheimer, Robert J., and, 2:419 Office of National Drug Control Policy, Origin of Species (Darwin), 1:124
postmodernism and, 2:438 2:593 Ornitz, Samuel, 1:257
power plants and, 1:110, 217, 219, 242; Ofili, Chris, 2:507 O’Rourke, P.J., 2:607
2:519, 563, 612 O’Hair, Madalyn Murray, 1:139; 2:416, Osbourne, Ozzy, 1:246
Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 495 OSHA. See Occupational Safety and Health
Teller, Edward, and, 2:553–54 O’Hair, William, 2:416, 495 Administration
See also arms control; Hiroshima and Oil for Food scandal, 2:574 Osteen, Joel, 2:553
Nagasaki; Los Alamos, N. Mex.; oil industry O’Sullivan, John, 2:391
Manhattan Project Bush family and, 1:61, 62 Oswald, Lee Harvey, 2:600
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 Other America, The (Harrington), 1:237;
2:409 Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81 2:608
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. corporate welfare and, 1:119 Our Bodies, Ourselves, 1:121
(NRC), 2:563 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, 1:110 environmental movement and, 1:148, Biotechnology Revolution (Fukuyama),
Nunn, Sam, 1:97, 208 164 1:42
Nutritional Labeling and Education Act forest, parklands, and federal wilderness Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa
(1990), 1:187 and, 1:190 (Richburg), 1:11
Nye, Judy, 2:570 global warming and, 1:219 Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism
NYPD. See New York Police Department Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270 (film), 1:126; 2:351, 376
Moore, Michael, and, 2:366 outing, 1:50, 195, 206, 207, 208, 299,
O.J. Simpson trial, 2:363, 369, 417, Palin, Sarah, and, 2:423 320; 2:361, 362, 421
417–18 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:428 OutKast, 2:425
Oak Ridge, Tenn., 2:408 Saudi Arabia and, 2:488–90 Outland (comic strip), 1:108
Oakes, Richard, 1:22 science wars and, 2:499 Owens, Bill, 1:93
Obama, Barack Hussein, 1:4, 98, 129, 130, September 11 and, 2:503
156, 157–58, 157, 180, 198, 245, Watt, James, and, 2:604 Pachauri, Rajendra K., 1:226
251, 282, 283, 294; 2:339, 340, 378, Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609 Pacheco, Alex, 2:426
411–12, 423, 448, 453, 502, 505, Oklahoma, University of, 1:252, 276; pacifism, pacifists, 1:241, 282, 285; 2:342,
508, 509, 532, 601, 620 2:512 394, 398, 402, 502, 595, 625
Obama, Michelle, 2:378, 411 Oklahoma City, Okla., 2:349, 360, 477, See also war protesters
obesity, 2:344, 413–14, 577 570, 577, 578, 586, 616 Packer, Arnold H., 1:137
objectivism, 1:58; 2:454–55 Olasky, Marvin, 1:113; 2:463, 625 Packwood, Robert William, 1:53; 2:422
obscenity Older Workers’ Benefit Protection Act paganism, 1:84, 121, 171; 2:395, 503
Biafra, Jello, and, 1:41, 42 (1990), 1:11 Page, Jim, 1:4
book banning and, 1:49 Oliphant, 2:428 Paglia, Camille Anna, 1:322; 2:362,
drama and, 1:326 Olmstead v. United States (1928), 2:443 422–23
film and, 1:325 Olson, Norman, 2:360 Paideia Project, 1:8, 229
Ginsberg, Allen, and, 1:218 “On the Pulse of Morning” (Angelou), 1:25 Paigen, Beverly, 1:328
MacKinnon, Catharine, and, 2:332 On the Road (Kerouac), 1:121, 218, 295 Pakistan, 1:69, 266; 2:378, 409, 503
National Endowment for the Arts and, On Wings of Eagles (Follett), 2:427 Palestine, Palestinians, 1:6, 29, 60, 87,
2:336–37, 507 Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy, 1:194, 294 201, 258, 280–81, 293; 2:367, 378,
rap music and, 2:456 One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey), 486, 526, 626
rock and roll and, 2:476 1:121 Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (Carter), 1:73,
Roth, Philip, and, 1:324 One Nation After All (Wolfe), 1:268 281
shock jocks and, 2:517 One-Dimensional Man (Marcuse), 1:162 Palestinian Liberation Organization, 1:29,
Supreme Court and, 1:278, 324 O’Neill, Paul, 1:48 282; 2:489
Wilson, Edmund, and, 2:618, 619 O’Neill, Thomas P. (Tip), 1:217; 2:592 Palin, Sarah Louise, 1:158; 2:339, 412,
See also pornography Ono, Yoko, 2:596 423–24
occupational safety, 2:380, 414–15, 612, 613 OPEC. See Organization of Petroleum Palin, Todd, 2:423
Occupational Safety and Health Exporting Countries Pallone, Dave, 1:208
Administration (OSHA), 2:380, 397, Open Society and Its Enemies, The (Popper), Palmer, A. Mitchell, 1:262
414, 613 2:525 Pan-Africanism, 1:10; 2:382
I-3 8 Index
Panama, 1:81, 108; 2:425, 493 Perkins, Tony, 1:290 Podhoretz, Norman, 1:218, 295; 2:334,
Panama Canal, 1:73, 216 Perle, Richard, 1:305; 2:394, 395 394, 395, 432, 432–33, 541
Panay, USS, 1:107 Perot, H. Ross, Jr., 2:428 Pogo (comic strip), 1:107, 108
Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), Perot, Henry Ross, 1:96, 220, 221, 323; Poindexter, John, 1:278, 279; 2:406
1:246; 2:459, 460, 629 2:427–28, 428, 550, 560, 579 Poitier, Sidney, 1:325
Parker, Charlie, 1:295 Perry, Elizabeth Cheney, 1:81, 82–83, 82 Poland, 1:28, 74, 134, 231; 2:525
Parks, Raymond, 2:424 Perry, Phillip, 1:82–83 police
Parks, Rosa Louise, 1:94, 298, 300; 2:362, Perry, Rick, 1:250 Battle of Seattle and, 1:37–38, 220
383, 424–25, 540, 588 personal responsibility, 1:113, 172, 200, civil rights movement and, 1:94, 95, 300
Parran, Thomas, 1:243 249; 2:496, 558, 583, 608 comic books and, 1:106
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (2003), Personal Responsibility and Work gangs and, 1:203, 204
1:63; 2:479 Opportunity Reconciliation Act graffiti and, 1:227
Partisan Review, 1:324 (1996), 1:51; 2:508 hate crimes and, 1:240
Passion of Michel Foucault, The (Miller), Personal Responsibility in Food Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257
1:192 Consumption Act, 2:413 homosexuals and, 1:206; 2:513, 540,
Passion of the Christ, The (film), 1:214, 215, Pesticide Chemical Amendments (1954), 568
314; 2:354 1:185 Miranda rights and, 2:363–64, 600
Pat Sajak Show (TV program), 1:323 pesticides, 1:71–72, 80, 132, 148, 162, New Left and, 2:399
Pataki, George, 1:93; 2:583 185, 328; 2:499 O.J. Simpson trial and, 2:418
PATCO. See Professional Air Traffic PETA. See People for the Ethical Treatment Obama, Barack, and, 2:411
Controllers Organization of Animals racial profiling and, 2:453–54
Patrick Henry College, 1:261; 2:544 Peter, Paul, and Mary, 1:121 rap music and, 2:456
Patriot movement, 2:359, 365 Petersen, Daniel, 2:365 right to counsel and, 2:471
Patterson, John, 2:588 Peyton Place (Metalious), 1:324 September 11 and, 2:503
Patterson, Laslo, 1:31 pharmaceutical industry, 1:186, 214, 245; sex offenders and, 2:510
Patterson, Robert (Buzz), 1:210 2:352, 612 toy guns and, 2:598
Patti, Sandi, 1:117–18 Phelps, Fred Waldron, 2:429, 516 vigilantism and, 1:231
Paul, Alice, 1:164 Philadelphia, Miss., 1:29, 95, 330; war protesters and, 1:267; 2:596
Paul, Ron, 1:156 2:429–30, 478, 614 Zappa, Frank, and, 2:629
Paul VI (Pope), 2:391, 513 Philadelphia Plan, 1:9 See also Los Angeles Police Department;
PBS. See Public Broadcasting Service Philip Morris, 2:520 New York Police Department
Peace Corps, 1:292 Philippines, 1:77 police abuse, 1:44, 45, 94, 95, 300, 301–2;
Peale, Norman Vincent, 2:532, 557 Phillips, Howard, 2:560 2:384, 399, 426, 433–34, 455, 485,
Pearl Harbor, 1:77, 106, 197 Phillips, Sam, 2:475 514, 583, 584, 588, 596, 604
Peck, M. Scott, 2:379 Pierce, William L., 2:349, 477, 616 political correctness, 2:434–36
Peckinpah, Sam, 1:325 Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), 1:92 Afrocentrism and, 1:11
Peddling Prosperity (Krugman), 1:306; Pietrzykowski, Zbigniew, 1:15 blackface and, 1:46
2:547 Pinchot, Gifford, 1:189, 190 censorship and, 1:77
Peikoff, Leonard, 2:455 Pincus, Gregory, 2:431 Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:82
Pelley, William Dudley, 2:615 Pinochet, Augusto, 2:400 Christmas and, 1:91
Peltier, Leonard, 1:23; 2:462 Pinsky, Robert, 1:218 Columbus Day and, 1:105
Pendergast, Tom, 2:568 Pipes, Daniel, 1:6; 2:344, 430–31 D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:143
Penis Landscape (painting), 1:42 Pipes, Richard Edgar, 1:305; 2:394, 395, Enola Gay exhibit and, 1:161
Penn, Leo, 2:425 430–31 FDR memorial and, 1:197
Penn, Sean, 2:334, 425–26 PIRG. See Public Interest Research Group Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182
Penry, Johnny, 1:71 Piss Christ (artwork), 2:337, 386, 506, 507 gender-inclusive language and, 1:210
Penry v. Johnson (2001), 1:71 Pius XI (Pope), 1:75 Hillsdale College and, 1:253
Penry v. Lynaugh (1989), 1:71 Pius XII (Pope), 2:409 Indian sport mascots and, 1:276
Pentagon, 2:502 Plame, Valerie, 1:78, 82; 2:381, 482, 625 Irvine, Reed, and, 1:280
See also Defense Department, U.S. Plan B, 1:187 Kwanzaa and, 1:308
Pentagon of Power, The (Mumford), 2:375 Planned Parenthood, 1:1, 43, 290; multiculturalism and ethnic studies and,
Pentagon Papers, 1:322; 2:401, 602, 612 2:431–32, 443, 508, 509 2:374
Penthouse magazine, 1:39, 182, 247; 2:436 Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), 2:415, revisionist history and, 1:105, 161;
People for the American Way, 1:92, 171, 432 2:435–36, 470
251, 290, 316; 2:501, 503, 552, 616 Plantky, Anita, 1:241 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493
People for the Ethical Treatment of Plath, Sylvia, 1:324 September 11 Memorial and, 2:506
Animals (PETA), 1:26, 168, 202; Plato, 2:542 Sowell, Thomas, and, 2:529, 530
2:426–27 Platoon (film), 2:378, 539 speech codes and, 2:530
People of the Lie (Peck), 2:379 Plausible Denial (Lane), 1:116 Summers, Lawrence, and, 2:546
People v. Larry Flynt, The (film), 1:182 Playboy magazine, 1:73, 182, 235, 246, Wal-Mart and, 2:590
People’s History of the United States, A (Zinn), 247; 2:332, 368, 436, 512, 578 Washington Times and, 2:602
1:121; 2:470, 630–31 Pledge of Allegiance. See flag pledging Watt, James, and, 2:603
People’s Temple, 1:116 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 1:53, 54, 94, 289; West, Cornel, and, 2:611
Pepper, Claude, 1:113 2:464, 599 White, Reggie, and, 2:613
PepsiCo., 1:283; 2:333, 617 Plimpton, George, 2:385 Wolfe, Tom, and, 2:622
Perdue, Sonny, 1:115 PMRC. See Parents’ Music Resource Center women’s studies and, 2:623
Perfect Candidate, A (film), 2:407 Podhoretz, John, 2:394 zero tolerance and, 2:630
Index I-3 9
Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company poverty (continued) Prisoner of Sex, The (Mailer), 2:335, 362,
(1895), 2:551 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371 578
pollution, 1:59–60, 82, 148, 149, 162, Muslim Americans and, 2:377 prisoners of war, 1:4; 2:339, 505
163, 169, 190; 2:380 NAACP and, 2:384 prisons
Pombo, Richard, 1:190 New Left and, 2:399 CIA, 1:4, 78; 2:613
Poole, Robert W., Jr., 2:444 New Right and, 2:451 gangs and, 1:204
Popper, Karl, 2:525 Obama, Barack, and, 2:411 Nation of Islam and, 2:382
Popular Front, 1:241; 2:343, 419 obesity and, 2:413, 414 U.S. military, 1:3–4; 2:378, 505
populism, 1:108, 250, 267; 2:364, 366, privatization and, 2:445 War on Drugs and, 2:593
385, 393, 427, 449, 462, 469, 488, racial profiling and, 2:454 privacy rights, 1:19, 44, 140, 142, 143,
560, 569, 588, 609 “rednecks” and, 2:462 260, 278, 288, 289; 2:431, 443–44,
pornography, 1:19, 88, 136, 138, 146, 171, right to counsel and, 2:472 479, 504, 509, 523, 574, 600
172, 182, 183, 247, 278, 304, 325; right to die and, 2:473 Private Wants, Public Means (Tullock), 2:444
2:332, 333, 336, 355, 368, 386, 422, Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, and, 1:196 privatization, 1:198, 216, 217; 2:385, 397,
431, 436–38, 437, 459, 460, 469, Sanger, Margaret, and, 2:431 420, 444–45, 447, 461, 481, 498,
490, 509, 510, 512, 513, 526, 534, Sharpton, Al, and, 2:514 522, 523, 528, 559
553, 599, 617, 629 Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt
See also obscenity Sider, Ron, and, 2:518 Manipulators (Chilton), 2:518
Pornography: Men Possessing Women Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:532 Professional Air Traffic Controllers
(Dworkin), 1:146 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 Organization (PATCO), 1:312
Port Huron Statement, 1:237, 242; 2:399, Students for a Democratic Society and, Professors, The: The 101 Most Dangerous
545 2:545 Academics in America (Horowitz), 1:264;
Posner, Richard A., 1:232; 2:332 voting rights and, 2:585 2:344
Posse Comitatus, 1:31; 2:360, 365, 615 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 Progressive Christians Uniting, 2:445–46
Postal Service, U.S., 2:592 War on Drugs and, 2:593 Progressive magazine, 1:152, 310
postcolonialism, 1:10, 178, 325; 2:452 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601 Progressive Party, 1:101, 111, 310; 2:488,
Postmaster General, Office of, 1:174 Watts and Los Angeles riots and, 2:604, 560
Postmodern Condition, The: A Report on 605 Project for the New American Century
Knowledge (Lyotard), 2:438 Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609 (PNAC), 1:16–17, 82, 103; 2:395,
postmodernism, 1:10, 81, 104, 131, 132, World Council of Churches and, 2:625 558, 607
194, 229, 261, 271, 325; 2:351, See also War on Poverty; wealth gap; Promise Keepers, 1:183; 2:355, 356, 446,
438–39, 470, 500, 524 welfare 446–47
Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Powdermaker, Hortense, 1:325 prostitution, 1:181–82, 195; 2:332, 422,
Capitalism (Jameson), 2:438 Powell, Colin, 1:82, 97, 209, 210; 2:395, 423, 437, 524
Potsdam Conference, 1:100 412, 625 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms
Potsdam Declaration, 1:254 Powell, Laurence, 1:301, 302 Act (2005), 1:233; 2:391
Potter, Andre, 1:128 Powell v. Alabama (1932), 2:471 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 1:281
Potter, Paul, 2:399 Powers, Richard Gid, 1:263 Proxmire, William, 2:612
poverty Pratt, Larry, 2:360 PTL ministry, 1:171; 2:552, 553
AIDS and, 1:13 premillennial dispensationalism, 1:165, Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 2:447
Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40 201, 281; 2:367, 439–40, 586 Public Broadcasting Financing Act (1975),
Biafra, Jello, and, 1:41 Prescription Drug User Fee Act (1992), 2:448
Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 1:186 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 1:41,
Bono and, 1:48 presidential pardons, 1:62, 73, 176, 188, 57, 200, 224, 279, 280; 2:354, 364,
Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51 279, 322; 2:405, 440–41, 603 377, 387, 388, 447–48, 484, 489, 616
Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60 Presidential Recordings and Materials Public Burning, The (Coover), 2:480
Bush, Prescott, and, 1:61 Preservation Act (1974), 1:198 Public Citizen, 2:352, 380
capital punishment and, 2:484 Presidential Records Act (1978), 1:198 Public Enemy (film), 1:204
Catholic Church and, 1:75 President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS public health, 1:142, 233; 2:344, 413,
compassionate conservatism and, 1:113, Relief, 2:508 442, 525, 592, 607
114 Presley, Elvis, 2:475, 512 Public Interest Research Group (PIRG),
crime and, 1:231 Presley, Lisa Marie, 1:283 1:214; 2:380
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and, 1:152 Pressler, Larry, 2:390, 448 Publishers Weekly, 1:49; 2:539
evangelicalism and, 1:166 Prevention First Act (2005), 1:98 Puerto Ricans, 1:255, 256; 2:399
free-market system and, 1:172 Price, George Macready, 1:124 Puerto Rico, 1:231
globalization and, 1:220 Priest (film), 1:325; 2:592 Pulitzer Prize, 1:64, 70, 108, 216, 235,
Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237 Prince, 2:459 264, 307; 2:334, 335, 369, 378, 400,
Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242 Prince, Virginia, 2:568 401, 493, 535, 556, 617, 624
Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 Prince Valiant (comic strip), 1:107 Pulp Fiction (film), 2:592
Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267 Princeton Theological Seminary, 1:200; punk rock, 1:41; 2:449–50, 476
Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270 2:490 Puritans, 1:21, 192; 2:492
illegal immigrants and, 1:272 Printz v. United States (1997), 1:232 Purple Rain (album), 2:459
immigration policy and, 1:274 prison reform, 1:45, 104, 145, 216, Purpose-Driven Life, The: What on Earth Am I
Indian casinos and, 1:275 264–65; 2:441–43, 446, 469, 499, Here For? (Warren), 2:601
Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293 559, 561, 592 “push polling,” 2:481
Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 prisoner abuse, 1:3–4, 78, 82; 2:378, 379, Putin, Vladimir, 1:52; 2:528, 529
King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:299, 300 420 Pyne, Joe, 2:549
I-4 0 Index
Qatanani, Mohammad, 2:378 race, racism (continued) race, racism (continued)

Quakers, 1:192; 2:618 Islam and, 2:486 Winfrey, Oprah, and, 2:620
Quayle, John Danforth, 1:27, 32, 61, 172, King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:299–300 Young, Neil, and, 2:628
305; 2:423, 451, 629 La Raza Unida and, 1:310 zero tolerance and, 2:630
queer theory, 1:192; 2:577 labor unions and, 1:312 See also African Americans; civil rights;
Quindlen, Anna, 1:36 Lee, Spike, and, 1:317–18, 318 discrimination; white supremacists
Quinlan, Karen Ann, 2:472–73 lesbians and, 1:321 Race Matters (West), 1:252; 2:610
Quintero, Angel, 1:114 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:324 racial profiling, 1:301–2; 2:378, 384, 433,
literature and, 1:324 442, 453–54
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, 1:77; marriage and, 1:328–29 Radical Reformation, 1:241
2:520 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:347 Radicalesbians, 1:320; 2:516
Rabe, David, 1:326 militia movement and, 2:359–60, 482 radio, 2:348, 376, 387, 416, 447, 556,
race, racism, 2:452–53 Millennial Generation and, 1:213 619, 628
affirmative action and, 1:8–10 multicultural conservatism and, 2:373 See also Christian radio; National Public
Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:15 multiculturalism and ethnic studies and, Radio; talk radio
American Indian Movement and, 1:23 2:373–74 Radio Act (1927), 1:174
Aryan Nations and, 1:31 NAACP and, 2:383–84 Radio America, 1:322; 2:407
Atwater, Lee, and, 1:32 Nation, The, and, 2:381 Radio Communications Act (1912), 1:174
Barbie and, 1:37 New Left and, 2:399 Radosh, Ronald, 2:480
beauty pageants and, 1:39 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404 Radulovich, Milo, 2:376–77
Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40 NOW and, 2:389 Rainbow Coalition, 1:282; 2:456, 514
birth control and, 2:431 Obama, Barack, and, 2:411–12, 453 Raines, Howell, 2:401
Black Radical Congress and, 1:45 obesity and, 2:413 Rambo series (films), 2:581, 583, 598
blackface and, 1:46 Pipes, Daniel, and, 2:431 Ramones, 2:449
Brown v. Board of Education and, 1:53–54 police abuse and, 2:433 Ramparts magazine, 1:121, 264
Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60 police and, 1:301–2 Ramsey, JonBenét, 1:39
Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 political correctness and, 2:434–36 Rand, Ayn, 1:58; 2:454–55
capital punishment and, 1:69, 70–71; postmodernism and, 2:438 Randall v. Orange County Council, Boy Scouts
2:484 prison reform and, 2:442 of America (1998), 1:50
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Promise Keepers and, 2:446, 447 Randolph, A. Philip, 1:8
Clarence Thomas hearings and, 1:62; public television and, 2:448 rap music, 1:173, 203, 204, 324; 2:382,
2:561 rap music and, 2:455, 456 425, 455–56, 476, 602
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:98 “rednecks” and, 2:462 rape. See sexual assault
comic strips and, 1:107, 108 Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 Rashid, Ahmed, 2:504
conspiracy theories and, 1:116–17 Religious Right and, 2:466 Rasul v. Bush (2004), 1:4
crime and, 1:231 Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 Rather, Daniel Irvin, 1:3; 2:351, 456–57,
Democratic Party and, 1:135–36 revisionist history and, 1:10, 133; 2:452, 457, 497
diversity training and, 1:137, 138 470, 471 Ratzinger, Joseph, 2:465
D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:143–44 rioting and, 1:301 R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), 2:531
DuBois, W.E.B., and, 1:144 rock and roll and, 2:475, 476 Ray, James Earl, 1:300
Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 school busing and, 1:64–65 Ray, Nicholas, 1:130
Duke, David, and, 1:145–46 school vouchers and, 1:384; 2:498 Ray family, 1:13–14
Dylan, Bob, and, 1:147 September 11 Memorial and, 2:506 Raymond, Henry J., 2:400
Earth Day and, 1:148 Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 Raymond, Lee R., 1:167
education reform and, 1:150 shock jocks and, 2:517 Reader’s Digest magazine, 1:78, 265
environmental, 1:45, 59–60 Sider, Ron, and, 2:518 Reagan, Maureen, 2:459
film and, 1:325 “Silent Majority” and, 2:519 Reagan, Nancy, 2:397, 427, 458, 537, 593
gangs and, 1:203–4 Simpsons, The, and, 2:519 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 2:458–59
gay rights and, 1:206, 207 social theory on, 1:268 affirmative action and, 1:9
Goetz, Bernard, and, 1:222–23 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 AIDS and, 1:14
Great Books and, 1:8 Sowell, Thomas, and, 2:529–30 American Century and, 1:16
Haley, Alex, and, 1:235 speech codes and, 2:530–31 American exceptionalism and, 1:22
hate crimes and, 1:239, 240; 2:564–65, Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27
614 structuralism and, 2:542 approval ratings and, 1:100
heavy metal and, 1:246 Terkel, Studs, and, 2:555, 556 Bennett, William, and, 1:41
Hillsdale College and, 1:253 Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:563, 564 Brady, James, and, 1:232; 2:391
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, 1:254 United Nations and, 2:573 Brokaw, Tom, and, 1:52
Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 vigilantism and, 2:582 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:57, 58
homeschooling and, 1:260 Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61
hooks, bell, and, 1:261–62 Wallace, George, and, 2:588 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73; 2:560
Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262 War on Drugs and, 2:593 Chambers, Whittaker, and, 1:79
Horton, Willie, and, 1:264–65 War on Poverty and, 2:594 Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:81
Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270, 270 Watts and Los Angeles riots and, 2:604–5 China and, 1:85
immigration and, 1, 273, 1:274 wealth gap and, 2:607 Christian Coalition and, 1:88
Indian sport mascots and, 1:276 welfare and, 2:608 Cold War and, 1:102, 103
Individuals with Disabilities Education West, Cornel, and, 2:610, 610 communism and, 1:112
Act and, 1:277 White, Reggie, and, 2:613 counterculture and, 1:122
Index I-41
Reagan, Ronald Wilson (continued) Reagan, Ronald Wilson (continued) Reed, John, 1:112; 2:527
creationism and, 1:124 Republican Party and, 2:469 Reed, Ralph Eugene, 1:88; 2:463, 463–64,
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474 466, 474
drug testing and, 1:142 Rusher, William A., and, 2:484 Reeve, Christopher, 2:537
D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:143 school prayer and, 2:496 Reflections on Big Science (Weinberg), 2:408
ecoterrorism and, 1:149 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:498 Reform Party, 1:56, 220; 2:381, 428, 560,
education reform and, 1:150–51 sex education and, 2:508 576
evangelicalism and, 1:166 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Regas, George, 2:445
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171; 2:552 Soviet Union and, 2:528 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
FCC and, 1:175; 2:598 Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:476, 532 (1978), 1:9, 10
FDA and, 1:186 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 1:102; Regnery, Alfred, 1:302
federal budget deficit and, 1:174 2:409, 459, 499, 528, 540, 541, regulation, government
Felt, W. Mark, and, 1:176 553, 554 Contract with America and, 1:118
flag desecration and, 1:181 student protests and, 2:374 corporate welfare and, 1:119
Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182 supply-side economics and, 2:547 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132
Focus on the Family and, 1:183 tax reform and, 1:174; 2:458, 459, 547, Democratic Party and, 1:135
Ford, Gerald, and, 1:188 551 Endangered Species Act and, 1:160
Freedom of Information Act and, 1:198 Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 FCC and, 1:77, 174–76; 2:517, 538, 598
Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200 think tanks and, 2:559 FDA and, 1:185–87
Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223, 224 Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:571 Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200
Great Society and, 1:230 Vietnam War and, 2:581 Galbraith, John Kenneth, and, 1:203
gun control and, 1:232 Wallace, George, and, 2:588 global warming and, 1:218, 219
Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 Washington Times and, 2:602 globalization and, 1:220, 221
Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239 welfare and, 2:608 Krugman, Paul, and, 1:306
Heritage Foundation and, 1:249 Will, George, and, 2:617 Kyoto Protocol and, 1:308–9
Iran-Contra affair and, 1:279 Williams, William Appleman, and, Obama, Barack, and, 2:412
Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279 2:618 occupational safety and, 2:414–15
Israel and, 1:280 Reagan administration, 1:56, 62, 108, 109, Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458
Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287; 2:594 151, 217, 218, 247, 278–79, 304, red and blue states and, 2:461
judicial wars and, 1:290 305, 306, 307; 2:372, 391, 406, 409, science and, 2:499
Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293 414, 436, 466, 476, 489, 499, 522, think tanks and, 2:559
Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 533, 556, 559, 579, 603, 605 whistleblowers and, 2:613
Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305 Reagan Revolution, 1:61–62; 2:380, 395, Will, George, and, 2:617
labor unions and, 1:312 445, 449 Rehabilitation Act (1973), 1:11, 24
Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322, 323 Real Anita Hill, The: The Untold Story Rehm, Diane, 2:550
Lott, Trent, and, 1:327 (Brock), 1:51, 252 Rehnquist, William Hubbs, 1:290; 2:364,
Marxism and, 2:338 Rebel Without a Cause (film), 1:130, 295 405, 415, 416, 464–65, 471, 479
McGovern, George, and, 2:347 Reconstruction, 2:468, 614 Reisman, Judith, 1:303
Medved, Michael, and, 2:354 record warning labels, 1:225, 246; 2:456, relativism, moral, 2:465
Mondale, Walter, and, 2:364 459–60, 476, 590, 629 Adler, Mortimer, and, 1:8
Moral Majority and, 2:367 Recording Industry Association of America anti-intellectualism and, 1:27
Mothers Against Drunk Driving and, (RIAA), 1:76; 2:459, 460 Bennett, William, and, 1:41
2:369, 370 Rector, Robert, 1:250 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56
NAACP and, 2:384 red and blue states, 1:51, 70, 155, 217; Cheney, Lynne, and, 1:82
Nation, The, and, 2:381 2:393, 412, 423, 460–61, 462, 557, counterculture and, 1:122
national drinking age and, 1:33 590 deconstructionism and, 1:131
National Endowment for the Arts and, Red Dawn (film), 2:581 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132
2:385, 387 Red Lion Broadcasting Company v. Federal homeschooling and, 1:260
National Endowment for the Humanities Communications Commission (1969), Kristol, Bill, and, 1:305
and, 2:387 1:175 multiculturalism and, 2:452
National Review and, 2:391 Red Nightmare (film), 2:527 New Age movement and, 2:396
neoconservatism and, 2:395 Red Scare, 1:27, 58, 101, 174–75, 205, political correctness and, 2:435
New Deal and, 2:397 236, 262, 310; 2:338, 341, 342, 343, postmodernism and, 2:438
New Left and, 2:399 376, 377, 527, 549 revisionist history and, 2:470
Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405 See also McCarthyism secular humanism and, 2:501
Norquist, Grover, and, 2:406 Redford, Charles Robert, Jr., 1:326; sexual revolution and, 2:513
North, Oliver, and, 2:407 2:461–62, 624 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535
nuclear age and, 2:409 Rediscovering God in America (Gingrich), West, Cornel, and, 2:611
O’Connor, Sandra Day, and, 2:415 1:20, 217 religious fundamentalism. See
Philadelphia, Miss., and, 2:429–30 redistricting, 1:86; 2:452, 464, 561, 584, fundamentalism, religious
Pipes, Richard, and, 2:430 600 Religious Right, 2:466–67, 611
presidential pardons and, 1:176; 2:440, redneck, 2:462–63 abortion and, 1:2; 2:443
441 Redneck Manifesto, The (Goad), 2:462 ACLU and, 1:18–19
privatization and, 2:444 Reds (film), 1:112 American civil religion and, 1:20
Rand, Ayn, and, 2:455 Reds Promote the Racial War (Goff), 1:116 Bob Jones University and, 1:47
Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 Redstockings, 1:178; 2:536 book banning and, 1:49
Religious Right and, 1:2; 2:466 Reece, B. Carroll, 1:303 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56
I-42 Index
Religious Right (continued) Religious Right (continued) Republican Party, U.S. (continued)
Bush, George W., and, 1:63 televangelism and, 2:552 evangelicalism and, 1:166
Campolo, Anthony “Tony,” and, 1:68 Ten Commandments and, 2:554, 554, Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:170; 2:552
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 555 FCC and, 1:175
Catholic Church and, 1:74 United Nations and, 2:573 FDA and, 1:186–87
censorship and, 1:77 Voegelin, Eric, and, 2:584 federal budget deficit and, 1:174
Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 feminism and, 1:178
Christian reconstructionism and, 1:90 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601 Ferraro, Geraldine, and, 1:180
Christmas and, 1:91 White, Reggie, and, 2:613 flag desecration and, 1:181
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 Wolf, Naomi, and, 2:621 Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182
Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104 World magazine and, 2:625 Focus on the Family and, 1:183
communism and, 1:110 See also evangelicalism; fundamentalism, Ford, Gerald, and, 1:187–88
compassionate conservatism and, 1:114 religious Fox News and, 2:420
counterculture and, 1:122 Religious Right, The: The Assault on Tolerance Frank, Barney, and, 1:195
Dean, Howard, and, 1:129 and Pluralism in America (Anti- Freedom of Information Act and, 1:197
DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 Defamation League), 1:314 Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200
Dobson, James, and, 1:138–39 Renewing American Compassion (Olasky), gay rights and, 1:207
drama and, 1:326 1:114 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216, 216, 217
Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146 Reno, Janet, 1:97, 224; 2:586 global warming and, 1:219
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:170–71, 170 reparations, Japanese internment, globalization and, 1:220
Focus on the Family and, 1:183–84 2:467–68, 599 Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223, 223, 224
Founding Fathers and, 1:192, 193 Republican National Convention of 1984, Gore, Al, and, 1:226
gay rights and, 1:55, 205 1:180 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227–28
Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217 Republican National Convention of 2004; gun control and, 1:233
Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223 2:433 Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236
Graham, Billy, and, 1:227, 228 Republican Party, U.S., 2:468–70 Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239
homeschooling and, 1:260 abortion and, 1:1, 2, 68 health care and, 1:243, 245
Hunter, James Davison, and, 1:268 Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248
Israel and, 1:281 American Century and, 1:16 Heritage Foundation and, 1:249
Jesus People and, 1:286 Atwater, Lee, and, 1:31–32, 32 Hill, Anita, and, 1:252
John Birch Society and, 1:286 Brock, David, and, 1:51, 252; 2:561 Hispanic Americans and, 1:311
judicial wars and, 1:290 Buchanan, Pat, and, 1:56–57, 56 homeschooling and, 1:261
Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:263
LaHaye, Tim and Beverly, and, 1:313–14, Bush family and, 61–64 Horton, Willie, and, 1:264–65
313 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66 HUAC and, 1:342
Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314 campaign finance reform and, 1:67 illegal immigrants and, 1:272
Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Cheney family and, 1:82 Israel and, 1:281
MacKinnon, Catharine, and, 2:332 China and, 1:85 judicial wars and, 1:290
McCain, John, and, 2:339 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298
Medved, Michael, and, 2:354 Christian Coalition and, 1:88 Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305
Moral Majority and, 2:367–68 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 La Follette, Robert, Jr., and, 1:310
multicultural conservatism and, 2:373 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 LaHaye, Tim, and, 1:314
National Endowment for the Arts and, Clinton impeachment and, 1:99, 100; Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314
2:386 2:533, 603 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:323; 2:550
O’Hair, Madalyn Murray, and, 2:416 Cold War and, 1:101, 102, 103 Lott, Trent, and, 1:326, 327
Operation Rescue and, 2:418 Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104 lynching and, 1:331; 2:430
Palin, Sarah, and, 2:412, 423 communism and, 1:110, 111 McCain, John, and, 2:339–40
pornography and, 2:436, 513 compassionate conservatism and, 1:113, McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341
premillennial dispensationalism and, 114 McCarthyism and, 2:343–44
2:439 Confederate flag and, 1:115 McGovern, George, and, 2:347
Progressive Christians Uniting and, conspiracy theories and, 1:116 medical marijuana and, 2:353
2:445 Contract with America and, 1:118, 118 Million Man March and, 2:363
Promise Keepers and, 2:447 Cuba and, 1:127 Moore, Michael, and, 2:365
Rand, Ayn, and, 2:455 Cuban Americans and, 1:224 Moore, Roy S., and, 2:366
Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458 DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 multicultural conservatism and, 2:373
Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463 Democratic Party and, 1:135–36 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474–75, 475 Dobson, James, and, 1:139 2:337, 385, 386, 386, 387
Rove, Karl, and, 2:480 Douglas, William O., and, 1:140 National Endowment for the Humanities
same-sex marriage and, 2:487 Drudge Report and, 1:142 and, 2:387, 388
Schaeffer, Francis, and, 2:490 Duke, David, and, 2:614 National Review and, 2:391
school prayer and, 2:494, 496 Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 Nelson, Willie, and, 2:393
science wars and, 2:499, 500 Election of 2000 and, 1:153–55; neoconservatism and, 2:394, 395
secular humanism and, 2:501 2:380 New Deal and, 2:397
September 11 and, 2:504 Election of 2008 and, 1:156–57, 157, New Left and, 2:399
sex education and, 2:507, 508, 509 158–59 New York Times and, 2:400, 401
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:525 Enola Gay exhibit and, 1:161 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403–4, 404, 405
Soviet Union and, 2:527 environmental movement and, 1:163–64 North, Oliver, and, 2:407
Index I-43
Republican Party, U.S. (continued) revisionist history (continued) Robertson, Marion Gordon “Pat” (continued)
NOW and, 2:389 Holocaust and, 1:134, 258, 259; 2:471 National Endowment for the Arts and,
NPR and, 2:390 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341, 342 2:386
NRA and, 2:391 militia movement and, 2:359 Progressive Christians Uniting and,
nuclear age and, 2:409 Native Americans and, 1:133 2:445
Obama, Barack, and, 2:412 political correctness and, 1:105, 161; Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463
O’Connor, Sandra Day, and, 2:415–16 2:435–36, 470 Republican Party and, 2:469
Packwood, Bob, and, 2:422 postmodernism and, 2:438 revisionist history and, 2:470
Palin, Sarah, and, 2:423–24 race and, 1:10, 133; 2:452, 470, 471 same-sex marriage and, 2:487
PBS and, 2:448 Thanksgiving Day and, 2:556 secular humanism and, 2:501
Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427 Truman, Harry S., and, 1:254; 2:569 September 11 terrorist attacks and, 1:184
presidential pardons and, 2:441 Vidal, Gore, and, 2:578 Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526
Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458–59 Vietnam War and, 2:581 televangelism and, 2:552–53
red and blue states and, 2:460 Williams, William Appleman, and, United Nations and, 2:573
“rednecks” and, 2:462 1:102; 2:618 Robeson, Paul, 2:383
Reed, Ralph, and, 2:463 Zinn, Howard, and, 1:121; 2:470, 471, Robison, James, 2:467
Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464, 465 630–31 rock and roll, 1:24–25, 84, 147, 171, 183,
religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 Revolutionary War, U.S., 1:165, 192; 236, 245–46, 283, 285–86; 2:332–34,
Religious Right and, 1:68; 2:466 2:359 336, 348, 449, 459–60, 475–77, 512,
Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474 Reynolds, Earle, 2:409 596, 628, 629
Rove, Karl, and, 2:480–82, 481 Rhodes, Randi, 2:550 Rock and Roll: The Devil’s Diversion (Larson),
Rudolph, Eric, and, 2:483 Rhyme Pays (album), 2:456 2:476
Rusher, William A., and, 2:484 RIAA. See Recording Industry Association Rockefeller, Nelson, 1:188
Russia and, 2:529 of America Rockefeller Foundation, 1:302, 303
Ryan, George, and, 2:484 Ribicoff, Abraham, 1:28 Rockwell, George Lincoln, 1:28; 2:477,
same-sex marriage and, 2:487 Rice, Condoleezza, 1:17, 323; 2:373 615
Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488 Rice, Donna, 1:238 Rockwell, Norman, 2:477–78, 557
Schlafly, Phyllis, and, 2:492 Rich, Adrienne, 1:320 Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (TV program),
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493 Rich, Marc and Denise, 2:441 2:528
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:498, 499 Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Sider), Rodman, Dennis Keith, 2:478–79
science wars and, 2:499, 500 2:518 Rodriguez, Michelle, 1:25
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Richards, Amy, 1:179 Rodriguez, Richard, 2:373
speech codes and, 2:530 Richards, Ann, 1:62; 2:481 Roe v. Wade (1973), 1:1–2, 19, 68, 75, 140,
Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:476, 532 Richardson, Bill, 1:157 165, 171–72, 177, 199, 212, 289,
Stewart, Jon, and, 2:539 Richardson, Elliot, 1:12 316; 2:416, 418, 431, 443, 464, 466,
Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549 Richburg, Keith, 1:11 479–80, 523, 526, 544, 561, 587
third parties and, 2:559–60 Ridenhour, Ronald L., 2:379 Roemer, Buddy, 1:146
Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:563–64, 564 Rifkin, Jeremy, 1:43 Rogers, Michael, 2:421
tort reform and, 2:566 Riggs, Bobby, 1:299 Rohrabacher, Dana, 2:386
Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569 right to counsel, 2:363, 471–72 Rolling Stone magazine, 1:121, 147; 2:336,
Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:570 right to die, 1:63, 76, 265, 297–98; 2:407, 398, 562
USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:575 472–74, 490–92, 491, 500, 525, 526 Rolling Stones, 1:24
Voting Rights Act and, 2:585 See also Schiavo, Terri Roman Catholic Church. See Catholic
War on Poverty and, 2:594 Rigoletto (opera), 2:386 Church
war protesters and, 2:578, 579 Ritchie, Guy, 2:333, 334 Romney, Mitt, 1:156
Warren, Earl, and, 2:599, 600 Ritzer, George, 1:221 Ronstadt, Linda, 2:366
Watergate and, 2:602, 603 Rivera, Geraldo, 2:616 Rooney, Andy, 2:457
Wayne, John, and, 2:605, 605 RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, 2:379, Roosevelt, Ann, 1:196
Weekly Standard and, 2:607 405 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1:110, 165, 197, 258,
Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:610 Robb, Charles, 2:407, 623 265
Will, George, and, 2:617 Roberts, John, Jr., 1:290; 2:391, 416 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act Roberts, Oral, 1:108 affirmative action and, 1:8
(2007), 2:429 Robertson, Marion Gordon “Pat,” American exceptionalism and, 1:21
Responsible Education About Life Act, 2:466–67, 474–75, 475 anti-Semitism and, 1:28
2:508 ACLU and, 1:18, 19 arts funding and, 2:385
Restructuring of American Religion, The capital punishment and, 1:62 Brown Scare and, 2:342
(Wuthnow), 1:268 Christian Coalition and, 1:88–89 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96
Reuther, Walter, 1:244 Colson, Chuck, and, 1:104 Cold War and, 1:100, 102–3
revisionist history, 2:470–71 comic strips and, 1:108 comic strips and, 1:107
Afrocentrism and, 1:10 evangelicalism and, 1:166 communism and, 1:111–12
Cold War and, 1:102–3 Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 Democratic Party and, 1:135
Columbus Day and, 1:105 Founding Fathers and, 1:193 Douglas, William O., and, 1:140
communism and, 1:110, 112 judicial wars and, 1:290 federal budget deficit and, 1:174
counterculture and, 1:121 Lapin, Daniel, and, 1:314 Four Freedoms and, 2:477
Enola Gay exhibit and, 1:161 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Hiss, Alger, and, 1:79, 103, 256
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, 1:254; McCain, John, and, 2:339 Holocaust and, 1:258
2:569 Moral Majority and, 2:368 human rights and, 1:265
I-4 4 Index
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (continued) Russians Are Coming!, The Russians Are Schell, Paul, 1:38, 51
Japanese internment and, 2:467 Coming!, The (film), 2:528 Schempp, Ellery Frank, 2:495
Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 Rutherford, Joseph Franklin, 1:285 Schiavo, Michael, 2:490, 491
Kennedy, Joe, and, 1:292 Rutten, Tim, 2:550 Schiavo, Terri, 1:63, 132, 215, 314; 2:407,
memorial to, 1:196–97, 196 Ryan, George Homer, 1:71; 2:434, 484–85 473, 490–92, 491
New Deal and, 2:397 Ryan, Leo, 1:116 Schick v. Reed (1974), 2:440
Rusher, William A., and, 2:483 Schindler, Mary and Robert, 2:490, 491
Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502 Sabath, Adolph, 2:570 Schlafly, Fred, Jr., 2:492
Social Security and, 2:521 Sadat, Anwar, 2:405 Schlafly, Phyllis McAlpin Stewart, 1:116,
Soviet Union and, 2:527 SADD. See Students Against Drunk 165, 178; 2:373, 389, 421, 484, 492
Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549 Driving Schlesinger, Arthur, Sr., 1:212
Thanksgiving Day and, 2:557 Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act (1994), Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr., 1:102, 109,
Truman, Harry S., and, 2:568, 569 2:629 212; 2:403, 435, 436, 492–93, 539,
Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:400, Safire, William, 1:12; 2:372 580, 618
570 Sagan, Carl, 2:396 Schlesinger, James, 1:3
Warren, Earl, and, 2:599 Sahl, Mort, 2:549 Schlessinger, Laura, 2:550
welfare and, 2:608 Said, Edward Wadie, 1:10, 269, 321; Schlosser, Eric, 1:168
Roosevelt, James, 1:196 2:381, 486 Schmitt, Carl, 2:394
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1:185, 189; 2:428, St. Florian, Friedrich, 2:626 Schmitz, John, 2:560
534 Saint Foucault (Halperin), 1:192 School of the Americas, 2:493–94
Roots: The Saga of an American Family Salem Communications, 1:89, 90 School Daze (film), 1:317
(Haley), 1:235 Salisbury, Harrison E., Jr., 2:401 School District v. Gobitis (1941), 1:92
Roots (miniseries), 1:25, 235 SALT, 1:102; 2:405, 409 school prayer, 1:18, 41, 62, 74, 77, 88,
“Roots of Muslim Rage, The” (Lewis), SALT II, 1:73; 2:409 92, 136, 166, 171, 236, 268, 288–89;
2:504 same-sex marriage, 1:63, 68, 75, 76, 83, 2:367, 368, 416, 445, 463, 466, 469,
Roper v. Simmons (2005), 1:71 129, 138, 165, 205, 206, 208, 268, 474, 494–96, 497, 508, 526, 600
Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, 1:112, 140, 296, 298; 2:339, 420, 421, 428, 447, school shootings, 1:69, 132, 246, 260;
308; 2:343, 381, 408, 480 461, 486–88, 518, 524, 526, 601, 625 2:336, 366, 392, 496–97, 555, 630
Rosenberg, Susan, 1:93 Samuel K. Skinner v. Railway Labor school vouchers, 1:41, 62, 92, 170, 200,
Rosenberg Files, The (Radosh and Milton), Executives’ Association et al. (1989), 250; 2:384, 444, 463, 497–98, 526,
2:480 1:143 558
Rosenstein, Jay, 1:276 Samuelson, Robert, 2:385 School-to-Work Opportunities Act (1994),
Rosenthal, A.M., 1:280; 2:602 San Diego State University, 2:374, 623 1:151
Rosenthal, Joe, 2:506 San Francisco State College, 2:374 schools, private and parochial, 1:47, 73, 74,
Roswell, N. Mex., 1:116 San Quentin Prison, 1:204, 257 92, 150, 170, 236, 250, 260; 2:444,
Roth, Lawrence, 2:495 Sanchez, George I., 1:310 466, 497–98
Roth, Philip, 1:324 Sand County Almanac, A (Leopold), 1:162, Schrock, Edward, 2:421
Roth v. United States (1957), 1:324; 2:436 319 Schultz, Ed, 2:550
Rouche, George C., III, 1:253 Sanders, Bernard, 2:488, 488 Schuster, Sharon, 1:37
Roush, Patricia, 2:489 Sandinistas, 1:278; 2:388, 406, 524 Schwartz, Sherwood, 1:176
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 1:20 Sandlin, Andrew, 1:90 Schwarzenegger, Arnold Alois, 1:275;
Rove, Karl Christian, 1:31, 217, 250; SANE. See National Committee for a Sane 2:498–99, 576
2:480–82, 481 Nuclear Policy Schweitzer, Leroy M., 2:365
Rowley, Coleen, 2:612 Sanger, Margaret, 1:43; 2:431 Schwerner, Michael, 1:29, 330; 2:429,
Royko, Mike, 1:282 Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe 430
RU-486, 1:63 (2000), 2:496 science
Rubin, Jerry, 1:83, 121, 257; 2:553, 596 Santorum, Rick, 1:98, 172; 2:623 education and, 1:37, 101, 124; 2:466
Ruby Ridge incident, 1:116; 2:360, 365, Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), 2:612 nuclear age and, 2:408
482–83, 578 Sarbin, Theodore R., 1:209 postmodernism and, 2:438, 524
Rudd, Mark, 2:545 Satanic Verses, The (Rushdie), 2:430 red and blue states and, 2:461
Rudolph, Eric Robert, 2:483 Saturday Evening Post magazine, 2:477, 478 secular humanism and, 2:501
Rumsfeld, Donald, 1:3, 4, 16, 81, 82, 197, Saturday Night Live (TV program), 1:195; sex education and, 2:508
323; 2:405, 558 2:424, 617 Strauss, Leo, and, 2:542
Rush, Bobby, 2:411 Saturday Review, 2:408, 409, 595 Summers, Lawrence, and, 2:546
Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Saudi Arabia, 1:69, 266; 2:488–90, 503, See also technology
Observations (Franken), 1:195, 323 505 science wars, 2:499–501
Rush to Judgment (Lane), 1:116 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 2:542 creationism and intelligent design and,
Rushdie, Salman, 2:430 Savage, Michael, 1:142; 2:550 1:123–26
Rushdoony, Rousas J., 1:90; 2:555 savings and loan crisis, 1:119; 2:339 environmental movement and, 1:71–72,
Rusher, William A., 1:57; 2:483–84, 543 Savio, Mario, 1:121 163
Russell, Bertrand, 2:409 Sayers, Frances Clarke, 2:591 global warming and, 1:218–19, 221
Russell, Charles Taze, 1:285 Scaife, Richard Mellon, 1:99, 249 Kyoto Protocol and, 1:308–9
Russert, Tim, 1:52 Scalia, Antonin, 2:444, 487, 524, 561 smoking and, 2:520–21
Russia, 1:28, 204, 266; 2:410, 430, 515, Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, The (Noll), stem-cell research and, 2:536–38
526–29, 546, 573 2:500 SCLC. See Southern Christian Leadership
See also Soviet Union Schaeffer, Francis August, 1:171, 304; Conference
Russian Revolution, 1:112; 2:400 2:347, 467, 490 Scofield, Cyrus, 1:201
Index I-45
Scopes “Monkey” Trial, 1:18, 47, 124, 165, segregation (continued) Senate, U.S. (continued)
201; 2:552 Republican Party and, 2:468 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:372
Scorsese, Martin, 1:325; 2:539 school busing and, 1:64–65 Muhammad, Warith Deen, and, 2:382
Scott, Adrian, 1:257 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Scott, Eugenie, 1:124 third parties and, 2:560 1:248; 2:336, 337, 386
Scott, H. Lee, Jr., 2:590 Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:563, 564 National Endowment for the Humanities
Screen Actors Guild (SAG), 2:458 U.S. military and, 1:210 and, 2:388
Screw magazine, 1:139; 2:512 Wallace, George, and, 1:266; 2:588 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:403
Scruggs, Jan, 2:579 Warren, Earl, and, 2:599, 600 NPR and, 2:390
Scruggs, Richard F., Jr., 1:327 Watts riots and, 2:604 nuclear age and, 2:409, 410
SDI. See Strategic Defense Initiative wealth gap and, 2:607 Obama, Barack, and, 2:411
SDS. See Students for a Democratic Society white supremacists and, 2:614, 615 O’Connor, Sandra Day, and, 2:415
Sea Inside, The (film), 2:407 Williams, William Appleman, and, 2:618 Packwood, Bob, and, 2:422
Seale, Robert, 1:44, 83–84 See also Brown v. Board of Education of Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451
Seattle, Battle of, 1:37–38, 220, 303 Topeka, Kansas (1954) record industry and, 1:246; 2:460, 629
SEC. See Securities and Exchange SEIU. See Service Employees International Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464
Commission, U.S Union Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488, 488
Second Amendment, 1:116, 231–32; Selanikio, Joel, 1:322 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
2:359, 391, 561 Semel, Terry S., 1:167 School of the Americas and, 2:494
secular humanism, 1:8, 42, 43, 90, 91, Seminoles, 1:275 school prayer and, 2:496
110, 132, 166, 201, 228, 253, 260; Senate, U.S., 1:28, 104 Select Committee to Study Governmental
2:373, 402, 467, 474, 490, 500, Armed Services Committee of, 1:4 Operations with Respect to
501–2, 504, 552 Bush, Prescott, and, 1:61 Intelligence Activities of, 1:78
Secure Fence Act (2006), 1:272 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:65, 66 Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:532
Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Clarence Thomas hearings in, 1:62 Subcommittee Investigation of Juvenile
(SEC), 1:167, 171 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 Delinquency of, 1:106
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 1:192 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98 Taft, Robert A., and, 2:549
Seduction of the Innocent (Wertham), 1:106 Clinton impeachment and, 1:99–100; Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:560, 563–64,
See It Now (TV program), 2:341, 344, 376 2:611 564
Seeger, Peter R., 1:83, 233, 234; 2:502, Committee on Armed Services of, 1:98 tort reform and, 2:566
532, 596 Contract with America and, 1:118 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569
segregation Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 159 United Nations and, 2:573
abolition and, 2:452 electoral system and, 2:460 USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574
Bob Jones University and, 1:47 Endangered Species Act and, 1:159 War Powers Act and, 2:594
Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 Enola Gay exhibit and, 1:161 Watergate and, 1:131, 177; 2:602,
Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60 environmental movement and, 1:148 603
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 ERA and, 1:165, 178 Wellstone, Paul, and, 2:609
civil rights movement and, 1:93–94, 95 FCC and, 1:174 whistleblowers and, 2:612
comic books and, 1:106 flag desecration and, 1:181 See also Congress, U.S.; House of
communism and, 1:110, 111 food industry and, 2:413 Representatives, U.S.
Confederate flag and, 1:115 gays in the military and, 1:208 senior citizens, 1:243, 244; 2:405, 473,
Democratic Party and, 1:136 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217 474, 522, 585
disability and, 1:276–77 global warming and, 1:219 See also age discrimination
Dylan, Bob, and, 1:147 Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223 Seper, Jerry, 2:602
Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 Gore, Al, and, 1:225 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of,
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 2:502–5
France and, 1:194 health care and, 1:243, 244, 245 Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and, 1:3
Gore, Al, Sr., and, 1:225 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248 academic freedom and, 1:6, 7, 92, 93,
Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 Hill, Anita, and, 1:251, 251 264
Hargis, Billy, and, 1:236 Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267 ACLU and, 1:19
health care and, 1:243 Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 American exceptionalism and, 1:21
Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 judicial wars and, 1:290 Bennett, William, and, 1:41
homeschooling and, 1:260 Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293–94 Bush, George W., and, 1:63, 64; 2:344
Jackson, Jesse, and, 1:282 Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292 Cheney, Dick, and, 1:82
judicial wars and, 1:288, 289 Kennedy, Robert, and, 1:293 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87
King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:299–300 Kerry, John, and, 1:296; 2:579 CIA and, 1:78
Ku Klux Klan and, 2:614 La Follette, Robert, Jr., and, 1:310 Clinton, Hillary, and, 1:98
Lott, Trent, and, 1:326, 327 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 Cold War and, 1:103
Malcolm X and, 2:335 Lott, Trent, and, 1:327 conspiracy theories and, 1:115, 117
NAACP and, 2:383 lynching and, 1:330; 2:430 Coulter, Ann, and, 1:120
neoconservatism and, 2:394 Malcolm X and, 2:335 country music and, 1:123
New York Times and, 2:401 McCain, John, and, 2:339 Democratic Party and, 1:136
Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404, 468 McCarthy, Eugene, and, 2:340 detainees and, 2:468
Parks, Rosa, and, 2:424 McCarthy, Joseph, and, 2:341, 344 domestic spying and, 2:434
Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:430 McCarthyism and, 2:343 D’Souza, Dinesh, and, 1:144
“rednecks” and, 2:462 McGovern, George, and, 2:346 ecoterrorism and, 1:148–49
Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464 medical malpractice and, 2:352 Election of 2008 and, 1:156
I-4 6 Index
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of Sex Pistols, 2:449 shock jocks, 1:176; 2:517–18, 538, 539,
(continued) Sexton, Anne, 1:324 550
Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171 sexual abuse, 1:179; 2:437 Shriver, Maria, 2:498
Focus on the Family and, 1:184 sexual assault, 1:69, 71, 146; 2:355, 368, Shriver, R. Sargent, Jr., 2:347
Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 422, 455, 489, 509, 510–11, 514, Shultz, George, 1:9
Hart, Gary, and, 1:238 517, 576, 623 Shut Up and Sing (Ingraham), 1:7
hate crimes and, 1:239 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female Sider, Ronald James, 1:68; 2:518, 589
Homeland Security Department, U.S., (Kinsey), 1:302 SIECUS. See Sexuality Information and
and, 1:270 Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Kinsey), Educational Council of the United
Huntington, Samuel P., and, 1:269 1:209, 241, 302 States
illegal immigration and, 2:359 sexual harassment, 1:51, 53, 62, 88, 179, Sierra Club, 1:29, 163, 169, 189, 190;
Israel and, 1:281 251–52, 251, 290, 330; 2:332, 355, 2:603
Kerry, John, and, 1:296 369, 420, 422, 499, 511–12, 530, Signorile, Michelangelo, 2:421
Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321 533, 561, 621, 622–23, 629 “Silent Majority,” 1:148, 187; 2:404,
Mexico and, 2:356 Sexual Perversity in Chicago (play), 1:326 518–19
militia movement and, 2:360 Sexual Politics: A Manifesto of Revolution Silent Scream (film), 1:2
Millennial Generation and, 1:213 (Millett), 2:335, 361–62, 361 Silent Spring (Carson), 1:71, 72, 162;
Moore, Michael, and, 2:366 sexual revolution, 2:512–13 2:499
Muslim Americans and, 2:377, 378 androgyny and, 1:24–25 Silkwood, Karen, 2:612
National Endowment for the Humanities birth control and, 1:44; 2:431 Silver, Tony, 1:227
and, 2:388 Brown, Helen Gurley, and, 1:53 Silvers, John, 1:143
Nelson, Willie, and, 2:393 counterculture and, 1:120 Simcox, Chris, 1:272
New York Times and, 2:401 Democratic Party and, 1:136 Simpson, Nicole Brown, 2:417
nuclear age and, 2:410 Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139 Simpsons, The (TV program), 2:519–20
O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420 family values and, 1:172 Singer, Peter, 1:26; 2:407
Phelps, Fred, and, 2:429 feminism and, 1:178 Singularity Is Near, The: When Humans
Pipes, Daniel, and, 2:431 Focus on the Family and, 1:183 Transcend Biology (Kurzweil), 1:42
political climate following, 1:30, 37, France and, 1:194 Sioux, 1:22, 23
208; 2:345, 549, 574, 598 Hefner, Hugh, and, 1:246–47 Sirhan, Sirhan, 1:293
racial profiling following, 2:453, 454 Jorgensen, Christine, and, 1:288 Sirica, John J., 2:603
Rather, Dan, and, 2:456 Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:294, 295 Siskind, Janet, 2:557
religious fundamentalism and, 1:201 Kinsey, Alfred, and, 1:302–3 Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
Republican Party and, 2:470 Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 (Durang), 1:326
Russia and, 2:529 literature and, 1:324 Sister Souljah, 2:456
Saudi Arabia and, 2:489 Mead, Margaret, and, 2:350 Situationists International, 1:128
School of the Americas and, 2:494 New Age movement and, 2:396 Sixteenth Amendment, 2:551
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, and, 2:499 New Left and, 2:398 Sixth Amendment, 2:363, 471, 472
speech codes and, 2:530 Paglia, Camille, and, 2:422–23 60 Minutes (TV program), 1:3, 297; 2:377,
Springsteen, Bruce, and, 2:532 pornography and, 2:436, 437 457
Stone, Oliver, and, 2:540 Religious Right and, 2:466 Skinheads, 1:204; 2:615–16
Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:541 Republican Party and, 2:468 Skinner, B.F., 2:501
Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 rock and roll and, 2:476 SLA. See Symbionese Liberation Army
USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574 Roe v. Wade and, 2:479 slavery, 1:135, 165, 173, 235; 2:369, 377,
Vidal, Gore, and, 2:577, 578 sex education and, 2:508 452, 468, 471, 525, 576, 577, 630
war protesters and, 2:596 Wolfe, Tom, and, 2:621 Slepian, Bernard, 1:2
Weekly Standard and, 2:607 sexuality, study of, 1:191–92 Sliwa, Curtis, 1:231
whistleblowers and, 2:612 Sexuality Information and Educational Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Didion), 2:398
Woodward, Bob, and, 2:624 Council of the United States (SIECUS), Smith, Adam, 1:199
Young, Neil, and, 2:628 1:14; 2:508, 509 Smith, Al, 1:86
September 11 Memorial, 2:505–6 Shachtman, Max, 1:237 Smith, Gerald L.K., 2:615
Serbia, 1:282 Shalikashvili, John M., 1:210 Smith, Jane, 2:570
“Serenity Prayer,” 2:402 Shanker, Albert, 1:80 Smith, John, 1:93
Serpico, Frank, 2:433, 612 Shapiro, Robert, 2:417 Smith, Margaret Chase, 2:341, 344
Serrano, Andres, 2:337, 386, 387, 506–7, Shapiro, Steven, 2:364 Smith, Neil, 1:16
616 Sharon, Ariel, 2:475 Smith, Patti, 2:337, 449
Service Employees International Union Sharpton, Alfred Charles, Jr., 1:223; 2:426, Smith, William Kennedy, 1:294
(SEIU), 1:312 513–15, 514, 564, 610 Smith, Willis, 1:248
700 Club (TV program), 1:19, 171; 2:474, Shaw v. Reno (1993), 2:464 Smith Act (1940), 1:17, 111, 235; 2:343,
552 Sheehan, Cindy, 2:597 344
Sex and the Single Girl (Brown), 1:36, 53; Sheen, Fulton John, 1:59; 2:515 Smokescreens (Chick), 2:515
2:513 Sheen, Lyle P., 1:116 smoking, 1:91, 197, 304; 2:344, 413, 428,
sex education, 1:3, 14, 49, 63, 75, 183, Shelley, Martha, 1:320; 2:515–16 499, 565–66, 567
236, 247, 260, 302, 304; 2:367, 420, Shelton, Robert, 2:614 in public, 2:520–21
431, 436, 460, 500, 507–9 Shepard, Matthew Wayne, 1:239; 2:429, See also tobacco
sex offenders, 1:51, 75, 182, 231, 241, 516, 516–17 snail darter, 1:159–60, 163
247, 283, 285, 303; 2:362, 460, Shepard, Sam, 1:326 SNCC. See Student Nonviolent
509–10, 577, 582, 620 Shimp, Donna, 2:520 Coordinating Committee
Index I-47
Snelling, Richard, 1:129 South (continued) Soviet Union (continued)

Snider, Dee, 1:246; 2:460 Great Society and, 1:230 Douglas, William O., and, 1:140
Snow, C.P., 1:324 hate crimes and, 1:239; 2:564 FCC and, 1:175
Snow, Olympia, 2:623 health care and, 1:243 Ford, Gerald, and, 1:188
Snow, Tony, 1:323 Hurricane Katrina and, 1:270 Gore, Al, and, 1:225
Sobibor, Poland, 1:134 interracial marriage and, 1:329 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227, 228
Socarides, Charles William, 2:521 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:300 Hall, Gus, and, 1:235, 236
Socarides, Richard, 2:521 labor unions and, 1:311 Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242
Social Contract, The (Rousseau), 1:20 lynching and, 1:330 Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, 1:254
social programs, 1:172, 249; 2:345, 384, Morrison, Toni, and, 2:369 Hiss, Alger, and, 1:256
405, 461, 551, 594 NAACP and, 2:383 Horowitz, David, and, 1:264
See also Great Society; New Deal; welfare National Endowment for the Humanities Islamic fundamentalism and, 1:201
Social Security, 1:21, 73, 135, 196, 200, and, 2:387 Israel and, 1:280
213, 217, 223, 243, 244, 250, 272, New Left and, 2:398, 399 John Birch Society and, 1:286
298; 2:397, 404, 428, 445, 461, 481, Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404 Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292
521–23, 559 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:429–30 Kristol, Irving, and, 1:305
Social Security Act (1935), 2:522, 608 “rednecks” and, 2:462 La Follette, Robert, Jr., and, 1:310
Social Text journal, 2:524 Republican Party and, 2:468, 469 LeMay, Curtis, and, 1:319
socialism, 1:21, 86, 87, 110, 144, 152, rock and roll and, 2:475 literature and, 1:324
194, 233, 237, 242, 243; 2:343, 367, school prayer and, 2:494 Marxism and, 2:338
383, 394, 397, 399, 402, 483, 488, Sheen, Fulton J., and, 2:515 McCarthyism and, 2:342, 343
545, 549, 610, 619, 622 shock jocks and, 2:517 militia movement and, 2:360
See also communism, communists “Silent Majority” and, 2:519 National Review and, 2:390
Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM), Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:525 neoconservatism and, 2:394, 395
1:178; 2:599 third parties and, 2:560 New York Times and, 2:401
Society of the Spectacle (Debord), 1:128 Thurmond, Strom, and, 2:563–64 Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:402, 403
sodomy laws, 1:19, 140, 206, 289; 2:416, Twenty-second Amendment and, 2:570 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405
443, 487, 523–24 Voting Rights Act and, 2:584 nuclear age and, 2:408–10
See also gay rights Wallace, George, and, 2:588 Pipes, Richard, and, 2:430
soft money, 1:67, 250 Wal-Mart and, 2:590 premillennial dispensationalism and,
Sojourners magazine, 2:589 Warren, Earl, and, 2:599 2:440
Sokal, Alan, 2:438, 524 White, Reggie, and, 2:613 prisons in, 1:4
Sokal Affair, 2:524 white supremacists and, 2:614–16 Rand, Ayn, and, 2:455
Solanas, Fernando, 1:325 Young, Neil, and, 2:628 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:459, 469
Solanas, Valerie, 1:178; 2:599 Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630 Republican Party and, 2:469
Soliah, Kathleen, 2:547 South Africa, 1:171, 213, 231, 298; 2:339, Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, and, 2:480
Solomon Amendment (1996, 1999, 2001), 367, 525, 548, 620 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
1:210 South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), 2:584 science education and, 1:124, 151
Soloveichik, Meir, 1:314 Southeast Asia, 1:77, 78 Soros, George, and, 2:525
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 2:528, 622 Southern Baptist Convention, 1:68, 165, Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535
Somalia, 2:582 166, 201, 205, 227; 2:466, 474, Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:459,
Sombart, Werner, 1:21 525–26, 552, 591, 592, 601 528, 540, 541
Sontag, Susan, 1:120, 325; 2:381 Southern Christian Leadership Conference Truman, Harry S., and, 2:560, 568, 569
Soros Fund Management, 2:525 (SCLC), 1:25, 94, 95, 282; 2:514 United Nations and, 2:573
Souder, Mark, 2:397 Southern Comfort (film), 2:568 war protesters and, 2:595
Souls of Black Folk, The (DuBois), 1:144 Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 1:31, Williams, William Appleman, and,
Souter, David, 1:62 239; 2:360, 614, 615, 616 1:102; 2:618
South Southwell, Ray, 2:360 Zappa, Frank, and, 2:629
ACLU and, 1:18 Soviet Union, 2:526–29 See also Russia
affirmative action and, 1:8 ACLU and, 1:17 Sowell, Thomas, 1:323; 2:373, 529–30,
anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 American Century and, 1:16 602
Atwater, Lee, and, 1:31 anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 Spain, 1:74; 2:337
Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 arts and, 2:385 Spanish-American War, 1:126, 255
Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58 Spartacus (film), 1:307; 2:344
Bush family and, 1:61 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61 special-interest groups, 1:51, 67, 68, 109,
Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 132, 163, 183, 198, 233, 261, 281,
civil rights movement in, 1:94, 95 Chambers, Whittaker, and, 1:79 290; 2:370, 391–92, 397, 445, 520,
comic strips and, 1:107 China and, 1:85 558
communism and, 1:111 CIA and, 1:77, 78 speech codes, 1:143, 210, 280; 2:435,
Confederate flag and, 1:114–15 Cold War and, 1:100–103 530–31, 546
country music and, 1:122, 123 communism and, 1:110–12 Spencer, Brenda, 2:497
Democratic Party and, 1:135–37 conspiracy theories and, 1:116 Spinks, Leon, 1:15
discrimination in, 1:52, 59, 60 counterculture and, 1:120 Spinoza, Baruch, 2:542
drug testing in, 1:142 Cuba and, 1:127 SPLC. See Southern Poverty Law Center
Dylan, Bob, and, 1:147 DeMille, Cecil B., and, 2:554 Spock, Benjamin McLane, 1:183, 262, 316;
Election of 2008 and, 1:159 Demjanjuk, John, and, 1:134 2:531–32, 595
Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 Donahue, Phil, and, 1:139 SpongeBob SquarePants (TV program), 1:208
I-4 8 Index
sport utility vehicles (SUVs), 1:33 Stop Taking Our Privileges (STOP ERA), Supreme Court, U.S. (continued)
sports, homosexuals and, 1:208 1:165; 2:492 affirmative action and, 1:9–10
spotted owl, 1:159, 160, 164, 190 Storer, George B., 1:175 Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:15
Spring, Rick, 1:31 Stormer, John A., 2:342 bankruptcy reform and, 1:35
Springsteen, Bruce, 1:233; 2:476, 502, Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1:144 birth control and, 1:44; 2:479
532–33, 535 Straight from the Streets (film), 2:604 Bob Jones University and, 1:47, 327
Spurlock, Morgan, 1:325; 2:413 Straight Outta Compton (album), 2:456 Boy Scouts and, 1:50
Sputnik, 1:101, 124, 151, 295, 324; 2:409, Strange Justice (Mayer and Abrahamson), Bush, George H.W., and, 1:62
466 1:252 Byrd, Robert, and, 1:66
stagflation, 1:199 Strasberg, Lee, 1:130, 184 capital punishment and, 1:69, 70, 71,
Stained Glass (album), 1:246 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. See SALT 215
Stalin, Joseph, 1:100, 110, 254, 264; 2:394, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), Catholic Church and, 1:74
400, 402, 403, 432, 515, 527, 528 2:410 censorship and, 1:77; 2:370, 512
Stallone, Sylvester, 2:598 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 1:81, Christian Coalition and, 1:88
Stamper, Norm, 2:442 102; 2:409, 451, 459, 499, 528, church and state and, 1:92, 193; 2:416,
Standing Alone in Mecca (Nomani), 2:378 540–41, 553, 554, 602 600
Stanford University, 1:41, 229, 230, 276; Strauss, Leo, 1:305; 2:394, 541–42, 584 communism and, 1:111, 236
2:543, 558 Strauss, William, 1:211, 212 creationism and, 1:124
Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), 1:71 Streamers (Rabe), 1:326 Demjanjuk, John, and, 1:134
Stapleton, Ruth Carter, 1:182 Street v. New York (1969), 1:19, 180 Democratic Party and, 1:136
Starbucks, 1:38; 2:489 structuralism and post-structuralism, Douglas, William O., and, 1:140
Starr, Kenneth Winston, 1:97, 99, 100; 1:178, 191–92, 194, 324–25; 2:423, drug testing and, 1:143
2:533, 533–34 438, 542–43 Election of 2000 and, 1:154, 154, 226;
START. See Strategic Arms Reduction Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The (Kuhn), 2:470, 561
Treaty 2:438 Endangered Species Act and, 1:160
State Department, U.S., 1:85, 103, 111, student conservatives, 2:543–44 environmental movement and, 1:82, 163
112, 198, 256, 258, 298, 322; 2:341, Student Nonviolent Coordinating evangelicalism and, 1:68
343, 395, 403, 445, 549, 573 Committee (SNCC), 1:44, 94–95, 147, faith-based programs and, 1:170
Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom 178, 242, 257, 282, 300; 2:398, 399, Falwell, Jerry, and, 1:171
and Tenure, 1:5–6, 7 630 FCC and, 1:175, 176, 236
states’ rights, 1:135; 2:430, 464, 588 Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD), flag desecration and, 1:180–81
stay-at-home mothers, 1:165, 199; 2:355, 1:33 gay rights and, 1:184, 206; 2:523–24
423, 522, 534–35, 608 Students for Academic Freedom, 1:5, 6, genetically modified foods and, 1:214
Steadman, Ralph, 2:562 264; 2:344 Graham, Billy, and, 1:227
Steal This Book (Hoffman), 1:257 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), gun control and, 1:232; 2:391–92
Steal This Movie! (film), 1:257 1:121, 152, 178, 237, 242, 315; hate crimes and, 1:240
Steal This Urine Test: Fighting Drug Hysteria 2:334, 344, 399, 544–46, 589, 596 homeschooling and, 1:260
in America (Hoffman and Silvers), 1:143 Stuntz, Joe, 1:23 internment and, 2:467
Steinbeck, John, 2:532, 535 Style Wars (film), 1:227 interracial marriage and, 1:328, 329
Steinem, Gloria, 1:53, 98, 165, 182, 199; suffrage, women’s, 1:164, 177, 178 judicial wars and, 1:288–90
2:362, 372, 532, 535–36 Sugarhill Gang, 2:455 Kennedy, Edward, and, 1:293
Steinhorn, Leonard, 1:212 Sugarmann, Josh, 2:391 LaRouche, Lyndon, and, 1:315
stem-cell research, 1:42, 63, 76, 139, 215, suicide, teen, 1:246; 2:336 McCarthyism and, 2:344
313; 2:339, 461, 474, 499, 500, 526, “Suicide Solution” (Osbourne), 1:246 medical marijuana and, 2:353–54
536–38, 601 Sullivan, Andrew, 2:373, 487 Miranda rights and, 2:363–64, 600
Stennis, John, 1:163 Sullivan, William C., 1:262 National Endowment for the Arts and,
Steppenwolf, 1:246 Sullivan Dangerous Weapons Act (1911), 2:507
Stern, Howard Allen, 1:77, 176; 2:517, 1:232 New York Times and, 2:401
538, 550, 617 Sulzberger, Arthur Hays, 2:400 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:405
Stevens, David, 1:235 Sulzberger, Arthur Ochs, Jr., 2:400 obscenity and, 1:278, 324; 2:386, 619
Stevens, George, 1:130 Sulzberger, Arthur Ochs “Punch,”; 2:400 O’Connor, Sandra Day, and, 2:415–16
Stevens, John Paul, 1:140 Summers, Lawrence Henry, 1:48; 2:546, Palin, Sarah, and, 2:424
Stevens, Roger, 2:385 610 pornography and, 1:182, 278; 2:436–37
Stevenson, Adlai, 1:27, 203; 2:493 Sundance Film Festival, 1:326; 2:462 presidential pardons and, 2:440
Stevenson, Adlai, III, 1:315 Super Bowl, 1:76, 176 prison reform and, 2:442
Stewart, Jon, 2:538, 538–39 Super Size Me (film), 2:413–14 privacy rights and, 1:19, 44, 140, 143,
Stewart, Potter, 2:436, 495 Superfund. See Comprehensive Emergency 288, 289; 2:431, 443–44, 600
Sticks and Bones (Rabe), 1:326 Response, Compensation, and Liability race and, 1:86
Stiglitz, Joseph, 1:221 Act racial profiling and, 2:453
Stockman, David, 2:522, 547 Superman, 1:106; 2:583 Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:459
Stokes, Carl, 1:163 supply-side economics, 1:174, 249, 306; Rehnquist, William H., and, 2:464–65
Stolen Honor (film), 2:579 2:397, 459, 546–47, 587, 594 Religious Right and, 1:313
Stone, Oliver, 1:182; 2:378, 539–40, 578 Support Our Scouts Act (2005), 1:50 Republican Party and, 2:470
Stone v. Graham (1980), 2:496, 555 Supreme Court, U.S. right to counsel and, 2:471
Stonewall Democrats, 1:207 abortion and, 1:1, 2; 2:431–32, 466, 479 right to die and, 2:407, 473
Stonewall rebellion, 1:206; 2:513, 515, academic freedom and, 1:6 Robertson, Pat, and, 2:474
540, 567 ACLU and, 1:17, 18, 19 same-sex marriage and, 2:487
Index I-4 9
Supreme Court, U.S. (continued) Tanzania, 2:503 technology (continued)

school prayer and, 2:466, 494–96, 495 Target America: The Influence of Communist postmodernism and, 2:438
school vouchers and, 1:170; 2:498 Propaganda on U.S. Media (Tyson), right to die and, 2:474
secular humanism and, 2:501 1:279 Soviet Union and, 2:528
segregation and, 1:53, 54, 60, 64–65, Tarzan (comic strip), 1:107 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 2:541
93–94, 256; 2:424, 599, 600 tax reform, 2:550–52 Unabomber and, 2:572
speech codes and, 2:530, 531 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:62; 2:406 war toys and, 2:597
Starr, Kenneth, and, 2:534 Bush, George W., and, 1:63; 2:397, 470, Telecommunications Act (1996), 1:175,
Stewart, Jon, and, 2:539 547, 551, 606 176
tax reform and, 2:550–51 Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 Teletubbies (TV program), 1:171, 208
Ten Commandments and, 2:496, 555 Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81, 82 televangelism, 1:46, 48, 88, 108, 126, 139,
terrorist detainees and, 1:4 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97 154, 166, 170–71, 170, 176, 205–7,
Thomas, Clarence, and, 1:51, 53, corporate welfare and, 1:119 236, 313, 316, 326; 2:467, 469, 475,
251–52, 251, 330; 2:422, 512, DeLay, Tom, and, 1:132 552–53
561, 564 Democratic Party and, 1:135 television, 1:313, 315–16, 325; 2:343,
Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569 Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145 348, 351, 351, 354, 370, 375, 376–77,
Unabomber and, 2:572 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 158 376, 387, 403–4, 405, 409, 420, 437,
Voting Rights Act and, 2:584, 585 federal budget deficit and, 1:174 442, 447–48, 460–61, 474, 515, 517,
Warren, Earl, and, 2:599–600, 600 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216, 217 519–20, 528, 535, 538–39, 561, 570,
Watergate and, 2:603 Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223 583, 591, 598, 611, 616, 619–20, 621
welfare and, 2:608 Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242 See also televangelism; specific networks
See also judicial wars Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292 Television’s Vietnam: The Real Story (TV
Surgeon General, U.S., 1:14, 243, 304; Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298 program), 1:280
2:413, 520, 565 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322 Tell, David, 2:607
survivalists, 2:349, 359, 365, 482 McCain, John, and, 2:339 Teller, Edward, 2:419, 541, 553–54
Sutton, Bob, 2:611 militia movement and, 2:359 Telling the Truth (Cheney), 1:82; 2:388
Swaggart, Jimmy, 1:108, 166, 171, 316; Mondale, Walter, and, 2:365 Ten Commandments, 1:18, 51, 77, 90, 92,
2:552, 553 multicultural conservatism and, 2:373 132, 314; 2:366–67, 496, 497, 554,
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District Norquist, Grover, and, 2:405–6 554–55
(1971), 1:64–65 Obama, Barack, and, 2:411, 412 Ten Commandments, The (film), 2:554
Sweatt v. Painter (1950), 1:94 Packwood, Bob, and, 2:422 Ten Days That Shook the World (Reed), 2:527
Sweden, 2:490 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:428 Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill (1978),
Sweeney, John, 1:312 Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451 1:163
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (film), Reagan, Ronald, and, 1:174; 2:458, 459, tenure, 1:5–6, 7, 253
1:325 547, 594 Terkel, Louis “Studs,” 1:52; 2:555–56
Swift, Suzanne, 2:623 Republican Party and, 2:470 term limits, 2:428
Swift, Wesley, 1:31; 2:615 Rove, Karl, and, 2:481 terrorism, terrorists
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 1:296; Sanders, Bernie, and, 2:488 Black Radical Congress and, 1:45
2:579 school busing and, 1:64, 65 Bush, George W., and, 2:344
Swindoll, Charles, 2:447 Social Security and, 2:523 Cheney, Dick 1:81
Switzerland, 1:161 supply-side economics and, 2:546–47 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87
Sykes, Charles, 2:577 think tanks and, 2:558, 559 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:97
Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 counterculture and, 1:122
2:547–48 wealth gap and, 2:606–7 country music and, 1:123
Syria, 1:280, 282; 2:489 Weyrich, Paul M., and, 2:611 Election of 2008 and, 1:156, 159
Szilard, Leo, 2:419 Will, George, and, 2:617 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:217
Wilson, Edmund, and, 2:619 globalization and, 1:222
Table Mountain Indians, 1:275 Tax Reform Act (1986), 1:50; 2:551 gun control and, 1:232
tabloid newspapers, 2:375, 512 Taxi Driver (film), 1:325 Hart, Gary, and, 1:238
Taft, Robert Alphonso, 1:101, 223, 295; Taylor, Zachary, 1:73 Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242
2:397, 492, 549 technology Horowitz, David, and, 1:264
Taft-Hartley Act (1947), 1:111, 311; age discrimination and, 1:12 illegal immigration and, 2:359
2:343, 549 environmentalism and, 1:109–10, 162 Iran-Contra affair and, 1:278
Tailhook convention, 2:512, 622–23 feminism and, 1:179 Israel and, 1:281
Taiwan. See China, Republic of Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200 Lewis, Bernard, and, 1:321
Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1:85 globalization and, 1:221 McVeigh, Timothy, and, 2:349
Takaki, Ronald, 1:254; 2:470, 471 Gore, Al, and, 1:225 Mexico and, 2:356
Tales from the Crypt (comic book), 1:106 Internet and, 1:277–78 Morgan, Robin, and, 2:368
Taliban, 1:90, 123; 2:378, 503, 505, 529 Japan and, 1:284 Muslim Americans and, 2:378
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and labor unions and, 1:312 New York Times and, 2:401–2
Fundamentalism in Central Asia Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334 nuclear age and, 2:410
(Rashid), 2:504 Mead, Margaret, and, 2:350 O’Reilly, Bill, and, 2:420
talk radio, 1:41, 196, 231, 238–39, 250, Microsoft and, 2:357 Palin, Sarah, and, 2:424
298, 322–23, 323; 2:351, 354, 407, Millennial Generation and, 1:212 racial profiling and, 2:454
411, 412, 420, 517, 538, 549–50, 576 Mumford, Lewis, and, 2:375 religious fundamentalism and, 1:201
See also Christian radio; shock jocks nuclear age and, 1:254 Rove, Karl, and, 2:481
Talk Radio (Bogosian), 2:517 occupational safety and, 2:415 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
I-5 0 Index
terrorism, terrorists (continued) Tolson, Clyde A., 1:263 Tyrrell, R. Emmett, 2:544
Southern Baptist Convention and, 2:526 Tomlinson, Kenneth, 2:448 Tyson, James L., 1:279
torture of suspected, 1:3–4 tort reform, 1:62; 2:352–53, 481, 566–67,
USA PATRIOT Act and, 2:574 587 U2, 1:48; 2:476
Vidal, Gore, and, 2:577, 578 torture, 1:3–4, 64, 78, 82, 266; 2:339, Udall, Mo, 2:379
vigilantism and, 2:582 494, 608 UFW. See United Farm Workers Union
Weekly Standard and, 2:608 Torvals, Linus, 2:357 Ukraine, 1:28, 134
World Council of Churches and, 2:626 totalitarianism, 2:583–84 UN. See United Nations
See also ecoterrorism; September 11, 2001, Townsend, Kathleen Kennedy, 1:294 Unabomber, 2:572
terrorist attacks of; War on Terror Toyota, 1:284 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 1:144
Terry, Luther L., 2:520 trade, 1:200, 226, 306; 2:488, 546 Underground Railroad, 1:235
Terry, Randall, 2:418, 491 See also most favored nation; North Understanding the New Age (Chandler), 2:396
Tet Offensive, 1:279, 287; 2:581 American Free Trade Agreement “Uneasy Rider” (Daniels), 2:346
Teters, Charlene, 1:276 Tragedy of American Compassion, The Unemployment Relief Act (1933), 1:8
Texas, University of, 1:10; 2:497, 624 (Olasky), 1:113 Unfit for Command (O’Neill), 2:579
Texas v. Cobb (2001), 2:472 Transexualism and Sex Reassignment (Money unfunded mandates, 1:118, 277
Texas v. Johnson (1989), 1:180, 181 and Green), 2:568 Unger, Craig, 2:489
thalidomide, 1:186 transgender movement, 1:25, 179, 204, Unification Church, 1:314; 2:601, 602
Thanksgiving Day, 1:308; 2:556–57 205, 207, 288, 321; 2:332, 345, 374, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2:500
Thatcher, Margaret, 2:444 421, 540, 567–68, 624 United Automobile Workers (UAW),
theology, 1:240–41; 2:402–3, 518 Transjordan, 1:280 1:244, 267
think tanks, 1:29, 200, 249–50, 271, 305; Transmetropolitan (comic book), 1:106 United Farm Workers Union (UFW), 1:80,
2:395, 500, 544, 557–59, 559, 589 Transportation Department, U.S. 256, 311; 2:359
Third Amendment, 2:443 (USDOT), 1:32, 142, 230 United Methodist Church, 1:1, 276
third parties, 2:380, 381, 427, 428, 428, Transsexual Phenomenon (Benjamin), 2:568 United Nations (UN), 2:572–74
532, 559–61, 563, 576, 588 Traynor, Chuck, 2:437 American Century and, 1:16
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (film), 2:371 Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War anti-Semitism and, 1:28
“This Land Is Your Land” (Guthrie), 1:233 to the War on Terrorism (Coulter), 1:120; Atomic Energy Commission of, 2:408
Thomas, Cal, 2:602 2:342, 344 automobile safety and, 1:32
Thomas, Clarence, 1:19, 51, 53, 62, 66, Treasury Department, U.S., 2:372 Buckley, William F., Jr., and, 1:58
88, 251–52, 251, 290, 329, 330; Trident submarine, 2:409 Bunche, Ralph, and, 1:60
2:369, 373, 422, 512, 561–62, 564 Trilling, Lionel, 2:432, 619 Bush, George H.W., and, 1:61
Thomas, J. Parnell, 2:441 Tripp, Linda, 1:99 China and, 1:85
Thomas, Norman, 1:17 Triumph of the Moon, The: A History of conspiracy theories and, 1:115–16
Thomas Road Baptist Church, 1:170, 171 Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Hutton), France and, 1:194
Thompson, Fred, 1:156 2:396 Helms, Jesse, and, 1:248
Thompson, Hank, 1:123 Triumph of Politics, The (Stockman), 2:547 Hiss, Alger, and, 1:79, 256
Thompson, Hugh C., Jr., 2:379 Trochmann, John, David, and Randy, human rights and, 1:265
Thompson, Hunter Stockton, 1:121; 2:360 Israel and, 1:258, 280
2:381, 398, 562, 621 Trudeau, Gary, 1:107, 108; 2:562 John Birch Society and, 1:91, 286
Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), 1:71 True Grit (film), 2:605 Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298
Thomson, James, 2:537 Trujillo, Rafael, 1:78 Khrushchev, Nikita, and, 2:528
Thornburgh, Richard, 2:563 Truman, Harry S., 1:8, 17, 77, 100, 101, Kyoto Protocol and, 1:309
Three Mile Island accident, 1:242; 2:554, 111, 135, 150, 165, 227, 243, 244, McCarthyism and, 2:344
563 254, 256, 263, 269, 280; 2:342, 343, McGovern, George, and, 2:347
Thriller (album), 1:283 344, 385, 394, 397, 401, 440, 441, militia movement and, 2:359, 482
Thurmond, James Strom, 1:31, 65, 115, 458, 527, 549, 552, 559–60, 568–69, Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371
266, 326, 327, 328; 2:526, 560, 571 neoconservatism and, 2:395
563–64, 564 Truman administration, 1:85 NRA and, 2:391
Tiananmen Square, 1:85 Truman Doctrine, 1:101, 258; 2:569 premillennial dispensationalism and,
Tibet, 1:85, 220 Trumbo, Dalton, 1:257; 2:344 2:440
Tijerina, Reies López, 1:256 Tucker, Karla Faye, 1:62 Turner, Ted, and, 2:570
Till, Emmett Louis, 1:330; 2:369, 564–65 Tullock, Gordon, 2:444 Warren, Rick, and, 2:601
Till, Mamie, 2:565 Turkey, 1:101, 125 World Council of Churches and, 2:626
Time magazine, 1:16, 73, 79, 80, 83, 109, Turner, Robert Edward (Ted), III, 1:184; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975), 2:453
163, 207, 212, 216, 240, 285, 294; 2:569–70, 573 United States v. Eichman (1990), 1:180, 181
2:354, 361, 402, 481, 557, 621, 625 Turner Diaries, The (Pierce), 2:349, 477, United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group
Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), 1:19 616 (2000), 1:176
To Catch a Predator (TV program), 2:510 Tuve, Merle, 2:408 United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our
tobacco, 1:187, 222, 225; 2:413, 499, 520, Twain, Mark, 2:562 Country (Perot), 2:427
612 Twentieth Amendment, 1:109 Universal Studies, 1:208
See also smoking Twenty-second Amendment, 2:400, University of Wisconsin at Madison Post v.
tobacco settlements, 2:565–66, 567 570–71 Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1:21, 194; 2:527 “Two Concepts of Liberty” (Berlin), 2:527 (1991), 2:531
Today (TV program), 1:52, 99 2 Live Crew, 2:456 Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers
Toffler, Alvin, 2:439 2M, 1:4 of the American Automobile (Nader),
Tokyo Rose, 2:441 Tydings, Millard, 2:341, 344 1:32; 2:380
Index I-51
Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, The (film), Vietnam War (continued) Vietnam War (continued)
2:565 Canada and, 1:69 National Review and, 2:390
unwed mothers, 1:40, 172, 250, 298, 304; Carter, Jimmy, and, 1:73 neoconservatism and, 2:394
2:333, 367, 451, 479, 507, 509, 608 censorship and, 1:77 New Left and, 2:398, 399
urban areas, 1:54, 65, 203, 204, 249, 324; Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81 New York Times and, 2:401
2:384, 391, 442, 451, 452, 454, 455, Chicago Seven and, 1:83–84 Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:402, 403
456, 462, 468, 513, 540, 545, 589, Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86 Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404, 405
590, 593, 604, 605, 607, 608, 613 Chomsky, Noam, and, 1:87 Pentagon Papers and, 1:322
Urban League, 2:454, 561 CIA and, 1:178 Perot, H. Ross, and, 2:427
U.S. v. Bajakajian (1998), 2:561 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 presidential pardons and, 2:441
U.S. v. Hubbell (2000), 2:561 Cold War and, 1:101, 102 public television and, 2:448
U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative comic books/comic strips and, 1:106, 107 Quayle, Dan, and, 2:451
(2001), 2:353 Commager, Henry, and, 1:109 Rather, Dan, and, 2:456
U.S. v. Seeger (1965), 1:19 Common Cause and, 1:109 Republican Party and, 2:468
U.S. v. Wade (1967), 2:471 Coulter, Ann, and, 1:120 rock and roll and, 2:476, 628
U.S.-Mexican War, 1:255 counterculture and, 1:120 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493
USA PATRIOT Act (2001), 1:266, 278; country music and, 1:122 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502
2:344, 454, 504, 505, 574, 574–75 Cronkite, Walter, and, 1:126 Spock, Benjamin, and, 1:262; 2:531,
USA Today, 1:88; 2:587 Democratic Party and, 1:136 532
USCIS. See Citizenship and Immigration drug testing and, 1:142 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535
Services, U.S. Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146 Stone, Oliver, and, 2:539
USDOT. See Transportation Department, ecoterrorism and, 1:148 student conservatives and, 2:543
U.S. environmental movement and, 1:163 Students for a Democratic Society and,
USFWS. See Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. evangelicalism and, 1:166 2:545
Ussher, James, 1:124 flag desecration and, 1:180 talk radio and, 2:549
Fonda, Jane, and, 1:184, 185 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:569
Vacco v. Quill (1997), 2:473 Ford, Gerald, and, 1:187, 188 Vidal, Gore, and, 2:577
Vadim, Roger, 1:184 Foreman, Dave, and, 1:188 Wall Street Journal and, 2:587
Vagina Monologues (Ensler), 2:511 France and, 1:194 War on Poverty and, 2:594
Van Doren, Mark, 1:79 Galbraith, John Kenneth, and, 1:203 War Powers Act and, 2:594, 595
Van Orden v. Perry (2005), 2:555 gangs and, 1:204 war toys and, 2:597
Van Patter, Betty, 1:264 generational differences and, 1:52, 212 Wayne, John, and, 2:605, 606
Van Peebles, Melvin, 1:325 Gibson, Mel, and, 1:215 whistleblowers and, 1:322; 2:602,
vanden Heuvel, Katrina, 2:381 Ginsberg, Allen, and, 1:218 612
Vanity Fair magazine, 1:176; 2:619 Gore, Al, and, 1:225 Wilson, Edmund, and, 2:619
Velvet Underground, 2:449 Graham, Billy, and, 1:228 Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630
Venezuela, 2:404, 426 Great Society and, 1:230 See also Agent Orange; My Lai massacre;
Venona Project, 1:112; 2:343, 480 Guthrie, Arlo, and, 1:233 Tet Offensive; war protesters
Ventura, Jesse, 2:428, 498, 560, 576, 610 Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239 vigilantism, 1:222–23, 231, 300; 2:349,
Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton (1995), Hayden, Tom, and, 1:242 356, 582–83, 614–16
1:143 Heller, Joseph, and, 1:248 Village Voice newspaper, 1:121; 2:334
veterans, 1:3, 161, 296; 2:468, 519, 532, Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 Vinson, Fred M., 1:54
539, 576, 578–80, 581, 597, 609, 626 Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257 Violence Policy Center, 2:391
VH1; 2:333 Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:266, 267 Virgin Islands, U.S., 1:231
Vices of Economists, The Virtues of the Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279; 2:280 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
Bourgeoisie, The (McCloskey), 2:345 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, and, 1:287; 2:557 University, 2:496, 497
victimhood, 1:113, 141; 2:355, 362, 373, Kennedy, John F., and, 1:292 Virilio, Paul, 1:42
422, 496, 530, 576–77, 621 Kerouac, Jack, and, 1:295 Voegelin, Eric Herman Wilhelm, 2:583–84
Vidal, Eugene Luther Gore, Jr., 1:58; Kerry, John, and, 1:295, 296, 296 Volcker, Paul, 1:51
2:349, 381, 432, 577–78, 618 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 1:299, 300 Vonnegut, Kurt, 1:52, 121
Vietnam: A Television History (TV program), Klein, Naomi, and, 1:304 Voorhis, Jerry, 2:403
1:280; 2:448 Kubrick, Stanley, and, 1:307 voting, voting rights, 1:60, 94, 95, 109,
Vietnam, South, 1:269 labor unions and, 1:312 282, 300; 2:384, 429, 452, 464, 561,
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Lear, Norman, and, 1:316 599, 600
(VVAW), 1:296; 2:578–79 LeMay, Curtis, and, 1:319 Voting Rights Act (1965), 1:29, 66, 95,
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 2:505, Lennon, John, and, 1:91 136, 230, 287, 327; 2:468, 584–85,
579–80, 580, 609 literature and, 1:324 604
Vietnam War, 2:580–82 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334 Vulgarians at the Gate (Allen), 2:517
ACLU and, 1:19 Marxism and, 2:338 VVAW. See Vietnam Veterans Against the
affirmative action and, 1:9 McCain, John, and, 1:156; 2:339 War
Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 McCarthy, Eugene, and, 2:340
Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:15 McGovern, George, and, 2:346, 347 Waco siege, 1:116; 2:349, 360, 365, 482,
American Century and, 1:16 McIntire, Carl, and, 2:348 578, 586
anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 McLuhan, Marshall, and, 2:349 Wade, Henry, 1:212; 2:479
Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 Morgan, Robin, and, 2:368 wages, 1:113, 223; 2:522, 590, 606, 609
Bush, George W., and, 1:62, 287; 2:456, My Lai massacre and, 2:378–79 Wagner Act (1935), 2:549
457, 457 Nation, The, and, 2:381 Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill, 1:243
I-52 Index
Wal-Mart, 1:86, 91, 114, 119, 142, 169, war protesters (continued) Watt, James Gaius, 1:29, 149, 189; 2:579,
246; 2:356, 393, 460, 510, 539, Hoffman, Abbie, and, 1:257 603–4
589–91, 617 Hoover, J. Edgar, and, 1:262 Watts and Los Angeles riots, 1965 and
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (film), human rights and, 1:266 1992, 1:172, 301–2; 2:426, 434, 454,
2:589 Humphrey, Hubert, and, 1:267 456, 604–5
Waley, Soso, 2:414 Irvine, Reed, and, 1:279 See also King, Rodney Glen
Walker, Alice, 2:369, 619 Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287 Wavy Gravy, 1:121
Walker, Dorothy, 1:61 Kerry, John, and, 1:296 Way the World Works, The (Wanniski), 2:546
Walker, George Herbert, 1:61 Lennon, John, and, 1:91 Wayne, John, 2:581, 605, 605–6
Walker, Jerry Jeff, 2:393 literature and, 1:324 wealth gap, 1:38, 40, 60, 65, 94, 128, 144,
Walker, Peter, 2:505, 506 Mailer, Norman, and, 2:334, 335 150, 167, 203, 233, 300; 2:338, 371,
Walker, Rebecca, 1:179 McCarthy, Eugene, and, 2:340 397, 406, 452, 459, 462, 498, 518,
Wall Street Journal, The, 1:51, 252; 2:375, New Journalism and, 2:398 530, 545, 558, 559, 604, 606–7, 626
394, 395, 401, 424, 554, 587, 587–88 New Left and, 2:399 See also poverty; welfare
Wallace, George Corley, 1:18, 27, 47, 53, Nixon, Richard, and, 2:404 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 1:199
122, 136, 266, 312, 319; 2:346, 393, Penn, Sean, and, 2:426 Weather Underground, 1:93, 121, 176,
462, 560, 588–89 police abuse and, 2:399, 433 242, 317; 2:399, 423, 545, 596
Wallace, Henry A., 1:101, 111; 2:560, 569 Republican Party and, 2:468 Weaver, Randy, 2:360, 482, 483
Wallace, Lurleen Burns, 2:588 rock and roll and, 2:476 Weaver, Samuel, 2:482, 483
Wallace, Michelle, 1:261 Seeger, Pete, and, 2:502 Weaver, Vicky, 2:482
Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), 2:496 sexual revolution and, 2:513 Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 2:479
Wallechinsky, David, 2:354 Shelley, Martha, and, 2:516 Weddington, Sarah, 1:212; 2:479
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 1:16 “Silent Majority” and, 2:518–19 Weekly Standard, The, 1:248, 253, 305, 305;
Wallis, Jim, 1:68, 166; 2:518, 589 Steinbeck, John, and, 2:535 2:375, 607–8
Walmartopia (musical), 2:590 Vietnam Veterans Against the War and, Weinberg, Alvin, 2:408
Walsh, John, 2:510 1:296; 2:578–79 Weinberg, Jack, 1:212
Walsh, Lawrence, 2:441 Wallis, Jim, and, 2:589 Weinberger, Caspar, 1:279; 2:441
Walsh-Healey Act (1936), 2:414 Young, Neil, and, 2:628 Weiner, Justus Reid, 2:486
Walt, Stephen M., 1:281 Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630 Weiner, Lee, 1:83, 84
Walt Disney Company, 1:90, 205, 207; See also pacifism, pacifists Weinglass, Leonard, 1:84
2:526, 591–92 War Resisters League (WRL), 2:398, 595, Weinman, Adolph, 2:555
Walton, Sam, 2:590 596, 598 Welch, Joseph, 2:341, 344
Waltz v. Tax Commission (1970), 1:18 war toys, 2:597–98 Welch, Richard, 1:78
Wanniski, Jude, 2:546 Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio (1989), Welch, Robert H.W., Jr., 2:467
War on Drugs, 1:41, 108, 142, 282; 2:393, 1:9; 2:464 Welch, Robert W., Jr., 1:58, 286; 2:573,
427, 442–43, 454, 468, 469, 592–93 Warfield, B.B., 1:201 615
War on Poverty, 1:136, 203, 230, 237, Warhol, Andy, 1:36, 121, 178; 2:337, 449, welfare, 2:608–9
250, 287, 300; 2:371, 432, 558, 559, 598–99 Bell Curve, The, and, 1:40
593–94, 594, 608 Warner, Michael, 2:487 Bradley, Bill, and, 1:51
War on Terror, 1:4, 6, 63–64, 78, 201, Warren, Earl, 1:54, 136, 286; 2:363, 464, Cheney, Dick, and, 1:81
210, 266, 296, 322; 2:401, 420, 468, 496, 599–600, 600 Chisholm, Shirley, and, 1:86
481, 503, 504, 575, 598, 630 Warren, Richard Duane, 2:526, 589, 601 Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96, 97
War Over Iraq, The (Kaplan and Kristol), Warren Commission, 1:187; 2:600 compassionate conservatism and, 1:113,
1:305 Washington, D.C., 1:54, 153, 232, 261, 114
War Powers Act, 2:594–95 329; 2:353, 362, 365, 448, 449, 503, Contract with America and, 1:118
war protesters, 2:595–97 558, 568, 579, 596, 597, 608, 626 counterculture and, 1:122
academic freedom and, 1:7 Washington, Denzel, 1:318 Democratic Party and, 1:135
ACLU and, 1:19 Washington, George, 1:20, 192; 2:471, Dukakis, Michael, and, 1:145
Agnew, Spiro, and, 1:12 557, 570, 626 Duke, David, and, 1:146
Ali, Muhammad, and, 1:15, 16 Washington Post, 1:11, 78, 88, 176, 177, faith-based programs and, 1:169
anti-intellectualism and, 1:27 279, 280; 2:342, 400, 418, 422, 426, family values and, 1:172
Baez, Joan, and, 1:34 572, 601, 608, 613, 624 federal budget deficit and, 1:174
Battle of Seattle and, 1:38 Washington Times, The, 1:51, 99, 195; Friedman, Milton, and, 1:200
censorship and, 1:77 2:370, 601–2 Gingrich, Newt, and, 1:216
Chicago Seven and, 1:83–84 Washington University, 2:492 Goldwater, Barry, and, 1:223
CIA and, 1:78 Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), 2:473 Gore, Al, and, 1:226
Clinton, Bill, and, 1:96 Washington-Williams, Essie Mae, 2:564 Great Society and, 1:230
comic books and, 1:106 Watchmen (comic book), 1:106 Harvey, Paul, and, 1:239
counterculture and, 1:121, 122 Watergate, 1:12, 52, 67, 72, 99, 102, 104, Heritage Foundation and, 1:249, 250
country music and, 1:122 109, 126, 130–31, 176–77, 187, 188, immigration policy and, 1:274
Dworkin, Andrea, and, 1:146 197, 198, 228, 322, 327; 2:344, 347, Johnson, Lyndon B., and, 1:287
Dylan, Bob, and, 1:147 400–401, 403, 405, 440–41, 456, Keyes, Alan, and, 1:298
environmental movement and, 1:163 457, 469, 602–3, 612, 624 Limbaugh, Rush, and, 1:322
Fonda, Jane, and, 1:184 Waters, David Roland, 2:416 McGovern, George, and, 2:346
generational conflict and, 1:212 Watkins, Calvert, 1:211 Moral Majority and, 2:367
Harrington, Michael, and, 1:237 Watson, James, 1:110 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, and, 2:371,
Heller, Joseph, and, 1:248 Watson, Justin, 1:88 372
Index I-53
welfare (continued) Whittle, H. Chris, 1:80 Wolfe, Alan, 1:268

New Deal and, 2:397 WHO. See World Health Organization Wolfe, Thomas, 1:295
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, and, 1:196 Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s Wolfe, Thomas Kennerly, Jr., (Tom), 1:210,
Rove, Karl, and, 2:481 National Identity (Huntington), 1:269 324; 2:348, 398, 579, 621–22
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., and, 2:493 Why Is There No Socialism in the United Wolff, Edward, 2:607
sex education and, 2:508 States? (Sombart), 1:21 Wolfowitz, Paul, 1:16, 305; 2:394, 395,
Social Security and, 2:521–23 Why Johnny Can’t Read (Flesch), 1:151 558
social theory on, 1:268 Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on women
think tanks and, 2:558, 559 Terrorism (Bennett), 1:41, 87; 2:465 affirmative action and, 1:8, 9, 10
Wall Street Journal and, 2:587 Wiener, Jon, 1:198 Black Radical Congress and, 1:45
Wallace, George, and, 2:588 Wigand, Jeffrey, 2:612 body image and, 1:36, 37, 39, 202;
Wal-Mart and, 2:590 Wild Bunch, The (film), 1:325 2:620, 620
War on Poverty and, 2:594 Wild One, The (film), 1:295 Catholic Church and, 1:75
Will, George, and, 2:617 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), 1:162 Christian Coalition and, 1:88
See also poverty; Social Security; wealth Wilde, Liz, 2:517 comic books and, 1:106
gap Wilderness Act (1964), 1:162, 190 comic strips and, 1:107
Wells, Jonathan, 1:125 Wilderness Society, 1:188, 189–90, 319 diversity training and, 1:137, 138
Wells, Kitty, 1:123 Wildmon, Donald Ellis, 1:290; 2:386, Election of 2008 and, 2:423, 424
Wellstone, Paul David, 1:51; 2:364, 576, 437, 467, 616–17 Farrakhan, Louis, and, 1:173
609–10 Wilke, John, 1:2 Flynt, Larry, and, 1:182
Wertham, Frederick, 1:106 Wilkinson, Bill, 2:614 fur industry and, 1:202
West, Cornel Ronald, 1:252; 2:426, 456, Wilkinson, Bruce, 2:447 gangs and, 1:204
546, 610, 610–11 Wilkinson, J. Harvey, III, 1:232 globalization and, 1:221
West Side Story (musical), 1:28, 203, 204 Will, George Frederick, 1:122, 295; 2:388, John Wayne films and, 2:605
West Virginia State Board of Education v. 532, 617–18 lesbians and, 1:321
Barnette (1943), 1:20, 92 Will & Grace (TV program), 1:205, 207 literature and, 1:325
Westminster Theological Seminary, 1:201; William, Pat, 1:189 McCain, John, and, 2:339
2:490 Williams, Damian, 1:302 multicultural conservatism and, 2:373
Weyrich, Paul Michael, 1:99; 2:467, 611 Williams, Hank, Jr., 1:123 Muslim Americans and, 2:378
Whalen, James, 2:602 Williams, Jacqueline, 2:608 PETA and, 2:426
whaling, 1:163 Williams, Jody, 1:222 political correctness and, 2:435
What Liberal Media? (Alterman), 2:351 Williams, Jonathan, 1:31 postmodernism and, 2:438
What Really Happened to the Class of ’65? Williams, Pete, 2:421 Promise Keepers and, 2:447
(Medved and Wallechinsky), 2:354 Williams, Ronald, 1:23 Saudi Arabia and, 2:489
What We Talk About When We Talk About Williams, Stanley Tookie, 2:499 sex education and, 2:507
Love (Carver), 1:325 Williams, Tennessee, 1:326 sexual assault and, 2:511
What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam Williams, Vanessa, 1:39 sexual revolution and, 2:513
and Modernity in the Middle East (Lewis), Williams, Walter, 1:323 shock jocks and, 2:517
1:321; 2:504 Williams, William Appleman, 1:102; Social Security and, 2:522
Whatever Happened to the Human Race? 2:618 social theory on, 1:268
(film), 1:304 Williams, Willie, 1:302 Soros, George, and, 2:525
When the Levees Broke (film), 1:318; 2:426 Williams v. Saxbe (1976), 2:512 speech codes and, 2:530, 531
whistleblowers, 1:3, 176–77, 322; 2:379, Wilson, Edmund, 2:618–19 Summers, Lawrence, and, 2:546
380, 602, 612–13 Wilson, Gretchen, 1:123; 2:589 Wal-Mart and, 2:590
Whitcomb, John, 1:124 Wilson, James, 1:192 Watt, James, and, 2:604
White, Byron, 2:479 Wilson, Joseph C., IV, 1:78, 82; 2:482, Winfrey, Oprah, and, 2:620
White, Dan, 2:361 625 Wolf, Naomi, and, 2:620, 620, 621
White, Kevin, 1:195 Wilson, Pete, 1:301 Zinn, Howard, and, 2:630
White, Mel, 1:171 Wilson, Richard, 2:627 See also Equal Rights Amendment;
White, Reginald Howard, 2:613 Wilson, William J., 2:608 feminism; stay-at-home mothers
White, Ryan, 1:13 Wilson, Woodrow, 1:21 Women Against Pornography, 2:368, 437
“white flight,” 1:54, 65, 260; 2:452, 604 Winchell, Walter, 1:288 women in the military, 2:512, 526, 579,
White House Conference on Families, Wind, Timothy, 1:301, 302 622–23
1:138, 183; 2:6 Winfrey, Oprah Gail, 1:46, 139, 141; Women’s Armed Services Integration Act
White House tapes, 1:131 2:369, 411, 426, 439, 619–20 (1948), 2:622
white nationalist movement, 2:614–15 Wisconsin, University of, 1:319; 2:531, 537 women’s rights. See feminism
“White Negro, The” (Mailer), 1:295; Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993), 1:240 women’s studies, 1:152, 229, 261–62, 280;
2:334 Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), 1:260 2:374, 623–24
white supremacists, 1:18, 28, 29, 31, 114, Wise Use Movement, 1:29–30; 2:359, 603 Wood, Judy, 1:117
135, 145–46, 182, 204, 327, 330; Without Fear or Favor: The New York Times Woodson v. North Carolina (1976), 1:70
2:335, 349, 359, 360, 362, 365, 383, and Its Times (Salisbury), 2:401 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, 1:121, 234;
477, 613, 614–16 Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in 2:476, 596
Whitewater scandal, 1:97, 98, 99; America (Allen), 1:330 Woodward, Robert Upshur, 1:131,
2:400–401, 533, 602 Witness (Chambers), 1:79; 2:406 176–77; 2:461, 624–25
Whitman, Charles, 2:497 Wohlstetter, Albert, 2:394 Word Records, 1:117
Whitman, Christine Todd, 1:82 Wolf, Leonard, 2:621 Works Progress Administration (WPA),
Whitman, Walt, 1:295 Wolf, Naomi, 2:422, 620, 620–21 2:385
I-5 4 Index
World Bank, 1:16; 2:546 World War II (continued) Wynette, Tammy, 1:123
World Community of Al-Islam in the Japanese internment and, 1:273; 2:467,
West, 1:173; 2:382 504, 599 X-Files, The (TV program), 1:116
World Council of Churches, 2:347, 440, Kennedy family and, 1:292 XYZ affair, 1:194
490, 625–26 labor and, 1:311; 2:358
World Health Organization (WHO), 1:72, literature, film, and drama and, 1:247, YAF. See Young Americans for Freedom
117; 2:414 248, 307, 325; 2:535 Yahoo, 1:167
World Is Flat, The: A Brief History of the McCarthyism and, 2:343, 344 Yale University, 1:57, 61, 62, 254; 2:402,
Twenty-first Cen\tury (Friedman), 1:103, Muhammad, Elijah, and, 2:382 530, 544, 572
221 Murrow, Edward R., and, 2:376 Yalta Conference, 1:102–3, 111
World magazine, 1:113; 2:463, 625 Nazism and, 2:615 Yamanaka, Shinya, 2:537
World Trade Center, 2:375, 502, 503, 504, New York Times and, 2:400 Yarborough, Ralph, 1:250
505, 506 Niebuhr, Reinhold, and, 2:402 Yard, Robert Sterling, 1:189
See also September 11, 2001, terrorist nuclear age and, 1:161, 253–54, 284, 318; Yates v. United States (1957), 1:17, 111
attacks of 2:408, 409, 419, 438, 568, 569 Yeltsin, Boris, 2:528
World Trade Center (film), 2:540 postmodernism and, 2:438 Yemen, 2:378, 503
World Trade Organization (WTO), Reagan, Ronald, and, 2:458 Yoder, John Howard, 1:240
1:37–38, 220, 303; 2:338, 380 Soviet Union and, 2:343, 480, 618 Yom Kippur War, 2:489
World War I, 1:21, 194, 196, 273, 285, stay-at-home mothers and, 2:534 Yoshimura, Fumio, 2:362
307; 2:394, 400, 527 Terkel, Studs, and, 2:556 Youk, Thomas, 1:297
World War II think tanks and, 2:557 Young, Frank, 1:186
affirmative action and, 1:8 Truman, Harry S., and, 2:458, 568, 569 Young, Neil Percival, 2:628
American exceptionalism and, 1:21 War Powers Act and, 2:594 Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), 1:56,
China and, 1:85 Wayne, John, and, 2:605 58; 2:484, 543, 584
CIA and, 1:77 World War II memorial, 2:626–27 Young Romance (comic book), 1:106
Cold War and, 1:102 WorldCom, 1:34 Youth International Party (Yippies), 1:83,
comic books and, 1:106 Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of 121, 257; 2:399, 596
communism and, 1:111 George W. Bush (Dean), 1:131 Yu, Junying, 2:537
Demjanjuk, John, and, 1:134 Wounded Knee incident, 1:23, 133; 2:578, Yugoslavia, 1:194; 2:582
Democratic Party and, 1:135 627 Yupik Eskimos, 1:160
Eisenhower, Dwight D., and, 1:153 WPA. See Works Progress Administration
evangelicalism and, 1:166 Wright, Jeremiah, 1:158; 2:412, 453 Zaccaro, John, 1:179, 180; 2:372
France and, 1:194 Wright, Jim, 1:217 Zahniser, Howard, 1:190
gays in the military and, 1:205, 209 Wright, Richard, 1:261 Zaire. See Congo
“Greatest Generation” and, 1:52, 212 Wright, Robin, 2:425 Zambia, 1:266
health care and, 1:243 Wright, Susan Webber, 1:100 Zappa, Frank Vincent, 2:460, 476, 629
Hispanic Americans and, 1:255 WRL. See War Resisters League Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), 2:498
Holocaust and, 1:28, 134, 258; 2:400 WTO. See World Trade Organization zero tolerance, 1:227; 2:344, 497, 629–30
human rights and, 1:265 Wuthnow, Robert, 1:268 Ziggy Stardust, 1:25
interventionism and, 2:618 Wyeth, Newell Conyers, 2:557 Zimbabwe, 1:266; 2:626
Japan and, 1:161, 253–54, 284, 318; Wylie, Chalmer, 2:496 Zinn, Howard, 1:52, 121; 2:470, 471,
2:408, 419, 438, 441, 568, 569 Wyman, Jane, 2:458 630–31

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Culture

Roger Chapman, Editor

© 2010 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

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Printed and bound in the United States

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

Publisher: Myron E. Sharpe

Deborah, Christine, and Liz

Topic Finder......................................................... xv Barbie Doll.........................................................36

Catholic Church.................................................74 Culture Jamming.............................................127

Feminism, Second-Wave...................................177 Great Books......................................................228

Indian Casinos..................................................274 Lesbians............................................................320

Montana Freemen.............................................365 O’Connor, Sandra Day......................................415

Rehnquist, William H.....................................464 Sharpton, Al.....................................................513

Thanksgiving Day............................................556 Warren, Earl.....................................................599

Gays in Popular Culture González, Elián MacKinnon, Catharine

School Shootings Busing, School Anti-Intellectualism

Brokaw, Tom Shelley, Martha Media and Publishing

Central Intelligence Agency Southern Baptist Convention Politicians, Government

McCarthy, Eugene Christian Radio Malcolm X

Busing, School Hate Crimes Secular Humanism

Holly Alloway Chip Berlet John Calhoun

Mahesh Ananth Bradley Best Daniel Callcut

Robin Andersen R. Matthew Beverlin Charles Carter

Rebecca Bach Michael Ian Borer Stephanie Chaban

Gary L. Bailey Sarah Boslaugh Evan Charney

Solomon Davidoff William J. Emerson, III Heather Hendershot

Gal Kober Angie Maxwell Holona LeAnne Ochs

Christine Hoff Kraemer Gary W. McDonogh Jacob W. Olmstead

Tim Lacy Cindy Mediavilla Seth Ovadia

Selina S.L. Lai Daniel Melendrez Valerie Palmer-Mehta

Gwendolyn Laird Jason Mellard Serena Parekh

Gary Land Keri Leigh Merritt Manon Parry

Tom Lansburg Tom Mertes Sean Parson

Rob Latham Cynthia J. Miller Susan Pearce

Abraham D. Lavender Nicolaas Mink Mark Pedelty

Damon Lindler Lazzara Kelly L. Mitchell Joshua E. Perry

David J. Leonard Eric J. Morgan Kurt W. Peterson

Daniel Liechty Marilyn Morgan Martin J. Plax

Christopher J. Lyons Kevin C. Motl Lee S. Polansky

Mike Males Gary Mucciaroni Jonah Raskin

Nick Malinowski Andrew R. Murphy Claire E. Rasmussen

Jeffrey T. Manuel J. Robert Myers Kirk Richardson

Andy Markowitz Joane Nagel Robert L. Richardson

Joseph A. Rodriguez Aidan Smith Phil Tiemeyer

Deborah D. Rogers Courtney Smith Mike Timonin

Sergio Romero Robert S. Smith John Day Tully

more upset by prisoner abuse than terrorist bombings or

Further Reading and evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell asserted that

Further Reading an annual commemoration of Americans who died in

Bowie’s alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Perhaps the most fa- A n g e l o u , M ay a

cosmetology school. These people are projecting a lot of

See also: Beauty Pageants; Brown, Helen Gurley; Catholic

(radical anarchists) retaliated with acts of vandalism. As Further Reading

Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia Web site. www.ferris

Further Reading By the mid-1980s, Bono was a ubiquitous presence

Book Banning also charge that librarians censor collections through

Emergency Act (1993) and Megan’s Law (1996), the latter B r o c k , D av i d

regard was conservative commentator and three-time

Canada Capital Punishment

See also: Communists and Communism; Hiss, Alger; Marxism;

spired Cheney in 1997 to endorse (along with Rumsfeld)

(2002–2003) and the Department of Homeland Security Further Reading