Creation and early history The commission was created by the
Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was signed into law by President
Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to a recommendation by an
ad hoc President's Committee on Civil Rights. In calling for a permanent commission, that committee stated: As then-Senator and Majority Leader
Lyndon B. Johnson put it, the commission's task is to "gather facts instead of charges. ... [I]t can sift out the truth from the fancies; and it can return with recommendations which will be of assistance to reasonable men." Since the 1957 Act, the commission has been re-authorized and re-configured by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Acts of 1983 and 1991 and the Civil Rights Commission Amendments Act of 1994. Soon after the passage of the 1957 Act, the then-six-member, bipartisan Commission, consisting of
John A. Hannah, President of Michigan State University; Robert Storey, Dean of the Southern Methodist University Law School; Father
Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame;
John Stewart Battle, former governor of Virginia;
Ernest Wilkins, a Department of Labor attorney; and
Doyle E. Carlton, former governor of Florida, set about to assemble a record. Their first project was to assess the administration of voter registration and elections in
Montgomery, Alabama. But they immediately ran into resistance. Circuit judge
George C. Wallace, who was elected as
governor in support of
white supremacy, ordered voter registration records to be impounded. "They are not going to get the records," he said. "And if any agent of the Civil Rights Commission comes down to get them, they will be locked up. ... I repeat, I will jail any Civil Rights Commission agent who attempts to get the records." The hearing went forward with no shortage of evidence. Witness after witness testified to inappropriate interference with his or her right to vote. The commissioners spent the night at Maxwell Air Base, because all the city's hotels were segregated. From there, the commission went on to hold hearings on the implementation of
Brown v. Board of Education in
Nashville, Tennessee and on housing discrimination in Atlanta, Chicago and New York. The facts gathered in these and other hearings along with the commission's recommendations were presented not just to Congress and the President but the American people generally, and they become part of the foundation upon which the
Civil Rights Act of 1960, the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the
Fair Housing Act of 1968 were built. A revolution in public opinion occurred during the late 1950s and early 1960s on issues of civil rights. The activities and reports of the Commission on Civil Rights contributed to that change. In 1956, the year before the 1957 Act, less than half of white Americans agreed with the statement, "White students and Negro students should go to the same schools." By 1963, the year before the 1964 Act, that figure had jumped to 62%. In 1956, a healthy majority of white Americans—60%—opposed "separate sections for Negroes on streetcars and buses." By 1963, the number had grown to 79% opposed—an overwhelming majority. Even in the South, minds were being changed. In 1956, 27% of Southern whites opposed separate sections on public transportation for blacks and whites. By 1963, the number had become a majority of 52%. The change in views about the desirability of a federal law was even more dramatic. As late as July 1963, 49 percent of the total population favored a federal law that would give "all persons, Negro as well as white, the right to be served in public places such as hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments," and 42 percent were opposed. By September of the same year, a majority of 54 percent was in favor, and 38 percent opposed. In February 1964, support had climbed to 61 percent and opposition had declined to 31 percent.
Reagan and Clinton administrations In 1977 the commission produced the report
Sex Bias in the U.S. Code. In 1981 President
Ronald Reagan, looking to move the commission in a more conservative direction, appointed
Clarence M. Pendleton, Jr., as the first black chairman of the commission. A
Howard University graduate, he was a conservative who opposed
affirmative action and many of the commission's activities. Pendleton reduced its staff and programs. In 1983, Reagan attempted to fire three members of the commission. They sued the administration in federal court to stay on. The authorizing legislation stated that a president could only fire a commissioner for "misbehavior in office", and it was clear that the terminations were the result of disagreements over policy. A compromise brokered in the Senate resulted in the current hybrid group of eight, half appointed by the president and half by the Congress, with six-year terms that do not expire with the inauguration of a new president. Since that time the commission has struggled to remain independent, and its agenda has oscillated between liberal and conservative aims as factions among its members have ebbed and waned. In 1990, Congress relied on a commission report to enact the
Americans with Disabilities Act. (ADA)
21st century The commission became increasingly polarized under the
George W. Bush administration, as conservatives –including Republican appointees on the commission itself – argued that it no longer served any useful purpose and that it conducted partisan investigations meant to embarrass Republicans. After 2004, when Bush appointed two conservative commissioners who had recently canceled their Republican Party registrations to the two "independent" seats, obtaining a six-member conservative majority bloc, the commission dramatically scaled back its activities and canceled several ongoing investigations.In 2008, President George W. Bush announced that he would oppose the proposed
Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act shortly after the commission issued a report recommending rejection of the bill. In 2018 the commission reversed its position in a report evaluating the federal government's efforts to meet its trust obligations to
Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. During the
Barack Obama administration, this conservative bloc reversed its position and began using the commission as a vigorous advocate for conservative interpretations of civil rights issues, such as opposition to the
Voting Rights Act and
the expansion of federal hate crimes laws. In 2010, Commissioner
Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee generally considered part of the commission's conservative bloc, criticized her colleagues' investigation into the
New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, describing it as motivated by a partisan "fantasy ... [that] they could bring
Eric Holder down and really damage [President Obama]" and arguing that only "a moron" could believe the commission's theory that Obama appointees had ordered DoJ attorneys not to protect the voting rights of white people. In October 2010,
Michael Yaki, one of the two Democratic commissioners, walked out of a meeting in protest. In doing so, Yaki deprived the panel of a quorum and delayed a vote on a draft report, which Yaki claimed, is unfairly biased against the Obama administration. Yaki described the panel as a "kangaroo court". President Obama eventually appointed two staunch liberals to the commission in the last days of his administration, keeping the commission to six Democratic and two Republican appointees. In June 2017 the commission voted unanimously to begin a wide-ranging investigation of the Trump administration's civil rights enforcement practices, and 6–2 along party lines to express their concern about the administration's actions. In releasing the report,
Commissioner Glenn Magpantay noted that the report was "the United States of America’s official, congressionally authorized, report on what’s been happening to [the Asian American] community since [President Trump] dubbed COVID19 as the ‘China Virus’ inflicting people with the ‘Kung Flu’. Words matter, as this report shows." In 2024, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report on "The Civil Rights Implications of the Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology."
List of chairs, 1958–present •
John A. Hannah, 1958–1969 •
Theodore Hesburgh, 1969–1972 •
J. Stephen Horn, 1972–1974 (Acting) •
Arthur S. Flemming, 1974–1981 •
Clarence M. Pendleton Jr., 1981–1988 •
William B. Allen, 1988–1989 •
Arthur Fletcher, 1990–1993 •
Mary Frances Berry, 1993–2004 •
Gerald A. Reynolds, 2004–2011 • Martin R. Castro, 2011–2016 •
Catherine E. Lhamon, 2016–2021 •
Norma V. Cantu, 2021–2023 •
Rochelle Garza, 2023–2025 ==Commission structure==