Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy
"Rather than a means for rehabilitation," Kotlowski concludes, Nixon's "civil rights policy offers a vista on his multifarious persona." Despite that claim, this account serves as a de facto apologia for Nixon's record, elevating his accomplishments while downplaying his divisiveness and antagonism his Southern strategy, his nominations of Haynsworth and Carswell, his cultivation of racial code words, the racial subtext of his "law and order" politics and the war on drugs or his bigotry revealed in the White House tapes. Nor (except for sporadic comments) does Kotlowski situate Nixon's racial policies within his overall political objectives or within the larger history of the struggle for civil rights, much less the balance of forces during Nixon's presidency. Attention is tightly focused on specific accomplishments and the internal workings of Nixon's administration. Separate chapters cover education, housing, voting rights, employment, black colleges and businesses, relationships with civil rights leaders, Native American policies and women's rights. Sixteen years after the Supreme Court's Brown decision, massive desegregation finally came to the South on Nixon's watch; the 1965 Voting Rights Act was reauthorized, expanded and strengthened; affirmative action was promoted; and money for black colleges and minority businesses jumped substantially. Stressing voluntary desegregation, not integration, Nixon sharply reined in HUD secretary George Romney, his administration's most ardent activist. Native Americans, a much smaller minority largely opposed to integration, served ideally to showcase Nixon as a concerned, effective statesman, but women's rights baffled him, despite sporadic steps forward. Kotlowski rightly argues that Nixon's policies had profound lasting consequences, but fails to explore them in depth.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.