About Your Masthead: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Compatibility of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
15 Pages Posted: 8 Jul 2008
Date Written: 2004
Abstract
The editors of the Harvard Civil Rights -Civil Liberties Law Review have invited me to offer my thoughts on the relationship between civil rights and civil liberties. Both are emblazoned on their masthead. A few years ago, one of my favorite authors, historian Robin Kelley, wrote a prize-winning book about white media, black culture, and the huge gulf between them, entitled Yo' Mama's Disfunktional. Does a similar gap exist between civil rights and civil liberties? Is the masthead dysfunctional, committing CR-CL by its terms to an inherently self-contradictory agenda, like a law review that billed itself as "The Global Development and Environmental Protection Journal" or "The Review of Religion and Atheism"?
Are civil liberties and civil rights in tension, pulling in different directions? Is it possible for a society to have both, in full measure and without limitation? If not, should CR-CL split up into two separate journals? Part I of this Essay examines a few instances in which civil rights and civil liberties may be entirely compatible. Then, Part II shows how our system of civil rights and civil liberties can exhibit tensions and strains, as exemplified in the area of hate speech. Part III explains the source of these tensions, while Part IV offers some thoughts on how to live with them. I hope that what follows will prove helpful not just in this one area but will also enable us to understand better the relationship between civil rights and civil liberties in general.
Keywords: civil rights, civil liberties, jurisprudence, racial justice, contradiction, compatible
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