Scope and Content Note
The Center for National Policy Review (CNPR), a public interest organization concerned with enforcement of and compliance with federal civil rights laws, was created in 1970 by William L. Taylor, a civil rights attorney and former staff member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights during the 1960s. Located at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., the Center affiliated with the law school until 1985 when a disagreement over the appointment of a tenure track professor as director of the Law and Public Policy Program caused the relationship to be severed. The records of the Center span the years 1959-1986, with the bulk of the documents falling between the years 1971 and 1985. The collection consists of nine series, Chronological File, Administrative File, General Subject File, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Legal File, Speeches and Writings, Miscellany, Addition, and Oversize.
The Center was basically a vehicle for Taylor to continue his work in the civil rights field. It functioned in four major areas: monitoring federal programs to ensure that agencies carried out civil rights responsibilities, supporting or opposing federal legislation or agency regulations, participating in lawsuits challenging infringements of civil rights, and disseminating information to the public regarding the status of laws and government actions affecting equal rights of minorities and the poor.
Since its primary concern was surveillance of the actions of federal agencies, the Center's records focus in large part on those areas in which racial discrimination was likely to occur. However, much of its scrutiny of federal government agencies was performed in cooperation with other civil rights organizations, such as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the NAACP, both of whose records are also housed in the Manuscript Division, and the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. The records of the Center include a substantial series documenting its involvement with the LCCR. These files reflect the fields in which LCCR monitored compliance with federal laws against discrimination, namely, employment, housing, regulatory agencies, and federal program coordination. They also include assessment reports on the impact of policies of the Carter and Reagan administrations on minorities. Taylor served as chairman of the LCCR Enforcement and Compliance Committee and testified before congressional committees on behalf of the Leadership Conference.
The Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, an organization of former high level government officials interested in promoting civil rights, was created in 1982 with Arthur S. Flemming as its chairman and Taylor as staff director. It also employed three staff members of CNPR on a full-time basis. The Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights published the quarterly, Civil Rights Alert, and conducted studies and issued reports on housing discrimination, affirmative action, and school closings. The majority of its records, however, relates to the regional voter registration hearings held in Atlanta, New York, and Phoenix following the 1984 elections. Correspondence and publications relating to Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights activities are found in the General Subject and Chronological File series.
Further examples of cooperation between the Center for National Policy Review and other civil rights organizations are found in the General Subject File in material relating to revenue sharing and to siting General Services Administration facilities, and in the Legal File, in NAACP Legal Defense Fund litigation files, and in records of other legal cases in which Taylor filed amicus curiae briefs, such as Hills v. Gautreaux and Robinson v. Shultz.
About a fourth of the Center's records relates to some aspect of racial discrimination in education. Files pertaining to education policies of administrations from Nixon to Reagan, appropriations and other funding, bilingual education, busing, enforcement and compliance, legislative bills, and school desegregation are in the General Subject File, the Legal File, and the Speeches and Writings series.
Taylor was especially interested in metropolitan school desegregation issues involving predominantly Black city schools surrounded by white suburban ones. The majority of cases in the Legal File series deals with some form of school desegregation. The Center was involved in several cases, such as Bradley v. Richmond, Evans v. Buchanan, Haycraft v. Louisville, Liddell v. Board of Education of St. Louis, and United States v. Board of School Commissioners of Indianapolis, through Taylor's service as counsel for plaintiffs in suits seeking interdistrict remedies, including his participation in trial proceedings such as the Wilmington and Indianapolis cases and his preparation of briefs for civil rights groups in other cases. In the Adams and Brown v. Califano cases, the Center also challenged the lack of enforcement of legislation requiring the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to take punitive action when school districts receiving federal funds did not comply with that regulation. In a companion case, Center v. Richardson, the Center had previously sued HEW for its failure to grant the Center access under the Freedom of Information Act to records of the Office of Civil Rights regarding compliance with HEW regulations.
Discrimination in housing and employment were other areas of interest to the Center. Data relating to its activities in housing are dispersed among several files, but the most voluminous ones relate to the use of federal surplus property, choice of siting for federal agencies, and fair mortgage lending practices. Most of the Center's work in the field of housing was spearheaded by Glenda Sloane, the director for Housing and Community Development. References to studies on housing made by Sloane and other staff members are also found in the Chronological File and in some of the school desegregation cases.
The Center's files on employment discrimination are relatively small. Most are confined to the General Subject File and LCCR series. The Center's publications, Jobs Watch and Jobs Watch Alert, kept their readers abreast of job-related programs of the federal government.
Other significant files in the General Subject File relate to the overall administrative concept of civil rights enforcement. These files are concerned with the structure of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the appointment of its members, appointments of Department of Justice officials, selection of federal judges, and the role of civil rights offices in the organization of executive branch agencies.
As a part of its agenda for providing information to the public, the Center prepared and published pamphlets, handbooks, special reports, The Clearinghouse For Civil Rights Research, a quarterly later renamed the Civil Rights Review, and the serials, Jobs Watch and Jobs Watch Alert. The Center's public information function was augmented by Taylor's high profile in the community. The volume of material in the Speeches and Writings series in the Center's records attests to his many appearances before congressional committees, public interest organizations, civil rights groups, education organizations, law school classes, and other community groups. The articles he wrote were published in a variety of periodicals catering to a diverse readership.
Another facet of the Center's relationship to the civil rights community and to the Catholic University Law School was its internship program in advocacy law. Interns from the law school, under the supervision of the assistant director of the Center, performed legal research, wrote reports, and monitored newspapers and periodicals, particularly the Congressional Record and Federal Register, for information having an impact on Center projects or concerns. In addition, Taylor also taught several courses dealing with different phases of advocacy law, a concept which was at the time relatively new to law schools.
Like many public interest organizations, the Center for National Policy Review faced a continuing need for funds for its operations. Although it received some assistance from Catholic University, its major support came from foundations and government grants. Some grants, like those of the Ford Foundation, were for operational expenses; others were to support specific research projects or programs. The Center also made appeals to local corporations and encouraged local law firms to sponsor interns. The Administrative File contains a comprehensive file on fund-raising which attests to the time and energy expended by Taylor, the university, and friends of the Center on meeting its annual budgets.
The Addition consists of legal material that complements the material in the main portion of the collection. The bulk of the Addition relates to the Liddell v. Board of Education of St. Louis desegregation case.