HOW RESOLUTE IS REAGAN ON CIVIL RIGHTS?
“,”description”:” The Reagan Administration assured the Supreme Court last week of its commitment to the ”fundamental principle of nondiscrimination in matters of race,” but the statement provoked skepticism among civil rights groups and leaders. William Bradford Reynolds, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, made the declaration in a legal brief in support of the Administration’s position that racially discriminatory private schools were legally entitled to Federal tax exemptions unless Congress specifies otherwise. As Mr. Reynolds prepares to defend that stance in oral argument before the Justices on Tuesday, discontent simmers among lawyers working under him and critics in the civil rights movement have renewed their charges that the Administration has abandoned their cause. Across the spectrum of civil rights enforcement, from public school desegregation to job discrimination to the rights of handicapped people, the Administration has repudiated some key polici
