MIA

On Wednesday, Memoryblog reported that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has a new policy related to the public release and online posting of reports and Commission documents. The Commission’s homepage notes that “to comply with that new policy, the website has been updated and several draft reports that failed to receive a majority of Commissioners' votes have been removed.” When you read between the lines, what that means is that the Republican majority of the Commission has made it much harder for you to read reports that are either A) embarrassing to the Bush Administration (particularly a September 2004 report entitled Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration) or B) politically inconvenient for the Republican Party. Here’s a list of the missing reports: * Briefing on Boundaries of Justice: Immigration Policies Post-September 11 (October 2001) * Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in Ohio Post-September 11 (November 2001) * Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in Minnesota Post-September 11 (February 2002) * Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in Wisconsin Post-September 11 (April 2002) * Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in Indiana Post-September 11 (May 2002) * Briefing on the Consequences of Government Race Data Collection Bans on Civil Rights (May 2002) * Briefing on Civil Rights Issues Facing Muslims and Arab Americans in North Dakota Post-September 11 (May 2002) * Haitian Asylum Seekers and U.S. Immigration Policy (June 2002) * Voting Rights in Florida 2002: Briefing Summary (August 2002) * Briefing on Tragedy Along the Arizona-Mexico Border: Undocumented Immigrants Face Death in the Desert (August 2002) * Beyond Percentage Plans: The Challenge of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (November 2002) * Crossing Borders: The Administration of Justice and Civil Rights Protections in the Immigration and Asylum Context (January 2003) * Education Accountability and High-Stakes Testing in the Carolinas (February 2003) * The Supreme Court Revisits Affirmative Action: Will Grutter and Gratz Mean the End of Bakke? (April 2003) * The U.S. Department of Education’s Race-Neutral Alternatives in Postsecondary Education: Innovative Approaches to Diversity-Are They Viable Substitutes for Affirmative Action? (May 2003) * Anniversary Update on Commission Activities Related to September 11 (September 2003) * Native American Health Care Disparities Briefing Summary (February 2004) * Is America Ready to Vote? Election Readiness Briefing Paper (July 2004) * Closing the Achievement Gap: The Impact of Standards Based Education Reform (July 2004) * Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration (September 2004) Lucky for you, The Memory Hole has obtained copies of 17 of these 20 reports. These unflattering documents can now be read online. Go get ‘em.