The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whose new leadership last year suspended publication of its periodical, Perspectives, has published the inaugural issue of a new quarterly magazine, New Perspectives.
Edited by Linda Chavez, staff director of the commission, New Perspectives calls itself a “forum for the expression of all points of view in the ongoing debate over how best to eliminate discrimination and its pernicious effects from our society.”
In the issue published in August, Ms. Chavez and Executive Editor Max Green interview William Bradford Reynolds, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who says that the Reagan Administration’s most telling mark on civil-rights enforcement has been the “reawakening [of] the public debate” on the legitimacy of affirmative action and busing as remedies for past discrimination.
Ms. Chavez, who was the editor of the newspaper of the American Federation of Teachers when she served as assistant to Albert Shanker, the aft president, had said earlier this year that she planned to exert greater control of the commission’s public voice.
An Alarming Event
Education Secretary Terrel H. Bell gave the keynote address last Tuesday night at the first National Leadership Conference on Private Sector Involvement in Vocational Education, a gathering of business and political leaders.
The meeting, held in Washington, was sponsored by the International Management and Development Institute, the Education Department, and several other groups.
At the opening banquet, Mr. Bell spoke through the high-pitched whine of the National Press Club’s fire alarm, which sounded when an emergency exit was opened inadvertently.
He cited the importance of vocational education in creating a skilled workforce to fill the jobs created by the current economic recovery and the need for vocational-education students to have a strong background in academic skills as well.
Mr. Bell also presented awards to eight vocational programs that received Presidential commendations recently as “exemplary.”
Ads Hit Violence
“Serious incidents of crime and violence” plague the schools, according to a series of advertisements the newly created National School Safety Center at California’s Pepperdine University is urging newspapers and magazines to run without charge as a public service.
The ads feature the well-known Norman Rockwell painting of a disheveled and blackeyed girl sitting outside the principal’s office, waiting for the moment of inquisition. “The schoolyard pranks and scuffles of yesterday were usually innocent and isolated,” the ads assert.
The Rockwell piece also adorns the cover of the organization’s new magazine, School Safety. The recently established $3.95-million project is a central part of the Reagan Administration’s school-discipline initiative.
--jh & tt
