Political and Racial Tolerance

Political Science 491-005, Spring 2003, TR 9:30 am - 10:45 am, POT 110

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The central question to be explored in this course is, How committed are Americans to the principles of political and racial tolerance? This question has vexed political scholars and pundits since the country’s inception. Their concerns have been that despite the near universal commitment of Americans to the principle of minority rights, our history has been one of systematically denying these rights to the groups in question, raising serious concerns about our commitment to democratic principles that are central to the U.S. political heritage. Political tolerance is defined as a willingness to extend basic constitutional rights -- the right to speak, to publish, to run for office -- to offensive groups and ideas. History is littered with examples of political repression made possible by widespread intolerance among the mass citizenry. The McCarthy "Red Scare" in the United States, the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany, and the outbreak of ethnic violence around the globe, have been linked to an intolerant mass public which permitted elites to deny rights to unpopular groups. And some have made the forceful argument that public support for democratic values—especially tolerance—is a prerequisite for the effective functioning and survival of democratic government.

Yet survey studies in the U.S. and abroad continue to document a striking inconsistency between nearly universal public support for general norms of democracy in the abstract, and extremely low levels of support for applying these principles to offensive groups. Thus, while upwards of 90 percent of the public agrees with statements like, "I believe in free speech for all no matter what their views might be," only about 30 to 40 percent support allowing members of an offensive group (e.g., members of the Ku Klux Klan or the Communist Party) to speak in public forums or teach in public schools. This "slippage" between support for democracy in the abstract and intolerance revealed in specific applications is seen as distressing not only because of its political implications (i.e., the public may be more easily mobilized to support political repression of offensive groups in society), but because it suggests a weak and superficial public commitment to democratic values.

Given these disturbing findings, we will ask a number of vexing questions about political tolerance over the course of the semester: Just how tolerant is the U.S. public? How do we compare with citizens of other countries around the world? How serious is the problem of political intolerance, what are its sources, and how can it be combated, if at all? And on the other side of the issue, when should civil liberties be limited; for example, when, if ever, is it advisable to censor “hate speech”?

Questions of racial tolerance raise similar, though perhaps more disturbing issues. As Lawrence Bobo has argued:

It is impossible to understand American politics without eventually engaging the question of race. Since before the founding of the republic the “race problem” has been near the core of American national politics. Issues of race figured in the drafting of the Constitution, the enslavement of blacks weighed upon the consciences of Washington and Jefferson, Tocqueville’s powerful chronicle of American society dealt extensively with race, a struggle between a race-based slave economy versus a free-labor economy precipitated the deadliest war in the American experience, and a range of constitutional debates (e.g., the scope and intent of the Fourteenth Amendment) and modern-day civil rights protections (the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965) can be traced to efforts to protect the status of African-Americans. And racial issues (e.g., affirmative action) continue to polarize Americans.

Over 50 years ago, Gunnar Myrdal argued that Americans suffered from a distinctly “American Dilemma,” between our professed commitment to the principle of equality and the way whites treated blacks. And a recent National Academy of Sciences report on the status of African Americans concluded that “Americans’ attitudes about the ‘color line’ can be viewed as a test of their commitment to core democratic values of tolerance, equality, and respect for minority rights.” Like political tolerance, then, issues surrounding racial tolerance (or intolerance), in many respects, define the U.S. experience and reflect on the success of American democracy.

What divides the races, politically speaking? What is the nature of the “American Dilemma” today? What motivates white opposition to policies and programs that affect African Americans? What is the nature of prejudice and how does it affect public opinion in the contemporary context? How does the media influence stereotypes of African Americans and public discourse on various issues, such as affirmative action, welfare and crime? How can the study of race in the U.S. be applied to the broader topic of inter-group relations in America and the world? These and a myriad other exciting questions await us this semester.