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- <text id=89TT0902>
- <title>
- Apr. 03, 1989: American Notes:Rights
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Apr. 03, 1989 The College Trap
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 27
- American Notes
- RIGHTS
- A Chairman's Odd Antics
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Before Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency, the U.S. Civil
- Rights Commission was a strong ally in the movement for racial
- equality. But under Reagan, the panel became more of a
- bystander. Now high hopes for the commission's revival under
- George Bush are in danger of being undermined by the antics of
- its chairman, William Barclay Allen. He refuses to resign
- despite broad hints from the White House that he should step
- aside.
- </p>
- <p> In February, Allen and a former commission psychologist,
- accompanied by a TV crew, visited an Arizona Indian reservation
- to interview a 14-year-old Apache girl, the subject of a
- custody battle between her natural mother and the white couple
- who had adopted her. Allen contends that the girl wants to leave
- the reservation, though the mother has formal custody. The
- commissioner and the psychologist picked the girl up for the
- interview on her way home from school. Although they then took
- her to her mother, the mother filed a kidnaping charge against
- Allen. He was arrested by local police and detained for five
- hours.
- </p>
- <p> After word leaked that Bush wanted to replace Allen with
- Arthur Fletcher, a moderate black Republican, Allen said he
- intended to complete his term, which ends in 1992.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-