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Selected Paragraphs from the Summary Record of the 1475th Meeting: United
States of America. 22/08/2001.(200)
12. Mr. PILLAI. He stressed that education in its entirety was the most
basic and critical component of a State's efforts to promote racial equality
and harmony, and its impact on health, employment and poverty could not be
overemphasized. He hoped, too, that the United States Government would pay due
regard to the various reports circulated by a number of civil society
organizations relating to racial discrimination in education.
13. Ms. BRITZ said she wondered in general, how, in a country with such a
large amount of anti-discrimination legislation, such a high degree of
inequality could still exist in matters such as health care, criminal justice,
educational opportunities and housing; and whether the legislation itself had
particular weaknesses or whether it was not the appropriate cure for racial
inequality. A more specific question concerned discrepancy as to what was
understood by discrimination, as defined in article 1, paragraph 1 of the
Convention and further clarified in the Committee's General Recommendation
XIV. According to a Supreme Court interpretation (para. 235 of the report),
discriminatory intent, as well as disparate impact, had to be shown in order
to demonstrate a constitutional violation of equal protection. But intent was
much more difficult to prove than impact. Reading between the lines of the
report, it was clear that its authors were aware of that discrepancy.
21. Ms. JANUARY-BARDILL, while recognizing that the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution prohibited racial discrimination on the part of
any public authority (report, para. 177) and that there existed a vast legal
environment for implementation of measures relating to the Convention (report,
paras. 84-144), expressed concern that, despite the existence of the legal
framework and implementing mechanisms, numerous factors continued to have a
negative effect on implementation (paras. 71 and 72). High levels of
institutional and systemic racial discrimination persisted, as *89 evidenced
for example by lack of educational opportunity, discrimination within the
criminal justice system, unequal health care for minorities and disadvantaged
women, and continued inequality for the African-American population. She
stressed that covert racial discrimination was sometimes more dangerous than
overt racial discrimination and its effects more devastating and therefore
wondered who was to blame for factors which continued to affect implementation
and for inadequate funding of public services, how local, state and federal
authorities were reacting to violations of legislation at the institutional
level, and who would address issues relating to equal access and ensure that
equal treatment continued.
23. Mr. YUTZIS, referring to article 5 and the obligation of States parties
to guarantee the rights of all, noted that among the factors affecting
implementation described in the report was "under-funding of federal and State
civil rights agencies" (para. 71(b)), and requested statistics on levels of
funding for human rights activities, specifically statistics expressed not
only in actual figures, which were relative and could be misleading, but also
as a percentage of gross domestic product, which would provide a better
understanding of the priority and resources allotted to human rights
questions, and should preferably be broken down by areas such as housing,
health, etc.
31. [Mr. THORNBERRY.] On the question of affirmative action, article 2,
paragraph 2, of the Convention made it very clear that special measures to
remedy disadvantage were mandatory when the circumstances so warranted. Such
were the special measures taken by the United States Government on behalf of
Native Hawaiians (report, para. 48). Although the Supreme Court had cast doubt
on the Congress's authority to legislate in such a manner, and although
various lower-court judgements [sic] had ordered an end to other affirmative
action programmes (report, para. 275), the notion of equality employed in the
Convention was one of equality in fact, which implied that those at a
disadvantage must be treated differently and that such affirmative treatment
could legitimately be ended only when the need for it had clearly ceased. That
goal had not been reached in the United States, as indicated in paragraph 276
of the report.
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