Blind law and powerless science: The American Jewish Congress, the NAACP, and the scientific case against discrimination, 1945-1950

ISIS

Volumn 91, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 89-116

  Jackson Jr , John P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0012860631     PISSN: 00211753     EISSN: 15456994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/384627     Document Type: Review

References (68)

1. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954); and Edmond Cahn, "Jurisprudence," New York University Law Review, 1955, 30:150-169, on pp. 157-158.
2. Kenneth B. Clark, Prejudice and Your Child (Boston: Beacon, 1963), p. 191.
3. Sheila Jasanoff, Science at the Bar (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), p. 8.
4. The perception that the Clarks' doll tests were central to Brown is incorrect. Many authors, however, treat them as the only empirical evidence in Brown. A sampling of this work includes Hadley Arkes, "The Problem of Kenneth Clark," Commentary, Nov. 1974, 58:37-46;
5. Harold Cruse, Plural But Equal: Blacks and Minorities in America's Plural Society (New York: Morrow, 1987), pp. 72-74;
6. William H. Tucker, The Science and Politics of Racial Research (Urbana: Univ. Illinois Press, 1994), pp. 144-146;
7. Roy L. Brooks, Integration or Separation? A Strategy for Racial Equality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1996), pp. 12-16;
8. and Ernest van den Haag, "Social Science Testimony in the Desegregation Cases: A Reply to Professor Kenneth Clark," Villanova Law Review, Sept. 1960, 60:69-79.
9. In the doll tests, Kenneth and Mamie Clark presented young children with two dolls identical in every way except skin color. The children were asked to identify the dolls as white or black. Then the children were asked to identify one doll with themselves and to identify one doll as "good" or "bad." The Clarks argued that the identification of a black doll as "bad" by African American children was a sign of psychological damage. A complete description of the doll tests can be found in William E. Cross, Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1991). On the Clarks' work more generally see ibid.;
10. Ben Keppel, The Work of Democracy: Ralph Bunche, Kenneth B. Clark, Lorraine Hansberry, and the Cultural Politics of Race (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995);
11. and Darryl Michael Scott, Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880-1996 (Chapel Hill: Univ. North Carolina Press, 1997).
12. A work that situates Clark as a "public psychological expert" is Ellen Herman, The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts (Berkeley: Univ. California Press, 1995).
13. On Clark's brief tenure at the AJC see Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Children, Race, and Power: Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Northside Center (Charlottesville: Univ. Virginia Press, 1996), p. 81.
14. Philip Gleason, "Americans All: World War II and the Shaping of American Identity," Review of Politics, 1981, 45:483-518;
15. David Southern, Gunnar Myrdal and Black-White Relations: The Use and Abuse of An American Dilemma, 1944-1969 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1987);
16. Elazar Barkan, The Retreal of Scientific Racism (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992), pp. 343-346;
17. Carl N. Degler, In Search of Human Nature (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 187-211;
18. and Franz Samelson, "From 'Race Psychology' to 'Studies in Prejudice,' " Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1978, 74:265-278.
19. There is an extensive literature on this "paradox" of social science in the United States. Major monographs include Joanne Brown, Definition of a Profession: The Authority Metaphor in the History of Psychological Testing, 1890-1930 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992);
20. Mary O. Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science, 1865-1905 (Lexington: Univ. Kentucky Press, 1975);
21. John M. O'Donnell, The Origins of Behaviorism: American Psychology, 1870-1920 (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1985);
22. and Mark Smith, Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate over Objectivity and Purpose, 1918-1941 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1994).
23. Lorenz Finison, "Unemployment, Politics, and the History of Organized Psychology," American Psychologist, 1976, 31:741-155;
24. and Finison, "Unemployment, Politics, and the History of Organized Psychology, II: The Psychologists League, the WPA, and the National Health Program," " American Psychologist, ibid., 1978, 33:471-477.
25. On SPSSI see Benjamin Harris, "Reviewing Fifty Years of the Psychology of Social Issues," Journal of Social Issues, 1986, 42:1-20.
26. On the membership see Finison, "Unemployment, Politics, and the History of Organized Psychology," p. 753.
27. SPSSI's publishing ventures are discussed in Lorenz Finison, "The Psychological Insurgency: 1936-1945," J. Soc. Issues, 1986, 42:21-34, on pp. 28-29.
28. On the war work of social psychologists see James Capshew, Psychology on the March (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998);
29. and Blair T. Johnson and Diana R. Nichols, "Social Psychologists' Expertise in the Public Interest: Civilian Morale Research during World War II," J. Soc. Issues. 1998, 54:53-78.
30. Finison, "Psychological Insurgency," pp. 31-33.
31. Ronald Lippitt and Marian Radke, "New Trends in the Investigation of Prejudice," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1946, 244:167-176, on p. 167.
32. On the transformation to a struggle against totalitarianism see Herman, Romance of American Psychology (cit. n. 3), pp. 174-207.
33. For Myrdal's book see Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York: Harper, 1944);
34. on the immense impact of Myrdal's work in creating a "liberal orthodoxy" concerning race relations see Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience (Chapel Hill: Univ. North Carolina Press, 1990).
35. On this change in Jewish leadership generally see Lenora E. Berson, The Negroes and the Jews (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 98-107.
36. Edward S. Shapiro, A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992), pp. 16-17;
37. and Stuart Svonkin, Jews against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1997), pp. 79-112.
38. David Petegorsky, "Report of the Executive Director to the Biennial National Convention of the American Jewish Congress," 31 Mar.-5 Apr. 1948, p. 10, American Jewish Congress Papers, Box 19, American Jewish Historical Society, Waltham, Massachusetts (hereafter cited as AJC Papers).
39. Accounts of the formation of the AJC can be found in Morris Frommer, "The American Jewish Congress: A History, 1914-1950" (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State Univ., 1978);
40. and Henry L. Feingold, A Time for Searching: Entering the Mainstream, 1920-1945 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992).
41. "New Scientific Attack on Anti-Semitism Launched by American Jewish Congress," 28 June 1945 (press release),
42. Alfred J. Marrow Papers, Box 20, Folder: "CCI, Pamphlets, Public Relations," Archive for the History of American Psychology, Akron, Ohio (hereafter cited as Marrow Papers).
43. Mitchell Ash, "Cultural Contexts and Scientific Change in Psychology: Kurt Lewin in Iowa," Amer. Psychol., 1992, 47:198-207.
44. Kurt Lewin, "The Place of the Commission on Community Interrelations within the Work of Jewish Organizations," address to the National Community Relations Advisory Council, 16 Nov. 1944,
45. Kurt Lewin Papers, Folder 19: "American Jewish Congress, CCI," Archive for the History of American Psychology (hereafter cited as Lewin Papers).
46. See also Alfred J. Marrow, The Practical Theorist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin (New York: Basic, 1969), pp. 161-164.
47. Kurt Lewin, "Memorandum on Program for the Commission on Anti-Semitism of the American Jewish Congress," pp. 1, 9,
48. Lewin Papers, Box M946, Folder 22: "CCI";
49. and "Some Basic Issues," 12 Dec. 1944,
50. Marrow Papers, Box M1938, Folder 21: "CCI Papers."
51. Watson laid out his blueprint for psychology's role in the postwar world in Goodwin Watson, "How Social Engineers Came to Be," Journal of Social Psychology, 1945, 21:135-141.
52. For details of Watson's life and work see Ian A. M. Nicholson, "The Politics of Scientific Social Reform, 1936-1960: Goodwin Watson and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues," J. Hist. Behav. Sci., 1997, 33:39-60;
53. and Nicholson, " "The Approved Bureaucratic Torpor': Goodwin Watson, Critical Psychology, and the Dilemmas of Expertise, 1930-1945," J. Soc. Issues, 1998, 54:29-52.
54. Goodwin Watson, Action for Unity (New York: Harper, 1947), p. 64.
55. Stuart Cook to Will Maslow, 5 Mar. 1947, Marrow Papers, Box M1938, Folder 14: "1946-1947, CCI Correspondence."
56. Isidor Chein, "Some Considerations in Combating Intergroup Prejudice," Journal of Educational Sociology, 1946, 79:412-419, on p. 416;
57. and Isidor Chein to Garner Roney, 9 Feb. 1949, Marrow Papers, Box M1938, Folder 15: "1948-1949, CCI Correspondence." A brief biography of Chein can be found in "Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest: 1980," Amer. Psychol., 1981, 56:67-70.
58. On the Committee on Unity see Gerald Benjamin, Race Relations and the New York City Commission on Human Rights (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 38-70.
59. On activist social psychology in the 1930s see Katherine Pandora, Rebels within the Ranks: Psychologists' Critique of Scientific Authority and Democratic Realities in New Deal America (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997).
60. Ronald Lippitt, "Action Research - Idea and Method," 17 July 1945, Marrow Papers, Box M1938, Folder 13: "1943-1945, CCI Correspondence." For a more complete description of CCI's program of "action research"
61. see Frances Cherry and Catherine Borshuk, "Social Action Research and the Commission on Community Interrelations," J. Soc. Issues, 1998, 54:119-142.
62. H. Epstein, " 'Forward,' Accent on Action: A New Approach to Minority Group Problems in America," 1945, Stuart W. Cook Papers, Box M2337, Folder 2: "Commission on Community Interrelations," Archive for the History of American Psychology (hereafter cited as Cook Papers);
63. and Shad Polier, "Why Jews Must Fight for Minorities," 4 Nov. 1949, pp. 2-3, Shad Polier Papers, Box 16, Folder: "Polier/AJC on Civil Liberties," American Jewish Historical Society.
64. Murray Friedman, What Went Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance (New York: Free Press, 1995), pp. 133-134.
65. M. R. Konvitz, "Introduction," in Law and Social Action: Selected Essays of Alexander H. Pekelis, ed. Konvitz (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1950), pp. v-vii, on p. vii.
66. Morton J. Horowitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), p. 169.
67. Edward A. Purcell, The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington: Univ. Kentucky Press, 1973), pp. 74-75.
68. Karl Llewellyn, "A Realistic Jurisprudence: The Next Step," Columbia Law Review, 1930, 30:431-465.