Urban League Head Blasts Reagan

The U.S. should return to the ideals of the New Deal and provide its citizens with increased opportunities for education and job training, the chief of the National Urban League told a Kennedy School audience last night.

National Urban League President and Chief Executive John Jacob blasted President Reagan's claims that social programs like Affirmative Action and Medicaid have failed. He accused those who say government has grown too big or too obtrusive of hypocrisy.

"Today's critics of social policy were educated on the G.I. Bill, and reap the benefits of Social Security," Jacob told a crowd of about 120.

Jacob criticized what he called Reagan's "counter-revolution" in social policy, saying the Reagan Administration is trying to change the ethical foundation on which domestic policy is built. He said if the U.S. continues to cut support for social programs, the nation will fall to "the status of a second-class world power."

At the close of his remarks, Jacob presented a three-pronged plan to correct social inequality. The U.S. must provide "a universal employment and training system, educational reform, and a social welfare program stressing work and development," Jacob told the crowd.

After Jacob concluded his remarks, a pair of Harvard scholars elaborated on the themes of his address. Both agreed with the civil rights leader's condemnations of the nation's social policies but prescribed different means for promoting greater social justice.

Kennedy

Assistant Professor of Law Randall Kennedy said he agreed with most of what Jacob had said, but criticized Jacob's vision as "too modest."

He called Jacob "trapped in nostalgia for the mediocre welfare state of the New Deal." Kennedy said the U.S. requires "revolutionary change."

The civil rights movement must move beyond the rhetoric of the past and develop "utopian thinking that people would be willing to sacrifice, dream, and struggle for," Kennedy said.

Loury

After Kennedy concluded his address, Kennedy School Professor Glenn Loury provided a disperse, theoretical response to Jacobs.

Loury spoke of the "temptation to see social issues as a problem of opportunity," and called Jacob's suggestions, "not enough" and "not totally intellectually satisfying."