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Civil rights appeals have traditionally played a critical role in advancing social transformation and protecting human rights in the United States. However, according to recent findings from the University of Michigan, leveraging civil rights for rallying public backing on contemporary social challenges may counteract the intended effect.

Featured in the American Sociological Review, the research indicates that while many individuals maintain positive attitudes towards civil rights in theory, framing current issues like job discrimination, sexual harassment, food insecurity, and insufficient healthcare actually diminishes public support for governmental intervention.

“What shocked us the most was the breadth of the negative impact,” stated lead author Fabiana Silva, assistant professor of public policy at U-M.

The civil rights framing was ineffective across a variety of discrimination and resource deprivation issues for both beneficiaries—African Americans, Mexican Americans, Caucasian Americans, and undocumented Mexican immigrants—and audiences—liberals, conservatives, whites, African Americans, and Latinos.

One might expect that these results stem from racial backlash, but this interpretation suggests some groups—especially those more prone to harbor anti-Black sentiments—would respond more negatively than others, notes Silva.

Instead, Silva and her team discovered that civil rights framing consistently decreased support for governmental action across different respondent segments. Notably, this framing even lessened Black respondents’ backing for government measures aimed at addressing challenges faced by Black communities, which contradicts a simple racial backlash narrative.

The researchers propose that this counterproductive effect arises because civil rights terminology invokes memories of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1960s, an era characterized by state-supported discrimination and violence. Such connections may trivialize today’s challenges while unintentionally distancing potential supporters.

The findings recommend that activists and policymakers consider framing issues within the context of “American values.”

“We were fascinated to discover that not only did framing around American values prove more effective than civil rights framing, but that the public holds a broad perspective on what American values entail,” Silva remarked. “A majority perceived all the issues we investigated, including those related to discrimination and material deprivation, as infringements of American values.”

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