Encyclopedia of Sociology

CIVIL LIBERTIES

holds society together, given that individuals ‘‘natu-
rally’’ behave in an atomized manner. Modern
participants in civil liberties controversies con-
front (again wittingly or by implication) a tension
between unrestricted individual liberty and the
needs of the community and requirements for
viable social institutions.

Etzioni, in an essay commenting on the ACLU’s
expansion of concerns, emphasizes contradictions
between individual liberties and community needs
(Etzioni 1991). He stresses the necessity of modify-
ing constitutionally protected individual rights in
instances of compelling social exigency. Examples
of such modification in the late twentieth century
included x-raying of luggage at airports, conduct-
ing voluntary fingerprinting of children to facili-
tate their identification if kidnapped, contact-track-
ing for people infected with HIV, and mandatory
drug testing of workers whose impairment endan-
gers others, such as train engineers. Although
these measures have enjoyed public support and
none has materially affected the basic rights of the
general population, each has been the focus of
civil liberties controversies and actions.

Etzioni characterizes opposition to measures
such as these as ‘‘radical individualism,’’ encour-
aged at late century by an imbalance between
‘‘excessive individual rights and insufficient social
responsibility.’’ His analysis characterizes the U.S.
Constitution as broader than a code of legal provi-
sions to protect the individual from government.
The law of the land is also a reflection of ‘‘public
morality, social values, and civic virtue.’’ Eclipse of
these elements of civil society, Etzioni implies,
precludes even marginal modification of legal tra-
ditions in the face of compelling social need. He
warns that resulting governmental paralysis may
ultimately give rise to popular disillusionment,
social distress, and abandonment of safeguards to
personal liberty on a far greater scale than the
marginal modifications initially proposed.

Another critic of ACLU positions alleges that
the imbalance between one-sided civil liberties
protection and community needs has already af-
fected American social institutions adversely and
to a significant degree. Siegel (1991) writes that
‘‘the libertarians and their allies in the courts have

... reshaped virtually every American public insti-
tution in the light of their understanding of due

process and equal protection under the Four-

teenth Amendment.’’ This reshaping has had an

‘‘elitist’’ quality, proceeding through abstract legal

reasoning and argument but materially harmful,

particularly to the economically disadvantaged.

According to Siegel’s argument, civil liberties vic-

tories in court place burdens on social institutions

and prevent them from responding to social reali-

ty. Siegel writes:

Civil liberties have become an economic issue

as those who can afford it either flee the cities

or buy out of public institutions. For those who

can’t afford to pay for private school, or

private vacations, and are left with junkie

infested parks, who can’t afford the private

buses which compete with public transporta-

tion, and are unable to pay for private police

protection, the rights revolution has become a

hollow victory. The imposition of formal

equality, the sort that makes it almost impossi-

ble, for instance, to expel violent high school

students, has produced great substantive ine-

quality as would-be achievers are left stranded

in procedurally purified, but failing institu-

tions. (Siegel 1991)

Both Etzioni’s and Siegel’s critique of the civil

liberties movement reflect sociology’s core per-

spective and concern, the essential tension be-

tween individualistic and social forces. More con-

cretely, sociology’s traditional concern with civil

liberties has focused on the citizen’s thinking re-

garding tolerance of deviation. Survey research

has served as the primary source of such information.

Stouffer’s above-referenced classic sounded

an optimistic note at the conclusion of the McCar-

thy era. His study focused on tolerance of people

espousing communism and atheism, ‘‘nonconform-

ist’’ ideologies that excited widespread public hos-

tility at the time. In separate surveys conducted by

the National Opinion Research Center (NORC)

and the Gallup organization, Stouffer asked re-

spondents whether communists and atheists should

be allowed to speak in their communities, whether

they should be allowed to teach in colleges or

universities, and whether their books should be

removed from public libraries.

The Stouffer study is remembered largely for

reporting relationships between two focuses of