Framing a cause as a "civil rights" issue may actually decrease public support—even among people who deeply value civil rights. That's the key finding of a new study published in the American Sociological Review , which challenges long-held beliefs about how best to win public backing for social change.
Researchers found that Americans generally feel very positively about the idea of civil rights, in the abstract. However, in describing contemporary issues—like workplace discrimination, food insecurity or lack of healthcare—as civil rights problems, Americans are often less likely to support government action.
"We are interested in how to improve the life chances of vulnerable groups, like racial minorities, immigrants and low-wage workers," said co-author Dr. Irene Bloemraad, professor and co-director of the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of British Columbia. "We wanted to test what kinds of claims resonate with ordinary Americans."
In a large two-part study, the researchers surveyed more than 7,500 California voters in 2016 and 2019. Respondents were asked how they feel about civil rights and to describe what the term meant to them in their own words. Participants also read short stories about people experiencing challenges such as workplace discrimination, food insecurity or lack of healthcare, and were asked whether they supported government action to address the hardships.
"We found that respondents did indeed feel very positively about civil rights in the abstract and largely agreed about their meaning," said lead author Dr. Fabiana Silva, an assistant professor at the Ford School of Public Policy. "But when hardships were framed as civil rights issues, it actually decreased public support for government action. Most surprising to us was how widespread this negative effect was."
The team expected that civil rights language might work better for addressing problems of unequal treatment like workplace discrimination than problems of material deprivation like going hungry. But they found that using civil rights framing was counterproductive for both.
They also expected that the language of civil rights would work better to address hardships faced by African Americans, but instead they found it was counterproductive for all the beneficiary groups tested: African Americans, Mexican Americans, White Americans, and undocumented Mexican immigrants. Further, rather than being especially effective when targeted towards politically liberal survey respondents or non-Whites, the frame was counterproductive across respondent sub-groups.
"In fact, we found that civil rights framing even reduced Black respondents' support for government action to address hardships faced by Black people," Dr. Silva added. "At the same time, this is not what we would have expected from a racialized backlash account."
The study also found that people tend to define civil rights narrowly—as the right to be treated equally regardless of race, gender or religion. Most respondents did not associate civil rights with economic struggles, like not having enough to eat or being unable to afford healthcare. As a result, using civil rights language to talk about poverty may feel like a stretch to many, weakening its impact.
According to the researchers, the problem may lie in how people remember the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Because it is remembered as such a historic and heroic moment, today's struggles might seem less urgent by comparison.
"When contemporary activists make civil rights claims, they unwittingly evoke an implicit comparison to the historic Civil Rights Movement," said co-author Dr. Kim Voss, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. "We think that this might undermine the power of a civil rights claim, because contemporary hardships seem less significant and contemporary claims-making seems less heroic than that idealized collective memory."
This pattern could have consequences for movements across the political spectrum. From racial justice and immigrant rights to gun rights and anti-abortion advocacy, many causes rely on civil rights language to gain support.
"This might be disheartening to activists," said Dr. Voss. "But a better takeaway is that frames other than civil rights are likely to be more effective for building public support."
A more promising alternative, the researchers suggest, is an "American values" frame. This frame can be used to foreground similar ideals as the civil rights frame—including ideals of fairness, equal opportunity and individual dignity—without triggering comparisons to past movements. Their findings suggest that this could be a more effective way to unite people around social change.
