Frame Backfire: The Trouble with Civil Rights Appeals in the Contemporary United States
Kim Voss is Professor of Sociology at the University of California Berkeley. Her current research investigates the immigrant rights movement, examines dilemmas currently facing the U.S. labor movement, and analyzes the shifting terrain of U.S. higher education. In addition to publishing in academic journals in sociology, political science, and demography, she has written or edited six books: Rallying for Immigrant Rights (2011, with I. Bloemraad), Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement (2006, with R. Fantasia), Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Movement (2004, with R. Milkman), Des Synidcats Domestiques: Repression Patronale et Resistance Syndicale Aux Etas-Unis (2003, with R. Fantasia), Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth (1996, with five Berkeley colleagues), and The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993).
Talk description: Many view civil rights as a powerful frame for diverse causes—but do such claims still resonate? In this talk, Prof. Kim Voss draws on research conducted with collaborators to discuss a surprising pattern in the ongoing utility of civil rights framing for addressing contemporary experiences of labor and employment discrimination. Across two large-scale surveys, they found that respondents positively embraced “civil rights” in the abstract but reacted negatively when contemporary problems were framed as civil rights violations. Instead of building support, this framing often diminished support for government intervention across issues, groups, and political orientations. The authors argue that civil rights claims evoke idealized memories of the historic Civil Rights Movement in ways that make current struggles seem less urgent which, in turn, weaken solidarity. Their findings challenge the assumption that aligning core values or appealing to positive memories of past social movements automatically enhances resonance—sometimes, it backfires.
