By Charlie Savage - Globe Staff / November 6, 2007

Liberals are angry because the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights uses Bush’s definition of civil rights rather than theirs.

WASHINGTON - The US Commission on Civil Rights, the nation’s 50-year-old watchdog for racism and discrimination, has become a critic of school desegregation efforts and affirmative action ever since the Bush administration used a controversial maneuver to put the agency under conservative control. Democrats say the move to create a conservative majority on the eight-member panel violated the spirit of a law requiring that no more than half the commission be of one party.

The commission has put out a series of reports