A Need to Fight Thomas Nomination

Those White House “spin doctors” must be gleefully rubbing their hands as they watch liberal, labor and minority groups slip around in the political swamp President Bush created for them with his nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

The AFL-CIO, like the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the 183 other organizations that make up the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, ought to be leading the battle to block Senate confirmation of Thomas.

But they seem to have a double standard. If Thomas were white, unions and civil rights’ groups would not have hesitated to oppose him.

After all, they have been in the forefront of decades-long fights to get our civil rights’ laws, including affirmative action programs, to combat discrimination. Yet Thomas opposes most of them.

Instead of moving in quickly, though, most of the organizations say they are “reviewing the situation” as White House aides cynically press the political advantage Bush has won by his clever appointment of the strongly conservative black to the already conservative high court.

Based just on his dismal eight-year record as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Thomas has proved himself no friend of women, minorities or older workers striving to overcome workplace prejudices.

And he didn’t show himself as a friend of young workers when he complained that the legal minimum wage (now only $4.25 an hour) is “too high for black teen-agers” because he claims that it prices them out of jobs.

So it is probable--but not certain--that the AFL-CIO and other organizations in the Leadership Conference will ultimately oppose his confirmation, as they did so effectively when they helped block Bush’s nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

The problem is that they face a far more complicated problem with Thomas than they did with Bork.

They know Thomas has support from many people simply because he is black. And a large number of blacks seem to believe that he will be better for them on the court than a somewhat less conservative white female or Latino who would be the best alternative they could hope for from Bush if Thomas is rejected.

But, contradictorily, he could also get support from many white males, especially blue-collar workers. They might not want a black on the court, but with help from those White House spin doctors, that could change if they are made to realize that they agree with Thomas’s disgraceful opposition to affirmative action and rigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

Many white male union members agree with Thomas’s allegation that affirmative action constitutes “reverse discrimination” that gives women, minorities and older workers an unfair advantage.

Thomas will be portrayed as the symbol of opposition to goals, timetables and even Bush’s “Q” word, quotas, that are used to promote equality for minorities and women. These useful tools are damned by both men, although it seems obvious that Thomas is, in effect, Bush’s own quota of one black for the Supreme Court.

Those fighting these effective anti-discrimination tactics ignore America’s history of workplace prejudice and the urgent need to use civil rights’ laws to continue combatting that prejudice that still permeates much of our society.

While many normally progressive organizations, including the AFL-CIO, could mistakenly end up equivocating on the Thomas appointment, some individual affiliated unions will call on the Senate to reject him, which was done last Friday by the powerful American Federation of State, County & Municipal Workers.

Also, while the NAACP itself is still “studying his record,” the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a separate organization, is almost certain to decide this week to oppose his confirmation.

Vigorous opposition to him is already coming from the Congressional Black Caucus and several women’s groups because of his opposition to affirmative action and his statements regarding abortion.

Still other groups, including some major unions, are concerned about his views on other issues such as the separation of church and state. But most of the criticism leveled against him by unions and civil rights’ groups stems from his actions when he headed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1982 until 1989.

Support of that criticism is based on studies that found that when Thomas headed the EEOC it failed to fully investigate or pursue discrimination charges made by workers against employers, and often it did not verify critical evidence. Thomas scorned one such study made by the highly respected General Accounting Office, calling it “a hatchet job.” His supporters contend that under him the agency turned away a majority of workers seeking protection from alleged discrimination because they could not conclusively prove their complaints.

But the truth seems to be that Thomas didn’t really want to vigorously enforce anti-discrimination laws because he doesn’t think much of them.

He agrees there is workplace discrimination, but contends that few companies have “policies of discrimination” anymore, and where it does exist, it stems from “individual bigots in position of authority.”

“Discrimination we find today more often has a narrow impact, perhaps influencing only a few hiring decisions,” he has written, thus irrationally suggesting that we’ve pretty much licked those mean old bigots.

Bush made a shrewd political move with his appointment of Thomas, but unions that have had their own share of criticism about their attitudes toward women and minorities should quickly take the lead in the effort to stop his confirmation to the Supreme Court, where he can do far more damage that he did in the EEOC.