Playing Catch-Up: Two for Price of One

President Bush can begin to compensate for the wrath his White House and the Republican Party drew from women during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings by quickly agreeing to a compromise on the civil rights bill now pending in Congress.

The strong concerns voiced by millions of women about the sexual harassment allegations made by Prof. Anita Hill against now-Justice Thomas cannot be overlooked in the Senate debate.

Current law denies damages to victims of job discrimination based on gender. A compromise advanced by Republican Sen. John C. Danforth of Missouri would establish maximum damages of $50,000 for firms with fewer than 100 employees; $100,00 for firms with 100 to 500 employees and $300,000 for firms with more than 500 employees. In addition, it would reinstate federal protections weakened by a series of Supreme Court decisions that have made job discrimination harder to prove.

The GOP also has an image problem in regard to race issues, especially after the strong showing of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, a Republican, in the Louisiana gubernatorial primary last week.

The President must end his seeming political schizophrenia on the emotional issue of race. Bush the private citizen has demonstrated a longtime commitment to the United Negro College Fund, a philanthropy that raises millions of dollars for historically black colleges.

But Bush the politician has approached the racial issue with inflammatory rhetoric and campaign ads that have played to the fears of many whites. He raised the phantom of whites losing jobs to minorities when he erroneously characterized the 1991 civil rights bill as a “quota bill,” although the legislation specifically outlaws quotas.

Surely President Bush can find a compromise that returns fairness to the work place.