Bush vs. Clinton: Presidential Leadership and Civil Rights : Massive problems remain in employment, education and housing that rhetoric alone cannot hope to address

America is a mosaic, rich in racial and ethnic diversity. And tension. African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and American Indians are expected to become the majority in California some time in the next century, and the rest of the nation also can expect greater integration, given the generally high birthrate of minorities and growing immigration. This dramatic increase in diversity is accompanied by a similarly dramatic increase in job and housing discrimination complaints, hate crimes and racial assaults. This troubling rise in racial tensions signals a need for stronger enforcement of civil rights.

President Bush is eloquent on the subject. When he signed the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1991, he said: “I believe in an America free from racism, free from bigotry. I believe in an America where anyone who wants to work has a job. I believe in an America where every child receives a first-rate education, a place where our children have the same chance to achieve their goals as everyone else’s kids do. I believe in an America where everyone has a place to call his own, a stake in the community, the comfort of home.”

The Sadness of Saying One Thing and Doing Another

The President’s eloquence belies his tendency to abandon his moderate Republican principles in favor of more conservative politics. His high moral stance is marred by a history of vacillation on civil rights. In campaigns for the House, he switched on the 1964 public accommodations bill and the 1968 fair housing legislation and, as President, on the 1991 civil rights legislation.

The Bush Administration waged war for two years against the 1991 legislation. Pandering to the conservative wing of his party, Bush divisively derided earlier versions of the bill as a “quota bill” despite its specific prohibition against hiring quotas. Hiding behind a technical compromise that he could not explain in a press conference, Bush finally yielded.

In the end the President signed the civil rights legislation, which reversed the effect of a series of Supreme Court decisions that made it harder to prove job discrimination.

On another front, Bush did take a significant step forward. He signed the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which protects the rights of disabled men and women. That extension of federal civil rights protections was certainly overdue.

Unfortunately, Bush stood by silently as members of his party verbally assaulted the rights of gay Americans at August’s GOP convention. The string of anti-homosexual remarks and the intolerant tone of several prominent speakers at the convention raised disturbing questions about Bush’s civil rights commitment. Does he support merely the letter of civil rights law, which protects racial and religious minorities and women, or does he also embrace the spirit of civil rights, which demands respect for all men and women, without regard to race, ethnicity, sex, religion or sexual orientation?

Supreme Court Factor: Thomas Appointment Did Not Help

Bush’s choice of Clarence Thomas for the U.S. Supreme Court opened other civil rights wounds. As the only minority member on the highest court, the black conservative could well play a decisive role in reversing existing civil rights protections.

In the last decade, minorities have received only a small share of the appointments to the federal bench. Bush has named 180 federal trial and appellate judges. Ten are black, eight are Latino and none are Asian. Presidents naturally appoint their allies to judgeships, but shouldn’t the federal bench mirror America’s diversity?

Similarly, Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President, has appointed political allies to the state bench in Arkansas, but he has significantly increased the number of black and women judges. He appears fairly consistent on civil rights involving black Americans, the most visible minority in his state. However, he failed to persuade the Arkansas Legislature to approve a state law that would ban racial discrimination in hiring and promotion. Also, Arkansas is one of the few states that does not ban housing discrimination.

Ross Perot has not mentioned civil rights much in his quixotic quest to become President. He has stated his opposition to affirmative action in the workplace. He also stumbled in a speech before the national convention of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. However, the Texan can take credit for years of generous philanthropic contributions to minority organizations in his home state.

The Evil of Racism Continues to Extend to Housing and Education

The federal fair housing law has banned discrimination in the sale and rental of housing since 1968. For two decades, that law had no teeth. The current law carries tougher penalties, yet discrimination continues. Curing this discrimination would allow some minorities to live in better neighborhoods and attend better schools.

Too many minorities live in poor urban school districts that are inferior to affluent, predominantly white suburban districts. Those savage inequalities, as author Jonathan Kozol calls them, result from disparities in local financing. Bush would remedy this de facto segregation with a voucher program that would allow students to choose to attend private, parochial or public schools at government expense. Although well-intentioned, there is a danger that the voucher system would bleed the public school system dry.

Clinton, whose daughter attends an integrated public school in Little Rock, opposes vouchers that would allow public dollars to be spent in private schools.

Minority college students, particularly blacks and Latinos, have lost ground during the last decade. Many financial aid programs have dried up. To broaden access to higher education, Bush proposes a new student aid program that would create a $25,000 line of credit for any American willing to repay the money from future earnings. Bush’s remedy parallels an earlier Clinton proposal.

Clinton would replace the existing student loan program with a national trust that would lend money to college students. They would repay their debt with public service or a percentage of their income.

The next President must also encourage the proper balance between public safety and police zealotry. The beating of Rodney G. King spotlighted an old and sadly familiar civil rights issue--police brutality. During the Los Angeles riots, Bush directed the Justice Department to reopen the federal investigation into the police beating of the black motorist. But the number of federal police brutality prosecutions has declined in the last decade, although local complaints have risen. That suggests the Justice Department must give higher priority to police brutality complaints.

The police can’t do their jobs effectively, however, as long as illicit guns proliferate. Clinton advocates gun control as a civil rights remedy, a non-traditional stance. So does the NAACP, which is focusing on gun-related violence because of the appalling murder toll in minority neighborhoods. No President can ensure as a civil right the freedom from being shot, but the next occupant of the White House must find ways to reduce the barrage of bullets.

The Issue That Just Will Not, and Should Not, Go Away

Court decisions and federal laws have encouraged undeniable progress in this century. When George Bush was growing up in New England, the America he knew was white with a few isolated black faces. When Bill Clinton was coming of age in Arkansas, the America he knew was segregated with whites on top and many black faces locked by race into subservient positions. Since mid-century, one out of three African-Americans has become solidly middle-class. More recently, Asians have closed the income gap with whites, and Latinos have become increasingly affluent. But that progress has ebbed, and little promise is held out today to many other poor minorities.

This nation is no longer primarily white and black. Latinos can expect to become the largest minority in the 21st Century. Asians, the fastest-growing minority, also can expect to make great gains in population. This changing tapestry, while enriching the nation, generates an increasingly angry competition for jobs, housing and education--and poses thorny challenges for the nation’s leader.

Despite this growing diversity, civil rights has not been featured prominently in this presidential campaign. The next President must embrace civil rights with more than eloquent words. He must strengthen and extend federal protections to make intolerance un-American in reality as well as in principle. He must prod this nation much closer to Bush’s rhetorical ideal: an America free from racism, free from bigotry. Who would do the better job? Clinton’s civil rights utterances during the campaign have been few and far between, but it would not be hard to improve on Bush’s checkered record.