Clinton Says He’ll Seek to ‘Fine-Tune’ Affirmative Action : Diversity: The President, visiting California, rejects total abandonment of the policies. But he asserts he is ‘very sensitive’ to concerns of affected white males.

President Clinton has rejected the wholesale abandonment of the nation’s affirmative action policies and instead will propose “fine-tuning” them to end abuses and eliminate cases of reverse discrimination, according to Clinton and his senior advisers.

In an interview with The Times as he began a three-day trip to California, Clinton said he is “very sensitive” to the concerns of white males who believe that they are the victims of preferential treatment for minorities and women.

But he also said America was far from being a colorblind society and that it was in the nation’s interest to foster diversity in education, the workplace and government through a range of remedies--including those based on race, sex and economic disadvantage.

Summing up his thinking--and his ambivalence--on the incendiary subject, Clinton said: “I think most Americans want us to review these programs and get rid of those or modify those that are unfair either in the way they’re worded or the way they’re implemented. But I don’t believe we should walk away from our goal of having a diverse society.”

And speaking specifically about Los Angeles, which welcomed the President on Saturday, he added: “The diversity of California, and the diversity particularly of Southern California, where Los Angeles County has more than 150 different racial and ethnic groups, will be the source of enormous prosperity and opportunity to all people living in the country--including white males--if we handle this properly.”

Clinton indicated he is leaning toward creation of a high-level commission to carry out a longer-term study of affirmative action programs and policies. The bipartisan panel would relieve Clinton of some of the burden of resolving the issues and of solely shouldering the blame for whatever changes might be adopted.

As the President and his aides conduct a broad review of affirmative action, Clinton is clearly a man struggling with a vexing moral and political dilemma.

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Ending racial and sexual preferences--as the proposed California Civil Rights Initiative would do--is an idea with tremendous popular appeal. If it appears on the state’s November, 1996, ballot as expected, it could be the linchpin of the presidential race in California, a state Clinton must win if he is to have any hope of winning reelection.

But women and blacks are the most loyal of Clinton’s Democratic Party constituent groups and he risks alienating them if he wavers in his support for programs that aim to assure them a fair shake in the marketplace.

As a result, the Clinton review, when completed in the next few weeks, will likely propose relatively limited substantive changes in the nation’s affirmative action laws and policies.

But it will be heavy on rhetoric designed to salve the anxieties of white, middle-class males who perceive themselves as bearing the brunt of race-based preferential policies. Republicans mined this sentiment in congressional campaigns last year and it helped propel them to power in Congress.

In the interview, Clinton declined to confront California Gov. Pete Wilson on the issue of ending affirmative action, saying he did not know what Wilson had said on the subject. Wilson and fellow GOP presidential hopefuls Sens. Bob Dole of Kansas and Phil Gramm of Texas have all endorsed the elimination of preference policies and set-asides for women and minorities in federal contracts.

But others in the White House believe that Wilson is engaging in demagoguery--or worse--on the issue, just as they believe he did on last year’s Proposition 187, which bans some government services for illegal immigrants.

“What I’m trying to do is make this more than a word game that divides the American people,” Clinton said, without naming those he believes are playing it. “I don’t think that we’re well served if we try to get people to do things that divide us unnecessarily.”

Politics aside, Clinton contended that the nation owes a debt to its poorest citizens of whatever race or gender and that he is seeking ways of assisting them without being seen as robbing white males of jobs or college admission slots that they have earned.

“As a principle, it’s very hard to quarrel with the idea that people shouldn’t get preference by race or gender if preference means giving people jobs, promotions, positions in college or government contracts if they’re not qualified,” Clinton said in the interview, conducted aboard Air Force One late Friday as he flew to Sacramento from Dallas.

“On the other hand, my own view is that insofar as we can broaden the circle of people who are qualified and let all people participate, we’re better off,” he said.

Clinton argued that the best affirmative action policy is a growing economy, in which there is opportunity for all. One problem today that exacerbates the concerns of white males is that many large corporations are reducing their payroll and retirement costs by “off-loading” senior managers, who are overwhelmingly white and middle-aged, he said.

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Their replacements are younger, lower-paid--and often women and minorities, Clinton said.

“In that environment, it puts an even heavier burden on affirmative action programs not to practice reverse discrimination and not to be in the business of giving opportunities to people who aren’t qualified,” Clinton said. “So I’m very sensitive about this reverse discrimination business and I’m very sensitive to the economic anxieties of people.”

The President also said he is weighing whether and how to redefine “disadvantage” when applied as a criterion for granting favored treatment in contracting, hiring or school admissions.

The question often turns on economic background, with critics questioning, for example, why the son of a wealthy black physician should be considered eligible for special consideration when a poor, white coal-miner’s son is not.

“What I will consider is, in places where it’s appropriate, is whether economic disadvantage is something that ought to be considered,” Clinton said. He noted that in parceling out federal funds to aid poor communities, he created three rural “empowerment zones”--one in mostly white western Kentucky, one in the predominantly black Mississippi Delta, and a third in the Mexican American community of southern Texas.

“It was done on the basis of need,” Clinton said, suggesting that it might serve as a model for affirmative action programs that weigh economic disadvantage as a factor alongside race, sex or national origin.

Addressing California Democrats in Sacramento on Saturday, Clinton expanded on his interview remarks, offering an impassioned defense of 30 years of affirmative action programs and vowing that he would not forsake them.

“We need to defend without any apology whatever we are doing that is right and just and lifts people up,” Clinton said to the applause of the Democrats, many of whom were wearing buttons reading “No Retreat on Affirmative Action.”

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But Clinton again expressed sympathy for white, middle-class males who feel victimized by preference programs. “This is psychologically a difficult time for the so-called angry white males.

“There is a real problem out there in this country,” Clinton said. “We cannot deny that.”

Clinton’s remarks generally were applauded by affirmative action supporters. Joe Hicks of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles said after the address: “We are determined to get the President to agree that there should be no retreat on affirmative action, that the party must stand up for affirmative action. He said both of those things in his speech. . . .

“The Republicans are clearly using it as a wedge issue throughout the country to win cheap votes among angry, dissatisfied people,” he said.

On the possible creation of a panel to further study the issue, Clinton said in the interview that a number of lawmakers and business owners who support affirmative action have suggested that he create such a group of prominent Americans from both parties.

“These commissions are capable of doing very good work, and helping to resolve contentious issues,” Clinton said. As a model of such a panel, he cited the bipartisan commission created in 1983 by then-President Ronald Reagan to find a way to ensure the solvency of the Social Security trust fund into the 21st Century.

Times staff writer Bill Stall contributed to this story from Sacramento.