Clinton Adds Voices of Critics to Race Dialogue

President Clinton, responding to complaints that his initiative on racial conciliation has embraced only a narrow range of views, invited critics of affirmative action to the Oval Office on Friday for an unusual exchange on the sensitive topic.

And while a gulf seemed to separate the president and his guests, Clinton convinced at least some that he would consider their views as part of the national dialogue on racial issues he has called for.

“I must confess to you that I came today with a certain amount of cynicism that this was a bit of window dressing,” Ward Connerly, a leading force behind Proposition 209, California’s initiative banning racial preferences, said after the meeting. “ . . . But I must tell you that the president made a believer out of me, that he is of goodwill.”

Connerly stopped short of suggesting that Clinton, who has adopted the motto “mend it, don’t end it” for affirmative action, is about to change his policy. “I would not expect him to say, ‘Great, Ward, I see the light,’ ” Connerly told reporters after the meeting.

Connerly, a member of the UC Board of Regents, also made it clear that he will judge Clinton by what he does on affirmative action, not by the polite discussion that marked Friday’s gathering.

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Another of the nine critics at the private meeting doubted that she or her colleagues made any progress in converting Clinton to their view that affirmative action can harm relations among the races. “What I don’t think he understands is that when you have . . . people who have gotten in by different rules, you are teaching bad lessons to whites,” said Linda Chavez, director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission during the Reagan administration.

Friday’s meeting came in the wake of criticism that the racial advisory board Clinton set up to stimulate a national dialogue has not welcomed views outside the civil-rights mainstream. Indeed, at one of the board’s public sessions, John Hope Franklin, a distinguished historian who heads the panel, expressed doubts that Connerly “could contribute to this discussion.”

But on Friday, Clinton sought a thoughtful exchange with his critics, declaring: “I think what I’d like to do to begin is just to hear from you.”

For much of the hour-and-a-half meeting, Clinton listened, according to transcripts provided by the White House. But he also tossed out questions, asking at one point: “Let’s assume we abolished [all affirmative action programs] tomorrow, and we just had to start all over, what would you do?”

Some of the critics supported greater emphasis on improving education and job skills among minorities, as well as intensified outreach efforts by universities and businesses. But they drew the line at using racial preferences in deciding who is admitted to a college or hired for a job.

Clinton acknowledged affirmative action is less than a cure-all for the neediest: “A lot of the people that I care most about are totally unaffected by it one way or the other.”

There also were different agendas among the critics, who ranged from staunch conservatives to those espousing more moderate positions.

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Connerly made an early pitch to abolish racial preferences: “I don’t want to end all affirmative action, but I want to end every preference that I can find that’s based on some trait over which I have no control.”

But Thaddeus Garret, a “fifth-generation Republican” and former board chairman of Howard University, the majority-black college in Washington, wanted a different emphasis inside the Oval Office. “I would hope that we would not be bogged down today in a discussion of affirmative action, per se,” he told Clinton.

“We all ought to talk about race and race relations,” he said. “ . . . We don’t know each other in this country. We don’t know who lives next door to us in condominium buildings, let alone know about their concerns.”

This also prompted some dispute. Stephan Thernstrom, who with his wife, Abigail, recently wrote a book documenting racial progress, maintained that “we know each other across racial lines much more than we did a generation ago.”

Thernstrom cited increases in interracial dating, intermarriage and friendships as evidence that the racial divide is much narrower than it used to be.

Inevitably, though, the conversation returned to affirmative action, and specifically the use of racial preferences as a tool to achieve greater diversity in schools and the workplace. At one point, Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.), who is sponsoring legislation to prohibit the federal government from using such preferences in contracts or employment, tangled with Vice President Al Gore.

Gore, making an argument in support of affirmative action, gave the hypothetical example of an all-white police force that faced problems in a community that was half black and half white. “Under those conditions, do you think that the community would be justified in making affirmative action efforts to open up a lot more positions on the police force for blacks?” Gore asked.

Retorted Canady: “I would suggest to you for the government to classify people, even in such a context as that, simply based on their race, is morally offensive and inconsistent with our constitutional traditions.”

Said Gore: “Of course, I strongly disagree with you.”

Chavez, while opposing affirmative action, suggested that the goal of a more racially diverse police force could be achieved through a variety of measures. You “engage in outreach. You do create training programs. You do go into high schools and try and recruit people.”

Clinton acknowledged some of his own reservations about some affirmative action programs, particularly those aimed at helping minority-owned businesses.

“The theory never really worked very well,” Clinton said of the notion that such businesses would “graduate” from affirmative action after a helpful start-up. “And we ought to ‘fess up.”

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In a letter to Clinton, Connerly suggested that the two engage in a televised dialogue on the affirmative-action issue. He also told reporters that Clinton’s race advisory group, scheduled to expire in about five months, should have affirmative action removed from its domain, as well as have its life extended another half-year.

“It’s unrealistic--given the fumbling of the ball that’s occurred in the first seven months--to expect they can get anywhere substantively in the five months that remain,” Connerly said.

Jack Kemp, the former GOP vice presidential candidate, was invited to the meeting but passed because it was not open to the public.