Stricter Enforcement of Civil Rights Laws Sought

Seizing on the symbolism of Martin Luther King Day, the White House plans to announce a broad initiative today to make enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws “more powerful than it has ever been,” a senior administration official told The Times.

The stepped-up effort would combine a spending increase of about 17% with a sharper focus on preventing abuses and new efforts to settle disputes through mediation rather than trials.

The new resources, if approved by Congress, would strengthen enforcement of fair-housing laws and allow the Justice Department to expand enforcement of the Americans With Disabilities Act and investigations of police brutality and misconduct.

To slash the backlog of discrimination cases at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency would place far greater emphasis on the use of mediators to settle employment discrimination disputes, thus reducing costly and time-consuming legal struggles.

Vice President Al Gore is expected to announce the outlines of the plan today in a speech to the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King’s father was pastor.

“Race still matters in America. Discrimination still exists in America, and we need concerted action, including by government, to enforce civil rights laws,” said a senior administration official, disclosing the first details of the multi-part program.

Overall, the White House plan raises civil rights funding from $516 million to $602 million in a 1999 fiscal budget that restricts most domestic programs to an average gain of only 1%. The full details of the civil rights initiative will be included in the 1999 budget proposal that President Clinton will submit to Congress in early February.

The plan is the subject of the latest in a series of White House announcements that have amounted to an unusually long drum roll leading up to Clinton’s State of the Union address Jan. 27. Clinton also has made highly publicized proposals to expand Medicare benefits and child-care assistance.

Moreover, the White House is eager to change the subject from Clinton’s embarrassing legal dispute with Paula Corbin Jones, whose lawyers questioned him Saturday as part of her lawsuit charging Clinton with sexual harassment.

“This initiative does increase resources for civil rights enforcement,” the administration official said. “But, as importantly, it tries to target those resources in ways that will make civil rights enforcement more effective and more efficient.”

Although Clinton has sought to put a spotlight on race-related issues and spark a national dialogue on the subject, administration efforts have not lacked for controversy.

Critics within the civil rights community have not been satisfied with the Clinton administration’s pace of civil rights enforcement during much of his term, despite his long-stated sympathy with their views.

On the right, Clinton’s critics have assailed his choice of Bill Lann Lee as acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Lee’s advocacy of affirmative action so dismayed Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee that they refused to confirm the Los Angeles attorney as the division’s permanent head.

On top of all that, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission--an independent agency that enforces a broad array of employment-discrimination laws--has prompted its own share of complaints from employers who have been the subject of investigations. The five-member commission has two vacancies, including the chairman, and a backlog of 64,000 cases.

Yet the president has often declared his reverence for the nation’s civil rights laws, most recently last month, when he appointed Lee at an Oval Office ceremony.

“They protect every person from discrimination, and especially discrimination against women, minorities, Americans with disabilities and victims of hate crimes,” he said. “They ensure that all Americans have equal opportunities to work, to learn, to live, to raise their children in communities where they can thrive and grow.”

Under Clinton’s budget request, the civil rights division is expected to receive a comparatively robust increase of 11% (to $72 million), according to the White House. An undisclosed share of that would go toward investigating problems of police brutality and misconduct, an ongoing grievance of minority groups.

The White House also proposes a 70% increase (to $52 million) for the Housing and Urban Development Department’s fair-housing activities. The new money would support an effort to monitor housing discrimination in neighborhoods of 20 metropolitan areas, with the findings to be made public.

Architects of the initiative say that spending increases reflect only part of the strategy. More broadly, the goal is to improve on past bureaucratic efforts through new approaches, including a focus on preventing discrimination.

At a congressional hearing last fall, critics blasted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for harassing employers and causing bitter, protracted legal battles.

“We are concerned whether officials of the EEOC conduct investigations and litigation in a way which is thorough, equitable and professional to both charging parties and respondents,” said Rep. Harris W. Fawell (R-Ill.), chairman of a House subcommittee on employer-employee relations.

The White House proposal would triple, to about 300, the number of commission mediators, whose job it is to resolve conflicts with less acrimony than typically results from trials. At present, the EEOC settles less than 10% of its cases through mediation; the White House’s goal is to give 70% of complainants that option.

The initiative would reflect such “creativity” by encouraging the government to use communication and consultation as ways to prevent problems of discrimination from flaring up. As examples, the Department of Education would seek to guide educational institutions away from employment practices considered discriminatory, and the Health and Human Services Department would play a similar role with hospitals.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division would also be asked to coordinate the government’s patchwork of civil rights offices more effectively.

Aides to Gore, who has been the administration’s advocate for “reinventing government,” played a role in the initiative, along with White House planners.

Gore has emphasized the goals behind civil rights enforcement. At Lee’s appointment ceremony, Gore said the nation had a great deal of unfinished business in the “crucial area” of civil rights, including “fighting discrimination in housing, in education and in the workplace; opening the doors of opportunity for women, minorities, people with disabilities, ensuring equal rights for all, while insisting on special privileges for none.”

* A DREAM COMING TRUE: Two friends live the dream of Martin Luther King Jr.; plus a capsule look at his life. B1, B3