Consistent Message on Race Needed

George W. Bush had better choices for his first campaign speech in South Carolina than Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian school best known for losing its tax-exempt status because of an IRS finding that it discriminated on the basis of race. Though the conservative campus is a popular stopping-off point for GOP contenders, the symbolism is wrong for a leader who wants to be president of all Americans. Like Bush’s nonposition on the flying of the Confederate battle flag atop the South Carolina Capitol, his visit to the controversial college calls into question his attitude on race issues.

The IRS revoked the school’s special tax status in 1970 because, at that time, it excluded black students and banned interracial dating and marriage. During the legal tug-of-war that resulted, the school slowly began accepting black students but insisted that the public should subsidize its other discriminatory practices through a tax-exempt status. The school retained its odious prohibition on interracial dating and marriage. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court rightly declared that racial discrimination in education violated a “fundamental national public policy.”

The current president, Bob Jones III, supports removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse, a position ducked by Bush and the other Republican candidates, all of whom have scheduled speeches at the school. Alan Keyes, a contender who is black, talks there next week.

The school’s ban on interracial dating and marriage might be of no interest to Bush, who spoke there on the issue of morality. But what of the voters of California, where one of every three new marriages is between members of different races or ethnicities? And Bush’s own brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida, who is married to a Latina?

Before he comes west, Bush wants to win the Feb. 19 Republican primary in South Carolina. GOP leaders there have planned to consolidate some polling places, leaving Republicans in some predominantly black rural areas without easy access to the polls. Does candidate Bush consider this just another local matter like the flap over the flag, or Bob Jones’ discriminatory policy? Bush has made a point of campaigning among black and Latino voters, and he speaks Spanish. But he needs to make sure he sends one consistent message when it comes to race and diversity.