Racial monologue: Clinton's racial advisory board has a suspicious lack of diversity

National Review, Oct 13, 1997 by Evan Gahr

Mr. Gahr writes regularly on education and culture for The American Enterprise magazine in Washington.

TALK about liberals in a hurry: The first meeting of President Clintons racial advisory board was barely under way when a key member offered her decidedly ambitious plan for educating Americans on race.

California lawyer Angela Oh called for the creation of a federal department charged with promoting racial harmony. The department, she explained, would be modeled on the "ministries of unity in Indonesia, where the government has undertaken population transfers in order to achieve racial balance.

This proposal, the Washington Post reported, could "provoke lively discussion down the road. Perhaps. But it didnt seem to bother Miss Ohs six colleagues on the racial advisory board, which has all the ideological diversity of an Ivy League college faculty.

Given that commission members have done everything from calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a "Judas to blaming the Los Angeles riots on social injustice, its a safe bet that the promised national discussion on race will prove to be a stern lecture from the Clinton Administration and a thinly veiled attempt to impute insensitivity and even bigotry to anyone who questions racial preferences or otherwise dissents from liberal orthodoxy.

Thats too bad. The country could benefit from some uninhibited talk about racial matters. Theres no shortage of politicians voicing platitudes such as "Lets value our differences, or "We have a long way to go. But its a rare day when "racial dialogue tackles such thorny questions as why newspapers omit the color of crime suspects, whether workforce quality suffers when civil-service exams are dumbed down for the sake of "diversity, or why wealthy blacks should be accorded special privileges under "affirmative action.

Its doubtful, of course, that the commission despite an ample $4.8-million budget will explore such matters. Indeed, executive director Judith Winston, who will oversee a staff of some 25 people, has long worked to ensure that anyone who voices politically incorrect sentiments on race incurs the wrath of the Federal Government.

As general counsel to the U.S. Education Department, Mrs. Winston helped foist a federal speech code on universities nationwide. In 1994, the Departments Office of Civil Rights issued guidelines for its investigators that defined racial harassment so broadly that statements by anyone from students to cafeteria workers were deemed grounds for a federal probe. Indeed, Mrs. Winston even suggested that the guidelines would prohibit law students expressing opposition to "affirmative action in classroom discussions.

And now she is responsible for running a panel that promises a national conversation on race. Talk about leaving the wolves to guard the sheep.

Still, Judith Winstons sensibility seems perfectly in tune with that of commission chairman John Hope Franklin. The retired Duke University historian has deemed questions regarding affirmative action outside the commissions scope. "The white side has been in control of virtually everything, so theyre the ones who need educating on what justice and equality mean.

Franklin, an old-style liberal and devout integrationist, made his reputation with his 1947 book, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. In recent years, he has exhibited little tolerance for anyone, black or white, who questions racial preferences.

In his 1993 book, The Color Line dedicated to quotameister Mary Frances Berry, who currently heads the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Franklin calls Republican opposition to affirmative action a racist ploy and implicitly blames the GOP for the abuses black students are said to endure on college campuses. "In an atmosphere of tolerance of racial bigotry parading under the banner of racial neutrality, white students have been encouraged to intimidate, terrorize, and make life miserable for African-American students at many of our institutions of higher learning.

Blacks who favor judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin also enrage Franklin. His take on Clarence Thomas: "You always have such people in any group. . . . I suspect they may be Judases of a kind . . . betrayers, opportunists, immoral opportunists. Its very tempting, I suppose, for people of weak character to be co-opted by the majority that can use them.

Tough words. (They didnt make the slavish Washington Post profile of Franklin.) But Franklins language sounds downright genteel compared to the verbal salvos his fellow commission member AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson has fired at Republicans.

In a speech last year, Mrs. Chavez-Thompson gave a decidedly multicultural twist to GOP bashing, urging the union faithful gathered in Georgia for a workshop on organizing to tell "corporations and Republicans . . . Kiss my como se llama.

Mrs. Chavez-Thompson a former organizer for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees who skyrocketed through the AFL-CIO ranks thanks to new president John Sweeneys penchant for militancy and ethnic "diversity also warned that the AFL-CIO wouldnt allow that "como se llama Newt Gingrich to destroy Medicare.