According to reports...

Grading the Clinton Administration The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on the Clinton administration's civil rights record on April 11. The Commission, an independent, bipartisan fact-finding agency, is chaired by Mary Frances Berry and has seven additional members.

Issues concerning gays in the miLitary, Black farmers, affirmative action, environmental justice, racial profiling, access to education and health care, and employment discrimination, among others, were analyzed during the Clinton years of January 1993 to January 2001. The report concluded that the Clinton administration "transformed federal civil rights enforcement and policy efforts in a number of important ways, but ultimately failed to develop and/or execute effective policies in several key areas relating to civil rights enforcement, including immigration, drug enforcement, the death penalty, and disparate impact discrimination in the educational context."

The administration was criticized for requesting budget increases in civil rights spending that didn't keep pace with increased work Loads. It was praised for diverse Cabinet and political appointments, prolific use of presidential memorandums and executive order powers to address civil rights concerns and for an ambitious effort to address race relations in America by forming a race commission, issuing a report and establishing a White House office on race.

CRIME

In the Line of Fire

According to the FBI, 42 Law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the Line of duty in 1999, the most recent year figures were available. These figures, which include city police, county police and sheriffs, and state and federal agencies, represent the lowest number of officers killed in more than 35 years. The number of officers slain in 1999 is 31 percent Lower than in 1998, when 61 were killed. It is 43 percent Lower than 1995 and 36 percent tower than in 1990. The March report showed that of those killed, 37 were white, three Black and two American Indian/Alaskan Native. Five officers were stain with their own service weapons. Almost half of the officers, 20, were killed in the South; 11 in the West; six in the Midwest; and five in the Northeast.

EDUCATION

Low Income Access Diminishes

The small gains made in Low income students access to a college education have begun to diminish, according to a recent report issued by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Access. The committee found that "the cost of higher education has risen steadily as a percentage of family income only for low-income families, while middle-class affordability and merit have begun to displace access as the focus of policy makers at the federal, state and institutional level."

According to the report, federal Pell Grants, the primary government aid program for low-income college students, cover only 39 percent of the cost of attending a four-year public university, down from 84 percent in the mid-1970s. Disproportionately represented among Lowincome students, both Black and Hispanic students already earn bachelor's degrees at a significantly Lower rate than white students.

The 11-member advisory committee of university administrators serves as an independent counsel to Congress and the secretary of education on student financial aid policy.

Sources: "A Bridge to One America: The Civil Rights Performance of the Clinton Administration," A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, April 2000; FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, "Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 1999," March 15, 2001; Advisory Committee on Student Financial Access, "Access Denied: Restoring the Nation's Commitment to Equal Educational Opportunity," Feb. 20, 2001.