Clinton Defends Review Of Affirmative Action
Prodded by “No Retreat” signs waved by activists at the California Democrats’ state convention Saturday, President Clinton defended his review of federal affirmative-action programs as a sympathetic response to the understandable complaints of “angry white males.”
On his 17th presidential visit to California, whose 54 electoral votes would be vital to his re-election next year, Clinton tried in his convention speech to defuse a hot political issue that is being exploited locally and nationally by the state’s Republican governor, Pete Wilson.
“This is psychologically a difficult time for a lot of white males - so-called angry white males,” Clinton said. Stagnant wages and fear of layoffs have made some white men vulnerable to political demagogues hoping to gain from “a big shouting match” over breaks for women and minorities, Clinton said.
Needed, he said, is an evaluation of all affirmative action programs, the defense of those that justly “lift people up,” and the weeding out of any that lead to “people who are unqualified getting government-mandated benefits over people who are.”
Wilson, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has endorsed a 1996 ballot initiative that would scrap all state affirmative-action programs in California. The initiative promises to be a major problem for Clinton in California next year.
When Clinton arrived in Sacramento Friday, Wilson flaunted the issue by publicizing a plan to abolish by executive decree all advisory boards encouraging participation by women and minorities in state hiring and contracting.
Perceiving affirmative action’s potential as a “wedge issue” aiding Republicans, Clinton in February ordered a review, not yet completed, of how the 30-year-old government programs are working and which might have outlived their usefulness. The move has distressed feminist and minority elements of the Democratic Party.
When Clinton broached the subject Saturday, he was met by impassioned outcries from the audience. “Let me speak, don’t scream, let’s talk,” Clinton pleaded.
The president said Democrats should not be “insensitive to what is going on in other people’s lives,” and should not “shrink” from helping whites alleging they are victims of reverse discrimination.
“What we have done to give more opportunities to women and minorities is a very good thing, and we should not stop doing that,” Clinton said. But in looking at government programs, he said, “we do have to ask ourselves, ‘Are they all working? Are they all fair? Has there been any kind of reverse discrimination?”’
Even more important, Clinton said, was determining how to help alienated middle-class men regain economic security. He suggested congressional passage of his middle-class tax cut and job retraining bills.
Administration officials said results of Clinton’s affirmative-action review are several weeks away. He appears to be leaning toward forming a citizens’ commission to further explore and depoliticize the issue.