White House Backs Reverse Discrimination Claim While Now Supporting Laid-Off White Teacher’s Supreme Court Case, Says Still For Affirmative Action

The Clinton administration reversed its position on a Supreme Court affirmative action case Friday and asserted that a white teacher was illegally laid off by a New Jersey school board in order to keep an equally qualified black teacher.

But in a legal brief the administration maintained its belief that affirmative action is a viable tool to achieve racial diversity and redress past discrimination - if it is “narrowly tailored to further a compelling interest.”

With its brief, the administration changed its position in this controversial case that began in 1989 when the financially strapped Piscataway school board laid off a white business department teacher, Sharon Taxman, to keep the department’s only black instructor, Debra Williams.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Piscataway case this fall. Supporters and opponents of affirmative action say the case could set new standards for race-based employment policies.

When Clinton took office in 1992, his administration supported the school board’s actions. But in June the administration, fearing a decision further restricting affirmative action, unsuccessfully urged the Supreme Court not to take up the case. That stance in effect backed a lower court decision that went against the school board.

Now, with Friday’s 29-page brief, the administration is saying the Piscataway school board’s action should not be used as an overall indictment of affirmative action in general.

“We believe the Court of Appeals was wrong in holding that all nonremedial, race-conscious employment decisions are prohibited,” White House Counsel Charles Ruff wrote in a statement. “We do not believe, however, that the Supreme Court needs to reach that question because the (Piscataway) case can be decided on narrower grounds - that is, the absence of an adequate justification for the school board’s layoff decision.”

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said the administration’s narrow approach is an attempt to prevent the court from using Piscataway to make a broad statement against affirmative action. “They are trying to persuade the Supreme Court not to throw the baby out with the bath water,” he said.

In the brief, the administration argues that Taxman’s layoff was wrong because the school board failed to show what social goal would be reached by having a diverse business education faculty.

But the brief defends diversity and affirmative action, saying that such policies, if narrowly focused, are beneficial.

For example, it said, race-based hiring decisions “designed to instill trust in law enforcement and break down racial stereotypes and misconceptions in education institutions” are legal.

Affirmative action opponents believe that the Clinton administration’s latest argument will not hold up in court.

“They are going to lose Piscataway,” said Jennifer Nelson, executive director of the American Civil Rights Institute, a California-based organization that seeks a national repeal of affirmative action policies.

“When are they going to wake up and realize they are 100 percent wrong on the issue of racial preferences?”