Among the group of conservatives who recently met with Bill Clinton in the White House to discuss the president's "race initiative" was Ward Connerly, who headed the successful 1996 ballot drive known as the California Civil Rights Initiative. Much was made in the press of the friendliness of the meeting -- as if reporters had expected the president's critics, foes of racial preferences for the most part, to misbehave in the Oval Office.
Nonetheless, comity does not always mean compromise. And in a gracious thank-you letter to the president last week, Connerly spelled out important differences that deserve airing. Some excerpts:
"I renew my complaint that the efforts of your Advisory Panel on Race are not likely to be productive or widely embraced by the American people because of the lack of balanced perspectives on the Panel. It seems to many of us that the Panel is unanimous in its support of race-based preferences and that the perspective of [panel chairman] John Hope Franklin -- that the race problem in America is largely a function of 'white racism' -- is the dominant view. That perspective is narrow, inherently flawed, and guaranteed to result in a Final Report which will be readily dismissed by most Americans. . . .
"Closure about race matters can no more be reached in our time without resolving the issue of race-based preferences than the leaders of the 1960s could improve race relations without ending Jim Crow laws and government segregation. Those matters were at the heart of our race problem. Today, it is the issue of preferences -- they stand in the way of America becoming 'one nation.' In our personal lives, race relations are improving dramatically. It is in the public policy arena that race is the source of much frustration and anger. You simply must come to terms with that reality. . . .
"Recently, I read the transcript of our meeting. The incongruity of American citizens meeting with the leader of the greatest democracy in the world and trying to convince him and his vice president that all citizens should be treated equally did not escape me. I believe history will not be kind to the fact that you are on record as trying to rationalize your support of racial preferences by comparing them to 'preferences' for athletes. Any serious student of American history will tell you that your position will eventually be overtaken by the realities of a diverse society dedicated at its core to the proposition of equal treatment under the law. The responsible thing to do is to prepare the American people for that day when preferences will either be struck down by the courts or the American people demand an end to them through the political process."