Bill Clinton
In the era of the Angry White Male, candidates in the 1992 election who dared discuss affirmative action policies at all — except to obliterate them — kept such talk to a low whisper. Bill Clinton, who noted that as Arkansas governor he had appointed more African-Americans to high-ranking positions than all his predecessors combined, promised to do the same if president. Many contend he made good on that promise, filling numerous top cabinet posts with women and minorities.
Since 1994, Clinton has taken a “mend-don’t end” compromise stance on awarding preferences to women and minorities, meaning the government should look at the essentially sound programs and make them as fair as possible. In a July 1995 speech, Clinton called federal affirmative action requirements “a moral imperative, a constitutional mandate and a legal necessity.” He assured minority constituencies they wouldn’t lose the preferred status they enjoy under affirmative action policies, including minority set-asides in government contracts, which assign a fixed percentage of contracts to businesses owned by minorities or women.
Despite his defense of affirmative action policies, Clinton’s popularity among blacks has been shaky throughout his presidency. He used a National Rainbow Coalition forum to condemn black rap singer Sister Souljah during the 1992 campaign, then again offended blacks when he abandoned Joycelyn Elders, his controversial surgeon general, and Lani Guinier, his controversial nominee to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Bob Dole
During his 35-year career in Congress, Bob Dole has been a consistent supporter of civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation. He broke Republican ranks to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 1982 extension of the Voting Rights Act — a tough sell during the Reagan era. He also voted for a civil rights/housing law in 1968, and the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution in 1972.
The Senate supported Bob Dole’s 1991 amendment to set up a Glass Ceiling Commission aimed at studying barriers to women and minorities in the workplace. Nearly two decades earlier, he had voted for a bill to strengthen the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Three years later, however, Dole began surfing the anti-affirmative action wave ushered in by the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Inspired by California Gov. Pete Wilson’s popularity for abolishing affirmative action programs in California, Congressional Republicans began mounting their own vocal, serious assaults on preferential preferences for minorities and women.
Dole has since introduced legislation that would end all federal preferences on the basis of race, gender or ethnicity, including quotas, set-asides, goals and timetables. Earlier in 1995, he called for hearings on federal affirmative action laws. He further alienated African-Americans by refusing an offer to speak at the NAACP convention in July 1996, saying that a “major scheduling conflict” prevented him from attending. He attended an All-Star game instead.
WHERE AMERICANS STAND
Question: For or against a law which would allow your state to give preferences in job hiring and school admission on the basis of race.
For 14%
Against 83%
No opinion 3%
Source: Gallup Poll; conducted April 25-28, 1996
