Reversing itself, the Clinton administration told the Supreme Court Friday that a white teacher was dismissed illegally by a New Jersey school board seeking to promote racial diversity by keeping an equally qualified black instructor. But in a legal brief, the administration maintained its support for the principle that affirmative action can be used to attain racial diversity as well as to remedy past bias — as long as the diversity serves a narrowly tailored compelling interest. The brief was prepared by Solicitor General Walter Dellinger in consultation with White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff. It urges the court to reject the Piscataway, N.J., school board’s actions on the narrower grounds that layoffs for affirmative action carry “an especially heavy burden of justification.” It argues that the board did not show a need for racial diversity in a part of its faculty, the business education department, particularly since its overall faculty was racially diverse.
