TALKING ABOUT RACE December 19, 1997 NEWSHOUR TRANSCRIPT

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President Clinton met with leading conservative activists and authors to further his national dialogue on race. Phil Ponce and guests discuss the president's initiative and what it means for the nation.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: July 9, 1998 A dialogue on race with President Clinton. Browse NewsHour essays , and coverage of race issues.

PHIL PONCE: Continuing his efforts to foster a national dialogue on race, President Clinton today had a closed-door meeting with leading conservative activists and authors. Two of them are with us now. Ward Connerly, a member of the University of California Board of Regents, and the chief proponent of Proposition 209, the 1996 California initiative, which rolled back state affirmative action programs; Linda Chavez, former chair of the Civil Rights Commission during the Reagan administration, is now president of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Joining them is Maria Echaveste, assistant to the president and director of public liaison at the White House. And welcome. Mr. Connerly, what did you say to the President during your meeting?

Mr. Connerly: "hey've demonstrated, in my view, that they are incapable, incapable, totally incapable of dealing with this issue."

WARD CONNERLY, University of California Regent: Well, the first thing I said to the President really was to correct a couple of the statements that you made in your opening here; that I'm not here as a conservative; I am here as an American citizen who believes that the principle of equality under the law is one that's embraced by the overwhelming majority of Americans. We don't want to make preferences, give people preferences on the basis of skin color and race and all of that. And that was, indeed, the second point; that this debate is about preferences. It's not about affirmative action. And we need to get the terminology clear. And so that was the opening of it, and then I went into a few specifics. I believe that the race panel should have the issue of preferences taken off their plate, let the President deal with that more directly, or assign it to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, or somebody else, but I think that the race panel should not be dealing with that. They've demonstrated, in my view, that they are incapable, incapable, totally incapable of dealing with this issue. And it ought to be dealt with in a different venue.

PHIL PONCE: Before I get to what the President said to you, Ms. Chavez, what did you say to the President?

LINDA CHAVEZ, Center for Equal Opportunity: Well, first of all, I think that we all understood that he was there to talk about his race initiative broadly. And I wanted him to understand that the reason some of us continue to talk about racial preference programs is that we believe that as long as government is involved in picking winners and losers on the basis of race; that it is very difficult to move beyond race and beyond racism in this society. And I think we all understand that there is a common goal here; that we want to improve equal opportunity; that we want to improve the chances of disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics in this society; and where there are differences in how we best achieve that goal, and I think that's what I spent most of my time talking to the President about. I gave him some concrete suggestions, including some programs around the country, in education, in contracting, and employment that are non-discriminatory affirmative action programs, that do not use racial preferences, and that really work at building the skills levels of people so that they can compete on that equal playing field.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Connerly, do you think the President heard you?

WARD CONNERLY: I think he did. I came away with a real appreciation, which I had going in with some skepticism, that the President is really of goodwill on this issue. He understands the issue like no American President born or alive or dead genuinely understands the issue of race, and as of goodwill, and I came away with a real sense that the President realizes we have an enormously complex problem, and that he's going to have to engage those up until now who have been absent from the dialogue.

PHIL PONCE: Ms. Chavez, your sense of the mood.

LINDA CHAVEZ: Well, I'll tell you. When I walked in the room, I thought the President was a little suspicious and a little on edge, and he did not quite the charm that I expected. But it was very interesting to watch him as the meeting progressed because he is a really good listener. And I think he listened very carefully to what each of us had to say, and my sense was that he grew in respect and thought, well, these are people of goodwill and maybe we do have differences about public policy, but we do share the same common goals. And when I left the room, I left thinking that he had made an offer at the end of the meeting that he wanted this to be continuing dialogue; that he wanted us involved; and I take him at his word. I think he's sincere. I think we're going to see more of us, and I think he is to be commended for that.

PHIL PONCE: Ms. Echaveste, how did it go from the White House's perspective?

MARIA ECHAVESTE, White House Director of Public Liaison: Well, I think it was exactly what we had hoped for. We are very serious about having a dialogue; that this is, in fact, conversation, an issue that is extraordinarily important for this country, and I think one of the things that was very clear in that room is that every person in that room agreed that race and the issue of race is an issue for this country to tackle; that it is enormously complex. And from that premise everyone agreed with the President's premise that this is an issue that needs to be tackled for the future. From that we had a long and interesting discussion about various ways of tackling that problem.

PHIL PONCE: How do you think today's meeting is going to shape the President's race initiative? I mean, what is--how is the White House going to use today's meeting?

MARIA ECHAVESTE: Well, we're going to continue to build on it because one of the things the President was very clear and which we hope our friends here will continue to work with us is, what are the concrete solutions? If, in fact, this issue of affirmative action is something that we can't agree upon, let's find other solutions that we, in fact, can agree on. How do you deal with the fact that you continue to find racial disparities and achieving the American dream that we all believe in, this vision of America as a land of equal opportunity?

PHIL PONCE: For those of you who were guests, was there a common theme that you as a group were making collectively?

Ms. Chavez: "I happen to believe there are solutions out there."

LINDA CHAVEZ: Well, I think we were trying to make the point that the reason you can't take race preferences off the table in this discussion is because they do play a role, and they play a role in attitudes. Ward mentioned a New York Times/CBS poll that was in the newspaper last weekend that talked about American attitudes. And it is very clear that Americans' attitudes are complex on this issue. Americans do want to do something to improve achievement for minorities in this society, but they don't want to do it in ways that apply different rules to different people based on their skin color or give preferences to certain people based on their skin color. And I think the President understands that. And that's why--at least a couple of years ago--he talked about mending affirmative action. What I'd like to see more of, though, is not just listening, not just dialogue, but I'd like to see some concrete changes because I think, Maria, that there are ways that we can work together. I happen to believe there are solutions out there.

MARIA ECHAVESTE: In fact, we had taken a look in preparation for this meeting. We have taken a number of actions in federal programs that reflect our effort to mend not end programs that, for example, are at the Department of Education in terms of funding to be sure that they are, in fact, are not solely racial--use race as a base. But the other thing also interesting in the meeting is we heard divergent views. There was not a block of views. There were a number of--a couple of people there--Dr. Garrett, former Secretary Lynn Martin--who expressed the view that, in fact, this constant effort focusing on affirmative action was, in fact, obscuring the basic issue of race in this country and equal opportunity. So it was interesting and different views.

PHIL PONCE: But along those lines, Mr. Connerly, the President made the point earlier this week that if people understand, from his perspective, that there is a difference between how he defines affirmative action and others' use of the term racial preferences, that it's primarily a difference of semantics. Do you see it--

WARD CONNERLY: No, it's not semantics. No, it's not. It's--when you give somebody 300 points because they happen to be black or Latino, that's not semantical; that's a preference.

PHIL PONCE: 300 points in what context?

WARD CONNERLY: At the University of California San Diego campus, for example, we were giving 300 points--this was prior to my resolution to ban preferences--we were giving 300 points to people just on the basis of their checking the box, and that's not semantical. That is a preference. And the day that the President begins to acknowledge that this debate is really about preferences. If you can make the case, Mr. President, for preferences, then go ahead, let's make that case. But the debate is about preferences.

The debate about preferences.

LINDA CHAVEZ: And I think he did try to make the case in one point in the meeting. He did say that he thinks that he favors these programs, in part because they add something to the quality of educational experience from white students. My message to him was that may be so, but you may be giving the wrong lesson to those white students if, in fact, he were admitting black or Hispanic students with lower test scores, lower grades, you may be really sending the wrong message because those white students know that as well. And what they're seeing then is students who are not performing as well. So I think that was--there was still some difference there.

MARIA ECHAVESTE: Indeed, I think the President made the point that if we're going to insist on having this discussion and calling it preferences, if you will, he raised the issue of preferences that are given for athletes to attend, you see. And as I understand it, Mr. Connerly, you made an effort to--legacy preferences--which are the University of California effort to a preference given to children of alumni and other types, which you were unsuccessful in doing. So there seems to be this question that the President made the point, let's acknowledge that there are preferences given. Why is a preference that is given for athletes, for children of alumni, somehow okay, and a preference to achieve diversity not okay?

LINDA CHAVEZ: Stephen Thernstrom had a very good answer for that. We didn't fight a Civil War over legacy preferences or over athletic preferences.

PHIL PONCE: Let's move away from the affirmative action preferences issue and get back to the process. Do either of the guests who were there today feel that the President heard something new today that maybe he hadn't heard in quite the same way?

LINDA CHAVEZ: I think he did. I think he heard that we are genuinely committed to non-discriminatory affirmative action. I don't think that has always been well understood--

PHIL PONCE: And by we--

LINDA CHAVEZ: --by our opponents.

PHIL PONCE: --you mean--

LINDA CHAVEZ: I mean people like Ward Connerly and Linda Chavez and the Thernstroms and Elaine Ciao. It was certainly not everybody in that room was--

PHIL PONCE: Folks that some people might call conservatives. You can call yourselves literary--

LINDA CHAVEZ: Some of used to be Democrats.

WARD CONNERLY: I don't mind being called conservative, but we're not there as conservatives. There are a lot of liberals who have come to embrace our point of view so this isn't really a conservative point of view. I mean, in the 209 campaign I had a lot of liberal Democrats who said I'm up to here with a lot of these preferences, and I want to get rid of them.

PHIL PONCE: The President's race initiative had been criticized for not including enough divergent views. Do you think that problem has been fixed now?

A need to continue the dialogue.

MARIA ECHAVESTE: We need to continue. The President said we're going to continue and ask people to join. We're going to have a number of different conversations, not all of them necessarily were the President. He does have many things on his plate. We want the advisory board. We want different a forum. We're going to continue this dialogue.

PHIL PONCE: And what do you want your respective roles to be?

LINDA CHAVEZ: I'd like to continue to be able to provide the White House with some of the research that we do that shows that some of these preferences don't just harm whites; they also harm blacks and Hispanics. I'd like to be able to have--be able to pick up the telephone, call someone like Maria, be able to have a continuing conversation, and I think they're going to be receptive to that.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Connerly.

WARD CONNERLY: Well, I don't seek any role in all of this. I just want to see a beginning and an end. I want to see some structure to the discussion. I want to seek closure to some points. And I think the President wants that as well. And, if he does, he asks me specifically to get back to him on some process issues. If that's what he wants and if the President of the United States wants my help, I will give it in any way that I can. And so I came away very hopeful about the meeting. I felt that there were too many people involved. If we're going to have another meeting like that, it needs to be narrowed so that there is more opportunity for direct engagement, follow-up of questions, because he's got a brilliant mind, and very good listener, and he raises things that you need to be able to respond to in very prompt order.

PHIL PONCE: And we'll have to leave it there. And I thank you all for joining us.

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