Why the GOP Won't Eliminate Affirmative Action

04/01/98 - New York Times

By LOUIS FREEDBERG

Sunday, May 17, 1998, SF Chronicle

THE GOP JUST can't get together on affirmative action. Newt Gingrich and a slew of other Republican leaders have all said they're against affirmative action -- yet three times in the past six months, Congress has voted against ending it at a federal level.

To explain the gridlock, look no farther than the gulf that separates University of California Regent Ward Connerly and Representative J.C. Watts, R-Okla., the former University of Oklahoma football star. The two are arguably the most prominent African Americans in the Republican Party -- yet on affirmative action they are miles apart.

Connerly, the leader of the campaign to end affirmative action in California and nationally, has been lauded in GOP circles as a civil rights hero. At a Washington banquet last year, Gingrich hailed Connerly as a "genuinely historic figure" who recognizes that "he has a challenge to carry his vision of a color-blind America in which government does not discriminate."

Watts, the only black Republican in Congress, is the GOP's key weapon in its effort to broaden its appeal to blacks and Latinos. He says he is against racial preferences, but when it comes to supporting legislation to end them, well, that is another matter.

Last month, when California Representative Frank Riggs, R- Windsor, introduced an amendment to bar affirmative action at colleges and universities which receive federal funds, Watts publicly campaigned against it.

In a most unlikely partnership, he joined up with Representative John Lewis, D-Ga., a renowned civil rights activist from the 1960s. "This is not the time to eliminate the one tool we have -- imperfect though it may be -- to help level the playing field for minority youth," he and Lewis wrote in a letter they sent to all their colleagues. "A vote for the Riggs amendment will take away the one opportunity, the one hope, that thousands of young people have to pursue the American Dream -- to know that a higher education of their choice is within their reach."

Largely as a result of Watts' opposition, 50 Republicans decided to vote against the Riggs amendment, handily defeating the measure.

Connerly described Watts arguments as "hogwash." "Personally, I have great respect for him but it has been mind-boggling to figure out where he is coming from," Connerly said in an interview. "He says he's opposed to preferences but then he can't seem to pull the trigger." But Watt says that until the GOP takes active steps to find alternatives to affirmative action, it would be premature to end it. He notes that, unlike the Riggs amendment, a bill he proposed to revitalize inner-cities has never made it to the House floor.

"I'd sure like to see (the Republican leadership) throw their support behind community renewal and put the same kind of effort behind that effort that they put behind Riggs," he told the Washington Post.

The differences between Watts and Connerly will come as good news for supporters of affirmative action who are trying to prevent California's anti-preference fever from spreading to Capitol Hill. As long as Watts opposes ending affirmative action, Connerly is going to find tough going in Congress, regardless of how many banquets are held to honor him.

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Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu