The president labored mightily to conceal his convictions, such as they were, during the 1992 campaign. When pressed, he allowed that he supported some group entitlements-racial-preference programs, like the one in New York City that “set aside” a fixed percentage of city contracts for minority businesses. But only when pressed. Left to his own devices, he sent out centrist smoke signals-using words like “opportunity” and “responsibility” amid the usual platitudes. He said he believed in an America where there was no “us versus them. Just us.”
The trouble with Lani Guinier is that she believes it is “us versus them.” In her writings, she extrapolates from isolated, anachronistic Southern situations-and assumes, against the evidence of the past quarter century, that white racism is structural, unyielding and insuperable. She has written that whites are a “hostile, permanent majority.” She has written that “racism excludes minorities from ever becoming part of the governing coalition . . .” And on “Nightline” last week, she blithely–outrageously-said: “What I am talking about is really no different than what the white minority is talking about in South Africa . . . the black majority in South Africa should rule, but . . . in a way that is respectful and recognizes the interests of the white minority.” Sorry, professor: we’re after something better than that, a society where only individuals-not majorities, minorities, tribes, races or religions-have “interests.”
Does this make Guinier a radical extremist? Unfortunately, no. Indeed, the dirty little secret of the Lani Guinier debacle is that she is, as she insists, firmly in the mainstream of the civil-rights movement-but the movement has gone off the deep end. It has become obsessed with entitlement. It seeks ever more intricate legal mechanisms to measure “inequalities” while refusing to confront the social pathologies-except for racism-that are at the heart of the disparities: crime, chronic welfare dependency, sexual irresponsibility. Chavis, like so many of his colleagues, rarely mentions another significant “litmus test”: those African-Americans born and raised in intact families, regardless of income, have a better chance of graduating, finding work and succeeding than those raised in disrupted homes.
This is a terrible tragedy. Desegregation was, and remains, the great moral cause of 20th-century America. Great victories were won in the 1960s, but the limits of legislative action were soon reached, and the movement lurched off course when the focus shifted from equal rights to race-specific remedies. It has stagnated ever since, poisoned by the shakedowns and bean counting inherent in the legalistic search for “equality of results.”
Rock bottom was achieved in the 1980s when the civil-rights establishment made common cause with conservative Republicans-including some who shamelessly led the charge against Guinier-to deface the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the triumphs of the movement, by amending it to allow racial gerrymandering (which is why Guinier’s supporters could claim that she was on the same side as the Reagan-Bush Justice departments). This profoundly un-American deal has led to the creation of more minority districts in urban areas, but also to more predominantly white districts in the suburbs; in 1990, fewer white politicians are forced to consider the needs of black constituents than in 1980, and vice versa. Indeed, there are those-apparently including Guinier-who believe that black politicians who seek white votes dilute themselves, are not quite “authentic.” It is part of the saddest of civil-rights trends: the voluntary resegregating of America. It has led, as race-based remedies usually do, to greater polarization.
Whose center? And Guinier’s remedy for the increased polarization? Even more extreme race-based gimmicks, like the notion of a “minority veto” and other measures to ensure “roughly equal outcomes.” Which is where Bill Clinton had to part company. It was a matter of principle, he said-pained, but plain-spoken, for once, announcing the end of the Guinier debacle. It wasn’t about the political center but about his center-a transparent attempt to confront the growing suspicions that he was without one.
It still isn’t quite clear. Bill Clinton, at his best during the campaign, was able to make points of agreement, between factions as disparate as the civil-rights establishment and the “new” Democrats, seem more vital than the areas of dispute. That was a candidate’s skill; leadership requires others-the ability to decide, to disappoint friends, to draw lines. The open question about the Guinier decision is whether it was a matter of principle, or merely politics; whether Clinton-finally-drew a line, or simply called another retreat; whether it was the continuation of a perpetual candidacy or the beginning of a real presidency.
