Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 21, 1995 TAG: 9502210062
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The conversation of which Guinier was part was being played out in legal journals and had been going on for years. When President Clinton nominated Guinier to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the spotlight suddenly turned on to what she had to say.
Zoe Baird's nomination for Attorney General had already gone down in flames. Republicans and reporters had had a taste of blood, and they wanted more.
They labeled Guinier, some would say maliciously so. A headline in the Wall Street Journal said she was the "Quota Queen," something Guinier called "drive-by journalism." It presented an image that galvanized right-wingers, and if the headline had little to do with the story with which it was paired and even less to do with Guinier's writing, it still resounded like a dinner bell. The feeding frenzy began.
Guinier will be part of another conversation Wednesday, this one at Virginia Tech. She will deliver a speech at 7:30 p.m. in Colonial Hall in Squires Student Center called "Why We Need a National Conversation on Race." It will be free and open to the public.
Since Clinton rescinded her nomination, Guinier, educated at Radcliffe and Yale and now a professor in the University of Pennsylvania's law school, has articulated a view of race relations that jibes with the warm-and-fuzzy community-building vein the 1990s has spawned. It's too early to tell if Guinier's ideas are fanciful or long-lasting, but she has become a sought-after speaker.
Guinier is clear about one thing: She does not advocate quotas. Her father, when he applied to Harvard in the 1920s, was a victim of them. Harvard had already given a scholarship to a black student, fulfilling its quota.
Still, two years ago, Guinier's detractors forgot something when they read her words in law journals. They forgot that academic writing, especially in the non-scientific disciplines, is often subtle and indirect; a style of writing that can be moving, beautiful and engaging to those within a particular field and mystifying and vacuous to those without it. It's a style of writing that invites the reader to read between the lines, make connections and think about implications.
Legal scholars in particular often allow themselves the luxury of a thought-experiment in the pages of their journals, hoping if not to establish a new current in legal thinking than at least to offer a stimulating idea.
Critics of Guinier found it easy to say that she wanted to overturn the foundation on which American democracy rests, the notion of majority rule.
But Guinier had not lost sight of another fundamental American political belief, that of minority rights. Under this system, minorities are allowed to complain and criticize, though they might not get a chance to wield power. Indeed, in America, majorities as small as 51 percent sometimes make 100 percent of the decisions.
Thus, Guinier points out, at Brother Rice High School in Chicago the students recently got a chance to vote on what songs would be played at their prom. The one-person, one-rule system in theory would have provided for fairness, but in reality the white students prevailed, and not one song the black students wanted to hear was played.
In Chilton County, Ala., a mostly white, rural county, every county commissioner elected during this century until recently was white. In 1988 a suit was brought in Chilton County that changed the way elections are held there.
The one-person, one-vote system was discarded in favor of cumulative voting, used by some corporations, in which everyone gets as many votes as there are seats available. For example, if there are five vacancies on the board, all voters get five votes. They can place all five on one candidate, or three on one and two on another, or one on five different candidates. The system means minorities can maximize their power.
Under cumulative voting and its kin of proportional representation, majorities must recognize minorities. It requires majorities to account for them and to engage in a conversation with them. To Guinier, it means less vitriol and more collaboration and conciliation. It means decision makers would get along by getting along.
"In a strange way, my nomination came to symbolize the state of denial we find ourselves in about civil rights in particular and race in general," Guinier has said in published interviews. "Americans support the advancement of individual black achievers ... but when it comes to discussing race, our policy comes close to the one on gays in the military: `Don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue.' "
Instead, Guinier sees race relations as a conversation "in which everyone declares a willingness to listen respectfully to what other people are saying."
Lani Guinier: ``Why We Need a National Conversation on Race,'' Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. in Colonial Hall in Squires Student Center, Virginia Tech.
by CNB