ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick, resigning as civil rights chief after helping craft a policy to preserve affirmative action, says integration and racial tolerance in America are in jeopardy.
``I think there is a tremendous amount of ambivalence on the question of integration in all kinds of American communities today,'' Patrick said in an interview after he announced his resignation Thursday. ``That is a threat to the vitality of American democracy.''
``The whole issue of tolerance seems to be in jeopardy,'' the 40-year-old head of the Justice Department's civil rights division added. ``But I'm not without hope. There is a tremendous reservoir of goodness in the American people, but it has to be called forth - by parents over the breakfast table and by our leaders.''
Patrick announced his decision at Attorney General Janet Reno's weekly news conference. Calling him ``one of the finest public servants I have ever known,'' Reno said, ``Deval's job has been to be the voice of so many people in America who feel that they do not have a voice.''
One of the administration's senior black officials, Patrick said he would leave office in January and is looking for a job.
``My family's in Boston, and I've been commuting'' since they moved back there in August 1995, Patrick said in an interview. ``This was a hard decision because I love this job. But I miss my kids; I love my wife, and I need to be home.''
After the Supreme Court tightened the standards for affirmative action programs to remedy past discrimination, Patrick helped the administration design modifications that President Clinton said would ``mend, not end'' affirmative action.
``I don't know if racism is increasing, but there is more hostility on the surface,'' Patrick said. ``Across my desk, I see the shootings, beatings, cross burnings, intimidation, hiring and firing decisions and housing bias.''
Under Patrick:
* A record 10 lending-bias cases were filed; record increases in loans to qualified minority borrowers followed.
* A task force on church fires arrested more than 110 people in 80 fires since 1995.
* Two state-supported military colleges were forced to admit women: Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel in South Carolina.
* The disabled got new access to the Empire State Building, movie theaters, rental cars, sports stadiums and restaurants.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB