Clinton Abandons His Nominee For Rights Post Amid Opposition
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President Clinton tonight withdrew his nomination of Lani Guinier to be the new civil rights chief in the Justice Department, saying that after belatedly reading her legal writings he decided he could not defend many of her views on bolstering the political power of blacks. Mr. Clinton, who met with Ms. Guinier for nearly two hours at the White House before the announcement, conceded that he would not have nominated Ms. Guinier if he had read her academic papers before he sent her name to the Senate. “In retrospect,” he said, appearing subdued and drawn, “I wish I had.” Mr. Clinton said the decision to withdraw the nomination of Ms. Guinier, whom he and his wife, Hillary, have known from their days together at Yale Law School, was one of the most difficult of his life. Political Embarrassment It was also a deep political embarrassment for Mr. Clinton and one that may cost him dearly in support from women’s and civil rights groups, an important portion of his constituency. Leaders of these groups had spent much of the day trying to put pressure on Mr. Clinton to stick with the Guinier nomination, saying that to do otherwise would show weakness and lack of principle. The President and Ms. Guinier were joined by Attorney General Janet Reno for most of the meeting. A spokesman for Ms. Reno said after Mr. Clinton’s announcement that although the Attorney General thought Ms. Guinier’s writings were vivid and controversial, she nonetheless thought that she would have made an excellent civil rights chief. “The Attorney General had read a considerable portion of her writings and was aware of their provocative nature,” said Carl Stern, the Justice Department spokesman. “But she emphasized that she was chosen not for her writings but for her talent and experience as one of the country’s foremost civil rights litigators.” In abandoning the nomination in the face of mounting opposition from the Senate over Ms. Guinier’s writings about race, Mr. Clinton had to acknowledge that he had not read the articles until weeks after they had become a public issue and the controversy had grown impossible to ignore. The Guinier episode is the third time in the Administration’s young life that that Mr. Clinton has had to back away from the choice of a woman for a senior post at the Justice Department. Fight to the End More : query.nytimes.com |