The White House may have had less welcome news on its mind, but it managed to focus on other business last Friday: At an official ceremony, the President's advisory board on race chaired by James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of history John Hope Franklin presented a report on race relations one year in the making.
The committee's task was to advise President Bill Clinton on his Initiative on Race, intended to be the highlight of an historic second term. The group traveled to different communities around the country-from Louisville to Phoenix-to talk about racial issues.
The report recommends four major reforms: the creation of a permanent council on race, a multimedia public education program, an increased awareness from leaders and a focus on youth. The report, entitled "One America in the 21st Century: Forging a New Forum," tackles other themes including the concept of white privilege, stronger civil rights enforcement and tougher laws against hate crimes.
But unhappily for Clinton, the nation's attention the day of the report's release was focused on the emerging details of his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
"This report is going to be ignored because of what's going on with the President," said Michael Munger, associate professor of political science. "It's a shame-just unfortunate."
Other national experts criticized the substance of the report and not the timing of its release. For example, some complained that the document made no firm recommendations on school busing and racial profiling.
"My goodness, there is nothing substantive there," Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy told the New York Times Friday. "It's not like I'm searching for a fight, but that's not exactly giving people direction. Talk about lowest common denominator!"
At Duke, however, Judith White, special assistant to President Nan Keohane, defended the report as well as Franklin.
"They were advisory to the President, and were not set up independently to make policy recommendations," she said. "If this group were set up with the independence of the Kerner Commission [of 1968], we would have had a different kind of report."
White, who previously served as director of harassment prevention and is currently Keohane's point person on racial issues, said that although the report did not address policy matters, it did raise the vital issue of white privilege.
"So many of our discussions about race and diversity have only been about people of color," she said. "We need to talk about what it means to be part of a white race, whatever race means. The language has been that other people have a race and that whites are just normal-that is the essence of white privilege."
For Micah Mitchell, president of the Black Student Alliance, the report evoked race relations at Duke. In lieu of events such as the alleged harassment of a Divinity School student and racially offensive messages left on a dry-erase board, the concept of white privilege had particular meaning.
"Racism has been ingrained into our lives through centuries of government policies which enforced discrimination and institutionalized mistreatment of black Americans," Mitchell said. "Quite often the desire to maintain white privilege has been used to advance this agenda. The responses to the recent incidents on our campus show that even those who are afforded access to education at one of the top universities in the nation fail to understand the severity of racism and its repercussions."
With his work on the advisory board finished, Franklin will return to Duke. For White, who is currently at Dartmouth to hear Franklin speak, his presence will be invaluable on a personal and professional level.
"We'll get to have him here for what other communities saw just briefly. He'll be a part of having those conversations here," she said. "I'm looking forward to get a chance to see him again."
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