The White House Sensitivity Gap

By Laurence I. Barrett

Caring about the underdogs is not quite enough

A President caught in a political blunder can always resort to a familiar gambit to diffuse criticism: mixing candor and contrition. That was the tactic adopted by Ronald Reagan last week as he tried to stem the anger caused by the decision to allow tax exemptions for private schools practicing racial discrimination.

The controversial tax decision, announced on Jan. 8, seemed to align the Administration with enemies of the civil rights movement. Reagan's aides initially created the impression that the President had acted with little notice and less information in advance of the change. Reagan disposed of that dodge at his press conference. "No one put anything over on me," he said. "The buck stops at my desk. I'm the originator of the whole thing." He conceded that the matter had been poorly handled. But now he was vigorously, if belatedly, urging Congress to pass legislation that would deny tax breaks to schools that discriminate racially. "Don't judge us by our mistakes," Reagan said. "Judge us by how well we recover and solve the situation."

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that the Administration fumbled the issue even more than was initially supposed. But beyond that, a President who finds it necessary to reassert his belief in racial equality as often as Reagan does ("I am opposed with every fiber of my being to discrimination") has a problem more basic and enduring than any specific controversy. Indeed, Reagan frequently finds himself on the defensive on other issues that concern America's underdogs. The President is a politician whose human instincts on most matters are acute. Why are they so dull when the stepchildren of society are involved?

The tax-exemption question turned out to be a paradigm of the problem. The Supreme Court was preparing to rule on a case involving two Southern church-related schools that had been denied tax exemptions by the IRS. Earlier federal court decisions had upheld the authority of the IRS, which was derived from civil rights legislation of the 1960s and which had been sanctioned by three previous Administrations. The case before the Supreme Court would be irrelevant if the Government removed its support of the IRS policy. This is what was asked of Reagan in an Oct. 30 letter from Republican Congressman Trent Lott of Mississippi, who contended that the IRS practice was unconstitutional. When a summary of Lott's letter came to the President, he wrote in the margin, "I think we should" (make the policy change). That informal O.K. finally produced the Jan. 8 announcement.

Officials now concede that the Administration never intended to propose legislation that would authorize the IRS to withhold the tax exemptions. That decision came only after the protests charging that the White House had sided with racists. Further, while the legislation is working its way through Congress, the two schools involved in the litigation will be eligible temporarily for tax exemption.

Reagan insisted that he and his advisers thought of the IRS decision as a purely procedural matter and that he is opposed in principle to allowing federal agencies to set social policy without congressional authorization. Indeed, much as Reagan says he dislikes discrimination, he acts as if he loathes excessive Government regulation even more. The problem is that in setting his priorities, the President tends to behave in a way that makes him seem insensitive to minorities on civil rights questions, to the poor where social welfare is concerned, to women on feminist issues.

After months of indecision, for example, the President finally came out for a diluted version of the Voting Rights Act, even though that 1965 statute is a symbol of modern emancipation for blacks and Hispanics. At the same time that he was demanding budget cuts in social programs, he allowed Congress to put together a tax bill with new loopholes that benefited special interests and the rich. Reagan named a woman to the Supreme Court, thereby keeping a campaign pledge. But apart from the appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor, he has opposed virtually every important item on the feminist agenda. When Reagan blithely suggested that people who cannot make it where they now live can "vote with their feet" by migrating to greener pastures, he sounded like a social Darwinist.

He becomes offended when his motives are challenged on issues that affect the downtrodden. It is as if caring is an adequate substitution for doing. He reminds critics that he spoke out against discrimination long before he ran for office. His defenders contend that minority activists would be suspicious of Reagan anyway because of his conservative philosophy and because they can use hostility toward him as a rallying point for their followers. That observation is valid. But part of Reagan's self-imposed mandate is to show that his conservatism has a broad reach.

That would be easier for Reagan to do if he were accustomed to working closely with blacks, women and others who might raise his consciousness on sensitive issues. But Reagan's inner circles over the years have lacked that ingredient. This helps explain why none of the five blacks in the White House, all of whom hold junior jobs, was even consulted before the tax-exemption announcement.

Reagan's advisers have been sufficiently chagrined to seek a remedy. Chief of Staff James Baker wants to organize a committee of insiders that would track all issues likely to affect women and racial minorities. Such a committee might reconsider a small but revealing question: Should the White House support the proposal to make the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday? Until now the White House has been noncommittal. The reason says something about this Administration's isolation from the nation's largest minority. An official explains that the White House has appeared so indifferent to other pleas involving racial matters that embracing the national holiday idea would seem condescending.

--By Laurence I. Barrett

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