European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 9, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes thursday february 9,1989 George will court ruling inhibits reverse discrimination like a Pebble dropped into a Pond a presidency radiates lingering Ripples. Last month s supreme court decision sharply limiting reverse discrimination by governments is a Ripple from the Reagan administration which advocated such a ruling. It d9es much to Roll Back the racial spoils system that exists for certain government favored minorities. Unfortunately the ruling Only inhibits not pro scribes reverse discrimination. Government May still allocate shares of wealth to groups groups not just individuals to which government awards the lucrative status of victim. A Richmond va., statute which resembles hundreds of others nationwide required prime contractors on City construction projects to subcontract a least 30 percent of the Dollar amount of each con tract to businesses owned and controlled by these groups the list was taken from a similar Federal stat Ute Blacks Spanish speaking Oriental Indian Eskimo or aleut citizens anywhere in America. This statute passed by a Richmond City Council with Ablack majority would enable say a hispanic com Pany in Houston to receive preference in Richmond ostensibly to remedy past discrimination in Rich mond. Justice Sandra Day o Connor writing for the majority said among Many other things that such set Side programs to be valid must remedy identified discrimination not just respond to societal discrimination. Although the ruling will gofar toward stopping reverse discrimination the court flinched from the Correct course. It should have retreated All the Way to the High ground of this unassailable principle government May allocate benefits on the basis of race Only to compensate identified individual victims of the government sown past system of racial classification. Only Justice Antonin Scalia affirms that , Justice Anthony Kennedy who occupies what some of us think of As the Bork seat strongly sympathizes with Scalia s position. Some parts of the Reagan administration came comfortably to terms with set aside programs. How Ever the Justice department and Many judicial nominees seem to understand this the 14th Amend ment s guarantee of equal Protection of the Laws expresses the constituting doctrine of All open Socie ties. Rights belong to individuals not groups and least of All races. The court is gingerly backing out of a swamp. It waded Waist deep into this in 1980 when chief jus Tice Warren Burger writing for the court upheld a1977 set aside Law. It was the first Law by which Congress legislated a classification for entitlement to benefits based solely on race. Tom Wicker using conservative language to rationalize a profoundly anti conservative position Burger said that appropriate deference toward Congress Power to provide for the general welfare required ruling that reverse discrimination is compatible with the 14th amendment s equal Protection Gua Rantee. Besides Burger said that interfering with experimentation in things social and economic is a grave  but surely some areas Are now off limits to wha Burger Antiseptic ally called  jus Tice Potter Stewart dissenting in 1980, noted that Only twice before had the court upheld government programs that inflicted injury As reverse discrimination does to those not on the list of government favored minorities on the basis of race. These were the japanese american curfew and exclusion cases during world War ii. The 1954 desegregation ruling seemed to say that governments cannot classify students racially. But soon Many school districts were under court orders to do precisely that for the purpose of forced busing to achieve racial  Hubert Humphrey the prime mover of the 1964 civil rights act denied that quotas or other preferential treatment of any group was required by that Law. But race conscious actions soon  we Are slowly zigzagging our Way Back to Justice John Marshall Harlan s principle enunciated in a Noble dissent from a ruling that segregation was constitutional. He said our Constitution is color  what is the Caliper of thinking on this subject in George Bush s Washington Here is a Sample. Lee Atwater Bush s chairman of the Republican National committee says he is optimistic about attracting Black voters because affirmative action has worked and there s now a much larger Black mid dle  his words imply something unsubstantiated almost certainly false and surprising coming from a Republican. The implication is that govern ment programs of racial preference Are primarily responsible for Black  slights not Only the working of a free Economy but also and More importantly the self Reliance and other Virtues of rising Blacks. Atwater s unconscious disparagement of Black achievement Isa predictable residue of reverse discrimination. That residue May one Day be washed away by actions like last month s Ripple from the Reagan Era. Washington Post writers group outrage Over raise hurts qualify of government when Jimmy Carter was Cam the substantial honorariums they now paining for president in 1976, he fre Are permitted to accept. They Are paid gently said that the country needed a considerably less than their Respo Sibili government As Good As the  ties ought to command. Sometimes however the people Are the a stretched out plan would have pro problem As demonstrated once again by longed the serious financial problems in their fury Over a necessary and justified eluding the maintenance of two Resi salary raise proposed for members of Dences that some have and it might Well Congress and other Federal officials. That misplaced outrage doomed the pay increase. Under pressure from the Public speaker of the House Jim Wrigh first announced a vote on cutting it from 50 to 30 percent. Under even heavier pressure he knuckled under completely and scheduled a Roll Call vote on the in crease itself. That vote has now killed it because most members of the House consider it political suicide to vote to raise their own pay. Congress deserves some of the Public contempt in which it s held and it s True that a 51 percent increase is More than most americans Ever can expect from their employers. It might Well have been Wiser to schedule say three 15 percent rises Over five or six years. But members of Congress would have have caused something like the current uror three times instead of once. Course by the roundabout Way in which first a mostly deserved increase  been denied granted that some Mem Bers As in any Union or corporation Haven t really earned a higher , but not less important Many members will be forced to continue seek ing outside honorariums to augment their government pay and those the pay increase was supposed to take effect on the recommendation of a special commission without Congre shaving to approve or defeat the proposal in an on the record vote. And exec the irony is that a major purpose of the pay increase was to attract better .