The Clinton admimstration’s endless internal review of federal affirmative action programs won another headline trophy the other day. “White House to Suspend a Program for Minorities,” announced the New York Times on page 1 last week. And not just one program, “officials said,” but all federal procurement programs that set aside business contracts exclusively for minority and woman-owned companies. The moratorium will last at least three years. “As a practical matter, set-asides are gone,” says one senior administration official, “speaking only after being promised anonymity.”
You’d be shy, too, if you were offering news this dishonest. The Times story itself reports that the White House believes there is only one federal set-aside program worthy of the name — a Defense Department contracting formula the administration stopped using last October. So, in fact, the president has actually now decided to suspend . . . nothing. Quite the contrary: He has begun an elaborate and expensive effort to create bogus legal justifications — federally commissioned statistical “disparity studies” — for all the myriad other prorams that look and smell like set-asides. Joe Lelyveld, call your headline writers.
