SHE'S A CLASSIC NEOCON:

Civil rights vets uneasy with Kagan (Josh Gerstein, May 16, 2010, Politico)

Kagan, now 50, spent a good part of her 30s in the Clinton White House, where she was part of a cadre of advisers who endorsed the idea of de-emphasizing race-conscious government programs in favor of broader policies that targeted the poor and working class in a “race-neutral” way. That idea, clearly in vogue in centrist Democratic policy circles in the 1990s and since, is no longer terribly controversial with the public, but it has never been fully embraced by traditional civil rights organizations.

Other concerns contribute to the jitters among some civil rights advocates. No African-American became a tenured or tenure-track professor at Harvard Law School while Kagan was dean. And papers at the Clinton Presidential Library show that as a White House policy staffer she clashed with — and sometimes mocked — advisers involved with President Bill Clinton’s initiative on race.

One Clinton race adviser, Chris Edley, complained in a 1998 e-mail that Kagan was ignoring his efforts to contact her by phone, email and even “hallway greeting.” He threatened to resign, citing that rebuff and other policy disputes.

On the race initiative memos, Kagan often scrawled sarcastic notes like “Pretty exciting stuff!” She joined with domestic policy chief Bruce Reed in preparing a biting memo that declared that a “book” that the race staff prepared “isn’t bold and isn’t interesting.”

But more substantive concerns stem from her advocacy for moving focus away from traditional race-based efforts.

In a November 1997 memo to Clinton, Kagan and Reed argued, “We believe that the central focus of the race initiative should be a race-neutral opportunity agenda that reflects these common values and aspirations. Of course, there is still a need for strong civil rights enforcement, narrowly tailored affirmative action programs and certain other kind of targeted initiatives….But the best hope for improving race relations and reducing racial disparities over the long term is a set of policies that expand opportunity across race lines and, in doing so, force the recognition of shared interests.”

“I can’t see the NAACP, the Urban League, or the Mexican Legal Defense Fund adopting that kind of language,” Brittain said. “It would certainly not be embraced….They would probably consider it watered down and only adopt it if forced.”