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From the ivory tower to the White House … and back again – African American public servants who came from, and came back, to the academe – Cover Story

Shortly after resigning as associate director of the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) in February 1995, Christopher Edley Jr.
prepared to resume teaching duties at Harvard Law School, where he had
been tenured since 1986. But before he could leave the government,
Edley was approached by White House officials who wanted him to chair a
high-profile, interagency working group on affirmative action.

Edley considered the assignment a risky one. At the time, the
national news media was reporting that affirmative action had become
one of the most divisive issues in the country. Controversial lawsuits
challenging it were pending in the federal courts. President Bill
Clinton had come under pressure to make clear to the nation where his
administration stood on the topic.

Nonetheless, Edley realized his political experiences — spanning
from the Carter presidential campaign of 1976 to the Dukakis
presidential campaign to the Clinton Administration’s OMB — had
brought him too far in public life to avoid duty on a policy matter he
deemed critically important to the nation. Well-versed in civil rights
law and social policy, Edley had believed himself among the best
prepared in the Administration to lead such a working group. He feared
that his refusal to participate would allow the working group to fall
under the domination of staffers less sensitive to affirmative action
policies than he. He took the job.

The president followed the recommendation the working group under
Edley’s leadership and defended affirmative action as morally just and
necessary. Clinton won praise from the civil rights community and from
observers who applauded his firmness on the issue. Edley, who departed
the administration during the summer of 1995, called the experience one
of the best he has had in public life. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” he
said.

During the first term of the Clinton Administration, Edley stood
out as one of several hundred African Americans holding appointed
political position. Yet from the ranks of faculty and administrators at
American universities and colleges, Edley found himself belonging to a
much smaller category of black appointees. This small but well-placed
group of academics-turned-public servants included others such as Drew
S. Days III of Yale University Law School, Dr. Walter Broadnax of the
University of Maryland, Ron Noble of New York University Law School,
Dr. Joycelyn Elders of the University of Arkansas, and current
Assistant Secretary of Lahor Dr. Bernard Anderson.

The Clinton Administration has gotten high marks from diversity
advocates for its record in hiring minority political appointees.
African Americans, in particular, held a record number of political
positions — more than 600 — in the first term of the Clinton
Administration. According to Dr. Yvonne Scruggs, executive director of
the Black Leadership Forum at the Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies that is double the number of African American
appointees who served in the Carter Administration, another presidency
credited with hiring Blacks in significant numbers.

The road from academe to top-level public service can be very
bumpy, however, as can be attested to by law professor Lani Guanier and
Spelman College president Johnetta Cole — each of whom was considered
for top posts in the Clinton Administration. The lack of unwavering
support for these women from the White House is the reason the pending
nomination of Alexis Herman as secretary of labor is seen by many as a
litmus test for the extent to which Clinton will stand by his African
American nominees.

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