Lani Guinier

Law professor Lani Guinier says President Clinton and many others have "misinterpreted" her "heavily nuanced" writings on minority representation and leverage in the political and legislative arenas -- the subject matter which led to the scuttling of her nomination as chief of the civil rights division in the Justice Department.That, however, is subject to debate. Words matter even when their authors try to explain them as academic idea-juggling. Ms. Guinier wrote what she wrote, and what she wrote, her disclaimers notwithstanding, challenges basic concepts about the way democracy is practiced in this country.

A QUICK glance at the calendar tells me that 1998 will end in another day. That means it's time for the annual Chutzpah Awards, to be handed out to those deserving souls who went above and beyond the call of duty in displaying sheer gall.Ninth runner-up: the management of Radio One, which owns five stations in the Baltimore-Washington area. Management makes the list for its silence in the firing of C. Miles, off the air nearly two months but still the best radio talk-show host in America.

"Lift Every Voice: Turning A Civil Rights Setback Into A New Vision of Social Justice," by Lani Guinier. Simon & Schuster. $25. I don't know Lani Guinier, but I had recently arrived in the Washington bureau of a Detroit newspaper when her nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights was announced. We have mutual friends and acquaintances, many from her days as a law clerk for a federal judge in Detroit, so her nomination was of more than passing - or strictly professional - interest.

IT'S THREE DAYS before Halloween - a time when I should be thinking about dressing up like the Mummy or the Wolfman and scaring the heck out of my grandsons. But I'm still in a nasty mood. Some things still bug me, but I'll try to address only one.I might as well choose the most infuriating: the continued devotion of all too many blacks to President Clinton, 1998's candidate for the man most in need of a chastity jockstrap. The latest offender is comedian Chris Rock, who is usually wise on most other subjects.

Lani Guinier just wants to talk about it.Yes, the woman most famous for the job she didn't get unwittingly keeps paraphrasing the advertising slogan made famous by local attorney Stephen L. Miles as she moves through her appearances yesterday at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.In fact, she is so eager for dialogue that she misreads the sign instructing her to speak directly into the microphone for a question-and-answer session with honors students."It says, 'Please talk into mike,' " she notes.

When historians of the future tote up the many acts of prodigious ineptitude in the first year of Bill Clinton's presidency, they are likely to put at or near the top of their list his sacking of Lani Guinier -- the spurned first choice to be the government's top civil rights official.Ms. Guinier's book, put forth as an answer to all of her critics, is a good measure of what Mr. Clinton's surrender cost him, his administration and, perhaps, the nation.The book could rank as one of the most important political documents in the modern struggle for political freedom and equality for America's blacks.

WASHINGTON -- Senior White House officials and Democratic senators said yesterday that President Clinton's nomination of Lani Guinier to be the Justice Department's civil rights chief would have to be withdrawn because of mounting opposition in the Senate and the administration's attempt to sprint to the political center.Her nomination has attracted intense criticism for articles on the Voting Rights Act, which her critics say make her a proponent of extreme race-based proposals.A senior Democratic senator said last night that about two dozen Senate Democrats have told the White House that it must withdraw the Guinier nomination, noting that she is likely to win approval from only a small minority of the 18 members of the Judiciary Committee.

LANI GUINIER is the University of Pennsylvania law professor who was nominated by President Clinton to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, then un-nominated when criticism of her views mounted.Her travail followed that of Zoe Baird, who had previously been nominated to be attorney general but had to withdraw.Ms. Guinier spoke to the National Press Club in Washington recently. She began this way:"Thank you very much. As you can all imagine, this has been a most interesting year and a half for me. I have gone from relative obscurity to being someone that people stop in the street and introduce themselves to."

WASHINGTON -- Amid right-wing attacks that Surgeon General nominee M. Joycelyn Elders is a radical, anti-family "Condom Queen," the White House and numerous health groups have mounted a full court press, hoping to head off the kind of opposition that derailed the controversial Lani Guinier nomination last month.Dr. Elders, the outspoken Arkansas health chief who has championed school-based health clinics, availability of contraceptives in schools, sex education beginning in kindergarten and abortion rights, is scheduled to go before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee for her confirmation hearing Friday.

WASHINGTON -- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is drawing new members in "record numbers," the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., the group's recently named executive director, said yesterday.Dr. Chavis offered no figures, but he said that "in the not too distant future, the NAACP will have over 1 million members," up from the 500,000 the Baltimore-based group claims now.The 45-year-old civil rights leader, who made the remarks at a National Press Club luncheon, has tried to give the nation's oldest civil rights group a more vibrant image since being tapped to succeed the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks in April.

"Lift Every Voice: Turning A Civil Rights Setback Into A New Vision of Social Justice," by Lani Guinier. Simon & Schuster. $25. I don't know Lani Guinier, but I had recently arrived in the Washington bureau of a Detroit newspaper when her nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights was announced. We have mutual friends and acquaintances, many from her days as a law clerk for a federal judge in Detroit, so her nomination was of more than passing - or strictly professional - interest.

Lani Guinier just wants to talk about it.Yes, the woman most famous for the job she didn't get unwittingly keeps paraphrasing the advertising slogan made famous by local attorney Stephen L. Miles as she moves through her appearances yesterday at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.In fact, she is so eager for dialogue that she misreads the sign instructing her to speak directly into the microphone for a question-and-answer session with honors students."It says, 'Please talk into mike,' " she notes.

LANI GUINIER is the University of Pennsylvania law professor who was nominated by President Clinton to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, then un-nominated when criticism of her views mounted.Her travail followed that of Zoe Baird, who had previously been nominated to be attorney general but had to withdraw.Ms. Guinier spoke to the National Press Club in Washington recently. She began this way:"Thank you very much. As you can all imagine, this has been a most interesting year and a half for me. I have gone from relative obscurity to being someone that people stop in the street and introduce themselves to."

When historians of the future tote up the many acts of prodigious ineptitude in the first year of Bill Clinton's presidency, they are likely to put at or near the top of their list his sacking of Lani Guinier -- the spurned first choice to be the government's top civil rights official.Ms. Guinier's book, put forth as an answer to all of her critics, is a good measure of what Mr. Clinton's surrender cost him, his administration and, perhaps, the nation.The book could rank as one of the most important political documents in the modern struggle for political freedom and equality for America's blacks.

WASHINGTON -- Bill is backing Hillary?Big deal.He backed Zoe Baird -- for a while. He backed Kimba Wood -- for a while. He backed Lani Guinier -- for a while.But when they became political liabilities, he cut them loose.Will he do the same to Hillary?Actually, no.There are at least 10 Reasons Why Bill Won't Dump Hillary:10. She's not nearly as nuts as Bobby Inman was.9. She's the only one who knows the numbers to the Swiss bank accounts.8. She leaks goofy statistics to Ross Perot.7. She inhaled only once and that was before marrying Bill.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton seems to have gotten it right at last with the choice of Deval L. Patrick of Boston to head the Justice Department's civil rights division.At the most obvious level, he has chosen a lawyer with broad experience in the field and a reputation as a top-flight litigator. More importantly, however, the president seems to have come to understand that there is simply no choice for that particular job that is going to be greeted with universal approval -- a fact of political life that might have deterred him from throwing Lani Guinier over the side last June.

Boston.--When I was a kid, I had a friend whose family business advertised on its trucks. The front of the trucks read ''Here Comes Grossman's.'' The back of the trucks read ''There Goes Grossman's.''If you passed one going the other way on a highway, you went from ''Here Comes'' to ''There Goes'' so fast that you never had time to get a very good look at the person in the cab of the truck.I have thought of that image -- Here Comes, There Goes -- a dozen times when the candidate for some post or other zoomed across the national screen as fast as a speeding truck.

Most of the people angry with President Clinton for dumping Lani Guinier had never heard of her before he nominated her to high office. What little they know of her writing comes from its ridiculers.Mr. Clinton picked her for the wrong reason, because she is an old crony. Her actual qualifications to be assistant attorney general for civil rights are, however, were immense.Rarely if ever has a new assistant attorney general for civil rights (1) already worked in the division; (2) spent a career litigating in the field and (3)

Boston--THOUGH HE had no ground for complaint himself, Bobby Inman had a point. It is true that men and women named to high government office these days are often savagely abused. We ought to think about what has gone wrong.Lani Guinier, one of the victims, said on National Public Radio recently that what was said about her made her feel like Alice in Wonderland -- who was so transformed after she fell down the rabbit hole that she hardly knew who she was. The people who advised her on the confirmation process, Professor Guinier said, spoke "with a cynicism and a despair that were truly frightening."

Months have passed since President Clinton nominated University of Pennsylvania law professor Lani Guinier to the post of assistant attorney general for civil rights and then dumped her in the face of conservative opposition.The president's failure to back his own nominee generated a tremendous uproar, particularly from blacks and women, who charged that the president had betrayed his most loyal constituents.Yet, we have learned these past few months that life somehow goes on regardless of political brouhahas; the White House reportedly will announce a new nominee to the post within the next few days.