Hart Trouble

Odd nominee for civil rights

For all its announced good intentions, the Reagan White House has a singular gift for trampling on the sensitivities of black Americans. Last week the Reaganauts stumbled again. The White House nominated the Rev. B. Sam Hart, 52, a little-known evangelical minister and broadcaster from Philadelphia, to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an advisory committee responsible for monitoring the enforcement of civil rights laws.

Hart is black and favors integrated schools, but he believes the Government "shouldn't force citizens to do anything they don't want to do" and thus is opposed to busing. At a Washington press conference he evaded questions about whether church-run private schools practicing discrimination should receive tax exemptions. He supports equal rights for women but refuses to back the Equal Rights Amendment. On the subject of homosexuality, he is outspoken. "Homosexuality is not a civil rights issue," he says. "They have chosen a way of life and have to accept the consequences." His advice? "They can repent like other sinners."

Protested one prominent Washington black leader: "Of all the blacks they might have selected, they picked out a right-wing religious nut. It shows this Administration's complete contempt for civil rights and for the commission." Said Eleanor Smeal, president of the National Organization for Women: "I feel almost speechless. He is hostile to all the groups the commission is supposed to serve."

Hart was backed for the job by, among others, Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a Senator who is not known for his deep concern about blacks or civil rights. Explained E. Pendleton James, the White House director of personnel: "We wanted a representative of Moral Majority conservative blacks." Hart's approval by the Senate is now in doubt because of objections being raised by both Senators from his home state.

The nomination of another black, William Bell, to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was withdrawn late last week by an embarrassed White House. Bell, who runs a one-man minority recruiting operation in Detroit that has failed to place anyone in the past year, had been roundly criticized as being unqualified to lead the agency. In his place, the Administration named Clarence Thomas, a black Republican and graduate of Yale Law School who now serves as Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights. qed

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