Word: guiniers
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...proposed solutions are complicated, at least compared with conventional electoral rules. One remedy is "cumulative voting," in which every voter would be given as many votes as there are seats available. For example, if there were five city-council members, each voter would have five votes. That measure, says Guinier, would allow black voters to cast all their ballots for a black candidate, consolidating their power. Dozens of communities, mainly in Alabama, have already used such schemes. A more drastic remedy would be a "minority veto," which would allow judges to give black legislators the power to veto a measure...
Among academics who study voting rights, Guinier's writing is generally held in high regard. "She's the best legal scholar working in voting rights today," says Professor Kathryn Abrams of Cornell law school. "In a scholarly sense, I don't consider her outside the mainstream." That assessment is more strenuously debated in wider legal circles. Says Stuart Taylor Jr. of Legal Times, who has studied Guinier's writings: "She's more radical than her supporters would have you believe. Her proposals seem to be premised on a bleak vision of America as a land of 'subjugated minorities...
Radical or not, Guinier's writing is tailor-made to be selectively used against her. Conservative groups and other critics circulated copies of her writings to news organizations, highlighting portions that were purported to take far-out positions. In her appearance on Nightline, Guinier argued that the quoted passages were out of context. She insisted that she was giving "a description of other people's views" in the Michigan article when she contended that "authentic leaders are those elected by black voters," thereby suggesting that black politicians elected by white majorities are not legitimate. Even in context, it is unclear...
...Robert Mapplethorpe against Jesse Helms. In April, Hackney seemed the natural choice to be President Clinton's nominee to head the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the agency that dispenses federal grants to academia (about $160 million in 2,200 grants last year). But in this post-Lani Guinier period, the past makes Hackney ideologically suspect. Once he may have been in the catbird seat; now Hackney may be a sitting duck...
...political correctness, that most nettlesome of campus issues. As president of the University of Pennsylvania since 1981, Hackney has handled a series of incidents that critics say reflect on his judgment and temperament. Conservative standard-bearer Patrick Buchanan puts it bluntly: "He is a politically correct leftist like Lani Guinier -- a virtuecrat, out of touch with Middle America...