Discrimination Attorneys

This city has two images of Damian Williams, the man on trial in the beating of a white truck driver in last year’s riot, and these images sometimes seem to have very little to do with each other.

To horrified television viewers, Mr. Williams is a symbol of the unpredictable violence that menaces this city, the man prosecutors say was captured on videotape throwing a brick at the head of the driver, Reginald O. Denny, and then dancing a victory jig. But for some black residents, the 20-year-old defendant also represents something else: society’s unequal treatment of blacks and whites.

A jury is now deliberating whether Mr. Williams, along with Henry Watson, 29, is guilty of a dozen offenses, including attempted murder, in the televised beating of Mr. Denny and seven other motorists at the start of the rioting on April 29, 1992. Mr. Williams’s lawyer, Edi M. O. Faal, has argued that his client was not the man on the videotape, and that even if he is, his offenses were relatively minor.

“By all the stereotypes inbred into our culture, Williams, with his scowling appearance, looks like the guy Spike Lee has made millions of dollars warning us about,” wrote Charles L. Lindner, a lawyer who is white, in an article on the op-ed page in The Los Angeles Times.

Even many white liberals who are sympathetic to the grievances of black residents here share this first perception, finding the moment of violence and jubilation Mr. Williams is accused of to be beyond excusing.

“If people are going to hold up Damian Williams as an example of what’s wrong with the criminal justice system, they are not going to get much sympathy at all,” said Mark Weintraub, an optometrist, who is white.

Yet even many middle-class blacks who may seem to have more in common with people like Dr. Weintraub than with people like Mr. Williams voice concern about the defendant’s treatment and his fate.

They emphasize that they do not support or condone the violent actions he is accused of. But for them he is a symbol of what many say they have experienced in the justice system and in many other areas of life — from frequent traffic stops and rough handling by the police to job and housing discrimination.

“Emotionally we are tugged,” said Harold C. Hart-Nibbrig, a black lawyer who grew up only a few streets from the intersection where Mr. Denny was attacked. “I never would have thrown that brick. Most of the people who are screaming for amnesty would not have thrown that brick.”

But, he added: “When I’m out of my community I feel I am treated with suspicion. When I am in my community I feel there is no distinction being made by the police between me and the perpetrators of crime. That’s a commonality between me and Damian Williams.”

But Mr. Hart-Nibbrig’s 81-year-old mother, Annabelle, a former dancer, takes a harder line. The man she sees on the video, she says, is “a beast attacking a human being” and “deserves punishment regardless of his race.”

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Your Feb. 17 editorial on black-white income inequality repeats the claim that ‘’such inequality is more a problem of poor education, weak skills and the rise in single-parent families than of race.” In fact, continuing racial discrimination plays an important role in perpetuating this inequality.

The evidence for continuing housing discrimination is strong. A 1989 national study found that blacks were shown about 25 percent fewer housing units than were equally qualified whites, and over the last four years similar studies have found no sign of a downward trend.

Discrimination in housing restricts the access of blacks to good school districts and therefore contributes to the black-white skill differential. Housing discrimination also limits the access of blacks to neighborhoods near jobs and helps confine many black households to high-poverty neighborhoods.

Studies of hiring practices have documented continuing hiring discrimination against young black men. Racial discrimination still has a lot to do with the black-white income gap, and anti-discrimination policy has a key role to play in bringing incomes closer together.

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Heartened by a judge’s decision in Colorado yesterday striking down that state’s initiative opposing gay rights, advocates of gay rights say they are encouraged about their chances of keeping similar measures off the ballot in other states.

“The decision affirms clearly that the fundamental rights of lesbians and gay man cannot be voted away by the general public,” said Suzanne Goldberg, a New York lawyer for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay rights group. “With courts in California, Oregon and Colorado declaring anti-gay initiatives unconstitutional, it’s a big boost for us.”

Since last year, when Colorado voters passed Amendment 2, banning laws intended to protect homosexuals from job and housing discrimination, conservative groups across the country have started petition drives for similar laws.

In November, voters in Cincinnati, Portsmouth, N.H., and Lewiston, Me., passed measures limiting gay rights. And conservative and religious groups in Florida, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Texas and Washington are organizing efforts for such legislation in their states. Defining the Debate

The initiatives have provoked an impassioned debate over whether homosexuals make up a group that has been discriminated against and needs civil rights protection, as their advocates maintain, or whether they are seeking special rights and affirmation of sexual behavior that many Americans condemn, as conservatives claim.

Whatever the social debate, the laws rest on shaky legal ground. In Colorado, Judge Jeffrey Bayless of the State District Court quickly issued a temporary injunction after the initiative was passed, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld that injunction, and yesterday Judge Bayless struck down the initiative as unconstitutional.

The Cincinnati initiative, too, has been temporarily enjoined. And in Oregon, after the voters defeated a statewide ballot measure defining homosexuality as “abnormal” and “unnatural,” the Legislature passed a law prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals. But several Oregon towns adopted initiatives opposing gay rights anyway. There are now dozens of pending lawsuits and a new effort for a statewide anti-gay-rights initiative on next year’s ballot.

So far, every court that has considered the initiatives has ruled that they violate the guarantee of equal protection and interfere with the rights of lesbians and gay men to petition the government. “All that is lacking is a sack of stones for throwing,” said one California court in rejecting such an initiative in Riverside, Calif.

Advocates of gay rights are using those decisions to try to persuade judges to block the initiatives before they are passed. Last week a dozen groups petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to keep the proposed amendment there off the ballot. Their brief argues that the initiative would so infringe on the constitutional rights of homosexuals that it should not be put to a vote.

Ms. Goldberg, who filed the brief, said that even if the initiatives never became law, they could do irreparable harm when the campaigns become “a hate debate on whether lesbians and gay men should be permitted our rightful place in society.”

Most of the initiatives ban state or local governments from adopting laws protecting lesbians and gay men from discrimination. Conservatives say such measures are needed to stop homosexuals from winning special rights.

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For President Clinton, the event offered an apparently seamless blend of symbolism and substance today, just the right formula to commemorate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.

At a retirement home here, the President helped knock down a wall to make room for a health clinic. Then he announced what he called ”the largest settlement in history” of a case involving lending discrimination in housing: $6.5 billion.

But while the wall fell without much fuss, the mortgage company accused of discrimination fought back furiously, declaring that it had admitted no wrongdoing and that in the settlement it had committed no more money than it would have otherwise to help minority and low- to moderate-income borrowers.

Still dressed in his blue jeans and invigorated by his volunteer work, Mr. Clinton noted at the Regency House retirement home that Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, outlawing housing discrimination, just six days after Dr. King was killed in 1968.

”He had worked for years to outlaw discrimination in housing,” Mr. Clinton said. ”And many who voted for the measure said they did it in tribute to him.”

The President said that under the agreement, ”the Columbia National Mortgage Company will offer — listen to this — $6.5 billion in home mortgages and extra effort to help 78,000 minority and low- and moderate-income families unlock the door to homeownership.”

But David Gallitano, the chairman and chief executive of Columbia National, said he was shocked by any suggestion that his company had discriminated and was taking dramatic steps to reform its ways.

”I’m sure he was very poorly informed,” Mr. Gallitano said.

The agreement was reached between the company, based in Columbia, Md., and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Housing Department officials said the company signed the agreement in November, and the department signed it on Friday. But it was not disclosed until today.

”All we did with HUD’s concurrence was to take what we had done over the last five years and reaffirm that it was what we would do over the next five years,” Mr. Gallitano said in a telephone interview.

But a Housing Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Columbia had committed to new spending.

”To make the point even clearer, in 1997, Columbia nationally made $1.4 billion in loans” to all borrowers, the official said. ”It is committing almost the same amount over five years for low- and moderate-income loans and other related benefits alone.”

But Mr. Gallitano said the agreement specified only that Columbia must make such money available to qualified minority and low-income buyers, a step, he said, that regulations already demand.

Under the direction of Secretary Andrew Cuomo, HUD over the last two years has stepped up enforcement of the anti-discrimination law. As a result, Mr. Cuomo said, more people are becoming aware of the law, and complaints are rising. But companies, he said, are also taking more steps to comply.

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Ever the nervous student, Robert Abrams scanned a yellow legal pad moments before addressing a group of about 30 Democratic Party faithful on a recent afternoon. Scribbled at the top, a timeless reminder: “Say nice things about the party.”

Great idea.

He did. Everyone clapped. On to the next stop.

Sometimes using charts and graphs, the New York State Attorney General stands before the cameras, his smudged glasses shining, his hands waving and his Bronx-tinged voice spinning tales of woe about Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato’s voting record, the state’s poor economy and the many scandals that have swirled in the Senator’s wake. Stop after stop, the words repeat in an endless loop, tailored to fit the venue, the audience and the mood. The Standard Fare

For weeks, his standard fare has droned on without providing him with an increase in the polls. Day after day, racing from one unlikely locale to another, Mr. Abrams pounds away, telling older people that their needs should be met, Jews that Israel is important, blacks that civil rights matter and hospital administrators that health care in New York is in a state of crisis. His messages are well framed and well meant. Hitting His Stride

He repeatedly attacks Mr. D’Amato’s involvement in everything from lost Housing and Urban Development grants to lost jobs, the high cost of health insurance and threats to abortion rights. But as he moves toward the final stretch, he may have begun to hit his stride. Sunday, standing first before Local 3 of the Jewish Electrical Welfare Club in Flushing, Queens, and later before about 1,000 congregants at the First Baptist Church in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Mr. Abrams suddenly hit a groove, winning passionate applause from audiences hungry for change in Washington and better prospects for their future.

At the Baptist church, he spoke of his fight against housing discrimination and his deeply held belief in civil rights. He condemned Mr. D’Amato for casting “the decisive vote” against the 1992 civil rights act and almost brought the congregation to its feet when he promised to “pay Al D’Amato back Nov. 3.”

Even when he ran through his customary litany of the 500,000 jobs lost in New York State, the $117 billion sent to Washington never to return, and his complaint that New Yorkers have suffered from deep cuts in education, health care and other essentials, he seemed almost spontaneous.

“We’ve got news for this administration,” he said, his voice rolling over a carpet of bowed and nodding heads. “They have turned their backs on us over these last 12 years and we are going to turn our backs on them this Nov. 3.”

In closing, he leaned on his only laugh line. “Al D’Amato says he’s bringing home the bacon,” he said in a voice that tends to rise and fall like the tides. “But we know that’s a lot of ba -low- ney! New York is hurting! New York is in pain ! New York has lost more jobs than any state in the nation under the Bush-Quayle-D’Amato years.”

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In a widely anticipated legal showdown tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a gay rights case that tests the high court’s commitment to insuring fair access to the political process for all Americans.

At issue is the constitutionality of an amendment to the Colorado Constitution that repealed ordinances in three cities protecting homosexuals against discrimination, and barred the state and every local jurisdiction in Colorado from adopting or enforcing any such provisions in the future.

This punitive measure, similar to anti-gay ballot initiatives pressed by the Christian right in other states, was approved by Colorado voters in 1992, after a clever if mean-spirited campaign by proponents that depicted basic anti-bias protections in housing and employment as unjustified “special rights.”

Colorado can be expected to echo arguments in the state’s brief that seek to obscure the bigotry that lies behind the amendment. It will try to establish that the amendment has a legitimate governmental purpose in protecting morality, in putting a divisive public issue to rest and in conserving resources that might otherwise be spent defending homosexuals in order to enforce other civil rights laws.

But there is no masking the anti-gay fervor behind the measure, or the offense to the constitutional principle of equal protection when a defined group of citizens — in this case homosexuals — is denied the right to participate equally and fully in the political process. While all other Coloradans are free to seek redress in state and local legislatures, homosexuals in search of their rights must now scale a uniquely high barrier — persuading Colorado voters to re-amend their state Constitution.

For this reason, the Colorado Supreme Court declared the amendment unconstitutional in 1994 — hence the state’s appeal. The court made clear that the real issue here is not “special rights” for homosexuals, but whether a government may consign a particular group to a lesser category of citizenship. The Clinton Justice Department, retreating from principle, declined to join the legal battle to overturn the Colorado amendment. But the disfranchisement of Colorado’s homosexuals should be clear to the U.S. Supreme Court with or without the Justice Department’s intervention.

The Court has been sensitive to the same sort of equal-protection trespass in previous cases involving race and electoral issues. A 1969 decision, for example, struck down a city charter amendment in Akron, Ohio, that repealed existing anti-discrimination laws and required future voter approval for any local law dealing with housing discrimination.

It is not necessary for the Justices to sympathize with the laws forbidding discrimination against homosexuals, or to find that they as a group have a protected constitutional status. The Court need simply decide that homosexuals deserve the same opportunity to participate in the political process as everyone else.

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A Federal jury this week directed the owner of a suburban Virginia housing development to pay $850,000 to a group of plaintiffs for having used only white people as models in the development’s advertising.

Legal experts said the verdict, returned Thursday, might be the largest award ever made by a jury in a housing discrimination case. Although the law at issue, the Federal Fair Housing Act, was enacted in 1968, it was not until two years ago that Congress removed the legislation’s $1,000 ceiling on jury awards.

The defendant was Colonial Village, owner of a 640-unit condominium development in Arlington, Va. The plaintiffs argued that Colonial Village’s use of exclusively white models over a five-year period, from 1981 to 1986, had sent a message that blacks were not welcome there.

The suit was brought by two fair-housing groups — the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington and the Metropolitan Washington Planning and Housing Association — and was joined by Girardeau A. Spann, a black professor of law at Georgetown University. The plaintiffs contended that they were entitled to damages because Colonial Village’s advertising had frustrated their ability to carry out their mission: to assure fair housing.

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Following are excerpts from an address by President Bush in Springfield, Mo.: Civil Rights

Let me begin with an issue of concern to every American, every fair-minded American, civil rights. Governor Clinton says, and I quote, “Everybody knows I have the best civil rights record” — his words. His modesty overwhelms me. But how does his record stand?

Some of you may know that in 1968 when I was a Congressman from Texas I supported the Fair Housing Act, and it wasn’t popular with some of my constituents. And times have changed, of course. And nowadays 41 states have laws banning housing discrimination — 41. But Arkansas is not one of them, and even though my opponent has been Governor for 12 years. Forty-six states have human relations agencies that safeguard citizens against discrimination. But not Arkansas under his leadership. Forty-eight states have basic civil rights laws that ban discrimination and guarantee equal opportunity, but not Arkansas. And that’s right. Arkansas is only one of two states in America without a civil rights statute.

Candidate Clinton likes to talk about my 1990 veto of the Democratic Congress’s quota bill. And I did veto that bill, and I’ll veto any other quota bill that the liberals cook up.

I am for civil rights, and I am against quotas. And that is not a contradiction.

And so last year, after tough negotiations with Congress and beating back two attempts to ram down my throat and the people’s throat a quota bill, I did sign, proudly sign, a major civil rights bill without resorting to quotas.

And in addition, I fought for the Americans With Disabilities Act, the most sweeping civil rights legislation in 30 years that brings those with disabilities into the mainstream and gives them a shot at the American dream.

And I’m proud of it.

And what about Governor Clinton? Even though his party enjoys overwhelming control of the Arkansas Legislature, Governor Clinton has still not brought a civil rights bill to the people of Arkansas.

And so when you hear the Candidate Clinton’s rhetoric all across this country about civil rights, Governor Clinton’s record just does not stand up. Taxes

Now, consider another issue — economic fairness. You know, Candidate Clinton is playing the old games that liberals love to play, class warfare, divide Americans rich from poor, one group from another. He’s good at it. Candidate Clinton is very good at that, using the same tired, twisted partisan statistics to explain how the poor can only get richer if the rich get poorer.

According to Candidate Clinton, the last 10 years have been a nightmare. Well, I’ve got news for him: it is not true. The Urban Institute back in Washington is not usually sympathetic to me. But listen to what they had to say about the 1980’s. “When one follows individuals, rather than statistical groups defined by income, one finds that on average, the rich got a little richer, and the poor got much richer.” Now that’s the truth. Our policies of cutting taxes have spurred growth for all Americans.

Yes, we’ve got tough times now, but it’s fair to look at the whole record. And Candidate Clinton doesn’t think this is a fair result. He doesn’t think it’s fair, and it’s maybe because Governor Clinton doesn’t have much experience with tax fairness in his own state.

Governor Clinton has more than doubled — you want a horror story, listen to this — he has more than doubled Arkansas state spending since 1983, and he has paid for it by raising the taxes that hurt poor and working families the most. My opponent has raised and extended his sales tax repeatedly, and he has opposed removing that tax from groceries.

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While voters in other cities have loudly debated and sometimes rejected civil rights protection for homosexuals, St. Louis has quietly adopted one of the strongest gay-rights laws in the nation.

The ordinance, passed unanimously by the city’s aldermen, drew so little attention that its adoption went unreported for two months until The Lesbian and Gay News-Telegraph, a paper based in St. Louis, carried an article about it on Dec. 3.

“One doesn’t think of St. Louis as being in the progressive rank of cities,” said Jim Thomas, editor of The News-Telegraph, which is distributed in five states. But he said of the law’s passage: “We didn’t even have to fight, or even work much.”

The law bars discrimination in housing, credit, employment, education and public access on the grounds of physical or mental disability, race, religion, family status or sexual orientation. ‘Strongest Laws’

“It clearly is one of the strongest laws of the 130 we have in the U.S.,” said Robert Bray, a spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington.

Laws in many other cities and states are less comprehensive, he said. Some protect homosexuals from housing discrimination, for example, but not job discrimination.

The St. Louis board included a clause in its law to prevent it from being repealed by referendum, said James Wilson, the city’s lawyer.

Mary Ross, the alderwoman who introduced the measure, said she was not trying to be a trailblazer; she simply wanted to update the city’s civil rights protections.

“I think we covered, hopefully, everybody in this legislation who could possibly be discriminated against in one manner or another, and that is the intent,” she said. “It is not a gay-rights thing.”

The law also created a civil rights commission, which has the power to investigate, fine violators up to $500 and jail them for up to 90 days.

Elsewhere, 1992 was a seesaw year for gay rights laws, with opponents nationwide complaining that such laws created special rights for homosexuals.

Voters in Colorado approved a measure that repealed anti-bias laws protecting gays from discrimination and banned all of the state’s cities from passing any future homosexual-rights laws.

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These statistics don’t lie: Black and Hispanic home buyers have a harder time getting mortgages.

But why? If lenders discriminate by race, it is up to bank regulators and the Justice Department to enforce anti-bias laws. If, however, minorities are less likely to obtain mortgages mostly because they are more likely to suffer from poverty, the cure — allocating credit by skin color — is arguably worse than the disease. So thoughtful policy makers were delighted when the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston set out in 1990 to answer the question using sophisticated statistical methods.

But four years after the 1992 release of the Boston Fed’s findings — which concluded that racial discrimination was still widespread in the banking industry — otherwise mild-mannered academic experts have gotten into mudslinging matches over the research’s implications. Detractors attack the study as defective in its methodology and tainted by ideological preconceptions. Supporters dismiss their concerns as overblown and wrongheaded.

The publication of the full study in March in the American Economic Review, the flagship journal of the American Economic Association, seems only to have escalated the rhetoric. “I am extremely worried that economics is becoming like other social sciences — not very scientific,” said Anthony Yezer, an economist at George Washington University and a Boston Fed critic.

The study has had an enormous impact on the banking industry. Both the Justice Department and the Massachusetts Attorney General began investigations of lending discrimination in the Boston area shortly after its dissemination. In December 1993, for example, the Justice Department settled a lending-discrimination case against the Shawmut National Corporation, then New England’s third-largest banking institution, after it agreed to take steps to prevent discrimination and pay at least $960,000 to black and Hispanic applicants who were denied loans.

And the Clinton Administration intensified not-so-friendly efforts to persuade lenders to serve minorities. In one celebrated case, the Justice Department forced a suburban Washington bank that had few black mortgage applicants to open an office in a black neighborhood.

The biggest loser in this no-win battle was Alicia Munnell, whose name appeared first among the study’s authors because she was the Boston Fed’s head of research in 1992.

Last year, Ms. Munnell, then a senior Treasury official, was widely expected to be nominated to the Federal Reserve Board by President Clinton. But bankers, angered at the housing-discrimination study, lobbied heavily against her, and Mr. Clinton, his popularity then at a low ebb, last summer decided to duck the fight. Ms. Munnell was named instead to the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Flawed or not, the Boston Fed’s investigation had a noble purpose: leveling the mortgage playing field for minorities. Racial discrimination has been a fixture of the American housing market since Colonial times, and continues in the 1990’s despite state and Federal fair-lending laws. It takes many forms, from “redlining” — the refusal of lending institutions to make loans to residents of deteriorating neighborhoods — to charging minorities higher interest rates and fees.

Newsday recently reported that its examination of almost 100,000 mortgage-loan applications on Long Island showed blacks had been rejected almost three times as often as whites, even when they had the same income. And this week, the Fleet Financial Group of Boston agreed to pay about $4 million to black and Hispanic customers to settle allegations of overcharging them for mortgage loans.

Unequal treatment of minorities isn’t necessarily motived by racism; it can also reflect lesser creditworthiness or other economic disparities. Indeed, while the Boston Fed’s finding that racial discrimination is a significant problem has stiffened regulators’ resolve to police lending practices, skeptics see little in it to justify new efforts to bully banks into lending more to minorities.

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The combination of a growing work force and $3-per-gallon gasoline resulted in an estimated 110 million boardings onto King County Metro buses in 2007.

Deficit may hinder stimulus efforts

War costs of $9.6 billion a month and a gaping federal deficit limit how the U.S. government can fend off a recession.

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This is for a reader who demands to know why I write about gay issues. His conclusion is that I must secretly be gay myself.

Actually, he doesn’t express himself quite that civilly. To the contrary, his e-mails — which, until recently, were arriving at the rate of about one a week — evince a juvenility that would embarrass a reasonably intelligent fifth-grader. The most recent one, for example, carried a salutation reading, “Hi Mrs. Pitts.”

We’re talking about the kind of thing for which delete buttons were invented. So you may wonder why I bring it to your attention, especially since acknowledging a person like this only encourages him. It’s simple, actually: He raises an interesting question that deserves an answer.

If from that you conclude (or fear) you’re about to read a stirring defense of my manly male masculinity, no. The guy is free to believe what he wishes; I really don’t care. And here, let me digress to confess that, though I refer to him using masculine pronouns, I actually don’t know if he’s a he because his notes have been anonymous. Still, I assume it’s a guy because the level of sexual insecurity the e-mails suggest strikes me as — boy, am I going to get in trouble for this — rather guy-specific.

Anyway, to get back to the point, I’m not here to argue sexuality. I just find myself intrigued by the idea that if you’re not gay, you shouldn’t care about gay rights.

The most concise answer I can give is cribbed from what a white kid said 40 or so years ago, as white college students were risking their lives to travel South and register black people to vote. Somebody asked why. He said he acted from an understanding that his freedom was bound up with the freedom of every other man.

I know it sounds cornier than Kellogg’s, but that’s pretty much how I feel.

I know also that some folks are touchy about anything seeming to equate the black civil-rights movement with the gay one. And no, gay people were not kidnapped from Gay Land and sold into slavery, nor lynched by the thousands.

On the other hand, they do know something about housing discrimination, they do know job discrimination, they do know murder for the sin of existence, they do know the denial of civil rights and they do know what it is like to be used as scapegoat and boogeyman by demagogues and political opportunists.

They know enough of what I know that I can’t ignore it. See, I have yet to learn how to segregate my moral concerns. It seems to me if I abhor intolerance, discrimination and hatred when they affect people who look like me, I must also abhor them when they affect people who do not. For that matter, I must abhor them even when they benefit me. Otherwise, what I claim as moral authority is really just self-interest in disguise.

Among the things we seem to have lost in the years since that white kid made his stand is the ability, the imagination, the willingness to put ourselves into the skin of those who are not like us.

I find it telling that Vice President Dick Cheney hews to the hard conservative line on virtually every social issue, except gay marriage. It is, of course, no coincidence that Cheney has a daughter who is a lesbian. Which tells me his position is based not on principle but, rather, on loving his daughter.

It is a fine thing to love your daughter. I would argue, however, that it is also a fine thing and in some ways, a finer thing, to love your neighbor’s daughter, no matter her sexual orientation, religion, race, creed or economic status — and to want her freedom as eagerly as you want your own.

I believe in moral coherence. And Rule No. 1 is, you cannot assert your own humanity, then turn right around and deny someone else’s.

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With center Yao Ming out because of an injured left foot, China never had a chance against the powerful United States team.

LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers scored 22 points and Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets added 18 to lead the Americans to a 119-73 win over China on Monday.

“We are always going to be ready to play. The guys are bringing a lot of energy off the bench,” said James, who thrilled the capacity crowd with several dunks on fast breaks. “We are producing on the court and taking care of business. We just had our stuff.”

It was the second consecutive drubbing of an opponent by the United States, which beat Puerto Rico by 45 points last week.

“I was happy in that we played very hard every second and we played unselfishly, and as long as we do those two things, we will continue to improve,” said U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski, better known for coaching Duke. “This team is not about individual performance. It’s about collective performance.”

The U.S. team led by 23 points at halftime and by 40 after three quarters.

“We are one of the best teams,” James said.

Meanwhile, China didn’t have its best players.

Besides Houston standout Yao, NBA veteran Wang Zhizhi sat out. Wang has a torn knee ligament.

The U.S. defense repeatedly stole the ball, and China’s players sometimes slipped and fell as they attempted to keep up with their faster opponents.

The Americans, who are preparing for the world-championship tournament that starts Aug. 19 in Japan, play Brazil in Guangzhou today.

Turiaf to play for France

Former Gonzaga standout Ronny Turiaf has been picked for France’s 12-man team at the world championship, according to a FIBA news release.

Turiaf, 23, will be a backup center. He averaged 2.0 points and seven minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers last season. Turiaf had heart surgery last summer.

France coach Claude Bergeaud said the 12th man on the roster will be either 7-footer Johan Petro, 20, of the Sonics or national-team veteran Cyril Julian, 32.

Sterling is sued

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Department of Justice sued Donald Sterling, Los Angeles Clippers owner and a real-estate mogul, for housing discrimination, claiming he refused to rent apartments to black people and families who have children.

Federal prosecutors contend Sterling, his wife, Rochelle, and their family trust refused to rent to many prospective tenants, treated them poorly and misrepresented the availability of apartments to them in Los Angeles.

The defendants also are accused of refusing to rent to black prospective tenants in Beverly Hills, as well as families with children looking to rent apartments the defendants owned or managed in Los Angeles County.

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President Clinton announced today that he had chosen the president of the Wilderness Society, George T. Frampton Jr., to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Frampton will supervise the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mr. Frampton was law clerk for Associate Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun and was a member of the Watergate special prosecution force. He has been president of the Wilderness Society since 1986.

He is one of nearly two dozen people named today by Mr. Clinton to sub-Cabinet jobs. All are subject to confirmation by the Senate, which could take weeks or months. New Yorker Selected

Harriet S. Rabb, vice dean of Columbia Law School, was selected to be general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services. She teaches courses in civil rights and is an expert on employment discrimination and housing discrimination.

Mr. Clinton named David T. Ellwood, an expert on welfare, to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for planning and evaluation.

In his 1988 book, “Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family” (Basic Books), Mr. Ellwood said “welfare, by its very nature, creates conflict and frustration and tension because it treats the symptoms of poverty, not its causes.”

President Clinton has endorsed many recommendations made in Mr. Ellwood’s book, including increasing tax credits for poor working families with children and increasing the minimum wage. Both have suggested limiting the duration of welfare.

Mr. Clinton chose two labor union lobbyists for senior jobs in his Administration. He named Jerry Klepner to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for legislation. Mr. Klepner is now director of legislation at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

And he named Geri Palast to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for congressional relations. She is director of politics and legislation at the Service Employees International Union. More Appointments

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Four Civil Court seats are being contested in New York City’s Democratic primary on Sept. 15. The winners are almost certain to prevail in November’s general election.

THE BRONX. Countywide: The countywide race for Civil Court pits Wilma Guzman, an experienced trial attorney specializing in negligence cases, against Anthony Chiofalo, a corporate attorney with scant litigation experience.

Mr. Chiofalo, who was rated ”not approved” by the City Bar Association, says he is running to offer voters a choice in the face of his opponent’s cross-endorsement by the Democratic, Republican and Liberal Parties. We share his opposition to the cross-endorsement deals that deprive residents of real elections. But our endorsement goes to the better qualified candidate, Ms. Guzman.

Second District (Mott Haven, Hunts Point, Highbridge, Morris Heights, Woodlawn, University Heights, Fordham, Morrisania, East Tremont, Bedford Park, Belmont, West Pelham Parkway and Riverdale): As a sitting Criminal Court judge presiding over the borough’s new domestic violence court, La Tia Martin has shown she has the talent, temperament and energy to emerge as a leader of the state’s judiciary. We enthusiastically endorse her bid for Civil Court over Philip Werbel, a solo practitioner with a storefront practice. BROOKLYN. Countywide: Alan Drezin boasts decades of experience in private practice and as an arbitrator in the small claims division of Civil Court. But he has circulated misleading literature suggesting he is already a judge, and says he would give the Democratic organization a big say in picking his law clerk should he be elected, raising concerns about his independence.

His opponent, Loren Baily Schiffman, is an able legal services lawyer with expertise in housing discrimination law. She showed poor judgment while in private practice a few years ago by sharing an office with a disbarred attorney. But her overall record suggests she is more likely than her opponent to be a hard-working, independent judge. We endorse Ms. Schiffman.

Fourth District (East Flatbush, East New York, Brownsville and parts of Flatbush, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant): Edward Roberts, a solo practitioner and community activist, holds the most promise for the bench by virtue of his legal experience and temperament. We prefer him over Bernadette Bayne, a former Criminal Court judge whose injudicious temperament justly cost her reappointment, and Dolores Waltrous-Joseph, a law clerk for a state Supreme Court justice.

More : query.nytimes.com

In the early morning hours, the police alert had shattered the quiet: A tall black man in a blue jacket and sneakers had assaulted a white officer, leaving him bloodied.

The radio message touched off a feverish search for the suspect through the streets of a racially mixed neighborhood in the southwest part of Yonkers, a city that has had more than its share of racial divisions. At least one black man was stopped and questioned in the vestibule of a building.

There had been a fight, but things were not what they seemed to be. The wounds that sent the officer to the hospital had been inflicted by a fellow officer, in a fistfight over who should bear the nuisance of writing a report on a burning car. The story about a black suspect was concocted to explain the injuries. Fearing Unjust Confinement

Yesterday the Yonkers Police Department dismissed two officers from the force for fabricating the assault report, and three other officers who played a part in the episode were suspended. A sixth officer had already resigned from the force. And the Westchester County District Attorney’s office is investigating the incident for the possibility of criminal violations.

But questions about the officers’ motives — and their reflex of blaming a black assailant for the injuries — are likely to haunt the force and this city for some time to come.

The case has bruised racial feelings still raw from the years of tensions over a housing-discrimination suit here. It also comes while the Rodney G. King beating in Los Angeles, another case of police abuse of power, is still fresh in the public mind.

The Yonkers Police Commissioner, Robert K. Olson, said today that he wasn’t certain that the police officers who wrote the false report evinced racism in picking a black suspect for their cover-up. Many of the residents in the officers’ southwest Yonkers precinct are black, he said.

“I wouldn’t want to specifically say it was racist,” he said in an interview. “Who knows what’s in a guy’s mind?”

Nevertheless, Robert Weber, a spokesman for Mayor Terence M. Zaleski, said that the initial incident, which occurred March 1, had set back Police Department efforts to create trust among black and Hispanic residents for the largely white 511-officer corps.

“Even if there wasn’t a racial motive, there has always been a historic level of mistrust between the police and the black community,” he said. “It’s a national problem, and this unfortunately exacerbates that problem.”

In contrast, the president of the Yonkers branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Kenneth W. Jenkins, said that while the false report was racist, the swift investigation by the police and the cooperation of the police union had prevented an “ugly incident.”

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Good guy or bad guy? Uptight or relaxed? Players’ dream or players’ nightmare?

People who have been close to Dan Reeves agree he is tough but fair, highly respected, skilled in one-on-one dealings. He is so organized, said Wade Phillips, his defensive coordinator with the Denver Broncos and now his successor as head coach there, “We would meet on when we’ll have a meeting.”

But there seems to be many sides to the Giants’ new head coach. Here are some assessments of people who have crossed his path: Born to Coach

In 1961, tipped by a Georgia Tech scout whose team needed no more quarterbacks, South Carolina recruited Reeves, a high school quarterback from Americus, Ga.

“When the other schools came after him, we thought we would lose him to Florida or Tennessee,” recalled Marvin Bass, then the coach at South Carolina. “But his dad said, ‘South Carolina was the first team to offer a scholarship, so I think you should go there.’ After a while, he was like a coach on the field, one jump ahead of everyone. We started calling plays for him and ended up letting him call them because we felt we were contaminating him.” Bass, now 73, has been an assistant coach with the Broncos for the last 11 years.

“Danny is a natural leader,” said Dick Mansperger, a former scout and vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys. “He was born to coach and I think born to coach the Giants. He was Landry’s boy from the beginning and Landry is the Giants: deeply loyal and all of those things that the Maras have built up over the years.” A Competitor

“Dan was a big help to me when he was the offensive coordinator in my last years with Dallas,” said Roger Staubach, the former Cowboy quarterback. “He was there for me when I needed someone to talk to. After a game, I would get down — I didn’t like to lose — and Dan would come over and tell me that I couldn’t do everything myself. Then, he would come over to my house and watch film with me on Monday and help me get over a loss. We both wanted to win with a passion.”

Clarence Kay, Broncos tight end: “I stood next to Dan for nine years on the sidelines and I’ve never seen a guy so competitive. He’s good for 60 minutes.” A Conscience

Kay, who had a cocaine and alcohol problem, said: “Dan could have slam-dunked me and he didn’t. About two years ago, at practice one day, I was dropping some balls, and he yelled, ‘Clarence, you sure I don’t need to go in and have you tested?’ We’d been a long way together, and I just cracked up. I turned around and said, ‘Don’t think so, coach. Maybe you coaches need to be tested.’ This was in front of everybody. Some people might have been insulted, but I knew where he was coming from the minute he opened his mouth. He’s genuine.”

Mel Renfro, a former cornerback with the Cowboys, said: “When I brought a civil suit against the city of Dallas for housing discrimination in ‘68 or ‘69, I was told not to do it by the organization. I told them it was not the first time; it was the fourth or fifth time. Some players weren’t supportive, but Danny made it clear that he was my friend.”

“He saved Duane Thomas,” Bob Hayes, the former Cowboy wide receiver, said of Reeves’s relationship with the troubled Dallas running back who became a Super Bowl hero. “When Duane had all of the problems, Dan was the only one who could reach him. He talked about Duane to Duane and that’s what made the difference.

“He was a white boy from Americus, from the deep South, but the black players, we looked at him different than other white boys.”

Nick Nicolau, former offensive backfield coach with the Broncos, said: “He holds a special spot in my heart because he gave me a job when I had none. I had spent 22 years trying to become a pro coach and finally landed a job with the Saints in 1980. Those were the Aint’s, the team that couldn’t win, and we were all fired that year. I had four kids in college and two in parochial school and no job. Dan gave me a temporary job, and for six months my wife, the two youngest kids and I lived out of suitcases. If he didn’t save my life then, I wouldn’t be in the league now. After that season, he gave me a full-time job. I stayed for seven years.

More : query.nytimes.com

The Clinton Administration, granting a wish long held by consumer groups and housing activists, has decided to begin the widespread use of undercover agents to test whether mortgage lenders are illegally discriminating among borrowers.

Advocates of tough enforcement of the fair housing and lending laws have long called for the use of testers. But in the past, Federal banking authorities have resisted. Bankers strongly oppose the use of testers, calling the tool unreliable.

Testing works like this: regulators send a number of supposed loan applicants into a bank office to ask about mortgages, and attempt to judge whether bank officials treat them all the same regardless of race, gender, religion and the like.

“The question is not whether we use testers, but how,” Eugene Ludwig, the Comptroller of the Currency, said today as he announced a pilot program by his office to develop the new method of enforcing lending laws. The office of the comptroller regulates thousands of banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, another bank regulator, ordered its staff today to recommend by June whether it, too, should begin using testers and strengthen its antidiscrimination activities.

And the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in a notice of proposed new rules issued in April, said it wanted to embark on its own program of using fair housing testers to detect credit discrimination, even though a pilot program the agency set up a year ago to explore the method has not yet begun to operate.

Taken together, the various initiatives clearly demonstrate that senior Clinton Administration regulators, unlike those of the Republican era, believe in testing programs.

“It is very exciting,” said Deepak Bhargava, legislative director for Acorn, a lobbying group that focuses on housing and urban development issues. “It is a real, marked departure from the previous Administration’s posture toward lending discrimination.”

In March, before Mr. Ludwig was confirmed as one of the Clinton Administration’s top banking officials, his predecessor had described several steps the comptroller’s office planned to take to counter mortgage discrimination. But the use of testers was not in the plan at that time, an omission that drew criticism from consumer groups.

Demands for stronger measures have been fueled during the last year by a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and an investigation in Atlanta by the Justice Department. Both found patterns of loan discrimination.

Although officials said the Administration had firmly committed itself to using testers, it will take months to begin the work. Testers must be hired and trained, and the procedures must be carefully worked out. After a trial period, the use of testers is expected to broaden considerably. Used at Local Level

The kind of testing now being aimed at banks has commonly been used by state or local agencies to detect unfair housing practices, as when landlords or real estate agents turn away black applicants for rental apartments, then accept white applicants. For more than five years, the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided grants to private groups around the country to pay for testers who operate in pairs to detect housing discrimination. The approach has led to many enforcement actions, either when the private groups themselves sue violators of fair housing laws, or when they refer the cases to H.U.D., which can impose civil monetary penalties. The Justice Department in 1992 began to conduct similar tests.

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A series of free neighborhood classes is being offered through Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management to help residents prepare for disasters or unexpected emergencies. It’s a new program called Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare, or SNAP.

Classes, which are open to the public, are scheduled in neighborhoods throughout the city. Information about the SNAP program and scheduled classes is online at www.seattle.gov/emergency.

Black-history salute

As part of Seattle’s celebration of Black History Month, the City Council, the Seattle Municipal Archives and the Office of the City Clerk will host a program Tuesday featuring the Rev. Samuel McKinney, retired pastor of one of Seattle’s oldest and largest African-American churches, Mount Zion Baptist Church. He will talk about his work as a leader in the local campaign to end housing discrimination.

The struggle to end housing discrimination, an active campaign through the late 1960s, involved many local organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality and the Central Area Committee on Civil Rights. McKinney was a key figure in the struggle, which included sit-ins, marches and rallies.

The program will be at noon in the first-floor Bertha Knight Landes Room at Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave.

Getting around

Construction work near the Burke-Gilman Trail will disrupt trail use for pedestrians and bicyclists between Northeast 125th Street and Northeast 135th Street for about 10 days, starting today. The paved trail will be fenced off. But the unpaved running and walking path along the east side of the trail will be open for use. Signs are posted to direct bicyclists to dismount and walk their bikes through this section of the trail.

More : seattletimes.nwsource.com

In a season that lots of Americans associate with “God and country,” the head of the Church Council of Greater Seattle recently marked Independence Day by insisting that symbols of the two remain separate — for the good of both.

“After all these years of secrecy, I’m now ready to make a confession: I am a serial flag remover,” the Rev. Sandy Brown, executive director, wrote in July’s edition of The Source, the council’s newspaper.

“I’ve removed the American flag not just from one church I served as pastor, but from all three,” wrote Brown.

Such a confession is risky in today’s America, even done from this corner of the Left Coast.

Brown could find himself in a shout-a-thon on the Fox News Channel, which regularly wraps Bush administration policies in the aforementioned flag.

His remarks could make it onto the FreeRepublic.com Web site, home of hate e-mails ranting against a “Godless” nation.

Still, there are powerful, reasonable arguments for keeping separate the flag and the cross, or other religious symbols.

A church sanctuary is a place for the worship of God. The country is not God. We do not have a civil religion in America and have resisted — to date — those who would impose their religious precepts as civil law.

Washington, D.C., has great monuments where words convey this country’s values.

One is the Lincoln Memorial. Lesser known is the Jefferson Memorial: Our third president was a visionary, and not just in sending Lewis and Clark on their journey of discovery.

“Almighty God hath created the mind free,” Jefferson is quoted on its walls. “All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens are a departure from the Holy Author of our religion. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinion in manners of religion.”

How well the “Holy Author” has been served by these words.

Between 40 and 45 percent of Americans regularly visit a place of worship. In Britain, which has a state church, fewer than 1 million of more than 50 million regularly attend services in the Anglican Church.

In Paris, I went to a service at Notre Dame Cathedral to mark the 59th anniversary of the City of Light’s liberation from Nazi occupation. Attendance was less than normal turnout at the 5:30 Sunday Mass at St. James Cathedral in “secular” Seattle.

“That’s one blessing of separation of church and state,” said Brown. “Freedom from established religion has encouraged freedom of religious expression. It has been essential for us.”

Religious expression has helped assure that all our people share those rights and liberties extolled by Jefferson.

In the 1960s, a church-based civil rights movement broke the grip of Jim Crow segregation in the Deep South. Locally, the Church Council cut its teeth in the long, ultimately successful campaign against housing discrimination and redlining.

Sadly, however, our so-called mainline churches have lived maybe too long in the 1960s.

Vietnam produced a lasting, almost automatic opposition to U.S. military intervention overseas. Along with that has come a cool revisionism toward expressions of American patriotism.

The United Church of Christ hymnal has turned out an awful, politically correct, de-nationalized version of “America the Beautiful.”

In church after 9/11, I heard a similar butchering of “O God Our Help in Ages Past,” the hymn sung when FDR took office in the Great Depression and when the United States and Britain pledged the destruction of Nazi tyranny.

Brown wrote in The Source that he was moved by an encounter with a German exchange student, who objected to seeing an American flag in his church sanctuary.

The student professed that Uncle Sam was asserting itself around the world “like a neo-Roman empire, with no opposing force large enough to hold it accountable.”

Sandy Brown is a lot more sensible than a predecessor who went gooey over Fidel Castro in The Source. But he does buy into the empire argument.

“We have been quiet to the building of an empire and this is deeply resented overseas,” he said.

Ex-President George H.W. Bush was set off in 2003 when his church’s presiding bishop, the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold, served up a big helping of liberal guilt.

“I’d like to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States,” Griswold said

That’s bullpucky, bishop!

Even in France, relentlessly opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I found people cherishing the United States as a friend even while disliking its president.

My parish is involved in the Church Council’s own St. Petersburg-Seattle sister church program. We work with St. Nicholas Cathedral in Pavlovsk, a church confiscated under Stalin and used to repair Red Army tanks. With help from U.S. churchgoers, the building and congregation are being lovingly restored.

During past travels I’ve met a priest in Slovakia forbidden to practice his vocation by communist authorities and an evangelical pastor in East Berlin threatened with prison if he taught religion to children.

Such experiences leave me unapologetic, and bring on pride come Independence Day.

More : seattlepi.nwsource.com