186186 Chapter 5 | Civil RightsThe President
The mid-century civil rights movement benefited greatly from presidential action.
President Truman integrated the armed services in 1948, and President Eisenhower used
the National Guard to enforce a court order to integrate Central High School in Little
Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Executive orders by President Kennedy in 1961 and President
Johnson in 1965 established affirmative action, and in 1969 Richard Nixon expanded the
“goals and numerical ranges” for hiring minorities in the federal government.
The most significant unilateral action taken by a president in the area of civil
rights for gays and lesbians was President Clinton’s effort to end the ban on gays in
the military. Clinton was surprised by the strength of the opposition to his plan, so he
ended up crafting a compromise policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which pleased no one.
Under this policy, the military would stop actively searching for and discharging gays
from the military ranks, and recruits would not need to reveal their sexual orientation.
But if the military did find out (without conducting an investigation) that a person was
gay, he or she still could be disciplined or discharged.
During the 2008 campaign, President Obama promised to repeal “don’t ask, don’t
tell.” Republican filibusters stopped several attempts to change the policy in 2010, but
Congress finally passed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act in December 2010 and
it went into effect on September 20, 2011. Minutes after the new policy was in place,
navy lieutenant Gary Ross and his longtime partner were married in Vermont and
Ross became the first openly gay married person in the military.^97 President Obama
extended the policy to include transgender service members, but President Trump
reversed that policy, tweeting that “the United States Government will not accept or
allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” However,
an injunction against the ban was ordered by a federal judge, who said that lawsuits
against the ban have a strong chance of prevailing and that the ban “does not appear to
be supported by any facts.”^98 In March 2018, Trump issued a new executive order with
essentially the same ban (but with a version of “don’t ask, don’t tell”), but that order was
also struck down by a federal judge, pending a full trial.^99
Recent presidential candidates have generally made civil rights policy a low priority,
which means that it is less likely that significant and dramatic change will come from
unilateral action by the president. Instead, attention to civil rights concerns in the
executive branch has primarily been in two areas since 1993: racial diversity in presidential
appointments and use of the bully pulpit to promote racial concerns and interests.
President Bill Clinton was active in both areas. In 1992, as a candidate, Clinton
promised a government that “looks like America.” His cabinet, subcabinet, and
judicial appointments achieved the greatest gender and racial balance
of any in history. Fourteen percent of Clinton’s first-year presidential
appointments were African American (compared with 12 percent of the
country’s population in 1992), 6 percent were Latino (compared with
9.5 percent of the country’s population), and the percentages of Asian
Americans and Native Americans who were appointed were identical to
their proportions in the population. Clinton delivered an administration
that “looked like us.” And even though the proportion of women
appointees—27 percent—was well short of the proportion of women in the
population, it still was a record high. Clinton also used the bully pulpit to
advocate a civil rights agenda. Most significant was his effort to promote a
“National Conversation on Race,” which helped focus national attention
on many of the problems faced by minorities.
President George W. Bush did not achieve the same level of diversity
in his appointments as Clinton did, but his administration was moreYou do not take a person who,
for years, has been hobbled by
chains and liberate him, bring
him up to the starting line of a
race and then say “you are free
to compete with all the others,”
and still just believe that you
have been completely fair.—President Lyndon Johnson on
affirmative actionPresident Trump reversed the
Obama-era policy of allowing
transgender people to serve in the
military, but this ban is currently being
challenged in court. Here, transgender
naval officer Taryn McLean accepts
a Military Outstanding Volunteer
Service Medal.Full_06_APT_64431_ch05_148-197.indd 186 16/11/18 1:31 PM