NATION/WORLD .McDougal refuses to testify, held in contempt of court The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 5,.1996-- 9A LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Taking dead aim at President Clinton, Whitewater prosecutors had Susan McDougal held in contempt yesterday for refusing to say in front of a grand jury whether the president lied at her trial. If Mrs. McDougal, the president's former Whitewater partner, does not answer questions by Monday, she could be sent to jail for up to 18 months. U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright held Mrs. McDougal in con- tempt after prosecutor W. Ray Jahn called her a "recalcitrant witness" and said that she had violated the judge's order to testify. Mrs. McDougal said a Whitewater prosecutor had asked her whether Clinton knew anything about a fraud- ulent $300,000 loan, some of which went toward the purchase of land for the Whitewater venture. A prosecutor also asked, she said, "To your knowledge, did William Jefferson Clinton testify truthfully before your trial?" In a statement Mrs. McDougal read to the court, she said she didn't want to testify because she could be charged with perjury if her truthful testimony was inconsistent with that of other wit- nesses or conflicted with prosecutors' perception of the truth. Also, she argued, she should not be compelled to answer the questions of Whitewater prosecutors in a proceed- ing closed even to her lawyers. Grand jury proceedings are routinely closed to defense attorneys. "Some of her arguments are inter- esting but they're not the law," the judge said. The White House would have no comment, said Mark Fabiani, a special associate counsel to the president. Mrs. McDougal and her former husband, Jim, were partners with Clinton and his wife in the Whitewater development project from 1978 until shortly before Clinton was elected president in 1992. The McDougals, along with former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, were convicted May 28 on bank fraud and related charges. Mrs. McDougal was sentenced to two years in prison in connection with a $300,000 loan she received from David Hale, who once accused Clinton of pressuring him to make the loan. The McDougals used $25,000 of the loan as a down payment on land bought for the Whitewater project. In videotaped testimony played to jurors May 9, Clinton said he knew nothing about the loan or the land deal. Yesterday, Mrs. McDougal and her lawyer, Bobby McDaniel, renewed charges that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr had targeted her as a means of bringing Clinton down. "Susan has stood up to them and she will continue to stand up to them," McDaniel said. "The independent counsel has an agenda. They don't care about Susan McDougal being in jail. They want Bill and Hillary Clinton." Mrs. McDougal must report on Sept. 30 to begin serving her Whitewater prison sentence. The judge will decide whether any jail time imposed for contempt will be added to her prison term or served at the same time. Susan McDougal, middle, walks with her attorney, Bobby McDaniel and Jennifer Horan into the federal courthouse yesterday. McDougal was found in contempt of court after refusing to testify to a special federal grand Jury investigating Whitewater. California wrestles with affirmative action Los Angeles Tunes The strength of democracy is also its .veakness. Yes, Americans get to vote on important matters, or at least some of the important matters and for that they stand ready to fight. But also, they find themselves obliged to vote on questions that make them uncom- fortable, where they must take sides against their own mixed feelings, knowing their votes will impose a con- sensus when none, in fact, exists. And against that, there is no way or will to *ght at all. As Oscar Wilde, ever the cynic, once put it: "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people." In November, Californians will choose, as it were, between fairness of opportunity and equality of opportuni- ty in the workings of state and local government. Or is it the other way around, equality vs. fairness? This is not idle word play with the " itizen ballot initiative Proposition 209, the latest hot spillover from the caldron of race and gender politics in California. On Nov. 5, Proposition 209 will demand a decision on a subject where basic laws of the land are contradicto- ry and their history veiled, where judi- cial direction is indecisive and policy implementation is uneven, where an entire generation has lived with some- thing and still cannot agree what it is. Proposition 209 is about affirmative action. It's about affirmative action preferences for blacks and Latinos, American Indians and women, but only those working for the government - or seeking government contracts or competing for admission to college. Affirmative action for that slice of the population would be outlawed by amendment to the state constitution with passage of the initiative. But Proposition 209 also is about the nature of a fair society, America's grand stereotype of itself and a 35-year quest to right hundreds of years of social wrongs. It's about getting a break in a society where demand exceeds supply when it comes to opportunity. So in nine weeks, Californians will have to choose their ground. Yes or no. Both sides in this campaign official- ly claim allegiance to the founding belief that equality is an essential aim of society. Per the Civil Rights Act, portions of government contracts were set aside for disadvantaged groups. Colleges and universities began to award extra points toward admission based on race. Government agencies that failed to diversify their work forces were ordered by courts to do so. All the while, of course, everyone denied that any of this was a "quota," that overloaded buzz word. The extra consideration had undeni- able logic. But the new rules, by avoid- ing quotas, created a vagueness that could be aggravating. Some old timers at the table felt they were losing too much, while some newcomers believed they were gaining their share too slowly. Through the years, those who felt aggrieved by affirmative action fought back on grounds of "reverse discrimi- nation" and were successful in limit- ing, but surely not eliminating, race and gender as deciding factors in gov- ernment hiring, contracts and educa- tional admissions. In 1972 and again in 1973, a white man named Allan Bakke was denied admission to the University of California medical school at Davis. He sued, complaining that 16 of 100 open- ings in each class were unfairly set aside for ethnic minorities. The U.S. Supreme Court split 5-4 in ordering Bakke admitted. But at the same time the court held that race could be taken into account for admissions. In the 1990s, the challenges to affir- mative action gained strength from the confluence of two powerful social cur- rents - the new economic anxiety that is now short-handed to the term "downsizing," and the growing influ- ence of conservatives and their ideolo- gy of individualism. DEDICATED EXCLUSIVELY TO EXCELLENCE IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER, L.L.P. will be conducting on-campus interviews on Friday, September 20, 1996 As one of the largest intellectual property firms in the world, we offer a diverse practice in patent, trademark, and copyright law and in complex litigation conducted throughout the United States. We hope to add to our experience and depth of practice. We look forward to meeting with you. awin u e m