WASHINGTON: 'Sleeper issues' to haunt Obama

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By Adrienne T. Washington

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Ask Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, about the future of civil and human rights under the administration of President-elect Barack Obama, and he will not focus on the "structural inequality based on race and discrimination" regarding voting, or employment or even the criminal justice system.

Rather, the two sleeper civil rights issues "just beneath the surface" during the presidential campaign that "will present the greatest challenges for the Obama administration in its first term," Mr. Henderson predicts, are public education and immigration reform.

"The de facto segregation [in American society] is greatly reduced, but fundamental structural inequities inherent [in certain institutions] still produce unfair results," Mr. Henderson said last week during a meeting in the District of the Trotter Group of black columnists (www.trottergroup.org).

"They need to demonstrate that government can work again," the veteran watchdog and lobbyist said of the next administration. And, minority citizens "need to have general basic tools to begin with that they are denied."

In public education, for example, resources often are not distributed equally among urban, rural and suburban school districts, so Mr. Henderson proposes increased federal government involvement and oversight; not necessarily funding.

"Education has to be at the top of the list for anyone going forward to achieve equality," Mr. Henderson said. He suggested that progressive groups join forces to lobby for substantive reforms.

An even bigger "sleeper issue" confronting the Obama administration will be immigration reform. Mr. Henderson said "immigration is the new third rail" because "it affects every domestic policy" from providing health care to "education for all English-language learners," who now represent 20 percent of the population.

"If Obama is to be re-elected, he will have to fulfill his promises to African-Americans and Latinos," he said. For example, job displacement and the so-called "witch hunt for immigrants" present an immediate test.

Here Mr. Henderson cited an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on 600 immigrants who were turned in by a white union worker fearful of losing his job. A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center also indicates that hate crimes targeting Latinos increased again in 2007, capping a 40 percent rise in the four years since 2003, based on FBI statistics.