Randall Tobias’ tenure as administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) turned out to be rather embarrassing for the president. Tobias not only pushed an ineffective “abstinence-only” policy, drawing the ire of public health officials around the world, but he also had an unfortunate association with a DC “escort service,” which he used for “massages.”
With Tobias having resigned, the Bush White House was given an opportunity to make a more reasonable, sensible, consensus choice for USAID. Instead the president nominated Henrietta Holsman Fore, who also takes over as acting administrator pending Senate confirmation.
The confirmation hearings should be interesting. For example, she might have trouble explaining a speech she gave at Wellesley University in 1987. Here’s how a Feb. 12, 1987 New York Times article covered that speech:
A Wellesley College trustee’s remark that blacks preferred pushing drugs to working in a factory has precipitated an emotional debate on this bucolic campus already grappling with charges of racial insensitivity
The trustee, Henrietta Holsman, a 1970 graduate of Wellesley who runs a manufacturing concern in Los Angeles, resigned from the board last weekend after apologizing for her comments, which also cast aspersions on the work ethic of Hispanic and white employees. But in a letter to the college newspaper, Ms. Holsman reiterated her statement that she had trouble keeping black assembly-line workers from going “back to the street to earn more money” selling drugs.
In her lecture, Ms. Holsman also said she had found Hispanic workers to be lazy, white workers resentful of having to work with machines, and Asians, while very productive, likely to move on to professional or management jobs.
Granted, these remarks, while obviously offensive, were 20 years ago. Perhaps she’s shown a greater commitment to, and respect for, diversity since then?
Perhaps not.
In a July 13, 2005 letter, Fore promised Obama that she “would work with the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in identifying the best practices that can be used to strengthen diversity in the State Department” [AP, 7/19/05]
But as Raw Story reports, CBC members confirm that the committee has not had any contact with Fore in the past two years. Although Fore met with Latino legislators on two occasions, the content of the meetings was not disclosed. Additionally, the “State Department’s own accountability reports show little change in the make up of the workforce since Fore took over in 2005.”
Another step backwards for the Bush administration and the GOP on race relations.