Profile: Linda Chavez
— -- Linda Chavez has been one of the most powerful Hispanic American voices in politics — and one of the most controversial.
During the Reagan administration she was the civil rights administrator and an outspoken critic of affirmative action and Spanish language classes.
A former Democrat and union member, Chavez’s tenure asdirector of the commission — which advises the president andCongress — alienated liberals in Congress and civil rights groupsby reversing established agency positions.
But, it made her a darling of conservatives. Under herleadership, for example, the commission opposed the use of quotasto help women and minorities make up for past discrimination.
“Affirmative action creates problems with standards andincreases racial friction,” Chavez, the product of a father withroots in Spain and a mother whose ancestors crossed over fromEngland and Ireland, told USA Today in 1995. “And it’s simply not just.
She was an adviser to Ron K. Unz, the Silicon Valley millionaire who financially backed Proposition 227, the successful California ballot initiative that requires the repeal of bilingual education in California.
After a failed 1986 Senate campaign in Maryland, she became the president of U.S. English, a private non-profit organization lobbying to make English the official national language. In late 1988 she resigned from U.S. English; her reasoning was that she could not work with its founder John Tanton, who, in Chavez’s estimation, had demonstrated an “anti-Hispanic” and “anti-Catholic” bias.
Opposition From Labor
She believes minority groups can succeed without special help from the government. As labor secretary, Chavez says she will“vigorously enforce” regulations to guarantee that federalcontractors do not discriminate. And it’s that pledge, from anoutspoken opponent of affirmative action, that alarms many of thosewho recall her stormy tenure as a former head of the U.S.Commission on Civil Rights.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called it “an insult to Americanworking men and women to put an avowed opponent of the most basicworkers’ rights” in charge of enforcing labor laws. “Taken together with the nominations of John Ashcroft and GaleNorton, the tapping of Chavez sounds a noisy alarm aboutPresident-elect Bush’s intended stewardship of civil rights,women’s rights, workers’ rights and the environment,” Sweeney said in a statement.
Business groups praised her selection by President-elect George W. Bush.
“I’m very high on her public policy experience, herintellectual depth and her commitment to the kind of work forceopportunity that I think will be necessary in the tight labormarkets we’ll face in the 21st century,” said Jerry Jasinowski,the National Association of Manufacturers president.
“I think she’ll be a great spokesman on those kinds ofissues,” he said.
Out of the Barrio Author
A syndicated columnist and author who was Bush’s campaignadviser on immigration, Chavez recalled her parentsand the long hours they worked as a house painter and inrestaurants and department stores when she was growing up.
“If I am confirmed as secretary of labor, I intend to keepfaith with the men and the women who still work at jobs likethose my parents held,” Chavez said after Bush introduced herto the media in Austin.
Chavez is president of the Washington-based Center forEqual Opportunity, a conservativethink tank that researches race, ethnicity and assimilation issues and has done studies supporting itsposition against affirmative action programs. She is onthe board of the American Civil Rights Union, which bills itself as a “constructive alternative” to the American CivilLiberties Union.
She is the author of Out of the Barrio: Toward a NewPolitics of Hispanic Assimilation, published in 1991.
She was editor of the American Federation of Teachers’quarterly journal American Educator from 1977 to 1983, and alsoserved as an assistant to AFT president Al Shanker and wasassistant director of legislation for the teachers union.
Married and the mother of three sons, Chavez received abachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado.
Born in Albuquerque, N.M., Chavez was in the fourth grade whenher family moved to Denver. She met her husband, ChristopherGersten, while attending the University of Colorado. Gersten, whois Jewish, heads the Institute for Religious Values.