As CEOs, Bush nominees rebuffed reparations proposals
WASHINGTON (AP) – As corporate executives, President Bush’s nominees for Treasury secretary and Securities and Exchange Commission chairman personally approved public statements rebuffing efforts to collect financial restitution from their companies for descendants of African-American slaves. As head of CSX railroad, Treasury Secretary-designate John Snow signed off on a press release last year after his company was sued for reparations. “Courtrooms are not the proper place to address” the issue, said the statement by the largest railroad on the East Coast.
It called slavery a “tragic chapter in our nation’s history” but said it “cannot be attributed to any single company or industry.”
William Donaldson, Bush’s choice to run the SEC, approved a statement in 2000 as head of Aetna insurance that gave an unprecedented apology for the company’s 19th-century role in slavery. The statement added that “beyond our apology no further actions are required.” Aetna was sued last year for reparations.
With the Trent Lott race controversy still fresh in the public’s mind, private attorneys for African-Americans suing 17 railroads, insurers, financial institutions and tobacco companies for slave reparations are highlighting Snow’s and Donaldson’s roles as they prepare for Senate confirmation hearings this month.
The Snow and Donaldson appointments reveal “stubborn and pervasive disregard of the historical role played by enslaved African-Americans in building the financial wealth of our country and the monumental debt that remains unpaid,” said Diane Sammons, one of the attorneys bringing the lawsuits.
The White House declined to discuss specifics of the two cases, saying only that both companies headed by its nominees “have expressed their regrets over this particular time in the nation’s history.”
Democrats and civil rights activists are questioning the nominations.
“I am shocked that the Bush administration was not aware of how sensitive this issue is, especially after the contretemps over Senator Lott and his insensitivities,” said Mary Frances Berry, the Democratic chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and a Bush White House critic.
The office of Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., noted that as SEC chairman, Donaldson may have to decide whether corporations must report to the government on their past involvement in slavery, creating a potential conflict of interest.
Bill Fletcher Jr., president of TransAfrica Forum, said the two nominees “treat history as if it’s an abstraction.”
Fletcher, whose group is focused on the issue of slave reparations internationally, said countries dealing with the United States “are going to be skeptical of the ability of such a person to understand their situations.”
The statements were issued in the face of efforts to collect money from the companies and were not designed to be complete representations of the nominees’ views on race.
The companies point to their records in philanthropy and in promoting diversity in the workplace as signs of their commitment to African-Americans.
Aetna says it has invested more than $36 million over the past two decades in the African-American community for health, education and economic development.
The statements arose from an effort in the black community to call corporate America to account for its past involvement in slavery.
In the case against CSX, the recent lawsuits note that slave labor built some of the lines that are now part of the railroad.
Regarding Aetna, the lawsuits cite its sale of policies to slave owners on the lives of their slaves shortly after the insurance company was founded in 1853.
The lawsuits, consolidated in federal court in Chicago, face seemingly insurmountable hurdles, says one legal expert.
“I think it’s impossible for the cases to succeed unless Congress changes the law to facilitate these kinds of claims, and even then, they would be difficult to sustain,” said Yale University law professor Peter Schuck. “They would have to change the statute of limitations and the standards of proof.”
CSX spokesman Adam Hollingsworth said Snow “approved the company’s statement and stands behind the company’s position.”
At Aetna, Donaldson had just taken over as president and chief executive when he approved an unprecedented public apology on March 10, 2000, in response to a wire service story saying the insurer was considering paying restitution on behalf of slave descendants.
Aetna’s statement ruled out such payments, stating that “beyond our apology, no further actions are required” in view of the company’s “numerous philanthropic and workplace diversity initiatives.”
Aetna’s statement stemmed from its discussions with Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a law school graduate who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.
The same day as Aetna’s apology, Farmer-Paellmann issued a statement saying she was “disappointed that Aetna has changed its mind about paying restitution.”