Commission holds mtg. on gov't policy

The Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community is examining affirmative action, campaign reform and immigration during its second meeting this week. The Commission -- which was established by University President Judith Rodin and consists of 47 leading intellectuals -- is discussing how governmental policies and the intrusion of mass market values and incentives into areas of social, cultural and political life have affected the tone, form and content of public culture. Bestselling author Kevin Phillips gave the keynote address yesterday. Phillips has written Boiling Point: Republicans, Democrats and the Decline of Middle Class Prosperity, and The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath and is considered a forecaster of political and economic trends. His latest book, entitled Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics, examines America's political, economic and global role in the 1990s. The Commission focused on incivility and extremism in politics and culture at its first meeting in December. Rodin explained that the Commission is examining affirmative action, campaign reform and immigration because these issues exemplify the problems of intolerance, failure of leadership and community fragmentation which emerged from the first session. This weeks discussions on affirmative action are being led by Christopher Edley Jr. -- author of Not All Black and White: Affirmative Action, Race and American Values and a leader in the Clinton administration's review of affirmative action. Former Washington Post reporter Paul Taylor will lead the campaign reform discussion. Taylor left the Post in January 1996 to establish a campaign reform organization called the Free TV for Straight Talk Coalition. Richard Rodriguez -- author of Hunger of Memory and Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father -- will head the immigration discussion. Rodriguez is also an essayist for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Harper's Magazine, U.S. News and World Report and the Sunday opinion page of the Los Angeles Times. Rodin said that over the next two years, "it is our expectation that [the Penn National Commission] will generate and share broadly a body of ideas that will help to foster a more reasoned and reasonable public discourse within a more robust and diverse public culture." Future meetings are scheduled for December 1997 in Washington, D.C., June 1998 in Chicago and December 1998 in Los Angeles. The group will return to Philadelphia for its final meeting in June 1999. Prominent members of the Commission include journalist Calvin Trillin, sociologist William Julius Wilson, U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), Annenberg School Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy, former Harvard President Derek Bok and University of Chicago Ethics Professor Jean Bethke-Elshtain.