Kasich diversity comment upsets civil-rights group

CLEVELAND - New Ohio Gov. John Kasich's comments to a newspaper about the lack of racial diversity in his cabinet are not sitting well with the Cleveland chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The civil-rights group said it would refuse a proclamation from the governor and told his minority representative, Lynn Stevens, not to attend its Martin Luther King Jr. Gala in Cleveland on Friday.

In an article the previous day, Kasich told The Plain Dealer he wanted to put together "the best possible team" and didn't focus on such "metrics" as race or age. The newspaper reported that the 20 cabinet appointees Kasich has made so far are white.

"I want the best possible team I can get, and, hopefully, we will be in a position that we are fully diverse as we go forward," Kasich said. "But I can't say I need to find somebody to fit this metric, not when I am trying to get a state that is in deep trouble out of trouble."

Kasich was expected to send Stevens to the gala because he couldn't make it, but his comments prompted the civil-rights group to say the governor should not send a representative to the event, SCLC officials said.

The president of the SCLC's Cleveland chapter, the Rev. E. Theophilus Caviness, said at the gala that the governor's view is disappointing.

"We need inclusion, not exclusion," Caviness said.

He and the head of the NAACP's Cleveland chapter, Stanley Miller, said they'd be willing to talk with Kasich about his administration's diversity.

"We want to create bridges," Miller said. "And he needs everyone's help."

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told the newspaper in an e-mail that the administration respects the chapter's decision. State officials look forward to SCLC members meeting Stevens and "to working closely with the SCLC in the future on the issues that matter to all of us," he wrote.