But the Howard students didn't buy the rationale for having Atwater on the board. They argued that Atwater's role in Bush's recent campaign, which many believe played on white racist fears, was more important than the money Atwater could attract to Howard from fellow Republicans. The $179 million in federal funds that Howard received this year could not obscure Atwater's masterminding of a dirty campaign which included the racially-tinged Willie Horton issue.

The students were right calling for Atwater's resignation. Though most Republicans are hardly bigoted, the Republican Party has been attracting an increasing number of white racists as they flee the Democratic Party. The results of this flight were recently demonstrated when Ex-Klansman and Nazi David Duke was elected to the Louisiania state legislature as a Republican. Although Atwater and the party's executive committee voted to censure him, it's telling that Duke says he feels at home in the party.

Because it's been so conducive to whites like Duke, the Republican Party has garnered little backing among the Black community, a group which has given no more than 12 percent of its votes to recent Republican presidential candidates. As head of the G.O.P., Atwater should not hold a position from which he could make important policy decisions affecting people who have consistently rejected the ideas for which both he and his party stand.

BUT the setback should not overshadow the importance and possible benefits of Atwater's labors. Blacks can gain from Atwater's efforts if they stop voting as a block and make both parties work to earn their votes. As it now stands, Democrats can virtually take Black votes for granted. With Republican competition for upper- and middle class Blacks, Democrats will have to become more responsive to Black needs.

And all Americans stand to gain from the achievement of a well-integrated polity. Such a goal is important for a country which purports to grant equal protection to all races, religions and creeds.

Though Atwater claims the country has already "entered into a post-civil rights era; civil rights are not the driving force," racial politics are still with us. As demonstrated by the continuing southern white switch to the Republican Party and the heavy Black vote for civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, civil rights are still an issue.

But such politics must end before this country will ever achieve the non-discriminatory, color-blind society to which the Constitution aspires. If Lee Atwater can help bring us closer to such a society by showing all that their interests transcend color, the more power to him. Strike up the band.