A columnist with the Los Angeles Times wrote last month that Elder “opposes every single public policy idea that’s supported by Black people to help Black people” and labeled him “the Black face of white supremacy.” A political commentator and author who has occasionally found himself on the opposite side of the debate stage from Elder over the years, Hutchinson said by email that “no amount of pandering by Elder to (Black voters) will up his Black support.” In the early 1970s, Brown had only recently introduced an affirmative action program — something that Elder has said he benefited from — and the campus was a hotbed of civil rights activism, recalls Vincent Thomas, who was a year ahead of Elder and was friendly with Elder’s roommate.