CLINTON DUMPS GUINIER AMID NEW CRITICISM.(MAIN)

Byline: RUTH MARCUS - Washington Post

President Clinton announced Thursday night that he was withdrawing his nomination of law professor Lani Guinier to head the Justice Department's civil rights division because he could not defend her views on voting rights.

Clinton looked stricken as he appeared in the White House briefing room at 9 p.m. following a 75-minute session with Guinier, a friend for 20 years. He called the session "one of the most difficult meetings I ever had in my life."

The President said he had not read Guinier's legal writings before he nominated her and said he would not have made the nomination had he done so. He said his staff had not flagged him about the "intense controversy" her law review articles would spark and the "ordeal," as he phrased it, that Guinier would undergo as a result.

Having studied her …