 He graduated from Harvard College in 1968, after which he worked at the Nixon White House helping to draft speeches on environmentalism, affordable housing, and women's issues.In his youth, he was a member of the politically moderate Ripon Society.After attending law school at the University of Chicago, he worked for law firm Sidley & Austin, the Consolidated Rail Corporation, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he taught that corporations "cannot" be racist because that would put them at a competitive disadvantage, if they were not hiring the best personnel regardless of race, and would therefore go out of business.