December 19, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN OUTREACH MEETING
2:43 P.M. EST
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Subject: 1997-12-19 Complete Transcript of Race Meeting
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release December 19, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN OUTREACH MEETING
The Oval Office
2:43 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: First, let me thank you for coming in
what must be a busy time for all of you. What I think may be the
most productive thing to do, although Governor Kean, since --
(inaudible) -- may interject something here. I think what I'd like
to do, to begin is just to hear from you. I'd like to -- on the
question of, do you believe that race still matters in America and is
still a problem in some ways. And if so, instead of our getting into
a big fight about affirmative action -- although if you want to
discuss it, we can -- what bothers me is that even I, who think it
works in some ways, believe it works only when people -- it works
predominantly for people who are at least in a position for it work.
A lot of the people that I care most about are totally unaffected by
it one way or the other.
So what I'd like to talk about today is that I thought
that we could at least begin by just getting a feel for where you are
and if you thinks it's still a problem, and if so, what do you think
we ought to do about it. And if you want to talk about affirmative
action -- (inaudible) -- but I'm happy to do that.
MR. CONNERLY: I appreciate very much so to be here, and
somewhat ironical that, after raising and giving -- (inaudible) --
to Republicans, I'm here at the request of a Democratic President.
So I'm grateful to you for the invitation, sir.
I don't -- (inaudible) -- talking about what we call
preferences, because that is central to the discussion about race.
Yes, there is a problem in America. It's a serious problem. It's
one that's complex, multidimensional. It doesn't lend itself to
government solution in many cases. But we can't get to the problem
of moving this nation forward with respect to the issue of race
unless we deal with the perception by a large number of people that
there are preferences that are being given to people simply because
they check a box and then benefits are conferred on the basis of
checking that box.
And the language here is very important. You said in
June of this year that we need to have an honest dialogue. Well, up
until this point, frankly, many of us think the dialogue has been
less than honest from some of those who try to defend what they call
affirmative action. I don't want to end all affirmative action, but
I want to end every preference that I can find that's based on some
trait over which I have no control. And if I want that for myself, I
want it for other people as well.
,
So I don't think, sir, that we can have this dialogue
today, which is perhaps one of our best shots at getting our point of
view across, without talking about the --
THE PRESIDENT: What do you think we should do? Since
there are -- since various racial minorities are represented in
,
groups of people that are at least not doing very well in this
society, in numbers disproportionate to their numbers in the country
as a whole, how should we respond to that?
MR. CONNERLY: I think that choice -- school choice is
one way to respond to it. I think if we overhaul the K-12 system,
which is one way to respond to it. They're trying to do that in
California by lowering classroom sizes. We're looking at testing.
We're looking at the quality of the teachers. We also have to start
looking at ourselves. Are we telling our kids as parents that
education is as important as it should be? So I think that there is
a major change that needs to take place. But even if we don't make
those changes, there is never, in my view, a rationale for
discriminating against somebody on the basis of their skin color,
regardless of what we want the outcome to be. That's my perspective,
and I think it's a perspective that our nation has to hold true to.
DR. GARRETT: Mr. President, let me just say this. As a
fifth-generation Republican and as one who has worked in this very
house under three Republican Presidents, I have a little concern
about how my party and how conservatives function around this
question. I would hope that we would not be bogged down today in a
discussion of affirmative action, per se. Many of those programs and
plans will be resolved by the court anyway.
When you said you wanted a conversation on race, we
ought to -- not just this group -- but we all ought to talk about
race and race relations. Affirmative action and mechanical programs
will mean not a whit if we don't start changing attitudes. We don't
know each other in this country. We don't know who lives next door
to us in condominium buildings, let alone know about their concerns.
And we have to, for a while, talk about race and not be bogged down
by affirmative action discussion and debate.
Again, the courts will resolve that pretty much in part,
but it just seems to me that the moral leadership that can be
provided from this room and from all of us needs to be amplified.
And one problem I have with my Republican and conservative brothers
and sisters, no one ever wants to talk about race. No one ever wants
to talk about the things that the people in Akron, my home town,
talked about -- the attitudes. You don't know what it's like to
stand on a street corner dressed like this and a car comes up --
cluck, and locks the door. These are things that people need to
resolve in their minds.
That boy in Akron who said, he's friendly and all the
rest, but when he sees a black man dressed a certain way -- this is
the kind of leadership government leaders, ministers, college
presidents, and many others, can provide. If we continue to allow
affirmative action plans to divide us and to serve as a wall, we're
not going to get anywhere.
THE PRESIDENT: Maybe you can -- (inaudible) -- and say.
let's assume we abolished them all tomorrow and we just had to start
all over, what would you do?
MS. CHAVEZ: I'd like to offer some suggestions, Mr.
President, because I came here with a notion that you do want
affirmative action, that you do understand -- -- (inaudible)
--affirmative action preferences are part of this debate is because
there's a whole world of people out there who believe that they're
wrong and that they send the wrong signal from government; that so
long as you've got government picking winners and losers on the basis
of the color of their skin, that you can't get beyond racism, you
can't to the color-blind society.
I think that there are a lot of things we can do to
reach those disadvantaged persons that you were talking about --
people who are socially, economically, and educationally
disadvantaged -- because that's who those programs were initially
aimed at. And I think it can be done in race -- (inaudible) -- ways.
I work at college admissions, for example, Mr.
President, and I brought you some studies that my organization has
done that shows not only that there are preferences in place in
admissions, but that those preferences hurt black and Hispanic
students, because kids who are admitted to schools under separate
standards or the double standards, and who then are just allowed to
sink or swim -- a lot of them sink. About 50 percent of them don't
graduate from those college programs.
I work at a place like the University of Maryland, which
has in place a program not aimed at race, but aimed at students who
are the first in their family to attend college. I would have been
able to qualify for such a program. A lot of disadvantaged kids out
there would. And once those children are identified, they're brought
in a summer program; they're given tutoring and special classes in
reading, writing and mathematics; they're given study skills; they're
given counseling. They're told what courses they should take their
first year; they attend a very structured first year. Those kinds of
programs would benefit people who are truly educationally and
economically disadvantaged -- and more than just giving them a little
badge and getting them to school, would help make sure that they get
out of school, that they actually get that bachelor's degree, which
is what none of the preference programs do.
And I have other examples -- and left you information on
them. Because I think all of us in this room want to improve
opportunity for blacks and Hispanics and other disadvantaged people
in this society. We are committed to that. Where we come to debate
is the best means to achieve that.
MR. CONNERLY: I just want to say also, I hope you
haven't invited me here as a conservative. I'm here as an American
who has a profound interest in the subject. I don't think you
appointed people to your race panel because they were liberal or
anything else. You appointed them because you thought they had
something to contribute. I didn't come here I don't know how many
miles to be here as a voice of a conservative. I left my party label
and my ideology outside of this room.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Let me just say this, first of
all. I think, if you imagine -- forget about -- think about what the
world would look like 30 years from now if things go well -- that is,
if all the threats to our collective security -- (inaudible) --
restrained, and trade develops as we hope it should, and we develop a
decent education system that embraces virtually everybody --
(inaudible) -- The fact that the United States is -- (inaudible) --
multiethnic country that at some point in the next generation, in the
next 50 years will, for the first time in its history, not have a
majority of people of European origin, I think will make it an even
more fascinating, even more interesting, and even more prosperous and
successful place if we're not consumed or limited or handicapped in
some ways because of our racial differences.
So, to me, this -- I'm looking at this through the
perspective of the future that I want to see our country make for
itself. And I don't think anyone has all the answers about how we
should make that future.
If you look at -- there is no question that -- if you
just African American kids in -- (inaudible) -- the middle class is
growing and a lot of good things have happened. But there is also no
question that there are still pockets where crime is greater,
incarceration rates are horrendous, that education systems are not
working. And even the people who do have some level, who are highly
industrious and are dying to get into business very often don't have
access to credit and don't have access to the networks.
Affirmative action originally I think on the economic
side was a kind of networking thing, and on the education side it was
designed to do what -- the Maryland program you just described. I
think if there was ever a -- (inaudible) -- in college education --
we ought to be focusing on people who are educationally disadvantaged
without -- -- (inaudible) -- preparation and continuing support that
they need. The schools that have done that are much better.
MR. THERNSTROM: Mr. President, I think Mr. Garrett made
two comments, and while I do think we may not know each other in some
absolute sense, but we know each other across racial lines much more
than we did a generation ago. I mean, the data is really quite
stunning. A generation ago, only one-fifth of white people said they
had any black friends; today 87 percent do. Eighty-seven percent of
blacks say they have white friends. The rate of interracial dating
has gone up spectacularly. The rate of interracial marriage, though
still low, has gone up dramatically. So I do think there is much
more positive change than is often thought.
And second, I do have to say that the Akron dialogue
that Mr. Garrett speaks so favorably of I found very troubling and
very one-sided. And I think very few American whites would have been
deeply moved by that, because it involved the recitation by a series
of blacks, Hispanics of painful experiences. There was no
opportunity to question those experiences and say, hey, are you sure
that was racism; maybe it was X, Y, or Z.
And then in one case where a white student talked about
a racial concern, a racial fear, it was immediately reduced to, you
know, was that your personal experience? Have you ever been mugged?
If not, then you must have been watching too much television.
Now, Reverend Jackson, years ago, made a very powerful
statement about precisely this when he said, walking down the street
late at night, and I turn around and see over my shoulder and see
they are whites following me, I'm relieved. There's a very powerful
statement. It is a reality that certain neighborhoods, predominantly
black neighborhoods in inner cities are very dangerous places at
night. And they are very dangerous places largely because there are
black criminals who are committing criminal acts. And I don't think
we can begin to discuss race relations honestly unless we in fact
express -- whites express those fears and they can be dealt with,
they can be discussed, but they shouldn't be dismissed.
And just one other point, which picks up on something
Angela Oh said I gather at a race relations meeting long ago -- we do
have to think of this as a multiracial or multiethnic problem, not
just black and white. And it's often assumed, mistakenly, that the
problem is white prejudice against blacks, Asians and Hispanics. In
fact, some careful studies show that blacks have stronger negative
stereotypes about both Hispanics and Asians than whites do, but
Asians have stronger negative stereotypes about both groups than
whites do, and that Hispanics have stronger negative stereotypes.
And as those population elements grow, we're going to have a larger
problem that will have to be addressed. It isn't just a matter of
white racism that has to be combatted.
THE PRESIDENT: But if what you say is true -- you say
the crime problem is disproportionately African American; that's like
saying the college population is disproportionately white or the
business population is disproportionately white. That doesn't
justify an affirmative action program to -- (inaudible) -- like
Section VIII of the SBA program.
The other day we had a group of African American
journalists in here. Every man in the crowd, to a person -- there
were, like, 20 of them here -- every man in that office, every
single, solitary one, had been stopped by the police when he was
doing nothing, for no reason other than the fact that he was black.
And you say that's because there's a rational fear because of the
fact that what occurs in some neighborhoods. Nonetheless, that is a
race-based public policy. I'm just saying, it's not as simple as --
MS. THERNSTROM: No, we agree with that. We agree with
that. It's unacceptable to me.
MR. THERNSTROM: But doesn't it happen in Detroit, in
Atlanta, in other states where --
THE PRESIDENT: All I'm saying is it's very difficult to
get these things out of our society. And you just made one reason
why. Let me give you another example. Because of the -- a lot of
work that's been done by a lot of people, there's been a dramatic
increase in the capacity of the United States to limit the inflow of
drugs into the country from the South by land and sea. But the
consequence of that -- Mexico, which is a big, open country, has had
enormous amounts of money invested there to try to undermine what
little infrastructure there was to deter the influx of drugs. Five
hundred million dollars was spent last year alone trying to bribe
Mexican police.
Now, as a result, over half of the cocaine in the
country comes across the Mexican border. So, all right, fast
forward. What do you do if you're a local police officer with a drug
problem? That's what this whole profiling is about -- (inaudible) --
people who are Hispanic if they're driving through town. That's an
affirmative action program. That's a race-based affirmative action
program. So how do you --
MS. CHAVEZ: But, Mr. President, some of us are opposed
to that. I mean, Randall Kennedy has written, I think, very
eloquently on exactly that issue. And those of us who oppose race
preferences when they benefit groups are also opposed to them when
they harm groups.
THE PRESIDENT: If you were running a police force, and
you were trying to figure out how to deal with the drug problem, and
you had a lot of people who were coming through your town on an
interstate, and you had a limited amount of resources, and you
couldn't stop every car, which cars would you stop?
MS. THERNSTROM: Every third car and come up with some
of the criminals that way. I mean, I think police departments have
to be held to the same standard that I want to see employers and
universities and everybody else. I don't think we can make
exceptions.
MR,. CANADY: And it is inherently pernicious for our
government to classify people on the basis of their race. And that
sends a powerful message from the government to the people that we
should judge one another on that basis. That's exactly the wrong
thing for us to be saying. And that is the sort of government policy
that reinforces a prejudice in our society and keeps us -- instead of
going in the right direction toward unity, it keeps us caught in this
dilemma that we are in now.
Our suggestion is that we've just got to get the
government out of this business. Racial classifications in certain
contexts were established with good intentions. And I think all of
us would recognize that. We recognize that they were established in
an attempt to overcome a history of discrimination and an attempt to
come up with an effective means of combatting discrimination.
But our experience tells us that whenever the government
gets involved in this business of classifying people based on race,
the government is doing something harmful. And if our history as
Americans, from the very beginning of this country, from the day the
Declaration of Independence was promulgated to today, if it tells us
anything, it should be that our government has no business dividing
the American people into groups based on their race. It is something
that is contrary to our fundamental ideals -- ideals we've never
fully lived up to, but ideals that are the core of what it means to
be American.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Could I ask a question, Mr.
President? If you lived in a community that was 50 percent white, 50
percent black, and for a variety of historic reasons the level of
income, educational attainment, and so forth was lower among the
blacks in that community, and the police force was 100 percent white,
and the problems of the kind that we all deplore took place and other
problems took place, and the community decided that the police force
would be better able to do its job if blacks were much more
represented on the police force, because then the police force would
have a much greater ability to relate to the community effectively
and to do its job -- under those circumstances, do you think that the
community would be justified in making affirmative action efforts to
open up a lot more positions on the police force for blacks?
MR. CANADY: Let me say two things in response to that.
Number one, I believe in community policing. I actually supported
the President's crime bill back in the first Congress I was here And
I believe that the concept of community policing is important. One
thing that you can do to have affective community policing is require
that the people who are involved in that live in the communities they
police. Now, that's the kind of policy I can support. You don't
have to classify people based on their race to do that and to be
affective in community policing.
But this idea that we should hire people because they're
going to be more -- based on their race because they're going to be
more sensitive to certain -- and more acceptable to certain people
that they're serving can be replicated in our history in the south
when people -- employers said, well, I'd like to hire some black
people, but my customers wouldn't accept that. That is offensive.
It was more than offensive, it was morally wrong. And I would
suggest to you for the government to classify people -- even in such
a context as that -- simply based on their race is morally offensive
and inconsistent with our constitutional traditions.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if I could just follow up
briefly. Of course, I strongly disagree with you. And it seems to
me that the case that I've described there presents a really obvious
example of how the community as a whole would be better off and the
effectiveness of the police force would be enhanced. And to say that
it's -- that's there's nothing to the idea that a police force with
black representation on the force would have an easier time relating
to the black community is, I think, to deny the obvious, with all due
respect.
MR. CANADY: Let me give you another example that's
directly related to the sort of thing you're talking about. There
are some people that contend that you have to take race into account
in undercover police work. The theory is that you need black people
to serve as undercover agents, and that's the only effective way that
can be carried out. Well, you know, it's very interesting that the
Drug Enforcement Administration actually had a policy of doing that.
And the black drug enforcement agent sued the Drug Enforcement Agency
over that very policy because it was discriminating against them. It
was putting them in contexts where they were at greater risk, and it
was limiting their opportunities for advancement. So what may start
out as making some sense from one perspective can end up harming the
very people that supposedly will benefit.
,
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you this. You don't quarrel
with the fact -- because I think this is very important. This is the
problem we have to deal with all the time. You don't quarrel with
the fact that, other things being equal, in cities that had a
racially diverse -- it would be a good thing if it could be done
without race preferences to have a diverse police department.
MR. CANADY: Absolutely. I think we ought to have a
police department that can work with --
THE PRESIDENT: But you just said that you like this
whole idea of -- that's what we're doing now at HUD. We're actually
encouraging police officers to go out and live in the neighborhoods
where -- (inaudible) -- let them buy houses for half price if they'll
serve in the neighborhoods where they live.
I've thought of that, and every time I go to New York,
or any other big city, I always look at the police and see. So let
me just say, I'm Irish -- Irish immigrants -- (inaudible) -- many of
them, in urban police departments. And many of their children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren are still in urban police
departments. And I think -- what I think we have to do is to figure
out -- I think part of this problem will go away if we ask ourselves,
are the criteria by which we are making this decision, whatever this
decision is, really relevant. Are we really -- whether it's college
admission -- are we keeping score in the right way here.
But it seems to me that we have a vested interest in the
objectives. If we agree that we need an integrated police
department, and that it would be better --
MR. THERNSTROM: We'd like to have an integrated police
department.
THE PRESIDENT: -- that we would like to have one, and
that our society would function better if we had one, then we should
ask ourselves, okay, how are we going to get there.
MS. CHAVEZ: But, Mr. President, with all due respect to
the Vice President, the example he gave, I don't think you could find
me a concrete example of such a place in urban America today. I've
looked at the statistics. I don't have them off the top of my head,
but I've written columns on this and I have looked them up, and
statistics show that there are significant numbers of black and
Hispanic police officers.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Partly because of affirmative
action.
MS. CHAVEZ: It may not be proportional
representation, but it is close to proportional. What I would look
at is first and foremost, are you discriminating in that police
department. And I think every person in this room is adamantly in
favor of vigorous enforcement of the civil rights law. And sure,
there are employers out there, including public employers, who
discriminate And we have to root out that kind of discrimination.
And then you do engage in outreach. You do create
training programs. You do go into high schools and try and recruit
people and get them ready so that they will be able to be prepared to
take the test to become a police officer. Those are all things that
you can do. And they are all things we approve of.
MR. THERNSTROM: But I do question the need for
diversity defined narrowly in terms of skin color. I mean, I live in
an almost all white community, so are we saying that the people of
Lexington feel more comfortable being policed by whites, and there's
some terrific black Africans for the police force, sorry, you go back
to Roxbury, or something, we don't like your color? And I can think
of communities with large numbers of Asians, but where Asian families
are very strongly oriented turning out physicists and physicians, and
the like, and not very interested in law enforcement.
Now, the notion that some large element of the
population have no one in that kind of position is perhaps repellent,
but once we start thinking of, well, 28 percent Asians -- got to be
pretty close to 28 percent -- I think that -- and for that matter, I
mean, after all, half the population is female. Should half of all
our police forces be female?
GOVERNOR KEAN: No, I was just going to say a couple
of things. One is, I think it is a goal of this country, and should
be a goal, that if we're going to be successful in the next century,
with the amount of immigration we have coming in now and being
assimilated, that we've got to get to know each other as people.
As a college president, I can tell you the largest
scholarship program in our state is based, not actually on race, but
on poverty. But, in effect, because so many people who are Hispanic
or African American who live in the poor areas it becomes a program
where we take into our colleges -- (inaudible) -- people who we would
not -- (inaudible) -- and then we mentor all the way through. I can
tell you from the point of view of Drew University -- (inaudible)
--very high standards that we admit a number of those people who
would have no chance for admittance under normal standards. And a
number of them -- most of them get through. Almost of them get
through. And a number of them graduate with high honors and go on to
top graduate schools in the country. Those are the people who
wouldn't have a chance otherwise.
So there's something -- the other thing we want to do is
establish -- get to know each other better. We've got in my state
too many segregated schools because of neighborhoods and too many
colleges -- people from different races and groups for their own
choice for whatever reason don't get together. As college presidents
we found two things -- I think there's a lesson here -- two areas
where race disappears as a criteria for friendship. One is athletics
-- play together on a team for a couple of years and you see the
dining room and you see the people in different places, friendly,
inviting each other to their homes, eating together. The other is --
(inaudible) -- those kind of things. Again, people are away from
their --
And the lessons I get from them are, first of all, that
our criteria for creating opportunity in this country -- (inaudible)
-- a lot of people of ability are not getting into the system of
higher education and should be, and many of them happen to be --
(inaudible) -- because they are poor -- (inaudible) -- The second is
that if we could find ways of getting people to work on common
projects that racial division seem to disappear and friendships
occur. And once that happens, people -- (inaudible) --
DR. GARRETT: Mr. President, I totally agree. One of
the things I'm doing -- and I'm based here in Washington and just
stepped down as the Chairman of the Board of Howard University, and
this semester have been teaching a course at Harvard University in
the Kennedy School on the politics of race. One of the things,
though, I'm going to do in Akron, where I go to on weekends, is build
a $2 million family life center in the heart of the ghetto, and get
Jewish rabbis and Jewish synagogues to come in with me on this
project, so that on the black side we can try to work on this ill
feeling toward Jews. This is not being done in Washington. It's not
being done with federal money. It's being done in the locality --
Just to do what you just said. We have to get to know each other.
If you don't know each other, if you don't know about
each other -- if you're white and you're not going to go see Amistad,
if you're white and you're not going to see Roots -- which is why
Alex Haley wrote it -- he didn't write it for my benefit, he wanted
to show a lot of white people the reason I'm this color is something
that they ought to understand, that a tenth generation ago, a white
man could be my cousin. These are the kinds of things that we simply
must do in terms of attitude and atmosphere.
And then let me just finally say, I know the government
-- we all know the government cannot impose upon the media in this
country. But one of the things you're Advisory Council may want to
do is convene some meetings in a very nice and positive way with
media people and remind them that they are a great part of this
attitude, effect. A woman out in Virginia six months ago had six
black babies, sextuplets. Never got mentioned anywhere. Didn't get
a dime from any corporation, diapers or anything. Then this woman
out in Iowa has seven and she's in more magazines than you are.
Now, you're going to tell me that there's not something
inherently wrong with that? And it wasn't until some of us ministers
kicked up a fuss that now some of the corporations are starting.
These are the kinds of things that affect people's attitudes.
MR. CONNERLY: The threshold is seven. (Laughter.)
DR. GARRETT: Because it was close.
MS. THERNSTROM: But, you know, there isn't anybody in
this room who would deny that we've got a long ways to go down the
road to racial equality. And there's nobody in this room who would
deny that there's a lot of racism still in this society. I mean, the
question from me is the trend lines. Have we been walking in the
right direction, and do we continue to walk in the right direction.
And those trend lines look very good. And I think that one of the
things we need to do in having a decent racial dialogue is not only
to get beyond race, but also to get beyond emoting over race. And
there is much too much emoting and there is much too much
name-calling as well.
And there's a distortion of information that for me is
absolutely mindboggling. I mean, I was on the Jesse Jackson show the
Sunday before last. Jesse Jackson says to me, Abigail, black
graduates of Harvard College still can't get jobs. And I said,
Jesse, Jesse -- I think that this whole conversation could come
together to a much greater degree if we can move off the anecdotes,
the pain, and on to the landscape of what do we know.
And a lot of what we know is simply denied about how far
we have come. If you can get the landscape right, then you can say,
look, we have the following problems still: 27 percent of black
families still in poverty. That's not much different than 1970.
That's a catastrophic problem. We still have -- we have a racial gap
in academic performance such that black kids in 12th grade are
reading on the average four years behind white and Asian kids. That
stacks the deck against those kids for the rest of their lives.
The solution to that isn't preferences; the solution --
and the solution to the police force -- we'll have a diverse police
force tomorrow if we can close that gap in academic performance such
that you've got -- so that you give police exams and there is no
racial disparity.
I think, Mr. President, you've said some wonderful
things on education. I'd like to push you further on them. But to
me, that is absolutely the key. I think it's a national scandal that
we are even one kid fall through the cracks.
THE PRESIDENT: I do, too. I think what Chicago has
done, tells everybody that you've got to go summer school if you
don't measure up and if you don't measure up a second time, you can't
go ahead -- your self-esteem will be hurt more when you're 50 and you
can't read than when you're 16 and you have to stay back another
year. I think that's great.
But let me just say, first of all, I think what you
generally just said is absolutely right. The reason I wanted you to
come here today is that I hope there will be another series of
meetings where we'll get even more diverse group -- I mean, diverse
by opinion. Because what I'm trying to get to is -- here's my theory
about this -- I think if we could ever get to the point where we
would ask ourselves, can we agree on the objective, and then talk
about what means will work, and then look at the things we don't like
and say, well, do they do any good; and what harm did it do.
For example, what I think about affirmative action, a
lot of these economic -- let's just take economic affirmative action.
What I honestly believe is that it did a profound amount of good for
the people who got into the programs who might never have had a
chance to be successful business men or women. But I believe the
problems with it are twofold. Number one is, once you get in and you
start doing it, it's hard to graduate out. This whole theory about
graduating out and moving through, going out into the private sector
-- that theory never really worked very well. And we ought to fess
up; those of us who were for it ought to say that's one of the
problems that didn't work.
The other problem is it doesn't reach the vast majority
of the people who have a problem because it doesn't reach down into
basically the isolated urban areas with people in the economic
underclass.
So if we say, okay -- you know, we can all say, okay,
here are the facts -- it was a pretty good thing, but it didn't do
everything it was supposed to do, so should we argue about getting
rid of it, should be argue about doing something else, should we
argue about what's going to happen to these people? I mean, I think
there's a lot to be said for that.
Let me go back to what Steve said about the composition
of the police force when you got into the tete-a-tete with the Vice
President. Let me just mention three things because Governor Kean
mentioned this. The seven white septuplets were delivered by two
African American women doctors. Two days later, two black kids were
rescued in a Chicago fire by a white fireman. Nobody feels anything
but good about that. Why is that? Or why do all these rich white
Republicans pay to go down and watch some black guys play basketball
at the MCI Center? I would argue there is something that all these
things share in common that don't necessarily get answered in the
police -- (inaudible) --
One is, in the case pro basketball, here I am, I don't
have a doubt in the world that if I'd been good enough I could have
played pro basketball. I know it. If I'd been good enough, by God,
I could have played. I was short, fat, and slow by today's
standards. (Laughter.) I couldn't play. Doesn't have anything to
do with my race. I don't have a doubt in the world. If I have a
child, I don't have a doubt in the world that my child can play if he
or she is good enough. So that's the first threshold. Without
regard to race -- I think we could all agree with that. In whatever
setting, people have to know, if they're good enough, they can play.
And if they need a hand up to prepare themselves, they can get it.
The second thing is, in the case of the black women
doctors who delivered the septuplets -- which is not always the case
in the case of police -- which is why I agree with the Vice President
-- the community, which was of a different race -- there was no
question about whether they could do their job in a way that would be
fair to everybody. In the case of the white fireman who risked his
life to go in an get the last two black kids in the Chicago fire --
he made a statement that was louder than any words I will every
utter, that he was in tune with the people in that community. He was
in tune enough that he was willing to lay his life down to save those
two little children. Nobody will every care again whether that guy
is on their fire or sitting idly out in front of the fire station, as
I hope he will be.
So there's two criteria. One is can you play if you're
good enough, whatever the thing is. Two is, does everybody in the
community have confidence that the people in the position, whatever
they are, have sufficient concern about them, are consistently
involved with them, that whatever is supposed to be done is going to
get done.
I think in the case of the fireman, and the doctors and
the basketball players, the answer is yes. I think in the case --
huge numbers of urban police departments, huge numbers of the
business sector, huge sections of higher education -- you can't say
that the answer is yes. That's why I'm hung up about it. But I
don't think that -- I think the reason that I'd get frustrated if the
debate is only about affirmative action is, if we win 100 percent of
the debate, we're talking about 10 percent of the people. If you win
100 percent of the debate, we're still just talking about 10 percent
of the people. What about everybody else?
MS. CHAVEZ: That has been our argument.
MS. THERNSTROM: But, why don't you have confidence that
we can train policemen the way we train firemen so that when a
policeman show up at the door, it doesn't matter what the race of
that policeman is?
THE PRESIDENT: What I don't have confidence in is that
in the police department's where there is not affirmative action that
there is a selection process that is not race-based.
MS. THERNSTROM: Why not go after the problem instead --
it's like college admissions -- instead of going after the problem of
the failure of our schools in the K-12 years, we say, okay, we're
going to shut our eyes to that problem and we're going to
preferentially admit them in hope something --
THE PRESIDENT: What about all the people who are
sitting around waiting for that to happen? Are we just going to let
them drift away?
MS. CHAO: -- very complicated, and there is really a
problem on both sides. I think you and the Vice President obviously
have demonstrated you care deeply about this problem. And I think
you should be applauded, from my point of view, in terms of showing
that you care, offering some leadership, and talking about this
issue. I think it's enormously complicated. But I do want to say
you, as the President of this country, have an enormous opportunity
to really lead this country on a new millennium, as you put it, of
race relations, and that is that people are judged by the content of
their character and not by the color of their skin.
What has bothered me so far about the debate is that
it's very much a monochromatic kind of debate. It has been about
African Americans, and it's been about whites. And certainly there
has been a great deal that has contributed to the current status of
these two races, but if we really talk about a diversified nation, in
which there is richness and diversity, we have to talk about other
people.
,
And I'm not pushing for Asian Americans or
Latino-Hispanic Americans, but that's what you get pretty much into
when you start talking about color -- will it be white or black, then
it's Asian Americans, and then it's Hispanic Americans. And
actually, most of the time Asian Americans don't even rate. They
don't even get into the debate. It's primarily whites, African
Americans, Latinos, and that's it.
I'm very concerned about this whole issue about who gets
to be let in to whatever program there is. And affirmative action,
as enunciated by you and the Vice President speaks of compassion and
good intentions and you care, and you want good things to happen.
But what happens when good programs in the process hurt other people?
And I just think about Asian Americans. I came here as an immigrant.
I didn't speak a word of English. I came when I was 8 years old. My
father held three jobs. I learned English at night, after 11:00
p.m., when he came back from work. And that's how I learned English.
And imagine what it's like not to speak English, and
then arriving here and two months later having all these little
monsters and goblins ring at your door bell -- (laughter) -- and
stick something in your face to get candy. It was Halloween. We
didn't know that. (Laughter.)
But what kept us through those days was --
what kept us through those days, you know, was a sense of empowerment
that I think you and the Vice President want for Americans, and that
you want to empower people, but you can't empower people by these
artificial programs that occur too late.
What held my family and me together during those very,
very hard times is we just knew we would never be in this condition
forever. And that hope sustained us, incredibly so, through all
those years. And then, also, we just knew that if we worked hard and
that if we are together as a family that we would indeed be all
right.
And so that's only my personal example and my personal
experience, but I think it's applicable to many others. And there's
stories upon stories of immigrants who come to this country with no
experience of being an American, who don't speak the language, who
don't understand the culture, and what they really want is just an
equal opportunity. And what happens when that equal opportunity is
no longer a level playing field, but with the best of intentions it's
being turned into something that is unfair to them?
Right now, for example, your administration is talking a
great deal about changing standards -- college admission standards
because -- (inaudible) -- where test scores don't really matter. You
don't really need test scores to succeed -- which is true. On the
other hand, you can't neglect it altogether.
I went to Harvard, and I was kicked off of the Harvard
Alumni Board. And for an Asian American that's a big admission. We
don't get kicked very many -- at least we don't admit it.
(Laughter.) But at Harvard, Asian Americans are an over-represented
minority as they are in many, many college and universities.
MS. THERNSTROM: Eighteen percent --
MS. CHAO: And if you are to -- that's still an
over-representation because we're only two percent of the population.
So we're way over. And what happens is if you're a white child going
to Harvard, you have 17 percent chance; if you are African American,
you have almost 30 percent chance; if you are a Latino American, 25
percent chance; if you're an Asian American child, you have an 11
percent.
,
And so for all those new immigrants who come here and
work so hard, they find that the rules are being changed all the
time. First of all, you have to get involved in extracurricular
activities. Oh, great -- okay. So now Asian American parents have
caught on and they're getting all their kids to be yearbook editors,
doing all this -- now, they're changing it to where they need
leadership qualities. What does that mean -- leadership qualities?
I'm on this very large corporation's scholarship
program, and we fund scholarships -- $16,000 a year -- to high school
students. These kids -- Asian American kids -- don't do well because
they don't excel under this new category called leadership. They're
not outspoken. I listened for a long time before I jumped in here
myself. But they're not aggressive. They're not voluble, and so
that's all taken against them.
So our world is very complicated. There are cultural
differences. And I want people to understand cultural differences.
And we should relish and delight and celebrate in each other's
cultural background. That's what it means to be an American.
But when programs like affirmative action are set up --
and there again, we're not against it. I'm not against outreach. I
think we've got to do more aggressive outreach. But when the
standards were lowered, that's a real problem. I think the things
that we must be focusing on, you as a President have so much
authority in this. We've got to emphasize education. Asian American
families are not any smarter. They just emphasize education so much
more.
When Korean -- I'm going to digress a little bit -- when
Korean grocers are being harassed by African American activists , no
white politician, no politician came to their defense. And I think
we have to somehow think about how do we structure family and make it
stronger so that the family can sustain and develop the kind of
nurturing background we want for all Americans.
And so I think we've got to work on families, we got to
work on education -- there's a whole slew of new initiatives that I
hope we can take a look at. But this land is a land of opportunity.
Somehow we've become victims also. A lot of times there's emoting,
as Abigail says, and there's a lot of blaming. And we've become in
many ways a nation of whiners, we whine a lot. And some of these
programs I think cater to -- (inaudible) --
But again, I think it's a great opportunity for you to
direct the path for the next millennium. And it's one in which we
ought to really, all Americans, focus on issues of opportunity,
economic opportunity -- these are the things that we should --
MR. CONNERLY: I suspect that the time does not equal
the supply of ideas we wanted to give you, and I just wanted to share
with you some things that you can read to cure insomnia.
But there are some specific things I want to suggest to
you. The one hopeful thing that I wanted from this dialogue about
race was structure. We've been talking about it, certainly my state
now, for about four years, in a very intense way, the University of
California and with Proposition 209. But all too often there is no
structure to it. It's ad hominem attacks. It's questioning the
motives of people.
And, Chris, I want to talk to you a little later,
because there is something on a Web page there that calls me a
counter-revolutionary, a minority counter-revolutionary. And they
had it attributed it to you.
,
And I think that for us to get beyond where we are now,
there need to be some structure to the dialogue. And we've got to
stop playing the race card. We have to stop calling each other
names, stop questioning motives. And I submit to you, sir, that one
thing that might help move this panel forward is to take the whole
subject of affirmative action off their plate. Let them deal with
the broader subject of race absent the issue of preferences, because
we're not going to solve that one anyway. And as a result of the
belief that many of us have that the panel is not objectively
constructed, to be candid with you, it's fun to pollute all of the
other things that they might do. So my suggestion, respectfully, is
to just take that out of their hands.
The second thing is I think that the time frame that is
self-imposed ought to be extended because the ball has been fumbled a
little bit, candidly, until now, and the discussion is just now
getting -- beginning to happen in earnest. And if it comes to an end
on June 4th, I think that's going to be premature, candidly. So I
would strongly suggest that you extend it another six months or so,
so that the debate can unfold in the fullness of time as it seems not
to be unfolding.
MS. THERNSTROM: But the board itself is so monolithic
in its voice, and as far as I can tell -- I mean, yes, Lisa Graham
Keegan was there yesterday and William Bennett was there yesterday,
but those were exceptions. And for instance Gary Orfield was there
saying, once again that schools are more segregated than ever before,
which I regard as junk social science. I mean, it's just not
sustained by the data.
MR. THERNSTROM: He defines a segregated school as
one that's 25 percent Asian, 25 percent black, 25 percent Hispanic,
25 percent white -- you need a white majority school for it to be not
segregated. And that's backwards. The tables of his latest report
are all defined in terms of --
GOVERNOR KEAN: -- offensive yesterday -- whenever it
was, the day before yesterday -- that was a good meeting, and it was
not monolithic.
MS. THERNSTROM: But there needs to be -- there are two
camps, there needs to be a spectrum of scholarly voices --
GOVERNOR KEAN: Where do you put Deb Myer?
MS. THERNSTROM: Deborah Myer?
GOVERNOR KEAN: Yes.
MS. THERNSTROM: Well, I think that you're right; she's
a very complicated -- you know, I'm a big admirer of hers.
GOVERNOR KEAN: So am I. People like that were on the
panel.
MS. THERNSTROM: That's good. I didn't realize she was
there, because in general -- I didn't realize she was at that meeting
--
MR. THERNSTROM: This last case seems to have been more
diverse than --
DR. GARRETT: But, Abigail, you're sitting in the Oval
Office of the land with the President listening to you. Now, what I
would like to know, as a lifelong Republican conservative -- some
days, some days not -- if you want to use those silly terms -- what
are you going to do? Don't tell me about studies and figures. Fine.
Let us all acknowledge those. But it doesn't help one bit to write
books, to write studies, and the people are still milling around
suffering.
This President deserves to have the concrete
recommendations. Asian Americans, what's to keep them from having
dialogue and building centers with blacks and Jews and others? You
see, you talk about this, but I have seen precious few who are
against affirmative action get out there and start something.
MS. THERNSTROM: If we can describe properly the racial
landscape, including the problems -- of course, the fact that 85
percent of black children who are in poverty are in single-parent
households, for instance -- if we can describe the racial landscape
and agree on what it looks like, then we can move forward on that
basis. But I have to tell you that social scientists are no better
than the man on the street in recommending policies. They are very
good at analyzing what the picture looks like. Saying what we should
do is a different mountain to climb, and I don't think --
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Lynn, you haven't talked
enough.
MS. MARTIN: As I age, I'm less able to speak for groups
of people, especially before I went back to teaching. Now I find I'm
not as sure of anything -- (inaudible) -- but I do think it's true
that a majority of Americans -- you talk about the man in the street
-- I think they're already a lot farther along than I think anybody
has given them credit. I think most blacks, most whites, most
Asians, most -- everyone, men and women want it, which gives a
President, this President enormous opportunities. And it also, I
think, from some of my experiences over the last two years, indicates
that there should be a couple of smaller things that we can all enjoy
successfully. But that's very important to people -- some of the
more complex things that one has to do.
But there have to be some measurable successes that
everybody agrees that, hey, that's a good thing, and we all did it.
I've worked a little more with gender, but if you get a group of
women together and a group of men, they can look at exactly the same
thing -- (inaudible) -- the difference is phenomenal. It doesn't
mean facts are different, but it does mean perceptions are different.
And we have to work part of the time at perception. We have to keep
moving beyond -- the more times you can make people know their
thinking the same, the better. And I came to a different conclusion
-- it's almost opposed to the anti-anecdote. I decided to check over
the last 10 years what had happened to me, because I'm older, I
believe, than I think almost everybody in this room.
MS. THERNSTROM: I doubt it.
Q I look older. At least I will say that. But I
grew up as a northerner thinking you all were the bad guys, which was
a very nice way to grow up. I mean, in fact, I didn't know any
blacks and Hispanics, never crossed by brain that many -- you know,
that somehow there was something a little strange here. It was the
southerners -- it was very comfortable -- (inaudible) --
intellectually, you didn't have to challenge anything. The last few
years, and this is late in may life, just as in my 30s I got male
friends -- not dates, friends, for the first time, very different
thing. I now have, mostly acquaintances, but some friends, and my
God, they've added to my life. And maybe we don't say that often
enough.
The reason most American businesses are supporting
affirmative action has nothing -- well, one hopes it has something to
do with they want to feel good -- the reason they want to do it has
to do with they think it's a business imperative and business is
going to be better than global enterprise -- (inaudible) -- that I
think -- enjoying the idea of how much better -- (inaudible) --
because of this. So that, sure, there's some tough stuff, and sure
there's some other things -- I think people still write checklists,
to an extent. And if we can check off a couple of things in the next
few years -- the only thing I would ask now is don't set a goal -- I
mean Abraham Lincoln didn't get -- Martin Luther King didn't -- don't
have small dreams but have some reasonable goals.
THE PRESIDENT: One thing -- let me just ask you all to
think about this because I agree -- one of the things I do agree with
what Ward said is that I -- before you came in here I was holding my
head saying, oh my God, those people are coming in here and we've got
to stay here for four hours -- but let me -- nearly everybody agrees
that the laws that are on the books against discrimination based on
race against individuals should be enforced.
MS. THERNSTROM: Everybody agrees with that.
MS. CHAVEZ: Everybody in this room.
THE PRESIDENT: We are grossly under -- we have never
properly funded the EEOC, but to be fair, we also need to look at
--and this may be kind of a bridge between what we've been arguing
about and what we agree on -- there's a lot of interest -- and Chris
is getting me some information on this -- about trying to develop
some sort of way the EEOC can get rid of its backlog in part by
drawing up consent orders that would go beyond litigation and would
change the way people treat their employees. Not necessarily on a
race, not a race-based treatment, but the way you develop, the way
you recruit, the way you reach out -- and one of the -- to go back to
Lynn's checklist -- one of the things we would like to get everybody
to agree to is a certain approach on that -- on kind of a
comprehensive approach and getting rid of the accumulated back log of
race claims and where you go from there.
The other think I would just like to say, because I know
we're going to have to wrap up pretty soon, is I agree with you, we
need a structure for the discussion which permits us to continue to
talk, sharply identify in a non-rhetorical way our differences and
ask if there is some way to build on this so we can actually get
something done.
I talked to J.C. Watson -- he called me last night and I
was out of pocket and I called him this morning and we talked for 20
or 30 minutes because he was -- (inaudible) -- and it was an
interesting conversation. I just think if you're willing, I'm
willing to make this not a one-shot deal, but to continue to work on
this. I really sympathize with how the immigrant -- Asian immigrant
-- particularly first generation Asians feel with the shift in --
MS. CHAO: We're just learning rules and goddamn it,
they change them on us. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: The real issue here is, if you go back
there's a lot of thought been given in the private schools --
(inaudible) -- great one to talk about -- that a lot of these private
universities are thinking, okay, now, what if the colleges, if all
the public institutions end affirmative action in their admission
process, and they don't really -- and the state doesn't come up with
a comprehensive alternative they'd like, where you've got all the
colleges maybe taking over public schools, in effect, in terms of
their college prep. So you get to -- you maintain the diversity of
student body population with non-race-based policies. Then will the
private institution basically have to carry the burden of educating a
more diverse student body, or unless we're going to resegregate
higher education like we once had.
So there's a reexamination on about whether -- I'm not
saying that what you said is how you described it, that that's the
right way to do it, but there is a genuine, I think, reassessment
about whether test scores plus grades should be the only predictor of
success in college and success -- the only definer of merit, and
whether we can assume that there is somehow an absolute character to
that. As a matter of fact, the test scores were -- -- (inaudible) --
pretty good rough indicator.
But, you know, look at what Texas is doing. I mean,
it's this desperate attempt, I think -- I don't mean it's --
desperate sounds critical, I'm not being critical. But people are
looking around and trying to find a way to honor America, be fair,
and still have a society where everybody's got a chance. Keep in
mind, go back to basketball and our view of the doctors in Iowa, the
people have got to believe everybody had a chance.
MS. CHAVEZ: But, Mr. President, whatever the criteria
that you come up with, I don't believe that it is good public policy
or fair to say you're going to have different rules for different
groups. And I think that's -- you know, I'm not saying SAT scores
are the end all, or SAT and GPAs, but when you come up with a
criteria, that criteria has to be equally applied to every
individual, and that you can't decide that if your name is Chavez and
you go to apply, or one of your children does, you get judged under a
different criteria. That's what we have now. And I think that was
what --
THE PRESIDENT: You wouldn't be opposed to affirmative
efforts that were not race-based, would you?
MS. CHAVEZ: That's right. I wouldn't be because --
THE PRESIDENT: And if they're not race-based, they --
MS. CHAVEZ: If they're not raced-based, if they're
aimed at educational disadvantage, social disadvantage, economic
disadvantage, and if they are aimed at that, they have to be more
than just letting people in the door, because there is a reason why
we use test scores and GPAs to let people into higher education. It
is because they are good predictors of success.
And one of the things, and, Thad, this is where I
disagree with you -- one of the things I've been most adamant about
opposing racial preferences for is that they allow us to sweep under
the rug the kind of skills differences that Abby and Steve --
(inaudible) -- they allow us the easy out. They allow the companies
-- oh, sure, oh, yes, we have 80 percent Hispanics and 12 percent
blacks and other in proportion group represented here. What they
don't tell you is that they're shuffled off to the EEO offices of
human resources or someplace else, and in colleges they flunk out, or
they end up being bounced down to a school that they probably would
have done well in if they had gotten in on their own merit.
I mean, this is the problem and it sends a terrible
message to my children. I have to tell you, I resent it deeply as a
Mexican American woman that -- as the mother of three sons, that my
children are assumed not to be able to make it under the same
standards as your children. And I just don't think that it is right.
And it does something that is very corrosive to minorities to be
telling them we don't expect you to meet the same standards.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'd like to say something else, Mr.
President. I disagree with what I've heard here, but it's a great
learning opportunity and I think the dialogue validates the
President's decision to invite all of you to come into the Oval
Office.
Mr. Connerly began by talking about traits over which we
have no control. I think that what the debate really is about is
traits over which we do have control. Specifically, I think there is
a vulnerability in human nature to prejudice. I think we have the
ability to overcome it. But I think that it is naive in the extreme.
And I don't say that pejoratively; I'm just saying that this is my
personal view. I think it is naive in the extreme to assert that
there is no persistent vulnerability to prejudice -- rooted in human
nature, prejudice based on race and ethnicity -- and other
characteristics as well.
Let me just finish, please, and then you can ask me a
yes or no question. (Laughter.)
Let me just finish. If you look at the world around us
right now, what we intervene to help stop in Bosnia demonstrated that
prejudice based on race and ethnicity led to an unleashing of evil.
I that evil lies coiled in the human soul and all of us faces
spiritual challenge throughout our lives. And I think that racial
differences can serve as a trigger for unleashing hatred. And I
think that people are prone to be with people like themselves, to
hire people to look like themselves, to live near people who look
like themselves. And yet in our society when we have this increasing
diversity, we have a community value, a national interest in helping
to overcome this inherent vulnerability to prejudice.
What happened to Chinese in Shanghai 50 years ago last
week,* happened in part because of the enhanced vulnerability to that
explosion of hatred across ethnic lines. What happened in Rwanda
between the Hutus and the Tutsis happened in significant part because
the explosion of hatred was triggered by this ethnic difference --
the differences in educational levels, the historical differences,
the history of domination of one over the other also played important
roles. But to deny that there is this factor called race that is
persistent is, I think, just wrong.
Now, Steve, when you said -- or seemed to imply that
there's no reason, rationally based, for an African American
neighborhood to feel any differently about a police force that's 100
percent white than they would feel if there was representation of
blacks on the police force. That, it seems to me is just profoundly
wrong.
My view, in contrast, is that just as it seems obvious
that the police force in that situation will be more effective in
doing its job if it is representative of the community, it is also
obvious that a university is going to provide a more valuable
educational experience if the students there are going to be able to
come into contact with people from different ethnic groups so that
the next generation of Lynn Martins -- thoughtful, intelligent,
commitment, desiring change, don't wait until the sixth decade of
life to have their lives experience --
MS. MARTIN: No, no, fifth decade -- (laughter).
THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- to have their lives enriched by
that extra experience. And the nation as a whole, I believe, is
enriched if we overcome this tendency. Now, to say that there's
progress is to say that a lot of the things we have been doing have
worked. A lot of the extra affirmative efforts that have resulted in
these police forces becoming more diverse -- I mean, they didn't get
that way by accident. They got that way --
MS. MARTIN: They got that way because they passed
laws against discrimination.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, that's not true either. They
got there partly because there was enforcement of laws against
discrimination, but mostly because there were affirmative efforts in
the hiring decisions to go out and get people from the other
communities to come into the police forces. The same thing is true
in a lot of the categories of progress that you measure. To say
there's progress is not to say if we stop these efforts, things are
going to continue in the same direction. If we stop these efforts,
we could see the United States lose its ability to lead the world
away from this vulnerability to ethnic prejudice and racial --
MR. CANADY: But, Mr. Vice President, none of us are
suggesting that we stop all of these efforts. We believe in the
outreach efforts that have gone on. We believe we should actually
intensify those efforts. What we have a problem with is classifying
people on the basis of their race and telling some people they're
going to lose because they belong to a non-preferred group, and other
people they're going to win because they belong to a preferred group.
We believe that that is harmful to everyone, because it sends the
kind of message I talked about earlier and it's inconsistent with our
ideas.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you a question. One of the
things that tickled me about -- since I grew up in the south, in
addition to being bloodied by Atlanta people -- (inaudible) -- on the
race problem in the country, we were all so obsessed with athletics.
One of the things that tickled me about the California affirmative
action vote was that there was -- preference vote -- is that there
was an exception made for athletes. So you can give a preference for
athletes to get into Berkeley, so Berkeley can have a nice football
team and a nice basketball team.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Alumni giving.
THE PRESIDENT: But the A student who doesn't get into
Berkeley, the Asian A student who doesn't get into Berkeley is just
as hurt because he didn't get in so everybody could be tickled at the
next basketball game as he would have been hurt if some A student who
grew up in a black family in Oakland and didn't go to a high school
and therefore didn't make quite as high a score on the college board
-- he still loses the opportunity. He just loses it to a basketball
player instead of a kid with thick glasses who struggled late at
night in Oakland to make good grades, but didn't quite make a high
enough college board score to get in. What's the difference? Why is
it justified? Why is athletic discrimination so wonderful and the
race discrimination --
Q Well, you can get rid of it. If you want to sign
an executive order --
Q And alumni discrimination as well.
MR. CONNERLY: Mr. President, I have to say that this
has been a great party until now, but just as we're -- the clock is
ticking, we're ready to go out the door, you ruined my weekend with
those very -- (laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Is that not true? If it's not true, I
don't want to falsely accuse you.
MR. CONNERLY: Very loaded questions, very loaded
statements that command far more than the five or 10 minutes we have
left. Our founders -- they talked for hours about human nature as
the basis of what kind of government we were going to develop. And
it's frightening to me -- it is truly frightening to me, at the
characterization of human nature, Mr. Vice President, that you
portray, because it suggests that we cannot rise above it.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I said specifically, we can.
MR. CONNERLY: -- unless government is there demanding,
demanding that we be held accountable. The presumption of our
people, the presumption of our nation is that we're good people, that
we can be fair, and that we will do the right thing. There are going
to be some that are going to do wrong, and we'll bring those into
line. But it's not that we are prone to do bad. And the whole
question here about athletes and alumni -- my God, any of us can be
athletes or alumni. It has nothing to do with our skin color.
THE PRESIDENT: I didn't say anything about alumni.
MR. CONNERLY: Well, he did. But there are just certain
traits here that we as a society are making a judgment about --
THE PRESIDENT: The only point I made -- (laughter) --
don't get our two speeches mixed up. The only point I'm trying to
make is, if you ever have any -- if you decide what the criteria of
academic merit is, and let's say you decide the criteria is the
grades plus the college boards -- this is the only point, I'm making
a narrow point. If you decide the criteria is the grades plus the
college boards, and then you decide -- you make a decision, which I
think you could make a compelling argument is a legitimate decision,
that athletics is an important part of university life, that it
enriches the lives of all the other students who are there. You can
make that argument, but the point is, once you make that argument,
that's the argument you could also make for having a racially diverse
student body. I was making a very -- I'm not making a wholesale
assault.
Now, here's my problem with this whole deal, I know
we've got to go. So I want to give you a chance to say -- what we
really before, which is, how do we give structure to this and what do
you think the next step should be? And I'll give anybody else a
chance. Look, when I was a governor, I became the first governor in
the history of the country to sponsor legislation to require --
(inaudible) -- certified.
I believe I passed the first law requiring kids in the
whole state to have to pass an exam before they could actually go
onto high school, because I didn't like the high school graduation --
I thought that was closing the barn door after the cattle left. The
reason I have consistently supported affirmative action programs --
but I really have tried to change them and make them work -- is not
because -- I basically think all that stuff you said is right. I am
sick and tired of people telling me poor minority kids who live in
desperate circumstances, that they can't make it. I think they
should be told they can make it, but they have to work harder to make
it. And then I think we should give them a hand up to make it. I am
tired of that.
The reason I have supported affirmative action programs
is very different, is I have done it because I didn't want to see all
these kids be sacrificed to a principle I agree with, because the
practice of life would not be fixed in time to give them a chance
--number one.
And number two, I have had the feeling about police
departments and fire departments and business environments and
university admissions that I felt about the athletes -- that I really
thought that the institutions were better off and the white majority
or whoever else, was better off if there was some inter-mixing
because of the world they're going to live in.
But I am always -- I think we should all be
uncomfortable, those of us who support this -- for giving something
to somebody when we deprive somebody that was otherwise more
deserving by the traditional criteria of getting it. But I think on
balance, that's why I've been very strongly -- but I have never
wanted to not have high standards, not be demanding, not do things.
I mean, I've paid a pretty good price for this -- (inaudible) -- and
I'm not ashamed of having done it. I think that the kids in my state
are better off because of it.
But we need to figure out a way to recognize that what
we'd really like is for people without regard to their race to able
to do the kind of business, go to the kind of schools, have the kind
of public service jobs and live in the kind of integrated environment
that they choose if that is the choice they make, because there would
be no differences in traditional measures of merit and how they did,
so that people would be making their own choices and having their own
choices. I think that's -- we all agree that that's the world we
want.
So I'd like to know what you think the next step should
be. If you want to stay involved in this; you want to keep talking
to us; you want to keep working with us; and you want to get some
more -- different kind of people in here. What do you think we ought
to do now?
GOVERNOR KEAN: Can I say something on the Race
Commission -- when the President asked me to sit on this, the first
time he asked, I said no. And I finally said yes because I was
totally convinced, first of all, that this was the only President in
my lifetime, though not a President of my own party, who's willing to
take this on, to really try to establish some sort of a dialogue and
try to make progress on this; and secondly, because I thought there
was a chance -- maybe not a big chance, but a chance -- we could do
some real good.
I was among those who was very critical of the
commission at its first couple of meetings, because -- (inaudible) --
talking to each other and was not listening to adverse opinions, and
therefore we weren't serving this President very well. It's our job
-- not to write a report for the commission, our job is to advise
this President on some of the best ideas we can find in the country
so that this will hopefully be part of his legacy.
So this race commission is going to open up the dialogue
-- (inaudible) -- be listening to all sorts of ideas from every end
of the political spectrum in the hopes that we can bring good ideas
to this President so that he can succeed in an initiative which I
believe the country very much wants him to succeed in. So whatever
has gone on in the past, I hope you will be open to the commission,
that you will give ideas to us. And we will make sure that the best
of the ideas are passed on to the President or this group can pass it
on directly.
MS. THERNSTROM: I think that this has been a really
wonderful meeting. And I'm very grateful to you for having invited
us. But I do also have the feeling that if we were to continue it,
that we really might get someplace.
THE PRESIDENT: That's what I think.
MS. THERNSTROM: Yes. We're feeling each other here.
We're kind of making -- it's a first kind of stiff beginning, but
that we might really --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I resemble that remark.
(Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: If you all are willing to do it and you
will help us figure out a way to structure it, I'll do it. Let me
,
just give you -- I'll just give you one -- outside this door,
probably sitting there -- I don't know if she's still there -- is my
diarist for the White House who has lately been in the paper because
-- (laughter) -- her name is Janis Kearnes. Her daddy was a
sharecropper, and her mother a domestic. And they had 17 children --
13 of them have college degrees. Five of them are lawyers. And all
17 of them have a first name that starts with the letter J.
(Laughter.) Most of them went to school in Arkansas. One of them
went all the way to Harvard. And some of them had affirmative action
and some of them didn't, and they all did fine.
Look, somewhere in here there's a way that we can get to
where we're trying to do -- stop talking past each other and start
working together. I cannot believe that 90 percent of the people in
this country don't want the same kind of country in terms of racial
matters. And I will do my best to find a way for us to move beyond
the -- (inaudible) -- honestly and respectfully state our differences
and figure out away to work together. Because it is obvious, if you
do not believe that there is any inherent -- (inaudible) -- among
people based on race, then the differences we have today must have
been rooted in the mistakes that have been made in the past or the
breakdown of social institutions or personal institutions like the
family, the education system, and the networking of people in
business and others. There has to be a way to rebuild those
institutions, and we have to do it together.
I think it would be a shame if we didn't try to do this
together. I'm trying to put this beyond partisan politics. I'm not
trying to use you. I said that deal about the athletics, because I
might have voted for the athletic thing, too, but I've always been
with the races like athletics and not different from athletics.
That's all. So we need to go.
If you have -- in addition to your suggestions, which
Governor Kean is for, I want to know if you've got process ideas
about how we can discipline this debate and to move it forward.
END 4:00 P.M. EST
* Following the meeting, the Vice President noted that the events to which he
referred took place in Nanjing 60 years ago.
Source: whitehouse.gov