The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE DISMANTLING OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H9989-H9990 on Nov. 4, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE DISMANTLING OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Davis] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my extreme disappointment with the Supreme Court's ruling yesterday that allows the ban on affirmative action in California to stand. The Supreme Court's decision yesterday is consistent with its trend to reverse the gains of African-Americans, women, and minorities in this country. The Court's unwillingness to take this case and decide it on the merits will spur an all-out frontal attack on initiatives that seek to ensure that minorities receive equal opportunity and fairness in contracting, higher education, employment, and many other areas.
Campaigns to eliminate preferences based on race and sex are under way in several States. Today voters in Houston, the Nation's fourth largest city, had an initiative on the ballot to end affirmative action in the area of public contracts. Perhaps W.E.B. Dubois was right when he said that the problem of the 21st century will be the problem of the color line.
Proponents of dismantling affirmative action have argued that discrimination and isolation are no longer barriers to achievement. However, the statistics bear out a different result. The U.S. Department of Labor's Glass Ceiling Commission report, released March 16, 1995, shows that while white men are only 43 percent of the Fortune 2,000 work force, they hold 95 percent of the senior management jobs. In addition, this report revealed that women are only 8.6 percent of engineers, less than 1 percent of carpenters, 23 percent of practicing attorneys, 16 percent of police, and 3.7 percent of firefighters.
Women and minorities are 66 percent of the population in this country, but only 35 percent of physicians, 20 percent of tenured professors, and 6 percent of school superintendents. Minority enrollments in law school and other graduate programs are plummeting for the first time in decades. Women make up 80 percent of the health service professionals, but white males dominate the senior management positions. It is plain that America is still a society where race and sex play major roles in how far you can go.
The concept of affirmative action encompasses three fundamental principles of fairness: First, ensuring that every American has access to education; second, ensuring that every American has access to good jobs; and the third basic principle of affirmative action for which there can be no retreat is ensuring that every American has the opportunity to advance as far in their field as their talents and hard work will take them.
Affirmative action is really all about our Nation's economic competitiveness. It is about being inclusive and not exclusive. In other words, it is about making sure that every American regardless of gender or race has an opportunity to live out the American dream. It is about trying to make sure that individuals do, in fact, have access to equal opportunity.
The Supreme Court's decision yesterday is a major setback for equal opportunity and diversity in this country. However, I urge all citizens who want to shatter the infamous glass ceiling, who want to make America's Statue of Liberty ring true when she says, I welcome your poor, tired, huddled masses of immigrants to our borders, to oppose efforts to end Federal affirmative action.
If we end Federal affirmative action, we are likely to see the gap between the haves and the have-nots widen. We are likely to see contracting for minorities, women and small businesses severely decline. In addition, we are likely to see opportunities for higher education continue to be reduced. Therefore, I urge the masses to mobilize and defeat those who would take us backwards rather than forward. Affirmative action must remain a reality in America.
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