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.
“SIEGE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3791-H3792 on April 24, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SIEGE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out against the current siege on affirmative action. In my home State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down affirmative action in admissions at the University of Texas Law School in Hopwood versus State of Texas. Then just this week, a Federal judge in Houston temporarily barred the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority from considering race or sex as factors in awarding contracts. I am very concerned about this case, and I have just asked that the Department of Transportation investigate this decision and the impact it will have on funding for the Houston Metro.
Wy are we so quick to eradicate these programs, when it took so many years of struggle to even begin these programs? We should not act impulsively to abandon affirmative action. As long as there is discrimination based on race and gender, we must fashion remedies that take race and gender into account. Race- and gender-conscious remedies have proved essential and remain essential. All Americans want a color- or gender-blind society. That is our goal. But serious discrimination persists and we cannot ignore it.
In the Hopwood versus State of Texas case, the opinion suggested that affirmative action conflicts with merit-based admissions because of small differences in index ratings among nonminority and minority applicants. This is an incorrect definition of merit.
The president of Harvard University, Neil Rudenstine, has said:
``Standardized tests do not assess qualities such as competitiveness, decisiveness, creativity, or imagination.'' Standardized test scores should not be the sole criteria for admissions. The definition of merit should include an assessment of what each student would bring to the learning experience of classmates.
Having a racially and ethnically diverse student body produces benefits for the students, for educational institutions, and for society as a whole. The chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, one of the most highly regarded schools in the California system said ``Excellence and diversity are woven from the same cloth--
they are inextricably linked.''
The former president of the University of Pennsylvania has said:
``The most compelling institutional interest in achieving diversity is the educational necessity of preparing students to live in an increasingly diverse society.'' Indeed, many students have benefited from affirmative action in education.
It is no accident that as recently as 1974 racial and ethnic minority groups constituted only 1 percent of the University of Texas Law School's student body, while the same groups constituted 30 percent of the State's population. Only a policy of ethnic and race-consciousness led to the 1995-96 presence at the law school of a 17-percent-minority population in a student body that is still 58 percent male and 75 percent white, despite the fact that the State's minority population now stands at 40 percent. Clearly, the school's policy of attempting to insure some degree of diversity, from which everyone benefits, in the student body has not denied, or even appreciably affected the basically white, mostly male character of the school.
The present law of the land for affirmative action in education is the Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Bakke versus Regents of the University of California. This decision established that a university, if it so chose, could employ race as one of the criteria to recruit and bring students of diverse backgrounds into its student population. This is a good rule which should not be rolled back.
I rise today to urge that we do not rush to tear down the affirmative action programs that have been essential in combating the pervasive discrimination that still exists in society today. Let us not roll back affirmative action just when we are beginning to see the benefits to society and business. A commitment to diversity in the work force is simply good business. Opening opportunities helps business compete in a global market and in a multicultural and multiethnic country such as ours.
We should not rush to scapegoat affirmative action as the cause of our economic problems. It is painfully ironic that affirmative action, which was put in place to correct the problems of discrimination, is now seen as a source of injustice. The appropriation of the language of the civil rights movement to now eliminate affirmative action is a perversion of the struggle for equality and justice that so many have fought so hard to begin. If we lose sight of the history of discrimination and injustice, we are doomed to repeat it.
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