[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 45 (Thursday, April 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    SWEARING IN OF DEVAL L. PATRICK

 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, a few days ago, I attended the 
ceremony in which Deval Patrick was sworn in as head of the Civil 
Rights Division of the Department of Justice. While I have made remarks 
for the Record about how impressive and competent I think he is, and 
how capable he is personally, I believe that the comments he delivered 
at his swearing-in ceremony should be read by all my colleagues. They 
are a strong and eloquent expression of his goals in this important 
position, and so I ask that his comments be placed in the Record at 
this point.
  The comments follow:

Statement of Deval L. Patrick, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights 
                                Division

       Thank you all so much. I know the members have to leave 
     because they have to vote. And I thank them very much for 
     coming, as they depart.
       General Reno, General Corelick, General Days, General 
     Bryson, distinguished guests and friends, old and new, I am 
     extremely touched by the kind words that my friends and 
     colleagues have said today.
       Usually, you have to die before people will say that kind 
     of thing about you.
       I am so honored to be standing here this morning and so 
     grateful, really grateful to all of you for coming to bear 
     witness to this event.
       I am a great believer that important occasions should be 
     marked by ceremony. And I value the presence of so many of 
     you, especially with tax returns due tomorrow.
       My special thanks to my friends and mentors, Solicitor 
     General Days, Judge Lindsay, and Judge Reinhardt, whom I know 
     privately as Drew, Reg, and Judge Reinhardt.
       And for me, you each reflect that marvelous combination of 
     brilliance and soul that has been such a model of humanity 
     and citizenship for me and, I know, for so many others.
       My family is also here in force and in many extensions. And 
     I want to introduce some of them.
       My bride, Diane, you have met. Our daughters, Sarah and 
     Katherine are down in front. I won't ask you to stand up. 
     Don't worry.
       My mother, Emily Patrick, is here; my in-laws, John and 
     Lillian Bemus.
       My sister, Rhonda Sigh and her children, Bianca and 
     Brandon; my siblings-in-law, Jay Bemus and Iola Wright, and 
     also Lynn and Bobby Chavis and their sons, Robb and Ryan.
       I am so blessed to have each of you with me today and 
     always. And I thank you, too.
       We have too many special friends here today to mention, but 
     I have to single out just two. And they are Eddie Quaintance 
     and Darla Weissenberg. And I would just like for them to 
     stand for a second.
       I'm going to tell you why. Mrs. Quaintance was my sixth 
     grade teacher.
       Mrs. Weissenberg was my seventh grade teacher.
       Mrs. Weissenberg is the person who steered me to a 
     foundation in Boston that you have heard about, called ``A 
     Better Chance,'' and onto a new level of educational 
     challenge, because she thought I was special.
       And Mrs. Quaintance is the person who taught me to believe 
     I was special. And that made it possible for me to accomplish 
     something with the opportunities that were handed to me.
       And I am very honored that you are here with us today.
       Finally, I want to thank my new boss and friend, Janet 
     Reno. I was hoping she wouldn't tell that hug story.
       I have to work with these people, you know.
       The Attorney General's leadership of and commitment to this 
     Department and to the principle for which it is named are 
     extraordinary and palpable. And her compassion makes it 
     possible for her to keep her own heavy responsibilities, and 
     ours, in perspective.
       I consider myself and the nation fortunate, indeed, to have 
     her where she is.
       Some say that the Civil Rights Division has lacked 
     leadership, that it has languished in a leadership vacuum.
       I have to tell you after 11 working days on the job, that I 
     have learned otherwise, that otherwise is true, because in 
     this interregnum, and in so many others, in some 34 years in 
     the division, Jim Turner has served with ability and grace as 
     Acting Assistant Attorney General.
       We calculate that Jim has served longer--I think this is 
     right--in his accumulated terms as acting AAG than seven out 
     of the eleven former appointed AAGs.
       Many, many people--mostly reporters--have asked me what our 
     agenda will be in the Civil Rights Division.
       And I have usually replied that it's not time quite yet to 
     answer that; that only after a few days on the job, the best 
     I can say is that our formal goals will be developed 
     collaboratively, in consult with the advocacy groups and with 
     ourselves.
       Then I usually add that I have a personal commitment to 
     defending the Voting Rights Act against the several recent 
     attacks on its gains to making banks make lending decisions 
     fairly to developing an expansive jurisprudence under the 
     Americans With Disabilities Act and to broadening 
     opportunities for minorities and women to equal advancement 
     in the work place and in the schools.
       But the unifying theme of our work is quite a bit broader 
     than that. The real and ultimate agenda is to reclaim the 
     American conscience. Our true mission is to restore the great 
     moral imperative that civil rights is finally all about.
       This nation, as I see it, has a creed. That creed is deeply 
     rooted in the concepts of equality, opportunity and fair 
     play.
       Our faith in that creed has made us a prideful nation, and 
     enabled us to accomplish feats of extraordinary achievement 
     and uplift.
       And yet, in the same instant, we see racism and unfairness 
     all around us. In the same instant, we see acts of 
     unspeakable cruelty and even violence because of race, or 
     ethnicity, or gender, or disability, or sexual orientation.
       They present a legal problem, to be sure. But they also 
     pose a moral dilemma. How can a national founded on such 
     principles, dedicated to such a creed, sometimes fall so 
     short?
       And let me assure you: That is a question asked not just by 
     intellectuals and pundits of each other. It is asked by 
     simple, every day people of each other and of themselves, in 
     barber shops and across kitchen tables, in the mind's silent 
     voice on the bus ride home from work, in the still, small 
     times when conscience calls.
       To be a civil rights lawyer, you must understand what the 
     laws mean. But to understand civil rights, you must 
     understand how it feels; how it feels to be hounded by 
     uncertainty and fear about whether you will be fairly 
     treated; how it feels to be trapped in someone else's 
     stereotype, to have people look right through you.
       To understand civil rights, you must understand that the 
     victims of discrimination feel a deep and helpless pain, and 
     ask themselves bitterly the very question of morality I have 
     just posed.
       And what will be our answer? Will we sit back and claim 
     that we have no answer, or that it is not our business to 
     devise one?
       Will we shrink from the moral dimension of our work? Well, 
     let me tell you now: We will not shrink.
       The answer to the question is, ``No.'' There is a moral 
     dimension. And we will assert it.
       And the reason, the reason I make you that unequivocal 
     pledge is simply this: I have a personal stake in the 
     business of the Civil Rights Division.
       I know what we can accomplish through vigorous enforcement, 
     through calm determination, and through effort.
       I know that the business of the Civil Rights Division has 
     opened up jobs to black workers. I know that the Civil Rights 
     Division has opened up apartments to Hispanic families.
       I know that the Civil Rights Division has opened up whole 
     new vistas of active lift to people with disabilities.
       I know that the Civil Rights Division has vindicated the 
     rights of Asians and Jews and so many others to be safe from 
     organized bigotry; the right of young black men to be safe 
     from excessive police force.
       I know that the Civil Rights Division has made it possible 
     for prisoners to retain their human dignity even when they 
     surrender their freedom.
       And I know that the Civil Rights Division has helped create 
     the most integrated Congressional districts in the South, and 
     the most integrated classrooms in the world.
       I know because I have lived it. I know because I can look 
     around this room and see every kind of woman and man, joined 
     here in one brief but illustrative moment of harmony, common 
     in our humanity and in our resolve.
       And I know that when the American people see what I see 
     here right now, they see the same possibility, the same hope, 
     and the beginning of the answer to the question of conscience 
     that the American creed poses.
       Our divisions are of our own creation. They are not beyond 
     our power to resolve them.
       Our cynicism is but our own fear. It is not beyond our 
     courage to conquer.
       Our despair is of our own relenting. It is not beyond our 
     faith.
       We have but so many moments, I think, where the confluence 
     of opportunity and resolve is in this wondrous balance. And 
     so it is right now.
       This Administration, with its commitment to forward 
     movement, now greets this nation, yearning to reclaim its 
     moral center. Let us meet this opportunity with sufficient 
     commitment, with sufficient resolve and with wisdom. Destiny 
     asks of us no less.
       Of my new colleagues in the Civil Rights Division, I ask 
     from you your most solemn commitment and resolve, and all of 
     the force of intellect I know you amply possess.
       Bring to your task, and to ours, your hard work and your 
     faith in the American promise. And with it, we can create 
     opportunity. And we can also inspire hope.
       Bring to this task intellectual honesty, determination, 
     imagination, and humanity. And we cannot and will not fail.
       Of the American people, those here and elsewhere, I ask you 
     only this: Give us your commitment to equality. Give us your 
     sense of history and of the great unfinished agenda which 
     derives from it.
       And we will set your hearts afire, and help you know what I 
     know about what is possible in America.
       Dr. King said, ``Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? 
     Expediency asks the question: Is it polite? Vanity asks the 
     question: Is it popular? But conscience, conscience must ask 
     the question: Is it right?''
       Ladies and gentlemen, as American citizens, so must we.
       We may not redeem the sleeping soul of this great republic 
     and recreate the civil rights consensus that made possible 
     the moral high points of this nation in my tenure, or even in 
     my lifetime. But let us begin.
       Thank you very much.

                          ____________________