[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 48 (Wednesday, March 15, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3941-S3943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I have been planning to take the floor for 
some time this week and have not been able to do so, given the Senate's 
schedule prior to this time. I was not aware that Senator Dole would be 
taking the floor to talk about affirmative action.
  First, let me say that I have the highest regard and respect for 
Senator Dole and I agree completely with what he said earlier that no 
one--no one--can criticize his position on civil rights or on policies 
that would benefit those who suffer from any sort of affliction or 
disability.
  Especially in the field of civil rights, he has been a leader. No one 
can question his motivations. I think he is correct to start calling 
attention to some revisions that may be necessary in dealing with 
affirmative action.
  Having said that, I want to point out that affirmative action has 
moved apparently to the center stage of this country's political 
agenda. Critics of programs designed to address centuries' old 
discrimination range all the way from Presidential contenders to 
syndicated columnists.
  Some argue that our Nation is or should be colorblind and our laws 
race and gender neutral. Some have argued--and I am paraphrasing, but I 
think correctly--that reverse discrimination is as bad as slavery. I 
want to repeat they believe that reverse discrimination is as bad as 
slavery. I suggest, perhaps, a reading of Alex Haley or James Baldwin 
or Gordon Parks might be beneficial in dismissing such a preposterous 
notion.
  One writer has written that, ``Compensatory opportunity is advocated 
by those who want to remedy the presumed victimization of certain 
groups in the past.'' Mr. President, since victimization has only been 
presumed, apparently like the Holocaust, it has to be proven in the 
present and in the future time and time again.
  It is also said that preferential treatment based on race, gender or 
ethnicity is inherently anti-American and contributes to the 
polarization of the American people. Finally, some say that 30 years is 
long enough to compensate for the four centuries of our fathers' sins.
  Mr. President, I should point out that these critics of affirmative 
action are not confined to angry white males. There are a number of 
prominent blacks, some of whom have no doubt been the beneficiaries of 
affirmative action programs, who now denounce the programs because of 
the so-called Faustian bargain that they had to strike.
 They resent the fact that they now have scarlet letters ``AA'' stamped 
on their brow, which, they believe, forever identifies them as social 
and intellectual inferiors who could not make it on merit.

  Let me say, Mr. President, as a strong supporter of programs designed 
to help women and African Americans and other minorities break through 
glass ceilings and concrete walls, I believe, as I said earlier, that 
no program, however well-intentioned, should be excluded from review, 
revision, even elimination if circumstances warrant. There is no doubt 
in my mind that some programs have been used and abused in ways that 
many of us who are the authors and supporters of affirmative action 
never anticipated. The Viacom deal, which is about to come before the 
Senate in the next week or two, is perhaps a classic case of a program 
that has long since outlived its usefulness. Maybe it needs to be 
rejected and repealed.
  But I say to those who argue that we should not consider any 
preferential treatment on the basis of group membership, I think we 
have to look back into our history and look deep into our hearts and 
remind ourselves that we have a great deal to account for and correct 
based on discriminatory policies of the past--policies that continue to 
this very day. Judgments and jobs are not, as we would like to believe, 
based on the content of our character. They are, in fact, in many, many 
cases still based on the color of one's skin, gender or ethnic 
background.
  I know that affirmative action is said to be a politically defining 
issue, a wedge issue, one that is going to drive the middle-class white 
voters fully into the arms of the Republican Party, leaving the 
minorities and women and other liberals floating in the backwash of the 
Democratic Party. The polls actually confirm that this wedge is 
politically powerful and popular as a force that will, in fact, succeed 
in dividing segments of our society into clearly defined political 
camps.
  Mr. President, let me say I believe any short-term political success 
is going to prove to be a long-term policy disaster, because what is 
truly at stake in the coming debate is not wedges but values.
  There are two values that lie deep within the American hearts and 
minds. One is that every person should be given a fair chance to 
compete in the classroom, on the athletic fields and in the workplace. 
Every person under our Constitution should enjoy equal privileges and 
protections of the law.
  Second, there should be no special privileges, no favoritism, no 
artificial or arbitrary rules that give something to someone that has 
not been earned. There should be no quotas, no rules of thumb. We want 
rules of reason instead.
   [[Page S3942]] In an ideal world, these values are not in conflict, 
they are in complete harmony.
  But let us suppose that the world is less than ideal. Let us suppose 
that all the people are not treated equally over a long period of time. 
Suppose there are laws that discriminate against people because of 
their race or sex. Suppose that some people are treated as slaves or 
pack mules or objects of hatred and violence or as simple reproductive 
vessels. And suppose that some people cannot buy a home or obtain a 
mortgage or get a job or break through that so-called glass ceiling 
just because of the color of their skin. Is there anything more un-
American than to deny a human being the chance to be the best that he 
or she can be on equal terms?
  Is there anything more un-American than to isolate people in a 
ghetto, to put up invisible barriers by denying them jobs, opportunity, 
and any hope of breaking out of that prison of poverty, and then to 
watch in horror and outrage as their children go fatherless and the 
streets go white with drugs and run red with the blood of mindless 
violence?
  Is there anything more un-American than to rob people of equal 
opportunity because of the pigment of their skin, the texture of their 
hair, the composition of their chromosomes, all while we proudly 
proclaim that our policies are colorblind and gender neutral?
  And is there anything more hypocritical than to say that racism or 
sexism is a thing of the past?
  Mr. President, a book I read some years ago, ``Native Son,'' written 
by Richard Wright 55 years ago, told the story of what it means to be 
black in this country. There are many memorable scenes, but one that 
has stayed with me over the years is one where there are two young 
boys, one named Bigger and one named Gus. They look up at a pilot who 
is skywriting on a lazy summer day. The passage goes:

       ``Looks like a little bird,'' Bigger breathed with 
     childlike wonder.
       ``Them white boys sure can fly,'' Gus said.
       ``Yeah,'' Bigger said wistfully. ``They get a chance to do 
     everything. I could fly a plane if I had a chance.''
       ``If you wasn't black and if you had some money and they'd 
     let you go to the aviation school, you could fly a plane,'' 
     Gus said. . . .

  Then Bigger said:

       Every time I think about it, I feel like somebody's poking 
     a red-hot iron down my throat. . . . It's just like living in 
     jail. Half the time I feel like I'm on the outside of the 
     world peeping in through the knot-hole in the fence. . . .''

  Mr. President, that scene was memorable for me not just because it 
depicts innocence in a novel that is filled with horror, but because it 
says so much about the human spirit, about the significance of hope, 
and about the utter destructiveness of knowing in advance that hope can 
never be realized.
  Well, ``Native Son'' is fiction. It was written more than 50 years 
ago now, and we know that a lot of things have changed since that time. 
We know that we have Michael Jordan who may be, once again, skywriting 
in Chicago. We know that you can turn on your television set and watch 
Bryant Gumbel or Oprah Winfrey. We know we have Justice Thomas on the 
Court. We know that we have Colin Powell, who may be the most popular 
non-Presidential candidate to date on the American political scene. 
There are powerful women as well, Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice 
Ginsburg, to name a few.
  Let me just say that for every Michael Jordan, for every Colin 
Powell, for every athlete, musician, business-person who has succeeded, 
there are millions of people locked away from opportunity to this very 
day.
  One of the things that struck me several years ago was a program I 
watched, I think it was on ``ABC PrimeTime.'' The producers of that 
show took two attractive articulate male college graduates, one was 
white, one was black, and sent them out into the world followed by a 
hidden camera.
  How was the black man treated? In a store, he was regarded with great 
suspicion by a security guard who followed him wherever he went. At an 
auto dealership he was ignored for not just minutes but nearly a half-
hour or more. He went to look for an apartment and was told, ``Just 
happened to miss it. The last one went just a few minutes ago.''
  Then they followed the white college graduate. Needless to say, he 
was treated quite differently. When he went to the store, he was 
welcomed with open arms. When he went to the auto dealership, he was 
given preferential treatment and terms. When he went to look for an 
apartment, the same building at which the black man had just been 
turned down, they said, ``We have an apartment for you.''
  Well, the camera never blinked, not once, not twice. And not one of 
the participants in the film blinked. They either denied they were 
engaged in acts of racism or discrimination or they reacted with anger 
at the exposure of their behavior.
  So for those today who say that racism is all a thing of the past, 
that we do not have to worry about it anymore, that 30 years has really 
leveled the playing field--it isn't true. And for those who say that 
affirmative action is being used to deny qualified white males their 
opportunity--Mr. President--that was never the goal of affirmative 
action. It was never the goal of affirmative action to give preference 
to unqualified people over qualified ones, be it in college, in 
graduate schools or the management level of business. We are not 
discriminating in favor of unqualified blacks and unqualified women.
  Affirmative action is really about finding qualified people. They are 
out there in abundance. But either through inadvertence or deliberate 
neglect and rejection, they have been ignored. The pursuit has not been 
for mediocrity, it has been for opportunity, to give everyone a chance 
to be the best that they can be.
  Justice Holmes, one of my favorite Justices in the history of this 
country, said at one time that the tragedy that filled the old world's 
literature was really about people who were taxed beyond their 
abilities. We know the story of Sisyphus forever rolling the rock up 
the hill and it kept rolling back down. We know about those with the 
water that kept coming up to their necks but could never drink. This 
theme was really part of the myths and the tragedies of the ancient 
Greeks.
  Holmes said that in modern times there is a different type of hell, a 
much deeper abyss, that occurs when people who are conscious of their 
powers are denied their chance. That is what affirmative action really 
has been all about, when people conscious of their power have been 
denied their chance. Affirmative action has provided an opportunity for 
the U.S. Congress and the administration to work together to help bring 
people who have the talent and the ability, who have been held down 
over the centuries--not just 30 years, over the centuries--to give them 
a chance to break through the barriers. Now we are suddenly saying that 
society is all level, we are gender neutral, we are race neutral, we do 
not have to worry about affirmative action anymore.
  But we have not been fully successful. A recent Time magazine article 
shows that affirmative action has not had as positive an effect as the 
critics claim or supporters hope. The article cites a Bureau of Labor 
Statistics study from 1994 noting that whites now hold 88.8 percent of 
managerial professional positions, down only slightly from 91.6 percent 
in 1983. In that same period, blacks increased their presence in the 
managerial professional ranks only marginally--from 5.6 to 7.1 percent. 
So there have not been these great strides that the critics of the 
programs have now cited.
  Mr. President, I say it again, I have no doubt that there are some 
who might use either their race or gender as an excuse for failure. The 
vast majority of people, however, have found that others have used 
their race or gender as a reason to keep them from success. So let us 
remove programs that are no longer necessary, let us revise ones that 
are not working, but let us not indulge in the delusion that the field 
of dreams is equal and level for all of our people. We still have a 
long, long way to go.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). The Chair recognizes the junior 
Senator from Illinois.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Thank you, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent 
to speak in morning business for a period not to exceed 10 minutes.
   [[Page S3943]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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