[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 98 (Thursday, June 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


    INTRODUCTION OF BILL ENDING FEDERAL AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS

  (Mr. FUNDERBURK asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FUNDERBURK. Mr. Speaker, last week I introduced H.R. 1764, 
legislation to eliminate over 160 Federal affirmative action programs 
ranging from public employment to education.
  Mr. Speaker, affirmative action is an affront to the dignity of every 
American. It is an assault on the principle that no American should be 
handicapped or advanced simply on the basis of his skin color. It has 
been 40 years since Little Rock and almost 35 years since the hoses 
were shut down in Birmingham. As Bruce Fein points out in yesterday's 
Washington Times, ``Special preferences for minorities and women have 
dominated civil rights laws for the entire adult lives of the 18 to 40 
years old group.''
  Mr. Speaker, to continue to see America through the prism of racial 
entitlements reenforces the same type of dangerous thinking that led to 
slavery and Jim Crow. No matter what face the liberals put on it there 
is nothing good about racial discrimination in any form. Calling 
affirmative action ``benign discrimination'' is obscene. It is about 
time the liberals recognize that we are all one people in this country. 
We are all American. Let us do something right for our children, let us 
end affirmative action as we know it.

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