[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 99 (Friday, June 16, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H6079]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           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. Mr. Speaker, in light of recent Supreme Court 
rulings that raise the hurdle of educational and economic opportunity 
for millions of minority citizens in America, I rise this evening to 
speak about the philosophical questions now facing this Nation with 
respect to affirmative action.
  Many of us saw the headlines after Adarand was decided, and of course 
it behooves the national media to claim that affirmative action, or 
maybe equal opportunity, was dead. But let me begin with the general 
principles and philosophy of affirmative action by posing the simple 
yes or no question:
  Does American society today provide all, all of its citizens, with an 
equal opportunity to succeed? I would imagine, if you were truthful, 
what your answer would be, and if you actually answer this question 
with a yes, you must be one of the following: unfortunately alarmingly 
uninformed, or maybe far less than forthright, or sadly a Republican 
Presidential candidate for office, or some of my Republican colleagues 
offering antidiscrimination legislation in this body.
  How else could one deny that which we all know in our hearts to be 
true, and that is that, while we are all created equal, we, by no 
means, are treated equally in our society.
  As initially conceived by the Johnson administration and as put in 
place by the Nixon administration, bipartisan Federal affirmative 
action programs were never intended as and have never been applied as a 
knee-jerk set of quota rules and regulations. Nor have affirmative 
action programs ever sanctioned the hiring or promotion of unqualified 
individuals over those who are eminently more qualified. Who would 
abide by that?
  Affirmative action has always been and remains a good-faith effort to 
help historically underprivileged Americans compete on a more equal 
footing in the areas of education, business, employment, housing, and 
finance, simply attaining the American dream. For if we are to ever 
attain our American ideal of a colorblind society, which many would 
raise in debates all across this Nation, carrying the flag and 
suggesting that all they want is a colorblind society, which is where 
all men and women, boys and girls, are judged solely by the content of 
their character, not the color of their skin, first stated, by the way, 
by Dr. Martin Luther King, then clearly we must come to terms with our 
less-than-egalitarian past.
  While we focus on our brutal 400-year legacy of slavery that ended 
merely technically only some 30 years ago, with the passage of our 
Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, or the ``glass ceiling'' that has 
kept women from achieving, like their male counterparts, in the 
American workplace, it is obvious that we must do more to include a 
wider variety of our citizens' talents, energies, and potential of all 
aspects of American life. The Bush administration established the Glass 
Ceiling Commission to keep track of report on minority employment and 
trends in American business.

  Mr. Speaker as most of my colleagues know, the Commission's February 
report told us that 95 percent of the top executive jobs in America's 
top 2,000 corporations are still held by white men, many of whom I have 
had the opportunity to dialog with, heads of these corporations who 
have said we are still working and striving to create diversity at the 
higher levels.
  That information can logically lead us to two possible conclusions: 
Either majority males are naturally superior to all human beings and, 
therefore, rightfully merit their positions, or there is still 
troublesome and pervasive discrimination at work in our society.
  There are all kinds of discrimination. Let us be realistic. Some is 
subtle, even subconscious, such as when a majority male executive--who 
happened to be hired by a majority male executive--has to decide 
between two similarly qualified job applicants, another majority male 
and perhaps a minority female.
  By doing what statistics tell us he probably will; that is, hire the 
majority male, our executives have not necessarily engaged in overt, 
willful acts of discrimination, racism, or sexism. I am certainly 
saying and not suggesting that all majority male executives would do 
any of this. But the effect is the same. It occurs, it happens. Ninety-
five percent of those positions are held by majority males.
  And I should note, Mr. Speaker, as we all know, there are thousands 
of acts of overt and willful discrimination occurring every day, and we 
can bury our heads in the sand and pretend these virulent problems do 
not exist, or we can openly discuss our lingering racism and sexism in 
ways to improve and reform our affirmative action programs.
  But rather than enter into a reasonable discussion of this critical 
national issue, many demagogs have chosen their scapegoats and now seek 
to exploit the economic anxieties of millions of Americans, and that is 
why the headlines, and the talk shows and the blame game.
  The demagogs want Americans who are justifiably worried about a 
rapidly changing global economy to believe that the minorities are to 
blame for their economic woes.
  They want us to believe that welfare mothers are to blame for all of 
America's troubles.
  That hard-working legal immigrants should be distrusted.
  And that all young African-American males are potential criminals and 
thus incapable of contributing to the strength of America.
  This is shameless, this is nonsense. Mr. Speaker, I call upon this 
House, I call upon the Senate, I call upon the leadership of this 
Nation and all of the American people to answer the question of 
equality truthfully. Have we reached it? Absolutely not. Can we do it? 
Yes, we can. Can we do it together? Absolutely.
  I challenge this society and America, Let's do it together and create 
a true equality for all Americans, real affirmative action.

                          ____________________