[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7076-H7077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         ADMINISTRATION'S REVIEW OF FEDERAL PREFERENCE PROGRAMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow morning the President 
will give a major speech announcing the results of the administration's 
5-month long review of programs that grant preferences on the basis of 
race and gender.
  Of course, the administration and the media call it a review of 
affirmative action, but that is not really what the review is about. As 
originally designed, affirmative action was about nondiscrimination--it 
required parties to take affirmative action to ensure that no person 
would be treated with regard to race.
  Over the past 25 years, however, this mandate of nondiscrimination 
has been turned on its head and converted into a requirement to grant 
preferences on the basis of race and gender. There are now a multitude 
of Federal programs that grant such preferential treatment. And it is 
to the future of these preference programs, and not to affirmative 
action, that the President will be speaking.
  With regard to those programs, the issues really are quite simple, 
and they reduce to this: Should the Government divide its citizens into 
groups based on race and gender? And should some citizens qualify for 
special Government benefits based solely upon their membership in a 
racial or gender group? And if so, how can this regime of preferences 
be reconciled with the Constitution's fundamental guarantees of 
individual rights and equal opportunity to all regardless of race or 
gender?
  To put the issue in more concrete terms, is it wise public policy for 
the Federal Government to award contracts to minority- or women-owned 
firms when other qualified firms have submitted lower bids? And is it a 
good idea for Federal agencies and officers to make employment 
decisions every day with an eye toward meeting numerical hiring and 
promotion objectives based on race and gender? And is it just to 
require Federal contractors to grant preferences--to hire by the 
numbers--in order to keep their Federal contracts?
  These are the issues the President should address. I must confess, I 
can't imagine why it would take 5 months to answer these questions. 
Either you are in favor or preferences or you are not. Either you think 
it's acceptable to base hiring and contracting decisions upon race and 
gender or you do not. These are straightforward questions of principle, 
and they really do not require extended deliberation.
  I am concerned, however, that even after the administration's 5-month 
review, we will be disappointed tomorrow to learn that the President 
still has not come to grips with these fundamental issues. Rather than 
tell us where he really stands, I am concerned--and newspaper reports 
previewing the speech seem to indicate--that the administration has 
decided to treat this important issue in a legalistic and bureaucratic 
manner.
  So instead of learning how the President understands the 
nondiscrimination principle, we are likely to hear how the 
administration interprets the Supreme Court's recent decision in 
Adarand versus Pena. And rather than coming to terms with the glaring 
conflict between racial and gender preferences and the American 
commitment to individual rights, President Clinton will simply suggest 
that there are some administrative imperfections in the existing 
preference programs that need to be fixed.
  And we will no doubt here the mandatory disavowal of ``quotas,'' with 
the confident assertion that because ``quotas are illegal, we don't 
have to 

[[Page H 7077]]
worry about them.'' But this alleged distinction between quotas and 
other forms of numerical preferences is truly a semantic distinction 
without a difference. The label, after all, is not the offending 
practice. What is offensive is the practice of granting preferences on 
the basis of race and gender, and that practice is no less offensive 
when called by a name other than a quota.
  I may be wrong about the President's intentions. I hope that I am 
wrong. This issue and the principle it touches on are much too 
important to surrender to lawyers and bureaucrats. If a society without 
discrimination is really our goal, then we need to engage in a national 
dialog about how best to get there. That means getting back to the 
original purpose of affirmative action by continuing our efforts to 
reach out to all segments of the community--to make everyone aware of 
opportunities. But it also means ceasing discrimination now. And that 
requires ending the Federal Government's massive system of race and 
gender preferences. President Clinton should embrace the principle of 
nondiscrimination and act to dismantle the system of preferences--a 
system which divides Americans and reinforces prejudice.


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