[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3791-H3792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SIEGE ON 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.

[[Page H3792]]

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out 
against the current siege on affirmative action. In my home State of 
Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down 
affirmative action in admissions at the University of Texas Law School 
in Hopwood versus State of Texas. Then just this week, a Federal judge 
in Houston temporarily barred the Houston Metropolitan Transit 
Authority from considering race or sex as factors in awarding 
contracts. I am very concerned about this case, and I have just asked 
that the Department of Transportation investigate this decision and the 
impact it will have on funding for the Houston Metro.
  Wy are we so quick to eradicate these programs, when it took so many 
years of struggle to even begin these programs? We should not act 
impulsively to abandon affirmative action. As long as there is 
discrimination based on race and gender, we must fashion remedies that 
take race and gender into account. Race- and gender-conscious remedies 
have proved essential and remain essential. All Americans want a color- 
or gender-blind society. That is our goal. But serious discrimination 
persists and we cannot ignore it.
  In the Hopwood versus State of Texas case, the opinion suggested that 
affirmative action conflicts with merit-based admissions because of 
small differences in index ratings among nonminority and minority 
applicants. This is an incorrect definition of merit.
  The president of Harvard University, Neil Rudenstine, has said: 
``Standardized tests do not assess qualities such as competitiveness, 
decisiveness, creativity, or imagination.'' Standardized test scores 
should not be the sole criteria for admissions. The definition of merit 
should include an assessment of what each student would bring to the 
learning experience of classmates.
  Having a racially and ethnically diverse student body produces 
benefits for the students, for educational institutions, and for 
society as a whole. The chancellor of the University of California at 
Berkeley, one of the most highly regarded schools in the California 
system said ``Excellence and diversity are woven from the same cloth--
they are inextricably linked.''
  The former president of the University of Pennsylvania has said: 
``The most compelling institutional interest in achieving diversity is 
the educational necessity of preparing students to live in an 
increasingly diverse society.'' Indeed, many students have benefited 
from affirmative action in education.
  It is no accident that as recently as 1974 racial and ethnic minority 
groups constituted only 1 percent of the University of Texas Law 
School's student body, while the same groups constituted 30 percent of 
the State's population. Only a policy of ethnic and race-consciousness 
led to the 1995-96 presence at the law school of a 17-percent-minority 
population in a student body that is still 58 percent male and 75 
percent white, despite the fact that the State's minority population 
now stands at 40 percent. Clearly, the school's policy of attempting to 
insure some degree of diversity, from which everyone benefits, in the 
student body has not denied, or even appreciably affected the basically 
white, mostly male character of the school.

  The present law of the land for affirmative action in education is 
the Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Bakke versus Regents of the 
University of California. This decision established that a university, 
if it so chose, could employ race as one of the criteria to recruit and 
bring students of diverse backgrounds into its student population. This 
is a good rule which should not be rolled back.
  I rise today to urge that we do not rush to tear down the affirmative 
action programs that have been essential in combating the pervasive 
discrimination that still exists in society today. Let us not roll back 
affirmative action just when we are beginning to see the benefits to 
society and business. A commitment to diversity in the work force is 
simply good business. Opening opportunities helps business compete in a 
global market and in a multicultural and multiethnic country such as 
ours.
  We should not rush to scapegoat affirmative action as the cause of 
our economic problems. It is painfully ironic that affirmative action, 
which was put in place to correct the problems of discrimination, is 
now seen as a source of injustice. The appropriation of the language of 
the civil rights movement to now eliminate affirmative action is a 
perversion of the struggle for equality and justice that so many have 
fought so hard to begin. If we lose sight of the history of 
discrimination and injustice, we are doomed to repeat it.

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