Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 129 (Wednesday, September 18, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 129 (Wednesday, September 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10588-H10594]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Quinn). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Jackson] is
recognized for 60 minutes.

continued tribute to tom bevill and glen browder

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the
distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes].
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for
yielding to me. I will just take a couple of moments of his time. I am
sorry that I did not arrive earlier to be able to speak on Mr.
Callahan's special order on behalf of Tom Bevill and Glen Browder. Mr.
Obey and I have been in a House-Senate conference on the VA-HUD bill,
and we just got a chance to get here to the floor.
I will just take a moment, but I do want to say that with reference
to Tom Bevill, with whom I have served almost all the time that I have
been in the Congress, that I have established a lot of friendships in
this Congress but no greater friendship have I had than that I have had
with Tom Bevill. I do not know of any Member of Congress who is
respected any more highly than he is, nor do I know of anyone who has
made a greater contribution to this Nation than he has.
We have worked on a lot of projects together over the years and it
has been a real privilege and honor to serve with him, to get to know
not only him but members of his family, his lovely wife and members of
his family. I want to say we are going to miss Tom here.

{time} 1645

His level of leadership has been something that we can all point to
as a model and with great admiration.
In the same vein, I want to take just a second to say what a pleasure
and privilege it has been to serve with Glen Browder. He too, following
in the footsteps of Tom Bevill and other leaders from Alabama, has been
a real model here. He has had a long and distinguished record
legislatively and is someone whom all of us not only admire, but we
will miss greatly when he leaves this body.
And just lastly, Tom, I might say that I am sure that our good
friend, Bob Jones, is watching this special order this afternoon and I
am sure there is a smile on his face with the knowledge that you and I
shared a special friendship over the years.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank you, Mr. Stokes.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished ranking member of the
Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Obey.
Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman. I do not want to impose on his time.
I would simply ask unanimous consent that the remarks I made about our
good friend, Tom Bevill, when we considered the energy and water
appropriations bill be incorporated in my remarks at this point in the
Record and to simply say again, Tom, how much I have enjoyed the
opportunity to serve with you and how grateful we are for the service
you have given the country.
And I want to say to Glen that you have, I think, performed
tremendous service in this institution with good humor and with grace,
with understanding of other people's points of view and with deep
commitment to the things that you believe in. That is what makes this
country strong, and that is what makes this institution what it is
supposed to be, and I thank you both for your service here.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to take this
opportunity to thank Tom Bevill and Glen Browder, as well, for their
years of service to this institution, and while I have not had the
privilege of knowing and working with them at the level that I wish I
could have, their reputations in this institution as genuine public
servants certainly precedes them and I am just honored to have the
privilege to be from the State of Illinois, to follow in their
tradition of public service. The roles that they have represented in
this institution are not without great distinction and without the kind
of merit that truly needs to be bestowed upon public servants in this
institution.

affirmative action

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Today, Mr. Speaker, I am joined by the
distinguished gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] to talk about an
issue of critical importance during this electoral season, the issue of
affirmative action, and with that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the
gentleman to engage with me in colloquy for the remainder and the
balance of our time.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman, and I, too, would
like to add to the accolades that have been bestowed upon both Tom
Bevill and Glen Browder for their years of service. As a young Member
of this Congress, I want to thank each of you for the leadership that
you have shown on the floor of the House. You have always conducted
yourselves in a very professional manner, and I would hope that people
outside of this Chamber have had the opportunity to watch the two of
you on the floor, and also in committee. Hopefully, the Congress is
better served because you had an opportunity, the two of you had the
opportunity, to serve. And as a young Member, I say to you, I
appreciate the leadership that you have given to others such as myself.
I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Jackson] for
yielding to me. I want to apologize to the gentleman. I had intended to
be a part of this entire hour. I will not be able to participate the
full hour, but I want to thank the gentleman for bringing such an
important issue to the forefront, and that is affirmative action.
Today, the Small Business Committee held hearings which assessed the
value and the continued need for the Small Business Administration's
8(a) program--one of the most successful programs for helping the
socially and economically disadvantaged to become self-reliant
entrepreneurs. It is no surprise that we find ourselves addressing the
issue of affirmative action during this political season--for despite
what all of the macroeconomic indicators may describe, many in our
Nation find themselves dominated by economic anxiety. We know from past
experience that in such a climate politicians use the fear-driven
dynamic of scapegoating and blame to divide us from each other.
We are at a critical juncture in the way our Nation addresses issues
of race and gender. The greatest civil rights gains were achieved in
the 1950's and 1960's at a time of economic health, prosperity, and
growth. Today, as we face the results of the globalization of the
economy, the downsizing of Government and corporate America, fear-
driven political divisiveness abounds and threatens the gains we have
made.
There is probably no issue in current political discourse that speaks
more to the Nation's acceptance or denial of the existence of race and
gender discrimination than affirmative action.

[[Page H10589]]

After his review of existing affirmative action programs, President
Clinton strongly endorsed the principle of equal opportunity and the
means to achieve it--strongly and adequately enforced affirmative
action programs.
Opponents of affirmative action, who use the issue as a wedge to
divide society for the sake of political expediency, uniformly deny
that discrimination continues to be a pervasive evil--a fact of life
for a majority of Americans. Opponents perpetuate the idea of achieving
a colorblind society despite overwhelming evidence of discrimination
against people of color. When opponents present their rationale for
eliminating affirmative action as a remedy for such discrimination,
they often take Dr. King's quote about ``judging people by the content
of their character and not the color of their skin'' out of context.
What Dr. King actually said was that ``He looked forward to the day''
that people would be judged by the content of their character, not the
color of their skin. We know that such a day has yet to arrive.

In order to understand why we are discussing affirmative action
today, it is important to place the development of affirmative action
programs in their proper historical context. To this end, today we
would like to first trace the history of affirmative action in America.
Second, we will attempt to dispel the myths surrounding this complex
arena, and finally, we will specifically address the merits of the 8(a)
program and the positive effects it has had and will continue to have
on our Nation's small businesses if we sustain this valuable program.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Contrary to popular opinion, the concept of
affirmative action has a very long and protracted history in the United
States. The longer, more pervasive form has been exclusive affirmative
action which established and perpetuated the dominance of white male
Anglo-Saxon landowners. For a brief period following the Civil War and
then not again until the Civil Rights era of this century, a positive
inclusive affirmative action was enacted into law in an effort to end
the institutionalized racism and sexism in our society.
The highest law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, codified State-
sanctioned preferential treatment for white male landowners,
guaranteeing the slave trade, the return of fugitive slaves and the
counting of African descendants as three-fifths human. African
descendants were prohibited from learning to read, from marrying or
giving their children names. Women were not allowed to vote. Native
Americans, the original inhabitants of the land, were decimated as a
people, and survivors were stripped of political and human rights.
Tenant farmers and other nonlandowners lacked political rights. While
white male landowners reaped the tremendous group benefits of the
Homestead Act and the land reclamation laws which provided them with
oil and soil-rich land they earned purely by luck of birth, those who
had worked the land, mostly Mexican-Americans and Asian-Americans and
immigrants, were prevented from owning land by anti-alien laws which
were on the books until the 1950's. Asian men were imported to work on
the railroad in the West while Asian women were employed in menial
positions and Asians were often not allowed to marry.
The judicial branch also enforced exclusive affirmative action. In
the 1857 Dred Scott ruling, the Supreme Court made the strongest
possible statement of white males' preferred treatment and status, that
a black man had no rights that a white was bound to respect. It was not
until the Emancipation Proclamation that the concept of inclusive
affirmative action originated with the Civil War amendments to the
Constitution. The first major Reconstruction legislation was enacted
specifically for the benefit of African Americans as a group. The
Freedman's Bureau Act of 1865 allowed for provisions, clothing, and for
land and for lease of land and sale to descendants of slaves. It also
set up schools to educate freed slaves who had previously been denied
access to education. This healing period, however, was short-lived.

In 1873, just 8 years later, the Supreme Court narrowly redefined the
14th amendment, giving States broad authority to reestablish second-
class citizenship for former slaves. The Tilden-Hayes Compromise of
1877 cut short the potential reconstruction by eliminating the promise
of ``40 acres and a mule,'' taking land away from freed slaves,
redistributing plantations to original Confederate owners, pulling out
Federal troops who were sent in to protect the freed slaves and allow
the Ku Klux Klan to reign by terror and oppression.
Then, in 1896, the Supreme Court in Plessy versus Ferguson codified
American apartheid with its mandate of separate but equal, legally
sanctioning the segregation of the races. Jim Crow laws strictly
segregated African Americans in every facet of life from public
transportation and accommodations to schools. The disparities were
beyond severe with white schools spending more than 10 times the amount
of money per pupil than black schools.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. African Americans were not the only group to
have suffered at the hands of white male supremacy. White women and
women in general did not gain the right to vote until the 19th
amendment afforded them suffrage in 1920. Mexican Americans in the
southwest were subjected to widespread discrimination in housing,
education, and employment. They were murdered, executed without trial,
and lynched. Asians were denounced for taking white men's jobs, and the
feat of yellow peril led to anti-Asian immigration laws on the books in
1924 and 1945. Japanese Americans were illegally confined to detention
cams during World War II and lost most of their property while
wrongfully incarcerated.
Exclusive affirmative action remained the law of the land until Brown
versus Board of Education in 1954. Brown rejected ``separate but
equal'' as inherently unequal and laid the legal basis to end
segregation across the country. Momentum for this milestone had been
building since the 1940's and had its roots in educational opportunity.
Following WWII, the GI bill laid the groundwork for the first
affirmative action plan in education. Upon their return from the war,
veterans of all races were offered home loans, job training and a free
college education. Veterans of all backgrounds benefited from the
college waiver and lower interest requirements that were given extra
points on entrance exams and provided extra help for education.
Veterans prospered, and so did the Nation. It was in the spirit of
equal opportunity that President Truman 47 years ago desegregated, not
integrated, the Armed services in 1948. I yield to the gentleman from
Illinois.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. President Kennedy was the first to coin the
phrase of ``affirmative action'' in his Executive order of 1961 which
barred discrimination in Federal employment and in private firms that
entered into contracts with the Federal Government. His premise was
that those who had been historically locked out by law or by practice
would have the opportunity to prove themselves on the job. This order
though had no enforcement powers.
In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Congress passed the Civil Rights
Act--the first truly effective piece of civil rights legislation since
Reconstruction. Title VII prohibited public and private employers from
discriminating based upon race, gender, national origin, or religion.
It specifically outlawed the use of ``preferential treatment'' to any
protected group. The act established the right of courts to order
affirmative action plans to remedy widespread practices of
discrimination.
However, after its passage, individual victims of discrimination
found it difficult to prove their cases in court since employers were
able to craft counterstrategies which hid their bias. For example, how
do you prove that the job has not already been filled, or that you
would've received the job on your merit if the employer hadn't hired
his son-in-law; or that the employer, upon finding that the most
qualified applicant was a person of color, internally filled the slot;
or that you were barred from tenure-track position because of your
gender?

{time} 1700

The reality is that it is really hard to do so, especially for
unemployed victims of discrimination who are trying to find a job to
survive.
It became clear to policymakers of that day that a proactive
government strategy would be necessary to overcome the vestiges of
discriminations

[[Page H10590]]

past. It was not enough to merely cease discriminatory practices. We
needed measures to undo or compensate for the effects of past
discrimination. We needed an affirmative action to overcome a negative
action.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, to that end, in 1965, President
Johnson issued Executive order 11246, which required all employers with
Federal contracts to file written affirmative action plans with the
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, giving a Federal
Government review of one-third of the private work force. Announcing
his rationale in his famous ``to fulfill these rights'' speech at
Howard University commencement, he stated:

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled
by chains and liberate him, bring him to the starting line of
a race and then say, ``You are free to compete with all
others,'' and still justly believe that you have been
completely fair.

He recognized that merely outlawing discrimination and equalizing the
law of competition was not enough. He called for ``equality as a
result, not as a philosophy.'' In 1967 the order was extended to women.
By the end of his administration, LBJ was mired down by the Vietnam
War and unable to carry out his enforcement and promise of his economic
justice agenda. Interestingly, it was under President Richard Nixon
that the parameters of modern affirmative action programs were set.
Several hundred large corporations recommended use of a management by
objective concept of goals and timetables, not quotas. The order
required that employers make a good-faith effort to hire women and
people of color by setting targets and timetables to achieve these
goals. Penalties were not invoked if employers made good-faith efforts
to make their goals, and the Executive order specifically prohibited
the use of quotas.
This standard remains the state of the law today. In 1973,
affirmative action was extended to people with disabilities, and in
1974, to veterans.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, in 1978 a divided Supreme Court
in University of California versus Bakke struck down a UC Davis
admission program, which set aside 16 out of 100 slots for
disadvantaged students, as an impermissible quota. The Bakke court did,
however, affirm the use of race or ethnicity as a factor to be
considered, along with many other factors.

It is commonplace for schools to seek out students with special
talents or skills or leadership ability or unique geographic origins,
to consider whether they are veterans, or promising athletes, or
children of alumni. Significantly, the court recognized a diverse
student body as a compelling State interest. The vote by the UC
regents, however, has circumvented the Supreme Court's recognition of
the public schools' ability to enrich their educations and the
educational environment. We now sit in fear of the long-term
implications that this will have, not only in California, for
California residents, but for the students of other States who have
followed suit.
Two decades of constitutional law have defined lawful affirmative
action plans in employment, in contracting, and education, which
include activities from recruiting and special outreach to goals,
targets, and timetables, not quotas. The court requires that the
following five guidelines are met when implementing an affirmative
action plan:
No. 1, race, national origin, or gender is one of several factors to
be considered;
No. 2, relevant and valid job or educational qualifications are not
compromised;
No. 3, numbers do not amount to numerical straitjackets or quotas and
reflect the relevant pool of applicants;
No. 4, timetables for achieving the goals are reasonable, and there
is an appropriate review of the plan's continuing value;
No. 5, the rights of nonbeneficiaries are respected.
The court has held a plan is illegal if any of the following five
situations occur:
An unqualified person receives a benefit over a qualified one;
Second, numeric goals are so strict to the degree of being
inflexible;
Third, the numeric goals do not reflect the available pool of
qualified candidates, and thus easily become a quota;
Fourth, the plan is of indeterminate length, causing it to outlast
its objectives; and

Fifth, innocent bystanders are impermissibly burdened.
One year ago the Supreme Court dealt a blow to affirmative action
policies. The court, in the Adarand versus Pena decision, made it more
difficult to implement Federal affirmative action programs as it raised
the level of review to the highest measure of scrutiny. Significantly,
seven out of nine justices, excepting Scalia and Thomas, rejected the
notion of color-blind justice. Prior to Adarand, the court would defer
to Congress and to Congress' expertise in crafting programs to ensure
that victims of past governmental or societal discrimination were able
to benefit from the educational opportunities and business of the
Federal contracts that their tax dollars actually went to support.
Mr. Speaker, while strict scrutiny is certainly a higher threshold,
the Department of Justice has studied affirmative action programs and
is promulgating regulations to ensure that existing programs are
narrowly tailored to meet their ``compelling government interest.''
Prior to the Adarand decision last year, the Supreme Court likewise
declined to overrule a lower court decision which outlawed the
University of Maryland's Banneker scholarships. This was a program
which attracted high-achieving African-Americans to the university,
leaving minority targeted scholarships severely jeopardized. Earlier
this year, in the April Hopwood decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled that the use of racial diversity as a remedy for past
discrimination is not enough of a compelling Government interest to
justify an affirmative action program.
Prior to Hopwood, the University of California dismantled its
affirmative action programs, and several State universities are
following suit. We are pleased to hear that the extremist Dole-Canady
bill will not come to the floor for a vote due to the lack of support
for the outright dismantling of this very effective mechanism for equal
opportunity, and note that the same opposition applies to the so-called
California civil rights initiative and other State efforts to undermine
equal opportunity, whether in employment, in education, or in
contracting.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a moment about
dispelling the myths of what affirmative action is and what it is not.

Today most discussions of affirmative action start at the end,
discounting the entire history of affirmative action by claiming that
affirmative action really means quotas and preferential treatment. I
thought it was important to start at the beginning and not at the end.
After 250 years of slavery, 100 years of apartheid, the 1954 decision
ending segregation, nondiscrimination laws--negative action to offset
negative behavior, and then positive action to overcome the vestiges of
a discriminatory past--we are not yet to the day of Dr. King's rainbow.
It is a myth that affirmative action is no longer necessary.
The Glass Ceiling Report, a study commissioned by the Department of
Labor and created by the 1991 Civil Rights Act by a bipartisan majority
in this Congress, and a Republican administration, found that women in
the largest corporations hold less than 5 percent of the top management
posts, while African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans, hold less
than 1 percent of these positions. White males comprise 43 percent of
the work force, yet hold 95 percent of these jobs.
The unemployment rates of African-Americans and Latinos are twice
that of whites. Women are 53 percent of the population, African-
Americans are 13 percent, Latinos, 10 percent. Yet, in the 1994 labor
market 22 percent of all doctors were women, 4 percent African-
American, and 5 percent Latino. Twenty-four percent of all lawyers were
women, 3 percent African-American, and 3 percent Latino. Thirty-one
percent of all scientists were women, 4 percent African-American, and 1
percent Latino.
The well-documented pay gap between white men, and women, and people
of color persists. In 1993, on the average, for every dollar a white
man

[[Page H10591]]

earned, an African-American man made 74 cents, a white woman 70 cents,
a Latino man 64 cents, and an African-American woman 63 cents.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Divisive forces claim Asian-Americans no
longer affirmative action protections against current discrimination.
Yet, whites with high school degrees make up almost 11 percent more
than Asian-Pacific-Americans with college degrees. As a group, whites
make almost 26-percent more than Asian-Pacific-Americans. Asians remain
vastly underrepresented in many occupations. Furthermore, many groups
within the Asian community, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, and
Filipinos, are characterized by high rates of illiteracy and poor job
skills.

Asian-Americans are rarely seen in tenured faculty or administrative
positions in academia, comprising only 4 percent of all full-time
professors. It is manipulative to claim that Asian-Americans are the
model minority in an effort to eliminate race-conscious inclusion
policies.
A 1990 Urban Institute study stands as empirical proof of the
pervasive nature of discrimination in the workplace. Comparing African-
Americans and white job applicants with identical credentials, the
study found unequal treatment was entrenched and widespread. In nearly
a quarter of these cases, whites advanced further through the hiring
process than blacks. A similar study with Latinos found whites received
33-percent more of the interviews and 52-percent more job offers than
equally qualified Latinos. Even when African-Americans and Latinos are
hired, they are promoted and paid less.
In 1992, Manufacturers Hanover Trust rejected 18 percent of loan
applications from high-income whites, yet rejected twice as many, 43
and 45 percent, from high-income African-Americans and Latinos. In
1994, the Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank agreed to an $11 million
settlement of a lawsuit for redlining in mortgage lending, refusing to
serve neighborhoods predominantly comprised of people of color.
Last summer the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank reported that African-
Americans are twice as likely to be denied home loans, and Latino
applicants one and one-half times more likely to be rejected as equally
qualified whites.
Less than 2 weeks ago, on September 5, 1996, the Long Beach Mortgage
Company paid a $3 million settlement to African-American, Latino,
female, and elderly borrowers who were victims of unlawful pricing
practices. The settlement resulted from allegations of race, gender,
and age discrimination, in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity
Act and the Fair Housing Act.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, academia is not immune to
discrimination. A study of faculty hiring practices found that once a
hiring goal was met, departments would stop seeking out people of
color, pulling their ads from relevant publications, despite the number
of vacancies that subsequently arose. People of color, and in
particular women of color, remain clustered on the lower tier of
professorship as assistant professors and nontenure track lecturers.

In 1989, for example, a study showed that 30 percent of all faculty
members were women, 26 percent were white, with women of color making
up about 4 percent. Without affirmative action, the precarious position
of women of color in higher education is seriously threatened.
As in most States across the country in higher education, it is the
perception or fear, rather than the reality of loss of which make
opportunities. And I think that is something we must deal with, because
that is what many people talk about today.
Even though more African-American, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native
Americans students have enrolled in higher education, whites still
constitute 75 percent of the student body nationwide, earn 88 percent
of the Ph.D.'s awarded to American citizens, are 87 percent of college
administrators, hold 87 percent of full-time faculty positions. The
Chronicle of Higher Education, for example, listed the racial
composition of 3,400 schools across America and their student bodies.
Thirty-two percent of the schools proved to be more than 90 percent
majority.
Many have claimed that we do not need affirmative action any longer
because we still have title VII in the statutes of the Civil Rights
Act, and nondiscrimination laws to punish violators. Title VII is good,
but it is not enough. It only kicks in after an instance of
discrimination is claimed.
Affirmative action means taking positive or proactive and preemptive
steps to root out the pervasive discrimination as we know exists.
Rather than waiting for an after-the-fact lawsuit, it is there to
provide an opportunity for people before they are faced with such
problems. It provides a far less costly and disruptive alternative to a
protracted litigation.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for this special order. I
want to thank the gentleman for basically putting together the
historical context of affirmative action, because all too often, the
gentleman is absolutely right, people view affirmative action as two
parallel lines, where you take somebody who is not qualified and
elevate them to the level of somebody who is. As the gentleman has
stated over and over again, that is not affirmative action, it is a
circle. The first requirement is one must be qualified to do the job.
People in America must realize this. People do not get jobs because
of affirmative action, they only get a chance to compete because of
affirmative action. I want to thank the gentleman for this special
order today.
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentleman, who has represented
the people of the Fourth Congressional District of Louisiana with great
distinction. I am really going to miss the gentleman from Louisiana,
Mr. Cleo Fields, in the 105th Congress. He has opted not to return to
this institution, in light of serious redistricting that is being
challenged, that is not inconsistent with some of the history that we
have discussed on this occasion.

{time} 1715

I want to deal with some more myths concerning affirmative action.
The distinguished gentleman from Louisiana spoke of just one myth, but
there are others out there.
Some have suggested that affirmative action means quotas. Affirmative
action has never been about quotas. It has always been about providing
women and people of color with full educational and workplace
opportunities. Quotas are illegal and they should be illegal.
What affirmative action programs do is provide a measurement of their
own effectiveness. School admission officers and employers must only
prove that they have made a good faith effort to achieve the flexible
goals that they have set. If employers persist in illegal
discrimination, then a court can impose a rigid quota to bring them up
to the level of a nondiscriminating employer. Quotas are only imposed
as a last resort and they are imposed only by the courts, not schools
or employers or by the government.
Is it a myth that affirmative action is preferential treatment for
the unqualified over the qualified? Now, this is one of the biggest
myths of affirmative action. Affirmative action does not demean merit.
In school admissions, race and gender are considered along with many
other factors. Where two equally qualified applicants have applied for
a job, then and only then can race or gender be considered. This is the
only one, and I emphasize, very limited situation where preference
arises.
Affirmative action is a conservative legal remedy. If affirmative
action policies truly granted group preferences, African-Americans
would have long ago received the proverbial 40 acres and a mule, native
Americans would be governing vast areas of the country, and women would
be at the helm of half of the country's major corporations, maybe even
President of the United States and Speaker of this institution.
Affirmative action is indeed a conservative form of redress when one
takes into account that true reparation for past discriminations
entail.
Practically, poor management on the part of an employer may have led
to the hiring or promotion of an unqualified person. These abuses must
be corrected and punished. We do not need to throw the baby out,
however, with the bath water. These violations do not indict the
overall effective mechanisms for achieving equal access for all.
What just amazes me about affirmative action, oftentimes when we look

[[Page H10592]]

at the NCAA and we look at professional basketball, we see Michael
Jordan and Toni Kukoc on the Chicago Bulls playing together, we see
equal opportunity and we see fairness. As the football season begins,
we see African-Americans and we see Anglo-Americans enjoying equal
opportunity and playing because of their merit and their ability to
play professional or college athletics.
But what do we not see as Americans? We do not see in the NCAA the
vast recruitment mechanism that goes into finding qualified basketball
players. The booster clubs all across our country send in newspaper
articles to coaches and they say, listen, here is a qualified person
who can shoot, here is a qualified person who can dribble, here is a
qualified center, someone who can rebound and grab the ball and pass
the ball.
We find qualified people based on merit until we get to the area of
coaching, and then we have a problem when we suddenly cannot find
coaches all across our country who may be female or who may be African-
Americans. Suddenly when we are no longer on the football field, in the
NCAA and colleges across our country, suddenly when we are no longer
playing basketball where blacks and whites play together, and we start
looking at the classroom, at these major universities, suddenly the
same aggressive recruitment that went into looking for qualified
basketball players and football players did not go into looking for
qualified people who can write, people who can think, people who can
administrate and run these institutions.
Here is another myth. It is a myth that affirmative action amounts to
reverse discrimination against white males. Reverse discrimination is
not only unlawful, it is also very rare. Of the 91,000 cases before the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, less than 2 percent are
reverse discrimination cases. A Rutgers University study commissioned
by the Department of Labor found that reverse discrimination is not a
significant problem in employment, and a high proportion of claims
brought by white men are without merit. Many of the claims were brought
about by disappointed job applicants who are found by the courts to be
less qualified for the job than the successful applicant.
White men are 33 percent of the population and 48 percent of the
college-educated work force, but they hold 90 percent of the top jobs
in the news media, are over 90 percent of the officers of American
corporations. They are 88 percent of the directors, they are 86 percent
of the partners in major law firms. They are 85 percent of tenured
professors. They are 88 percent of the management level training jobs
in advertising, in marketing and public relations. They are 90 percent
of the House of Representatives, 90 percent of the U.S. Senate, 100
percent of all Presidents. I fail to see why some of them could be so
angry. Affirmative action has not caused jobs to go from white to black
to brown.
It is also a myth that programs for the economically disadvantaged
can substitute for race and gender-conscious programs. This nonsolution
cynically rejects the notion that plain old-fashioned racism and sexism
are alive and well.
I do not need to repeat the data above to drive in the point that
such proposals would not rectify the realities of the glass ceiling.
Women are sexually harassed no matter their income. Women and people of
color are still denied promotion, job opportunities or access to credit
and equal opportunities in education based upon their race or their
gender, not their income.
Is it a myth that affirmative action has not benefited the Nation as
a whole? Everyone has benefited from fair employment practices.
Everyone has benefited from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which
desegregated this Congress. It has allowed 39 African-Americans who
represent majority-minority districts to come to this floor of this
Congress and represent the disenfranchised, the locked out, points of
view different than traditional Anglo-American points of view.
It was the desegregation of these laws and the desegregation of these
institutions that were the goal of the civil rights movement of the
1960's. Since the standard of living started falling in 1973, fathers
and husbands have benefited from two-wage-earner households. Pre-
affirmative action, Mississippi State troopers were also adjusted under
affirmative action laws. It is really a myth to assume that affirmative
action has only helped African-Americans. It has ushered in a broad-
based body of equal employment opportunity laws.
For example, there was a time in Mississippi where in order to be a
State trooper you had to be 6 feet tall. Now, as a result of equal
employment opportunity laws, as a result of affirmative action, you can
be a 5 foot 8 white male applying for that job. You can be 5 foot 4, 5
foot 2. You do not have to be 6 feet tall to be a State trooper in
Mississippi any longer. That law did not just help African-Americans.
It made it possible for short white males in Mississippi to become
State troopers.
Now with the elimination of such irrelevant job classifications, even
African-Americans and women can also serve as State troopers in
Mississippi.
Diversity in professional schools has been good for America. With the
inclusion of women in medicine, strides have been made in breast cancer
research and other areas of women's health. Recruitment and training of
women police officers, of judges and prosecutors have led to treatment
of domestic violence for the crime that it is. The enrollment of people
of color in higher education has increased from practically zero
percent to 20 percent over the last 20 years. But we still have a long
way to go. Public services have benefited from the increase of African-
Americans, of Latinos and Asians and native American personnel who more
genuinely reflect the diversity and the needs of the communities that
they serve. A diversified corporate America has become more competitive
in this increasingly globalized economy. They have opened up new
markets in the African-American community, in the Latino community, by
advertising with not only African-Americans but also with female
advertisers. Upgrading the educational and employment skills of a
majority of the Nation has been good for the country. To turn back the
clock on equal opportunity for the sake of political gain is not only
immoral as public policy but it is also misguided. It is
counterproductive, and it does not bode well for the future of our
Nation.
To that end, today we began discussions in the House Committee on
Small Business. In that particular committee, we are talking about the
8(a) program which was a program that has really been used to serve as
an incubator for businesses, particularly businesses that affect
minorities. But it is not limited to minorities. If white women can
demonstrate that they qualify as a disadvantaged business, they can
apply through the 8(a) program. White males can also apply through the
8(a) program. But there has been a history of Federal contracts that
have historically denied African-Americans, women and those who have
been historically disadvantaged the opportunity to participate. There
is a movement afoot in this body to eliminate the 8(a) program. I am
asking Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the aisle,
particularly in this church-burning climate, to thwart that movement.
We need not engage during this electoral season in race-based politics,
and that is what challenging the 8(a) program really is.

One of the myths about the 8(a) program is that it is no longer
necessary. Programs like 8(a) have not outlived their usefulness
because discriminatory treatment of certain groups of Americans is
really not a thing of the past. The burning of churches with
predominantly African-American congregations is just one tragic example
of this discrimination that persists. I have only been a Member of this
institution for 10 months. Usually I do not wear this little pin right
here which I do not particularly care that much for but it is a little
identification that lets everyone around Capitol Hill know that you are
a Congressman. Not long ago I was speaking to a group of African-
American interns here in the U.S. Congress and I told them, when you
walk down the halls of the U.S. Congress without this pin on, no one
ever mistakes you for being a Member of Congress. But every time I see
an elderly white gentleman with a briefcase or with gray hair in this
institution, I have to assume first that they are a

[[Page H10593]]

Member of Congress, and then second, I assume that maybe they are a
lobbyist or maybe they are the head of some corporation coming to meet
with some significant Member of Congress in this institution. But
never, as a young African-American in this institution, am I ever
mistaken for being a Congressman except for by my colleagues who know
me.
Toward that end, I got up one morning a few months ago, at 7:30 in
the morning I came to work determined to serve my country and the
people of the Second Congressional District that day, and stayed here
until 11:00 that night. After I got off work, the same time most
Members of Congress got off work, I decided to go to my office and
check for my schedule tomorrow to find out what time I had to come back
to the institution. Once I got ready to go, my assistant asked me if
she could give me a ride home, and I said ``No, that's quite all right,
I will just go outside and catch a taxi.'' Well, I went outside to
catch a taxi. The first taxi passed me by at 11:30. I waited for a
couple of minutes and another taxi passed me by. I could have just gone
and asked someone from the Capitol Police to give me a ride home, but I
just decided to wait as a young Member of Congress to find out how many
taxis were going to pass me by in the District of Columbia. That night
more than 17 taxis passed Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., by. They did
not see a Member of Congress first, they saw a young African-American
first.
So why is it that the 8(a) program is so necessary? Because there are
Federal agencies out there that engage in almost any kind of business,
from selling widgets to selling bolts to selling airplanes, to selling
F-22's, we sell everything to the Defense Department. The Defense
Department must buy everything. There are hundreds of Federal agencies
that make purchasing decisions in our Nation. The only issue really
before us when we consider eliminating a program like the 8(a) program
is whether or not those Federal agencies are going to drive right past
qualified Latinos, qualified women, qualified African-Americans, or
whether or not we are going to slow the Government down long enough to
help people who have been historically locked out. Discrimination is
not gone. If it is gone, it is only underground. Discrimination is
insidious because it affects the individuals with whom one associates,
the businesses one patronizes, the perception of who gets a job and
when they get a job.
I was talking to another group of businessmen not along ago. They
were very proud to hear from a young African-American, a Member of
Congress, and so we began talking about affirmative action. Some of
them began questioning whether or not affirmative action was necessary.
And so I asked them, I said, ``How many of you do business with the
Federal Government?'' A significant number of them raised their hand. I
asked them how many of them did business with local municipal
governments. A significant number of them raised their hands. I then
turned around and asked them, ``How many of you have an African-
American that is a lawyer with your firm or with your business and
general counsel?'' Very few hands went up. How many of you have women
that head up your accounting department or your finance department? Or
how many of you put money in banks that are owned or operated by women
or by African-Americans or by Latinos? How many of us spread the wealth
out from the benefits that we have received from these local
municipalities and the Federal Government? Very few hands went up. So
what are we suggesting? We are suggesting that these businesses and
that these individuals continue to drive by at 11:30 at night, no
matter who serves their country, they just drive right by in search of
their friend who went to school with them.

{time} 1730

They drive right by in search of someone who went to Harvard or
someone who went to Yale or someone who went to North Carolina A&T
State University.
How do we break up the good old boy network? One way to do it is to
have programs on the books like the 8(a) program that make it possible
for minorities to participate. It does not mean they do not compete. Of
course they compete within the 8(a) program. But a lot of these
businesses that have been in this incubator for 9 years and then
subsequently leave the 8(a) program, they end up facing the same kind
of discrimination that the 8(a) program sheltered them from and,
therefore, beyond the 8(a) program many of these businesses, quite
frankly, cannot survive.
It is a myth. The 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, FASA,
addresses all concerns of those seeking to assist the socially and the
economically disadvantaged. FASA will expire in 2000, and it has not
been implemented because all affirmative action programs have been
attacked since the 1995 Adarand versus Pena Supreme Court decision.
Fact: While FASA regulations have not even been promulgated to avoid
Adarand roadblocks, 8(a) has survived strict administration reviews
because of its focus on business development.
Another myth: Many businesses see 8(a) as an end in itself. SBA
rarely or never graduated businesses out of the 8(a) program.
Fact: Businesses participate in the 8(a) program for a maximum of 9
years and must withstand annual reassessments of their eligibility
every year. This is a 4-year developmental stage, and then there is a
5-year transitional stage for these businesses that are being groomed
to do business with the Federal Government.
In 1987, Alfred Ortiz, for example, went into business for himself
and found Source Diversified Inc. in Laguna Hills, CA. His company
customizes computer hardware. Now Source Diversified has $21 million in
sales and employs 15 workers.
Alfred is just one successful graduate of the 8(a) program who
attributes the strong and rapid growth of his business to the program.
Myth: If you teach a man to fish, he can feed himself for a lifetime.
Well, I really like this one. Here are the facts. 8(a) participants do
not have any fish handed to them. These minority-owned businesses
competed with each other for those procurements which have been set
aside. The 8(a) program teaches businesses to fish. It teaches
businesses to fish. This is not about a handout, this is about a
helping hand. It teaches businesses to fish.
When minority-owned businesses start out looking for contracts in the
private sector, their proven ability to win a Government 8(a) contract
is actually their diploma, or their doctorate in fishing, and in that
way they can come back and approach the Federal Government or they can
approach the private sector after having developed a proven track
record under the shelter of the Government's protection, because
racism, discrimination, and sexism exist outside of that shelter which
does not allow those businesses the opportunity to foster, to grow and
to develop.
Myth: The 8(a) program does not foster the free enterprise system.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here are the facts. The free enterprise system flourishes when there
is full participation, and without the 8(a) program there would not be
as much participation for minority-owned businesses.
Supporting a development of minority-owned businesses through the
8(a) program puts market forces and the free enterprise system to work
for all Americans because those minority-owned businesses eventually
buy supplies and services from other businesses. Moreover, last year
8(a) participating firms paid more than $100 million in Federal taxes.

Myth: The 8(a) program does not encourage opportunity for everyone to
compete. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are the facts.
The 8(a) program is precisely the ray of hope which encourages all
Americans, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or economic condition.
Those opponents of 8(a) who accuse it of excluding certain Americans
from procurement opportunities are guilty of scapegoating.
The answer is not to turn one group of Americans against the other.
Rather than dismantle 8(a), we need to improve and augment educational
and training opportunities for all Americans so that no one in this
country can complain about being overlooked.
The 8(a) program exists to provide opportunities for everyone to
compete, opportunities many have not had and would not have without
this program.

[[Page H10594]]

Here are three quick myths: 8(a) wastes money through reliance on
sole source contracting. This is not true; 8(a) is riddled with fraud
and abuse even after 3 congressional attempts to reform it. That is not
true; and 8(a) has failed to help fledgling minority businesses and is
primarily a rich-get-richer program for Beltway bandits. That is not
altogether true.
Here are the facts. Total 8(a) contracts in 1994 represented only 3.2
percent of all Federal contracts. We are talking about only 3.2 percent
of all Federal contracts.
And in this institution we have a budget of $1.7 trillion every year
and we are talking about 3.2 percent of Federal contracts. That does
not include the entire $1.7 trillion. It is even smaller than that, 3.2
percent of Federal contracts. Just 3.2 percent. The total 8(a) program
received less than half of the actual contract dollars than were
awarded to either of the top two defense contractors. The total program
received less than half.
Reforms to further bring 8(a) into compliance with the strict Adarand
standard are included in proposed regulatory changes that have been
published in the Federal Register. The Department of Justice believes
that these changes will, one, allow agencies to use race conscious
tools to assist disadvantaged businesses, enable agencies to assess
what level of minority procurement would be probable in the absence of
discrimination, require agencies to implement measures that do not rely
on race to broaden opportunities for small minority firms, tighten
certification and eligibility requirements.
Mr. Speaker, I hope today that with our brief colloquy between the
gentleman from Louisiana and myself on the issue of affirmative action,
8(a) programs, and the need to offset years of historical
discrimination against African-Americans, minorities, women, and people
of color in this country will not go unheeded and unheard by the
membership in this august and esteemed body.
The challenges before us are great as a nation, and I am more
convinced than ever if we can move beyond racial battle ground to
economic common ground and on, as my father would say, to moral higher
ground, we can make sense and make sense for all of America.
Many Americans still long for the day when they can say, ``My country
'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.'' That day has not yet arrived,
and many African-Americans and disadvantaged businesses in our Nation
need a helping hand. Not a handout, a helping hand. It would serve this
institution well, it would serve all of us as Democrats and Republicans
if we could move beyond the politics of divisiveness and expand
programs that make sense for the most people.

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