[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1206-E1207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




STATEMENT BY MARK GEORGE AND MARY NEWMAN, HANOVER HIGH SCHOOL, HANOVER, 
                    NH, REGARDING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 12, 1997

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would 
like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school 
students from Hanover High School in Hanover, NH, who were speaking at 
my recent town meeting on issues facing young people.

       Mr. George. By supporting affirmative action it is being 
     demonstrated that content of character is less important than 
     the color of skin. Students are being accepted not because 
     they have the qualifications, but because they are Asian, 
     African or Spanish. They are being put into an environment 
     that they are not necessarily ready for. It is like putting a 
     team of basketball players on the

[[Page E1207]]

     ice with hockey players and saying, All is fair; compete.
       The problem is not mixing minorities and whites so all are 
     fairly represented, but rather the continuing problem of 
     minorities being lesser qualified. They are being 
     inadequately educated in kindergarten through 12th grade and 
     the government doesn't step in until after graduation. It is 
     not making amends for the injustices of slavery or separate 
     equality but what it is doing is converting, covering up 
     problems with the current system, problems of funding for 
     proper books and classrooms in public schools. Public 
     schools, that means it is the government's problem with 
     money, not entirely of race.
       As of 1995, the University of California was accepting only 
     about half of their students based on grades and test scores. 
     The rest were a complex equation that awarded points to 
     minorities and women, and while 565 black students applied to 
     Northwestern in 1996, only 120 were among the entering class 
     of 1,850. In 1993, out of approximately 400,000 black high 
     school seniors nationwide, only 1,644 had combined scores of 
     1,200 and better on SATs.
       Finally, in 1995, Pete Wilson, Governor of California as 
     President of the University of California's Board of Regents 
     voted to end affirmative action programs that considered 
     race, gender or ethnic origin on admissions. At the same time 
     polsters of two-thirds of California's voting population and 
     a growing majority of men opposed quotas. We need to stop 
     compensating for the lack of early education and start 
     teaching.
       Ms. Newman. Although the United States has made progress 
     toward protecting its people from discrimination, our nation 
     hasn't come far enough. If our goal is to create a society of 
     equal opportunity, there are a lot of things that we as a 
     country need to do to make that happen.
       Since the late 1960s our nation has instituted an 
     affirmative action program. The purpose of affirmative action 
     was originally to end discrimination in the workplace. It has 
     been a futile attempt, however, to make up for years of 
     neglect by our society and its government to do something 
     about racism.
       One example of the inadequacy of affirmative action can be 
     found in Texas. In 1994, the University of Texas law school 
     was sued because it had to set up separate admissions 
     standards for white and black students. In a mirror image of 
     the 1950s, the different standards were not to keep out 
     qualified blacks but qualified whites. The reason for this 
     which the lawsuit revealed was looking at the LSAT results in 
     1992, only 88 blacks in the country had scores higher than 
     the median for white students at the highly selective law 
     school. On scores alone, the school would have admitted nine 
     black applicants to its engineering class of 500 students. 
     Yet affirmative action called for a certain proportion of 
     African Americans to graduate from Texas colleges.
       This huge discrepancy between black and white scores has to 
     do with problems that our government is neglecting to solve 
     within minority groups. Ignoring the fact that the black 
     scores weren't sufficient enough for admission will not solve 
     our problems nor will the other laws that require businesses 
     to accept a certain number of people from a certain minority. 
     They only worsen them. They produce the feeling of 
     inferiority among minorities and create negative stereotypes 
     in the minds of the majority. White, educated, upper-middle-
     class residents are getting angry because they are losing 
     their privileges. They feel that they are now the 
     discriminated segment of our population.
       We have given affirmative action a chance to lessen 
     tensions among the people who make up our society, yet it 
     hasn't been enough. There needs to be a different approach to 
     this program and it needs to be stronger than simply handing 
     out privileges. Our government needs to focus on resolving 
     issues of poverty, of unemployment, of public education and 
     the collapse of family structures that face minority groups 
     in America.
       If people start feeling good about themselves, if they 
     start feeling like they have a chance to be just like anybody 
     else without unfair advantages from the government, only then 
     will they feel that they are an equal citizen of the United 
     States. Only then will there be space provided for 
     individuals of any color and any religion, any background in 
     either gender to achieve the success that has to be won, not 
     provided for.
       Mr. George. What they are doing now is unnecessary--they do 
     not always accept people or advance people based on--they are 
     doing it too much on the color or by their gender.
       Ms. Newman. I think it is definitely appropriate for the 
     government to recognize that there aren't as many of the kind 
     of person, a race in something like a police department or 
     whatever, I think it is appropriate for the government to say 
     maybe there is a problem, maybe there is discrimination, but 
     for the government to make laws that say that maybe a certain 
     number of white students cannot be accepted into a college 
     because there has to be a certain number of black students, 
     that is not appropriate.
       Mr. George. There are blacks that have achieved and there 
     are Jackie Robinsons, there are Jesse Jacksons, I mean there 
     are blacks that can succeed and if you teach kids in school 
     that they can achieve just as much as a white student can, 
     then they think it is a lot more possible.
       Ms. Newman. I do not think you can say ``tough luck'' but 
     you cannot wait until people are--how do I say this? If you 
     want to promote the feeling that I can be this kind of 
     person, I am a women and even though I never see any women 
     carpenters I can be that person if I want to, but that has to 
     be promoted before. People have to work at that when people 
     are young, when people--like using the black example again, 
     if a black person says I cannot be this kind of person 
     because I am black and because there is discrimination, that 
     problem has to be solved not by giving that person an 
     advantage which would be an unfair advantage, they have to 
     solve that problem by fixing the situation.

     

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