[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 17, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H7481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IN SUPPORT OF DIVERSITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon in solidarity with 
several thousand students at the University of Texas who yesterday were 
on the main mall there in front of the tower at the University of Texas 
to express their concerns about the need for diversity in education 
throughout the University of Texas system and, in particular, to 
express their concerns about some very unfortunate comments that were 
made in the previous week by a member of the University of Texas 
faculty.
  Indeed, to call them unfortunate is quite charitable. Because it 
appeared to me that masquerading under some form of pseudo-
intellectualism, these comments demeaned African-American and Hispanic-
American students, their families, and many hard-working Texan 
taxpayers that finance the University of Texas system and have every 
reason to be concerned when those who are attending the University of 
Texas, those who are teaching at the University of Texas, do not 
reflect the rich diversity of our State.
  I know, from my own experience as a lifelong Texan, that the comments 
that were made by that professor are quite contrary to reality. Some of 
the hardest working people that I see, some of the people that I see in 
the central Texas area most concerned with educational advancement and 
contributing to our community, are people that were unfortunately and 
unwisely and unfairly attacked during the last week by the comments of 
that University of Texas professor.
  Putting those comments behind us must be done in the context of 
moving forward at the university to try to assure most diversity. An 
all-white university is not going to be a university that gives its 
students, white, brown, black, yellow, or any other color, a sense of 
what it is to participate in a diverse society and to compete 
economically in the global marketplace that involves tremendous 
diversity.
  So, for the future of all of us, without regard to race or ethnicity, 
we need a university educational system across this country that 
assures that every American has an opportunity to participate, and that 
puts behind us the racist days of the past and looks forward to working 
together to provide that educational opportunity for our citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, I also wish this afternoon to address a second issue 
that came up on the floor today and a very closely related issue that 
needs to come up in the future. Today we had a very interesting matter 
come up. In fact, it consumed only about 10 minutes of time. And that 
10 minutes, without prior announcement, dealt with a little matter of a 
$50 billion tax break that was stuck into page 300-and-some-odd of the 
balanced budget agreement to give a $50 billion tax break that was 
never discussed for 1 second on the floor of this Congress, in either 
the House or the Senate, to the major tobacco companies of this 
country.

                              {time}  1615

  I think it no coincidence that those same tobacco companies that got 
a $50 billion tax break at the expense of the rest of the American 
taxpayers, that they just happened to be very involved in the political 
process. In fact, as I looked over the figures, the No. 1 and the No. 2 
corporate contributors were tobacco companies in soft money to the 
Republican Party this year. Though certainly not anywhere near as much 
as to the Republicans, they gave an ample amount of soft money to the 
Democratic Party as well.
  It seems to me that what makes Americans cynical about the way this 
Congress works is to see that kind of thing happen, where hundreds of 
thousands of dollars, in fact I think the tobacco companies in the 
first 6 months of this year gave about $2 million in soft money to 
political parties, and then in month 7, not coincidentally in month 7, 
they get a $50 billion tax break.
  What was particularly strange about this situation is that while no 
one would claim the parentage, the paternity, for this tax break, that 
today suddenly by unanimous consent it is now gone, and I think it 
tells us a lot about where we are headed as we consider this tobacco 
settlement that has been proposed, as we consider other issues that 
concern the tobacco industry. We need to have them exposed in the full 
light of day rather than handled in the back room.
  The second thing it tells us is that we have a very, very strong need 
for full and complete campaign finance reform. Many of us have been out 
here day in and day out since we came back in September saying, give us 
campaign finance reform now. Only Monday in Georgia, Speaker Gingrich 
was again saying he was opposed to doing that. It will only be by the 
demand of the American people that we get that changed.

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