[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 96 (Thursday, June 26, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1360-E1361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E1360]]
                CBC SPECIAL ORDER ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 25, 2003

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our CBC Chairman, Elijah 
Cummings, for holding this special order. I wish to contribute this 
evening by inserting into the Record the following speech which I 
delivered on Monday June 23, 2003 at the Rainbow Push Coalition and the 
Citizen Education Fund's Women's Luncheon in Chicago.

       Thank you very much for that kind introduction and thank 
     you for inviting me here today. I want to acknowledge and 
     thank Reverend Jesse Jackson for staying the course, for 
     continuing to speak truth to power and for your friendship 
     and support throughout the years. I want to thank you for the 
     act of courage Award presented to me last year in Los 
     Angeles. Believe me, the inspiration and encouragement that I 
     have received from you during very difficult and challenging 
     times has given me strength.
       Reverend Barrons, your guidance spirit and commitment has 
     touched my life. To Mrs. Jacqueline Jackson, thank you for 
     your leadership and for being an exemplary role model for 
     women. You are our first lady and we are so proud.
       To the entire Rainbow PUSH family, your commitment to work 
     for justice and peace has shown the world ``a better way.'' 
     You continue to fight to make the American dream a reality, 
     not just for the select few but for ``all God's children.''
       I also want to acknowledge the many elected officials, 
     members of the clergy, and community leaders, and phenomenal 
     women here today and to acknowledge everyone who is part of 
     the struggle to compel our nation to live up to its own 
     promises of liberty and justice for all. And in the memory of 
     our fallen hero Mayor Maynard Jackson, let us rededicate 
     ourselves to our work for political, social and economic 
     justice.
       Today, the Supreme Court issued a decision on a monumental 
     affirmative action case. This morning the Supreme Court 
     rejected the Bush Administration's efforts to eliminate 
     affirmative action as we know it.
       I say monumental because this judgment will echo far beyond 
     the boundaries of the University of Michigan and far beyond 
     the realm of higher education.
       We are still studying the Court's ruling to understand its 
     ramifications; however, the Supreme Court did uphold 
     affirmative action and that is a clear defeat for the Bush 
     Administration. This decision is a testament to the broad 
     mobilization to defend civil rights, it validates the ``power 
     of the people'' and the legality of affirmative action and 
     requires us to be vigilant as we move forward.
       Many of you, including myself, are proud products of 
     affirmative action. We are duty-bound to protect it.
       This is one of the most important civil rights cases in the 
     last quarter century. Affirmative action is still necessary, 
     not just in the interests of people of color, but in the 
     interests of women and country as a whole.
       What was at stake here is the University of Michigan's 
     attempts to create a classroom that reflects the diversity of 
     this country as well as its persistent economic inequalities.
       What is also on trial here is the principle of affirmative 
     action, and in this case the Bush Administration weighed in 
     on the side of reversing progress rather than pursuing 
     justice.
       Along with Reverend Jackson, and many others, I was at the 
     Supreme Court the day when this case was heard. I was very 
     proud to speak to the thousands and thousands of young people 
     led by the Michigan students and BAM who had come to 
     Washington from all over the country to protest the effort to 
     eliminate affirmative action.
       Believe me, I see a new sense of energy and involvement by 
     our young people, and as adults we must support their 
     organization efforts. Thank God, they are preparing 
     themselves to take over the world. This victory speaks 
     volumes to their efforts.
       I was sitting in the audience when Solicitor General Ted 
     Olson, the Administration's attorney, passionately argued 
     against affirmative action, declaring that the University of 
     Michigan--and by implication all other universities and 
     institutions--should use race-neutral means for its 
     admissions.
       I thought how sad it was to witness our own government 
     arguing against the interests of so many of its own people.
       I would suggest race-neutral admissions would be fine--just 
     as soon as this becomes a race-neutral country. And not a day 
     sooner.
       In upholding the University of Michigan law school's 
     affirmative action program, race will continue to be a 
     critical component in achieving parity and equal opportunity 
     for all. We must be the active watchdogs over this decision 
     and how it is implemented.
       I was there when Justice Scalia told the University of 
     Michigan that it had a choice: it could either be an elite, 
     first-rate school or it could lower its standards and pursue 
     racial diversity.
       How sinister--and wrong--can you get?
       Justice Scalia was, in fact, offering a false dichotomy: in 
     reality, you cannot be a top-flight university without 
     diversity.
       While that fact eludes the Bush Administration, it does not 
     escape corporate America, the military, or many members of 
     Congress, all of whom voiced their support for the University 
     of Michigan and the principle of affirmative action.
       Sixty-five major businesses, all Fortune 500 companies, 
     submitted a brief as a friend to the court on this case.
       These global businesses have annual revenues of over a 
     trillion dollars.
       As employers, they are deeply interested in this case 
     because they recognize, and I quote here from their brief, 
     ``the existence of racial and ethnic diversity in 
     institutions of higher education is vital to [our] efforts to 
     hire and maintain a diverse workforce, and to employ 
     individuals who have been educated and trained in a diverse 
     environment.''
       Affirmative action, these corporate giants explained, does 
     not only benefit minorities or the economically 
     disadvantaged: affirmative action benefits everyone by 
     offering cross-cultural experience and understanding.
       Without that interaction, they argued, we all suffer, and 
     without such a workforce, these companies will be hard-
     pressed to compete in the global business environment.
       Those same views were echoed by many of the highest ranking 
     retired military officers in this country, including former 
     Chiefs of Staff, former Secretaries of Defense, General 
     Norman Schwarzkopf, and other decorated veterans representing 
     all four service branches.
       They wrote the court, ``Based on decades of experience, 
     [we] have concluded that a highly qualified, racially diverse 
     officer corps'' is ``essential to the military's ability to 
     fulfill its principal mission to provide national security.''
       ``Limited race-conscious recruiting and admissions 
     policies'' at universities such as Michigan, they continued, 
     is critical to both meeting the security needs of this 
     country and to following through on Harry Truman's fifty-year 
     old executive directive to end segregation in the military.
       Again, these retired military officers, like their business 
     counterparts, stressed that affirmative action is essential 
     to the success of their mission.
       Diversity is a critical component of our democracy as well. 
     That is why I joined my congressional colleagues, led by 
     Michigan Congressman John Conyers, ranking member of the 
     Judiciary Committee and long a warrior in the fight for civil 
     rights, in submitting our own amicus brief to the Court.
       We asked the Court to recognize the educational and 
     political benefits of diversity; to uphold the use of race as 
     one factor among others that can be considered in government 
     decision-making; and to reaffirm that the role of race in 
     this decision making is not limited to remedying specific 
     instances of identified discrimination.
       The fact is we don't have a level playing field in this 
     country.
       People of color and women earn less money, own fewer 
     assets, and enjoy less access to the nation's elite 
     institutions. African American unemployment is twice as high 
     as that of whites.
       Affirmative action is still necessary, not just in the 
     interests of minorities but in the interests of the country 
     as a whole.
       This decision upholds justice, access, and fair play. Let 
     me tell you what has happened in my home state of California.
       In California, we have seen the devastating effects of the 
     assault on affirmative action. When I was in the state 
     legislature, I fought tooth and nail against efforts to end 
     affirmative action.
       Reverend Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition not only stood 
     with us, they actively opposed Prop 209 by marching, engaging 
     in peaceful protests, and organizing.
       All the ``street heat'' that could be brought to bear, 
     Reverend Jackson helped bring it.
       During those years, I was chair of the California 
     Legislature Black Caucus, and we defeated each and every 
     anti-affirmative action legislative measure that then 
     Governor Pete Wilson wanted to sign into law.
       But a member of the University of California Board of 
     Regents, and African American, yes, a brother, well, I should 
     say, a black man, Ward Connely, led the ballot initiative to 
     end Affirmative Action.
       These efforts resulted in a state constitutional amendment 
     and action by the Board of Regents to end affirmative action 
     on all campuses.
       So, while we won in the legislature, misinformation and 
     prejudice helped carry the day at the polls when California 
     voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996.
       That initiative eliminated affirmative action programs for 
     women and people of color run by state or local governments 
     in the areas of public employment, contracting, and 
     education.
       California and some other states have tried to create 
     alternatives to affirmative action, but these alternatives 
     depend on and reinforce residential segregation and fall 
     short in other ways. They just don't work. Now, very few 
     minority and women owned businesses have state contracts, and 
     very few are employed in key positions.
       Alumni legacies--such as those President Bush undoubtedly 
     benefited from when he was admitted to Yale with an 
     exceedingly mediocre academic record, to say the least--
     combined with emphasis on test scores that favor both white 
     applicants and the economically advantaged are creating 
     campuses that are increasingly segregated.
       In California, we are undergoing the re-segregation of our 
     colleges and universities. At many of the top schools in the 
     state, minority enrollment has been cut in half since

[[Page E1361]]

     Prop 209 passed. Thank God for our historically Black 
     Colleges. Our African American students are now going south 
     benefiting from their excellent education. But what we have 
     learned is that 70 percent of these students do not return to 
     California. What a brain drain we have in California.
       Shame on California.
       One observer described the process of eliminating 
     affirmative action, at Boalt Hall, the University of 
     California's premiere law school, as ``watching justice 
     die.''
       In looking at the Administration's position on affirmative 
     action, we have to place that particular choice within the 
     larger context of the Bush Administration's class war on 
     America's working families and their policies of rewarding 
     the rich.
       This Administration and its allies in Congress are rolling 
     back advances in racial equality, economic opportunity, and 
     gender equity.
       First Trent Lott lamented the defeat of Strom Thurmond's 
     white supremacist Dixiecrat Party in 1948.
       The Administration may have rushed to disown itself from 
     those remarks, but its policies are taking us back to those 
     days nonetheless.
       The Administration is creating massive tax cuts for the 
     rich, but twelve million children of America's working 
     families were left off their master plan for the child tax 
     credit. They did this deliberately. It was not a mistake.
       So were single mothers who apparently don't deserve tax 
     credits in the world of George Bush. They also left out over 
     200,000 military families. What a disgrace.
       We have an Administration that preaches leave no child 
     behind, but then wants to gut Head Start and leaves tens of 
     thousands of children on waiting lists instead of in pre-
     school. They want to block grant head start, remove it from 
     the Department of Health and Human Services, put it in the 
     Department of Education and require four year olds to take a 
     literacy test. Their proposal would end head start as we know 
     it.
       We have an Administration that would like to privatize both 
     Social Security and Medicare, leaving our parents and 
     grandparents with neither financial security nor real 
     prescription drug coverage.
       We have an Administration that is trying to block grant 
     Section 8 housing programs, dismantling Section 8 as we know 
     it.
       And we have an Administration that is stripping away our 
     civil liberties, one by one. We must stop Patriot Act II from 
     getting through Congress.
       It's an Administration that is wiping out decades of 
     progress on Clean Air and Clean Water, even though asthma, 
     childhood cancer rates, and scores of other health problems 
     associated with pollution are on the rise, especially among 
     people of color. It's an administration that puts our tax 
     dollars into a $400 billion dollar defense budget to build 
     more missiles, yet cuts after school programs and won't fully 
     fund education.
       This is an administration that is launching a similar 
     assault on women's rights.
       Look at its attack on Title IX, for example, a program that 
     is featured in this conference. Title IX has opened up 
     opportunities for girls and women on the sports field that 
     have also opened up opportunities in life.
       Our beloved, recently deceased Congresswoman Patsy Mink of 
     Hawaii, sponsored Title IX. In honor of her memory and 
     legacy, we must not let this Administration turn back the 
     clock.
       Title IX is about banning sex discrimination, pure and 
     simple. And the Bush Administration is trying to wipe out 
     those protections, just like it's trying to wipe out 
     affirmative action and the Clean Air Act.
       This is an administration that wages war abroad while also 
     waging war at home, on the nation's poor, on people of color, 
     on women, on the environment, on seniors, and on working 
     families.
       What can we do in the face of these assaults? Fight back! 
     Believe me, we must be vigilant to stop any legislation--
     illegal legislation that the Republican House and Senate will 
     put forward.
       We must take back the House, take back the Senate, and take 
     back the White House in 2004.
       To do that, we must educate, organize, mobilize, and vote!
       We must register our folks to vote, we must vote and we 
     must demand that our votes be counted. No more stealing 
     elections. Democracy is at a crossroads. We must make 
     democracy real.
       Rainbow PUSH represents the very diversity that is under 
     attack. And diversity is a tremendous strength. Use it!
       If people tell you their vote doesn't matter, remind them 
     about Florida.
       Each and every vote the Supreme Court chooses to count 
     matters. We must demand that they all be counted!
       This is a critical moment in history and you have to make 
     it our moment.
       I am reminded of the Book of Esther and the conversation 
     between Mordecai and Esther when she faced her moment of 
     truth.
       Mordecai turned to Esther as she paused in the face of what 
     looked to be an insurmountable obstacle, and he said to her, 
     ``Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such 
     a time as this?''
       Let me pose a similar question to you here, today. Who 
     knows whether or not you have come for such a time as this?
       Queen Esther and her forces were victorious. This too is a 
     battle we can win. We, too, will be victorious. And, again, 
     women will help lead the way.
       Thank you for all that you do. Let us take from this moment 
     the determination to follow in the footsteps of our heroes--
     Dr. King, Justice Marshall, Mrs. Parks and Mrs. Till, Ida B. 
     Wells, Sojourner Truth, Maynard Jackson, and Reverend Jesse 
     Jackson--and, like Esther, seize our moment.
       I say again, Rainbow Push, you have come for a time such as 
     this.
       Thank you and God bless you.

                          ____________________