    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 14, 1997]
    [Pages 735-741]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Commencement Address at the University of California San Diego in
    La Jolla, California
    June 14, 1997

        Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the
    first thing I would like to say is that Coleen spoke so well, and she
    said everything I meant to say--[laughter]--that I could do us all a
    great favor by simply associating myself with her remarks and sitting
    down.
        I would also like to thank Dr. Anagnostopoulos for reminding us of
    the infamous capacity of faculty members to be contrary with one
    another. [Laughter] Until he said it, I hadn't realized that probably 90
    percent of the Congress once were on university faculties. [Laughter]
        Let me say to Chancellor Dynes and President Atkinson, to the
    distinguished regents and faculty members, to the students and their
    families and friends who are here today, I'm honored to be joined by a
    number of people who reflect the kind of America that Coleen Sabatini
    called for: Senator Barbara Boxer; and Senator Dan Akaka from Hawaii;
    your Congressman, Bob Filner; Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the chair of
    the Congressional Black Caucus; Congresswoman Patsy Mink; Congressman
    Jim Clyburn; Congressman John Lewis, a great hero of the civil rights
    movement; Congresswoman Juanita

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    Millender-McDonald; Congressman Carlos Romero-Barcelo from Puerto Rico;
    your Lieutenant Governor, Gray Davis; the Secretary of Transportation,
    Rodney Slater; of Labor, Alexis Herman; of Veterans Affairs, Jesse
    Brown; of Education, Dick Riley; our distinguished Ambassador to the
    United Nations, Bill Richardson; our distinguished Administrator of the
    Small Business Administration, Aida Alvarez, the first American of
    Puerto Rican descent ever to be in a Presidential Cabinet. I would like
    to ask them all to stand, along with the members of the White House
    staff who are here, including Thurgood Marshall, Jr., whose father has a
    college named for him at this great university. Would you please stand?
        And I can't help but noting that there's another person here that
    deserves some special recognition--University of California at San Diego
    class of 1977--a Filipino-American woman who became the youngest captain
    of the Navy and my personal physician, Dr. Connie Mariano. Where is she?
        I want to thank you for offering our Nation a shining example of
    excellence rooted in the many backgrounds that make up this great land.
    You have blazed new paths in science and technology, explored the new
    horizons of the Pacific Rim and Latin America. This is a great
    university for the 21st century.
        Today we celebrate your achievements at a truly golden moment for
    America. The cold war is over and freedom has now ascended around the
    globe, with more than half of the people in this old world living under
    governments of their own choosing for the very first time. Our economy
    is the healthiest in a generation and the strongest in the world. Our
    culture, our science, our technology promise unimagined advances and
    exciting new careers. Our social problems, from crime to poverty, are
    finally bending to our efforts.
        Of course, there are still challenges for you out there. Beyond our
    borders, we must battle terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking,
    the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the prospect of new diseases
    and environmental disaster. Here at home, we must ensure that every
    child has the chance you have had to develop your God-given capacities.
    We cannot wait for them to get in trouble to notice them. We must
    continue to fight the scourge of gangs and crime and drugs. We must
    prepare for the retirement of the baby boom generation so that we can
    reduce that child poverty rate that Coleen talked about. We must harness
    the forces of science and technology for the public good, the entire
    American public.
        But I believe the greatest challenge we face, among all those that
    Coleen talked about, is also our greatest opportunity. Of all the
    questions of discrimination and prejudice that still exist in our
    society, the most perplexing one is the oldest, and in some ways today,
    the newest: the problem of race. Can we fulfill the promise of America
    by embracing all our citizens of all races, not just at a university
    where people have the benefit of enlightened teachers and the time to
    think and grow and get to know each other within the daily life of every
    American community? In short, can we become one America in the 21st
    century? I know, and I've said before, that money cannot buy this goal,
    power cannot compel it, technology cannot create it. This is something
    that can come only from the human spirit, the spirit we saw when the
    choir of many races sang as a gospel choir.
        Today, the State of Hawaii, which has a Senator and a Congresswoman
    present here, has no majority racial or ethnic group. It is a wonderful
    place of exuberance and friendship and patriotism. Within the next 3
    years, here in California no single race or ethnic group will make up a
    majority of the State's population. Already, 5 of our largest school
    districts draw students from over 100 different racial and ethnic
    groups. At this campus, 12 Nobel Prize winners have taught or studied
    from 9 different countries. A half-century from now, when your own
    grandchildren are in college, there will be no majority race in America.
        Now, we know what we will look like, but what will we be like? Can
    we be one America respecting, even celebrating, our differences, but
    embracing even more what we have in common? Can we define what it means
    to be an American, not just in terms of the hyphen showing our ethnic
    origins but in terms of our primary allegiance to the values America
    stands for and values we really live by? Our hearts long to answer yes,
    but our history reminds us that it will be hard. The ideals that bind us
    together are as old as our Nation, but so are the forces that pull us
    apart. Our Founders sought to form a more perfect Union. The humility
    and hope of that phrase is the story of America, and it is our mission
    today.

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        Consider this: We were born with a Declaration of Independence which
    asserted that we were all created equal and a Constitution that
    enshrined slavery. We fought a bloody Civil War to abolish slavery and
    preserve the Union, but we remained a house divided and unequal by law
    for another century. We advanced across the continent in the name of
    freedom, yet in so doing we pushed Native Americans off their land,
    often crushing their culture and their livelihood. Our Statue of Liberty
    welcomes poor, tired, huddled masses of immigrants to our borders, but
    each new wave has felt the sting of discrimination. In World War II,
    Japanese-Americans fought valiantly for freedom in Europe, taking great
    casualties, while at home their families were herded into internment
    camps. The famed Tuskegee Airmen lost none of the bombers they guarded
    during the war, but their African-American heritage cost them a lot of
    rights when they came back home in peace.
        Though minorities have more opportunities than ever today, we still
    see evidence of bigotry, from the desecration of houses of worship,
    whether they be churches, synagogues, or mosques, to demeaning talk in
    corporate suites. There is still much work to be done by you, members of
    the class of 1997. But those who say we cannot transform the problem of
    prejudice into the promise of unity forget how far we have come, and I
    cannot believe they have ever seen a crowd like you.
        When I look at you, it is almost impossible for me even to remember
    my own life. I grew up in the high drama of the cold war, in the
    patriotic South. Black and white southerners alike wore our Nation's
    uniform in defense of freedom against communism. They fought and died
    together, from Korea to Vietnam. But back home, I went to segregated
    schools, swam in segregated public pools, sat in all-white sections at
    the movies, and traveled through small towns in my State that still
    marked restrooms and water fountains ``white'' and ``colored.''
        By the grace of God, I had a grandfather with just a grade school
    education but the heart of a true American, who taught me that it was
    wrong. And by the grace of God, there were brave African-Americans like
    Congressman John Lewis who risked their lives time and time again to
    make it right. And there were white Americans like Congressman Bob
    Filner, a freedom rider on the bus with John Lewis in the long, noble
    struggle for civil rights, who knew that it was a struggle to free white
    people, too.
        To be sure, there is old, unfinished business between black and
    white Americans, but the classic American dilemma has now become many
    dilemmas of race and ethnicity. We see it in the tension between black
    and Hispanic customers and their Korean or Arab grocers; in a resurgent
    antisemitism even on some college campuses; in a hostility toward new
    immigrants from Asia to the Middle East to the former Communist
    countries to Latin America and the Caribbean, even those whose hard work
    and strong families have brought them success in the American way.
        We see a disturbing tendency to wrongly attribute to entire groups,
    including the white majority, the objectionable conduct of a few
    members. If a black American commits a crime, condemn the act. But
    remember that most African-Americans are hard-working, law-abiding
    citizens. If a Latino gang member deals drugs, condemn the act. But
    remember the vast majority of Hispanics are responsible citizens who
    also deplore the scourge of drugs in our life. If white teenagers beat a
    young African-American boy almost to death just because of his race, for
    God's sake condemn the act. But remember the overwhelming majority of
    white people will find it just as hateful. If an Asian merchant
    discriminates against her customers of another minority group, call her
    on it. But remember, too, that many, many Asians have borne the burden
    of prejudice and do not want anyone else to feel it.
        Remember too, in spite of the persistence of prejudice, we are more
    integrated than ever. More of us share neighborhoods and work and school
    and social activities, religious life, even love and marriage across
    racial lines than ever before. More of us enjoy each other's company and
    distinctive cultures than ever before. And more than ever, we understand
    the benefits of our racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity in a
    global society, where networks of commerce and communications draw us
    closer and bring rich rewards to those who truly understand life beyond
    their nation's borders. With just a twentieth of the world's population
    but a fifth of the world's income, we in America simply have to sell to
    the other 95 percent of the world's consumers just to maintain our
    standard of living. Because we are drawn from every culture on Earth, we
    are uniquely positioned to do it.

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    Beyond commerce, the diverse backgrounds and talents of our citizens can
    help America to light the globe, showing nations deeply divided by race,
    religion, and tribe that there is a better way.
        Finally, as you have shown us today, our diversity will enrich our
    lives in nonmaterial ways, deepening our understanding of human nature
    and human differences, making our communities more exciting, more
    enjoyable, more meaningful. That is why I have come here today to ask
    the American people to join me in a great national effort to perfect the
    promise of America for this new time as we seek to build our more
    perfect Union.
        Now, when there is more cause for hope than fear, when we are not
    driven to it by some emergency or social cataclysm, now is the time we
    should learn together, talk together, and act together to build one
    America.
        Let me say that I know that for many white Americans, this
    conversation may seem to exclude them or threaten them. That must not be
    so. I believe white Americans have just as much to gain as anybody else
    from being a part of this endeavor, much to gain from an America where
    we finally take responsibility for all our children so that they, at
    last, can be judged as Martin Luther King hoped, not by the color of
    their skin but by the content of their character.
        What is it that we must do? For 4\1/2\ years now, I have worked to
    prepare America for the 21st century with a strategy of opportunity for
    all, responsibility from all, and an American community of all our
    citizens. To succeed in each of these areas, we must deal with the
    realities and the perceptions affecting all racial groups in America.
        First, we must continue to expand opportunity. Full participation in
    our strong and growing economy is the best antidote to envy, despair,
    and racism. We must press forward to move millions more from poverty and
    welfare to work, to bring the spark of enterprise to inner cities, to
    redouble our efforts to reach those rural communities prosperity has
    passed by. And most important of all, we simply must give our young
    people the finest education in the world.
        There are no children who--because of their ethnic or racial
    background--who cannot meet the highest academic standards if we set
    them and measure our students against them, if we give them well-trained
    teachers and well-equipped classrooms, and if we continue to support
    reasoned reforms to achieve excellence, like the charter school
    movement. At a time when college education means stability, a good job,
    a passport to the middle class, we must open the doors of college to all
    Americans, and we must make at least 2 years of college as universal at
    the dawn of the next century as a high school diploma is today.
        In our efforts to extend economic and educational opportunity to all
    our citizens, we must consider the role of affirmative action. I know
    affirmative action has not been perfect in America--that's why 2 years
    ago we began an effort to fix the things that are wrong with it--but
    when used in the right way, it has worked. It has given us a whole
    generation of professionals in fields that used to be exclusive clubs,
    where people like me got the benefit of 100 percent affirmative action.
    There are now more women-owned businesses than ever before. There are
    more African-American, Latino, and Asian-American lawyers and judges,
    scientists and engineers, accountants and executives than ever before.
        But the best example of successful affirmative action is our
    military. Our Armed Forces are diverse from top to bottom, perhaps the
    most integrated institution in our society and certainly the most
    integrated military in the world. And more important, no one questions
    that they are the best in the world. So much for the argument that
    excellence and diversity do not go hand in hand.
        There are those who argue that scores on standardized tests should
    be the sole measure of qualification for admissions to colleges and
    universities. But many would not apply the same standard to the children
    of alumni or those with athletic ability. I believe a student body that
    reflects the excellence and the diversity of the people we will live and
    work with has independent educational value. Look around this crowd
    today. Don't you think you have learned a lot more than you would have
    if everybody sitting around you looked just like you? I think you have.
    [Applause]
        And beyond the educational value to you, it has a public interest,
    because you will learn to live and work in the world you will live in
    better. When young people sit side by side with people of many different
    backgrounds, they do

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    learn something that they can take out into the world. And they will be
    more effective citizens.
        Many affirmative action students excel. They work hard, they
    achieve, they go out and serve the communities that need them for their
    expertise and role model. If you close the door on them, we will weaken
    our greatest universities, and it will be more difficult to build the
    society we need in the 21st century.
        Let me say, I know that the people of California voted to repeal
    affirmative action without any ill motive. The vast majority of them
    simply did it with a conviction that discrimination and isolation are no
    longer barriers to achievement. But consider the results. Minority
    enrollments in law school and other graduate programs are plummeting for
    the first time in decades. Soon, the same will likely happen in
    undergraduate education. We must not resegregate higher education or
    leave it to the private universities to do the public's work. At the
    very time when we need to do a better job of living and learning
    together, we should not stop trying to equalize economic opportunity.
        To those who oppose affirmative action, I ask you to come up with an
    alternative. I would embrace it if I could find a better way. And to
    those of us who still support it, I say we should continue to stand for
    it, we should reach out to those who disagree or are uncertain and talk
    about the practical impact of these issues, and we should never be
    unwilling to work with those who disagree with us to find new ways to
    lift people up and bring people together.
        Beyond opportunity, we must demand responsibility from every
    American. Our strength as a society depends upon both--upon people
    taking responsibility for themselves and their families, teaching their
    children good values, working hard and obeying the law, and giving back
    to those around us. The new economy offers fewer guarantees, more risk,
    and more rewards. It calls upon all of us to take even greater
    responsibility for our own education than ever before.
        In the current economic boom, only one racial or ethnic group in
    America has actually experienced a decline in income: Hispanic-
    Americans. One big reason is that Hispanic high school dropout rates are
    well above--indeed, far above--those of whites and blacks. Some of the
    dropouts actually reflect a strong commitment to work. We admire the
    legendary willingness to take the hard job at long hours for low pay. In
    the old economy, that was a responsible thing to do. But in the new
    economy, where education is the key, responsibility means staying in
    school.
        No responsibility is more fundamental than obeying the law. It is
    not racist to insist that every American do so. The fight against crime
    and drugs is a fight for the freedom of all our people, including
    those--perhaps especially those--minorities living in our poorest
    neighborhoods. But respect for the law must run both ways. The shocking
    difference in perceptions of the fairness of our criminal justice system
    grows out of the real experiences that too many minorities have had with
    law enforcement officers. Part of the answer is to have all our citizens
    respect the law, but the basic rule must be that the law must respect
    all our citizens.
        And that applies, too, to the enforcement of our civil rights laws.
    For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a huge
    backlog of cases with discrimination claims, though we have reduced it
    by 25 percent over the last 4 years. We can do not much better without
    more resources. It is imperative that Congress--especially those Members
    who say they're for civil rights but against affirmative action--at
    least give us the money necessary to enforce the law of the land, and do
    it soon.
        Our third imperative is perhaps the most difficult of all. We must
    build one American community based on respect for one another and our
    shared values. We must begin with a candid conversation on the state of
    race relations today and the implications of Americans of so many
    different races living and working together as we approach a new
    century. We must be honest with each other. We have talked at each other
    and about each other for a long time. It's high time we all began
    talking with each other.
        Over the coming year, I want to lead the American people in a great
    and unprecedented conversation about race. In community efforts from
    Lima, Ohio, to Billings, Montana, in remarkable experiments in cross-
    racial communications like the uniquely named ERACISM, I have seen what
    Americans can do if they let down their guards and reach out their
    hands.
        I have asked one of America's greatest scholars, Dr. John Hope
    Franklin, to chair an advisory panel of seven distinguished Americans to
    help me in this endeavor. He will be joined by former Governors Thomas
    Kean of New Jersey and William Winter of Mississippi, both great
    champions of civil rights; by Linda Chavez-Thompson, the executive vice
    president of the

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    AFL-CIO; by Reverend Suzan Johnson Cook, a minister from the Bronx and
    former White House fellow; by Angela Oh, an attorney and Los Angeles
    community leader; and Robert Thompson, the CEO of Nissan U.S.A.--
    distinguished leaders, leaders in their community.
        I want this panel to help educate Americans about the facts
    surrounding issues of race, to promote a dialog in every community of
    the land to confront and work through these issues, to recruit and
    encourage leadership at all levels to help breach racial divides, and to
    find, develop, and recommend how to implement concrete solutions to our
    problems, solutions that will involve all of us in Government, business,
    communities, and as individual citizens.
        I will make periodic reports to the American people about our
    findings and what actions we all have to take to move America forward.
    This board will seek out and listen to Americans from all races and all
    walks of life. They are performing a great citizen service, but in the
    cause of building one America, all citizens must serve. As I said at the
    Presidents' Summit on Service in Philadelphia, in our new era such acts
    of service are basic acts of citizenship. Government must play its role,
    but much of the work must be done by the American people as citizen
    service. The very effort will strengthen us and bring us closer
    together. In short, I want America to capture the feel and the spirit
    that you have given to all of us today.
        I'd like to ask the board to stand and be recognized. I want you to
    look at them, and I want you to feel free to talk to them over the next
    year or so. Dr. Franklin and members of the board. [Applause]
        Honest dialog will not be easy at first. We'll all have to get past
    defensiveness and fear and political correctness and other barriers to
    honesty. Emotions may be rubbed raw, but we must begin.
        What do I really hope we will achieve as a country? If we do nothing
    more than talk, it will be interesting, but it won't be enough. If we do
    nothing more than propose disconnected acts of policy, it will be
    helpful, but it won't be enough. But if 10 years from now people can
    look back and see that this year of honest dialog and concerted action
    helped to lift the heavy burden of race from our children's future, we
    will have given a precious gift to America.
        I ask you all to remember just for a moment, as we have come through
    the difficult trial on the Oklahoma City bombing, remember that terrible
    day when we saw and wept for Americans and forgot for a moment that
    there were a lot of them from different races than we are. Remember the
    many faces and races of the Americans who did not sleep and put their
    lives at risk to engage in the rescue, the helping, and the healing.
    Remember how you have seen things like that in the natural disasters
    here in California. That is the face of the real America. That is the
    face I have seen over and over again. That is the America somehow, some
    way, we have to make real in daily American life.
        Members of the graduating class, you will have a greater opportunity
    to live your dreams than any generation in our history, if we can make
    of our many different strands one America, a nation at peace with
    itself, bound together by shared values and aspirations and
    opportunities and real respect for our differences.
        I am a Scotch-Irish Southern Baptist, and I'm proud of it. But my
    life has been immeasurably enriched by the power of the Torah, the
    beauty of the Koran, the piercing wisdom of the religions of East and
    South Asia--all embraced by my fellow Americans. I have felt
    indescribable joy and peace in black and Pentecostal churches. I have
    come to love the intensity and selflessness of my Hispanic fellow
    Americans toward la familia. As a southerner, I grew up on country music
    and country fairs, and I still like them. [Laughter] But I have also
    reveled in the festivals and the food, the music and the art and the
    culture of Native Americans and Americans from every region in the
    world.
        In each land I have visited as your President, I have felt more at
    home because some of their people have found a home in America. For two
    centuries, wave upon wave of immigrants have come to our shores to build
    a new life, drawn by the promise of freedom and a fair chance. Whatever
    else they found, even bigotry and violence, most of them never gave up
    on America. Even African-Americans, the first of whom we brought here in
    chains, never gave up on America.
        It is up to you to prove that their abiding faith was well-placed.
    Living in islands of isolation--some splendid and some sordid--is not
    the American way. Basing our self-esteem on the ability to look down on
    others is not the American way. Being satisfied if we have what

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    we want and heedless of others who don't even have what they need and
    deserve is not the American way. We have torn down the barriers in our
    laws. Now we must break down the barriers in our lives, our minds, and
    our hearts.
        More than 30 years ago, at the high tide of the civil rights
    movement, the Kerner Commission said we were becoming two Americas: one
    white, one black, separate and unequal. Today, we face a different
    choice: Will we become not two but many Americas, separate, unequal, and
    isolated? Or will we draw strength from all our people and our ancient
    faith in the quality of human dignity to become the world's first truly
    multiracial democracy? That is the unfinished work of our time, to lift
    the burden of race and redeem the promise of America.
        Class of 1997, I grew up in the shadows of a divided America, but I
    have seen glimpses of one America. You have shown me one today. That is
    the America you must make. It begins with your dreams, so dream large;
    live your dreams; challenge your parents; and teach your children well.
        God bless you, and good luck.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:47 a.m. at Rimac Field. In his remarks,
    he referred to Coleen Sabatini, associated student body president;
    Georgios H. Anagnostopoulos, chair, academic senate; Robert C. Dynes,
    chancellor; and Richard C. Atkinson, president, University of California
    San Diego.