[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.