[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[November 10, 1997]
[Pages 1533-1535]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 1533]]


Opening Remarks at the White House Conference on Hate Crimes
November 10, 1997

    The President. Thank you. I don't see that I need to say much. Do 
you? [Laughter] Thank you, Cheunee.
    Audience member. You murdered Vince Foster, and it's not a hate 
crime.
    The President. We have the first amendment even here. But I think 
the hate is coming from your way, not mine.
    President Trachtenberg, and members of the administration, Senator 
Kennedy, Members of the House. And let me also say that in addition to 
all of you who are here, there are thousands of people at satellite-link 
conferences all over the country.
    We have heard today two moving personal testimonies, from a person 
who gave his life in law enforcement and from a young person just 
beginning her adult life but having already lived a lifetime of 
experiences that we wish she had never endured. They both teach us in 
different ways that our families and our country can only thrive if 
they're free from the fear of crime and violence. And we have to do 
everything we can to give them that security. That's the main reason we 
decided to hold this White House Conference on Hate Crimes.
    As I said this morning to those of you who were at the breakfast, 
all over the world we see what happens when racial or ethnic or 
religious animosity joins with lawlessness. We've seen countries and 
people and families torn apart. We've seen countries go from peace to 
wholesale internecine slaughter in a matter of months. We've seen people 
rise up and fight each other over issues that they thought had been 
dormant for centuries.
    But even in America we hear too many stories like the ones Cheunee 
told us, too many stories like the 13-year-old African-American boy 
nearly beaten to death when he rode his bicycle through the wrong 
neighborhood, the gay American murdered as he walked home from work, the 
Asian-American who lost her store to a firebomb hurled by a racist, the 
Jewish-American whose house of worship was desecrated by swastikas.
    We hear too many of these stories, stories of violent acts which are 
not just despicable acts of bias and bigotry; they are crimes. They 
strike at the heart of what it means to be an American. They are the 
antithesis of the values that define us as a nation. They have nothing 
to do with freedom or equality or respect for the law, and most 
importantly, they prevent us from respecting one another.
    Last year I asked the American people to begin a great national 
conversation on race, to come together, across all the lines that divide 
us, into one America. We know we can only fight prejudice by fighting 
the misunderstanding and the ignorance and the fear that produce it. One 
of the things that I hope will come out of this year is a national 
affirmation that violence motivated by prejudice and hatred, as Cheunee 
said, hurts us all. Anybody who thinks that in the world of today and 
tomorrow, that he or she can hide from the kind of poison that we see in 
various places in our country, is living in a dream world. Whether we 
like it or not, our futures are bound together, and it is time we acted 
like it.
    The first thing we have to do is to make sure our Nation's laws 
fully protect all of its citizens. Our laws already punish some crimes 
committed against people on the basis of race or religion or national 
origin, but we should do more. We should make our current laws tougher 
to include all hate crimes that cause physical harm. We must prohibit 
crimes committed because of a victim's sexual orientation, gender, or 
disability. All Americans deserve protection from hate.
    I want to thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Specter, who will soon 
introduce legislation to achieve these goals, and I want to tell you 
that I will do my best to help them see this legislation become the law 
of our land. Thank you, Senators.
    The second thing we have to do is to make sure our civil rights laws 
are consistently and vigorously enforced. Under Attorney General Reno's 
leadership, the Justice Department has taken aim at hate crimes with 
more prosecutions and tougher punishments. Starting today, every United 
States attorney in our country will establish or expand working groups 
to develop enforcement strategies, share best practices, and

[[Page 1534]]

educate the public about hate crimes. This national hate crimes network 
will marshal the resources of Federal, State, and local enforcement, 
community groups, educators, antiviolence advocates to give us another 
powerful tool in the struggle against hate crimes.
    I'm also pleased to announce that we will assign over 50 more FBI 
agents and prosecutors to work on hate crimes enforcement. And the 
Justice Department will make its own hate crimes training curriculum 
available to State and local law enforcement training centers all around 
America.
    Finally, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the 
Justice Department are launching an important new initiative that will 
help victims of housing-related hate crimes bring action against their 
attackers and get money damages for the harm they suffer.
    When it comes to enforcing civil rights laws, let me also remind you 
that we need strong leadership. I have nominated Bill Lann Lee to head 
the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice because I'm 
convinced he'll provide that leadership. He is a son of Chinese 
immigrants who has seen the damaging force of discrimination. He has 
dedicated his career to fighting for equal rights, without regard to 
ideology or political party. Everyone who heard him in the Senate was 
impressed with his background, his record, his demeanor, his capacity, 
and yet we are being told that the Senate will not be allowed to vote on 
him because he supports his own President's position on affirmative 
action. Now, with all respect, if we have to wait until we get a head of 
the Civil Rights Division who is opposed to affirmative action, that job 
will be vacant for a very long time. We had an election about that.
    On the other hand, let's not forget, this is but a tiny slice of 
what the Civil Rights Division does. We have laws on the books against 
discrimination that 90 percent of the American people support, and they 
need to be enforced vigorously by somebody who embodies the American 
ideal. It is wrong to deny this man that job because he agrees with the 
policies of his President on that issue. It is wrong.
    All I ask the Senate committee to do is just to send his name out. 
They don't even have to make a recommendation; just let the Senate vote. 
Let all 100 Senators stand up and be counted in the full view of the 
American people, and let them know their stand.
    Let me also say that in addition to enforcement, in addition to 
pushing for new laws, in addition to training our own people and others 
better, let's also admit one thing--we have a lot of law enforcement 
officials who have worked on this--a lot of hate crimes still go 
unreported. I see a lot of you nodding your head up and down. If a crime 
is unreported, that gives people an excuse to ignore it.
    I'm pleased to announce that today for the first time the National 
Crime Victimization Survey used by the Justice Department will finally 
include questions about hate crimes, so we can report them on a national 
basis along with others. It may seem like a small addition, but it will 
yield large results. It will give us a better measure of the number of 
hate crimes, and it will increase what we know about how they occur.
    Let me say, lastly, all of us have to do more in our communities, 
through organizations like the one that Cheunee was part of in putting 
into Brooklyn High School, and in our own homes and places of worship to 
teach all of our children about the dignity of every person. I'm very 
pleased that the Education and the Justice Departments will distribute 
to every school district in the country a hate crimes resource guide. 
The guide will direct educators to the materials they can use to teach 
tolerance and mutual respect. And also, the Justice Department is 
launching a website where younger students can learn about prejudice and 
the harm it causes.
    Children have to be taught to hate. And as they come more and more 
of age and they get into more and more environments where they can be 
taught that, we need to make sure that somebody is teaching them not to 
do so.
    I wouldn't be surprised if today some of the skinheads that threw 
rocks and bottles at Cheunee when she was a little girl have grown out 
of it and are frankly ashamed of what they did. I wouldn't be surprised 
if some of them weren't ashamed of it on the day they did it, but they 
just wanted to go along, to get along, to be part of the group. But some 
of the people who were subject to that, some of the people who were on 
the bus with her or on the street with her, are not here today to make 
the speech she gave. I'll bet you some of the people were scarred in 
ways that they never got over.
    So as important as it is to enforce the law, to punish people, to do 
all this--all this is very

[[Page 1535]]

important--the most important thing we can do is to reach these kids 
while they're young enough to learn. Somebody is going to be trying to 
teach them to hate. We want to teach them a different way. And in the 
end, if we all do our part for that, we can make America one nation 
under God.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:20 p.m. in the Dorothy Betts Marvin 
Theater at George Washington University. In his remarks, he referred to 
Cheunee Sampson, Duke University student who introduced the President, 
and Stephen J. Trachtenberg, president, George Washington University.