[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[December 19, 1997]
[Pages 1802-1810]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in a Race Initiative Outreach Meeting With Conservatives
December 19, 1997

    The President. First, let me thank you for coming in what must be a 
busy time for all of you. What I think may be the most productive thing 
to do, although Governor Kean, since--[inaudible]--may interject 
something here. I think what I'd like to do to begin, is just to hear 
from you. I'd like to--on the question of ``Do you believe that race 
still matters in America and is still a problem in some ways?'' And if 
so, instead of our getting into a big fight about affirmative action--
although if you want to discuss it, we can--what bothers me is that even 
I, who think it works in some ways, believe it works only when people 
who--it works predominantly for people who are at least in a position 
for it to work. A lot of the people

[[Page 1803]]

that I care most about are totally unaffected by it one way or the 
other.
    So what I'd like to talk about today is that I thought that we could 
at least begin by just getting a feel for where you are and do you think 
it's still a problem, and if so, what do you think we ought to do about 
it? And if you want to talk about affirmative action--[inaudible]--but 
I'm happy to do that.

[Ward Connerly, chairman, American Civil Rights Institute, stated that 
the country has a serious and complex problem which does not lend itself 
to a Government solution. He indicated that the Nation could not move 
forward on the race issue without resolving the issue of racial 
preferences.]

    The President. What do you think we should do? Since there are--
since various racial minorities are represented in groups of people that 
are at least not doing very well in this society, in numbers 
disproportionate to their numbers in the country as a whole, how should 
we respond to that?

[Mr. Connerly stated that school choice, an overhaul of the K-12 system, 
smaller class size, and other educational initiatives were appropriate 
responses and parental involvement was a necessity. Former Bush 
administration adviser Thaddeus Garrett, Jr., associate pastor, Wesley 
Temple A.M.E. Zion Church, Akron, OH, stated that he hoped that the 
day's discussion would not get bogged down on affirmative action but 
rather address race and race relations. He indicated that mechanical 
programs would not change attitudes and that Americans did not relate 
well across racial lines. He commended the President for the Akron 
meeting on race and said that community leaders, beginning with the 
President, had to provide leadership to address the divide and that 
affirmative action only served to divide the Nation further.]

    The President. Maybe you can--[inaudible]--maybe for discussion's 
sake, let's assume we abolished them all tomorrow, and we just had to 
start all over. What would you do?

[Former U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Staff Director Linda Chavez, 
director, Center for the New American Community, stated that affirmative 
action put the Government in the role of picking winners and losers on 
the basis of race and that under those circumstances the Nation would 
never get beyond racism. She stressed reaching the disadvantaged in 
society, citing a University of Maryland program not aimed at race but 
at students who are the first in their family to attend college. Mr. 
Connerly stated that in addressing the problem, labels should be 
abandoned and focus placed on people with something to contribute.]

    The President. Okay. Let me just say this, first of all. I think, if 
you imagine--forget about--think about what the world would look like 30 
years from now if things go well, that is, if all the threats to our 
collective security--[inaudible]--restrained and trade develops as we 
hope it should, and we develop a decent education system that embraces 
virtually everybody that will work for it. The fact that the United 
States is becoming--[inaudible]--multiethnic country that at some point 
in the next generation, in the next 50 years will, for the first time in 
its history, not have a majority of people of European origin, I think 
will make it an even more fascinating, even more interesting, and even 
more prosperous and successful place if we're not consumed or limited or 
handicapped in some ways because of our racial differences.
    So, to me, this is--I'm looking at this through the perspective of 
the future that I want to see our country make for itself. And I don't 
think anyone has all the answers about how we should make that future.
    If you look at--there is no question that--if you just take African-
Americans, for example, the middle class is growing and a lot of good 
things have happened. But there is also no question that there are still 
pockets where crime is greater, incarceration rates are horrendous, that 
education systems are not working. And even the people who do have some 
level of it, who are highly industrious, and are dying to get into 
business very often don't have access to credit and don't have access to 
the networks. Affirmative action originally, I think, on the economic 
side was a kind of networking thing, and on the education side it was 
designed to do what you --the Maryland program you just described. I 
think if there was ever a shortcoming in college education--we ought to 
be focusing on people who are educationally disadvantaged without--
[inaudible]--they didn't get the preparation and continuing support that 
they needed. The schools that have done that are much better.

[[Page 1804]]

[Stephan A. Thernstrom, Harvard University Winthrop professor of history 
and coauthor of ``America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible'' 
with his wife, Abigail, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, took 
issue with two points made by Mr. Connerly. First, he stated that people 
now know each other better across racial lines than they did a 
generation ago and offered some examples. Second, he said he found the 
Akron meeting troubling and one-sided and gave examples of the lack of 
dialog. He commented that while most of the discussion was addressed to 
white racism, recent studies showed that among African-Americans, Asian-
Americans, and Hispanic-Americans, each group had stronger negative 
stereotypes about the other two groups than whites did and that as these 
populations grew, the problems would become worse, concluding that the 
issue was not simply one of white racism.]

    The President. But if what you say is true--you say the crime 
problem is disproportionately African-American; that's like saying the 
college population is disproportionately white or the business 
population is disproportionately white. That doesn't justify an 
affirmative action program to--[inaudible]--like section 8 of the SBA 
program.
    The other day we had a group of African-American journalists in 
here. Every man in the crowd, to a person--there were, like, 20 of them 
here--every man in that office, every single, solitary one, had been 
stopped by the police when he was doing nothing, for no reason other 
than the fact that he was black. And you say that's because there's a 
rational fear because of the fact of what occurs in some neighborhoods. 
Nonetheless, that is a race-based public policy. I'm just saying, it's 
not as simple as----
    Ms. Thernstrom. No, we agree with that. We agree with that. It's 
unacceptable to me.
    Mr. Thernstrom. But doesn't it happen in Detroit, in Atlanta, in 
other States where----
    The President. All I'm saying is it's very difficult to get these 
things out of our society. And you just made one reason why. Let me give 
you another example. Because of the--a lot of work that's been done by a 
lot of people, there's been a dramatic increase in the capacity of the 
United States to limit the inflow of drugs into the country from the 
south by land and sea. But the consequence is that Mexico, which is a 
big, open country, has had enormous amounts of money invested there to 
try to undermine what little infrastructure there was to deter the 
influx of drugs. Five hundred million dollars was spent last year alone 
trying to bribe Mexican police. Now, as a result, over half of the 
cocaine in this country comes across the Mexican border. So, all right, 
fast forward. What do you do if you're a local police officer with a 
drug problem? That's what this whole profiling is about--[inaudible]--to 
stop people who are Hispanic if they're driving through town. That's an 
affirmative action program. That's a race-based affirmative action 
program. So how do you----
    Ms. Chavez. But Mr. President, some of us are opposed to that. I 
mean, Randall Kennedy has written, I think, very eloquently on exactly 
that issue. And those of us who oppose race preferences when they 
benefit groups are also opposed to them when they harm groups.
    The President. If you were running a police force and you were 
trying to figure out how to deal with the drug problem and you had a lot 
of people who were coming through your town on an interstate and you had 
a limited amount of resources and you couldn't stop every car, which 
cars would you stop?

[Ms. Chavez stated that they should stop every third car and that police 
should be held to the same standard as business. Representative Charles 
T. Canady of Florida stated that it was pernicious for the Government to 
classify people by race because doing so sends a message that people 
should be judged on that basis, which reinforces prejudice despite the 
Government's good intentions.]

    The Vice President. Could I ask a question, Mr. President? If you 
lived in a community that was 50 percent white, 50 percent black and for 
a variety of historic reasons the level of income, educational 
attainment, and so forth was lower among the blacks in that community 
and the police force was 100 percent white, and the problems of the kind 
that we all deplore took place, and other problems took place and the 
community decided that the police force would be better able to do its 
job if blacks were much more represented on the police force because 
then the police force would have a much greater ability to relate to the 
community effectively and to do its job--under those circumstances, do 
you think that the community would be justified in making affirmative 
action efforts to open

[[Page 1805]]

up a lot more positions on the police force for blacks?

[Mr. Canady stated that he favors community policing which requires 
people to live in the neighborhood they police but which doesn't require 
race-based selection. Vice President Gore emphasized that his example 
demonstrated a benefit to the whole community. Mr. Canady then noted 
that the Drug Enforcement Agency had a policy of using African-Americans 
as undercover agents on the theory that they would be more effective, 
but was sued for discrimination by African-American agents, concluding 
that efforts which start out making sense may end up doing harm.]

    The President. Let me ask you this. You don't quarrel with the 
fact--because I think this is very important. This is something that we 
really have to deal with all the time. You don't quarrel with the fact 
that, other things being equal, in cities that are highly racially 
diverse, it would be a good thing, if it could be done without race 
preferences, to have a diverse police department.
    Mr. Canady. Absolutely. I think we ought to have a police department 
that can work with----
    The President. But you just said that you like this whole idea of--
that's what we're doing now at HUD. We're actually encouraging police 
officers to go back and live in the neighborhoods where they patrol and 
letting them buy HUD-foreclosed houses--where HUD's got the property, 
letting them buy houses for half price if they'll serve in the police in 
the neighborhoods where they live.
    I've thought of that, and every time I go to New York or any other 
big city, I always look at the police and see--so let me just say, I'm 
Irish--Irish immigrants got ahead and many of them in urban police 
departments. And many of their children and grandchildren and great-
grandchildren are still in urban police departments. And I think--what I 
think we have to do is figure out--I think part of this problem will go 
away if we ask ourselves, are the criteria by which we are making this 
decision, whatever this decision is, really relevant? Are we really--
whether it's college admission or--are we keeping score in the right way 
here?
    But it seems to me that we have a vested interest in the objective. 
If we agree that we need an integrated police department, and that it 
would be better----
    Ms. Thernstrom. We'd like to have an integrated police department.
    The President. ----that we would like to have one and that our 
society would function better if we had one, then we should ask 
ourselves, ``Okay, how are we going to get there?''

[Ms. Chavez took exception to the Vice President's example, stating that 
statistics show significant numbers of African- and Hispanic-American 
police officers.]

    The Vice President. Partly because of affirmative action.

[Ms. Chavez stated that, while minority representation was not 
proportional, it was close and that the issue should be whether or not 
there was discrimination in a police department, which no one favors. 
She said that the way to root out discrimination was training and 
recruitment. Mr. Thernstrom pointed out some of the complexities, 
stating that white communities are often well served by African-American 
police officers, who should not be forced to go back to predominantly 
black communities, and that while Asians do a good job of producing 
physicists and physicians, they are not very interested in law 
enforcement careers. He questioned the wisdom of making the police 
department look like the population. Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. 
Kean, president, Drew University, stated that the rising rate of 
immigration requires us to get to know one another. He noted that in his 
State, the largest college scholarship program was based on poverty, not 
on race, but still tended to help minorities. He observed that racial 
groups tended not to mix but that, when there were activities that 
crossed racial lines, such as athletics, race was less an issue and 
friendship flourished. Rev. Garrett stressed the need for different 
racial groups to get to know each other and gave examples. He also 
indicated that the media were part of the problem, pointing out the 
contrast in media coverage between the African-American Virginia couple 
who had six babies and the white Iowa couple who had seven. Ms. 
Thernstrom stated that all recognized that there was a long way to go on 
the road to racial equality but posed the question if the Nation was 
were going in the right direction. She added that the discussion had to 
focus more on facts and less on emotion,

[[Page 1806]]

stressing the racial gap in academic performance. She concluded that she 
thinks the failure of even one child is a national scandal.]

    The President. I do, too. I think what Chicago has done--tells 
everybody that you've got to go to summer school if you don't measure 
up, and if you don't measure up a second time, you can't go ahead; your 
self-esteem will be hurt more when you're 50 and you can't read than it 
will be when you're 16 and you have to stay back another year--I think 
that's great.
    But let me just say, first of all, I think what you generally just 
said is absolutely right. The reason I wanted you to come here today is 
that I hope there will be another series of meetings where we'll get an 
even more diverse group--I mean, diverse by opinion. Because what I'm 
trying to get to is--here's my theory about this: I think if we could 
ever get to the point where we would ask ourselves, can we agree on the 
objective, and then talk about what means will work, and then look at 
the things we don't like and say, well, did it do any good and what harm 
did it do?
    For example, what I think about affirmative action, a lot of these 
economic--let's just take the economic affirmative action. What I 
honestly believe is that it did a profound amount of good for the people 
who got into the programs who might never have had a chance to be 
successful business men or women. But I believe the problems with it are 
twofold. Number one is, once you get in and you start doing it, it's 
hard to graduate out. This whole theory about graduating out and moving 
through, going out into the private sector--that theory never really 
worked very well. And we ought to fess up; those of us who were for it 
ought to say that's one of the problems that didn't work. The other 
problem is it doesn't reach the vast majority of the people who have a 
problem because it doesn't reach down into basically the isolated urban 
areas with people in the economic underclass.
    So if we say, okay--you know, we can all say, ``Okay, here are the 
facts. It was a pretty good thing, but it didn't do everything it was 
supposed to do.'' So should we argue about getting rid of it; should we 
argue about doing something else; should we argue about what's going to 
happen to these people? I mean, I think there's a lot to be said for 
that.
    Let me go back to what Steve said about the composition of the 
police force when you got into the tete-a-tete with the Vice President. 
Let me just mention three things because Governor Kean mentioned this. 
The seven white septuplets were delivered by two African-American women 
doctors. Two days later, two black kids were rescued in a Chicago fire 
by a white fireman. Nobody feels anything but good about that. Why is 
that? Or why do all these rich white Republicans pay to go down and 
watch some black guys play basketball at the MCI Center? I would argue 
there is something that all these things share in common that don't 
necessarily get answered in the police--[inaudible].
    One is, in the case of pro basketball, here I am--I don't have a 
doubt in the world that, if I'd been good enough, I could have played 
pro basketball. I don't; if I'd been good enough, by God, I could have 
played. I was short, fat, and slow by today's standards. [Laughter] I 
couldn't play. Doesn't have anything to do with my race; I don't have a 
doubt in the world. If I have a child, I don't have a doubt in the world 
that my child can play if he or she is good enough. So that's the first 
threshold. Without regard to race--I think we can all agree with that. 
In whatever setting, people have to know if they're good enough, they 
can play; and if they need a hand up to prepare themselves, that they 
can get it.
    The second thing is, in the case of the black women doctors who 
delivered the septuplets--which is not always the case in the case of 
police, which is why I agree with the Vice President--in the community 
which was of a different race, there was no question about whether they 
could do their job in a way that would be fair to everybody. In the case 
of the white fireman who risked his life to go in and get the last two 
black kids in the Chicago fire, he made a statement that was louder than 
any words I will ever utter, that he was in tune with the people in that 
community. He was in tune enough that he was willing to lay his life 
down to save those two little children. Nobody will ever care again 
whether that guy is on their fire or sitting idly out in front of the 
fire station, as I hope he will be.
    So there's two criteria. One is, can you play if you're good enough, 
whatever the thing is? Two is, does everybody in the community have 
confidence that the people in the positions, whatever they are, have 
sufficient concern about them, are consistently involved with them, that

[[Page 1807]]

whatever is supposed to be done is going to get done?
    I think in the case of the fireman and the doctors and the 
basketball players, the answer is yes. I think in the case of huge 
numbers of urban police departments, huge numbers of the business 
sector, huge sections of higher education, you can't say that the answer 
is yes. That's why I'm hung up about it. But I don't think that--I think 
the reason that I'd get frustrated if the debate is only about 
affirmative action, is if we win 100 percent of the debate, we're 
talking about 10 percent of the people. If you win 100 percent of the 
debate, we're still just talking about 10 percent of the people. What 
about everybody else?
    Ms. Chavez. That has been our argument.
    Ms. Thernstrom. But, why don't you have confidence that we can train 
policemen the way we train firemen so that when a policeman shows up at 
the door, it doesn't matter what the race of that policeman is?
    The President. What I don't have confidence in is that in the police 
departments where there is not affirmative action, that there is a 
selection process that is not race-based.
    Ms. Thernstrom. Why not go after the problem instead. It's like 
college admissions; instead of going after the problem of the failure of 
our schools in the K-12 years, we say, ``Okay, we're going to shut our 
eyes to that problem, and we're going to preferentially admit them and 
hope something----
    The President. What about all the people who are sitting around 
waiting for that to happen? Are we just going to let them drift away?

[Former Peace Corps Director Elaine Chao, senior fellow, Heritage 
Foundation, commended the President and Vice President for their 
initiative and leadership in the area of race relations but stated that 
the debate left out Asian-Americans almost entirely. She related her 
experience as an immigrant and said that her family got through by 
knowing they would not always be in that condition. She stated that it 
was disheartening to find that equal opportunity did not always mean a 
level playing field and gave examples of affirmative action programs 
working against Asian-Americans. Mr. Connerly urged that, given the 
brief time available, the discussion not focus on affirmative action but 
on the broader subject of race and suggested that the overall timeframe 
for the national debate be extended. Ms. Thernstrom stated that the 
President's Advisory Board on Race was too monolithic. The group then 
discussed the diversity of the board.]

    The President. Go ahead. Lynn, you haven't talked enough.

[Former Representative and former Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin stated 
that average Americans are really further along than they are given 
credit for, but that diversity implies differences in perception which 
people must move beyond. She advocated moving forward with a moderate 
checklist and reasonable goals.]

    The President. One thing--let me just ask you all to think about 
this because I agree--one of the things I do agree with, what Ward said, 
is that I--before you came in here I was holding my head saying, ``Oh my 
God, those people are coming in here, and we've got to stay here for 4 
hours--[inaudible].'' But let me--nearly everybody agrees that the laws, 
that are on the books, against discrimination based on race against 
individuals should be enforced.
    Ms. Thernstrom. Everybody agrees with that.
    Ms. Chavez. Everybody in this room.
    The President. We are grossly under--we have never properly funded 
the EEOC, but to be fair, we also need to look at--and this may be kind 
of a bridge between what we've been arguing about and what we agree on--
there's a lot of interest--and Chris has given me some information on 
this--about trying to develop some sort of way the EEOC can get rid of 
its backlog in part by drawing up consent orders that would go beyond 
litigation and would change the way people treat their employees, not 
necessarily on a race--not a race-based treatment but the way you 
develop, the way you recruit, the way you reach out. And one of the--to 
go back to Lynn's checklist--one of the things we would like to get 
everybody to agree to is a certain approach on that, on kind of a 
comprehensive approach to getting rid of the accumulated backlog of race 
claims and where you go from there.
    The other thing I would like to just say, because I know we're going 
to have to wrap up pretty soon, is I agree with you, we need a structure 
for the discussion which permits us to continue to talk, sharply 
identify in a non-rhetorical way our differences, and ask if there

[[Page 1808]]

is some way to build on this, so we can actually get something done.
    I talked to J.C. Watts on the phone; he called me last night, and I 
was out of pocket, and I called him this morning, and we talked for 20 
to 30 minutes because he was--[inaudible]--and it was an interesting 
conversation. I just think, if you're willing, I'm willing to make this 
not a one-shot deal but to continue to work on this. I really sympathize 
with how the immigrant--Asian immigrant--particularly first generation 
Asians feel with the shift in criteria.
    Ms. Chao.  We're just learning the rules, and goddamn it, they 
change them on us. [Laughter]
    The President.  The real issue here is, if you go back, there's lot 
of thought being given in the private schools and universities--and 
Governor Kean, who runs a great one, can talk about it--that a lot of 
these private universities are thinking, okay, now, what if the 
colleges, if all the public institutions end affirmative action in their 
admissions process and they don't really--the State doesn't come up with 
a comprehensive alternative they'd like, where you've got all the 
colleges maybe taking over public schools, in effect, in terms of their 
college prep, so you get to--you maintain the diversity of the student 
body population with non-race-based policies; then will the private 
institutions basically have to carry the burden of educating a more 
diverse student body--or unless we're going to resegregate higher 
education like we once had?
    So there's a reexamination about whether--I'm not saying that what 
you said is--how you described it, that that's the right way to do it, 
but there is a genuine, I think, reassessment about whether test scores 
plus grades should be the only predictor of success in college and 
success later, the only definer of merit, and whether we can assume that 
there is somehow an absolute character to that. As a matter of fact, the 
test scores were--[inaudible]--they have been a pretty good rough 
indicator.
    But you know, look at what Texas is doing. It's interesting when you 
look at Texas, I mean, it's this desperate attempt, I think--desperate 
sounds critical; I'm not being critical. But people are looking around 
and trying to find a way to honor America, be fair, and still have a 
society where everybody's got a chance. Keep in mind, go back to 
basketball and our view of the doctors in Iowa, the people have got to 
believe everybody had a chance.

[Ms. Chavez stated that it was not good public policy to have different 
rules for different groups and that the agreed criteria must be equally 
applied to every individual.]

    The President. You wouldn't be opposed to affirmative efforts that 
were not race-based, would you?
    Ms. Chavez. That's right. I wouldn't because----
    The President. And if they're not race-based, they----

[Ms. Chavez stated that affirmative action efforts that were not raced-
based but aimed at educational disadvantage, social disadvantage, or 
economic disadvantage would be acceptable but should involve more than 
just letting people in the door. She said she resented the assumption 
that minorities were incapable of meeting the same standards. The Vice 
President said that while human nature was vulnerable to prejudice, 
people have the ability and the national responsibility to overcome this 
vulnerability and its consequences. He stated that cross-cultural 
contacts were obviously rewarding, that opportunities for them should be 
more available, and that affirmative efforts must keep going forward. 
Mr. Canady stated that conservatives did not want to end the effort but 
did want to stop classification based on race.]

    The President. Let me ask you a question. One of the things that 
tickled me about--since I grew up in the South, in addition to being--
[inaudible]--or the race problems in the country, we were all so 
obsessed with athletics. One of the things that tickled me about the 
California affirmative action vote was that there was--preference vote--
is that there was an exception made for athletes. So you can give a 
preference for athletes to get into Berkeley, so Berkeley can have a 
nice football team and a nice basketball team.
    The Vice President. Alumni giving.
    The President. But the A student who doesn't get into Berkeley, the 
Asian A student who doesn't get into Berkeley is just as hurt because he 
didn't get in so everybody could be tickled at the next basketball game 
as he would have been hurt if some A student who grew up in a black 
family in Oakland and didn't go to a good high school and therefore 
didn't make quite as high a score on the college board--he still loses 
the opportunity. He just loses it

[[Page 1809]]

to a basketball player instead of a kid with thick glasses who struggled 
late at night in Oakland to make good grades but didn't quite make a 
high enough college board score to get in. What's the difference? Why is 
it justified? Why is athletic discrimination so wonderful and the race 
discrimination----
    Participant. Well, you can get rid of it. If you want to sign an 
Executive order----
    Participant. And alumni discrimination as well.
    Mr. Connerly.  Mr. President, I have to say that this has been a 
great party until now, but just as we're--the clock is ticking, we're 
ready to go out the door, you ruined my weekend with those very--
[laughter]----
    The President. Is that not true? If it's not true, I don't want to 
falsely accuse you.
    Mr. Connerly. ----very loaded questions, very loaded statements that 
command far more than the 5 or 10 minutes we have left. Our Founders--
they talked for hours about human nature as the basis of what kind of 
Government we were going to develop. And it's frightening to me--it is 
truly frightening to me, at the characterization of human nature, Mr. 
Vice President, that you portray, because it suggests that we cannot 
rise above it----
    The Vice President. No, I said specifically, we can.
    Mr. Connerly. ----unless Government is there demanding, demanding, 
that we be held accountable. The presumption of our people, the 
presumption of our Nation is that we're good people, that we can be 
fair, and that we will do the right thing. There are going to be some 
out there that are going to do wrong, and we'll bring those into line. 
But it's not that we are prone to do bad. And the whole question here 
about athletes and alumni, my God, any of us can be athletes or alumni. 
It has nothing to do with our skin color.
    The President. I didn't say anything about alumni.
    Mr. Connerly. Well, he did. But there are just certain traits here 
that we as a society are making a judgment about----
    The President. The only point I made--[laughter]--don't get our two 
speeches mixed up. The only point I'm trying to make is, if you ever 
have any--if you decide what the criteria of academic merit is, and 
let's say you decide the criteria is the grades plus the college 
boards--this is the only point; I'm making a narrow point. If you decide 
the criteria is the grades plus the college boards, and then you 
decide--you make a decision, which I think you could make a compelling 
argument is a legitimate decision, that athletics is an important part 
of university life, that it enriches the lives of all the other students 
who are there; you can make that argument--but the point is, once you 
make that argument, that's the argument you could also make for having a 
racially diverse student body. I was making a very--I'm not making a 
wholesale assault.
    Now, here's my problem with this whole deal--I know we've got to go, 
so I want to give you a chance to say what we really said before, which 
is, how do we give structure to this and what do you think the next step 
should be? And I'll give anybody else a chance. Look, when I was a 
Governor, I became the first Governor in the history of the country to 
sponsor legislation to require--[inaudible]--certified. I believe I 
passed the first law requiring kids in the whole State to have to pass 
an exam before they could actually go on to high school, because I 
didn't like the high school graduation--I thought that was closing the 
barn door after the cattle left. The reason I have consistently 
supported affirmative action programs--but I really have tried to change 
them and make them work--is not because--I basically think all that 
stuff you said is right. I am sick and tired of people telling me poor 
minority kids who live in desperate circumstances, that they can't make 
it. I think they should be told they can make it but they have to work 
harder to make it, and then I think we should give them a hand up to 
make it. I am tired of that. The reason I have supported affirmative 
action programs is very different, is--I have done it because I didn't 
want to see all these kids be sacrificed to a principle that I agree 
with, because the practice of life would not be fixed in time to give 
them a chance--number one.
    And number two, I have had the same feeling about police departments 
and fire departments and business environments and university admissions 
that I felt about the athletes--that I really thought that the 
institutions were better off and the white majority or whoever else, was 
better off if there was some intermixing because of the world they're 
going to live in.
    But I am always--I think we should all be uncomfortable, those of us 
who support this,

[[Page 1810]]

for giving something to somebody when we deprive somebody that was 
otherwise more deserving, by the traditional criteria, of getting it. 
But I think on balance, that's why I've been very strongly--but I have 
never wanted to not have high standards, not be demanding, not do 
things. I mean, I've paid a pretty good price for this--[inaudible]--and 
I'm not ashamed of having done it. I think that the kids in my State are 
better off because of it.
    But we need to figure out, to recognize that what we'd really like 
is for people without regard to their race to be able to do the kind of 
business, go to the kind of schools, have the kind of public service 
jobs, and live in the kind of integrated environment that they choose if 
that is the choice they make, because there would be no differences in 
traditional measures of merit and how they did, so that people would be 
making their own choices and having their own choices. I think that's--
we all agree that that's the world we want.
    So I'd like to know what you think the next step should be. If you 
want to stay involved in this, you want to keep talking to us, you want 
to keep working with us, and you want to get some more different kind of 
people in here, what do you think we ought to do now?

[Gov. Kean explained that he accepted the invitation to sit on the 
President's Advisory Board on Race because he believed it was the first 
time in his life a President was willing to take on this issue and to 
try to establish a dialog, and he believed it could do some good. He 
said that initially he believed the board had been too narrow, but that 
it was opening up to a broad spectrum of ideas. Ms. Thernstrom said she 
thought this was a wonderful meeting and that if this continued, it 
might go somewhere.]

    The President. That's what I think.
    Ms. Thernstrom. Yes. We're feeling each other here. We're kind of 
making--it's a first kind of stiff beginning, but that we might really--
--
    The Vice President. I resemble that remark. [Laughter]
    The President. If you all are willing to do it and you will help us 
figure out a way to structure it, I'll do it. Let me just give you--I'll 
just give you one--outside this door, probably sitting there--I don't 
know if she's still there--is my diarist for the White House who has 
lately been in the paper because--[inaudible]--[laughter]--her name is 
Janis Kearney. Her daddy was a sharecropper, and her mother was a 
domestic. And they had 17 children; 13 of them have college degrees, 5 
of them are lawyers, and all 17 of them have a first name that starts 
with the letter ``J''--I don't know how they--[laughter]--most of them 
went to school in Arkansas. One of them went all the way to Harvard. And 
some of them had affirmative action, and some of them didn't, and they 
all did fine.
    Look, somewhere in here there's a way that we can get to where we're 
trying to do--stop talking past each other and start working together. I 
cannot believe that 90 percent of the people in this country don't want 
the same kind of country in terms of racial matters. And I will do my 
best to find a way for us to move beyond the--[inaudible]--honestly and 
respectfully state our differences and figure out a way to work 
together. Because it is obvious, if you do not believe that there is any 
inherent, God-given difference among people based on race, then the 
differences that we have today must have been rooted in the mistakes 
that have been made in the past or the breakdown of social institutions 
or personal institutions like the family, the education system, and the 
networking of people in business and others. There has to be a way to 
rebuild those institutions, and we have to do it together.
    I think it would be a shame if we didn't try to do this together. 
I'm trying to put this beyond partisan politics. I'm not trying to use 
you. I said that deal about the athletics because I might have voted for 
the athletic thing, too, but I've always been with the race is like 
athletics and not different from athletics. That's all. So we need to 
go.
    If you have--in addition to your suggestions, which Governor Kean is 
for, I want to know if you've got process ideas about how we can 
discipline this debate and to move it forward.

Note: The President spoke at 2:43 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Christopher Edley, consultant to 
the President's Advisory Board on Race. This outreach meeting was part 
of ``One America: The President's Initiative on Race.'' A portion of 
these remarks could not be verified because the tape was incomplete.