[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 21 (Monday, May 26, 1997)]
[Pages 727-732]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Morgan State University Commencement Ceremony in 
Baltimore, Maryland

May 18, 1997

    Thank you. Dr. Richardson, Judge Cole, Governor Glendening, 
Lieutenant Governor Kennedy-Townsend, Mr. Mayor, City Council President, 
other elected officials, Mr. Speaker, Senator Miller, Senator Sarbanes, 
Congressman Cardin, and Congressman Cummings, my great partners, to the 
board of regents, to the faculty, staff, to distinguished alumni, to the 
magnificent band and choir. I thought it was a great day when I

[[Page 728]]

got here, but I know it is now. Thank you very much.
    To the members of the class of 1997, your family, and your friends, 
congratulations on this important day in your lives, the lives of your 
Nation, and the life of this great institution. Your diploma reflects a 
level of knowledge that will give you the chance to make the most of the 
rapidly unfolding new reality of the 21st century. It gives your country 
a better chance to lead the world toward a better place, and it 
reaffirms the historic mission of Morgan State and the other 
historically black colleges and universities of our great land.
    When the doors of college were closed to all but white students, 
Morgan State and the Nation's other historically black institutions of 
higher education gave young African-Americans the education they 
deserved and the pride they needed to rise above cruelty and bigotry. 
Today, these institutions still produce the lion's share of our black 
doctors and judges and business people, and Morgan State graduates most 
of the black engineers and scientists in the great State of Maryland.
    I am here today not because Morgan State is just a great 
historically black university, it is a great American university. You 
have produced some of our Nation's finest leaders: your grads like 
Parren Mitchell, Kweisi Mfume, and Earl Graves; judicial leaders like 
Judge Bell and Judge Cole; public servants like State Treasurer Dixon; 
and on a very personal note, my fine assistant, Terry Edmonds, class of 
1972, the first African-American ever to serve as a speechwriter for the 
President of the United States. There he is. [Applause]
    Now, you're getting too much applause now, Terry. [Laughter]
    You graduate today into a world brimming with promise and rich with 
opportunity. Our economy is the strongest in a generation, our 
unemployment the lowest in 24 years, with the largest decline in income 
inequality since the 1960's.
    On Friday we finalized the details of an historic agreement with the 
leaders of Congress to balance the Federal budget for the first time in 
nearly three decades, in a way that will keep our economy going and in 
balance with our values, caring for those in need, extending health care 
to 5 million more children, cleaning and preserving and restoring our 
environment, helping people to move from welfare to work, and most 
important, funding the largest investment in education in a generation 
and the largest increase in higher education since the GI bill in 1945, 
more than 50 years ago.
    It will open the doors of college to all, with the largest increase 
in Pell grant scholarships in three decades, $35 billion in tax relief 
to help families pay for higher education, including tax deductions for 
the cost of all education after high school, and our HOPE scholarship 
tuition tax credits to make the first 2 years of college as universal by 
the year 2000 as a high school diploma is today.
    And this agreement contains a major investment in science and 
technology, inspired in our administration by the leadership of Vice 
President Gore, to keep America on the cutting edge of positive change, 
to create the best jobs of tomorrow, to advance the quality of life of 
all Americans.
    This is a magic moment, but like all moments, it will not last 
forever. We must make the most of it. In commencement addresses across 
the Nation this year, I will focus our attention on what we must do to 
prepare our Nation for the next century, including how we can make sure 
that our rich diversity brings us together rather than driving us apart 
and how we must meet our continuing obligation to lead the world away 
from the wars and cold war of the 20th century through the present 
threats of terrorism and ethnic hatred, weapons proliferation and drug 
smuggling, to a more peaceful and free and prosperous 21st century.
    But today, here, I ask you simply to imagine that new century, full 
of its promise, molded by science, shaped by technology, powered by 
knowledge. These potent transforming forces can give us lives fuller and 
richer than we have ever known. They can be used for good or ill.
    If we are to make the most of this new century, we, all of us, each 
and every one of us, regardless of our background, must work to master 
these forces with vision and wisdom and determination. The past half-
century has seen mankind split the atom, splice genes, create the 
microchip, explore

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the heavens. We enter the next century propelled by new and stunning 
developments.
    Just in the past year, we saw the cloning of Dolly the sheep, the 
Hubble telescope bringing into focus dark corners of the cosmos never 
seen before, innovations in computer technology and communications, 
creating what Bill Gates calls ``the world's new digital nervous 
system,'' and now cures for our most dreaded diseases, diabetes, cystic 
fibrosis, repair for spinal cord injuries. These miracles actually seem 
within reach. The sweep of it is truly humbling. Why, just last week we 
saw a computer named Deep Blue defeat the world's reigning chess 
champion. I really think there ought to be a limit to this. No computer 
should be allowed to learn to play golf. [Laughter.] But seriously, my 
friends, in science, if the last 50 years were the age of physics, the 
next 50 years will be the age of biology.
    We are now embarking on our most daring explorations, unraveling the 
mysteries of our inner world and charting new routes to the conquest of 
disease. We have not and we must not shrink from

exploring the frontiers of science. But as we consider how to use the 
fruits of discovery, we must also never retreat from our commitment to 
human values, the good of society, our basic sense of right and wrong.

    Science must continue to serve humanity, never the other way around. 
The stakes are very high. America's future, indeed the world's future, 
will be more powerfully influenced by science and technology than ever 
before. Where once nations measured their strength by the size of their 
armies and arsenals, in the world of the future, knowledge will matter 
most. Fully half the growth in economic productivity over the last half-
century can be traced to research and technology.
    But science is about more than material wealth or the acquisition of 
knowledge. Fundamentally, it is about our dreams. America is a nation 
always becoming, always defined by the great goals we set, the great 
dreams we dream. We are restless, questing people. We have always 
believed, with President Thomas Jefferson, that freedom is the first-
born daughter of science. With that belief and with willpower, 
resources, and great national effort, we have always reached our far 
horizons and set out for new ones.
    Thirty-six years ago, President Kennedy looked to the heavens and 
proclaimed that the flag of peace and democracy, not war and tyranny, 
must be the first to be planted on the Moon. He gave us a goal of 
reaching the Moon, and we achieved it, ahead of time. Today, let us look 
within and step up to the challenge of our time, a challenge with 
consequences far more immediate for the life and death of millions 
around the world. AIDS will soon overtake tuberculosis and malaria as 
the leading infectious killer in the world. More than 29 million people 
have been infected, 3 million in the last year alone, 95 percent of them 
in the poorest parts of our globe.
    Here at home, we are grateful that new and effective anti-HIV 
strategies are available and bringing longer and better lives to those 
who are infected, but we dare not be complacent. HIV is capable of 
mutating and becoming resistant to therapies and could well become even 
more dangerous. Only a truly effective, preventive HIV vaccine can limit 
and eventually eliminate the threat of AIDS.
    This year's budget contains increased funding of a third over 2 
years ago to search for this vaccine. In the first 4 years, we have 
increased funding for AIDS research, prevention, and care by 50 percent, 
but it is not enough. So let us today set a new national goal for 
science in the age of biology. Today, let us commit ourselves to 
developing an AIDS vaccine within the next decade. There are no 
guarantees. It will take energy and focus and demand great effort from 
our greatest minds. But with the strides of recent years, it is no 
longer a question of whether we can develop an AIDS vaccine, it is 
simply a question of when. And it cannot come a day too soon. If America 
commits to find an AIDS vaccine and we enlist others in our cause, we 
will do it. I am prepared to do all I can to make it happen. Our 
scientists at the National Institutes of Health and our research 
universities have been at the forefront of this battle.
    Today I'm pleased to announce the National Institutes of Health will 
establish a new AIDS vaccine research center dedicated to

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this crusade. And next month at the summit of the industrialized nations 
in Denver, I will enlist other nations to join us in a worldwide effort 
to find a vaccine to stop one of the world's greatest killers. We will 
challenge America's pharmaceutical industry, which leads the world in 
innovative research and

development to work with us and to make the successful development of an 
AIDS vaccine part of its basic mission.

    My fellow Americans, if the 21st century is to be the century of 
biology, let us make an AIDS vaccine its first great triumph. Let us 
resolve further to work with other nations to deal with great problems 
like global climate change, to break our reliance on energy use 
destructive of our environment, to make giant strides to free ourselves 
and future generations from the tyranny of disease and hunger and 
ignorance that today still enslaves too many millions around the world. 
And let us also pledge to redouble our vigilance to make sure that the 
knowledge of the 21st century serves our most enduring human values.
    Science often moves faster than our ability to understand its 
implications, leaving a maze of moral and ethical questions in its wake. 
The Internet can be a new town square or a new Tower of Babel. The same 
computer that can put the Library of Congress at our fingertips can also 
be used by purveyors of hate to spread blueprints for bombs. The same 
knowledge that is developing new life-saving drugs can be used to create 
poisons of mass destruction. Science can enable us to feed billions more 
people in comfort, in safety, and in harmony with our Earth, or it can 
spark a war with weapons of mass destruction rooted in primitive 
hatreds.
    Science has no soul of its own. It is up to us to determine whether 
it will be used as a force for good or evil. We must do nothing to 
stifle our basic quest for knowledge. After all, it has propelled from 
field to factory to cyberspace. But how we use the fruits of science and 
how we apply it to human endeavors is not properly the domain of science 
alone or of scientists alone. The answers to these questions require the 
application of ethical and moral principles that have guided our great 
democracy toward a more perfect union for more than 200 years now. As 
such, they are the province of every American citizen.
    We must decide together how to apply these principles to the 
dazzling new discoveries of science. Here are four guideposts. First, 
science and its benefits must be directed toward making life better for 
all Americans, never just a privileged few. Their opportunities and 
benefits should be available to all. Science must not create a new line 
of separation between the haves and the have-nots, those with and those 
without the tools and understanding to learn and use technology. In the 
21st century, a child in a school that does not have a link to the 
Internet or the student who does not have access to a computer will be 
like the 19th century child without school books. That is why we are 
ensuring that every child in every school, not matter how rich or poor, 
will have access to the same technology by connecting every classroom 
and library to the Internet by the year 2000.
    Science must always respect the dignity of every American. Here at 
one of America's great black universities let me underscore something I 
said just a few days ago at the White House. We must never allow our 
citizens to be unwitting guinea pigs in scientific experiments that put 
them at risk without their consent and full knowledge. Whether it is 
withholding a syphilis treatment from the black men of Tuskegee or the 
cold war experiments that subjected some of our citizens to dangerous 
doses of radiation, we must never go back to those awful days in modern 
disguise. We have now apologized for the mistakes of the past; we must 
not repeat them, never again.
    Second, none of our discoveries should be used to label or 
discriminate against any group or individual. Increasing knowledge about 
the great diversity within the human species must not change the basic 
belief upon which our ethics, our Government, our society are founded. 
All of us are created equal, entitled to equal treatment under the law. 
With stunning speed, scientists are now moving to unlock the secrets of 
our genetic code. Genetic testing has the potential to identify hidden 
inherited tendencies toward disease and spur early treatment. But that 
information could also be used, for example,

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by insurance companies and others to discriminate against and stigmatize 
people.
    We know that in the 1970's, some African-Americans were denied 
health care coverage by insurers and jobs by employers because they were 
identified as sickle cell anemia carriers. We also know that one of the 
main reasons women refuse genetic testing for susceptibility to breast 
cancer is their fear that the insurance companies may either deny them 
coverage or raise their rates to unaffordable levels. No insurer should 
be able to use genetic data to underwrite or discriminate against any 
American seeking health insurance. This should not simply be a matter of 
principle but a matter of law. Period. To that end, I urge the Congress 
to pass bipartisan legislation to prohibit insurance companies from 
using genetic screening information to determine the premium rates or 
eligibility of Americans for health insurance.
    Third, technology should not be used to break down the wall of 
privacy and autonomy free citizens are guaranteed in a free society. The 
right to privacy is one of our most cherished freedoms. As society has 
grown more complex and people have become more interconnected in every 
way, we have had to work even harder to respect the privacy, the 
dignity, the autonomy of each individual. Today, when marketers can 
follow every aspect of our lives, from the first phone call we make in 
the morning to the time our security system says we have left the house, 
to the video camera at the toll booth and the charge slip we have for 
lunch, we cannot afford to forget this most basic lesson.
    As the Internet reaches to touch every business and every household 
and we face the frightening prospect that private information, even 
medical records, could be made instantly available to the world, we must 
develop new protections for privacy in the face of new technological 
reality.
    Fourth, we must always remember that science is not God. Our deepest 
truths remain outside the realm of science. We must temper our euphoria 
over the recent breakthrough in animal cloning with sobering attention 
to our most cherished concepts of humanity and faith.
    My own view is that each human life is unique, born of a miracle 
that reaches beyond laboratory science. I believe we should respect this 
profound gift. I believe we should resist the temptation to replicate 
ourselves. But this is a decision no President should make alone. No 
President is qualified to understand all of the implications. That is 
why I have asked our distinguished National Bioethics Advisory 
Commission, headed by President Harold Shapiro of Princeton, to conduct 
a thorough review of the legal and ethical issues raised by this new 
cloning discovery. They will give me their first recommendations within 
the next few weeks, and I can hardly wait.
    These, then, are four guideposts, rooted in our traditional 
principles of ethics and morals, that must guide us if we are to master 
the powerful forces of change in the new century: one, science that 
produces a better life for all and not the few; two, science that honors 
our tradition of equal treatment under the law; three, science that 
respects the privacy and autonomy of the individual; four, science that 
never confuses faith in technology with faith in God. If we hold fast to 
these principles, we can make this time of change a moment of dazzling 
opportunity for all Americans.
    Finally, let me say again, science can serve the values and 
interests of all Americans, but only if all Americans are given a chance 
to participate in science. We cannot move forward without the voices and 
talents of everyone in this stadium and especially those of you who are 
going on to pursue a career in science and technology.
    African-Americans have always been at the forefront of American 
science. This is nothing new. Nothing, not slavery, not discrimination, 
not poverty, nothing has ever been able to hold back their scientific 
urge or creative genius. Benjamin Banneker was a self-taught 
mathematician, surveyor, astronomer, who published an annual almanac and 
helped to design the city of Washington. George Washington Carver was 
born a slave but went on to become one of our Nation's greatest 
agricultural scientists. Ernest Everett Just of Charleston, South 
Carolina, is recognized as one of our greatest biologists. Charles Drew 
lived through the darkest days of segregation

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to become a pioneer in blood preservation. And today you honor an 
African-American doctor at Johns Hopkins University who is truly one of 
the outstanding physicians of our time.
    All these people show us that we don't have a person to waste, and 
our diversity is our greatest strength in the world of today and 
tomorrow. Now, members of the class of 1997, it is your time. It is up 
to you to honor their legacy, to live their dreams, to be the 
investigators, the doctors, and the scholars who will make and apply the 
discoveries of tomorrow, who will keep our science rooted in our values, 
who will fashion America's greatest days. You can do it. Dream large. 
Work hard. And listen to your soul.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:30 a.m. at Hughes Field. In his remarks, 
he referred to Earl Richardson, president, and Harry Cole, chairman, 
board of regents, Morgan State University; Gov. Parris Glendening and 
Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend of Maryland; and Mayor Kurt Schmoke 
of Baltimore.