[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 16 (Monday, April 26, 1999)]
[Pages 691-700]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion With Students on Violence in Schools 
at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia

April 22, 1999

    The President. Thank you, Mr. Porter. I think all of you know that 
we are being joined by several million students through various media 
outlets that are covering this, and so let me begin by saying I'm 
delighted to be here at T.C. Williams High School. Thank you, Mr. 
Porter. Our superintendent, Herb Berg, is here, and I'm glad to be back 
in this school district again that has hosted me for so many important 
educational announcements.
    Senator Robb and Congressman Jim Moran are both here with us, along 
with Mayor Kerry Donley. I thank them for joining us, and our two 
teachers, Ellen Harmon and Barbara Finney.
    I want to spend most of my time today listening to you. I have a few 
questions I want to ask, and I'm going to turn it over to the teachers 
as soon as I make a few opening remarks. But I got up this morning, and 
I made some notes and worked over them again, and I'd like to say just a 
few things.
    First of all, we're here, obviously, because of the terrible tragedy 
in Littleton, Colorado, and because, even though it is the worst example 
of school violence we've seen, it is by no means the only one. And 
indeed, I think that some of the people joining us today are from 
Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas--at least those two 
communities which had examples of school violence last year.
    I think it's important that all over America students and teachers 
have a chance to discuss their feelings about this, their ideas about 
what we should do, and it's especially important for younger children, 
who might be quite traumatized and wonder whether they are, in fact, 
safe at school. So I want to talk a little about all of that.
    There is really nothing more important than keeping our schools 
safe. And we've tried to do a lot of things in that regard over the last 
few years, having a zero tolerance for guns and drugs policy, putting 
new community police officers in schools where they're needed, trying to 
support more counselors in schools, more after-school, more mentoring 
programs, more conflict resolution programs. We've tried to help school 
districts and students and teachers, who wanted to do it, to have--for 
younger children, elementary and junior high school--using school 
uniform policies or dress code policies where they wanted to implement 
those things. But we know that there are things which have to be done 
sort of beyond the Government and beyond anything Government can do.
    I spent a lot of time thinking about this, but I want to say, last 
night and today I thought about the work that my wife has done on this 
for many years, and I went back and reread the chapters in her book that 
deal with the problems that children have in coping with violence and 
the responsibilities of parents and the larger society. I thought about 
the work that the Vice President's wife, Tipper Gore, started doing well 
over a decade ago on this whole issue. And I think we have to ask 
ourselves some pretty hard questions here. What are the responsibilities 
of students themselves? What are the responsibilities of schools? What 
are the responsibilities of parents? What is the role of the larger 
culture here? Is there a sense in which the fact that all of you are 
exposed to much higher levels of violence through television, through 
video games, that you can actually figure out how to make bombs on the 
Internet--does that make a difference? Does it make these kinds of 
things more likely to happen? What are our responsibilities?
    But before I open it to you, I'd just like to make one other 
comment. I think, particularly for young people who may be quite 
frightened as a result of this, or for parents who may wonder about the 
safety of schools, I think it's worth restating two or three basic 
things.
    First of all, on balance, our schools are still the safest place our 
kids can be in most communities under most or all circumstances.
    Secondly, I think it's worth reminding everyone that in spite of 
these horrible instances, our country is still fundamentally a good and 
decent place, and our people are good and decent people. And we have 
seen

[[Page 692]]

the way the community of Littleton responded to this: people standing in 
line for hours to give blood, people showing up to volunteer their 
services as counselors and in other ways, with the way people have 
reached out to each other. We see a kind of microcosm of how America has 
reacted to this.
    And I think it's important that the young people of our country know 
this and that the parents know this, that they should remember we--as 
horrible as this is, we have seen once again what is basically decent 
and good about America. And we should remember that most schools are 
more nearly represented by the kind of conversation we're having around 
here today than by the horrible incident we saw in Colorado.
    So I think that's enough for me to say. But I'm interested in what 
you think about it, what your reactions are, what you've done here to 
try to avoid this, and what you think the responsibilities of the rest 
of us are, starting at home and going all the way up to the President, 
and also the cultural issues I mentioned.
    You know, we have to acknowledge, as Hillary does in this book--and 
I went back and read some of the things we talked about over the last 20 
years--that we do have more violence among younger people in America 
than other cultures do. And everyone has to take a hard look at what all 
the elements of our society are that contribute to that and what we can 
do to diminish it.
    I also would like to say--let me just mention one other thing. I 
think it's important because of the action in which we're involved in 
Kosovo today. We don't know all the facts about what happened in 
Littleton, but one of the things that's come out of this that's really 
made an impression on me is that the young men who were involved in this 
horrible act apparently felt that they were subject to ridicule and 
ostracism, and they were kind of social outcasts at the school. But 
their reaction to it was to find someone else to look down on. And 
apparently, they were very prejudiced against African-Americans and 
Hispanics, and observed Adolf Hitler's birthday, and otherwise reacted 
to that.
    This is something that you see a lot around the world and throughout 
human history, that people who themselves feel disrespected, instead of 
developing an enormous sympathy for other people who have been subject 
to discrimination, instead look for someone else to look down on so they 
can always say, ``Well, I may be dissed at school, or I may be subject 
to disrespect in some other environment, but at least I'm not them.''
    And I think that's a larger problem we really have to fight, because 
you look around this room--of course, we're in perhaps the most diverse 
school district in America today--but this is a great opportunity for 
us, as long as we lift other people up and recognize the inherent 
dignity and worth of all individuals and all ethnic, religious, and 
cultural groups.
    And so I think that's another point that needs to be made here: They 
had the wrong reaction to the fact that they were dissed. Hey, look, 
everybody gets dissed sometime in life, even the President--[laughter]--
sometimes, especially the President.
    So these are some of the things that I was thinking about that I 
hope will spark your thoughts. And I think I'll turn it back to you and 
to the teachers to discuss this in any way you'd like.

[Ellen Harmon, a teacher at T.C. Williams, opened the floor to the 
students for discussion.]

    The President. Yes, pass the mike.

[Teacher Barbara Finney stated that she had a group of mediators at the 
school and introduced one. A veteran student mediator stated that the 
mediation program helped a lot of students and believed tragedy in 
Littleton grew out of a build up of anger or aggression that really 
should have been let out. Another student mediator described the 
mediation and conflict resolution process at T.C. Williams.]

    The President. I wanted to ask this question, because I honestly 
believe that young people can help each other, particularly at this age, 
maybe more than adults can, maybe in some cases more than their parents 
can, if things get out of hand.
    But what I want to ask you is, how do they get there, if they're 
really angry? What if they're too embarrassed about what they

[[Page 693]]

think is being done to them to talk about it? Do they get there only 
when they come to you, or do other kids say, ``Hey, these two people are 
having trouble,'' or ``these two groups are having trouble. You need to 
go to them.'' Can you all talk to me about that?

[A participant said students may be referred to mediation or could 
approach the teacher in charge confidentially. She said the situation in 
Littleton, CO, appeared to have resulted from the build up of anger, and 
part of the process at T.C. Williams was to let the students vent their 
anger, which helped resolve the problem.]

    The President. Go ahead.

[A student said the school had instituted a confidential safety hotline 
so students could reach the peer mediation people in the school and 
indicated that if something similar had been available in Littleton, the 
problem may have been prevented.]

    The President. So you're saying if they had a hotline, as opposed to 
a peer mediation group, then someone who was afraid----
    Student. No, they work together--they work together.
    The President. That's what I mean. In addition to. So, if someone 
were afraid, they could call the hotline and say, ``Here's what I think 
is going on.''
    Student. Yes. And it's confidential, you just----
    The President. Okay. Suppose I call the hotline and say, ``Listen, I 
just talked to one of these people, and they're talking about getting 
guns and shooting people.'' Then what happens? I called the hotline, 
here. What happens?
    Student. Peer mediation can be contacted with that, because you have 
given us a name, or Mr. Porter can talk to them or something.
    The President. I think this is good. That's wonderful.
    Okay.

[A student, who is a peer mediator, said that classmates participating 
in mediation were able to speak openly without fear of punishment or 
judgment and that this allowed more openness, giving the students a 
broader perspective. Another student noted that perhaps part of the 
problem in Littleton was its school's lack of diversity as opposed to 
T.C. Williams which has so many different social, racial, and national 
groups that no one is left out. A third student stated that the 
administration and teachers at T.C. Williams did an excellent job 
resolving problems before they emerge.]

    The President. First of all, I think that's a very brave thing for 
you to say. But there's no doubt that those people are very good people, 
that they have a good school, that they thought things were rocking 
along--which is why--that's why what you said, I think, is very 
important, that there needs to be some organized outlet that people can 
access privately. Because nearly everybody in America believes this 
couldn't happen in their school. So I think having this way to call and 
say, this is going on--we all need warning systems.
    Go ahead.
    Student. But, see, the problem is--what I feel is, I feel the 
administrators knew about this because a lot of people say, like, on the 
news and stuff, the students seemed to know about this crew already and 
seemed to not have done nothing about it. They didn't bother to prevent 
it, because they had a page in the yearbook for this crew and everything 
already.
    The President. Yes, but the point I'm trying to make is that--a lot 
of people seemed to have known in general, but most people didn't--a lot 
of the people who knew, I think, didn't know that they might do what 
they did. And that's why it's important to feed all this stuff in 
someplace, because there are people who do know that--let me come back 
to the beginning here. I'd like for you all to talk about this.
    Let me just say what I was going to say. One of the things that all 
kids are taught by their parents, you know, is this old ``sticks and 
stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.'' That ain't 
true--if you'll let me use bad grammar. [Laughter] That's not true, 
because a lot of this stuff starts with words, you know?
    And even in what I do and the people I deal with, it's amazing how 
much energy is lost and how many things are not done for America because 
people in Washington, DC, at the highest levels of power and influence,

[[Page 694]]

get hurt by what other people say about them--mean, bad things other 
people say about them. And then they get in the position where they try 
to bait each other to say mean, bad things, you know.
    And I think that somehow, maybe we all--particularly in a culture 
that desensitizes people to violence, if they're profoundly alienated; 
and I still think that's a big part of this--all of us have to do a 
better job of teaching young people not to let themselves be defined by 
the words other people use against them.
    That's something that really struck me when I read these accounts, 
is how alienated these young people were because these athletes were 
saying bad things about them or who else was saying bad things about 
them. They were different. So then, they had to look for somebody to 
feel bad about.
    And that's why I like this peer mediation thing, because it tends to 
take the sting out of words at the earliest possible time. But people 
really still get hurt so badly by what is said about them. And somehow, 
we've got to make people more immune to that.
    Go ahead.

[A student noted the two students in Littleton had bombs, which they may 
have learned to make with information from the Internet. He asked what 
the Government was going to do to prevent the dissemination of this 
information.]

    The President. You know, when the bomb blew up in Oklahoma City and 
the Federal building was destroyed and all those people were killed, we 
pointed out that the way the Internet is going with these webpages, 
people can learn how to build bombs like that on the Internet. And there 
is a limit to how much we can control it. And we're looking for ways to 
try to at least help parents deal with what their children can get off 
the Internet, and a way to use ordinary law enforcement tactics 
effectively against people who are trying to do illegal things over the 
Internet. But it's very difficult.
    I mean, one of the things that's wonderful about the Internet is 
kind of its capacity for infinite expansion. And that's one of the great 
things about it. I don't know how many teachers here now get research 
papers where all the sources are off the Internet. But it's great. 
That's the good news. The bad news is it's almost impossible to find 
this stuff, sort it out, and figure out whether it's illegal or not, and 
do something about it.
    But I agree with you, it's going to be one of the big challenges we 
face, because there's been a lot of talk about--if you've seen in the 
last 3 or 4 days--about whether the Internet plus having very young 
people play very violent video games and where they learn to shoot 
people and stuff, that those two things have added an extra element to 
an otherwise already pretty violent culture. And I think we're going to 
have to take another look at it.
    It's not easy. I don't want to pretend that it's easy. If you look 
at how many thousands and thousands of pages, webpages, are being added 
to the Internet every day, it's the fastest growing organism in human 
history for communications. And it presents us a great challenge.

[A student stated that it would be very hard for the Government to 
control the information on the Internet in a society with a free press 
and free speech. He believed the responsibility rested with parents and 
teachers to monitor what children access on the Internet.]

    The President. Well, I do think it's important that in all these 
discussions, we not take the focus away from the home. I agree with 
that. If you look at all the facts that we know from the incidents that 
happened last year--all the school violence incidents--it appears that 
there were some cases in which the parents were--to go back to what you 
said about how other kids knew and they didn't call in--there appears 
that there were some cases in which the parents knew that the kid had a 
problem, including an obsession with guns and bombs, and there were 
other cases where they didn't know and might not have been able to know. 
But I do think that we shouldn't minimize that.
    The only thing I want to--to go back to what you said about the 
Internet--I agree with that. You don't want me to choke off the 
Internet. It's one of the greatest things that ever happened. But we've 
got to figure out a way to apply the ordinary restrictions

[[Page 695]]

of the criminal law in that context, just like you would any other. I 
think that's all you're saying, is we need to--if somebody's doing 
something illegal there, we should. But the problem is, how do you--how 
do parents limit their children's access to something they shouldn't be 
able to see? And I do think that the role of the Internet, and the way 
it's bringing everything into the home, has made a parent's job much 
more difficult. And it's harder to know what to do and how to do it. 
It's much, much harder. And I think we ought to just fess up to that.
    But I'm sympathetic with you. We don't want to destroy what's great 
about the Internet. It's revolutionizing the American economy. It's 
opening up opportunities for people, opening up educational 
opportunities, bringing whole libraries to homes of people who could 
never afford them. I mean, it's doing a lot of good. But we've got to 
figure out a way to deal with these downside risks.

[A student stated that it appeared administrators and students in 
Littleton knew there was a problem, and thought administrators should 
have contacted the parents. Ms. Finney said she heard another Littleton 
student say on the news that he heard the suspects planning the attack 
last year and she believed he should have taken the initiative to tell 
someone.]

    The President. I want to hear from the students, but that goes back 
to what you said. What I would like to--the message to go out across all 
the millions of students like you that are listening, and all of the 
schools, is that no matter how good your school is and no matter how 
good your programs are, we need a little humility here. And you're not 
doing something bad if you hear people talking about doing something or 
you see them becoming profoundly alienated in ways that could be 
destructive, if you tell someone who's in a position of responsibility 
to do something about it. They're not going to be punished if they 
hadn't done anything wrong, but we might be able to prevent more of 
these things.
    I do think that one of the lessons that will come out of this 
incident, no matter what the facts turn out to be, is that there has to 
be a hotline, there has to be some sort of early warning system; there 
has to be a climate in which children feel, young people feel that they 
can ring the alarm bell when they see something like this.

[Another student introduced herself to the President.]

    The President. Oh, yes, you've been waiting a long time--she's been 
waiting longer than anybody else. [Laughter]

[The student cited a lack of morality and urged more disciplinary action 
from school administrators.]

    The President. I agree with that. But what happens if all of that 
still doesn't work because young people at some point develop a whole 
other life? I mean, when you look at what is apparently the fact here, 
these--they created a whole new culture for themselves, a whole other 
life, which--we don't know the facts yet about what their parents did or 
didn't know, about what the schools did or didn't know. I think it's 
important for us not to make hasty judgments about Littleton.
    I agree with what you say. But I also think in addition to what you 
say, we've got to have some warning system to protect everybody else.
    Go ahead.

[A student expressed his disagreement with the news media placing blame 
on movies and video games and said people should be spending more time 
with their children. Another participant said discipline should start at 
an early age, not in the teen years. Another student pointed out that 
blame often falls on high-crime areas but that Littleton is a white 
suburban area. She asked if this would take the focus off of racial 
groups being the cause of the problems.]

    The President. Well, I hope so. You know, it's interesting; all of 
these instances of school violence, even though they occurred in schools 
which some had a lot of racial diversity, some had not much racial 
diversity, but they all occurred away from inner-city areas with very 
high unemployment and high general crime rates. They tended to occur 
more in small towns and rural areas or suburbs,

[[Page 696]]

where you normally would not think that society itself falling apart 
around you would happen.
    Now, part of that could be the absence of the kind of warning and 
alert systems that you often have in the big city schools. I mean, a lot 
of big city schools, for example, all routinely have metal detectors and 
things like that because they know they've got to protect their kids. 
But I think what it means is that whatever is out there in our culture, 
whether it is the failure of parents to teach their kids, whether it is 
that plus then the extra exposure to violent experiences when you're 
young, kind of one step removed through media or video games or 
whatever, whatever it is--what it shows is that the people in rural 
America and in suburban America, in low-crime America and upper income 
America are just as vulnerable to having alienated young people in gangs 
or in isolation take violent action. I think that's what it shows. And 
it should destroy any of our racial or economic stereotypes about this. 
This is something that can happen anywhere. That's the point you made, 
and I think that's right.

[A student stated having the hotline and peer mediators was great but 
noted that T.C. Williams also had social workers and psychologists, 
which offered students choices. He asked how many of the other schools 
in the country had these alternatives.]

    The President. Well, the truth is that some do, and some don't. More 
and more, I think, schools are doing that. Some have economic 
constraints. Some may not think they need them. But I believe that--I 
can tell you this. One of the things I have tried to do is to make it 
possible for schools to have more trained personnel and more options to 
serve children that have a whole variety of different needs.
    And I suspect that one positive thing that will come out of this 
awful incident is that schools all over America today will be doing an 
inventory of what kinds of supports they have for their children. And 
they will--I expect, just because we're doing this, your principal and 
your teachers will be flooded with inquiries over the next 2 weeks about 
what you have done here, about the peer mediation thing, about what kind 
of social workers you have, what kind of psychologist do you have, what 
kind of support do you have, because I think we will see everybody 
taking a serious look at this.
    I'm glad you made that point, though, because there are people who 
have genuine emotional problems that require more professional, intense, 
longer term help than even the peer mediators can provide. So I think 
that's an important point you make.

[A student stated that other schools should have the alternatives 
offered at T.C. Williams so these things don't happen again and then 
asked the President when he or the Government was going to take 
immediate action for the other students in the country.]

    The President. Well, first of all, you should know that we have 
provided, already, funds--last year--for a lot of these services for 
schools. And the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education put out 
a booklet that basically cited the best practices in all the schools.
    We don't--the Federal Government doesn't run this high school. You 
know, you have a local school board, and most of the money comes from 
the State. We give some money, so--but what we did, we sent out a 
handbook, which basically had the best practices, for early warning 
signals, for preventive programs, for the kinds of things that you do 
here. And we've provided a lot of support to help schools to have the 
services they need to make them more safe.
    Now, in the next few days I'm going to send another piece of 
legislation up to the Congress to do even more of this. But for it to 
work, people have to use the resources that are there and implement the 
systems that are there, and it has to be done in every school in the 
country.
    Let me just say--this is kind of along the lines of your question--
when I called the County Commissioner in Littleton, Colorado, the woman 
who is in charge of the local county government there, she was very, I 
thought, quite brave, considering it was in the middle of this crisis. 
The school hadn't even been--not all the children had been taken out 
yet. And she said, ``Well, if this can happen here, it can happen 
anywhere, and maybe, finally, every school in America

[[Page 697]]

will do what is necessary to try to prevent this.''
    So we have--last year we had the first White House conference in 
history on school safety. We have sent things to every school in 
America, and we have--and I said, I'm going to send another bill this 
week, or in the next few days, to do more. But it has to--every school 
has to realize that if you want to be safe you have to be prepared, just 
like you are here.
    Yes.

[A student stated that parents, teachers, government, and students 
should work together to prevent school violence and provide for the 
common welfare of the community. Another student said students are often 
more in tune with other students and that having the opportunity to be 
an anonymous source of information, as was the case with the T.C. 
Williams hotline, was very important. Another student said the racism 
should stop, and everyone should feel they were part of a group. Another 
student stated that there were no guarantees against future violence and 
high school students all over America need to be more sensitive and 
considerate of one another, which would help eliminate animosity.]

    The President. I must say, these things you say to me are among the 
most impressive things of all, because all of us want to be part of 
groups, and we are part of groups whether we like it or not. We're all 
part of groups. You know, we just--from the families we're born in and 
the lives we live. And the trick is to convince people that it's good to 
be part of a group, a racial, an ethnic, a religious, a cultural group, 
to be an athlete, to be a scholar, to be into music, to be into 
whatever. But it's not--it doesn't have to be negative when compared 
with someone else. That's the thing that breaks your heart.
    And also, it's very important--another reason I like this hotline 
and I like what you said is that it's very hard to be 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 
years old; and if you are very lonely and very alienated and you feel 
you don't belong with anybody or anything, and then all of a sudden, one 
or two other people come along, and they're just like you, and then you 
find something on the Internet that you can read that you can relate to, 
and then things begin to spin out of control. And I think what you said 
about reaching out to people who seem to be alone and have nobody to 
care about them. I think that's very, very important as well.
    I think that you know it a lot better than I do. But as old as I am, 
I can still remember, it was--I had some pretty tough times when I was 
13, 14, 15, 16 years old, and I had a very fortunate life. You realize 
how hard you have to work to keep from getting into patterns that will 
be destructive throughout life where people feel that they only count 
when they're in a group, that then they're opposed to somebody else, 
they can look down on somebody else. It is the curse of human society 
throughout the world.
    Go ahead. You two, and then--this young man hasn't spoken yet, but 
go ahead. We'll get you the mike as soon as he is finished. Who wants to 
go next? Go ahead.

[A student said young people were more desensitized than they were 20 
years ago and that the media needs to take some responsibility. She 
cited the popularity of violent movies as an example. She also stated 
that the value of human life had declined and that some of these violent 
students may not have understood the impact of what they had done.]

    The President. Yes. Let me say this: I really respect all of you 
very much to have said that this is a matter of personal responsibility, 
family responsibility, and you don't want to blame the culture. I 
respect you for saying that--I don't want to blame the movies or blame 
the video games; what you've said and how you've talked with your mother 
and everything.
    But I think you have to recognize--let me just say, for example, 
when I was your age, if anything, the racism was more pronounced, the 
social hierarchies in the schools were dramatic--between those who were 
in and those who were out--people fought regularly on the school 
grounds, and they were vicious to each other and--but you didn't have as 
much gun violence.
    And I think it is unquestionable that more people have more access 
to more weapons, and more people at an earlier age can move

[[Page 698]]

from profound alienation and misery into using violence against other 
than was the case 20 or 30 years ago, because they either have--they 
have more opportunities and because they've been desensitized and maybe 
because they don't have a chance to sit down with a mother or a father 
the way you do every night.
    So the only thing I'm saying is, I think it's important not to 
oversimplify this. And I hate it when people blame someone else and 
don't take responsibility for what they did, but I don't think we can be 
blind to the fact that there are more opportunities and there is a 
greater openness to taking violent action on the part of alienated 
people today than there was 20 or 30 years ago.
    And I think the experience that these children have before, maybe--
maybe even when they're very young, before they form proper barriers in 
life about what's right, what's wrong, what can or can't be done, makes 
them quite vulnerable.
    Go ahead. Who was next? This young man.

[A student expressed his concern for people who were into Gothic culture 
and rock music because he feared they would take the blame for 
instigating the situation in Littleton. He also expressed concern about 
being able to say things in school when angry, because when angry, 
people say things they would not otherwise say.]

    The President. So how do you think we should deal with that?

[The student said that people should be more careful about what they say 
when they are angry, that there were healthier ways to deal with anger. 
He said the school provided counselors and psychologists for students to 
talk to when angry, but he was able to discuss his problems at home with 
his family.]

    The President. Good for you. Let me say, just generally, I don't 
think--if all of you who have participated in this conflict resolution 
thing--maybe you've seen enough of this in other students to know this--
but I can tell you from having lived a lot more years, this is a big 
problem later in life, too. Sometimes it's a bigger problem for men than 
for women because of the cultural sort of preconceptions of our society.
    If you don't learn to talk about your feelings when you're young, 
and you don't have a constructive outlet for it, it just gets harder and 
harder and harder as you get older. And we're talking today about 
avoiding terrible tragedy. But we ought to talk just a minute about 
having a good life. You know, most people won't do anything really 
terrible, and most people will have some sort of life, but if you want 
to have a good life, you have to have some constructive outlet for your 
feelings.
    And that's one thing that I really like about this whole way we're 
talking today. And I hope that it's something that will go out across 
the country and will change the way young people just live their lives. 
And I hope it's something you can take out of high school, because you'd 
be amazed how many people my age, in very responsible positions, still 
can't manage their anger because they never learned to have a 
constructive way to talk about it.
    So this is not just--I mean, I know we're here to talk about this 
school violence, and I don't want to get off the subject, but I think 
that this is a general problem of life. And you have said a very 
important thing. And I hope that all of you will remember this, that 
it's not just something for high school. And to avoid having bad things 
happen, learning to manage your anger and to actually share how you 
really feel about something and get it behind you is one of the most 
important aspects of growing up. And you would be amazed how few people 
can really do it right.

[A student stated the need to take a look at how easy it was for the two 
Littleton students to get guns and expressed her belief in the need for 
regulation of weapons.]

    The President. There is no other country in the world where it is so 
easy for people to get and misuse weapons. And we have a culture of 
having a right to own weapons and a right to use them and a big hunting 
culture, and I grew up in it, participated in it, and enjoyed it very 
much.
    But I have--every little thing I've tried to do, from the passing of 
the Brady bill to the passing of the assault weapons ban, all these 
things have met with violent opposition, as

[[Page 699]]

if I were trying to destroy the American way of life. And all I'm trying 
to do is keep more people alive.
    And so I think that we need--we don't have, really, time to talk 
about this, because I want all of you to talk, but this will be a part 
of what we are trying to do, to strike a better, proper balance between 
making it harder for people who are violent to get guns and misuse them, 
without interfering with the constructive role that it plays in our 
society.
    Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry.
    Ms. Harmon. I was just going to say, we're running a little short on 
time. Maybe we could take a few more questions. It's up to you.
    The President. Yes. Go ahead.

[A student stated we are one of the most free countries in the world and 
that the easy answer to a dilemma like Littleton was to restrict freedom 
or rights--or mandatory uniforms and clear backpacks. He cautioned 
against raising security levels at the cost of freedom.]

    The President. First, I think that's a point well taken. You 
mentioned school uniforms, let me tell you the position I took on that. 
I spent some time in Long Beach, California, which is the third biggest 
school district in California, which means it's huge. And it's the 
biggest school district that early introduced the school uniform policy, 
not applied to high schoolers for obvious reasons. But they did it in 
part because when the junior high schoolers had uniforms, which were 
basically just two-color outfits they wore every day, it distinguished 
them from the gangs, which created a safety problem. And it made all the 
kids safe.
    But they found, interestingly enough, that kids from upper income as 
well as lower income families did better in those very troubling years 
where you're moving right into your teenage years. And it lowered 
dropouts; it increased attendance; it reduced discipline problems. It 
worked fine. What we tried to do was to say if the community decided 
they wanted to do it, then we would help them. And we've seen it happen 
a lot.
    Now, my only question in this regard, in the order question you 
asked--and, again, I think it's very important that we not rush to 
judgment in Littleton. Those people are still grieving. They are still 
heartbroken. We do not have the facts there. It is very important that 
none of us make judgments about that now. But we can make judgments 
about how we want all schools to run.
    But one of the things that struck me there was this whole black 
trenchcoat deal, and whether or not--if the hotline, if they'd had a 
hotline, and whether or not you had this kind of stuff there--whether 
the school administrators should have been able to say, ``We're not 
going to have a school uniform policy, but we'll have a nonprovocative 
dress code policy.'' Is that too much of an infringement on individual 
liberty?
    We can't answer that question. You've raised a good question. But 
let me just give you the other side of it. And you have to decide, in 
every case, whether it's an infringement on liberty or it's like going 
through a metal detector at an airport. I don't know how many times--
before I became President, I was just traveling around like all the rest 
of us--how many times I went through a metal detector at an airport, and 
I set it off because of my belt buckle or the money clip in my pants or 
whatever, so I had to turn around, take it all out, go back in blah blah 
blah. Well, when all this started, people said, ``Well, is this going to 
be an infringement on our liberty, right?'' And then people saw planes 
hijacked and blown up, and they said, ``Please infringe on my liberty a 
little bit''--[laughter]--so that no one felt--I say, nearly no one felt 
that it was an undue infringement on our liberty.
    I'll give you another, maybe, what you think is a harder case, 
motorcycle helmet laws. You'll say, ``I ought to have a right to split 
my head open if I want.'' But that's not entirely true, because if I hit 
you and you split your head open, and you wouldn't have if you'd had 
your helmet on, then I and society are supporting you, in a way.
    So these questions--I am glad you made the point, but the point 
needs to be debated against the larger--the other large issue of 
individual freedom versus heading this stuff off. That's all I'm asking. 
And you might keep little models in your head about the importance of 
free speech, see, on the one hand,

[[Page 700]]

and the airport metal detector on the other, and then whenever somebody 
comes up with a specific, argue it within that framework.

[A student stated that the First Lady knew what she was talking about in 
saying that it takes a whole village to raise children and that if 
everyone would just look out for everyone else's children, good things 
would happen.]

    The President. I agree with that. Thank you. [Laughter] I think 
that's very important, that--one of you asked me what I was going to do. 
I think that the import of what everybody said, all of you said today, 
is that we all have responsibilities here. And that all these children 
are our children, and we all have responsibility.
    Who's next?
    Ms. Harmon. I'm sorry to have to say this, but the afternoon is 
drawing to a close here; students do have to move on. And we're 
delighted----
    The President. You guys have got to get on the buses, right?
    Ms. Harmon. Yes, coming up anyhow. We're very happy that all the 
students could participate today, and we're so glad that you shared your 
thoughts in the candid way that you did. So thank you very much. And 
especially thank you to President Clinton for coming here and sharing 
and listening to us as well. We're delighted to have you here.
    The President. Let me just say this--I know we've got to sign off--
first, you were terrific, and I thank you. I thank you for being honest. 
I thank you for being forthright. Second, in the next few days, as the 
agony of the grief fades in Colorado and as the facts tend to come out 
more, I think--I'm speaking not only to those of you who are here in 
this room, but the millions of children all across our country who are 
listening and the teachers and the educators--we are going to be working 
hard on this. And anyone who has more ideas for us needs to feel free to 
send them to us at the White House, and send them to the Secretary of 
Education.
    We are working to reach out to the country. We want to do what we 
can to create more environments like this one and to do everything we 
can to minimize the chance that anything like this will happen again. 
And we want to, in the process, reassure the children and the parents of 
America that overwhelmingly our schools are good, safe places.
    Thank you.

Note: The roundtable began at 12:45 p.m. in the media center. In his 
remarks, the President referred to John Porter, principal, T.C. Williams 
High School; Herb Berg, superintendent, Alexandria City schools; and 
Mayor Kerry Donley of Alexandria.