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REBUTTAL

"Mend It, But Don't End It"
A Speech by President Clinton, July 19, 1995

IS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION THE RIGHT WAY
TO ACHIEVE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY?

YES! PRESIDENT CLINTON, in standard type: When done right, affirmative action works. It changes an inequitable status quo, by building the pool of qualified applicants for college, for contracts, for jobs, and giving more people the chance to learn, work and earn. By affirmative action I do not mean – and do not favor -- programs that give unjustified preference of the unqualified over the qualified, or set numerical quotas, based on race or gender.

NO! Interspersed REBUTTAL by Curtis Crawford, in italics: The speech is full of praise for a policy it never defines. The President says what "affirmative action" is not, but not what it is. When people do not know what a package contains, they may still be persuaded to buy, if the label is attractive. But no one, not even the President of the United States, can prove the worth of something whose nature remains unknown. The reader will also find it impossible to ascertain what the President means by another key term: "discrimination."

"Mend It, But Don't End It"

Thank you very much. To the members of Congress who are here; members of the Cabinet and the administration, my fellow Americans: *In recent weeks I have begun a conversation with the American people* about our fate and our duty to prepare our nation not only to meet the new century, but to live and lead in a world transformed to a degree seldom seen in all of our history. Much of this change is good, but it is not all good, and all of us are affected by it. Therefore, we must reach beyond our fears and our divisions to a new time of great and common purpose.

  * Concerning the subject of this speech, recent participants in the "conversation" included the Congressional Research Service and the United States Supreme Court. On February 17, 1995, the Service released a report, describing more than 180 federal laws and regulations that authorize different treatment based on race or gender, favoring minorities or women. On June 12, 1995, the Court ruled (Adarand v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200) that racial classifications by the federal government are unconstitutional, unless narrowly tailored to serve a compelling purpose. Moreover, California citizens had drawn up a nationally publicized ballot initiative, banning preferential treatment based on race, ethnicity, or sex by the state in education, employment, and contracting. And members of Congress were circulating for sponsorship a bill forbidding such treatment in federal employment and contracting. Will the President's speech respond to these participants?

Our challenge is twofold: first, to restore the American dream of opportunity and the American value of responsibility; and second, to bring our country together amid all our diversity into a stronger community, so that we can find common ground and move forward as one.

More than ever these two endeavors are inseparable. I am absolutely convinced we cannot restore economic opportunity or solve our social problems unless we find a way to bring the American people together. To bring our people together we must openly and honestly deal with the issues that divide us. Today I want to discuss one of those issues: affirmative action.

It is, in a way, ironic that this issue should be divisive today, because affirmative action began 25 years ago by a Republican president with bipartisan support. It began simply as a means to an end of enduring national purpose -- equal opportunity for all Americans.

So let us today trace the roots of affirmative action in our never-ending search for equal opportunity. *Let us determine what it is and what it isn't. Let us see where it's worked and where it hasn't, and ask ourselves what we need to do now.* Along the way, let us remember always that finding common ground as we move toward the 21st century depends fundamentally on our shared commitment to equal opportunity for all Americans. It is a moral imperative, a constitutional mandate, and a legal necessity.

  * President Clinton offers to assess affirmative action. In doing so, how will he respond to its opponents? Their central argument can be stated in a simple syllogism:
  · Major Premise: Different treatment, based on race or ethnicity, is unjust
· Minor Premise: Affirmative action, based on race or ethnicity, is different
treatment, based on race or ethnicity.
· Conclusion: Therefore, affirmative action, based on race or ethnicity, is unjust. [With appropriate substitutions, the same syllogism applies to affirmative action based on gender.]

The conclusion necessarily follows if both premises are true, but fails if only one premise is false. Will the President accept one of the premises while denying the other? Or deny both? Or accept both as usually true with exceptions? Or will he try to evade the syllogism?

The President promises to discuss affirmative action "openly and honestly," helping us to determine "what it is and what it isn't." This is especially important, since it has been defined in opposite ways: as action (1) to assure no difference in treatment based on race or sex, or (2) to provide different treatment based on race or sex, favoring certain minorities or women.

Consistent with the first definition, "affirmative action" was described by the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 as court action requiring employers convicted of racial discrimination to halt its practice and to compensate its proven victims. The next year, it was described by President Johnson's Executive Order #11246 as employer "action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin."

Consistent with the second definition is the language of the Supreme Court in the key case of United Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979). At issue was a program granting preference to black over white applicants, based on their race. The Court referred to this as "affirmative action," and upheld it as a means of increasing the number of blacks in the skilled work force. (Justice Brennan's majority opinion, and Justice Rehnquist's dissent, are both on this website.)

Also consistent with the second definition are the "affirmative action programs" commonly practiced in college admissions, private and public employment, and public contracting. They involve different treatment, based on race, ethnicity, or sex, favoring certain minorities or women.

These two definitions plainly contradict each other. "Affirmative action" could mean action to assure no difference in treatment based on race or sex, or action to provide different treatment based on race or sex, favoring certain minorities or women, but it cannot mean both. Which definition of "affirmative action" does the President use?

Linked to affirmative action is equal opportunity, which the President calls "a moral imperative, a constitutional mandate, and a legal necessity." But whether it deserves this exalted status, depends first of all on what it means. Like affirmative action, it is defined in contrary ways. "Equal opportunity" may mean a selection process that (1) disregards race or sex or (2) favors minorities or women to help their group success approach that of whites and men.

The first definition of "equal opportunity" is consistent with its usage in the 1964 Act, and in E.O. 11246. Title VII of the Act, which banned different treatment based on race or sex in employment, was named Equal Employment Opportunity. The Order, which mandated affirmative action to ensure that race was disregarded, was named Equal Employment Opportunity. Employers who pledged to obey these rules were called Equal Opportunity Employers. Thus, equal opportunity and color-blind or sex-blind treatment were different names for the same thing.

The second definition of "equal opportunity" is consistent with standard affirmative action plans in higher education, business and government. Indeed, such plans are commonly designated Affirmative Action – Equal Opportunity Programs. By different treatment based on race, ethnicity or sex, minorities or women are favored so that their groups will cease to be "underrepresented" in prestigious schools, occupations and positions.

As with "affirmative action," we have two definitions that contradict each other. "Equal opportunity" could mean equal treatment regardless of race or sex, or it could mean different treatment based on race or sex, but it cannot mean both. Both cannot be "a moral imperative, a constitutional mandate, and a legal necessity." Which definition of "equal opportunity" does the President have in mind?

There could be no better place for this discussion than the National Archives, for within these walls are America's bedrocks of our common ground -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. No paper is as lasting as the words these documents contain. So we put them in these special cases to protect the parchment from the elements. No building is as solid as the principles these documents embody, but we sure tried to build one with these metal doors 11 inches thick to keep them safe, for these documents are America's only crown jewels. But the best place of all to hold these words and these principles is the one place in which they can never fade and never grow old -- in the stronger chambers of our hearts.

Beyond all else, our country is a set of convictions: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Our whole history can be seen first as an effort to preserve these rights, and then as an effort to make them real in the lives of all our citizens. We know that from the beginning, there was a great gap between the plain meaning of our creed and the meaner reality of our daily lives. Back then, only white male property owners could vote. Black slaves were not even counted as whole people, and Native Americans were regarded as little more than an obstacle to our great national progress. No wonder Thomas Jefferson, reflecting on slavery, said he trembled to think God is just.

On the 200th anniversary of our great Constitution, Justice Thurgood Marshall, the grandson of a slave, said, "The government our founders devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights we hold as fundamental today."

  [For Justice Marshall's about-face on the constitutionality of different treatment based on race, see "Marshall vs. Marshall" on this site.]

*Emancipation, women's suffrage, civil rights, voting rights, equal rights, the struggle for the rights of the disabled --all these and other struggles are milestones on America's often rocky, but fundamentally righteous journey to close the gap between the ideals enshrined in these treasures here in the National Archives and the reality of our daily lives.*

  * Note that the basic approach of these reforms was to end a type of unequal treatment, not to install it. "Emancipation" abolished black slavery; it did not institute white slavery. "Women's suffrage" granted women an equal but not an extra vote. The laws protecting "civil rights" and "voting rights" forbade racial discrimination against people of color—and everyone else. "Equal rights" guaranteed the same rights, not the same results. Affirmative action that ensures equal treatment regardless of race or sex takes the same approach, but affirmative action that treats people unequally on these bases contradicts it. The President has not yet said what he means by "affirmative action." If he means unequal treatment, how can "the ideals enshrined in these treasures here in the National Archives" be attained through such a policy?

I first came to this very spot where I'm standing today 32 years ago this month. I was a 16-year-old delegate to the American Legion Boys Nation. Now, that summer was a high-water mark for our national journey. That was the summer that President Kennedy ordered Alabama National Guardsmen to enforce a court order to allow two young blacks to enter the University of Alabama. As he told our nation, "Every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated; as one would wish his children to be treated."

Later that same summer, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King told Americans of his dream that one day the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners would sit down together at the table of brotherhood; that one day his four little children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. His words captured the hearts and steeled the wills of millions of Americans. Some of them sang with him in the hot sun that day. Millions more like me listened and wept in the privacy of their homes.

It's hard to believe where we were just three decades ago. When I came up here to Boys Nation and we had this mock congressional session I was one of only three or four southerners who would even vote for the civil rights plank. That's largely because of my family. My grandfather had a grade school education and ran a grocery store across the street from the cemetery in Hope, Arkansas, where my parents and my grandparents are buried. Most of his customers were black, were poor, and were working people. As a child in that store I saw that people of different races could treat each other with respect and dignity.

But I also saw that the black neighborhood across the street was the only one in town where the streets weren't paved. And when I returned to that neighborhood in the late '60s to see a woman who had cared for me as a toddler, the streets still weren't paved. A lot of you know that I am an ardent movie-goer. As a child I never went to a movie where I could sit next to a black American. They were always sitting upstairs.

In the 1960s, believe it or not, there were still a few courthouse squares in my state where the rest rooms were marked "white" and "colored." I graduated from a segregated high school seven years after President Eisenhower integrated Little Rock Central High School. And when President Kennedy barely carried my home state in 1960, the poll tax system was still alive and well there. Even though my grandparents were in a minority, being poor, Southern whites who were pro-civil rights, I think most other people knew better than to think the way they did. And those who were smart enough to act differently, discovered a lesson that we ought to remember today: *Discrimination is not just morally wrong, it hurts everybody.*

 

* In this statement, the President appears to agree with the major premise of the syllogism against affirmative action. The context of the preceding paragraphs indicates that the discrimination he has in mind is racial. The language of the syllogism, "different treatment based on race or ethnicity," is not identical to the President's, but for most people it is interchangeable with "racial discrimination." However, we cannot be sure how he defines "discrimination," which, like "affirmative action" and "equal opportunity," is ambiguous. To be sure, it was defined by proponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act simply as different treatment. But many people reserve the label, "discrimination," for different treatment they oppose; if they approve of the different treatment, they never call it "discrimination." Other people define "discrimination" as a difference in results rather than treatment. These three definitions are incompatible.

Using the definition of the 1964 Act, one would label a difference in treatment "discrimination," whether one approved or not. Southern Senators who opposed the Act, apparently defining the term as different treatment they would disapprove, made the surprising claim that their states did not "discriminate." College administrators, describing their affirmative action programs, insist that the special treatment they provide is not "discrimination," perhaps because they save the word for different treatment they disapprove or for unequal results. From the speech, we know that the President would not agree with the Southern Senators: he considers different treatment that favors whites over blacks to be "discrimination," period. But we do not know whether he would agree with the college administrators that different treatment favoring "underrepresented minorities" over whites is not "discrimination." His declaration, that "discrimination is not just morally wrong, it hurts everybody," might seem plain. But it all depends on his definition of "discrimination." Until he tells us that, we won't know what he has said.

In 1960, Atlanta, Georgia, in reaction to all the things that were going on all across the South, adopted the motto, "The city too busy to hate." And however imperfectly over the years, they tried to live by it. I am convinced that Atlanta's success -- it now is home to more foreign corporations than any other American city, and one year from today it will begin to host the Olympics -- that that success all began when people got too busy to hate.

The lesson we learned was a hard one. When we allow people to pit us against one another or spend energy denying opportunity based on our differences, everyone is held back. But when we give all Americans a chance to develop and use their talents, to be full partners in our common enterprise, then everybody is pushed forward.

My experiences with discrimination are rooted in the South and in the legacy slavery left. I also lived with a working mother and a working grandmother when women's work was far rarer and far more circumscribed than it is today. But we all know there are millions of other stories -- those of Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, people with disabilities, others against whom fingers have been pointed. Many of you have your own stories, and that's why you're here today -- people who were denied the right to develop and use their full human potential. And their progress, too, is a part of our journey to make the reality of America consistent with the principles just behind me here.

Thirty years ago in this city, you didn't see many people of color or women making their way to work in the morning in business clothes, or serving in substantial numbers in powerful positions in Congress or at the White House, or making executive decisions every day in businesses. In fact, even the employment want ads were divided, men on one side and women on the other. It was extraordinary then to see women or people of color as television news anchors, or, believe it or not, even in college sports. There were far fewer women or minorities as job supervisors, or firefighters, or police officers, or doctors, or lawyers, or college professors, or in many other jobs that offer stability and honor and integrity to family life.

A lot has changed, and it did not happen as some sort of random evolutionary drift. It took hard work and sacrifices and countless acts of courage and conscience by millions of Americans. It took the political courage and statesmanship of Democrats and Republicans alike, the vigilance and compassion of courts and advocates in and out of government committed to the Constitution and to equal protection and to equal opportunity. It took the leadership of people in business who knew that in the end we would all be better. It took the leadership of people in labor unions who knew that working people had to be reconciled.

Some people, like Congressman Lewis there, put their lives on the line. Other people lost their lives. And millions of Americans changed their own lives and put hate behind them. As a result, today all our lives are better. Women have become a major force in business and political life, and far more able to contribute to their families incomes. A true and growing black middle class has emerged. Higher education has literally been revolutionized, with women and racial and ethnic minorities attending once overwhelmingly white and sometimes all male schools. In communities across our nation police departments now better reflect the make-up of those whom they protect. A generation of professionals now serve as role models for young women and minority youth. Hispanics and newer immigrant populations are succeeding in making America stronger.

For an example of where the best of our future lies just think about our space program and the stunning hook-up with the Russian space station this month. Let's remember that that program, the world's finest, began with heroes like Alan Shepard and Senator John Glenn, but today it's had American heroes like Sally Ride, Ellen Ochoa, Leroy Child, Guy Bluford and other outstanding, completely qualified women and minorities.

How did this happen? Fundamentally, because we opened our hearts and minds and changed our ways. But not without pressure -- the pressure of court decisions, legislation, executive action, and the power of examples in the public and private sector. Along the way we learned that laws alone do not change society; that old habits and thinking patterns are deeply ingrained and die hard; that more is required to really open the doors of opportunity. Our search to find ways to move more quickly to equal opportunity led to the development of what we now call affirmative action.

  Having sketched a personal and historical background, the President seems about to define "affirmative action," to make good his promise to say "what it is and what it isn't." Will he agree with the minor premise of our syllogism that affirmative action, based on race, ethnicity, or sex, is different treatment, based on race, ethnicity or sex? Or will he deny the minor, claiming that affirmative action involves no difference in treatment on those grounds?

The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute. Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced longstanding and persistent discrimination.

 

These two sentences state some purposes of affirmative action, but not what it is. By describing the purpose of "affirmative action" exactly as one might describe the purpose of nondiscrimination, the President makes the two approaches sound identical. It has surely been the purpose of nondiscrimination laws, policies and conduct "to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute." Moreover, these laws, policies and actions are "a systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced longstanding and persistent discrimination."

It is a policy that grew out of many years of trying to navigate between two unacceptable pasts. *One was to say simply that we declared discrimination illegal and that's enough.* **We saw that that way still relegated blacks with college degrees to jobs as railroad porters, and kept women with degrees under a glass ceiling with a lower paycheck.**

 

* The "discrimination" that was "declared illegal" by the state and federal civil rights laws of the 1950s and '60s was different treatment based on race, ethnicity or sex, period. The ban was categorical, not modified by phrases like "unless one thinks the treatment justified." If the President sticks with this definition, he will have to call special treatment for minorities and women (even when he approves) "discrimination."

** This language denigrates the importance and effectiveness of the antidiscrimination laws, which were adopted with overwhelming public support. Discrimination in employment based on race, ethnicity or sex was not only declared illegal, but enforcement was provided through government mediation, civil litigation, and termination of government subsidies and contracts. These measures opened a great many doors to blacks and women, with college degrees and without.

The other path was simply to try to impose change by leveling draconian penalties on employers who didn't meet certain imposed, ultimately arbitrary, and sometimes unachievable quotas. That, too, was rejected out of a sense of fairness.

So a middle ground was developed that would change an inequitable status quo gradually, but firmly, by building the pool of qualified applicants for college, for contracts, for jobs, and giving more people the chance to learn, work and earn. When affirmative action is done right, it is flexible, it is fair, and it works.

  These two sentences indicate the results expected from "affirmative action" when it is "done right." He has not yet defined or described the "action" that produces the results.

I know some people are honestly concerned about the times affirmative action doesn't work, when it's done in the wrong way. And I know there are times when some employers don't use it in the right way. They may cut corners and treat a flexible goal as a quota. They may give opportunities to people who are unqualified instead of those who deserve it. They may, in so doing, allow a different kind of discrimination. When this happens, it is also wrong. But it isn't affirmative action, and it is not legal.

  These are examples of what "affirmative action," in the President's view, is not. We still have not heard what it is.

So when our administration finds cases of that sort, we will enforce the law aggressively. The Justice Department files hundreds of cases every year, attacking discrimination in employment, including suits on behalf of white males. Most of these suits, however, affect women and minorities for a simple reason -- because *the vast majority of discrimination in America is still discrimination against them.* But the law does require fairness for everyone and we are determined to see that that is exactly what the law delivers. (Applause.)

  * Whether it is true that "the vast majority of discrimination in America" is against "women and minorities" depends of course on how the President defines "discrimination," which he has yet to tell us. When he estimates the balance of "discrimination," does he include affirmative action for women and minorities in the quantity of "discrimination" against men and whites?

Let me be clear about what affirmative action must not mean and what I won't allow it to be. It does not mean -- and I don't favor -- the unjustified preference of the unqualified over the qualified of any race or gender. It doesn't mean -- and I don't favor -- numerical quotas. It doesn't mean -- and I don't favor -- rejection or selection of any employee or student solely on the basis of race or gender without regard to merit.

 

Like some theologians concerning God, the President seems determined to stick to the via negativa, the "negative road," defining his subject by what it is not. Let us use these hints to construct a hypothesis as to what he thinks "affirmative action" is. If we run into anything that contradicts the hypothesis, we can modify it accordingly.

I suggest that by "affirmative action" for minorities and women, the President means:

 

· Not preference of the unqualified over the qualified, but preference of the less qualified over the more qualified, based on race, ethnicity or gender.

· Not the adoption of numerical quotas regardless of merit, but the use of goals and timetables to increase the proportion of minorities and women, selected partly by individual merit and partly by race or sex.

If my hypothesis is correct, by "affirmative action" the President does mean "different treatment based on race, ethnicity or sex, favoring certain minorities or women." He would thereby agree with the Minor Premise of the Syllogism.

Like many business executives and public servants, I owe it to you to say that my views on this subject are, more than anything else, the product of my personal experience. I have had experience with affirmative action, nearly 20 years of it now, and I know it works. When I was Attorney General of my home state, I hired a record number of women and African American lawyers -- every one clearly qualified and exceptionally hardworking. As Governor, I appointed more women to my Cabinet and state boards than any other governor in the state's history, and more African Americans than all the governors in the state's history combined. And no one ever questioned their qualifications or performance. And our state was better and stronger because of their service.

As President, I am proud to have the most diverse administration in history in my Cabinet, my agencies and my staff. And I must say, I have been surprised at the criticism I have received from some quarters in my determination to achieve this.

In the last two and a half years, the most outstanding example of affirmative action in the United States, the Pentagon, has opened 260,000 positions for women who serve in our Armed Forces. I have appointed more women and minorities to the federal bench than any other president, more than the last two combined. And yet, far more of our judicial appointments have received the highest rating from the American Bar Association than any other administration since those ratings have been given.

 

The President creates the impression that "affirmative action" has enabled him, in Little Rock and Washington, to hire record numbers of minorities and women without sacrificing performance quality. Actually, this is not quite what he claims: he does not say that the people he hired through "affirmative action" were as able as those he could have hired without it. His comparison is not between actual selections using "affirmative action" and possible selections not using it, but between his own appointments and those of other administrations. Nevertheless, he seems to offer his experience as proof that "affirmative action" increases racial and gender diversity without reducing quality.

Does this contention make any sense? If the minorities and women available to serve as Arkansas officials and federal judges were as able as the whites and men, why was "affirmative action" needed? Why not simply appoint the best persons for the jobs, regardless of race or gender? Is this indeed what the President did? If so, he was practicing the wholly commendable kind of "affirmative action" required by Executive Order 11246. But this is not the kind of "affirmative action" upheld in Weber, challenged in Adarand, described by the Congressional Research Service, and (I presume) defended in this speech: different treatment, based on race or sex, favoring minorities or women.

That we are still not sure how the President defines "affirmative action" may indicate that his own position, though politically viable while it remains ambiguous, is logically incoherent if clarified. He seems to maintain that "affirmative action" brings no loss of quality. Does it mean (a) no difference in treatment, based on race or sex? If so, his claim concerning quality is plausible. But if "affirmative action" means that, it cannot mean (b) different treatment, based on race or sex, favoring minorities or women. If the speech is meant to champion only (a), it leaves (b) undefended. If it seeks to defend both, it defends a contradiction. If it really defends only (b), it backs away from the contradiction into the drop in quality it seeks to deny.

In our administration many government agencies are doing more business with qualified firms run by minorities and women. *The Small Business Administration has reduced its budget by 40 percent, doubled its loan outputs, dramatically increased the number of loans to women and minority small business people, without reducing the number of loans to white business owners who happen to be male, and without changing the loan standards for a single, solitary application.* Quality and diversity can go hand in hand, and they must. (Applause.)

  * The President reports an increase in loans to two groups, no decrease in loans to a third group, and no change in standards. His summary implies the absence of any preferential treatment with its concomitant sacrifice of quality. But he omits the paramount fact that the Small Business Administration is required by law "to promote the competitive viability of [socially and economically disadvantaged] firms by providing such available contract, financial, technical, and management assistance as may be necessary." Small businesses owned and operated by black, Hispanic, Native, and Asian Pacific Americans and women are presumed to be "socially disadvantaged." [15 U.S.C § 631(e); P.L. 103-355, 108 Stat. 3243, 3374, § 7106 (1994)] The law thus specifies a difference in eligibility, based on race, ethnicity or sex. This may explain why the loans to women and minorities increased, while the loans to white males apparently did not.

Let me say that affirmative action has also done more than just open the doors of opportunity to individual Americans. Most economists who study it agree that affirmative action has also been an important part of closing gaps in economic opportunity in our society, thereby strengthening the entire economy.

A group of distinguished business leaders told me just a couple of days ago that their companies are stronger and their profits are larger because of the diversity and the excellence of their work forces achieved through intelligent and fair affirmative action programs. And they said we have gone far beyond anything the government might require us to do because managing diversity and individual opportunity and being fair to everybody is the key to our future economic success in the global marketplace.

  Again the magical claim, that selecting partly by race or sex, rather than wholly by individual fitness, procures more capable workers!

Now, there are those who say, my fellow Americans, that even good affirmative action programs are no longer needed; that it should be enough to resort to the courts or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in cases of actual, provable, individual discrimination because there is no longer any systematic discrimination in our society. In deciding how to answer that let us consider the facts.

  In discussing the amount of "discrimination in our society," the President needs to tell us whether he defines "discrimination" as different treatment, different treatment he disapproves of, different group results, or something else.

*The unemployment rate for African Americans remains about twice that of whites. The Hispanic rate is still much higher. Women have narrowed the earnings gap, but still make only 72 percent as much as men do for comparable jobs.* **The average income for an Hispanic woman with a college degree is still less than the average income of a white man with a high school diploma.**

 

* If "discrimination" means a difference in group results, the gaps in "unemployment rates" and "earnings" would be "discrimination." But such gaps are not "discrimination," if the word means what most people take it to mean: a difference in treatment. The way to test for different treatment based on race (or sex) is to compare the treatment of individuals whose qualifications are similar but whose race (or sex) is different. Only when individual differences in ability, education, experience, perseverance, character, etc. are removed from the equation ("statistically controlled") do group differences in success indicate difference in individual treatment based on group membership.

** This example posits one individual similarity, the possession of "a college degree." But many more factors need to be known for a reliable statistical judgment concerning the presence of different-treatment "discrimination."

Defining race and sex "discrimination" as different treatment on those bases, I agree that it is widespread. Far more instances occur than can be remedied by "the courts or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission." Intentional "discrimination" is often hard to prove, and many who suffer it do not seek redress. Members of racial groups discriminate against members of other racial groups, members of ethnic groups against members of other ethnic groups, men against women, women against men. Since white men still have most of the power, one would expect that they would do most of the discriminating, whether against minorities and women (or against their fellows via "affirmative action").

Let us agree that different treatment based on race, ethnicity, or sex is unjust, and that there is far too much. What then? The remedy, according to the President, is apparently to authorize additional different treatment, based on race, ethnicity or sex. Does this make sense? Everyone agrees that we also have too much theft. Yet no one suggests as a remedy that we authorize more theft.

According to the recently completed Glass Ceiling Report, sponsored by Republican members of Congress, in the nation's largest companies only six-tenths of one percent of senior management positions are held by African Americans, four-tenths of a percent by Hispanic Americans, three-tenths of a percent by Asian Americans; women hold between three and five percent of these positions. White males make up 43 percent of our work force, but hold 95 percent of these jobs. Just last week, the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank reported that black home loan applicants are more than twice as likely to be denied credit as whites *with the same qualifications;* and that Hispanic applicants are more than one and a half times as likely to be denied loans as whites with the same qualifications.

  * Comparing the treatment of whites and blacks "with the same qualifications" is the right approach in testing for the presence and severity of different treatment based on race. It can also determine, in areas where the wind blows in both directions, which direction is stronger.

Last year alone the federal government received more than *90,000 complaints of employment discrimination based on race, ethnicity or gender.* **Less than three percent were for reverse discrimination.**

 

* The President does not say how many of the "90,000 complaints" charged unequal treatment of individuals and how many charged unequal group results. If "discrimination" is expanded to include unequal group results, the number of cases grows enormously. But thus inflated the balloon bursts. The definitions of "discrimination" as different individual treatment and as different group results contradict each other, if the groups differ in average fitness for the job. Whenever this occurs, the employer can avoid different group results (by race or sex) only by different individual treatment (based on race or sex), or by scrapping his hiring standards.

** If this low percentage is accurate, a major reason may be a federal policy that the President does not mention. The agency that handles "complaints of employment discrimination based on race, ethnicity or gender" rejects the complaint, if the alleged discrimination occurs as part of a "bona fide affirmative action program." [CRS Report, Footnote 22] Still, the lack of such complaints is surprising, given the pervasiveness of "reverse discrimination" in university, corporate and government hiring. With the present composition of the Supreme Court, it would take only a handful of well-chosen lawsuits against such discrimination to mangle or kill it. Yet the victims scarcely stir.

Evidence abounds in other ways of the persistence of the kind of bigotry that can affect the way we think even if we're not conscious of it, in hiring and promotion and business and educational decisions. *Crimes and violence based on hate against Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and other minorities are still with us.* And, I'm sorry to say, that the worst and most recent evidence of this involves a recent report of federal law enforcement officials in Tennessee attending an event literally overflowing with racism -- a sickening reminder of just how pervasive these kinds of attitudes still are.

  * Why are whites not included in this list of victims of "crimes and violence based on hate"? The President must know that the percentage of blacks who rob, assault, or kill whites is far larger than the percentage of whites who do the same to blacks.

By the way, I want to tell you that I am committed to finding the truth about what happened there and to taking appropriate action. And I want to say that if anybody who works in federal law enforcement thinks that that kind of behavior is acceptable, they ought to think about working someplace else. (Applause.)

Now, let's get to the other side of the argument. If *affirmative action has worked* and if there is evidence that discrimination still exists on a wide scale in ways that are conscious and unconscious, then why should we get rid of it as many people are urging? Some question the effectiveness or the fairness of particular affirmative action programs. I say to all of you, those are fair questions, and they prompted the review of our affirmative action programs, about which I will talk in a few moments.

  * "Affirmative action" as different treatment, based on race, ethnicity, or sex, favoring minorities or women, certainly "has worked" to place members of these groups in better schools, jobs and positions than they would have gained from their own fitness. It also "has worked" to intensify racial and gender consciousness, partisanship and hostility; to lower standards of selection and the quality of work performed; to undermine the moral authority of the racial and gender nondiscrimination principles; to discredit the personal achievement of members of the preferred groups; to foster equivocation and evasion in the administrators off affirmative action and a self-righteous intolerance of opposition among its supporters.

Some question the fundamental purpose of the effort. There are people who honestly believe that affirmative action always amounts to group preferences over individual merit; that affirmative action always leads to reverse discrimination; that ultimately, therefore, it demeans those who benefit from it and discriminates against those who are not helped by it.

  These statements fairly represent what opponents of affirmative action "honestly believe," if it is defined as different treatment based on race, ethnicity or sex, favoring minorities or women. We still have no clear indication that the President accepts or rejects this definition.

I just have to tell you that all of you have to decide how you feel about that, and all of our fellow countrymen and women have to decide as well. *But I believe if there are no quotas, if we give no opportunities to unqualified people, if we have no reverse discrimination, and if, when the problem ends -- the program ends, that criticism is wrong.* That's what I believe. But we should have this debate and everyone should ask the question. (Applause.)

 

* Without "quotas," there may still be goals and timetables for hiring women and minorities. Without giving "opportunities to unqualified people," there may still be preferential treatment for less qualified people, based on their race, ethnicity or sex. Setting quotas and hiring the unqualified are wrong; I'm glad the President does not defend them. But they are not the core issue. The central argument against race- and gender-based affirmative action is that it treats people differently, based on their race, ethnicity or sex, and is therefore unjust. This argument is not answered by denials concerning quotas and unqualified applicants.

But if the President's policies barred "reverse discrimination," that would be right on point. The phrase means, as I understand it, different treatment based on race, ethnicity or sex that disadvantages whites or males. I agree that if the affirmative action sponsored and practiced by the government involves no such difference in treatment, most of the opposition to it is mistaken. I say "most," because some of the race-based affirmative action may favor one non-white group over another. The central argument against affirmative action opposes race and sex discrimination, whether "reverse" or not.

Does affirmative action as practiced by the federal government involve "reverse discrimination" as thus defined? (Warning: the President has still not stated his definition of "discrimination.") To answer this question, consider a few concrete examples from the Congressional Research Service report, issued not long before the President's speech.

At least 26 of the regulations foster the use of minority- and/or women-owned banks. A typical clause states that recipients of technical assistance and training grants for rural housing and community development are "encouraged to use minority banks (a bank which is owned by at least 50 percent minority group members) for the deposit and disbursement of funds." [7 C.F.R. § 1942.472(c) (1994)] [CRS Report, page 2]

This is mild stuff: no requirements, just a little push. Is it "discrimination," Mr. President? He is silent. We apply the Racial Substitution Test. Suppose that recipients of federal aid were "encouraged to use" white-owned banks. Would the President's audience call that "discrimination"? Undoubtedly! Would the President? Of course. Strictly speaking, under this regulation the government itself does not "discriminate," but urges others to do so.

In another typical clause, the government offers preferential treatment to those who in turn give preference to minorities or women. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce, in administering the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program, "will give special consideration to applications that foster ownership and control of, operation of, and participation in public telecommunication entities by minorities and women." [15 C.F.R. § 2301.3 (1994)] [CRS-10] Suppose the regulation offered "special consideration" to applications that fostered ownership and control of telecommunication entities by white males.

In the next example, the Federal Communications Commission is required to give preferential treatment, based on race or ethnicity. "To further diversify the ownership of media of mass communications, an additional significant preference shall be granted to any applicant [firm] controlled by a member or members of a minority group." [47 U.S.C.S. § 309(i)(3)(A)] For this requirement, "minority group" includes "Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Asians, and Pacific Islanders." [Id at § 309(i)(4)(A)] [CRS-10] Concerning this and subsequent examples, I leave to the reader the performance of the Racial (or Gender) Substitution Test.

"The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall, to the extent practicable, require that not less than 10 percent of total Federal funding for [Clean Air] research will be made available to disadvantaged business concerns," which is defined to mean any concern with 51% of the stock owned by Black, Hispanic, Native, Asian, or Disabled Americans, or women. [P.L. 101-549, 104 Stat. 2399, 2708, § 1001 (1990)] [CRS-17]

Applications to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for grants and loans must include a "description of minority and women representation in the ownership of the [housing] project." "More favorable consideration will be given to projects with the higher percentage of minority or women representation in the ownership of the project." [24 C.F.R. §§ 850.33(o), .35(b), .399b)(9) (1994)] [CRS-20]

The President might say that different treatment, based on race, ethnicity or sex, favoring minorities or women, is not "discrimination." If the above provisions, which embody this policy, are not "discrimination," then mirror-image provisions, favoring whites or males, would not be "discrimination." But he (and other affirmative action supporters) would insist that different treatment, based on race, ethnicity or sex, favoring whites or males, is "discrimination." How, then, can he deny that such treatment is also "discrimination" when it favors minorities or women? Does he have a double standard? Does he believe that what counts as "discrimination" when directed at minorities or women does not count as "discrimination" when directed at whites or men?

Now let's deal with what I really think is behind so much of this debate today. *There are a lot of people who oppose affirmative action today who supported it for a very long time.* I believe they are responding to the sea change in the experiences that most Americans have in the world in which we live.

  * The public support has been for the word, not the policy. When people are asked whether they approve of "affirmative action" (undefined), the majority answer is Yes, which has been true "for a very long time." But when the poll question defines "affirmative action" as different treatment, favoring individuals based on their race, ethnicity or sex, the overwhelming majority answer has been No, going back to the 1970s.

If you say now you're against affirmative action because the government is using its power or the private sector is using its power to help minorities at the expense of the majority, that gives you a way of explaining away the economic distress that a majority of Americans honestly feel. It gives you a way of turning their resentment against the minorities or against a particular government program, instead of having an honest debate about how we all got into the fix we're in and what we're all going to do together to get out of it.

That explanation, the affirmative action explanation for the fix we're in is just wrong. It is just wrong. *Affirmative action did not cause the great economic problems of the American middle class.* (Applause.) And because most minorities or women are either members of that middle class or people who are poor who are struggling to get into it, we must also admit that affirmative action alone won't solve the problems of minorities and women who seek to be a part of the American Dream. To do that, we have to have an economic strategy that reverses the decline in wages and the growth of poverty among working people. Without that, women, minorities, and white males will all be in trouble in the future.

  * True. The economic slowdown of 1991 (which helped elect President Clinton) and the failure of working-class wages to rise (during the Clinton administration) were not due to affirmative action.

But it is wrong to use the anxieties of the middle class to divert the American people from the real causes of their economic distress -- the sweeping historic changes taking all the globe in its path, and the specific policies or lack of them in our own country which have aggravated those challenges. It is simply wrong to play politics with the issue of affirmative action and divide our country at a time when, if we're really going to change things, we have to be united. (Applause.) I must say, I think it is ironic that some of those -- not all, but some of those who call for an end to affirmative action also advocate policies which will make the real economic problems of the anxious middle class even worse. They talk about opportunity and being for equal opportunity for everyone, and then they reduce investment in equal opportunity on an evenhanded basis. For example, if the real goal is economic opportunity for all Americans, why in the world would we reduce our investment in education from Head Start to affordable college loans? Why don't we make college loans available to every American instead? (Applause.)

If the real goal is empowering all middle class Americans and empowering poor people to work their way into the middle class without regard to race or gender, why in the world would the people who advocate that turn around and raise taxes on our poorest working families, or reduce the money available for education and training when they lose their jobs or they're living on poverty wages, or increase the cost of housing for lower-income, working people with children? Why would we do that? If we're going to empower America, we have to do more than talk about it, we have to do it. And we surely have learned that we cannot empower all Americans by a simple strategy of taking opportunity away from some Americans. (Applause.)

So to those who use this as a political strategy to divide us, we must say, no. We must say, no. (Applause.) But to those who raise legitimate questions about the way affirmative action works, or who raise the larger question about the genuine problems and anxieties of all the American people and their sense of being left behind and treated unfairly, we must say, yes, you are entitled to answers to your questions. We must say yes to that.

Now, that's why I ordered this review of all of our affirmative action programs; a review to look at the facts, not the politics of affirmative action. This review concluded that affirmative action remains a useful tool for widening economic and educational opportunity. The model used by the military, the Army in particular -- and I'm delighted to have the Commanding General of the Army here today because he set such a fine example -- has been especially successful because it emphasizes education and training, ensuring that it has a wide pool of qualified candidates for every level of promotion. That approach has given us the most racially diverse and best-qualified military in our history. There are more opportunities for women and minorities there than ever before. And now there are over 50 generals and admirals who are Hispanic, Asian or African Americans.

We found that the Education Department targeted on -- had programs targeted on under-represented minorities that do a great deal of good with the tiniest of investments. We found that these programs comprised 40 cents of every $1,000 in the Education Department's budget.

  According to the CRS report, twenty-four provisions of federal law and nine federal regulations authorize financial assistance earmarked for the education of minorities and/or women. A typical clause is 20 U.S.C.S. § 1134e: In making grants for post-graduate study, the Secretary of Education is directed to give "priority" to "individuals from minority groups and women" pursuing study in specified professional and career fields. [CRS-14]

Now, college presidents will tell you that the education their schools offer actually benefit from diversity; colleges where young people get the education and make the personal and professional contacts that will shape their lives. If their colleges look like the world they're going to live and work in, and they learn from all different kinds of people thing that they can't learn in books, our systems of higher education are stronger.

Still, I believe every child needs the chance to go to college. Every child. That means every child has to have a chance to get affordable and repayable college loans, Pell Grants for poor kids and a chance to do things like join AmeriCorps and work their way through school. Every child is entitled to that. That is not an argument against affirmative action, it's an argument for more opportunity for more Americans until everyone is reached. (Applause.)

As I said a moment ago, the review found that the Small Business Administration last year increased loans to minorities by over two-thirds, loans to women by over 80 percent, did not decrease loans to white men, and not a single loan went to an unqualified person. People who never had a chance before to be part of the American system of free enterprise now have it. No one was hurt in the process. That made America stronger.

This review also found that the executive order on employment practices of large federal contractors also has helped to bring more fairness and inclusion into the work force. *Since President Nixon was here in my job, America has used goals and timetables to preserve opportunity and to prevent discrimination,* to urge businesses to set higher expectations for themselves and to realize those expectations. But we did not and we will not use rigid quotas to mandate outcomes.

  * "Goals and timetables" press management to hire more minorities and women than would otherwise be the case. The constraints prevent discrimination against, and produce discrimination for, applicants from these groups. The resulting increase in discrimination is presumably greater than the decrease, since all managers are constrained to discriminate in favor of minorities and women, to prevent some from discriminating against them.

We also looked at the way we award procurement contracts under the programs known as set-asides. There's no question that these programs have helped to build up firms owned by minorities and women, who historically had been excluded from the old-boy networks in these areas. It has helped a new generation of entrepreneurs to flourish, opening new paths to self-reliance and an economic growth in which all of us ultimately share. Because of the set-asides, businesses ready to compete have had a chance to compete, a chance they would not have otherwise had.

But as with any government program, set-asides can be misapplied, misused, even intentionally abused. There are critics who exploit that fact as an excuse to abolish all these programs, regardless of their effects. I believe they are wrong, but I also believe, based on our factual review, we clearly need some reform. So first, we should crack down on those who take advantage of everyone else through fraud and abuse. We must crack down on fronts and pass-throughs, people who pretend to be eligible for these programs and aren't. That is wrong. (Applause.)

We also, in offering new businesses a leg up, must make sure that the set-asides go to businesses that need them most. We must really look and make sure that our standard for eligibility is fair and defensible. We have to tighten the requirement to move businesses out of programs once they've had a fair opportunity to compete. The graduation requirement must mean something -- it must mean graduation. There should be no permanent set-aside for any company.

Second, we must, and we will, comply with the Supreme Court's Adarand decision of last month. Now, in particular, that means focusing set-aside programs on particular regions and business sectors where the problems of discrimination or exclusion are provable and are clearly requiring affirmative action. I have directed the Attorney General and the agencies to move forward with compliance with Adarand expeditiously.

But I also want to emphasize that the Adarand decision did not dismantle affirmative action and did not dismantle set-asides. In fact, while setting stricter standards to mandate reform of affirmative action, it actually reaffirmed the need for affirmative action and reaffirmed the continuing existence of systematic discrimination in the United States. (Applause.) What the Supreme Court ordered the federal government to do was to meet the same more rigorous standard for affirmative action programs that state and local governments were ordered to meet several years ago. And the best set-aside programs under that standard have been challenged and have survived.

  Reducing fraud and abuse is fine, but the Supreme Court's demand is more basic. The standard ordered in Adarand is that difference in treatment by the government, based on race or ethnicity, is unconstitutional unless narrowly tailored to serve a compelling public interest. I'm glad to hear that administration officials have been directed "to move forward with compliance . . . expeditiously." But that should be just a beginning. The racial set-asides at issue in Adarand were created by federal laws and regulations: changing them will involve Congress and the President. And beyond these set-asides are the 200 other federal provisions summarized by the Congressional Research Service, most of which authorize different treatment based on race. The Adarand standard applies to them all. The President says that he has completed a review of executive branch affirmative action programs. Does he plan to discontinue any of them as unconstitutional under the Court's decision?

Third, beyond discrimination we need to do more to help disadvantaged people and distressed communities, no matter what their race or gender. There are places in our country where the free enterprise system simply doesn't reach. It simply isn't working to provide jobs and opportunity. Disproportionately, these areas in urban and rural America are highly populated by racial minorities, but not entirely. To make this initiative work, I believe the government must become a better partner for people in places in urban and rural America that are caught in a cycle of poverty. And I believe we have to find ways to get the private sector to assume their rightful role as a driver of economic growth.

It has always amazed me that we have given incentives to our business people to help to develop poor economies in other parts of the world, our neighbors in the Caribbean, our neighbors in other parts of the world -- I have supported this when not subject to their own abuses -- but we ignore the biggest source of economic growth available to the American economy, the poor economies isolated within the United States of America. (Applause.)

There are those who say, well, even if we made the jobs available people wouldn't work. They haven't tried. Most of the people in disadvantaged communities work today, and most of them who don't work have a very strong desire to do so.In central Harlem, 14 people apply for every single minimum-wage job opening. Think how many more would apply if there were good jobs with a good future. Our job has to connect disadvantaged people and disadvantaged communities to economic opportunity so that everybody who wants to work can do so.

We've been working at this through our empowerment zones and community develop banks, through the initiatives of Secretary Cisneros of the Housing and Urban Development Department and many other things that we have tried to do to put capital where it is needed. And now I have asked Vice President Gore to develop a proposal to use our contracting to support businesses that locate themselves in these distressed areas or hire a large percentage of their workers from these areas -- not to supplement what we're doing in affirmative action, not to substitute for it, but to supplement it, to go beyond it, to do something that will help to deal with the economic crisis of America. We want to make our procurement system more responsive to people in these areas who need help.

My fellow Americans, affirmative action has to be made consistent with our highest ideals of personal responsibility and merit, and our urgent need to find common ground, and to prepare all Americans to compete in the global economy of the next century.

Today, *I am directing all our agencies to comply with the Supreme Court's Adarand decision,* and also to apply the four standards of fairness to all our affirmative action programs that I have already articulated: No quotas in theory or practice; **no illegal discrimination of any kind, including reverse discrimination;** ***no preference for people who are not qualified for any job or other opportunity;*** ****and as soon as a program has succeeded, it must be retired.**** Any program that doesn't meet these four principles must be eliminated or reformed to meet them.

 

With the speech almost over, "affirmative action" is still being described almost entirely by what it is not.

* The "agencies" cannot "comply" with the Court's decision, unless the pertinent laws and regulations are changed, to eliminate racial classifications entirely, or to ensure that they are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling public interest. The President does not say what changes he will seek.

** This "standard" adds something new. Previously, he had categorically condemned "discrimination" (p 5 ) and indicated that government affirmative action must avoid "reverse discrimination." (p 14 ) Here, he qualifies his position. By inserting the word, "illegal," the President suggests that discrimination is wrong only when it is against the law. But this cannot be his true position concerning discrimination based on race or sex. On the contrary, he has long condemned as morally wrong the discrimination on those grounds that occurred in this country before it was outlawed.

** Note how carefully he avoids the claim that affirmative action involves no preference for people who are less qualified for any job.

**** This repeats an earlier commitment, but he does not indicate the kind of success that would justify halting the policy.

But let me be clear: Affirmative action has been good for America. (Applause.)

Affirmative action has not always been perfect, and affirmative action should not go on forever. It should be changed now to take care of those things that are wrong, and it should be retired when its job is done. I am resolved that that day will come. But the evidence suggests, indeed, screams that that day has not come.

The job of ending discrimination in this country is not over. That should not be surprising. We had slavery for centuries before the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. We waited another hundred years for the civil rights legislation. Women have had the vote less than a hundred years. We have always had difficulty with these things, as most societies do. But we are making more progress than many people.

Based on the evidence, the job is not done. So here is what I think we should do. We should reaffirm the principle of affirmative action and fix the practices. We should have a simple slogan: Mend it, but don't end it. (Applause.)

 

The extent to which this address leaves us in the dark concerning the President's views is remarkable. He advocates "affirmative action," but resolutely avoids saying what it is. He surely does not mean the government's early definition: action to assure no difference in treatment based on race, ethnicity, or sex. But he has not affirmed the later, alternative definition: action to provide different treatment, on these bases, favoring minorities or women. That this is nevertheless what he means I suggested halfway through the speech. Nothing contradicts this hypothesis, but he does not express himself in this way and might consider it inaccurate. He is doubtless aware of the criticism, that "affirmative action" regularly involves racial or gender preference for the less qualified applicant over the better qualified. But this charge he never mentions; its truth he neither admits nor denies.

His use of "discrimination" is even more obscure. Of the possible definitions in a racial or gender context, I have no idea which one he chooses, or whether he sticks with any choice. The most common meaning is different treatment, based on race, ethnicity, or sex. But other definitions include different treatment on these bases that one disapproves, or different group results. Thus, when the President declares that (race or sex) "discrimination is not just morally wrong, it hurts everybody," I don't know the boundaries of what he condemns. He surely includes different treatment, based or race, ethnicity or sex, that disadvantages women and certain minorities. But I cannot tell whether he also includes such treatment, when it disadvantages men and whites. Nor whether he also includes different group results, even when no race- or gender-based difference in individual treatment is involved. When one recalls his later position that illegal discrimination is what must be avoided, the darkness increases.

In his trinity of exalted terms, the third was "equal opportunity." This, he declared at the outset, "is a moral imperative, a constitutional mandate, and a legal necessity," the great, national goal to which "affirmative action" is a principle means. He did not then inform us whether by "equal opportunity" he meant equal individual treatment, regardless of race, ethnicity, or sex; or equal group rates of success, despite differences in individual ability. Nor do I find an answer to his question in the rest of the speech.

Since the President's thought is so obscure, it will come as no surprise that we do not know his response to the anti-affirmative action syllogism:

  · Major Premise: Different treatment, based on race or ethnicity, is unjust
· Minor Premise: Affirmative action, based on race or ethnicity, is different
treatment, based on race or ethnicity.
· Conclusion: Therefore, affirmative action, based on race or ethnicity, is unjust. [With appropriate substitutions, the same syllogism applies to affirmative action based on gender.]

The minor premise is simply a definition of affirmative action, when based on race, ethnicity, or sex. I believe this is virtually the President's definition, but he neither affirms nor denies it. The major premise expresses a moral judgment concerning different treatment, on certain bases. Although the President has much to say about affirmative action and discrimination, he never clarifies their relation to different treatment, based on race, ethnicity, or sex. Hence, we would not know to what extent he considers such treatment unjust, even if we were sure to what extent he considers discrimination unjust. The President's speech thus leaves the central argument of his opponents untouched. Nothing in the speech refutes, expressly or by implication, either the major or the minor premise.

But this only begins to state the fundamental failure of the speech as reasoned argument. No one can give good reasons for or against that which he is unwilling or unable to define. Others' objections cannot be refuted nor one's own position sustained, if these things are essentially unclear. One can persuade people to adopt or shun a policy, by labeling it with words that have positive connotations, such as "affirmative action" and "equal opportunity"; or negative connotations, such as "discrimination" and "quotas." But these labels, undefined, cannot reveal what the policy is, let alone whether it is desirable. At the beginning, when the President spoke of a conversation with the American people, I think they hoped for something better than the agile manipulation of labels: something more like Come, let us reason together.

Let me ask all Americans, whether they agree or disagree with what I have said today, to see this issue in the larger context of our times. President Lincoln said, we cannot escape our history. We cannot escape our future, either. And that future must be one in which every American has the chance to live up to his or her God-given capacities.

The new technology, the instant communications, the explosion of global commerce have created enormous opportunities and enormous anxieties for Americans. In the last two and a half years, we have seen seven million new jobs, more millionaires and new businesses than ever before, high corporate profits, and a booming stock market. Yet, most Americans are working harder for the same or lower pay. And they feel more insecurity about their jobs, their retirement, their health care, and their children's education. Too many of our children are clearly exposed to poverty and welfare, violence and drugs.

These are the great challenges for our whole country on the homefront at the dawn of the 21st century. We've got to find the wisdom and the will to create family-wage jobs for all the people who want to work; to open the door of college to all Americans; to strengthen families and reduce the awful problems to which our children are exposed; to move poor Americans from welfare to work.

This is the work of our administration -- to give the people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives, to give families and communities the tools they need to solve their own problems. But let us not forget affirmative action didn't cause these problems. It won't solve them. And getting rid of affirmative action certainly won't solve them.

If properly done, affirmative action can help us come together, go forward and grow together. It is in our moral, legal and practical interest to see that every person can make the most of his life. In the fight for the future, we need all hands on deck and some of those hands still need a helping hand.

In our national community we're all different, we're all the same. We want liberty and freedom. We want the embrace of family and community. We want to make the most of our own lives and we're determined to give our children a better one. Today there are voices of division who would say forget all that. Don't you dare. Remember we're still closing the gap between our founders ideals and our reality. But every step along the way has made us richer, stronger and better. And the best is yet to come.

Thank you very much. And God bless you.

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