The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 17, 1995 Page: 3 of 16
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opinion
THE RICE THRESHER FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17. 1995 3
Gramm's comments on affirmative action reflect changing climate
"If I become president, in my
first executive order I will overturn
quotas, preferences and set-asides
that have been set in place in execu-
tive order. 1 believe in relentless ef-
fort to ensure everybody has an op-
portunity to compete and everybody
has an opportunity to bid on a con-
tract. But in America the only fair
way of doing anything is on the basis
of merit. If I become president we
are going back to a merit system."
— Senator Phil
Gramm,
during an interview
with reporters,
Feb. 8.
When I read this
statement by Senator
Gramm in the paper,
my first thought was
that the senator was one
ballsy son of a gun. Af-
firmative action is a
policy that most presi-
dential contenders
would not dare speak
out against unless they
are cruising for a rhe-
torical bruising from
the self-proclaimed leaders of the
modern civil rights movement, lib-
eral academia and liberal politicians.
In the coming months, you can
be sure that Jesse Jackson, Maxine
Waters, Ted Kennedy and others
who have long since abandoned
Martin Luther King's dream of
peaceful racial coexistence in favor
of the politics of racial resentment
and spite will do everything in their
power to portray Mr. Gramm as a
David-Duke-loving, black-hating
jackass. Perhaps they will even pep-
per their passionate tirades against
the senator with a few arguments
about how much affirmative action
has helped blacks and other minori-
ties.
Their insinuations of racism on
Senator Gramm's part will surely
outweigh the force and effectiveness
of their arguments. As ballsy as
Gramm is irPstating his intentions to
end affirmative action as we know it,
ROBERT'S RULES he,is ,aidef b.y a
cal climate in which
many white males are
tired of losing eco-
nomic opportunities
because of racial quo-
tas that favor minori-
ties and females who
may not be as quali-
fied as they are. (Let's
not forget that women
are the beneficiaries
of many quota sys-
tems. However, since
affirmative action has
its roots in quota sys-
tems favoring blacks
and other minorities,
I'm focusing only on
racial preferences in this column.)
Witness, for example, the strong
petition drive in California for a bal-
lot initiative that would wipe out that
state's affirmative action programs.
To be sure, Senator Gramm, in
attacking affirmative action pro-
grams, is attempting to gain the votes
of a lot of disgruntled white males.
Howevej-, to dismiss him as a vote-
hungry, racially insensitive dema-
gogue is wrong. Senator Gramm
wants votes, but he is not a racist.
Bert
Apathy
FROM PAGE 2
Just take an issue that will di-
rectly affect a lot of Rice students
now and potentially for grad school:
educational loans. The new Newt
Gingrich proposal, if it passes Con-
gress, will have student loans start
compounding interest from day one
freshman year instead of senior year.
So an $18,000 debt will easily turn
into a $25,000 or $26,000 debt. At
least five government loan programs
are being threatened by the new
Congress, including the Stafford and
Federal Work Study programs.
Whether issues are environmen-
tal, racial, human rights, economic
or family value issues, it seems that
Rice students have put them on the
back burner.
Regardless of the issue, people
remain uninvolved for the same
reasons.The overall defining char-
acteristic that Loeb found across the
U.S. was that people make the con-
scious decision, rather quickly, that
all they can do is adapt. Loeb named
them "Adapters" because they try to
fit in, instead of trying to change the
world we have to live in.
Loeb mentioned that there's a
false notion that people feel they
have to be super-aware enough to be
able to debate Kissinger on
"Nightline" before they can even
think about getting involved.
Last week's environmental con-
ference notwithstanding, there
would seem to be an overall lack of
interest for significant issues on cam-
pus. We may have once cared about
such things as racial equality, hun-
ger, and homelessness, but not any-
more, since we're studying so much
and have learned to be nice little
Adapters.
Then we tend to ignore these
problems and act like it's all right to
be totally igrtorant^Ren asked about
current^ffairs and what's really go-
ing on in the world.
I admit I don't know every little
detail about the rebellion in
Chechnya, but it's actually very easy
just to pick up the paper or watch the
news and then have agood talk about
it.
One will find it's a much more
pleasant and intellectual discussion
than who's sleeping with who on the
next "Melrose Place." Coinciden-
tal^, Wiess has just recently started
a program similar to Rice Fellows, in
the hopes to promote intellectual
discussions more profound than CK
or HW complaints. I strongly urge
all the other colleges and. the Grad
House to create similar programs.
Loeb mentioned that he did find
people who sincerely wanted to get
involved tflit just didn't know how.
He recalled one student who
wanted to teach high school alge-
bra, which is genuinely important,
because it's a bridge to math, com-
puter science and engineering, and
there certainly aren't enough good
high school algebra teachers in
America. "But then she said, 'well,
teachers don't get a lot of money,
they don't get a lot of respect,' and
she decided to go into marketing,
which seemed kind of sad."
This shows that we need to shift
our priorities a great deal away from
just believing that only the other Big
6 [I]t's actually very
easy just to pick up the
paper or watch the news
and then have a good
talk about it. y
Three (medicine, law and business)
are viable options and that "fluff'
jobs such as teaching, social work,
research or writing are just wastes
of time.
We have more lawyers in the U.S.
than any other country in the world,
but that's not something anyone
would want to brag about. We also
consume more natural resources
than the r^st of the world, and we
certainly can't be proud of that fact.
Loeb, also lamented that since
most of us haven't been taught the
history of the activist movements of
the past we really don't have the
models to know how ttf take a stand.
We also don't understand that the
people who did it were ordinary,
everyday people just like us.
Of course, for most of us, just
starting to get involved is hard, but if
you remember the old adage, "be-
ginning is half-over," one should
have fewer problems.
Rather, he finds himself in the
fortunate position of being able to
gain those votes by espousing the
same ideals of equal opportunity to
which he has adhered throughout
his political career. The last time I
checked, there was nothing racist
about holding the belief that America
should be a meritocracy in which
everyone has a chance to succeed or
fail purely on the basis of their indi-
vidual skills, talents, brains, and de-
termination.
' Affirmative action is
a policy that most
presidential contenders
would not dare speak
out against unless
they are cruising
for a rhetorical
bruising. ... *
As much as I like Senator Gramm,
I'm not going to spend the rest of
this column defending him. Rather,
I am going to address the ideal of
equal opportunity that he embraces
as he attacks affirmative action.
Equal opportunity means that we
give all individuals the chance to
succeed on their own merits. Such
an idea can hardly coexist peace-
fully with the reverse discrimination
that affirmative action policies per-
petuate. Something is deeply wrong
when our government forces poli-
cies upon us that make us suppress
our equal-opportunity instincts and
judge people solely by the color of
their skin, not, as Martin Luther King
once exhorted us, "by the content of
their character."
If our goal is to create a color-
blind society in which the bigotry
that results from the constant, mind-
less stressing of racial differences is
a thing of the past, how do we meet
this goal by pursuing a policy that by
its very nature must stress differ-
ences in race?
If we want minorities to feel con-
fident about their accomplishments
both in the workplace and in univer-
sities, why do we sow the seed of
corrosive self-doubt in their minds
and the minds of their colleagues —
seeds that make them wonder
whether or not they got their jobs or
were admitted to their schools be-
cause of their merits or because of a
paternalistic racial quotas system?
If we are so concerned about
eliminating racism in our society,
why do we use racial preferences
and quotas to put some blacks and
other minorities into jobs and
schools for which they are clearly
unqualified and unprepared by any
objective standard? When they fail
or perform poorly, are we not giving
fodder to the racists we will always
have with us — racists who will ar-
gue that minorities must be inferior
because they fail even when govern-
ment "coddles" them with affirma-
tive action programs?
We do not remain true to our
belief in equality of opportunity
when we nurture the growing racial
and ethnic tribalism in this country
by preferring some racial groups
over others. No matter how badly
the legacy of slavery and past dis-
crimination taints our history, we
must dispel any notion we have that
we can correct the sins of the past
with present and future sins that run
counter to our must deeply held be-
liefs, such as equality of opportu-
nity.
Like any form of racial discrimi-
nation, affirmative action is wrong,
and every one of us should have
learned that lesson in kindergarten
when our teacher told us "two
wrongs don't make a right" after we
punched a playmate who took our
toy. What a crazy society we live in
when a politician who stands up for
such a basic principle is considered
ballsy and controversial. However,
I'd like to think that the senator's
call for the restoration of our Ameri-
can meritocracy draws upon more
than lessons from kindergarten.
' If our goal is to create
a color-blind society, ...
how do we meet this goal
by pursuing a policy that
by its very nature must
stress differences
in race?9
Hopefully, his call embraces the
principles articulated in the color-
blind language of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act — language crafted by in
part by Democratic Senator Hubert
Humphrey, whoguaranteed that the
act could not be used to enforce a
system of racial quotas — and the
14th Amendment to the Constitu-
tion: "No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privi-
leges of immunities of citizenyof the
United States; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws."
Bert Gall is a Lovett College senior.
The 1994-95 President's Lecture Series
David H. Levy
Co-discoverer of Comet Shoe maker-Levy 9
"Jupiter: The Collision of the Century"
In the summer of 1994, fragments of Comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 bombarded Jupiter at speeds of 135,000
miles per hour. The spectacular series of collisions captivated
the world audience and left many wondering what would
happen if a similar comet were to strike Earth.
David H. Levy, who co-discovered the comet in 1993,
has a good idea of what
might occur.
Discoverer of twenty-
one comets, Levy is
one of the most
successful comet
hunters of all time and
the best-known
amateur astronomer in
the country.
Wednesday, February 22,1995
8:00 p.m., RMC Grand Hall
Rice students with tickets will be admitted beginning at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are available
from your RPC or department representative. No seating will be guaranteed for students
after 7:30 p.m. at which time seating will be open to the general public.
Seating is limited for the general public on a first come, first served basis.
No photos during the lecture, please.
This lecture is sponsored by Rice University as part of the 1994-95 President's Lecture Series.
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Hale, David. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 17, 1995, newspaper, February 17, 1995; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246504/m1/3/: accessed June 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.