Remarks at the NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit, Michigan - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 8, 2000

I believe we should keep going until all of our children understand how to use computers and can make the most of it. I believe we should keep going until we find a way to guarantee health care rights to all Americans who are willing to work and do the right thing or who need help because they can't. I believe we should keep going until every American who wants to can go to college.

Let me tell you something else a lot of people don't know; even a lot of African-Americans don't know this. Last year, for the first time in history, the percentage of African-Americans graduating from high school equaled the percentage of the white majority children graduating from high school. Now, we ought to keep going until the percentage going on to college equals that and then the percentage graduating. But we have to open the doors of college to everyone.

We've made a lot of progress, but we've got more to do. And we've got more to do in so many other areas. I just want to mention two more before I leave. One is, in this whole business of sharing the bounty of America's public service. You know, I never thought about this in the way--my appointment of people of color and lots of women to important positions--in the way most people think about it. I always figured we'd do a better job if our Government was more representative of the rest of the people in the country. I always thought we would make better decisions. I always thought empowering people and communities was a positive good. I never thought it was something I was doing for somebody else. I just thought I was trying to make democracy work.

And we made a lot of progress. But I want you to know, there's one real problem we've still got that directly affects Michigan. When it comes to appointing judges, the United States Senate is not doing what it ought to be doing, especially with regard to women and minority appointees.

Hey, I need your help on this. A blue ribbon study found that during the 105th Congress, women and minority judicial nominees took much longer to be considered than white males. It found that minority nominations failed at a much higher rate than the nominations of whites. Last year there was a disgraceful rejection of an African-American State supreme court judge from Missouri named Ronnie White, solely on the basis of party politics.

I have nominated two people from Michigan to the sixth circuit, and neither one of them have even gotten a hearing so far. Judge Helene White, a highly qualified Michigan appellate judge, has been waiting for a hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee for 3 years, longer than any other pending nominee.

My other sixth circuit nominee, Kathleen McCree Lewis, the daughter of Wade McCree, is here tonight. She would become the first African-American woman ever to serve on the sixth circuit. I think the Senate ought to give Helene White and Kathleen McCree Lewis hearings. Vote them up or down. Tell the American people how you stand. Let us here from you. Don't hide behind having no hearing.