Bill Clinton: “Well, I think universities ought to have a right to develop their athletic programs, but I think that it is ridiculous…”

“Well, I think universities ought to have a right to develop their athletic programs, but I think that it is ridiculous to say that a great university needs to have different academic standards for athletics so you can have diversified athletics but doesn't need a diversified student body when it comes to race and ethnicity. I think it's just an absurd argument. It is completely absurd, I think. So I would say you've got to--you can pick one. You can have it one way or the other, but you can't have it both ways. That's kind of what I--it's like these people who put this together saying, ``Well, if these folks can entertain us, we'll let them come to school. But if they're not entertaining to us, never mind that they're going to be a big part of our future; they can't come to school.'' I think it's a mistake. Of course, I believe--I don't think there was ever a constitutional problem with affirmative action in college admissions and professional school admissions, as long as no one who was unqualified--that is, someone that clearly couldn't meet high standards and couldn't do the work--was admitted, because there are measures other than test scores and grades which are pretty valid indicators of whether people can do good work in high-quality institutions. And you want the students themselves to have valid experiences when they're going through school. And I personally believe, since we're going to live in a multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious society, if I were running a private university, I'd certainly want one to be like that. And I think it's a cruel irony that in some of these States they seem to be moving toward putting it all on the private universities to have a diverse student body, at least in the graduate level. Now, Texas is trying to overcome this now with their so-called 10 percent solution--you may know about that--saying that anybody who graduates in the top 10 percent of any high school can go to any State university. The problem with that is it doesn't deal with the professional schools, number one, and number two, it might work for Texas because of the racial distribution of people throughout the State in high schools. It wouldn't necessarily work in other States. I think-- you know, my own view is we need an effective, constitutional affirmative action program. Cocaine Sentencing Guidelines Mr. Smiley. Let me get to a couple of other quick areas before my time runs out here. You recently recommended--your administration recommended that the disparity between the crack and cocaine--powder cocaine sentencing be reduced from 100 to 1 to 10 to 1. I'm wondering, why not 1 to 1? And apparently the CBC, the Congressional Black Caucus, was quite upset that they were not consulted before that decision was announced. Your thoughts?”