Bill Clinton: “First, I think that's a point well taken. You mentioned school uniforms. Let me tell you the position I took on that. I…”

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