Charles T. Canady: “this afternoon I rise to address legislation I will soon introduce to end the use of race and gender preferences by the…”

“this afternoon I rise to address legislation I will soon introduce to end the use of race and gender preferences by the Federal Government in Federal employment, Federal contracting and in the administration of other Federal programs. The principles of equal treatment and nondiscrimination on which this legislation is based, are principles which are at the heart of the American experience. They embody an ideal which generations of Americans have honored and sought to realize, an ideal to which we as a people have long aspired, but an ideal which we have never fully attained in our life as a nation. The first Justice Harlan once said, ``Our constitution is color-blind. The law regards man as man and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.'' With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Congress established a national policy against discrimination based on race and sex. It is the supreme irony of the modern civil rights movement that this crowning achievement was soon followed by the creation of a system of preferences based on race and gender, a system contrived first by administrative agencies and the Federal courts and then accepted and expanded by this Congress.”