Citing Quotas, Bush Criticizes Rival Bias Bill

President Bush denounced the Democrats’ “so-called civil rights bill” Saturday as one based on quotas, and said affirmative action measures must not involve “a Rubik’s Cube of workplace guarantees.”

With Congress and his Administration doing battle for a second year over how to eliminate race- or sex-based job discrimination, Bush called on Americans “to cast off now the politics of division.” He said it was the responsibility of government to “enhance, not redistribute, opportunity to ensure that all people get a fair chance . . . . “

Speaking at the 193rd graduation ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy, Bush, referring to the Democratic proposal, said:

“I know there’s another so-called civil rights bill out there, but it’s a quota bill, regardless of how its authors dress it up. You can’t put a sign on a pig and say it’s a horse. It invites people to litigate, not cooperate. And this is no way in our country to promote harmony.

“Some talk not of opportunity, but of redistributing rights. They’d pit one group against another, encourage people to think of others as competitors, not colleagues,” Bush said. “That’s not the way to achieve justice and equality here in America. We need to adopt a more unifying, moral and noble approach.”

Democratic legislation that seeks to overturn a number of decisions the Supreme Court made in 1989 is at the heart of the President’s intensified dispute with Congress. The bill’s aim is to make it easier for victims of job discrimination to sue and collect damages.

Its Democratic drafters argue that it was written with the specific intent of outlawing the quotas based on race or gender that have been at the heart of two decades of affirmative action proposals intended to eliminate workplace discrimination.

The Administration argues, however, that the bill would perpetuate quotas instead. It has backed an alternative measure.

As Bush spoke in Michie Stadium, thousands of guests sweltering through the East Coast’s unseasonable spring heat wave fanned themselves with their programs, or sought shelter from the sun under umbrellas.

After his address, Bush handed out diplomas, shook hands and received the salutes of each of the 915 graduating members of the class of 1991--much as he did on Wednesday at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Among the new second lieutenants in the Army, the President pointed out, were the 1,000th black to graduate from West Point--Mike Mayweather of St. Louis, a star football running back--and the 1,000th woman--Kimberly J. Aston of Williston, N. D. The first black was graduated in 1877, and the first woman was graduated in 1980.

Moments after being sworn in as commissioned officers in the Army, the graduates grabbed their hats and tossed them high into the humid air over artificial turf of the football field, in the traditional ceremonial end to their four-year careers at the academy.

Throughout his political career, civil rights has been an awkward issue for Bush. He helped found the United Negro College Fund chapter at Yale University, from which he was graduated in 1948, and as a congressman from Houston he faced down critics and backed the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

But he also denounced President Lyndon B. Johnson’s proposed 1964 civil rights act, and spoke critically of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.--whom he praised on Saturday. And, while running for President in 1988, he built much of his campaign around what critics said were racially divisive images.

Bush vetoed civil rights legislation last year, and the Senate failed by one vote to override the veto. Proponents of the new measure have predicted that they are very close to achieving the two-thirds majority that would be needed in the House to override the anticipated veto. The House is expected to cast its initial votes this week.

The primary Democratic bill contains a prohibition against hiring or promoting women or minorities based on fixed numbers, without regard to qualifications. The Democratic legislation identifies the use of quotas as an illegal employment practice, but it also allows their use by employers if they are consistent with Supreme Court decisions.

Bush argued that the alternative Republican measure “would forbid consideration of factors such as race and sex in employment practices,” but would do so without forcing “employers to choose between using quotas or the risk of costly litigation.”

Bush cited the military’s experience in enlisting and promoting members of minority groups in the two decades since conscription was abandoned, as a goal for the rest of society.

Calling the armed forces “the greatest equal opportunity employer around,” Bush said “America’s task is to achieve nationally what we celebrate today at West Point.”

“We must think of ourselves not as colors or numbers, but as Americans,” he said. “We must destroy the racial mistrust that threatens our national well-being as much as violence, or drugs, or poverty.”

In addition to familiar images of racial violence, he said, “we’ve also experienced little episodes of mistrust--little ugly examples--people slipping across the street to avoid someone of a different color, pressing themselves warily into the back of an elevator. The practice of distrusting strangers because of their race or nationality. The habit of using patronizing or demeaning stereotypes.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Bush said. “Regrettably, racism and bigotry still exist in this great country of ours. But let there be no doubt: This President and this Administration will strike at discrimination wherever it exists. Because, you see, prejudice and hate have no place in this country, period.

“The real question that’s facing us is not whether to fight these evils, but how,” he said.

The President said equal opportunity should be advanced not through coercion, but through steps that “inspire people of all races to nurture affirmative values, affirmative views of themselves--affirmative lives.”