29th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration at MIT - Julian Bond

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CHOIR: (SINGING) The spring of April's gone. The leaves have all turned brown. The children are all grown up and there's no one around. I'm looking over my life and all the mistakes I've made. And I'm afraid. Afraid.

Somebody told me that You would wash all my sins. And cleanse me from the scars that are so deep within. So I'm calling to You. If You can hear me, I don't know how. I was wondering, can You hold me now?

You are the only one that's patient when I fall. Your angels come to save me every time I call. You don't laugh at me when I make mistakes and cry. You're not like man. You understand me.

See, people change one day. They don't like you. The next, they do. I wish that everyone could love me just like You. So here I am, this sinful man, peace won't allow. I was wondering, can You hold me now? I was wondering, can You hold me now?

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh. To every broken person that may hear this song. To every boy or girl that feels their smile is gone. I know exactly how it feels to lay in the bed at night and cry. And cry.

Don't you worry, God is patient and He cares about the tears you drop and the pain you feel. He's there. When you are weak, that's when He's strong, even though you don't know how. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. God can, and He will hold you now. God can, and He will hold you now. God can, and He will hold you now.

Don't you worry, He can hold you now. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

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PRESENTER 1: Now I have the pleasure of introducing two of our very own students, Kateri Garcia, a senior in mechanical engineering, and Ayanna Samuels, a graduate student in aeronautics and astronautics, who will guide us in a reflection of the life and legacy of Dr. King.

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We will first hear from Kateri Garcia, class of 2003. Kateri?

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GARCIA: Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

GARCIA: My name is Kateri Garcia, and I am a senior in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and I'm currently the president of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. I am honored yet humbled to stand here today to reflect upon and pay homage to one of our nation's most courageous and inspirational heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Dr. King will perhaps forever be known in our histories texts as the man with the dream.

"I have a dream," he said, "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." 40 years later, we quote Dr. King with the presumption that time is fully realized his dream. Though time has indeed seen our nation through great transformation, even the course of four decades has not been enough to realize the dream. And today's theme, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, the Nightmare of Reality Versus Dr. King's Dream, reminds us that social injustice is not necessarily a dysfunction of our history, but rather a tragedy of the present.

Social inequality is an issue that we face today, and the dream voiced by Dr. King four decades ago is still only a dream today. The dream was to make all citizens of the United States truly equal. As we take time to reflect upon the changes of our nation, since the days of slavery, since the Emancipation Proclamation, since the days of the Jim Crow laws that created segregation, since the passing of the 13th and the 14th and the 15th amendments to our constitution, it appears as though we have evolved from the days of racial discrimination.

But as Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well, points out, "Our laws have changed, but the sentiment of hatred and misunderstanding is still in the hearts of many." When we look at the faces of the CEOs of corporate America, at the justices of the courts, at the astronauts, at the presidents of these United States, we see that faces of color and women are frightfully underrepresented. Racial disparities from top executives to the unemployed reflect the presence of the complacent attitude that allows us to settle for less than we started out towards and prevents us from the equality for which we dream.

Improvements in representation need to start with our educational system. The dropout rate of American high school students, especially among minorities, is alarming. The 2000 report from the National Center for Educational Statistics shows that while approximately 92% of all white students complete high school, only 84% of African-Americans will graduate. And the completion rate for Hispanics is a shocking 64%. Trends show that this gap is not closing.

At the same time, those students who do graduate from high school, only 1/3 of those minority students will go on to college. And among those, only about 50% will make it through. Let's look at MIT's record. MIT has been very successful in attracting and maintaining a higher percentage of minority undergraduate students. From 1980, it had only about 7%, but today, it makes up about 18% of the population. However, the rate of graduate students and faculty has continued at a mere 3%.

The disparities in these statistics are part of the nightmare of reality. And to those who do succeed in college, many minorities and international students feel the pressures of not only having to succeed for ourselves but for also the people who we represent. If we fail, we fail all those who will come after us. Minorities in America are the faces at the bottom of society's well. African-Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics are underrepresented and underpaid in virtually all professions. Society system is such that the odds are completely against us, yet red flags are being raised against affirmative action in programs such as MITES and Project Interphase to keep us down even longer.

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The moment that a minority person rises to the top of the well, the people at the top let go of the rope and call us under-qualified--

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--too conservative, or too liberal. What they really mean is we are not white enough. And sometimes, to those in our own communities, we are not Hispanic enough or black enough. Why do we keep holding ourselves down at the bottom of the well, instead of helping each other to climb out? Look around you. The faces at the bottom of the well are no different from you or me or anyone else in this room. Ask yourselves how you beat the odds and made it to and through MIT. And when you leave this place, will you return to the communities that you left behind?

Like Dr. King, will we face the challenge and return to the south, or will we forget that we, too, were once faces at the bottom of the well? Dr. King is one of the most visionary and fearless men of his time and of times to come. It was with his courage to return to the south and be an instrument of hope and earth-moving change that he was able to carry forward the strides toward civil rights, economic equality, and social justice for all.

But he could not have done it alone. Dr. King used his God-given talents to unite people of all colors, all religions. He didn't say, it's not my problem. But he dared to put his dreams into action. He embraced the challenge, and he sent down his bucket to the bottom of the well time and time again. Dr. King's dream lives on and will continue to come true as long as we make Dr. King's dreams of freedom, justice, and equality our own dreams. As long as we continue, as he did, to help pull up those faces at the bottom of the well. Thank you.

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PRESENTER 1: Thank you, Kateri. We will now hear from Ayanna Samuels. Ayanna?

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SAMUELS: Thank you, Michelle. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

SAMUELS: I must thank all involved in giving me the opportunity to speak this morning. A personal thank you to Professor Bond, Dr. Martin Luther King, and all of the others who fought and died for the civil rights and opportunities that I now enjoy as a black person from another country, Jamaica.

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The very last issue that Dr. King tackled before his death was that of poverty. He rightly stated in 1967 that the vast majority of Negro brothers are smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society. Sadly, 36 years later, due progress has not been observed, thus rightly giving birth to today's theme. What is a nightmare of today's reality, you might ask? Debilitating and grinding poverty that afflicts people of all races, colors, and nationalities and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

If one were to take the time to peer down at the faces at the bottom of the well, you would find that poverty is neither racist nor sexist nor nationalistic. Derrick Bell's book, based on today's theme, informs us that the US income earners in the top fifth earn more than their counterparts in the bottom four fifths combined. It would be remiss of me not to mention that there are disproportionate amounts of minorities in the lowest one fifth, who are burdened with lifelong poverty and soul-devastating despair.

The permanence of this situation is largely due to the fact that attitudes and public policies associated with slavery have failed to fade away. That is the grim reality. To borrow from the late Bob Marley, it is a sort of mental slavery that keeps us at the bottom of the well and will detain us there, unless we begin to realize that we all have to swim together or sink together. Unemployment, inaccessible health care, immigration policies, inadequate housing, inequal access to quality education, and excess mortality of minorities due to AIDS speaks to the tragedy of our times.

In addition, there are astronomically high rates of incarceration of minority men. A study recently completed by the Justice Policy Institute reported that there were nearly 200,000 more black men in prison than in college. Among the ages 18 to 24, there are only 2.6 times as many black men in college as in prison. The number on death row is equally as astounding. For their white male counterparts, there are 28 times as many in college as in prison.

These statistics sum up to an incredible waste of human and economic resources, which over time depletes the social and family structure and ultimately results in a lack of belief of the validity of one's existence. Suffice it to say that it is not only the faces at the bottom of the well that are disallowed from achieving their full potential. No matter one's credentials, nor how much those that came before you may have sacrificed to afford you a good education, proper health care, and a sound belief in your ability, research has shown that the American populace still has a hard time looking beyond the color of one's skin.

In an MIT and University of Chicago research project, 5,000 resumes were sent to 1,250 recruiting companies. In many instances, identically very able and qualified applicants applied for the same job, with the only difference being in their having either black- or white-sounding names. The results were alarming. Resumes with a white name had a 50% higher response rate than their black counterparts. What does this mean? The nightmare of reality is that lynching has moved from our great grandparents' front yards to the corporate boardroom.

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Then there is the issue of affirmative action. Dr. King must be turning in his grave to see our leaders misusing his ideals to oppose the inherent goals of affirmative action. Unfortunately, the term has long suffered from definitional drift. Affirmative action exists to address centuries of past discrimination and the effects of present discrimination based on race, gender, disabilities, age, and religious affiliation. As President Clinton once said, "The answer is not to end it but to mend it."

The real issue is in the details of implementation. The methods of implementation must be examined to ensure that they are not just mechanic percentages but that they adhere to legal and ethical standards. It is imperative that in tandem with such efforts, we seek to mend America's educational system from the K to 12 level. Disparities in resources and opportunities along race and class lines must be mitigated with urgency.

Regarding diversity, simply stated, it is a must. As Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones, said recently, "Engineers need to come from everywhere to solve the problems of people everywhere." Were Dr. King here today, with respect to the issue of the war in Iraq, being such a vehement supporter of non-violent confrontation, I think you would agree with the UN that any action taken should be the result of proper investigation and consensus. It is interesting to note that in preparation for war, minorities and the poor are overwhelmingly represented and gave their lives in the Vietnam War much more than non-minorities.

Throughout all these atrocities, one tenant remains true-- simply time and the generosity of people will not solve our race, class, and economic problems. In order to turn today's nightmare into Dr. King's dream, we need to cease from turning a blind eye to the wails of the economically deprived at the bottom of the well. As Dr. King once said, "The curse of poverty has no justification in our age and must be hastily relinquished."

A major inhabitant to social progress is that the downtrodden among us, irrespective of race, class, or creed, refuse to realize the necessity of each other's existence in the quest to make it out of the well. Some even gain their self-esteem by peering down at those at the bottom of the well. Dr. King was a firm believer in the fact that human progress never rolls in at the wheels of inevitability. It is only when whites and all minority groups work in coalition that we can truly effect change, escape from the well, and rise from the dark depths of racism and prejudice to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

However, there must be the knowledge that this will be fiercely opposed by the status quo. Recently, the Census Bureau indicated that there are now more Hispanics than blacks in America. Instead of celebrating an increase in diversity, the sentiment of the media has been that the African-American population should be concerned that Hispanics could now possibly replace them in societal concerns. This is in a not-so-subtle attempt to pit both groups against each other. Nothing could be more tragic than for us to return to such ideals at this time. We must instead think about how we can collectively assist each other in bettering the social fabric of America.

Dr. King had the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere should have three meals a day for their body, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. Unfortunately, he was assassinated before he could see his dream realized. As such, his tombstone reads, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last."

Thus, I implore you, let not Dr. King's dreams of significance dwindle to a mere symbol to add other uncashed checks handed down to those that suffer. Let not another face at the bottom of the well have to drown in their own despair before they can finally see that they are free at last. Let us prove that you can assassinate the messenger, but you can not assassinate the dream.

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Remember, human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. Did you hear me? Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. Once more. Human progress never rolls in, and will never roll in, on wheels of inevitability. Thank you.

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PRESENTER 1: Thank you, Ayanna. Once again, I would like to thank both Kateri Garcia and Ayanna Samuels for their wonderful remarks and letting the words of Dr. King be heard once more.

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I hope that everyone here today has really had a chance to listen carefully. Now I have the honor of introducing Chancellor Phillip L. Clay, who present the 2002, 2003 MLK Leadership Awards. Chancellor Clay?

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CLAY: It's always a speaker's nightmare to follow such eloquence.

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I'm delighted that I only have one sentence to give, and I'll try to do it well. For the issues dear to us and for our world, this is a period of maximum challenge, but I have the pleasant task of leading us into recognizing and celebrating the champions among us. That's my speech.

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Would Professor Jonathan King please come forward?

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Jonathan, your colleagues cited your long history of advocacy for democratic direction of science and technology. You are deeply respected as a scientist and as a teacher who possesses a clear and insistent voice, one often raised against the growing trends to alienate and privatize information that should be the legacy of humankind. Your enduring commitment to promoting greater public awareness of crucial scientific issues has given the average citizen a clearer understanding of matters concerned with stem cell research, bio privacy, and genetically modified foods.

As a scholar and mentor in this community, you have inspired countless students and colleagues to look closely at the implications of their own work. You have generously shared your knowledge and insight with others by organizing Massachusetts parents to improve public school systems and by serving as a Linus Pauling lecturer at Clark University, a historically black institution in Atlanta. Because of your dedication to creating better standards of living for all human beings, the MLK Committee firmly believes that you are working to sustain Dr. King's dream. With that, I am delighted to present you with this Martin Luther King Distinguished Service Award.

KING: Thank you.

CLAY: Thank you.

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I also want to acknowledge the presence of Mrs. King and their two sons and thank them for sharing Jonathan with us.

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KING: Well I want to thank the Committee for this award and all of those among you who wrote letters of support. I want to credit the people in my research lab who have always been supportive and never complained, at least to me, about time spent on issues outside the research lab. There have been many graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, undergraduates, but particularly, I want to note my long-time associates, [INAUDIBLE] and Cindy Woolley.

Through the years at MIT, colleagues Mel King, Steve [INAUDIBLE], Scott Paradise, Vera [INAUDIBLE], Willie Johnson, Leon Trilling, many others, some no longer with us, were allies to many on-campus and off-campus struggles that were a very important resource. Jackie D. King, my wife, has been at my side since I've been at MIT. I don't want to say that I've been at MIT for 33 years, and she's been at my side, through thick and thin, through all that time. And our sons, Andrew and Aaron, have been good comrades along the way and kind of sensitized me to the struggles of young people. Family friends, Larry and Anna Ward, are here, and others in Cambridge have been on our side in struggles in Cambridge.

Now, when I was growing up, in high school and college and graduate school, images of Martin Luther King walking and marching dominated the life outside the classes. But there's a particular component of his leadership that I would call forward today. When during the escalation of the war in Vietnam, he stepped forward and told the nation that we couldn't be fighting for justice at home while prosecuting an unjust war against the Vietnamese people.

And he stated so clearly that the bombs that are dropped abroad also take their toll at home. And in this period when a reckless administration puts all of us at risk, we need to follow his leadership and resist an unjust and uncalled-for war once again, and I hope [INAUDIBLE].

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CLAY: Would Hector Hernandez come forward?

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The nominators in your case cited your promising research and biotechnology and your exceptional ability to motivate young scholars majoring in science. As a teaching assistant in a biochemistry course for undergraduates and for graduate students, you took on the challenging task of teaching an assignment in a department in an emerging field. You demonstrated a strong commitment to undergraduate research by training five students from diverse backgrounds.

A young woman who worked under your supervision for a summer was inspired to apply to MIT and is now completing her first year of graduate studies here. Because of your superb range of talents and your solid contributions to the community, you have been given many citations, and your peers have elected you as chair elect of the Chemistry Students Graduate Council. The MLK Committee believes that your leadership and your service to others embody the essence of Dr. King's ideals.

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HERNANDEZ: Wow. This is really pretty. I was kind of really taken aback when I heard that I had won this award. It was nothing that I have ever dreamed of, because you always see other people doing so much other work and stuff, so I'm really honored. I want to thank the Committee for giving me this honor to be here today. I want to thank my professor, Professor Cathy Drennan, for really turning her cheek and turning her eye when I'm out of the lab a lot, doing a lot of things other than research in chemistry.

I want to thank Susan Brighton. She's standing over there in the corner or sitting down. She's like the mother hen in the chemistry department, taking care of the students and giving us a guiding voice and an ear when we have to go deal with some things. I want to thank Professor John Esserman for all the support that he's provided me. I want to thank the chemistry department for really taking a step forward in this past couple of years with the issues of minorities and underrepresented minorities in the sciences, particularly in chemistry. They implemented some really, really good programs that have allowed people to come work in the department during the summers.

Again, I want to thank the selection committee. It's been an honor. And they told me to keep it short, so I'll say a couple more words and that's it. Oh, I want to thank my mother. Oh, Jesus.

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They're all written down, trust me. My mom is an incredible woman. I'm sure that everybody who's ever been a good leader can say that they can't do it without their parents or their mother, and so she's very happy for me and she's sorry that she couldn't be here. Fear is a very strong motivating factor, particularly in this day and age when we're facing fear of war, fear of foreign people in our land, and fear of getting up the next day and not knowing what's going to happen out among the worlds among us.

One of the things that I can say is that fear is something that people try to use to keep us down, and we need to get over that. We need to have strength. We need to come out. It's hard to do that sometimes because everything you see on TV from our leaders and from our peers even in our departments kind of make us feel like we are not the norm. We are people who have yet to be accepted in our fields. Sometimes we feel that we're here because we're just a number and somebody's trying to fill a gap because it looks bad.

I can assure you that, at MIT, that is not the case. I have been accepted here and people really do care. The Minorities Scholar Program here is very, very good. All I want to say is that we need to support programs like MITES. We need to support professors like Cathy Drennan, professors like Jonathan King, professors like John Esserman, and countless others that I have no idea who they are but I know work behind the scenes. And I hope the school really takes us to heart and really keeps these programs going for us. Thank you very much.

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CLAY: Would Ms. Chiquita White please come forward?

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Your alumni colleagues have cited your committed and long-standing interest in developing students as candidates for careers in industry. As Procter and Gamble's head recruiter for MIT and school team leader in your company, you have tirelessly helped young people to prepare for professional employment by closely interacting with students and Office of Minority Education and Second Summer Program. Your counsel has motivated many to seek meaningful paths, which without your efforts might have been overlooked.

Your work as a fundraiser for the class of 1985 and your memberships on the Boards of BAMIT and the Alumni Association have distinguished you as one who firmly believes in giving back to the community. The MLK Committee greatly recognizes your desire to improve the lives of our students and alumni as a significant part of Dr. King's cherished vision for institutions like MIT. And I want to also welcome your parents who are here and acknowledge that your sister is an alumna, and so we have the opportunity to honor an MIT family. Congratulations.

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WHITE: That's a very nice Valentine's Day gift from an Institute that I love, so thank you. I'm honored and humbled to be selected for such a prestigious award. My nomination was a complete surprise to me, and I truly appreciate being recognized for something I simply enjoy doing-- coming to campus, meeting students, and talking about a job that I love. I want to thank the MLK committee and the OME for selecting me as a recipient, and I also want to thank my parents, as I told the Committee last night. My parents instilled in me at a young age the value of giving back to your community.

Recently, I read-- I think it was in Essence on one of my plane flights back and forth, that when you have a mission of service, that brings a balance to your life. And that resonated with me and I believe that because the service part of my life is a thing that gives me great joy. I hope that as I continue to live my life that I will continue to give back to others and be an inspiration to others so that they can do the same thing. So thank you very much for this award.

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PRESENTER 1: Thank you very much and congratulations to the recipients of this year's MLK Leadership Awards. I would like at this time to welcome back the MIT gospel choir.

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CHOIR: (SINGING) I've got a home in the sky. I'm gonna tell this world goodbye. You see, I'm gonna fly away. And we're gonna be called up together to live with Jesus Christ forever. You see, I'm gonna fly away. And I will be free. Free one day. Hey. And I will be free. Free one day.

I've got a home in the sky. I'm gonna tell this world goodbye. You see, I'm gonna fly away. And we're gonna be called up together to live with Jesus Christ forever. You see, I'm gonna fly away. And I will be free. Free one day. Hey. And I will be free. Free one day.

I've got a home in the sky. I'm gonna tell this world goodbye. You see, I'm gonna fly away. We will be called up together to live with Jesus Christ forever. You see, I'm gonna fly away. I will be free. I will be free. Free one day. Hey. I will be free. I will be free. Free one day.

I've got a home in the sky. I'm gonna tell this world goodbye. You see, I'm gonna fly away. We will be called up together to live with Jesus Christ forever. You see, I'm gonna fly away. I will be free. I will be free. Free one day. One day. Hey. I will be free. I will be free. Free one day. One day.

One glad morning. One glad morning. When this life is over. When this life is over. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'm gonna fly away. I'll fly away. One glad morning. One glad morning. One glad morning when this life is over. When this life is over. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'm gonna fly away. I'll fly away.

One glad morning. One glad morning. When this life is over. When this life is over. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'm gonna fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away.

No more dying. I'll fly away. No more crying. I'll fly away. No more sickness. I'll fly away. And no more sorrow. I'll fly away. And no more sadness. I'll fly away. And no more crying. I'll fly away. There will be joy. I'll fly away. There will be joy. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. Let there be peace. I'll fly away. Let there be love. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away. I'll fly away.

I will be free. And I will be free. Free. One day. One day. Hey. I will be free. And I will be free one day. One day. I will be free. I will be free. Free one day.

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PRESENTER 1: Now it gives me great pleasure to introduce the 15th president of MIT, President Charles M. Vest. President Vest-- sorry. President Vest will give them remarks, and proceed to produce our keynote speaker, Mr. Julian Bond. President Vest?

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VEST: This may be the coldest day of the year outside, but I think it's the warmest day of the year in here. And you all know it's Valentine's Day, and you've probably heard that Monday is Presidents Day, but what you may not know is Monday is Michelle's birthday.

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Happy birthday. Thank you all for joining us in this annual MIT tradition. It's always one of the highlights of the year.

And we're delighted to have with us this morning so many distinguished representatives, not just of MIT itself, but of the greater Cambridge community. And in particular, I want to recognize the presence of Director of Economic Development, Estella Johnson, representing the city of Cambridge. And we are also joined by the presidents of the Boston and Cambridge chapters of the NAACP, Leonard Alkins and Kathy Reddick. Thank you very much for being with us.

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As we gather on this morning in February, 2003, to celebrate the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, there are many things I would like to talk about. But one topic is of such timeliness and importance to this institution and to the values of American higher education as I see them that I shall limit my remarks to addressing it. Recently, I asked a friend of mine who had attended the World Economic Forum in Davos what his reaction had been to Secretary Powell's well-publicized speech.

Here is his answer. He said, "whether I agree or disagree with his arguments regarding Iraq, I am really proud that Colin Powell is our Secretary of State." And as each of us watched as the heartbreaking tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia played out, I suspect we had a common reaction. This group of astronauts looks an awful lot like the students in the hallways of MIT, increasingly looks like America in 2003.

For us, the tragedy was compounded, because seeing their images was like looking in a mirror with pride. Now, how did Colin Powell become Secretary of State? And how did Michael Anderson, or Kalpana Chawla, or Laurel Clark come to be Voyagers in space? They achieved their goal by talent, determination, and drive, the same way that Rick Husband, or Pete McCool, or David Brown did it. They achieved their goals the same way that MIT alumnus and earlier Secretary of State George Shultz did it, the same way that Buzz Aldrin, Ron McNair, Ken Cameron, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Janice Voss, Cady Coleman, or any of the other 31 astronauts who are MIT graduates did it.

But all of these wonderful people, the pride of our nation, had the opportunity to develop their talent and to translate their determination and drive into accomplishment. In America, education is our primary vehicle of opportunity, opportunity to develop human talent, to bring coherence to drive, and to convert determination into accomplishment. It was not long ago that access to America's opportunity, and particularly, access to our great system of public and private universities would not have been readily available to Colin Powell, or Michael Anderson, or Kalpana Chawla, or Laurel Clark. Today, it is. But will it be tomorrow?

The answer to that question lies at the heart of a landmark legal battle that will be settled within a few months by the Supreme Court of the United States. Bankrolled and spurred on by two so-called watchdog groups, a lawsuit has been brought against the University of Michigan regarding its policies and processes for admitting students to its law school and to its undergraduate College of Literature, Science, and Arts. The goal of that suit now before the Supreme Court is to remove from colleges and universities their freedom to consider race as one of many factors when admitting students.

On the thread of that seemingly simple phrase, "race as one of many factors," hangs the fate of opportunity for many future American citizens of color. On the thread of that seemingly simple phrase, "race as one of many factors," hangs the ability of MIT to explicitly pursue the goal declared in our mission statement that says, "MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community."

On the thread of that seemingly simple phrase, "race as one of many factors," hangs the freedom of faculties of American universities to apply standards and principles of their choosing to the most basic of academic decisions, the decision of who shall study in their universities. That thread, that seemingly simple phrase, "race as one of many factors," was spun by Justice Powell when he wrote the majority opinion for the Supreme Court in the 1978 case Regents of the University of California versus Bakke. In the next few months, the Rehnquist court must decide whether that thread will remain whole, or whether with one snip of the judicial scissors, they will sever it, and let educational opportunity for many students of color crash back to the floor, the floor from which it has been raised with such effort over so many decades. Friends, we must preserve the legal right and moral authority to consider race as one of many factors in college and university admissions, and in other programs and dimensions of our life and learning.

Why do I care? I care because of what I have experienced and learned in a lifetime as a student and educator. And I care because MIT must be a leader and a moral force. I care because when I look out this morning at the members of the MIT community who are gathered here, I know where we are, and I know how we got here.

When I began my career as a graduate student teaching fellow, and then as a young assistant professor at the University of Michigan in the 1960s, it was extraordinary if I had more than one African-American student in my class every couple of years. In fact, it was extraordinary If I had more than one or two women's students in a class. And if I had either, it was a lead pipe cinch that they would be one of the best two or three students in the class, because only through extraordinary drive and commitment would these students have come to study engineering.

In that context, when I look around MIT at its student body today, whose undergraduates are 42% women, are 6% African-American, 11% Hispanic-American, and even 2% Native American, a student body that is remarkably diverse in so many other dimensions as well, it sometimes seems to me that a miracle has happened. But that is just the point. It is not a miracle. It is not a natural occurrence.

It is the result of determined, conscientious effort over more than three decades, often against seemingly insurmountable odds. It is the result of institutional leadership and occasional courage. It is the result of the determination of innumerable families and communities.

The goal was as simple as it was profound, to give every young person the opportunity to succeed. I can only conclude that despite the length of the journey, our nation is in a better place than it was three decades ago. But my own journey and experience is not one of just watching numbers slowly move in the right direction. It is one of direct and meaningful personal benefit from diversity.

I grew up in West Virginia, a border state. Not quite of the south, but not quite the north either. I attended racially segregated schools until I was in junior high school. Our schools were desegregated in one fell swoop a year or so ahead of Brown versus Board of Education. I came quickly to value and learn from the new classmates who joined us.

I remember when our high school football coach drilled us on how to protect our black teammates should they be attacked in some of the more rural towns in which we were to play. My first science teacher, who was a big inspiration, was black. My high school physics teacher was a woman. My closest friend in graduate school was from India. My PhD thesis advisor was from Turkey.

My closest colleagues as a young professor were from Taiwan, and Hungary, and Turkey, as well as from America. My own father grew up in a household in which German was spoken. I know that I am richer, that my world view is more balanced, and that my ability to do my job and live my life have been greatly enhanced by these and so many more personal experiences that we could file under the heading of diversity.

Most of these things, I suspect, seem to the students with us today like the air you breathe or the water you drink. What's the big deal, you might ask. Well, it is a big deal because it hasn't always been that way. It got that way, as I said, because of determined, conscientious effort over more than three decades, often against seemingly insurmountable odds.

But race still matters in America. There are still forces that drive racial isolation. We haven't reached the day when we truly have a race-blind society. We hope we will, but we haven't. And we must not put our head in the sand, declare victory, and let 30 years of progress slide through our fingers.

Experience in California and elsewhere shows that when race is removed as an explicit factor among many in admissions decisions, minority opportunity in the most competitive institutions suffers. That is why I care about preserving the rights of colleges and universities to consider race as one of many factors in admissions, and in our ethos. Why do I care?

I care because MIT, for decades, has been the leader in building the diversity of our own community, and of the engineering and science workforce and leadership of America. And it is not going to lose that edge on my watch. MIT has historically been a leader. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

Thank you. More broadly-- more broadly across US universities, interestingly, it was engineering schools that tended to lead the way. In the early 1970s, we established outreach programs, like MITES, to attract young Hispanic-American, African-American, and Native American high school students to the engineering profession, a career that tended not to benefit from a high degree of awareness in their communities.

I don't believe that we saw this task as one of political orientation or ideology. We saw it as an important duty to our nation. We saw it as a problem to be solved, a design to be improved. And it flowed naturally from our connection to industry. And American industry provided, and today, continues to provide most of the financial support and summer experiences that make such programs work.

In supporting these programs and our admission policies, corporations have not done so because they are liberal or conservative, Democrats or Republicans. They support them because they understand that our world is racially diverse. And if they are to understand their customers, produce well-designed relevant products, and market them effectively, they need the perspectives and experiences of a workforce and leadership that is diverse.

But we must also contend with today's legal landscape, the law of the land. During the last several months, we at MIT have learned this the hard way. A complaint filed against us led to a review of two MIT pre-college summer programs by the US department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

The two highly valued programs, as you well know, MITES, the Minority Introduction to Engineering Entrepreneurship and Science and Interphase. MITES is an outreach program that provides intense education and career experience for high school juniors interested in science, mathematics, and engineering. Interphase is a bridge program for incoming MIT freshmen.

We at MIT are very proud of the decades of accomplishment of these two programs. They have served hundreds, indeed, thousands of promising young men and women very well. We pledge to you that they will continue to serve promising minority students in the future.

But our rigorous examination and the best advice of literally every legal expert we sought out was unequivocal, and led us to conclude that we should not continue to limit participation in these programs only to underrepresented minority students. Therefore, we will broaden the selection criteria to include other students whose backgrounds may otherwise stand in the way of their studying science and engineering. But as we do so, we will find ways to continue to meet our underlying goal of fostering the education and opportunities of as many bright underrepresented minority students as possible.

This is MIT, after all, and I am confident that with the help of our faculty and students, we will continue to exercise leadership and build programs that will do just that. And we will be as proud of these programs in the future as we are today. Much has been written about the value of diversity of the education of all students on American campuses. Its value is well documented by serious social science, as well as by the more anecdotal experiential testimony of students and graduates.

But most such studies have tended to focus on the liberal arts and on the professions of law and medicine. But what do we think here at MIT, with our pervasive environment of science and engineering? We know statistically exactly what our students and graduates think. Our surveys find that almost 70% of the MIT class of 2002 believed that relating well to people of different races, cultures, and religions is either very important or essential. Less than 5% considered it not to be important.

Furthermore, 53% of the class of 2002 felt that their ability to relate well to people of different races, cultures, and religions was stronger or much stronger when they graduated than when they arrived at MIT as freshmen. Less than 2% felt weaker in this regard than when they arrived. Does this mean that all students at MIT hold the same beliefs about affirmative action and race conscious policies and admissions and so forth?

Of course not. Our community has a wide range of views, and I would have it no other way. But the data show clearly that we have an extremely strong consensus on the goal and value of diversity.

How do we achieve that goal? Schools like MIT or Stanford University first establish which of their applicants cross a very high bar of quality based on measures such as grades, test scores, and class rank, regardless of race or any other characteristic. Then we make the difficult subjective choices from among those applicants who have crossed that high bar of academic quality by assessing, as best we can, the whole person. Race is one of many factors considered at this stage in order to build an understanding of who each person is and the context in which they have demonstrated accomplishment, creativity, and drive.

Now, imagine, if you will, that it was your job to work on admitting the MIT class of 2008. You're preparing to read and evaluate the folders of thousands of applicants. What's your task? You have the task of selecting only about 15% from a pool of young men and women who virtually all, as I said, have outstanding test scores and grades and the usual metrics.

So to focus your thinking about selecting the class from among these outstanding applicants, you take many slips of paper, and on each one, you write a characteristic of the class that you think is important, and then you array them on the table in front of you. The slips have listed characteristics such as grades, class rank, standardized test scores, geography, gender, economic status, creativity, race, leadership, nationality, risk-taking, musical talent, life experiences, cultural background, type of high school, special skills, quality of admissions essay, ability to work in teams, evaluations by teachers and counselors, reports of our own alumni educational counselors, and so forth. But suddenly, the arm of the federal government reaches in, grabs that one slip on which race is written, slaps you on the wrist and sternly says, you can consider all those other factors, but you can't take race into account.

How can you not consider race? It is an integral part of the individual identity of each applicant, and it helps us to understand the context of their accomplishment and their goals. That is the world that we will enter if the Bakke decision is overturned this spring.

In such a world, we will dramatically slow our journey to create a nation that is full-- that is fair and full of justice for all. It would be a world in which higher education cannot contribute maximally to developing our nation's workforce, its scholars, or the leaders of the next generation across the full sweep of our society. Next week, MIT will enter a brief as a friend of the court in order to help persuade the justices of the Supreme Court that for the good of America, our colleges and universities must retain the freedom to consider race as one of many factors when admitting students.