Remarks on Signing Executive Order 12232 on Historically Black Colleges and Universities

THE PRESIDENT. Secretary Hufstedler, my good and old friend, Dr. Benjamin Mays, President Charles Lyons, who represents the presidents of the predominantly black colleges, and my friends:

I just had a private exchange with Benjamin Mays. He said, "Have you got my little personal note?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Did you read it?" I said, "Yes, sir." "Did you agree with it? .... Yes, sir." [Laughter] That's been going on a long time in my life. That's one of the reasons that I was able to be elected and serve as Governor and one of the reasons I've been elected and served as President—is because of the advice of Dr. Benjamin Mays and others like him who have the sound experience and the idealism and the realization of the worth of this Nation and its values and has never let those capabilities in his own life be concealed or hidden, even at times when it took great courage for him to be a forceful spokesman for all the finest elements that you represent here this morning.

I've heard him say that a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and especially when it's keen and curious, when it's eager to serve, eager to succeed, a mind which has been aware of deprivation and discrimination, a mind struggling to excel above and beyond the limits that were permitted the parents of the possessor of that young mind. One of the most important things that we can do to let young people like this realize their potential is to support the institutions that support them.

In Georgia I saw the tremendous impact and the change in consciousness in my own region and throughout the world brought about by the private institutions in Atlanta that have predominately had majority black student bodies. This was not easy in those times, in the forties and fifties and sixties, but there was never any wavering of that commitment. Five colleges there, others throughout the State, 100 now throughout our Nation have predominately black student bodies. They are preservers of a heritage, precious to us all, black or white. And although they only comprise about 5 percent of the total number of colleges and universities, they provide 38 percent of all the baccalaureate degrees granted to black students. This shows the importance of them.

But just as the students and their parents have been deprived by discrimination from an adequate opportunity in life, so have the predominately black colleges and universities been deprived of an opportunity in the economic life of the academic community in this Nation up till this moment. Very early in my own Presidential term, many of you came—I think Dr. Mays was a spokesman—and said something must be done. We have added a modest increase in the allocation of Federal resources to the black colleges of our country. We've not done enough.

I issued a memorandum to all the departments, I think the first of 1979, asking that they increase the participation by black colleges and universities in the Federal programs that we have. I think we've increased about $30 million since I've been in office. I've not been satisfied with that progress.

I want a person specifically charged with the responsibility of searching out every possible way that your colleges can participate more fully in Federal programs, not just for education but in all Federal programs, to strengthen what you do, to give you a more sound economic status, and to give your students a better life in the years to come. That's what I want. That's what we're going to get. We must encourage those who have been most discouraged, and we must help those who have been most deprived.

Dr. Shirley Hufstedler is here with us. She'll speak in just a moment. But I'm going to issue today an official Executive order, directing her to pursue these goals that I've just outlined to you so briefly, give me a written annual report and requiring every department of the Government-in Labor, in HUD, in Health and Human Services, in State, in Defense-all the programs in the Federal Government will have within each department a high official who will explore every possibility for the strengthening of programs in the predominantly black colleges and universities of this country and report to her, and she to me, on an annual basis so that we can monitor the progress and make sure that we take advantage of every opportunity.

I look on this not just as a way to help your colleges, I look on this as a way to help our country, because what we share in the process, in better research, better development, innovation, better social consciousness within all Government structures, fed back by you through experience on a daily basis among these eager students, through the professors and administrators, through Shirley Hufstedler and all the departments and agencies, back up to me will be very helpful to me as a President. I think it'll strengthen our whole college and university system throughout the country, black and white, private or public, and that's what I hope to derive from this Executive order.

Let me say, in closing, that as I sign this order I'd like to ask you to be particularly vigilant in the months and the years ahead, to detect those ways where you can strengthen us and vice versa. I want you to get to know Dr. Hufstedler, who has been a great jurist and who's now head of this new department, set up, among many reasons, to give you a better voice, because when the commitment to education was, in effect, buried underneath Health and Welfare, it was hard for its voice to be heard. But now there's a chair in that Cabinet Room, just on your left, "Secretary of Education," and there's a voice there to be heard, not just in squabbles between the Federal Government and a local school board on a legal matter but to make sure that the quality of education is enhanced.

I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for me as President, for you as distinguished educators, for the students and parents whom you represent, and for our entire Nation. And now I would like to sign the Executive order, following which Shirley Hufstedler, Secretary of Education, will speak. And if Dr. Mays is not too timid, I would like for him to say a few words, in closing.

Thank you very much.

[At this point, the President signed the Executive order.]

SECRETARY HUFSTEDLER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

We in the Department of Education are not only pleased, we're exceedingly proud of our responsibility for overseeing implementation of the Executive order you have signed this day to increase Federal support at all levels for the historically black colleges and universities.

This President's commitment to quality education was made known to me from the very first time we met, when he gave me the honor of inviting me to undertake this job. The first time I met with at least some of the leadership of black colleges and universities was sitting in my temporary office, and that leadership of NAFEO was there when my confirmation as Secretary of Education was received by me. It was only a very brief time thereafter that the President once again told me about his commitment to the preservation and the increasing achievement of black universities and colleges. I welcome that kind of wonderful joint venturing in quality achievement for black Americans.

I do not for a moment suggest that black colleges and universities are feeble institutions. They are not. They are extraordinarily tenacious, strong, and dedicated. That kind of dedication and courage has been shown each and every day of the more than 100 years of history of black universities and colleges in the United States.

It is those universities and colleges, as everyone here knows, the worthy institutions that created, that educated the backbone of black leadership in the United States. It was from those institutions that were created in a national way, in a real, personal way, the kind of spirit of leadership epitomized by Dr. Benjamin Mays and by the extraordinary leaders who sat at his feet as they were learning what it meant to become an educated black American in the United States. Some of those very people are with us today. Some of them are not with us today, but are with us always in spirit. I do not name them all; I only mention Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have to find ways to not only preserve but to escalate the quality of the kind of education that black Americans and other minority students are receiving all over this country. But we know that one of the ways to make that happen is to work with what we already know succeeds, and that's the black institutions of higher learning in the United States.

It is, of course, not enough that youngsters have an opportunity to go to college. It is not enough that talented young black boys and girls can go to black universities and colleges. But the black universities and colleges have to have more help in order to prepare those young people to go to postgraduate institutions all over this country. We are going to do our level best to see that those young people, with your help, get the help they need.

In working in the Department to bring to complete fruition the implementation of the President's order and of the memorandum, which has been prepared in the White House, to help us do that, I have the enormously able assistance of my Under Secretary, Steve Minter, who will identify himself, if I just beg him to-there he is—of Herman Coleman, whose dedication to the cause of black education has been absolutely unflagging—Herman? And, there he is—of course, always in cooperation with Louis Martin, whose aid to the whole cause has been wonderful, to Deputy Undersecretary Margaret McKenna, who has worked constantly on the project, and to the black leadership, constantly represented in the Department by a very distinguished advisory council.

It gives me the greatest pleasure not only to say welcome to each and every one of you but welcome to a new engagement for excellence, a new engagement of support, a new engagement of faith in the direction of great achievement for historically black universities and colleges.

Thank you. [Applause] You know, the wrong people are applauding. I am the one—and each of you know the person to be applauded, in addition to the President of the United States, is Dr. Benjamin Mays.

DR. MAYS. Mr. President, Secretary of Education, Mrs. Hufstedler, ladies and gentlemen:

I feel highly honored to be here this noon, not only because the President of the United States invited me to come and because the Secretary of Education is participating but because I have been interested in the United Negro College Fund since its inception in 1944 or '45, when President Patterson of Tuskegee Institute approached me as one of the first persons to talk about the United Negro College Fund. The first time I wasn't quite sure, but when Patterson got through, there was no doubt in my mind.

So, I'm very happy to be here. I'm happy to be here, because it is my considered judgment that President Jimmy Carter has done more for black people and for the Nation in his appointment of Federal judges, Ambassadors, Attorney Generals, generals in the Army, Cabinet members. And I think the President promises to do more.

In the great Georgian series, President Carter was one of the persons interviewed, and he made statements about me in a commendable manner. He had been a friend to the black people. It is my considered judgment that he's done more for the black people and for the United States of America than any President in the history of the United States, and that includes Lincoln. He's followed in the footsteps of Truman and Lyndon Johnson.

And it may be that since God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform—it may be that God has called Jimmy Carter out of Plains, Georgia, out of Georgia—a nation that did its share of discriminating and lynching Negroes. It may be that God has called him to be the one to show the American people how to implement the Declaration of Independence, how to implement the words of Abraham Lincoln, and how to implement all of the important things that we need to make America the kind of democracy which I believe God has called upon us to do.

It is for this reason that I'm happy and honored to represent my colleagues in the United Negro College Fund and all the people interested in education throughout the length and breadth of this land. Thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT. Thank you, everybody. Let's all go to work. Thank you very much.