Mazie Hirono Quotes

Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision making.

What we hope to achieve is a society that doesn't value a white man because he's a white man, but also doesn't value a woman because she's a woman, or a black because he's a black.

You must make sure that the majority of the people are not marginalized.

Our workforce and our entire economy are strongest when we embrace diversity to its fullest, and that means opening doors of opportunity to everyone and recognizing that the American Dream excludes no one.

We are all about the equality through society and sport.

I want things to be great for people of color and for women.

The University has a moral obligation to provide equal opportunities to women, minority persons and all other groups who work or seek to work at Harvard.

The Australian way of affirmative action is setting goals and recognising discrimination and lack of opportunity and deciding to take action and setting some goals and targets. I guess I prefer that language to talking about quotas.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

If we are prepared to invest the necessary time and effort, affirmative action can contribute to Harvard's quality and not detract from it.

I don't have one role that I want to play. I guess... I want to be a producer. I want to be an activist. I want to be proactive in bringing about work for men, women, boys, girls, everybody who is good at what they do and deserve a shot at it.

Our work to provide equal opportunities for all Americans should be a year-round mission.

If you don't like affirmative action, what is your plan to guarantee a level playing field of opportunity?

We will not build a society that reflects who we are and that has opportunities for equality or justice if we don't make progress for all participants.

All children should have equal opportunities.

As a philanthropist, I try to help people take ownership. Everything I've done is rooted in the notion that every human being is born equally capable. What people lack is equal opportunity.

It would be ridiculous for me to say anything negative regarding blacks having an equal opportunity on TV.

Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn't do this out of compassion or guilt. It's done for mutual survival. They understand that a league can only be as strong as its weakest team.

We believe that the Committee on the Federal Judiciary can no longer be all-white. Minority groups, particularly the black lawyers of our nation, should be represented…

Our aim is a totally new and just constitutional dispension in which every inhabitant will enjoy equal rights, treatment and opportunity in every sphere of endeavour—constitutional, social and economic.

Stronger than all the armies is the idea whose time has come. The time has come for equality in sharing in government and education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here.

We not only need community development but we need equitable development.

We are justified in believing that the success of this movement for equality of the sexes means more progress toward equality of the races.

The function of democratic living is not to lower standards but to raise those that have been too low.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others”, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through the those gates.