David Willetts Quotes

What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position.

I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.

Affirmitive action is extremely complex because it appears in many different forms.

I still favor alternatives to governmental race-based preferences.

And I always like to stress, it's not a quota, not a set-aside, it's not about race, it's about giving opportunities to demonstrate their abilities to do work with the Federal Government.

The third fallacy is that affirmative action doesn't work.

Affirmative action is not something that the World Bank believes in or promotes.

The worst thing about affirmative action is that it encourages reverse discrimination, so-called because it goes in the opposite way of how we naturally discriminate.

It's undeniable there's been remarkable progress for African-Americans in this country. They've been elected senators and governors and running major corporations. But obviously we still have a long way to go.

Quotas are a perfectly logical, if diabolical, extension of the regulation of private property courtesy of the Civil Rights Act, whereby in an attempt to shape American society in politically pleasing ways, people have been coerced into liking, hiring or renting against their will or better judgment.

We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.

I have supported affirmative action, I do support affirmative action and I will support affirmative action.

That is one of the reasons I oppose this whole Affirmative Action business. We are not supposed to be judged based on what our ancestors did or suffered. We are supposed to be judged as individuals, based on what we are able to achieve.

They don't worship at the altar of forced busing and mandatory quotas. They don't believe you can remedy past discrimination by mandating new discrimination. (Defending his nominees for Civil Rights Commission)

Passionate ideological opposition to race preferences does not seem to be part of the Bush DNA, and President Bush has been no exception to this rule . . . It is not the legitimate business of government in America to promote 'diversity.'

If we could create the conditions that make racism difficult, or discourage it, then there would be less stress and less need for affirmative action programs. One of those conditions would be an economic policy that would create tight labor markets over long periods of time. Now does that mean that affirmative action is here only temporarily? I think the ultimate goal should be to remove it.

One moves swiftly and imperceptibly from a world in which affirmative action can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too weak to a world in which it can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too strong.

Who knows what Yale thought it was getting when it hired Richard Rodriguez? The people who offered me the job thought there was nothing wrong with that. I thought there was something very wrong. I still do. I think race-based affirmative action is crude and absolutely mistaken.

Men were not equal in the effort they made, nor did equal efforts bring equal result. ... Equality of opportunity, yes. Equality of effort and result, no.

The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender, or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute. Affirmative action is an effort to develop systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment, and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination.

I believe in a free society, where aspiration and effort can make the difference in every life. Where your starting point is not your destiny and where your first chance is not your only chance.

[The Americans] believe in the idea that a child shouldn't be consigned to poverty just because of circumstances of their birth.

I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.

I ended Affirmative Action by executive order and replaced it with a leadership model that created more opportunities for African-American and Hispanic students.