I commend Representative MINK for the leadership she has taken in developing the legislation and for holding hearings on the problem of discrimination against women in education. A large portion of my career in the Senate has been devoted to the study of education and to attempts to improve the system and make its benefits accessible to all Americans. In the 1960s--many years too latewe finally became aware as a nation of the failure of our educational system to serve the disadvantaged child. the migrant child. the Indian child living on a reservation. the black and Chicano children in innercity ghettos and isolated rural areas. In the Congress. in the executive branch and in the education establishment momentum developed for the creation of new programs that would provide all of these children with the opportunity for a decent education. We passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the Higher Education Act of 1965. and other legislation aimed at achieving this goal. For nearly 3 years. as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Equal Education. I studied and saw with my own eyeson trips across the countrythe human tragedies resulting from discriminatory educational policies. There is no question that. for a nation of immigrants. education has been a key factor in achievement of economic and social wellbeing. So it has been a very unsettling experience for many of us to learnas a result of the work done in recent years by the womens movementthat for decades the educational system has actually been discriminating against the majority of our populationwomen. The evidence of this discrimination is both abundant and convincing: First.
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