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THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bamberger.
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: Mr. Chair-
man, I rise in opposition to the amendment
because I am concerned that those who
speak for the amendment speak for the
deletion of section 2, either because of their
inability to construe it or because of the
construction which they put upon it.
I would suggest to the members of this
Committee that before you vote upon this,
you read the construction of the amend-
ment which appears on pages 3 and 4 of
the majority report. It does not speak in
terms of the input into a system, in terms
of dollars spent in the education of a child.
It speaks in terms of the output.
As I understand the intent, it is that
there shall be a system of education which
is equal in that it may take one child from
a culturally less privileged background and
educate him in a way which is different
from the education which would be afforded
to children who have conversations at
home; and thus at the end, all things being
equal, that education which is given to the
child gives that child the same chance to
develop as any other child.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired.
MR. BAMBERGER: The concept is one
of output or product rather than input.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Wheatley
allowed you further time, Delegate Bam-
berger.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: That is all
right.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Lord.
DELEGATE LORD: Mr. Chairman, I will
yield three minutes to Delegate Winslow.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Winslow.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: Mr. Chairman,
what I wanted to say in particular in this
area has been so ably said by Delegate
Raley that I could, I suppose, merely say
"Amen" and sit down, but I should like to
raise a point or two before I do.
A few days ago we placed into the Bill
of Rights a provision that no person in
this State shall be denied equal protection
of the laws. There was no statement made
at that time as to what areas this covered.
I had assumed that it covered all areas;
that it therefore covers education, as well
as peace and order, as well as protection
of life and property.
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What does this provision in this article
do that that equal protection of the laws
do not do?
It seems to me that if you start to put
redundant language into the Constitution,
we raise more questions of interpretation
and application than we get rid of.
The wording of this section seems to me
to be extremely obscure. First, we had it
say "provided"; now we have it saying
"promote".
One of the speakers insisted that this
is not exhortatory language, but it is obvi-
ously also not language that can be justi-
fiably enforced.
I suggest for the sake of clarity that we
depend upon the "equal protection of the
law" clause with respect to equal oppor-
tunities and delete this particular provision
from the draft.
Otherwise, we have all these questions
arising as to what constitutes equal fa-
cilities.
Do we mean gymnasiums in every school ?
These are equal opportunities as well as
other things. It seems to me we would be
wise merely to drop this matter and fall
back on the general language of the Bill
of Rights.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Wheatley.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Mr. Chair-
man, how much time do I have left?
THE CHAIRMAN: You have about eight
minutes.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: I will reserve
the balance of my time pending the comple-
tion of the minority.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Lord.
DELEGATE LORD: Mr. Chairman, I will
yield three minutes to Delegate Cardin.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Cardin.
DELEGATE CARDIN: Mr. Chairman and
fellow delegates, I was delighted that Dele-
gate Bamberger explained his definition of
the equal educational opportunities for all,
because I think he only pointed out the
difficulty in this definition. The Majority
Report itself contends, and I quote, "The
term, 'equal educational opportunities', is
not susceptible of precise definition."
In my interpretation, it is an incorrect
definition. We do not want equal oppor-
tunities for all. We want the type of oppor-
tunities that Delegate Borom referred to,
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