Two North Carolina congressmen who were quick to criticize former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett for comments he made on his nationally syndicated radio show in September about aborting black babies have refused to comment on a statement made by a former NCSU professor that all white people should be exterminated.

Rep. G. K. Butterfield and Rep. Mel Watt, the two black members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation, have been silent about comments made by Kamau Kambon, who is black, at a panel discussion earlier this month at Howard University’s law school about Hurricane Katrina relief. In comments televised live by CSPAN, Kambon said that all white people should be exterminated.

Bennett, secretary of education during the Reagan administration, said in reaction to a caller on his “Morning in America” program that to reduce crime one conceivably could “abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down,” but that any such policy would be “morally reprehensible.” Bennett is white.

A press representative for Butterfield’s office said the congressman had had not heard about Kambon’s statements, which received national attention. A spokeswoman for Watt’s office said the congressman had no intention of making a comment about them at this time.

Their position contrasts with statements that Butterfield and Watt, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, made after Bennett’s comments.

“While we support First Amendment Rights, we simply cannot tolerate statements and [radio] shows that are replete with racism, stereotyping, and profiling,” Butterfield said at the time.

Watt had similar comments.

“However, it’s obvious that these kinds of outrageous comments will continue unless there are economic consequences to those who make them,” Watt said.

Butterfield and Watt are not the only ones in Congress who criticized Bennett’s comments, but who have remained quiet about those made by Kambon. According to a Library of Congress search of the 109th Congress, there have been no resolutions introduced in the House or the Senate to condemn Kambon’s comments.

That is a sharp contrast to actions taken after Bennett made his comments. Two resolutions were introduced — one in the Senate and one in the House — to condemn Bennett’s comments. Senate Resolution 262 was introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and was cosponsored by six other Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Sen. Henry Reid, D-Nev.

The Senate resolution said “ the Senate believes that such statements are unbecoming of a former Cabinet Secretary.”

House Resolution 473, introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, with 13 co-sponsors, called Bennett’s statements “bigoted” and “ignorant.”

Shannon Blosser ([email protected]) is a staff writer with the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Chapel Hill.