President Obama discusses Affirmative Action

In the White House West Wing, President Obama tells Associated Press White House correspondent Jennifer Loven Thursday that affirmative action plans "have to be done in a way that is thoughtful." (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press)
AP Sees "Racial Preferences," but Obama Doesn't

"President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court was 'moving the ball' on affirmative action in this week's decision favoring white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., but he added that the court had not ruled out the use of racial preferences in the future," read a story by Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press on Loven's interview with Obama.

The problem was that Obama never used the loaded phrase "racial preferences," favored by affirmative action opponents.

Later AP stories eliminated the phrase from the first paragraph, but kept it in farther down in the story.

In a version by Mark Sherman, the story began, "President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court is 'moving the ball' to limit affirmative action, but he stressed that its ruling in favor of white firefighters still allows employers and educators to take race into account in hiring, promotions and admissions."

The terminology is important. As the Pew Research Center noted again in June, "Public Backs Affirmative Action, But Not Minority Preferences."

In 1995, the National Association of Black Journalists cautioned against equating "racial preferences" and "affirmative action," noting that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission said in 1981, "Only if today's society were operating fairly toward minorities and women would measures that take race, sex and national origin into account be preferential treatment."

According to the AP's transcript, Obama's interviewer said, "Let me ask you about affirmative action, it's back in the news with recent Supreme Court cases — the New Haven firefighters case, the Texas voting rights case. Do you think there [are] still times and incidences in our society where hiring on the basis of race or admissions on the basis of race are still needed?"

Obama replied, "I don't think that hiring on the basis of race or admissions on the basis of race alone is constitutionally plausible and I don't think that crude quotas like that are necessary. I do think that there are still circumstances in which on a college admissions or on a hiring decision, taking into account issues of past discrimination, taking into account issues of diversity of a workforce or a student body can still be appropriate.

"But I think that they have to be done in a way that is thoughtful. So when I look at the firefighters case, I say to myself, if New Haven had thought through how it was going to approach the issue ahead of time and said, 'we think merit and highly qualified firefighters are absolutely important; that doesn't contradict our desire to make sure that there's diversity in a city that's 60 percent black and Hispanic. Let's design promotion approaches that reconcile those two things, and we don't have people taking tests, studying for them, and then thinking that they were going to be promoted automatically on the basis of those tests, suddenly being disappointed.'

"Instead of doing it that way, doing it in a way that's thoughtful and everybody has the same clear expectations, I think that would survive Supreme Court scrutiny and I think a lot of people would say that that's fair. I think what people instinctively probably reacted to on that particular case had more to do with the fact that the people who had studied for those tests already had a set of expectations that were thwarted. But keep in mind that the Supreme Court didn't close the door to affirmative action if properly structured in this case and . . .

"Q: But they're moving the ball a little bit.
"Obama: But they are moving the ball and, look, society evolves.

Q: Do you think they're jumping the gun a little bit ahead of where society really is?

"Obama: This was a very narrow case, so it's hard to gauge where, where they will take it. I'll be honest with you, though, I've always believed that affirmative action was less of an issue, or should be less than an issue, than it's been made out to be in news reports. It's not it hasn't been as potent a force for racial progress as advocates would claim, and it hasn't been as bad on white students seeking admissions or seeking a job as its critics has been. "I think the way to move forward on race is to make sure that every kid from the time they're born is getting good nutrition and good education, is succeeding in K through 12, and we're opening opportunities for all young people. Because when everybody's got a level playing field, everybody's competing, and we've dealt with some of the legacies of discrimination that have resulted in substandard schools or extreme poverty in some communities, then affirmative action ends up being an afterthought and we can really just make sure that everybody's treated fairly in an environment that, in which race is rarely taken into account."