Regular readers will know that I have criticized Obama’s various pronouncements on affirmative action as waffling obfuscation, muddled, lacking any commitment to his own announced vision, to name a few of my reservations.
Thus I was quite interested in his attempt at clarifying his views last night in the Philadelphia debate with Sen. Clinton.
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama, last May we talked about affirmative action, ad you said at the time that affluent African Americans like your daughters should probably be treated as pretty advantaged when they apply to college, and that poor white children — kids — should get special consideration, affirmative action.
So, as president, how specifically would you recommend changing affirmative action policies so that affluent African Americans are not given advantages, and poor, less affluent whites are?
SENATOR OBAMA: Well, I think that the basic principle that should guide discussions not just on affirmative action but how we are admitting young people to college generally is, how do we make sure that we’re providing ladders of opportunity for people? How do we make sure that every child in America has a decent shot in pursuing their dreams?
And race is still a factor in our society. And I think that for universities and other institutions to say, you know, we’re going to take into account the hardships that somebody has experienced because they’re black or Latino or because they’re women –
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if they’re wealthy?
SENATOR OBAMA: I think that’s something that they can take into account, but it can only be in the context of looking at the whole situation of the young person. So if they look at my child and they say, you know, Malia and Sasha, they’ve had a pretty good deal, then that shouldn’t be factored in. On the other hand, if there’s a young white person who has been working hard, struggling, and has overcome great odds, that’s something that should be taken into account.
So I still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination, but I think that it can’t be a quota system and it can’t be something that is simply applied without looking at the whole person, whether that person is black or white or Hispanic, male or female.
What we want to do is make sure that people who have been locked out of opportunity are going to be able to walk through those doors of opportunity in the future.
Well, I’m glad we finally got that cleared up.
For those of you who are still not sure you’ve got a firm grip on Obama’s opposition to/support for racial preferences, you might re-take the quiz I suggested you take after reading his equally clarifying interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here’s the quiz, as relevant now as then:
- Does Obama believe it is wrong to burden some and benefit others because of their race? Always? Usually? Sometimes? Never?
- Are “qualities such as leadership, motivation, teamwork, and ability to effectively communicate” found primarily among disadvantaged blacks? If race were not a factor, would placing more weight on those qualities increase the proportion of blacks who are admitted to selective colleges?
- How can affirmative action programs that treat race in a preferential manner be “properly structured” so that they give additional opportunities to blacks without “without diminishing opportunities for white [or Asian] students”?
- What is the nature of the “diversity” provided by blacks and Latinos in math and science, and why is it important?
- How would “a scholarship program for minorities interested in getting advanced degrees in these fields … broaden the pool of talent that we need to prosper in the new economy” more than a scholarship program that was not racially restrictive? If such a program were racially restrictive, why would it not “keep white [and Asian] students out of such programs” who could not attend without a scholarship?
- Does Obama believe [as I’ve already asked, here and here] that all minority applicants who, like his daughters, “are pretty advantaged” should receive no preferential treatment?
- Would Obama award preferences to those “who are still struggling, … who are in the middle class [but] may be first-generation as opposed to fifth- or sixth-generation college attendees” only if they are “African-American kids,” or would he “take into account” those facts equally for all applicants, regardless of their race?
- In short, does Obama support or oppose preferences based on race? If he opposes them, why did he make ads opposing their abolition in Michigan?
I’m afraid that what I said then is also still relevant:
Done? Good. Now you’ll have to grade your own quizzes, since I don’t know the correct answers.
UPDATE
Mickey Kaus, uncharacteristically, gets this one wrong, reading far more “pivot”-possibility into what Obama said than is there and ignoring Obama’s similarly obfuscating earlier comments. He would like to promote “triangulation” by engineering criticism of Obama’s allegedly flexible new position from both Jesse Jackson and Ward Connerly.
I’m no Ward Connerly, but … see the above and links contained therein.
UPDATE II
Mickey Kaus continues to think that Obama moved farther away from race-based preferences last night than he has in the past:
Last night, however, he certainly seemed to say race would not be a factor at all for “advantaged” blacks like his daughters. (“Shouldn’t be factored in.”) That seems like a further step–a big one. Wiping out the race preference for upper class blacks would in practice wipe out most race preference admissions at elite schools, no? It strikes at the core of the actual, practical race-preference constituency. If Hillary said it, there would be a firestorm from the civil rights lobby, I think.
I think this is a stretch. First, Obama said that “race is still a factor in our society” and that universities should take into account “the hardships that somebody has experienced because they’re black or Latino or because they’re women.” In practice, this would leave race as an assumed proxy for hardship, just as now it’s presumed to provide “diversity.”
Stephanopolous then interrupted to ask, “Even if they’re wealthy?” Then:
SENATOR OBAMA: I think that’s something that they can take into account, but it can only be in the context of looking at the whole situation of the young person. So if they look at my child and they say, you know, Malia and Sasha, they’ve had a pretty good deal, then that shouldn’t be factored in. On the other hand, if there’s a young white person who has been working hard, struggling, and has overcome great odds, that’s something that should be taken into account. [Emphasis added]
This passage is ambiguous at best. Mickey reads it to say race “shouldn’t be factored in” regarding his daughters, and presumably other blacks who have “had a pretty good deal,” but it can also be read to say that it is hardship, not race, that shouldn’t be factored in.
It seems to me that what Obama is doing is expanding affirmative action, not restricting it in a meaningful way. He acknowledges that taking race into account continues to be useful as a way to combat “potentially current discrimination.” Moreover, as long as race is considered a proxy for hardship, as it would be in practice by the current generation of admissions officers, the best that could be squeezed out of the emanations and penumbra of Obama’s tentative suggestion is something like the new “holistic” admissions program at UCLA, which appears to be little if anything more than racial preferences with a pretty new name. (On UCLA’s “holistic” review, see here, here, here, here, and here.)
Thus the position that Obama seemed to announce (can you tell for sure what he meant?), it seems to me, is no different from what he’s said before, including having the same ambiguity. Kaus also, I believe, misreads Hillary’s comments, writing that “If Hillary said [what Obama said], there would be a firestorm from the civil rights lobby, I think.” She didn’t say what Obama said, but what she did say was much more at variance with her earlier statements than his statements were. As Peter Schmidt notes on a Chronicle of Higher Education blog:
Asked by Mr. Stephanopolous whether she supported the sort of approach advocated by Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton said, “Here’s the way I’d prefer to think about it,” and then gave an answer that did not touch on the issue of race-conscious admissions policies. “We’ve got to have affirmative action generally to try to give more opportunities to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds — whoever they are,” she said. She then described such affirmative action as support for early childhood education and universal pre-kindergarten, scrapping the No Child Left Behind law as it is currently operating in favor of other approaches to improving elementary and secondary education, and various steps to make college more affordable, including the expansion of aid programs.
Ms. Clinton has not been as reticent to take up the issue in the past. In a question and answer session with The Chronicle last fall, she said she “will support strong and sensible affirmative action” — but not quotas — and said she was “distressed” by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions striking down the race-conscious student-assignment policies many public school systems use to promote integration.
No doubt with an eye to those important white voters in Pennsylvania, Hillary kept her previous unqualified endorsement of racial preference policies carefully under wraps.
UPDATE III [18 April]
“Ever the optimist,” as he says, Roger Clegg takes encouragement from Dems wherever he can find it:
… I’m heartened that neither candidate was jumping up and down to defend racial preferences.
Obama asserted, “I still believe in affirmative action,” but it sounds pretty watered down: Race might get you a preference, but only if it’s part of an overall picture of disadvantage, so that poor whites also get it and rich blacks do not. Clinton’s follow-up endorsed only need-based affirmative action, saying nothing at all in favor of the race-based variety.
As I’ve argued above in replying to Mickey Kaus, I believe this view is indeed too optimistic. The current crop of admissions officers, drunk on “diversity,” will continue to give preferential treatment to rich blacks over poor whites, and Asisans, until such race-based preferences are affirmatively banned. And if California is a good example, even then….
A good antidote to any doubt about my, well, pessimism was provided, as some of you may recall, by the director of admissions at the University of Chicago, whose response to Obama’s earlier comments about his daughters’ “probably” not deserving preferences I discussed here last October:
Not long ago I noted, twice (here and here), that Barack Obama had opened the door to an interesting discussion about racial preference by saying that when his two daughters applied to college they “probably” should not be given any preferential treatment because they are “pretty advantaged.”
Of course no one took advantage of that opening by asking whether Obama really opposed preferential treatment for all minorities who could be regarded as “advantaged,” and what might have been a fruitful discussion never happened. Now comes Theodore O’Neill, the director of admissions at the University of Chicago, who not only did not walk through the door Obama at least partially opened; he actually slammed it shut. [HatTip to anonymous University of Chicago graduate]
A few months ago, black presidential hopeful Barack Obama, a former U of C lecturer, told George Stephanopoulos that he didn’t think his daughters should be treated differently in the college admissions process from any other “advantaged” kids. But Mr. O’Neill disagrees. He would give the Obama girls “a break” anyway: “Those children, for all their privileges, will have interesting things to say about American society based on what I’m assuming their experiences are.”
On the other hand, I can understand and even applaud both Mickey and Roger grabbing whatever encouragement they can from any Democrat’s even slight deviation from party orthodoxy, no matter how inconsequential its results would be.
“Those children, for all their privileges, will have interesting things to say about American society based on what I’m assuming their experiences are.”
Oh, puh-lease.
1 – “Those children” may not want to say interesting things about American society. Does this not sound like tokenism? Maybe they will want to be Jane Doe Student just like the white kids.
2 – If O’Neill can make assumptions about their life experiences, and hence the interesting things they must have to say, why can’t he save them the trouble and say those things himself, and get them off the hook.
I’m with Mickey and Roger on this one – we need to take encouragement from the Dems move to the right on this one.
I understand your point. In fact, I think all three of you (Kaus, Clegg, you) are right in different ways.
Sure, we know O’Bama is masterfully dodging the question, himself trying to “triangulate” with dancing language. But in doing so he has conceded two points – first, from an “egalitarian” perspective, race preferences make no sense. That is, if you’re a “true liberal” and believe in redistributive justice, you’d advocate for economic based redistribution.
But O’Bama has subtly conceded another point. He says he “supports affirmative action” – and then he defines it to include literally everything we at MCRI, and Ward Connerly, said “affirmative action” RIGHTLY includes – outreach, socio-economic factoring (when I talk about socio-economic stuff though I’m talking only about redistributing opportunity, not results — so my ideas are things like educational choice, educ. enterprise zones, and outreach, not “preference” based on social factors).
What is this subtle admission, that I don’t believe the three of you have exactly pinned down? It is that the CRI’s are NOT “fraudulent” in their wording and definitions – O’Bama has operationally defined “affirmative action” to only include what the mainstream accepts. He has defined it exactly the same way I, or Jen Gratz, or Ward, or John Rosenberg define it. In fact, that response the other night in the debate – when I read it, I thought could have been a Ward quote. I was thinking – you know, this is what Ward might say in response to the right question.
Indeed, the real fraud here is O’Bama and Hillary (although I thought her answer to Stephanopolous was more honest) using the language we (Ward, and our side) use. But you’ll hear them accuse us of fraud later in the campaign, no doubt. Ironic.
Chetly Zarko writes:
>>>”In fact, that response the other night in the debate – when I read it, I thought could have been a Ward quote. I was thinking – you know, this is what Ward might say in response to the right question.”
And that’s what I believe you don’t get in this whole issue. This is strictly POLITICAL.
Haven’t you noticed the SILENCE by John Rosenberg, Roger Clegg, Jennifer Gratz, et al. on JOHN McCAIN’s Affirmative Action position, which I can’t really find that vastly different from Hillary’s or Obama’s.
I give credit to you for responding to my McCain statements on the other post. I might not agree with you, Chetly, at least YOU seem to have the spirit of non-partisan intellectual honesty on this topic.
–Cobra