Obama: Affirmative Action Not So "Potent A Force For Racial Progress"

WASHINGTON — 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 president, a former constitutional law professor, avoided criticizing this week's 5-4 ruling even though it reversed a decision his own high court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, had endorsed as an appeals court judge.

"This was a very narrow case, so it's hard to gauge where they will take it," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press. The justices sidestepped a broad constitutional ruling on remedies for racial disparities and instead merely told public and private employers they could not easily discard promotion exams just because the results left no African-Americans likely to be promoted.

As a senator, Obama voted against confirming two justices in the majority in the firefighters case: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two nominees of President George W. Bush.

Obama was critical of the process that New Haven, Conn., used to administer promotion exams and then toss them aside because of the racially skewed results.

The president said the city might have prevailed if it "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 is diversity in a city that's 60 percent black and Hispanic. Let's design promotion approaches that reconcile those two things.'"

Instead, Obama said, "I think what people instinctively, probably, reacted to on that particular case had more to do with the fact that the people that studied for those tests already had a set of expectations that were thwarted."

Critics of racial preferences have argued that Obama's election demonstrates that affirmative action is no longer necessary. But the president noted that "the Supreme Court didn't close the door to affirmative action, if properly structured."

He said such programs have not been nearly as helpful to minorities or damaging to whites as they have been portrayed.

"Crude quotas" are unnecessary and constitutionally impermissible, he said. But, "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 or taking into account issues of diversity of a workforce or a student body can still be appropriate," the president said.

Comments

[Sensiblebg]

I generally disagree with affirmative action but welcome reasonable AA.. I think the President is right on this issue by not criticizing the ruling..

[sbrown80]

U r far from sensible, and the pres. said this ruling has done nothing to stop affirmative action. U r trying to tell yourself tht he's afraid to speak out against racism but tht's exactly what he did.

[myopinion2]

1. The article doesn't support the headline.

2. The Supreme Court decision was correct because New Haven didn't identifty any flaw in the test which disadvantaged the black candidates. The fact that in this particular year whites outperformed blacks on the test cannot by itself be a basis for invalidating the test. There are tests which have a non-intended cultural / socio-economic bias which disadvantages a particular group which results in a constitutional violation. But this test was designed to avoid such biases, and even in retrospect, no such "design flaw" was identified. The Equal Protection clause demands truly equal opportunities, not pro rata results. On the other hand, this decision has nothing to do with affirmative action programs implemented on a temporary basis to remedy historical discrimination.

[WendellPerrySociety]

I am an African-American male, and no practically no one who has been helped by affirmative action. It is a complete sham. The biggest crisis facing the African-American community today is not drugs, teen age pregnancy or crime, it is discrimination in employment because all of these other stem from a lack of economic opportunity. If affirmative action was so great you wouldn't have so much discrimination in employment. Yes it might help a good number of African-American students get into competitive college, but it is not helping them get the job which is what counts.

[Tanyars5]

I agree 100%. Employment discrimination is rampant in this country. An AA can have top notch credentials and still be denied a job or promotions in a non government job. Filing a complaint with the EEOC is a joke. It is almost impossible to prove racial discrimination unless words are captured on tape/film. Everyone knows it exists but nothing is done.

[ladyfractal]

I wouldn't say 'nothing' but very little. Twice in my five years at my current employer I have been given parity raises because my boss, during review periods, noticed that I was making FAR below what my other colleagues were making even though A) I had more experience than them and B) had at least or more education than them. This, they realized, was a lawsuit waiting to happen. As it stands, I'm at the cap for my job range and, at present, all promotions and raises are frozen. I am the second most senior person on my team by tenure at the company and, yet, am at the *lowest* of the pay grades--the one I walked in the door with. However, the *worst* review I've gotten was that I was meeting all of the job requirements. All of my other reviews have been exceeds or greatly exceeds expectations. Now, I work for a medium sized (around 1800 employees worldwide) company with a overall educated workforce. Within this company there are, count them, FOUR African-Americans up from three. Of those, I am the ONLY black woman on the tech/research side of the house, the others are either in sales or administrative support. There are two other women in the department, both white.

So is there discrimination? Yes, as a matter of fact there is. Can I prove it? No.

Cheers
LF

[harriscrl3]

The issue is how do you get a level playing field. I think segregation in its current form is the biggest perpetuator of ra cism in this country and until we have true integration rac ism will ALWAYS be a factor. Segregation is how its perpetuated.

The irony is a worsening economy is actually leading to more integrated neighborhoods particularly in my area of Brooklyn. With that integration comes better services better supermarkets. I remember 5 years ago in my neighborhood I could barely find half the stuff I needed on my shopping list. I eat lots of organic and healthy foods. I had to go out of my neighborhood to shop. Recently the neighborhood has become more integrated because folks cant afford to live in manhattan anymore so they've been pushing further into Brooklyn and the neighborhood has been improving simply because the clientele is changing so they provide better services. This is why being segregated into substandard neighborhood with poor services is like a cycle that you never get out of.

When these other forms of discrimination has subside race will ALWAYS remain. They constantly reinforce for AA that they are not deserving of better services. We get crappy food in supermarkets stale food expired food nobody cares. We are still being treated as second class citizens.

[sqwerl]

Affirmative action leaves the questions in the minds of people receiving it, did I achieve this on my own merit? It must suck going through life like that.

[AsianAfricanAMERICAN]

never felt like that, actually...

[sbrown80]

Projecting arent we? I think tht's how whites feel w/ racism.

[jmpurser]

So if we write off ANOTHER generation of blacks then everything will be okay. Just wait. Be patient. No need to get all radical and fix anything now. Some other day it will be better.

Man I'm getting tired of this.

[ladyfractal]

Yep, something very much like that. I doubt that a single person crowing this decision (which, for the record, I think was decided correctly) would shed a damn tear or give it a second thought if they were to get all through their undergrad, graduate and post-grad work and then spend the next two decades and *never*, not once, work with a black person who was not janitorial or secretarial staff. I doubt that they would ever be bothered by it or even consider it something that *should* bother them. It would trouble their conscience not-at-all and would just be the natural order of the world.