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Obama Supporters, Like Obama, Support/Oppose Race Preferences

Yesterday?s Wall Street Journal has a long article, ?Fair Enough,? on the disagreements over affirmative action, mainly among Obama supporters. One McCain spokesperson, whose comment I?ll discuss below, makes a brief, cameo appearance, but in general McCain has no presence in this article, which pretty accurately reflects what he?s said about the issue so far.

There is one major goof in the article, author Jonathan Kaufman?s mistaken assertion that ?support [for affirmative action] tends to grow ... when the [survey] question describes the programs in more detail.? I?m convinced that exactly the opposite is true: that opposition to the way affirmative action actually works grows with the realization in practice ?affirmative action? requires special treatment based on race or ethnicity. The examples of ?affirmative action? that do not employ race or ethnic preferences are not controversial. That is, no one opposes race-neutral outreach, recruiting, etc.

Aside from that goof, however, the article is quite interesting, especially in its quotes from Obama supporters who oppose race preferences. Typical of them is a white community college student from a working-class Detroit suburb who has

no time for what he calls ?double standards and propagation of victim mentality.?

?The fact that a black man can run for the position of the President of the United States of America only corroborates that there is enough opportunity and equality for great things like that to happen,? he says. ?And that there is no need to create special advantages for any demographic group.?

Virtually all of the black Obama supporters quoted in the article continue, however, to support preferences for themselves and others of similar hue. One example from Southfield, Mich., ?a leafy, integrated middle-class and upper-middle class suburb,? nicely reveals why so many middle-class and poor whites and Asians so bitterly resent the preferences that exclude them:

Stephen Kemp, a successful black funeral director in Southfield, sends his son to a $24,000-a-year private high school. His son, a junior, has been receiving letters from elite colleges wooing him to apply. ?When they look at his application they see he is an African-American male -- he has so much opportunity,? says Mr. Kemp, who himself attended the University of Michigan. ?Brown called him yesterday.?

Mr. Kemp thinks it is fine that his son gets special attention, because diversity on campus benefits whites as well as blacks. ?If you are getting a true education, that has to reflect all kinds of people,? he says.

I?m sure he does. Of course, there is room for considerable doubt that the education of white students at Brown or other ?elite colleges? would become more ?true? by virtue of their being exposed to the preferentially admitted prep-school son of a University of Michigan graduate funeral home director instead of the more highly qualified student whose place young Kemp takes.

The dog that doesn?t bark in this story, or who barks only faintly, is Sen. McCain, represented by one quote from a spokesman:

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain opposes ?affirmative action plans and quotas that give weight to one group of Americans at the expense of another,? says McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. ?Plans that result in quotas, where such plans have not been judicially created to remedy a specific, proven act of discrimination, only result in more discrimination and violate the concept of equality of opportunity.?

Except for two-thirds of what McCain via Bounds says, this isn?t so bad. Affirmative action plans that give preferences based on race or ethnicity are offensive, and if Bounds had stopped there this would have fine, as far as it went. Alas, he didn?t stop there, and in fact muddied the water by dumping ?quotas? into his discussion. No one defends quotas, in those people and institutions who actually employ them. Thus for McCain to say that he opposes ?quotas? is actually to say less than nothing, because it does not distinguish him from Obama or even the leftest of the lefty bloggers.

By contrast, Obama ? Obama himself, not simply a ?spokesman? ? actually is quoted here saying something interesting. Flatly wrong, but interesting.

In a 2000 interview with the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Sen. Obama, then an Illinois state senator, said: ?I have no way of knowing if I was a beneficiary of affirmative action either in my admission to Harvard or my initial election to the [Harvard Law] Review. If I was, then I am certainly not ashamed of the fact, for I would argue that affirmative action is important precisely because those who benefit typically rise to the challenge when given an opportunity.?

Actually, they don?t. Most debate over affirmative action revolves around opinion, values, conflicting ideas of fairness, etc., but thanks to the pioneering work of UCLA law professor Richard Sander a large body of fact has reared its uncomfortable head.

I have discussed Sander?s work and the debate it has engendered in too many posts to cite all of them, but some of the main ones can be found, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Compare Obama?s statement with this brief summary of Prof. Sander?s findings, quoted and discussed here:

Briefly, Sander argues that the data he has examined on 30,000 recent law school graduates indicate that ?affirmative mismatch? ? admitting black applicants into better schools than their academic record warrants ? results in blacks earning significantly lower grades (50% are in the bottom 10% of their classes), a two and a half times higher dropout rate, and a rate of never passing the bar exam that is six times higher than whites. He concludes that in a race neutral system 85% of black applicants would still be accepted in law schools, albeit most at less prestigious schools, and that this match of ability and school would actually lead to the creation of 7% more black lawyers.

Obama would have been better off if his old quote had not been found, since he too is represented in the article by his own ?spokesman? who fudges the real issue every bit as effectively as did McCain?s out of bounds Bounds.

Sen. Obama ?believes that no one can deny that our country has made tremendous progress in the past 50 years,? said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement. ?But the suggestion that somehow Senator Obama?s campaign represents an easy shortcut to racial reconciliation is just not realistic.? He said Sen. Obama believes ?affirmative action in universities today is appropriate only if race is one of many factors. The Supreme Court has made that clear.?

Translation 1: yes, progress, but no ?shortcut racial reconciliation? means that Obama, as recently discussed here, is not about to give up his support for racial preferences.

Translation 2: Obama supports affirmative action ?only if race is one of many factors? also means that he steadfastly supports the use of race in awarding benefits and burdens, even where it is the deciding ?one of many factors

If Obama is elected, anyone voting for him hoping or expecting that his biological biracialism will automatically bring about an end to racial preferences is going to be sorely disappointed. And if McCain doesn?t do better than his spokesman does here, Obama will be elected.

Full post as published by Discriminations on June 15, 2008 (boomark / email).