CBS News | Powell Defends Affirmative Action | January 20, 2003 15:15:20: Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday he disagrees with President Bush's position on an affirmative action case before the Supreme Court, as the White House called for more money for historically black colleges. Powell, one of two black members of Mr. Bush's Cabinet, said he supports methods the University of Michigan uses to bolster minority enrollments in its undergraduate and law school programs. The policies offer points to minority applicants and set goals for minority admissions. "Whereas I have expressed my support for the policies used by the University of Michigan, the president, in looking at it, came to the conclusion that it was constitutionally flawed based on the legal advice he received," Powell said on the CBS program Face the Nation. [...] In a speech to the Republican National Convention in 2000, Powell sharply criticized GOP attacks on affirmative action. "We must understand the cynicism that exists in the black community," he said. "The kind of cynicism that is created when, for example, some in our party miss no opportunity to roundly and loudly condemn affirmative action that helped a few thousand black kids get an education, but you hardly heard a whimper from them over affirmative action for lobbyists who load our federal tax codes with preferences for special interests."
Good heavens. Powell is sticking to his guns and disagreeing with the president. That's a first.
Of course ... it has nothing whatsoever to do with any policy within his area to affect, so the fact that he disagrees doesn't matter in the slightest.
And in a separate issue ... one wonders at the White House's marvellous inconstancy. Stating that affirmative action in collegiate admissions is bad bad bad bad BAD and then turning and saying, "But let's give some extra money to these essentially self-segregating institutions over here," is not logically consistent. (Well ... it is in a certain way, but I'd just as soon not go there right now, thanks.)
Poor Rod Paige. People pretty much forget he exists, don't they? I suspect the administration forgets he's there, for all that he's technically a cabinet member, and Rice is not. (She is, functionally speaking, however.) Between the Justice and Defense departments -- Justice's attack on affirmative action and both Justice's and Defense's involvement with the disaster that is the "No Child Left Behind Act" -- they've pretty much managed to make the public forget that there actually is a secretary of education.
Posted by iain at January 20, 2003 04:12 PMComments
Hi my name is Mark, i was wondering or just going to ask, why don't we just make Iraq one of our states. We could use the oil to make money for us and to rebuild the country. So i am just asking why don't we just do that.
Posted by Mark at April 11, 2003 04:50 PM
