A Speech President Obama Should Give (But Probably Won’t)

Here’s a speech that I think President Obama should give if the Supreme Court rules the way the Center for Equal Opportunity has urged it to in the Fisher case:

My fellow Americans, I want to talk to you tonight about the decision that the Supreme Court handed down today in Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas, in which a narrow majority of the Court said that our colleges and universities can no longer consider race in making admissions decisions.

My first reaction was disappointment, because my Justice Department had urged to Court to continue to allow this practice. But on reflection I have decided that maybe this is a blessing in disguise, or a wake-up call, or at least that if this decision is a lemon then we can still make lemonade out of it.

As I said when I was first running for president, it probably doesn’t make sense for my daughters Sasha and Malia to get special treatment when they apply to college, and it probably would make sense for a gun-and-religion clinging poor white boy from Appalachia to get special consideration.

So today I am instructing my administration to start changing all federal programs that have racial classifications to using instead classifications that help anyone who is disadvantaged or needs assistance, whatever their race or ethnicity.

Another reason that I think the Supreme Court’s decision might be something we can live with is because of the changing face of America, in particular because of immigration. Most of today’s immigrants are people of color, Latinos and Asians. But this makes it a little odd when, as soon as they get here, we start giving preferences to Latinos over Asians (in college admissions), while sometimes now giving preferences to Asians over Latinos (in government contracting).

Finally, I want to say something more about the racial disparities that we still see in our country. Some of those disparities can be traced to the lingering effects of slavery, and Jim Crow, and discrimination. And the fact is that discrimination still exists.

But let’s be honest. Thanks to many great Americans, discrimination isn’t the obstacle it once was. But there are other obstacles that are keeping many African Americans from taking advantage of the opportunities that America has made available to them.

The biggest such obstacle now is the destruction of the black family. Over 72 percent of African Americans now are born out of wedlock. And growing up in a home without a father means that you’re more likely to grow up poor, to get into trouble with the law, to be unemployed, to get mixed up with drugs, to have all kinds of problems. Harvard’s having an affirmative action plan isn’t going to help these kids.

Now, I know that single moms do a great job. I myself was basically raised by a single mom, and I like to think that I turned out okay. [Smiles.] But I might not have. [Frowns.] There were some close calls when I was growing up, some times that I’m not proud of where I started heading down the wrong path. But I was lucky, and I think I would have been less likely to make those mistakes if my dad had been around.

The fact is that children have a better chance to succeed in life if their parents are married and they grow up in a stable, two-parent home.

Now, most people on both sides of the aisle — Republicans and Democrats alike — don’t want to talk about this. But Michelle and I are going to start talking about it. We’ve been walking the walk for a long time, and we’re going to be talking the talk, too.
Michelle has done great work in fighting childhood obesity, and I know she’s going to do great work in this area as well. The problem of out-of-wedlock births is not limited to African Americans, by the way, and to be honest it is a much bigger problem than childhood obesity. Because, when you think about it, you can’t spell “fatherless” without “fat.” Or something.

America has always been a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country, and it’s becoming more so. More and more Americans are themselves of more than one race. I’m one of them. American will continue to be great if we continue to foster the values of studying hard, working hard, obeying the law — and treating one another as Americans, first and foremost.

Thank you, and God bless America.

* * *

I’ll be speaking about the Fisher case this week, by the way, at Northeastern University law school in Boston. Also by the way, I spoke at another law school earlier this month — the University of North Dakota — on another topic, felon voting. My presentation was posted on YouTube (in three segments), which you can view here, here, and here.

Related posts: