Outlining what he calls "affirmative consideration," Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Deval Patrick is calling for a new approach to undo past discrimination.
In remarks to a Black law school alumni debate on affirmative action, the Clinton administration's chief civil rights advocate argued for the need to defuse the politically-charged atmosphere surrounding affirmative action.
Patrick outlined his approach without spelling out the details of how it would be implemented.
"This is what I call `affirmative consideration,' where race, ethnicity or gender is a factor, but is not necessarily dispositive," Patrick said in a keynote address to a recent Boston College Law School Black Alumni gathering.
"This kind of affirmative action guarantees nothing. It supports merit. It emphasizes qualifications. It embodies flexibility and the aspirations of an integrated workplace or school," he said.
"This kind of affirmative action is what the early proponents, Republican and Democrats, have supported," he said.
His remarks followed a morning of rapid exchanges over affirmative action before a gathering of the law school's Black alumni.
On one side, conservatives including Errol Smith, vice chair of the California Civil Rights Initiative, Robert George, a writer for House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Phyllis Berry-Myers, secretary of the Center for New Black Leadership, challenged affirmative action supporters.
Arguing in support of affirmative action was a panel that included Dr. Dorothy Height, president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women, Weldon Latham, a Washington, DC attorney who is a member of the Small Business Administration National Advisory Council, NAACP Legal Defense Fund director Elaine R. Jones and Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law director Barbara Arnwine.
Rhetorical salvos from the two sides came in the wake of recent a federal appeals court decision to declare unconstitutional the University of Texas law school's admissions procedure. The court in Hopwood vs. University of Texas struck down the law school's use of racial classifications in its admissions process.
