NBC Hosts Big Sunday Morning Discussion on Affirmative Action — With A Panel of White Guys

By Peter Hart
Here's how  NBC's David Gregory announced his panel on Sunday's Meet the Press (4/27/14):

We're back with our political roundtable: Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the Atlantic magazine and columnist for Bloomberg View. Neera Tanden is president of the Center for American Progress, and former policy director for Hillary Clinton. Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review. And new to the roundtable, happy to have Mallory Factor, professor of international politics and American government at the Citadel military college in South Carolina. He is also the editor of the bestselling book Big Tent: The Story of the Conservative Revolution.

One thing jumps out right away: We've got three white, male, conservative-leaning pundits and Democratic/liberal pundit Neera Tanden, a woman of South Asian descent. Not exactly the most diverse set of views one might imagine.

This was especially notable because one of the topics the panel discussed was affirmative action, specifically the Supreme Court's 6-2 ruling affirming the state of Michigan's ban as it applies to public universities. Not a huge surprise that two of the conservatives–Lowry and Factor–spoke out pretty forceful against affirmative action. But one has to wonder about the NBC producers who thought that a show hosted by a white male should invite three other white men, and one Asian woman, to discuss diversity.

But that's not all. The show kicked off with a discussion of the odious racist rants of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling that had surfaced days earlier. For that segment, the show assembled a panel of all African-Americans: HBO's Bryant Gumbel, MSNBC host Al Sharpton and interim NAACP president Lorraine Miller.

So in that case, someone was obviously sensitive to the need to bring non-white viewpoints on the show. There's something telling about this; an example of obvious, blatant racism is treated as an opportunity for diversity, but when it comes time to discuss law and policy–well, that's the domain of white male pundits.

Surely no one at NBC would agree that this was their intent. But it is nonetheless what they put on the air–an inadvertent illustration of how little diversity exists in elite punditry, and, indeed, of the value of affirmative action in guest selection.

Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

Supreme Court Says States Can Ban Affirmative Action — 8 Already Have

By Drew DeSilver
Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision upholding Michigan’s ban on affirmative action affects more than college admissions, and more than just Michigan. Seven other states have similarly broad bans in their constitutions or statute books, and opponents of affirmative action have called on other states, and the federal government, to follow suit.

In a 6-2 decision marked by divisions among the justices (three concurrences in addition to Justice Kennedy’s plurality opinion, which only two other justices joined), the Court was careful to stress that it wasn’t ruling on “the constitutionality, or the merits, of race-conscious admissions policies in higher education.” Rather, the key question was “whether, and in what manner, voters in the States may choose to prohibit the consideration of racial preferences in governmental decisions…”

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The Woman Who Killed Affirmative Action — Twice

Jennifer Gratz: Here crusade against affirmative action has made her a darling of the right. Here she
appears on Fox News and the hosts asks viewers to tweet with the hash-tag "victimhood." (Screen
capture from YouTube video).

By MAGGIE SEVERNS
No one was more thrilled with Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold Michigan’s affirmative action ban than Jennifer Gratz.

Her name wasn’t on the Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action case — but it may as well have been. It was Gratz’s rejection from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1995 that set the court’s decision in motion.

Gratz is the woman who inspired two separate cases before the Supreme Court on affirmative action in higher education, ending with the justices’ 6-2 ruling Tuesday that upheld a constitutional amendment in Michigan that voters approved in 2006. It bans preferential treatment based on race, gender, ethnicity or national origin.

Gratz said she will continue keeping watch over the issue in the coming months.

“Nothing from our opposition would surprise me anymore,” Gratz said. “They are radical and they would use any means necessary.”

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