Arts & Entertainment
Mitt Romney and Affirmative Action
M
uch was made of what
Mitt Romney said and
didn’t say during his
recent speech to the NAACP’s
annual convention in Houston.
His boo-evoking swipe at “Oba-
macare” got most of the coverage,
while his failure to address voter
ID laws was also widely noted.
But another omission got little
play, even though it is a topic of
great importance to that audience
in particular and the nation as a
whole: Affirmative Action. Rom-
ney’s avoidance of the topic in his
NAACP speech is not surprising
because he has rarely mentioned it
during his public life. On the few
occasions he has spoken about it,
he’s done so in vague language.
For example, in 2008, he said, “I
do support encouraging inclusive-
ness and diversity, and I encourage
the disclosure of the numbers of
women and minorities in top posi-
tions of companies and govern-
ment – not to impose a quota but
to shine light on the situation.”
Not exactly a profile in courage
comment, but his tepid expression
of support does leave some room
for hope.
In an earlier, saner time, support
for affirmative action would have
been a no-brainer for Romney for
two reasons. First, he is a busi-
nessman, an established and
respected member of a group that
tends to support affirmative
U RBAN P OLICY
Stephanie Jones
action. Having learned first-hand
that making diversity an integral
part of our educational system and
workforce strengthens our society
while improving their bottom line,
many business leaders have joined
with the civil rights community to
fight off efforts to dismantle affir-
mative action.
Second, Romney’s own life
experiences should help him
appreciate a fundamental goal of
affirmative action: to expand
opportunities to talented, deserv-
ing people who might otherwise
not have the chance to succeed
and thrive. Although he never
lacked for opportunity, Romney
took full advantage of the oldest
form of affirmative action we have
in this country – the kind enjoyed
without shame or apology by
wealthy, well-connected White
men.
In fact, he was able to
launch the very enterprise that he
now claims makes him qualified
to sit in the Oval Office – Bain
Capital – because someone took a
chance on him.
“We put Mitt in charge,” Patrick
Graham, Romney’s mentor at
Bain & Co., recently told the
Washington Post. “He’s an out-
standing guy. He’s a leader. He
didn’t have any financial expert-
ise, by the way. But we just want-
ed to give him a bigger challenge.”
Unfortunately, Romney doesn’t
seem to have reached back to
extend such opportunities to
minorities and women in his busi-
ness and government career. For
example, he was accused of run-
ning a “White boys club” after it
was revealed during his 1994 Sen-
ate campaign that Bain Capital
had no Black or Latino employ-
history.”
Romney needs to reconcile this
record with his stated support for
diversity and inclusion. And,
given his record, he should
explain just how affirmative
action would fare in a Romney
administration. Does he under-
stand that, although we’ve made
progress, the American playing
field is still not level and that gov-
ernment and the private sector
must continue to take affirmative
Although he never lacked for
opportunity, Romney took full
advantage of the oldest form of
affirmative action we have in this
country – the kind enjoyed without
shame or apology by wealthy, well-
connected White men
ees. And, just six months after
becoming governor of Massachu-
setts in 2003, Romney quietly gut-
ted the state’s longstanding
affirmative action program in
what the former deputy director of
the state affirmative action office
called “a cloaked and unilateral
move that eradicated years and
years of civil rights advances and
steps to foster the diversity and
inclusiveness he claims to seek?
Would he actively support and
enforce opportunities for minori-
ties and women like his fellow
business leaders have called on
previous administrations to do?
Or, would he appoint judges like
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.,
who professes support for racial
diversity but bizarrely insists that
it’s unconstitutional to consider
race when trying to achieve it?
Would a Romney presidency give
us more Supreme Court justices
like the Clarence Thomas, who
owes virtually every professional
success in his life to affirmative
action but is now hell-bent on wip-
ing it out for everyone else?
These are important questions
that must be answered; Romney is
now the standard bearer of a party
overrun by ideologues who –
loudly and in increasingly nasty
and divisive language – slam
diversity and inclusiveness as
insidious attempts to catapult
unqualified minorities and women
past deserving but victimized
White men. Romney’s continued
silence in the midst of such
wrongheaded and cynical accusa-
tions could lead some to believe
that he agrees with them – espe-
cially given how little he has actu-
ally done to diversify his own
space when he had the chance.
Mitt Romney says he supports
diversity and inclusiveness. It’s
time for him to tell us just how he
would bring them to pass in
today’s America.
Stephanie Jones is a former
journalist, attorney, law professor,
Capitol Hill staffer and executive
director of the National Urban
League Policy Institute.
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July 25, 2012 The Seattle Skanner Page 5