RICHARD KAHLENBERG: Obama’s Affirmative-Action Brief. “Given Barack Obama’s mixed messages on affirmative action in the past—he has said his own daughters do not deserve a leg up in admissions and that he understands the resentment toward preferences by whites who do not feel particularly privileged—there was a modest hope that he would break with longstanding Democratic Party orthodoxy to promote a better kind of affirmative action that looks at gaping economic inequalities in our country rather than just counting skin color. He blinked, however, and filed a brief that is unlikely to do anything to change the minds of Supreme Court justices and may do real damage to the president’s own re-election chances.”