. . . And, with regard to President Obama and the end of quotas, you may even understate the case. For while sometimes Obama has been, as you say, a “passionate defender of affirmative action,” at other times he has acknowledged that advantaged African Americans (like his daughters) should not be given preferential treatment, and that disadvantaged whites deserve special consideration. The logic of this would lead to substitution of means-tested preferences for racial preferences. The former are not always a good idea, but they are less ugly and divisive than the latter.