That stands for “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” in case you didn’t know. Anyway, toward the end of his remarks, the president said:
We’ve got to do everything we can to make sure everybody works hard, everybody plays by the rules, everybody has a chance to get ahead — to start their own business, to earn a degree, to write their own page in the American story — that the laws respect everybody, that civil rights apply to everybody.
He neglects to mention – all that talk about the chance “to earn a degree” and “civil rights” notwithstanding – that his Department of Justice does not believe that the civil-rights laws prevent AAPIs from being discriminated against in university admissions via affirmative action.