Deval Patrick in PBS Newshour

On Civil Rights: Crafted “mend it, don’t end it” for affirmative action

A: As in any program with good intentions, particular means of using affirmative action principles are subverted, and are not functioning very well. And so we ended [such] programs. But we do believe that affirmative action can be done a right way; that on the whole it has been done the right way.

Q: You said that you think it’s still necessary. I assume that’s because we don’t have a colorblind society.

A: I think it is a complete ruse to suggest that declaring ourselves colorblind in law is going to cause us to be colorblind in fact. I think that there will come a day as long as we remind ourselves of fundamental American values, of equality, opportunity and fair play, when we will set aside the kind of negative attention that the differences in this country sometimes--sometimes bring. But we are not there yet.

On Corporations: Focused on fair lending practices in Clinton Admin

A: I think we have made a tremendous amount of progress in the area of fair lending. We have had a number of very carefully targeted cases, all but one of which have resulted in agreed resolutions.

Q: And what were the problems you’re addressing with those cases?

A: There were a couple of different kinds. One was underwriting discrimination, that is, differences in judgments among comparably qualified individuals that seemed to be based entirely on race or ethnic background, in some cases on age or gender differences. In other cases we saw people with comparable credit backgrounds and credit histories being charged dramatically different rates for the same lending product. The lending industry itself attributes to the attention that this administration has given these issues a record level of lending to African-American and Hispanic-American borrowers. I think that has been terrific.