NAACP director urges affirmative action, criticizes Bush brothers

[Nambe]

MIAMI BEACH, Florida (AP)

NAACP executive director Julian Bond urged states that have abandoned affirmative action policies for higher education to "come back into the Union" Sunday while criticizing President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, for challenging race-conscious admissions.

Speaking at the 94th annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Bond praised the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the use of race as a factor in university admissions policies. The Bush administration filed one of the briefs opposing the policy. ---

"The average KKK member may be stupid, but the well-financed forces of the radical right are not," Bond said. ---

"First Governor Jeb Bush became the only governor to carry out a pre-emptive strike on affirmative action," Bond said. "And then President George Bush carried out a pre- emptive strike on Iraq, the only President in our nation's history to attack a country which did not threaten or attack us first. Both strikes were unnecessary and unwise." ---

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