Jeffries sidesteps question about Mamdani identifying as Asian, African-American on college application
House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries sidestepped a question about a New York Times report that New York City Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani identified as African-American and Asian on his college application, which prompted attacks from his mayoral competitors.
"New York City Mayor Eric Adams is attacking Mamdani over reports that he identified himself as African-American and Asian on college application. Mamdani was born in Uganda, his parents from India. What are your thoughts on this issue? Mamdani has checked multiple boxes trying to capture what he calls the fullness of his background," Rev. Al Sharpton asked Jeffries on Saturday during his MSNBC show. "I mean, is this a real issue to you?"
The article claimed that Mamdani, when asked his race on his 2009 college application to Columbia University, checked the boxes for "Asian" but also "Black or African American," in their article published on Thursday.
"I think to me, you know, the issue that we have to deal with in New York City, which our Democratic nominee did talk about extensively during the primary campaign, is affordability," Jeffries responded. "And particularly in many of the neighborhoods that are being overwhelmed by gentrification and wiped out by housing displacement."
Jeffries continued, "that whoever’s going to be the next mayor of the City of New York really needs to articulate a concrete plan for making sure that working-class communities, including working-class neighborhoods of color, can still have a place in our great city."
"The city that both of us love, but we know, is changing significantly in terms of the opportunity for working families and middle-class folks to be able to continue to call a home," he said.
The New York Times' reporting was criticized by liberals, including former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who wrote on X, "Your absolute abrogation of the NYT standards would in a better era there have led the full range of you in management to resign. Utter failure."
"Then again, if you don't realize NYT is perceived as actively campaigning against Mamdani, you're all lost anyway," Olbermann continued.
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The Times' assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust, Patrick Healy, put out a lengthy statement on X the following day after receiving "reader feedback" on the article.
"Our reporters obtained information about Mr. Mamdani’s Columbia college application and went to the Mamdani campaign with it. When we hear anything of news value, we try to confirm it through direct sources. Mr. Mamdani confirmed this information in an interview with The Times," he wrote.
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Healy explained that the New York City mayoral candidate felt limited by the options listed in the application's racial identity boxes — and since he was born in Uganda, decided to write in the country on his application.
Mamdani's application was made available to The Times after a cyberattack on Columbia University in late June led to some of the school's sensitive information being exposed to the hackers.
Healy stated that although the outlet received the information after it was stolen in a cyberattack, "The Times does not solely rely on nor make a decision to publish information from such a source," and verified the application with Mamdani himself before publishing the story.