5 States Moving To End Affirmative Action
Ward Connerly.
A campaign is underway to ban affirmative action in five states already embroiled in debates over illegal immigration.
Efforts are proceeding in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma to put initiatives on November ballots that would end programs to increase minority and female participation in government and education.
The push is led by Ward Connerly, a California management consultant who successfully ran similar campaigns in California, Washington and Michigan.
It is part of Connerly’s effort to ban race- and gender-based policies nationwide.
The initiatives will add to the racially charged atmosphere in state elections, says Michael Kanner, a political science professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. All five states have had big increases in their Hispanic population since 2000, leading to racial tensions and debates over illegal immigration.
Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma have passed the nation’s toughest laws against illegal immigration. Among their provisions, they penalize employers of undocumented workers. In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt is pushing for tougher immigration laws and enforcement. In Nebraska, towns with large food processing companies that employ Hispanic immigrants have been targeted by federal immigration raids.
“It’s about race in both issues,” Kanner says. “Affirmative action, by its nature, is associated with minorities. In Colorado, for example, the dominant minorities are Hispanic, so it is inevitable that the two will be tied together.”
Connerly, founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, a group working to end affirmative action, says, “We will deliberately try to stay away from the issue of illegal immigration. It’s a tangential issue that we cannot control.”
He says, “It’s a simple principle we are promoting: equal treatment for all Americans.”
Connerly says he believes in affirmative action if it is based on socioeconomic conditions, not gender or race.
His campaign is in its first stage in Colorado, Arizona and Nebraska, gathering signatures to qualify to be on the ballot.
It has turned in signatures in Oklahoma, but is stalled in Missouri in a court dispute over language. Connerly’s language says the state shall not discriminate or grant preferences based on race, sex or ethnicity. The language substituted by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan goes further and says the initiative would end programs that provide equal opportunities for women and minorities.
Brenda Jones, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, says Connerly’s language misleads voters.
“They are co-opting the language of Martin Luther King,” she says.
(USA Today)
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Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
Good luck passing that.
December 28th, 2007 at 2:34 pmA man or woman should be judged by the content of his/her character, whether or not they can do the job, and whether or not they are a good fit for a company…and that’s all.
No special treatment for skin color or race…period.
December 28th, 2007 at 5:35 pmI have been trying to say exactly that for years!!!
Have a few on me!!
December 28th, 2007 at 5:35 pmThe way to end racial discrimination is to……..
(hold on to your hats, this is radical)
stop discriminating by race.
A Supreme Court judge recently said that when ruling on a school districts desegregation plan.
I think it was Roberts.
[b]“They are co-opting the language of Martin Luther King,” she says.[/b]
Dr King said, “Judge me by the quality of my character, not the color of my skin.”
Job applications, as well as higher education apps and the census should not ask what “race” a person is.
IMO an african-american is a person who has legally immigrated from africa.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:06 pmJumped through all the legal whoops and obtained US citizenship.
His children (born here) are simply americans.