Although 49 percent of Colorado voters chose to end the practice of government preferential treatment and discrimination, 50 percent chose to retain that practice. Amendment 46 narrowly failed to pass on Tuesday.
In contrast, Nebraska’s voters did the right thing by putting their state and local governments out of the skin color business. Initiative 424 passed with almost 58 percent of the vote. When asked about this victory and future ballot initiatives, Ward Connerly told the Associated Press that “it certainly strengthens the effort…The people of Nebraska, who have a motto of equality before the law, simply are reinforcing that.”
Nebraska’s new constitutional amendment will face court challenges.
After Initiative 424’s victory, Doug Tietz, director the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, told the SW Iowa News that “Democrats, Republicans, independents — they can agree that the government shouldn’t be playing politics based on race and gender…That’s the message of tonight. Nebraska believes that equality before the law is not only the state motto, it should also be enshrined in the state’s constitution.”
Nebraska’s government agencies and institutions will now have to review current policies to root out discriminatory and preferential practices.
Update: Steven Willborn, dean of the University of Nebraska’s law school, said it was okay that his school admitted under-qualified black students. With that confession on record, administrators at the law school and other state-supported schools in Nebraska will have to review programs to determine whether they violate the state’s new law.
Last month, the Center for Equal Opportunity released a study that documented cases of “severe discrimination” in the University of Nebraska law school’s admissions process.
A black woman admonishes blacks who plan to vote for Barack Obama just because he’s black:
The same can be said for blacks who plan to vote NO on Amendment 46 in Colorado and Initiative 424 in Nebraska. Both would bar state and local governments from discriminating against and granting preferences to people in hiring, contracting, and admissions based on race and sex. Too many blacks believe that lowered standards and racial discrimination are OK as long as blacks benefit.
Melissa Hart’s “No on 46″ campaign paid for a radio ad that referred to Ward Connerly as a “carpetbagger.” One man impersonating Connerly said he’d “gotten rich off this scam for so long.”
Putting the government out of the skin color business – what a scam!
The ad was scheduled to run from October 28 until November 4. After the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative complained, calling the ad deceptive, KOA-AM and KBCO-FM station management asked the ad backers to change it. Hart’s campaign has submitted a new ad. (Source)
As you may recall, Hart herself called Connerly a carpetbagger, a derisive term southerners called northerners who traveled south after the Civil War to establish order and to help freed slaves.
According to a CBS4/Rocky Mountain News poll, 53 percent of registered Colorado voters support Amendment 46, which would put state and local governments out of the skin color business. (Source)
I suspect those who say they don’t support it don’t understand the issue. Amendment 46 will not end affirmative action, which doesn’t involve discrimination and preferential treatment. The measure would bar the government from treating people differently based on race and sex.
The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative’s Jessica Peck Corry told CBS4, “The time has come for the government to stop picking winners and losers based on race and gender. Colorado is a progressive state dedicated to equal opportunity and our equal opportunity programs should reflect that commitment.”
Melissa Hart, co-chair of No on Amendment 46, argues that the measure “uses language evocative of the civil rights movement, but it actually is an anti-civil rights measure,” yet she calls Ward Connerly a “carpetbagger,” language evocative of anti-Reconstructionists! On the civil rights movement point, she’s correct. The very thing black Americans fought against back then is still being done today, this time in favor of blacks and in the name of skin deep-only diversity. Government-sanctioned racial discrimination must be eliminated, no matter which group benefits.
Carpetbaggers, you may remember from history books, is a derisive term southerners gave to northerners who ventured below the Mason-Dixon line after the Civil War to establish order and to help freed slaves. By calling Connerly a carpetbagger, Hart intends to evoke similar derision. It’s ironic that she uses the language of people who not only wanted to keep blacks in bondage, but also wanted to keep the country divided. She’s so strongly opposed to Amendment 46 that she co-opts the language of pro-slavery southerners?
How progressive of you, Ms. Hart.
Addendum: Steven Willborn, dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law, called Roger Clegg an “outside agitator” for daring to study the law school’s admission policies. Outside agitators is what southerners call northerners who traveled south to help break down Jim Crow during the civil rights movement. Hmmm…I’m beginning to see a pattern.
One of the ways preference proponents rally opposition to measures like Amendment 46 is to use emotion-laden rhetoric.
“This anti-affirmative action measure will end summer science camp for girls!”
What Amendment 46 would do is prevent public funds from being used to sponsor events and support policies that discriminate against and grant preferential treatment to people based on race and sex. In that regard, Amendment 46 would prevent the use of tax dollars to grant preferential treatment to girls in summer science camp programs.
As Colorado Civil Rights Initiative president Jessica Peck Corry says, “The programs can still go on, they just can’t grant preferential treatment if they take state tax dollars.” (Rocky Truth Patrol)
Preferences proponent Melissa Hart, a University of Colorado law school faculty member, said: “If you say it has to be gender neutral or it can’t get public funding, either way, you’re eliminating the original program.”
If the program depends on tax dollars, Hart is correct. If the program ends, so be it. The point is that the government should not be using public funds to discriminate against people based on race or sex for any reason, not even to fund a summer science program for members of an underrepresented group.
I’m 99 percent certain, however, that plenty of private donors are more than willing to fund such programs.
Among those who oppose race preferences, you think you’d find coaches of sports teams. But according to this story, coaches at the University of Colorado (UC), Colorado State University, and the University of Northern Colorado say the proposed ban on race preferences is a “threat to college students.”
The article quotes Jeff Bzdelik, former NBA coach and current basketball coach at UC, who says Colorado should be increasing “opportunities” for blacks students, and he believes Amendment 46 would eliminate those opportunities.
First, if “opportunities” means being admitted under less rigorous standards because of skin color, Bzdelik is right. Amendment 46 seeks to eliminate double standards, discrimination, and preferences.
Second, I wonder how Bzdelik feels about race preferences as applied to athletics? I’m almost certain CU’s basketball team is predominantly black, with a few white tokens thrown in. What if all college sports teams in Colorado had to maintain a balance of colors, as it were, to comply with politically correct notions of diversity? Bzdelik would have to eliminate black players to make room for whites and Asians.
I’ll go out on a limb to say Bzdelik would not like it, nor would any other basketball or football coach in Colorado’s universities. There’s a reason blacks tend to dominate sports teams like basketball and football, and it’s performance-based. Imagine a college telling the coach he must reduce the number of blacks on the team, regardless of performance, for the sake of diversity, and increase the number of whites and Asians, regardless of performance.
Ridiculous? In a way, but why shouldn’t Jeff Bzdelik and other college coaches be held to the same standards as admissions offices? After all, diversity is a noble thing to which we all should strive to acquire, is it not?
(By the way, I couldn’t find a group photo of the basketball or football teams on any university’s web site.)
Ward Connerly was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” today to discuss anti-race preferences initiatives. Connerly appeared opposite Shanta Driver, director of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigration Rights By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a group dedicated to maintaining lowered standards for women and minorities.
Connerly explained why initiatives failed in states like Arizona and Missouri. Despite BAMN’s “deplorable tactics” to stop the measures, as Connerly notes, these initiatives didn’t succeed because the American Civil Rights Initiative ran out of time to gather signatures. State initiatives will appear on ballots in Colorado and Nebraska. Watch the video here.
Connerly also appeared on NRO TV’s “Uncommon Knowledge” with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson. Connerly will be featured in a five-segment series. Check out the first segment. He explains the difference between affirmative action and race preferences. The two are not synonymous.
Mayor John Hickenlooper has announced his opposition to a measure that would give equal opportunity to anyone seeking admission to a Colorado university or a job in a state or local government agency.
Colorado Independent reporter Naomi Zeveloff obviously opposes Amendment 46, too, as she frames the initiative as a “measure that will destroy public affirmative action programs statewide.”
As I’ve written for years on my personal blog, in columns and more recently, on this blog, “affirmative action” and “race preferences” are not synonymous. They are two entirely different policies. One seeks to include more qualified minorities in hiring and admissions pools, and the other seeks to grant preferential treatment to certain minority groups, which also leads to discrimination against members of non-preferred groups.
When will people get it? Hickenlooper sure doesn’t. In 2004, he opposed a bill introduced by Ed Jones, a black Republican state senator, that would have barred colleges and government agencies from considering race in admissions and hiring. Does he really believe preferential treatment doesn’t result in discrimination?
The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative’s Jessica Peck Corry makes the case in the Denver Post that it’s time to end government discrimination and preferential treatment. A vote for Amendment 46 is a vote for equality.
Amendment 46 will eliminate government preferences based on factors like race and sex and open outreach to individuals with disadvantages, regardless of race or sex. Corry writes:
“Voters should support Amendment 46 because fairness and equality dictate that our affirmative-action efforts — designed initially to fight the effects of discrimination — don’t discriminate. If we want to promote diversity, we must lay to rest the false notion that diversity is tied to our biology and not our own unique life experiences.”
There’s also a false notion that women and minorities can’t succeed without preferential treatment. As Corry notes, admission rates for the University of California system have increased at seven of its nine campuses since Proposition 209 became law in 1996, and over half of UC undergraduates are women. Proposition 209 has not stopped qualified women and minorities from gaining admission.
Taking economic disadvantage into consideration is preferable to factoring in skin color and sex in admissions decisions. Colorado voters have a chance to make sure their state is barred from discriminating.
For those whose recollection is faulty, here’s an excerpt of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
Update: A commenter to Corry’s op-ed writes:
“I’m an African American law student. I scored a 174 out of 180 on my LSAT and entered law school with a 3.95 GPA. I am in the top 20% of my class and yet I’m STILL ASKED how I got admitted. The question is usually framed around a comment such as ‘how did you get in when my friend/sister/brother/cousin/dog groomer’ couldn’t. My simple answer is that I outperformed them. The doubts linger, nevertheless.
“In my opinion, eliminating programs that give people a reason to doubt minority academic achievement is a good thing. Admissions should be merit based, period.”
I don’t have much faith in polls, whether they favor my position or not, but I can’t help smiling about this:
According to a poll taken by Quinnipiac University, Amendment 46 will pass 63 percent to 21 percent. (Source) The measure would amend the Colorado state constitution to bar the government from discriminating against or granting preferences in hiring, contracting, and admissions based on factors like race and sex.
About 1,000 likely voters participated in the telephone poll.
The views and opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the American Civil Rights Institute. This blog is written and maintained by La Shawn Barber. E-mail her at lashawnbarber@gmail.com
In contrast, Nebraska’s voters did the right thing by putting their state and local governments out of the skin color business. Initiative 424 passed with almost 58 percent of the vote. When asked about this victory and future ballot initiatives, Ward Connerly told the Associated Press that “it certainly strengthens the effort…The people of Nebraska, who have a motto of equality before the law, simply are reinforcing that.”
Ward Connerly was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” today to discuss anti-race preferences initiatives. Connerly appeared opposite Shanta Driver, director of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigration Rights 
