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Michigan Proposition is Ward Connerly's Latest Assault on Affirmative Action
Michigan's Proposition 2 (a dead ringer for California's Proposition 209 which passed in 1996) is in a tight spot in the polls with only a week to go.
The proposition would ban any affirmative action programs that "give preferential treatment to individuals or groups based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity, or national origin." Also known as the "Michigan Civil Rights Initiative" the proposition's campaign is funded by Ward Connerly, the same man responsible for the California proposal and is headed by Jennifer Gratz
plaintiff in the 2003 University of Michigan Supreme Court case, which upheld the school's use of race as a factor in admissions while also outlawing their formal points system in making such decisions.
Conservative students on the Michigan campus have been actively supporting the measure while the National Bar Association, the UAW, the ACLU and both the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates oppose it.
Connerly, who is African American, has spent $500,000 on the Michigan campaign, and has been on a zealous crusade to end affirmative action programs for more than a decade. As he told the New York Times, "When my toes turn up, that's when I'll stop fighting this."
Poll numbers suggest many in Michigan haven't made up their minds yet. An October 18 Detroit Free Press poll showed 41% in favor, 44% opposed and 15% undecided.
Should the measure pass California could be a window into the future, where numbers of Latino and African students in the state's University of California system have dropped significantly since 1997 (the year after Prop 209 passed). At UC Berkeley this year only 3% of the entering freshman class was African American and at UCLA the number was 2%, the lowest in 30 years.
—Amaya Rivera
Let's hope Michigan voters aren't duped by the "civil rights" moniker on that initiative...
In my opinion that which holds the US position on civil rights and race in check are those rules and laws created in the sixties. Remove those rules and those laws, and we will rapidly return to racist, segregated America. It would seem that the percent of blacks presently attending California Universities confirms that claim. We have come along ways but we are by no means liberated when it comes to race and are in fact quite backwards. It is true that in certain cases a person will win the right to attend a school based solely on race and not by merit alone. But just consider those individuals that come from the elite class in society, people like president Bush who aren't academically qualified to attend a school but come in on the basis of some other criterion, where is the proposition to stop those cases and why don't we hear about those cases?
Very happy that this proposal has passed, I personally voted yes. I have always thought that you should be judged by what you've done, not who you are. Nobody looks at the applications and says "Oh, your this minority or gender, you're obviously not qualified.". It has should strictly have to do with your qualification, it isn't anybodies fault but your own if you don't have the requirements to get into an institute such as The University of Michigan. Maybe you should work a little harder rather than assume it's owed to you.
Congratulations to all those who courageously fought for the passsage of Proposition 2 despite the despictable nature of the attacks against them by the opponents of Proposition 2. Preferential treatment, for the most part, is a demand only from those who have not achieved an inner dignity and self-respect and seek to project blame on "oppressors".
The only affirmative action that should be called for is that which improves the environments impoverished children of all races suffer under.
Larry Liguori