BAMN BAMN

The “notorious and fanatical” (to borrow its linguistic style) Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) has launched a petition to remove Ward Connerly from the UC Board of Regents. It reads, in full:

Since he became a University of California Regent in 1993, Ward Connerly, the most notorious and fanatical right wing opponent of civil rights in California, has used this position as a platform from which to spearhead a series of state-wide and national attacks on civil rights and integration. Ward Connerly is the frontman of a right wing national effort aimed at outlawing affirmative action, resegregating higher education and rendering Brown v. Board of Education a dead letter.

Connerly was the principal author and champion of Proposition 54, an attack on civil rights, freedom of information and academic freedom so extreme and irrational that it was rejected by 63.9% of California voters of all parties. The U.C. Regents should bring an end to this disgraceful abuse of the name of the University of California.

At least that’s the full text on BAMN’s site. Readers are told, however, that the petition can also be signed here, where its text is both longer and out of date:

The right wing in California has spent vast resources in an attempt to take over the state through the recall of Governor Gray Davis. Meanwhile, Ward Connerly, the most notorious and fanatical right wing opponent of civil rights in California, still sits securely ensconced on the Board of Regents of the University of California, using his position every day to advance a right wing national agenda aimed at rolling back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement of 1960’s and rendering meaningless the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that separate can never be equal.

Since he became a University of California Regent in 1993, funded and supported by a laundry-list of extreme right-wing and racist forces, Republican businessman Ward Connerly has used his position to spearhead a series of state-wide and national attacks on civil rights and integration. More than any other individual, he led the campaign for Proposition 209 that has led to the narrowing of opportunities in education and employment for black, Latino, and Native American students in California. Now Ward Connerly is attempting to nullify the June 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grutter v. Bollinger that upheld and strengthened the legal basis for affirmative action in higher education. He is using his title and position as U.C. Regent to push the anti-affirmative action Proposition 54 (the so-called “Racial Privacy Initiative”) and other anti-civil rights propositions in Michigan and other states.

Connerly’s continuing in his position as U.C. Regent sends a message to minority students in California and around the nation that they are not really welcome at the University of California. The U.C. Regents should bring an end to this disgraceful misuse of the name of the University of California.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, CALL ON THE U.C. REGENTS TO VOTE TO DEMAND WARD CONNERLY’S IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION OR REMOVAL.

I still find it remarkable that people can argue with a straight face that attempts to bar discrimination based on race would reverse “the gains of the Civil Rights Movement of [the] 1960s” and undermine Brown v. Board of Education.