Ward Connerly spoke in Denver on Thursday, and the Rocky Mountain News reports that he should be considered “the not-so-calm wind before the storm that will be the affirmative action battle during the Colorado legislature’s 2004 session, which begins Jan. 7.”
Angered at the Supreme Court’s decision in Grutter, Republicans are drafting legislation, to be introduced by Colorado Springs Sen. Ed Jones, the only black Republican in the legislature, that would outlaw the use of race as a factor in admission to the state’s colleges and universities.
Colorado Democrats shuddered at the news that Republicans are working on an anti-affirmative action bill.
Sen. Peter Groff, who also is director of the Center for African-American Policy at the University of Denver, said it is “baffling” to him why the GOP would want to bring such a plan.
Colorado schools already have a system much like that in Michigan, he said. State colleges use race as one of myriad indicators for admissions and for trying to diversify classes, he said.
The Republican-led effort is a “smoke screen,” Groff said, to keep Democrats from working on real problems like job creation, empowerment programs for cities and counties and early childhood education.
“It just doesn’t make sense. It’s divisive. I think it’s intellectually inappropriate because it’s not really an issue in Colorado,” he said.
To Democrats these days, awarding preference based on race is unifying, and opposing race-based preferences and insisting that all invividuals be treated equally regardless of race is “divisive.”
No wonder they’re baffled. The world they see is backwards, or upside down.
