Oklahoma is one of the five states targeted for a civil rights petition on the November 2008 ballot to ban race, ethnic, and gender preferences.
As in the other states that have passed similar initiatives (California, Washington, Michigan), those who want to preserve preferential treatment based on those categories have a hard time crafting opposing arguments. A good example comes from this article today summarizing the pending campaigns:
Durrell Hodge, president of the University of Oklahoma’s student chapter of the NAACP, said his group has taken an official stance against the initiative but hasn’t yet decided what to do about it.
Hodge said he is concerned that people would sign a petition to put the initiative on the ballot and then vote for it without understanding what the measure’s effects.
“We need to be on the lookout,” Hodge said. “Their tactics are to get people to sign the petition by putting signs on it saying it stops discriminatory practices.”
Of course, that is exactly what it would do.
