Council On American-Islamic Relations Supports Affirmative Action

Oklahoma is shaping up to be one of the next battlegrounds in the effort to get rid of state-sponsored racial and ethnic preferences. State Question 759, modeled on similar measures that passed in California (Prop. 209) and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative), is expected to be on the Nov. 2012 ballot, and, as the Tulsa World reports today, the usual suspects are organizing to oppose it.

Well, most but not all of them are usual.

“We strongly believe in equal opportunity programs in Oklahoma,” said Tamya Cox, ACLU of Oklahoma legislative counsel. “We currently are a part of a huge coalition that will soon be kicking off a ‘Vote no’ campaign in the next few months to combat State Question 759.”

The group has been meeting since the summer and expects to file as a campaign in early January or sooner, Cox said.

The Oklahoma Federation of Democratic Women, Change Oklahoma and the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations are among the coalition’s members.

“We believe this attempt to ban affirmative action is actually against the interest of the state and those that want equality not only for minorities but also for women,” said Muneer Awad, CAIR-Oklahoma executive director. “We think this is about equal opportunity and getting rid of affirmative action is a step in the wrong direction.”

It should no longer be a surprise that liberal groups like the ACLU and Democratic Women now define “equal opportunity” to mean requiring the state to treat people unequally based on their race, ethnicity, or gender, but does CAIR really have a dog in this fight? Certainly it seems safe to say that Islamic women around the world face problems far more severe than the prospect that the state of Oklahoma may be required to treat them equally, i.e., neither to burden nor benefit them based on gender.