Although candidates for office in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Virginia will no doubt disagree, the most important election yesterday was in Washington state, where, for a second time, voters have rejected racial preference by voting down Referendum 88.
Voters supported racial preference in only three counties — King (Seattle), Jefferson (a rich suburban country across the bay from Seattle), San Juan (suburban islands near Seattle), and Whatcom (Bellingham, where the vote to approve Ref. 88 was only 52%-48%). It was rejected in the other 35 counties across the state.
I recently discussed Ref. 88 at length on Minding The Campus — A Duplicitous Attempt to Rescue Affirmative Action —and will have more to say about it shortly. (I’m flattered: Kan Qiu, one of the lead organizers of the successful effort to prevent the return of racial preference, sent an email at 3:00am his time this morning thanking me for that article and mentioning that he had distributed it widely.)
For now suffice it to say that we should all rejoice that a majority of voters, even in a very liberal state, were perceptive enough to see through the duplicity of the measure proposed by preference supporters and the misleading discussion of that measure by virtually the entire press of the state.
