Discriminations

Nov. 4, 11:10 P.M.

According to the Omaha World-Telegram, “Nebraska voters approved a constitutional amendment that would ban race- and gender-based affirmative action programs.”

The vote total was not provided; I’ll add it later. A court challenge to the initiative is also still pending.

With about 25% of the precincts reporting at this hour, the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative is losing, 51.89% to 48.11%.

I’ll update these totals later or, more likely, tomorrow.

UPDATES

11:20 P.M.

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative passed with 56% of the vote.

Nov. 5, 12:45 A.M.

The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative is slowly inching up. With about half the precincts reporting, CCRI is still behind, but now by only 50.89% to 49.11%.

Nov. 5, 6:58 A.M.

With 2,796 of 3,215 precincts reporting, CCRI now trails by 50.34% to 49.66%.

Meanwhile, in Nebraska, the Omaha World Telegram has expanded its article, cited above, now grudgingly reporting that

The voters have spoken, banning affirmative action in Nebraska.

Now the Nebraska Supreme Court might get its say....

But David Kramer, the director for Nebraskans United, which opposed the ballot measure, said he holds out hope that a Lancaster County District Court judge soon will declare the petition drive — and therefore Tuesday's vote — invalid....

Kramer acknowledged that some voters would be frustrated if the courts invalidated the election results.

Nov. 5, 9:40 P.M.

With 2,935 of 3,215 precincts reporting, the margin between opponents and proponents of racial preferences in Colorado remains razor-thin: 50.36% in favor of preserving state racial preference policies; 49.64% in favor of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which would prohibit them.

Explanations vary for why Colorado may become the first state to reject a proposal mandating colorblind equality. There were so many complex initiatives on the Colarodo ballot this year, nearly all of which failed, that many observers think there was a large “No” vote against any and all initiatives.

Voters took a look at one of the longest sets of ballot measures in state history and responded with one short word: "No."

Nine of 14 statewide questions were rejected by voters, including two that had the high-profile support of Gov. Bill Ritter and other top state Democrats. One other [CCRI] was losing late, though still too close to call.

Ultimately, Ciruli believes, the massive turnout for Obama helped the opponents.

“They benefited from a good year.... They also picked up the progressive audience who were voting for a black president.”

Nov. 6, 11:10 P.M.

With 96% of the precincts reporting, CCRI is losing, 51% to 49%. Most of the remaining precincts are in liberal Boulder and Mesa counties.

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Opponents of civil rights initiatives — proposals pending in three states that would require treating individuals without regard to race, ethnicity, or gender — often say that such a requirement isn’t needed because the discrimination these initiatives claim to prohibit is already illegal and that no such targeted preferential treatment programs actually exist. They say that about as often as they also say if misguided and misinformed voters actually prohibit state agencies from “taking race into account,” etc., the sky will fall, resegregation will occur, Jim Crow will reign again, leading a resurgent Ku Klux Klan to dance in the streets. (You may think I exaggerate, but if you do you haven’t seen the videos I have — more on them to come — showing opponents of racial equality in action as they try to disrupt the signature gathering process for these initiatives.)

Colorado University, Boulder, without quite admitting that it practices discrimination, has recently issued a statement claiming that a requirement to treat applicants, students, staff, etc., without regard to their race/ethnicity/gender would have a “big impact” on its operations.

What, exactly, would be lost? Well, that’s not so clear.

The University of Colorado, which has been working to increase its minority enrollment at the Boulder campus, said Thursday it couldn’t consider an applicant’s race, gender or ethnicity if voters dismantle state affirmative-action programs.

The university also said about 100 privately funded scholarships designed to benefit women and minority students could be restricted if the November ballot measure, Amendment 46, becomes law.

“If this initiative is passed by Colorado voters, it would indeed have a big impact on the University of Colorado, as we would have to modify some of our admissions programs,” said spokeswoman Deborah Mendez-Wilson.

“We’re not sure of the full impact at this point.”

And no longer being able to discriminate in these instances is bad because ... ?

Meanwhile, I have it on impeccable authority that opponents of non-discriminatory equal treatment in Colorado have told Jessica Peck Corry, the executive director of CCRI, that she engaged in “racial fraud” for using some blacks to gather signatures during the (successful) drive to place CCRI on the ballot.

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The Rocky Mountain News more often than not gets things right. Yesterday, however, it did not.

Here is the piece in its entirety:

Initiative backers plan to file complaint

Organizers of an initiative to eliminate most affirmative action programs in Colorado say they will file a fraud complaint against their opponents, whom they charge with lying.

Jessica Peck Corry, executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, is advocating for Amendment 46 on the November ballot. It would ban programs aimed at boosting minority and female contracting, educational enrollment or hiring except those that are a requirement for receiving federal funding.

Corry said Coloradans for Equal Opportunity, which is gathering signatures for Initiative 82, a measure that would retain affirmative action programs, has mischaracterized what Amendment 46 says.

Neither the purpose nor the effect of Prop. 46 is or would be to “ban programs aimed at boosting minority and female contracting, educational enrollment or hiring except those that are a requirement for receiving federal funding.” It would ban only programs that give preferential treatment to some minorities and women, that treat some people better and some people worse because of their race, sex, or ethnicity. All programs, even “affirmative action” programs, that do not engage in race, ethnic, or gender preferences would be left intact.

ADDENDUM

And speaking of non-news by a source that usually gets things right, you also should take a look at Fred Barnes’ long, fascinating, and depressing article about the “Colorado Model,” what rich liberals are doing to politics in Colorado.

It’s a fine article, except that you’d think such a long, thorough piece on the political landscape in Colorado would at least mention the increasingly incendiary debate over the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative and the role it will play in the coming election. Alas, Barnes doesn’t.

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Predictably, the Colorado Council of Churches is opposing the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, Amendment 46, that would bar the state from engaging in preferential treatment based on race, sex, or ethnicity.

The group says Amendment 46 would eliminate things like science and math tutoring for young women and closing the gender gap in pay.

“Progress has been made in overcoming the effects of centuries of discrimination against women and people of color, but we are not there yet. As people of faith, we feel called to stand with them,” said Jim Ryan, the council’s executive director.

Initiatives identical to the one in Colorado have passed, by substantial majorities, in California, Washington, and Michigan, and been implemented. It would strengthen the Colorado churchpeople’s argument if they could point to any “science and math tutoring for young women” that have been eliminated anywhere as a result of these initiatives. It would also be useful if the faithful could give a few examples of the sorts of programs aimed at “closing the gender gap in pay” the Colorado they think would be put at risk.

Faith is often said to be blind, but in Colorado it’s apparently dumb as well.

According to its Mission Statement, the Colorado Council of Churches is “more an organism than an organization, more a body than a bureaucracy, more becoming than being.”

I’d say it’s not there yet.

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“We live side by side but not together.” That’s how one person recently described “the fallout from decades of race-based affirmative action policies.” People, she said, “were fed up.”

Those people are in Malaysia, which just handed the governing party a surprise rebuke that was based heavily on a long-simmering rejection of Malaysia’s “affirmative action” policies.

Unless the Democrats succeed in blocking or undermining civil rights initiatives now underway in five states, some voters in the United States will have the opportunity to express their rejection of race preferences policies next November. In that regard, the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative just submitted nearly 129,000 signatures to the Secretary of State to place the CCRI on the ballot. Only 76,000 are required.

UPDATE [11 March]

Malaysia's resurgent opposition today decided to abolish affirmative action policies favouring ethnic Malays in the states ruled by them, a move that may sound music to the ears of the minority Indian and Chinese communities.

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Colorado: The Good Guys Win A Round, posted yesterday, has been updated.

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Conceding that they cannot win an honest contest over racial preferences, the opponents of colorblind equality in Colorado have turned, as preferentialists always do, to disingenuousness and obfuscation.

Combining a sly version of the tried and true “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” tactic with a bait and switch, two sentence initiative where the second sentence negates the first, the clever Colorado preferentialists are proposing their own counter initiative:

Colorado Equal Opportunity Initiative

The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public contracting, or public education. Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as limiting the State’s authority to act consistently with standards set under the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, in public employment, public education, or public contracting.

The key point, of course, is that the Supreme Court has, unfortunately, allowed states to engage in certain limited forms of racial preference, but it has not required them to do so. The civil rights initiatives that have passed in three states and that are being proposed in five additional states, including Colorado, prohibit preference programs that the Supreme Court has not ruled unconstitutional. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, and the Colorado preferentialists, by their attempted obfuscation, recognize that voters will approve such an initiative if given the clear opportunity.

Here’s a test: before this language is approved by the title board or the Colorado Supreme Court, its proponents should be forced to provide examples — even one example would do — of a program or policy in Colorado that would be prohibited if their initiative passes. They, of course, can’t, revealing that their only motive is to sew confusion and prevent an initiative that would bar preferential treatment from passing.

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Please see the UPDATE to From Inane To Sublime To Ridiculous below.

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In my post immediately below I criticized two columns, one of them from the Rocky Mountain News, as utterly inane. Today I’m happy to report that the Rocky Mountain News has a column by Vincent Carroll, the Rocky’s editorial page editor, that is superb. (HatTip to reader Linda Seebach, recently retired as an editorial writer at the Rocky Mountain News.)

A few days ago the Colorado Supreme Court upheld, on a 3–3 vote, the decision of a state board to allow the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative to be placed on the November 2008 ballot if its supporters gather a sufficient number of signatures, thus disappointing Democrats and liberals who, as usual, tried to prevent citizens from having an opportunity to vote for or against racial and ethnic preferences.

CCRI states, in language almost identical to the language approved by voters in California, Washington, and Michigan, that

the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Good questions. Editor Carroll was perplexed as well:

Love or loathe the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, it’s straightforward, simple and easy to understand. No hidden agendas or confusing language. Just a stark ban on government discrimination based on race, sex or the other familiar categories.

So why did three state Supreme Court justices try to sabotage the amendment last week, claiming it violated the rule barring a ballot measure from having more than one subject?
....
Yet despite its clarity, the measure survived a legal challenge only because the court knotted in a tie. Three justices (Nancy Rice, Nathan Coats and Alison Eid) agreed it was a single subject, while three others (Mary Mullarkey, Greg Hobbs and Alex Martinez) said it wasn’t. Justice Michael Bender did not participate.

The amendment’s opponents claim its language implies that preferential treatment “is simply a subcategory of ‘discrimination,’” and they dispute whether that’s the case.

Preferential treatment “can certainly involve forms of ‘discrimination,’” the litigants concede, but it also “involves a good bit more than that.” In fact, they say, some forms of preferential treatment “disadvantage no one.”

What they’re saying, I think, is that “discrimination” can only be against, never for. Thus “preferential treatment” of a person or group based on race, ethnicity, etc., is not discrimination at all. Thus, so the argument goes, banning discrimination and preferential treatment is doing two things, not one. Again leaving aside whether one can favor some people based on race without inevitably disfavoring others based on race, the argument of Mullarkey et. al. is, well, pure malarkey (“meaningless talk; nonsense”). It’s an argument that deserves ridicule and contempt more than refutation.

Carroll refutes the argument, thus giving it more respect than it deserves.

The short answer to this argument is that the measure’s sponsors obviously disagree. They believe “preferential treatment” is a subcategory of discrimination. That’s why they want it on the ballot — to end practices they consider wrong.

Nor are the measure’s sponsors unusual in mentioning discrimination and preferential treatment in the same breath. As the title board’s brief points out, “The United States Supreme Court has long acknowledged the close relationship between laws or actions that discriminate against an individual or a group based upon race, gender, nationality or ethnicity, and those that grant preferential treatment toward an individual or group.”

Every statute or amendment contains unanswered questions regarding its application, and the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative is no exception. But given the amendment’s overall clarity and narrow focus, it’s nothing less than scandalous that three justices of the state’s highest court were prepared to prevent voters from ever ruling on it.

If you want to understand their high-handed attitude, you could do worse than consult Squealer, the propagandist in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

“Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure,” Squealer explains at one point. “On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”

UPDATE [20 September]

David Nieporent comments below on the briefs submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court opposing CCRI. HatTip to him for pointing me to them.

Although the Colorado Women’s Bar Association brief opposing allowing CCRI on the ballot gives a pro-forma nod to the objection that discrimination and preferential treatment are two different things, it really provides only one reason for its objection: it receives the assistance of the University of Colorado law school in awarding two “gender specific” scholarships every year, and it is

concerned that the ability of the University of Colorado, as a public institution of higher education, to administer and facilitate the application process would be imperiled by this Initiative.

The lady lawyers go on to claim that if the University can’t help them, their task would be more difficult, “if not impossible,” because that would “virtually eliminate [its] referral source for students.” Presumably female law students at the University of Colorado would be incapable of learning of the availability of these two scholarships, and the lady lawyers would be incapable of publicizing them without the University’s active assistance.

Substitute “race specific” for “gender specific” and “white” for “women” to evaluate the position of the Colorado Women’s Bar Association. If you think public scholarships limited to whites are acceptable, then by all means oppose CCRI. If not, tell the lady lawyers to take a hike.

Hard though it may be to believe, the brief submitted by the Colorado ACLU opposing allowing citizens to vote on CCRI may be even worse. From its “Summary of Argument” at the very beginning:

The phrase “preferential treatment” has no common meaning, nor it is not [sic] defined anywhere within the initiative. It may or may not prohibit a wide range of constitutionally permissible laws and programs affecting persons of a particular race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. As the phrase has no clear meaning and is submitted without definition, the proposed initiative is ambiguous, misleading, and inaccurate, and the effect of a “yes” vote on the proposed initiative is unclear.”
....
A detailed exploration of the many meanings of “preferential treatment” demonstrates the confusion the term engenders. For example, one reading of term [sic] implicates only programs that would “prefer” a person of one class to the disadvantage of a person from another class. Under this interpretation, the phrase “preferential treatment” would not include programs that provide additional opportunities or resources to one class with disadvantaging others, such as a special recognition award for women, designated scholarships to persons of color, or holidays celebrating a certain country or ethnic heritage.

Let us, however, suspend disbelief, lean over backwards, go the extra mile, etc., and assume the Colorado ACLU really is as confused as it claims to be. If we do that, we can easily dismiss its fear about the fate of “a special recognition award for women” and various ethnic holidays by reminding that organization that the proposed initiative is limited to barring discrimination/preferential treatment based on race, sex, ethnicity, etc. only by the state and only “in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” “Woman of the Year” awards, “Mexican Heritage Month,” etc., are entirely safe.

On the other hand, is there really anybody in Colorado, even on the legal staff of the ACLU, who doubts that public scholarships limited to members of one race is preferential treatment based on race? I don’t think so.

One final thought: if the Colorado ACLU really and truly is confused about the meaning of preferential treatment based on race, etc., I really and truly feel sorry for the poor souls who must rely on it to argue on their behalf that this program or that policy violates state or federal laws against racial discrimination or the Constitution’s requirement of equal protection of the laws.

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Diane Carman is a columnist for the Denver Post. The Denver Post is a liberal newspaper. Colorado is facing a Michigan-like initiative barring racial preferences. Thus a recent column by Diane Carman recycles all the innuendoes, misrepresentations, and outright lies that her ideological colleagues in Michigan, in and out of the press, attempted, with a stunning lack of success, to use to defeat the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

I wish it were not that simple, but it is.

Speaking of the campaign to end race and ethnic preferences, she writes, as they all do,

Their goal is to end affirmative action, though they rarely say it that plainly. And if their tactics in Michigan are any indication, a wave of voter fraud could be headed our way.

TO BAN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS THAT GIVE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO GROUPS OR INDIVIDUALS BASED ON THEIR RACE, GENDER, COLOR, ETHNICITY OR NATIONAL ORIGIN FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION OR CONTRACTING PURPOSES

And what does she mean by “voter fraud”? Apparently, telling voters that a civil rights measure is a civil rights measure:

Ruthie Stevenson, president of the Macomb County chapter of the Michigan NAACP, said she was approached by a circulator who said the measure would “make civil rights fairer for everybody....”

Even the mayor of Kalamazoo, Hanna McKinney, testified that she was misled and would never have signed the petition if she had known it supported a ban on affirmative action.

Although Ms. Carman facilely repeats fraud charges that were levied in Michigan, there is no indication in her column that she considered, or even read, the lengthy rebuttal of those charges released by MCRI.

Unfortunately, two federal courts have extended the life span of some of these charges by seeming to give them some credibility, even as they both dismissed the lawsuit based on them. Mychal Massie makes mincemeat of these judicial kowtows to political correctness here. (Note that the link in Massie’s article to the MCRI rebuttal of the fraud charges is, as of this writing, incorrect. Use the one above.)

If anyone should cite the comments in these opinions as proof of anything, you should reply that you’re surprised to hear such faith that everything federal judges say in their opinions is correct. Somehow you’d missed that same faithful regard for everything Chief Justice Roberts just wrote in barring racial school assignments by race.

ADDENDUM

Since Ms. Carman appears to regard everything in court opinions as scripture, she should have taken a look at the decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in its decision refusing to strike the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative from the ballot because of the allegations that some of signature gatherers committed “fraud” by describing the proposal to ban racial preferences as a civil rights measure. (See here and here.)

As I noted here, Justice Stephen Markman’s opinion was eloquent. Even “[a]ssuming the accuracy of everything set forth” in the allegations, he wrote [which, by the way, I do not],

the signers of these petitions did not sign the oral representations made to them by circulators; rather, they signed written petitions that contained the actual language of the MCRI. This Court does not sit in review of the hundreds of thousands of individual conversations that may have occurred between petition circulators and signers. Rather, it sits in review of the petitions themselves.
....
In carrying out the responsibilities of self-government, “we the people” of Michigan are responsible for our own actions. In particular, when the citizen acts in what is essentially a legislative capacity by facilitating the enactment of a constitutional amendment, he cannot blame others when he signs a petition without knowing what it says. It is not to excuse misrepresentations, when they occur, to recognize nonetheless that it is the citizen's duty to inform himself about the substance of a petition before signing it, precisely in order to combat potential misrepresentations.

A necessary assumption of the petition process must be that the signer has undertaken to read and understand the petition. Otherwise, this process would be subject to perpetual collateral attack, and the judiciary would be required to undertake determinations for which there are no practical legal standards and which essentially concern matters of political dispute.

Ms. Carman and her like-minded friends would like to deny the citizens of Colorado that opportunity.

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I am usually (though not always) impressed by the Rocky Mountain News — its editorial judgments, the fairness of its news coverage, and the competence of its columnists. Columnist Jason Saltzman is the exception, but maybe every barrel must have its rotten apple. Salzman’s column today is titled “A Labeling Challenge,” and what he writes proves that he’s not up to it.

Salzman’s point is that Colorado journalists are not doing their duty when they describe the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative as a measure that would ban preferential treatment of anyone based on race, gender, or ethnicity. To him, “preferential treatment” is “a loaded phrase” proponents are using in an attempt “to frame the debate,” and reporters shouldn’t allow them (us) to get away with such a frame-up when opponents, i.e., the good guys,

want to talk about how affirmative action isn't about preferences but about promoting basic equality and fairness, mostly through recruitment and training.

Journalists are of course sorely tempted to such language because the wording of CCRI, after all, plainly states:

The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.

To me, “special treatment” implies that affirmative action only helps special groups, like blacks or women.

Actually, affirmative action protects all of us. If white males are becoming a minority on college campuses, for example, they could benefit from affirmative action.

Everyone’s special, even California right-winger Ward Connerly, who’s backing the Colorado campaign.

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I’ve been misreading Salzman, or his role at the Rocky.

Maybe he’s a humor columnist.

UPDATE

Reader (and blogger) Chet Zarko calls attention to another Rocky Mountain News story about yet another threatening development in Denver: without any forced busing or government-mandated “critical masses” in neighborhoods, “diversity” is breaking out all over, apparently threatening those black politicians who win office by appealing to black voters on black issues.

Blacks in Denver make up roughly 11 percent of the city’s population. But traditional black neighborhoods are becoming more diverse, and the changes are making it more difficult for black politicians to maintain their traditional base.
Consider what happened last month in the City Council District 8 election.

The district includes the Five Points neighborhood just northeast of downtown, an area that has been the symbolic heart of Denver’s black community.

Carla Madison, a white neighborhood activist, narrowly defeated Bailey, the black former school board member, for a seat that had been held by a black since the 1950s, most recently by Wedgeworth.

Denver Democrats Sen. Peter Groff and Rep. Terrance Carroll view Madison’s victory as a wake- up call for the black community and a watershed event.

“I don’t know if I would say seats are in danger, but certainly, traditional seats can no longer be said to be safe African-American seats,” Groff said. “Carla Madison’s victory should be a signal to those looking to run for office that they’re not going to be elected purely because they happened to be African-American.”

Madison credits her victory to her close ties to the neighborhood and to focusing on issues that span racial lines.

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Here we go again. The hysterical fear-mongering accusations that barring the state from discriminating on the basis of race will prevent university officials from speaking to black ministers and outlaw “[s]creening programs targeting Latinas with high rates of breast cancer or African-American males who die of prostate cancer in disproportionately high numbers” have begun to appear in the press, and they will no doubt continue, I hope to the exact same effect the exact same arguments had in Michigan. When will one of these hysterics point to a cancer-screening program that has been shut down in California or Washington or Michigan by the identical requirement of official colorblind equality?

The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative would require that the state “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin ..." According to Denver Post columnist Diane Carman, however, that proposal is a “wedge issue[] designed to appeal to voters’ worst instincts,” and supporting it is a “race-baiting” effort “to whip voters into a frenzy.”

Carman writes that “State Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver, calls the whole concept ‘sadly comical.’” On the contrary, it is Carman, Groff, et. al. who are, to haul out that word I’m using too much here but can’t avoid, hysterical, in the sense now not of nuts but of extremely funny. Consider:

University of Colorado spokesman Branson Hilliard said enrollment at CU-Boulder was “the most diverse” ever in 2006, with 14.7 percent of students from minority groups.

And while the university has worked hard to improve diversity on all its campuses, he said, “it is not based on affirmative action,” so the proposed constitutional amendment would not make any difference.

Still, critics of the initiative worry that it could have far-reaching effects on college campuses and beyond.

“It would end all the flexibility for state schools to recruit people of color,” Groff said.

As I said, hysterical.

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The Ballot Title Board has approved the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative for the 2008 ballot, over the objections of opponents who claimed that the meaning of “preferential treatment” was unclear and that people could believe it is possible to give preferences to people of one race without discriminating against people of other races.

The Ballot Title Board disagreed that banning discrimination was different from banning preferential treatment, holding that CCRI’s operative language — “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin” — does not violate the state’s “single-subject” requirement.

Opponents, predictably, say they will appeal.

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The Rocky Mountain News reports today that the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which provides that the state “state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin . . . ,” was approved by state officials, who approved its language and held that it met the state’s single-subject requirement for ballot initiatives.

If they weren’t so misguided I’d almost feel sorry for opponents trying to mount arguments against the equal treatment that CCRI would command. Consider this one:

An attorney representing opponents of the measure argued that lumping “discrimination” and “preferential treatment” together was wrong. He said they could actually be construed as two opposing ideas, which would go against the rule that ballot measures present just one issue.

Denver attorney Edward Ramey said voters conceivably could be against discrimination, but in favor of preferential treatment if it serves as a remedy for past discrimination.

"I wouldn't want to be forced to vote to prohibit discrimination at the same time weakening remedies for what I'm voting to prohibit," Ramey said.

But Ramey wasn’t done. Here, he tries again but succeeds only in digging his hole deeper.

“Preferential treatment carries baggage” Ramey said. “It carries a bad connotation in our society, and I’m concerned it will influence a vote in favor of this measure.”

The only way defenders of racial preference can defend it in public is to misrepresent it. The more people understand what racial preference entails, the more they oppose it.

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An article in the Colorado Springs Independent claims that “affirmative-action opponents are once again sounding the death knell for programs that open doors for women and minorities.”

That is true only to the extent that those programs close the door, or make it harder to pass through, for everyone else. Lowering the bars to entry only for some, based on their race, ethnicity, or gender, raises it for everyone else, and thus is the essence of discrimination.

The article includes other misunderstanding of what it is that affirmative action critics criticize. Thus:

... the [Colorado Civil Rights] initiative's challengers, including civil-rights and higher-education activists, say affirmative action is still relevant today. They cite misunderstandings about the program, such as the notion that minorities are taking positions that “belong” to whites.

“A lot of people think that affirmative action is based on racial quotas,” says Dennis Apuan, Southern Colorado organizer for Colorado Unity, a statewide equal-opportunity group. “It doesn’t have to do with quotas. It provides qualified individuals equal access.”

Moreover, we critics do not claim that any positions “belong,” or should belong, to whites (or Asians or non-preferred minorities). All we claim is that everyone has a right, or should have a right, to be treated without regard to race, creed, or national origin.

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The editors of the Denver Post don’t seem to be sure. Their editorial today on a “California import that our state doesn't need” begins as follows:

Just when Coloradans thought we might have to think for ourselves for a change, Ward Connerly jetted into town this week to promote his California-style ban on affirmative action.

But wait! Maybe those editors see a glimmer of hope after all:

As much as we respect the right of out-of-state politicians to export their pet projects to Colorado, we can’t avoid noting that history is not on Connerly’s side.

In 1998, California millionaire Ron Unz paid professional firms to put an initiative on Colorado’s ballot, Amendment 31, that would have banned bilingual education. Fort Collins philanthropist Pat Stryker stepped up to rally Coloradans against Unz and voters defeated his nostrum.

ADDENDUM

This editorial also reveals that the preferentialist powers that be in Colorado have a ways to go in getting their act together. As I pointed out recently here and here, the official line coming out of the Colorado higher education establishment is that CCRI would have no, or little, effect on the policies at the University of Colorado. By contrast, the Post’s editors claim that CCRI would be devastating:

it would reverse the progress the University of Colorado has made in recruiting qualified African-American, Latino and Native American students under the leadership of CU President Hank Brown.

Posted by John Rosenberg at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Say What? (40) | TrackBacks (0)

In writing about the new Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (here), I quoted (or quoted an article that quoted) Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity at Colorado University, who said it has “no race- based admissions, no race- based employment and no race-based financial aid or scholarship.”

It turns out, however, that Ms. Yoshinago-Itano’s assertion was based on a misunderstanding (or perhaps purposeful misrepresentation) of the CCRI, and thus is of no value in understanding its relevance to CU policies. In attempting to explain to the Colorado Daily why CCRI would have no impact at CU she revealed the extent of either her misunderstanding or distortion:

According to Christine Wyoshimaga-Itamo [sic; the correct spelling is Yoshinago-Itano, and I have used it in subsequent quotes], vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity, there are no race-based programs or race-based quotas at CU.

“And we have not had those for many years here at the university and I don't know if we ever did,” said the 22-year CU employee. “The reason for [an affirmative action ban] is to prevent universities from using race-based quotas, and that simply does not happen [here], so [a ban] would have no impact,” said Yoshinago-Itano.

For that reason, said Yoshinago-Itano, an affirmative action ban in Colorado would have no affect on CU's current admission policies.

Even though she believes CU would not be affected by the passage of CCRI, Ms. Yoshinago-Itano is still bothered by it.

“The thing that bothers me about this issue is that it is based on an assumption that students and employees of color on this campus are not as well-qualified as everyone else, and that's just completely untrue,” said Yoshinago-Itano. “It is a sad thing that their abilities, their right to be on this campus, are being questioned in any way.”

Kevin MacLennan, director of admissions at CU, said race can be a factor in the admissions process, but cannot be a primary or sole factor in which a student is offered admission.

“We currently consider between 11 and 13 different primary factors in the admission process, and race can be an additional consideration, but not a primary one,” said MacLennan....

Among the findings of the CEO study:

• At the University of Colorado at Boulder ... the average white student scored 205 points higher on the SAT (out of a possible 1600), and 4 points higher on the ACT (out of a possible 36), and nearly half a point higher on grades (on a 4-point scale) than the average black student.... “In other words, 50 percent of whites enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder score at least 205 points higher than 50 percent of blacks enrollees.”

• [At Boulder the] median SAT scores of white and Asian rejectees (940 and 920, respectively) are higher than the black admittee median (895) and 25th percentile Hispanic admittee score (880). This means that more than half of all white and Asian rejectees had higher SAT scores than half of all blacks and more than a quarter of all Hispanics who were offered admission.

• [At Boulder the] Asian and the white GPAs at the 25th percentile are greater than the black median.... [T]his means that 75 percent of all Asians and whites have higher GPAs than half of all blacks. The median GPAs of white and Asian rejectees (2.8 and 2.7, respectively) is roughly equal to the 25th percentile black admittee GPA (2.7). This means that about half of all white and Asians who were denied admission had higher GPAs than about a quarter of blacks who were accepted.

• [At Boulder an] average of 72 percent of whites finish after six years, compared to an average of 39 percent of blacks, 50 percent of Hispanics, and 64 percent of Asians. These findings on graduation rates parallel those on enrollee qualifications.
  

Linda Chavez, the chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a long-time Colorado resident who taught at Boulder, is the honorary-co-chairman of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. If the preferentialist establishment of higher education in Colorado believes CEO’s findings and similar data can be kept from citizens during the upcoming debate on preferences, they are sadly (or happily, for opponents of racial preference) mistaken. If they dispute the CEO’s findings, they should promptly release their evidence.

Posted by John Rosenberg at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Say What? (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have mentioned several times the intention of Ward Connerly and friends to launch a “Super Tuesday For Equality” on election day, November 2008, by placing civil rights initiatives on the ballots of several states.

Colorado has just launched its campaign, discussed here and here, and similar announcements are coming today and tomorrow in Missouri and Arizona. Stay tuned for details.

Meanwhile, I should disclose that my interest in these initiatives is more than academic or blog-based. I am proud to have been invited by Ward Connerly to join a group of advisors who are called upon from time to time for drafting or other advice. Mine, I’m sure, is worth about what I’m paid for it ($0, or less if you count the out of pocket expense of attending the one meeting I’ve been to).

But this association has provided me with the credential I’ve used to try to jack up the importance of this letter I’ve just sent to the editor of the Denver Post, in response to the article discussed here:

Re: “Race, sex emphasis in Colo. targeted” (April 24 news story)

As someone whose counsel was sought by the drafters of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, I read your news story about its launch with both amusement and concern.

Amusement, at Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education executive director David Longanecker’s hilarious and totally off the wall assertion that a measure barring discrimination against or preferential treatment of any individual or group “on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin” would somehow bar preferential treatment of athletes. If the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education offers courses in remedial reading to its staff, Mr. Longanecker should enroll immediately.

Concern, because the Post’s reporter, Claire Martin, either misunderstood or misquoted (or both) CCRI executive director Valerie Pech Orr’s response to Mr. Longanecker’s misreading. Ms. Orr knows that CCRI would have no effect whatsoever on favorable treatment of athletes (or oboe players) since it bars only discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. Thus I am confident she did not say “the state can't grant preferential treatment” to athletes, as she was quoted.

Informed debate is undermined by the sort of misinformation contained in this article.

Posted by John Rosenberg at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Say What? (12) | TrackBacks (0)

The Denver Post chimes in today on the launch of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, and as we have unfortunately come to expect from coverage by the mainstream press its article misinforms as much as it informs.

Here, for example, are two statements it quotes without amplification or correction:

Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity at CU, said it has “no race- based admissions, no race- based employment and no race-based financial aid or scholarship.”

However, as Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education executive director David Longanecker observed, the proposal could change the current tacit policy of accepting promising athletes whose academic qualifications are lower than those expected of other students.

And could Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education executive director David Longanecker explain why he believes a provision that would bar discrimination for or against “any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin” would have any effect whatsoever on preferential treatment of athletes?

UPDATE [2:05 pm]

See my letter to the editor of the Denver Post that I’ve just posted here.

Posted by John Rosenberg at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Say What? (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A press conference this morning at 9:30 (Mountain Time) in Denver will announce the campaign to place the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative on the ballot in November 2008.

The operative sentence, familiar to most of you from the successful Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, reads as follows:

The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.

It boils down to the basic question of who we are as a people. Are we really all equal, as we claim, or are we to be judged primarily by our gender and skin color? My family has been in Colorado for generations - my great grandparents homesteaded here in 1883. We in this state are individualists[.] [R]acial and gender preferences run counter to our most basic values, and we expect that will be made abundantly clear on November 4, 2008.

“Getting our nation to the point of applying a single standard to all Americans is one of the most crucial issues of our time,” says Connerly....

If events of the past couple of weeks have taught us anything at all, it is that race will continue to divide our nation as long as we insist on treating people differently.... Both Don Imus, in his despicable comments about the young women of the Rutgers basketball team, and those who rushed to judgment in the Duke lacrosse case made the same mistake: they looked at individuals and saw only skin color. We have to get past that kind of thinking — and we must start by getting our government out of the business of privileging some Americans for the color of their skin and penalizing others. By now it should be clear that that leads only to bitterness and discord,” said Connerly.

UPDATE [4:20 pm]

Peter Schmidt reports on the Chronicle of Higher Education news blog:

... while the chief group leading the effort — the American Civil Rights Institute — has not yet formally announced its plans for other similar campaigns, it clearly intends to put such measures on the November 2008 ballot in Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and one other yet-to-be-determined state as part of what it is calling a “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights.”
....
A group calling itself the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative plans to hold a news conference tomorrow in Kansas City, Mo. Similar organizations plan to hold news conferences in Oklahoma on Wednesday and in Arizona on Thursday. The American Civil Rights Institute also hopes to get such a measure on the ballot in either Nebraska or South Dakota, although it has not decided which one.

said he expected each of the state campaigns to encounter a distinct set of challenges, but was confident that they would succeed based on the results of last fall’s election in Michigan. There, 58 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment banning the use of affirmative-action preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies, even though the measure was strongly opposed by business and religious leaders, organized labor, and civil-rights groups, and had little organized support. “I can’t see anything being tougher than it was in Michigan,” Mr. Connerly said.

Correction: Ward Connerly’s remarks, quoted by Peter Schmidt in the UPDATE above, were made during a telephone interview with Schmidt, not at the press conference.

Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountain News (whose editorial pages are often more reliable than its news columns), reported (or perhaps I should say “reported” or “purported to report”) that the

[s]ponsors of their self-described “civil rights initiative” launched their campaign at the Brown Palace Hotel Monday morning in hopes of dismantling affirmative action in government — including everything from admissions to state universities to contractors submitting bids to do work for government.

But Dennis Tarker, director of racial justice program of the American Civil Liberties Union, said race is still a major issue in America and cited the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina as an example of how far society is from being color blind.

“The significance of Katrina laid bare the fault in the argument that race doesn’t matter,” Tarker said. “It was hard to look at that experience and say race doesn’t matter in America.”

What they argued is that governments and their agents should not be allowed to reward some people and punish others based on their race. Someone should remind Dennis Tarker, and the Rocky Mountain News, that for most of its career the ACLU believed the same thing.

Posted by John Rosenberg at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Say What? (14) | TrackBacks (0)