ward connerly

poster boy for intolerance in indoc u?

==

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/american-civil-rights-institute

Founder Ward Connerly and the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI)oppose affirmative action and any government/education policies that grant priority or preference to certain racial groups over others. ACRI has promoted legislation and "reform" in state policies and individual university or college criteria to end such programs. Continuing his state-by-state attack on affirmative action policies, Connerly co-founded the so-called "Michigan Civil Rights Initiative" (MCRI), a 2006 ballot initiative to ban affirmative action in state "hiring, contracting, and admissions to public schools." On November 7, 2006, Michigan voters approved the affirmative action ban by 58-42 percent.

American Civil Rights Institute

P.O. Box 188350

Sacramento CA 95818

Website: www.acri.org

Founder/Chairman: Ward Connerly

Vice Chairman: Thomas L. Rhodes (2003)

Founded/Place: 1997, California

Director: Edward J. Blum

Finances: $2,203,864 (2004)

Publications: The Egalitarian (newsletter)

Affiliate Groups: American Civil Rights Coalition; Michigan Civil Rights Initiative

Read the latest news on the American Civil Rights Institute on the group's Right Wing Watch index page

• Purpose
• History
• Activities
• Funding
• Quotes

Purpose

The American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) opposes affirmative action and any government/education policies that take race into consideration. It has promoted legislation and "reform" in state policies and individual university or college criteria to end such programs. Founder Ward Connerly and ACRI's attacks on affirmative action policies have proved successful in California, Washington State and Michigan, but their efforts have failed in Florida.

History

In 1996, Ward Connerly led the so-called "California Civil Rights Initiative"— the successful campaign for a ballot referendum (Proposition 209) to end all affirmative action programs in California state government. The American Civil Rights Institute— American Civil Rights Coalition was formed by Connerly in 1997 to take the battle against affirmative action nationwide. Critics charge that Connerly used his 12-year position as a University of California Regent (1993-2005) as a "bully pulpit" to promote his divisive agenda.

Activities

• 1998: Washington state voters approve "Initiative 200" which bans the state from using race, gender or sex to give preferential treatment in employment, contracting or public education admissions.
• 1999: Connerly launches a petition drive in support of a 2000 ballot initiative to overturn affirmative action policies in Florida. While proponents of the "Florida Civil Rights Initiative" gathered enough signatures and waited for the state Supreme Court to approve the ballot language, momentum faltered and organizing stopped. In March 2000, a march on the state capitol in Tallahassee by thousands of civil rights supporters angered over Gov. Jeb Bush's own anti-affirmative action plan ("One Florida"), along with the concern of many Republicans that a 2000 ballot measure would increase moderate/progressive voter turnout and would hurt GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush, may have doomed the Florida Civil Rights Initiative.
• 2002: ACRI's "Racial Privacy Initiative"— a "proposed constitutional amendment that would ban state and local governments from collecting racial data"— is certified for the California ballot. On October 7, 2003 California voters defeated the Racial Privacy Initiative (Prop 54) by a margin of 64% to 36%. Connerly blames "legal challenges filed by the unholy triumvirate of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" against ACRI and the American Civil Rights Coalition along with having the measure moved to the special election to recall Gov. Gray Davis as causes for its failure to pass.
• January, 2003: The Individual Rights Foundation— the legal arm of David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture— submits an amicus brief [PDF file] on behalf of Ward Connerly to the U.S. Supreme Court inGrutter v. Bollinger & Gratz v. Bollinger, attacking the affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan.
• January 2003: The American Civil Rights Institute, along with the Center for Equal Opportunity and the Independent Women's Forum, filed an amicus brief [PDF file] with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the petitioners in Grutter v. Bollinger & Gratz v. Bollinger.
• October 2003: The American Civil Rights Institute, along with the Center for Equal Opportunity and the Independent Women's Forum, files a friend-of-the-court brief [PDF file] with the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief urges the Court to grant review in Grutter v. Bollinger.
• Connerly is a co-founder of the "Michigan Civil Rights Initiative"— which formed to place an anti-affirmative action ballot measure on the 2006 ballot. According to its website, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) would amend "the Michigan Constitution to prohibit discrimination by state and local governments against anyone based on their race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. The ban would apply to hiring, contracting, and admissions to public schools." The MCRI was endorsed by the Mystic Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. On November 7, 2006, Michigan voters approved the affirmative action ban (Proposal 2) by 58-42 percent.

Funding

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee gave Connerly $700,000 in 2001 for the anti-affirmative action campaign in California. That same year he got $200,000 from Richard Mellon Scaife, and another $150,000 from the Olin Foundation. In 2005, Connerly was named a "Bradley Prize" honoree by the Bradley Foundation and awarded $250,000 by the right-wing foundation.

Quotes

"Recent events in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have reaffirmed for me, however, the complete folly of any Republican strategy to increase black representation in the Republican Party by appeals based on race. Whatever the name— 'African American Outreach' or 'Black Republicans for Bush'— any effort to attract blacks or any other ethnic group to the Republican party, based on explicit or implicit appeals to race or ethnic identity, are not only a waste of time and resources, but are also misguided and potentially quite damaging to the nation."— Ward Connerly "[End the Race Party," National Review, September 30, 2005]

"Let it be said that when given a chance to complete the liberation of black Americans, on June 23, 2003 five justices consigned them to another generation — or, perhaps, a term of indefinite duration — of virtual enslavement to the past."— Ward Connerly, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's Michigan rulings "[Murder at the Supreme Court," National Review, July 26, 2003]

"The Grutter and Gratz decisions, taken together, represent a sad and tragic chapter in American history."— Ward Connerly, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's Michigan rulings [*National Review*, July 26, 2003]

"The court made a very ambiguous ruling - and a sickening one. It left the nation in the position of agony. . . . We will be fighting this battle for another 25 years or more."— Ward Connerly, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's Michigan rulings [Washington Times, July 24, 2003]

"Passionate ideological opposition to race preferences does not seem to be part of the Bush DNA, and President Bush has been no exception to this rule . . . It is not the legitimate business of government in America to promote 'diversity.'"— Ward Connerly on the White House briefs in the Supreme Court Michigan cases, Washington Times [January 21, 2003]

Updated: November 2006

==

==ncppr ggl doc bamn

<”NCPPR also saw an awkward moment last year when one of the members of the group's conservative African American branch Project 21 failed to show up for a C-SPAN interview. Executive Director David Almasi, who is the only paid staff member for Project 21 and is white, filled in. From there, one editor went on to expose the group as a whole, finding that not a single director or board member of the group was black.”>  D Borelli ~CSR

<What do people like Weyrich, Norquist, Bauer and Hannity have in common with the black conservatives? It's more than a common affection for low taxes and non-existent government regulation of business. Conservative activists understand that the GOP's history of tolerating bigots in their ranks and seeking out their votes, from Nixon's "Southern Strategy" to George H.W. Bush's use of Willie Horton to George W. Bush's courting of the confederate vote in the 2000 South Carolina primary, presents a problem for moderate voters of all races. Finding African-Americans to make the conservative case goes a long way toward wiping those memories from the public mind.

Big men on campus

But ideology starts outside of Washington, and one of the most important ideological battle grounds for the black conservative movement is on campus, where many of the faculty in the social sciences and humanities believe the silly notion that structural racism still exists in America, and aren't afraid to say so.

So in 1998, the Young America's Foundation formed the Alternative Black Speakers Program "in response to the overwhelmingly leftist bent of Black History Month on campuses," according to a press release. The program sends conservative black speakers to college campuses across the country, "giving students an alternative to the often radical and irresponsible message of black lecturers appearing on campuses as part of official university programs." One of YAF's top executives is Floyd Brown, the infamous dirty trickster responsible for creating the 1988 anti-Dukakis ads featuring Willie Horton's menacing mug shot.

Perhaps the most visible black conservative in the campus wars is Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). Connerly was a protege of former California Governor Pete Wilson, who appointed him to the University of California's Board of Regents. Connerly drafted Wilson's anti-affirmative action initiative Prop 209, and is now attempting to bring a similar ballot measure to Michigan.

When asked what he thought about Trent Lott's comments about segregation in 2002, Connerly told CNN: "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races."

:{

}:wikifluff flagged

The American Civil Rights Institute is a non-profit organization located in Sacramento, California founded by Ward Connerly and Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes in opposition to racial and gender preferences.^[1][2] The organization describes itself as "a national civil rights organization created to educate the public on the harms of racial and gender preferences." The American Civil Rights Institute also known as The American Civil Right Coalition wasn't fully formed until 1997, in order to take the battle against affirmative action nationwide.

Contents

• 1 Ward Connerly
• 2 Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes
• 3 Goal
• 4 Activities & Events '
• 5 Funding
• 6 References

Ward Connerly

Ward, the President of the American Civil Rights Institute focused on educating the public about the need to move beyond race, specifically, racial and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly has gained attention as being an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background. Ward Connerly was President and Chief Executive Officer of Connerly & Associates, a consulting firm in Sacramento, that primarily focuses on association management and land development and was founded in 1973. "If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people" quoted by Ward Connerly.

Mr. Ward Connerly

Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes

Thomas, was President of National Review, a co-founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, and a political editor. Mr. Rhodes resigned as the President of National Review on June 30, 2010. Rhodes has be involved in the Conservative Movement for years. Being one of the founders of the Project to Republican Future, which has led to major formulated debates and impacted several public policy issues.

Goal

The American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) was established in 1996 by Ward Connerly and Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes( President of Review) after leading the campaign in California to adopt Proposition 209.^[3] The organization opposes affirmative action and racial and gender preferences in federal, state and local government programs. It focuses on public education, policy research and supporting constitutional amendments^[which?] in California, Washington, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska and Arizona that seek to abolish racial and gender preferences. ACRI also assists other anti-affirmative action organizations in various states in opposing racial and gender preferences in government programs and advancing the view that such racial and gender preferences are harmful. ACRI states that its members believe that "civil rights are individual rights and government policies should not uphold group rights over individual rights." The organization states that its goal is to achieve equal opportunity for everybody.^[4]

Activities & Events '

Funding

Mr. Ward Connerly takes in donates to help fund ACRI. In 2001, Mr. Connerly received $700,000 from Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee for his anti-affirmative action campaign in California. Mr. Connerly also gained 150,000 from Olin Foundation and $200,000 from Richard Mellon Scaife.

References

• "American Civil Rights". americancivilrights.org. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
• "Right Wing Watch". rightwingwatch.org. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
• http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/16/us/foes-of-affirmative-action-form-a-national-group.html

1. http://www.acri.org/about.html

^[1]

1. "Facebook". Facebook.com. Retrieved 10 November 2015.

Categories:

• Civil rights organizations in the United States
• Opposition to affirmative action

==

Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes is an American political editor and was President of National Review magazine. He resigned as President on June 30, 2010.^[1]

Contents

• 1 Early life and career
• 2 Organizations and boards
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Early life and career

Born in New York in 1939, he grew up in Spanish Harlem the son of Welsh immigrant laborers. He received his masters from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School.^[2] He worked at Goldman Sachs from 1974 to 1992. Rhodes was co-founder of Change New York and was a chief adviser of George Pataki, former governor of New York State.^[3] Rhodes held several posts at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York City. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974 and subsequently served as vice president (1977–1982); vice chairman, Goldman Sachs Limited, London, England (1982–1985); and partner (1986–1992). Rhodes is Chairman of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Delphi Financial Group, Inc. & Subsidiaries, New York; Delphi International Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda; and Oracle Reinsurance Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda, and has been on the board of Heritage Foundation since the end of 1993. Rhodes, a graduate of the Wharton School, was also a graduate school classmate to Midge Decter according to the Heritage Foundation.

Organizations and boards

Rhodes has helped found many organizations and sits upon several Board of Directors. Some of these organizations and positions are as follows:

• Co-Founder of the American Civil Rights Institute,
• Founder and a trustee of Change-NY,
• Co-Founder and a director of the Project for the Republican Future (1993–1995),
• President of National Review and a member of the magazine’s Board of Directors,
• Trustee of the Empire Foundation for Policy Research,
• Co-chairman of theClub for Growth,
• Trustee of the Heritage Foundation (1993–1999),
• Chairman of the Bradley Foundation.

References

• http://nytimes.com/2005/07/08/ politics/08club.html
• http://nytimes.com/1994/12/29/nyregion/from-the-ivy-league-and-bay-ridge-two-of-pataki-s-conservative-pillars.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

1. http://nytimes.com/1991/06/17/style/chronicle-054491.html?src=pm

• Muhlhausen, David. "Long Live the Revolution | The Heritage Foundation". Heritage.org. Retrieved 2010-10-22.

==

sercwtch:

Thomas L. (Dusty) Rhodes "is President of National Review and a member of the magazine’s Board of Directors. He is founder and co-chairman of the American Civil Rights Coalition, a trustee of the Empire Foundation for Policy Research, the founder and a trustee of Change-NY, and co-chairman of the Club for Growth. He was the founder and a director of the Project for the Republican Future (1993–1995), a board member of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprises (1996–1997), a trustee of the Manhattan Institute (1996–1998), a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (1991–1997), and a trustee of the Heritage Foundation (1993–1999).

"Prior to joining National Review, Rhodes held several posts at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974 and subsequently served as vice president (1977–1982); vice chairman, Goldman Sachs Limited, London, England (1982–1985); and partner (1986–1992).

"Rhodes is co-chairman of Asset Investors Corporation, Denver, Colorado (NYSE), and co-chairman of Commercial Assets, Inc., Denver (ASE), and also serves on the following boards: Apartment Investment and Management Company, Denver; the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisc.; Delphi Financial Group, Inc. & Subsidiaries, New York; Delphi International Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda; and Oracle Reinsurance Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda.

"Rhodes received a B.A. (1963) and MBA (1965) from the University of Pennsylvania. He is married and has three children."^[1]

Rhodes was "one of the founders of the Project for the Republican Future, which has had such a salutary impact in formulating some of the specific debates on major public policy issues since it began about two years ago." Rhodes, a graduate of the Wharton School, was also a graduate school classmate to Midge Decter.^[2]

Contents

• 1 Articles and Resources
  • 1.1 Sources
  • 1.2 Related SourceWatch Articles

• 2 External links

Articles and Resources

Sources

• "Thomas L. Rhodes: NR President", National Review Online, accessed April 2008.

1. Midge Decter, "Long Live the Revolution", Heritage Lecture #530, Heritage Foundation, April 21, 1995.

Related SourceWatch Articles

External links

• "Biography", Accessed January 2007.

Categories:

• People
• United States
• Politics (US)
• Civil rights
• Human rights

==

actualy run/funded by?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93012519

2008

The Club for Growth is a conservative group whose goals include making President Bush's tax cuts permanent, repealing the estate tax, cutting government spending and promoting free trade and tort reform — not to mention deregulation in general.

The group has been active in congressional races this year, but has not decided whether to support GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

The group was founded in 1999 by Stephen Moore (now a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board); National Review Chair Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes; Cato Institute President Ed Crane; stockbroker Richard Gilder; and Larry Kudlow, a former Reagan adviser and co-host of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer.

The group supports "pro-growth" candidates, especially in Republican primaries, where it does not hesitate to criticize Republican incumbents for being too moderate.

In 2004, the group spent heavily in an unsuccessful bid to unseat Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), favoring the more conservative Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA). After Toomey's defeat, he became president of Club for Growth.

The Federal Election Commission sued and finedthe Club for Growth's 527 for violating election laws by expressly advocating for the defeat of candidates in the 2004 election season.

Its old 527, called Citizens Club for Growth, is now inactive, though it also has another 527 called ClubForGrowth.net, which the group uses to pay for TV ads. The main Club for Growth is now a 501(c)4, and it also has another affiliated 501(c)4 called Club for Growth State Action. There is also a Club for Growth political action committee.

Funders: In 2008, Richard Gilder ($200,000); Virginia James ($500,000); Richard Schaife ($25,000); Jackson Stephens ($100,000); Bob Perry ($250,000); John D. Bryan ($75,000); Richard Sharp ($100,000). In 2007, John Childs ($200,000); Bob Perry ($200,000); and Jackson Stephens ($200,000).

Leadership: Patrick J. Toomey, Chuck Pike, David Keating, Adam Rozansky, Andrew Roth, Erika Sather, Nachama Soloveichik, Thomas L. "Dusty" Rhodes, Richard Gilder, Ken Blackwell, Frayda Levin, Howard Rich, Jackson T. Stephens, Ed Crane. Read more about these leaders in the Secret Money Leadership Directory.

Will Evans is a reporter for the Center for Investigative Reporting, NPR's partner on the Secret Money Project.

===

Born: c. 1941

Gender: Male

Race or Ethnicity: White

Sexual orientation: Straight

Occupation: Journalist

Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States

Executive summary: President, National Review

Wife: (three children)

University: BA, University of Pennsylvania (1963)

    University: MBA, University of Pennsylvania (1965)

    National Review President

    Goldman Sachs (1974-92)

    American Civil Rights Coalition

    Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Chairman

    Change-NY Board of Trustees

    Club for Growth Co-Chairman

    Council on Foreign Relations (1991-97)

    DeMint for Senate Committee

    Empire Foundation for Policy Research Board of Trustees

    Forbes 2000

    FreedomWorks

    The Heritage Foundation (1993-99)

    International Rescue Committee Board of Directors

    Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Board of Trustees (1996-98)

    National Center for Neighborhood Enterprises Board of Trustees (1996-97)

    Pete Coors for Senate

    Pro-Growth Action Team

    Progress for America Voter Fund

    Project for the Republican Future Board of Directors (1993-95)

http://www.nndb.com/people/026/000208399/

==

pjt 21:

Big men on campus

But ideology starts outside of Washington, and one of the most important ideological battle grounds for the black conservative movement is on campus, where many of the faculty in the social sciences and humanities believe the silly notion that structural racism still exists in America, and aren't afraid to say so.

So in 1998, the Young America's Foundation formed the Alternative Black Speakers Program "in response to the overwhelmingly leftist bent of Black History Month on campuses," according to a press release. The program sends conservative black speakers to college campuses across the country, "giving students an alternative to the often radical and irresponsible message of black lecturers appearing on campuses as part of official university programs." One of YAF's top executives isFloyd Brown, the infamous dirty trickster responsible for creating the 1988 anti-Dukakis ads featuring Willie Horton's menacing mug shot.

Perhaps the most visible black conservative in the campus wars is Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). Connerly was a protégé of former California Governor Pete Wilson, who appointed him to the University of California's Board of Regents. Connerly drafted Wilson's anti-affirmative action initiative Prop 209, and is now attempting to bring a similar ballot measure to Michigan.

When asked what he thought about Trent Lott's comments about segregation in 2002, Connerly told CNN: "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races."

According to the civil rights group By Any Means Necessary (disclosure: I am a member of BAMN), Connerly reportedly makes $400,000 dollars per year as the president of ACRI.

==

Avalanche Against Prop 54

The defeat of Prop 54 has cheered on civil rights advocates, who believe that the campaign's success may mark a turn toward a more progressive, pro-diversity agenda in California and across the country.

By Suzy Khimm / AlterNet

October 16, 2003

-

the message cut across all the hoopla of recall election day, banding together teachers, health officials, police officers, political leaders, and voters of all racial and ethnic categories. The message was simple: Voting against Proposition 54 will help save your life. And its success was resounding.

Defeated by a 64-36 margin, the so-called "Racial Privacy Initiative" would have banned California from collecting data on race and ethnicity in all but a few exempted areas -- restricting, among other things, information crucial for identifying and containing public health epidemics. The defeat of Prop 54 has cheered on civil rights advocates, who believe that the campaign's success may mark a turn toward a more progressive, pro-diversity agenda in California and across the country.

"Prop 54 got more 'no' votes than Arnold Schwarzenegger got in support. The Prop 54 vote wasn't a landslide, it was an avalanche," said People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas in an October 8 press release. "California shouted down this attempt to erode civil rights, eviscerate health research, block hate crime enforcement and undermine school accountability."

Prop 54 was the brainchild of Ward Connerly, a conservative businessman and member of the California Board of Regents. In 1996, Connerly had spearheaded Prop 209, the ballot initiative that banned the use of racial and ethnic preferences in California's public hiring and university admissions. Dubbed by some as the "Son of 209," Prop 54 was another one of Connerly's attempts to create a "color-blind" society by removing all racial and ethnic classifications from the public sphere.

But, as the initiative's opponents pointed out, Prop 54 would have effectively eliminated any quantitative evidence of racial disparities, crippling the state's ability to track or remedy discrimination. Prop 54 would have barred state agencies, the University of California, public hospitals, and law enforcement officials from gathering data on citizens' race or ethnicity in all but a few -- and, according to Prop 54's opponents, poorly described instances. Rather than creating a color-blind society, the initiative would have simply turned a blind eye to discrimination.

Forming a broad-based, ever-expanding coalition, the opponents of Prop 54 ran a focused and pragmatically minded campaign. They explained that schools would lose accountability, no longer being able to track whether some groups of students were improving more than others. Local police would no longer be required to collect data on victims and suspects, hindering hate crime enforcement. And -- in what proved to be the most compelling argument -- public health officials would be severely hampered in their ability to identify and prevent diseases, as certain health problems have a disproportionate effect on different racial and ethnic groups.

It was the potential threat to public health that ultimately won the public over. "Nobody thinks you get better advice from your doctor when they have less information on you," Jay Ziegler, co-director of the No on 54 Campaign, told the Sacramento Bee. Bringing together hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals across social, racial, and political lines, the coalition opposing Prop 54 was unprecedented for a ballot initiative. Exits polls indicated that three-quarters of blacks and Hispanics and a majority of whites voted against the initiative.

Ziegler compares last week's victory to the passing of Prop 209 in 1996. Back then, civil rights groups and progressive leaders were taken aback when the advocates of Prop 209 appropriated the language of the civil rights movement itself to support their campaign. Prop 209's opponents then attempted to demonize the supporters of initiative as racists, running an infamous television ad featuring former Klansman David Duke as a supporter of Prop 209. The move backfired, alienating white suburbanites who were incensed at the KKK comparison.

"We really learned some important lessons from 209 that we applied this time around: You can't make it personal or make it look like it's a negative campaign," said Ziegler. "Diseases aren't colorblind," says Paul Turner, senior project manager of the Greenlining Institute. "That message resonated with the bulk of the electorate -- we didn't make it about affirmative action."

The proponents of Prop 54 once again tried to use civil rights-oriented rhetoric, comparing the existing racial categories to those that slave owners and Nazis used and placing the words of Martin Luther King Jr. alongside those of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. But this time, the television ad the opponents aired featured former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who simply declared that Prop 54 was "bad medicine" and that the public was making a "life-and-death decision."

Turner also credits the campaign's success to its organization and strategic outreach to the public, media outlets, and politicians. "We put pressure on the Democratic Party early on -- it wasn't enough for them just to be opposed to campaign. They had to prove it through fundraising and getting others on board."

In contrast to 209, Prop 54 attracted a significant degree of bi-partisan support. "Some might have declared that the recall election part of a Republican conspiracy, but Prop 54 was actually a product of the right-wing agenda -- it came straight out of the Federalist Society," says Turner.

Aside from the conservative right-winger Sen. Tom McClintock, nearly all of the major gubernatorial candidates openly opposed the initiative. Democratic candidate Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, under fire for the contributions he received from Indian tribes, transferred $3.8 million to the campaign opposing Prop 54. And, in early September, Schwarzenegger announced on a Spanish-language television station that he opposed the initiative.

Schwarzenegger's open opposition to Prop 54 fell in line with the socially inclusive and moderate platform that gained him votes on election day. His open embrace of diversity and progressive social positions have not only put conservative Republicans on the alert; they have also sparked some liberals' hope that Schwarzenegger will follow through on his promises and use his new prominence within the party to influence the national debate over divisive issues like affirmative action.

"Arnold has the opportunity to lead the Republican Party back to moderation -- to shed its image as a party that is hostile to minorities, a stance that has allowed California to be a one-party state," says Turner. "The new competition will help minority groups."

The defeat of Prop 54 will lead to "positive change on the state level," affirmed Mary Ann Mitchell, chairwoman of the National Black Business Council, and John C. Gamboa, executive director of the Greenlining Institute, in the San Francisco Chronicle last week. While racial and ethnic preferences remained barred under Prop 209, Mitchell and Gamboa see Prop 54 as paving the way for future pro-diversity initiatives that would actively recruit minority students and employees.

Mitchell and Gamboa go so far as to project that Schwarzenegger's openly embracing diversity will prompt change on the federal level; that President Bush will move to ensure equal opportunity within federal agencies, and that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will encourage economic growth by gathering data on race, ethnicity and gender within bank-lending practices.

But all of this, of course, is still the stuff of dreams. Whether Schwarzenegger will step forward and push for a socially inclusive and progressive agenda remains to be seen -- or, given the state's budgetary concerns and his conservative economic positions, whether he will even be able to afford to.

It's clear, though, that the opposition to Prop 54 maintained its focus and broad-based appeal in spite of Arnold, and the pro-diversity movement may continue to gain support regardless of what happens in Sacramento. For while the anti-Prop-54 movement played up the public health card to widen its base of support, many believe that the success of the campaign can only strengthen future pro-diversity proposals.

Whatever people's reasons for opposing Prop 54, its defeat has clearly re-affirmed the importance of tracking and preventing discrimination in the public sphere. While affirmative action was not the key issue, Turner believes that the campaign's success will prompt the public "to go back and revisit 209 and realize its unintended consequences on university admissions and state-sponsored contracting."

Prop 54's defeat was, moreover, a resounding repudiation of Connerly himself. While Connerly has announced that he intends to return with a new version of Prop 54 -- with greater attention to public health concerns -- many believe that he has lost his public credibility and legitimacy. Even aside from his political future, Connerly is clearly on the down, if not the down-and-out: He is currently being sued by the Fair Political Practices Commission for failing to disclose the source of $1.9 million in funding for his campaign.

Celebrating last week's victory, the opponents of Prop 54 are optimistic that their message will continue to resound with the public: that ignoring race is dangerous -- for people's health, for public safety, and for the education of their children.

As Justin Pritchard of the Associated Press wrote: "Those who said Proposition 54 would help unify California's racial group and create a colorblind society turned out to be right in one respect: Voters of every race united to defeat it."

Freelance writer Suzy Khimm is an editorial intern at AlterNet.

==

wikifluff

Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly (born June 15, 1939) is an American politicalactivist, businessman, and former University of California Regent (1993–2005). He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences.^[1] He is considered to be the man behind California's Proposition 209 prohibiting race- and gender-based preferences in state hiring, contracting and state university admissions, a program formerly known as affirmative action.^[2]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Early life
• 2 Marriage and family
• 3 Career
• 4 Campaign against racial preferences
• 5 Political views
  • 5.1 Party identification
  • 5.2 Support for domestic partnership benefits
  • 5.3 Support of same-sex marriage
  • 5.4 Support of multi-racial category on government forms
• 6 Reception
  • 6.1 Personal
  • 6.2 Affirmative action and desegregation
• 7 Legacy and honors
• 8 References
• 9 Further reading
• 10 External links

Early life

Wardell Anthony Connerly was born June 15, 1939, in Leesville, Louisiana. Connerly has said that he is one-fourth black and half-white, with the rest a mix of Irish, French, and Choctaw American Indian. He identifies as multiracial.^[3] He grew up in an African-American community,^[4] but the children met some discrimination in school because of their light skin.^[5] In a Louisiana state census, the family were classified as "colored", a category that historically covered the Louisiana Creole people (other categories were negro and white).^[5] His father, Roy Connerly, left the household when Ward was 2, and his mother died when he was 4. The young Connerly lived first with Bertha and James Louis, his maternal aunt and uncle. They moved to Bremerton, Washington and then to Sacramento, California, as part of the Great Migration by millions of blacks out of the South in the first half of the 20th century to seek better opportunities. Connerly next lived with his maternal grandmother, Mary Smith Soneia, who had also moved to Sacramento. (She was the daughter of a Choctaw man and white woman, and she had married a Cajun of mixed heritage.) When she had difficulty supporting the two of them, Ward took many jobs as a boy.^[5]

Connerly attended Sacramento State College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science in 1962. While in college, Connerly was student body president, was active as a Young Democrat, and joined Delta Phi Omega, a white fraternity.^[5] Later he was made an honorary member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. During his college years, Connerly campaigned against housing discrimination and helped to get a bill passed by the state legislature banning the practice.

Marriage and family

Connerly is married to Ilene Connerly, a woman of European-American descent, whom he started dating in college. They have two children. She is his equal partner in the firm of Connerly & Associates.^[6]

In addition to his political activities, Connerly is a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento, California.^[7]

Career

After college, Connerly worked for a number of state agencies and Assembly committees, where he developed a broad range of contacts. He worked for the Sacramento re-development agency, the state department of housing and urban development, and the State Assembly committee on urban affairs. During the late 1960s, Connerly became friends with then-legislator Pete Wilson(who would become governor in 1991).

Encouraged by Wilson, Connerly left his government job in 1973. He started his own consulting and land-use planning company, known as Connerly and Associates, Inc., and together with his wife as partner, made a strong success of it.

In 1993 he was appointed to the University of California Board of Regents, where he served until March 2005. During this time, he became deeply involved in working to repeal state affirmative action programs.

Campaign against racial preferences

After his appointment to the University of California board of regents in 1993, Connerly began to learn more about the workings of its affirmative action program. In 1994, he heard from Jerry and Ellan Cook, whose son had been rejected at the University of California, San Francisco (UC) Medical School. Connerly became convinced that affirmative action, as practiced by the UC, was another kind of racial discrimination. Cook, a statistician, had presented data showing that white and Asian students were being denied admission despite having better grades and test scores than other students who were being admitted. Connerly proposed abolishing the controversial racially based programs, while allowing the university to consider social or economic factors. The regents passed the proposal in January 1996 despite protests from activist Jesse Jackson and other supporters of affirmative action. The year after affirmative action was abolished, the number of Asian students admitted to UC increased markedly.^[8]

The UC regents developed a new system, including essay requirements that served to reveal the applicant's race and ethnicity.^[9]The new measures, titled "comprehensive review" have not yet been challenged to the California Supreme Court or the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1995, Connerly became the chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign^[1] and helped get the initiative on theCalifornia ballot as Proposition 209. The Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, the ACLU, and the California Teachers Association opposed the measure. It passed with 54.6% of the vote.^[2]

In 1997, Connerly formed the American Civil Rights Institute. ACRI supported a similar ballot measure in Washington state,Initiative 200, which would later pass with 58.2% of the vote.^[10]

ACRI worked to get a measure on the ballot in the 2000 Florida election. The Florida Supreme Court put restrictions on thepetition language. Through a program called "One Florida," Governor Jeb Bush later implemented key portions of Connerly's proposal. He helped to keep it off the ballot by achieving some of its key goals through legislation.

In 2003, Connerly helped place Proposition 54 on the California ballot, which would prohibit the government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, with some exceptions, such as for medical research. Critics were concerned that such a measure would make it difficult to track housing discrimination and racial profiling activities. Editorials in newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times criticized the measure, saying that the lack of such information would hamper legitimate medical and scientific purposes.^[11] The voters did not pass the measure.

In 2003 the Supreme Court ruled on affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger; it ruled the undergraduate affirmative action program was unconstitutional for the way it applied the program, but that the process at the University of Michigan law school could continue. Jennifer Gratz invited Connerly to Michigan to support a referendum measure similar to the 1996 California amendment. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative appeared on the November 2006 Michigan ballot and was passed 58% to 42%.^[12]

For the 2008 elections, Connerly headed a campaign which he called "Super Tuesday for Equal Rights". It was directed at dismantling affirmative action programs in five different states via ballot measures. In three of the states, Connerly's initiatives failed to make it onto the ballot. In Colorado, voters rejected Amendment 46 (or the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative) by a very slim margin. Voters in Nebraska were the only ones to approve a new anti-affirmative action measure, called Initiative 424.^[13]

Political views

Party identification

Ward Connerly identifies as a Republican with a libertarian philosophy.^[4] In January 2008, Connerly endorsed Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.^[14]

Support for domestic partnership benefits

Despite his close political relationship with former California Governor Pete Wilson, and their agreement on the question of affirmative action, Connerly led efforts to grant domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian domestic partners in all state universities over Wilson's objections. The UC Regents narrowly passed the initiative.^[15]

Connerly says his views on gay rights stem from his libertarian viewpoint that governments, including government-run universities, should not discriminate, whether it is by favoring some students because of their race, or by excluding others from spousal benefits based on their sexual orientation.^[4]

The conservative advocacy groups Family Research Council and Traditional Values Coalition criticized Connerly's support for domestic partner benefits.^[16] In reference to Connerly, Robert H. Knight, Director of Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council], said, "no true conservative would equate homosexual households with marriages, because we believe that without marriage and family as paramount values, hell will break loose."^[17]

Support of same-sex marriage

In response to Proposition 8 on California's November 2008 ballot that would ban same-sex marriage in California, Connerly stated, "For anyone to say that this is an issue for people who are gay and that this isn't about civil rights is sadly mistaken. If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people."^[18]

Support of multi-racial category on government forms

On July 9, 1997, the American Civil Rights Institute expressed disappointment with the federal government's decision to reject the addition of a multi-racial category on the Census and other government forms that collect racial data.^[19] Since 2000, the Census Bureau allows individuals to identify more than one racial/ethnic category on the census form, although it does not yet have a multiracial category.^[20]

Connerly began to ally with prominent members of what has become known as the multiracial movement. Prior to leading the Racial Privacy Initiative (Proposition 54) in California, Connerly forged ties with the publishers of Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist,^[21] prominent publications for the multiracial movement. Eventually, Connerly enlisted the help of several outspoken members of the multiracial movement to assist with the campaign for the Racial Privacy Initiative.

Reception

Personal

In 1995, then California State Senator (and current congresswoman) Diane Watson said about Connerly, "He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black."^[22] Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, characterized this attack as part of the personal abuse conservative blacks received from liberal blacks who opposed their programs.^[23]

After Connerly published his autobiography, Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences in 2000, some relatives claimed his accounts of an impoverished childhood were exaggerated or false.^[24] Connerly's aunt Bertha Louis, whom he had lived with and who was close to his grandmother, confirmed his account and said his detractors "are just lyin' on him. It's jealousy and it's hatred, as low as you can get."^[25]

Affirmative action and desegregation

Asked in 2003 if Proposition 54 could derail school integration efforts in California, Connerly said: "I don't care whether they are segregated or not… kids need to be learning, and I place more value on these kids getting educated than I do on whether we have some racial balancing or not."^[26]

Connerly's opposition to affirmative action has generated both opposition and support.^[27] Connerly believes affirmative action is a form of racism and that people can achieve success without preferential treatment in college enrollment or in employment. He thinks that selective affirmative action discriminates against minorities such as Asian Indians and South East Asians, as some of their people have experienced discrimination in the past, but they do not receive the benefits of race-based admissions. Critics contend Connerly fails to recognize the damaging extent of past racism for African Americans and Hispanics, that contemporary institutionalized racism is pervasive and powerful, and that affirmative action can overcome the residual effects of past discrimination on people of color.^[28]

The Detroit-based pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) said that as CEO of Connerly & Associates, Inc., Connerly benefited financially from state affirmative action programs in contracting.^[29] The San Francisco Chroniclereported the same facts.^[30]

BAMN opposed Connerly's efforts to put the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative on the 2006 Michigan Ballot, and disrupted a Michigan Board of Canvassers meeting that year in protest.^[31]

In relation to Attacking Affirmative Action, a program on Now on PBS in August 2008, Connerly said,

I think that in some quarters, many parts of the country, a white male is really disadvantaged… Because we have developed this notion of women and minorities being so disadvantaged and we have to help them, that we have, in many cases, twisted the thing so that it's no longer a case of equal opportunity. It's a case of putting a fist on the scale.^[3]

Legacy and honors

• He published an autobiography Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preference in 2000, ISBN 978-1594032189
• He was made an honorary member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, a fraternity founded at the University of Richmond in 1901.
• Connerly was inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame.^[7]

References

1. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Connerly#cite_ref-acri_1-1) "About the American Civil Rights Institute". American Civil Rights Institute. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
2. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Connerly#cite_ref-prop209_2-1) "1996 General Election Returns for Proposition 209 — CCRI". California Secretary of State website. State ofCalifornia. December 18, 1996. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
3. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Connerly#cite_ref-Attack_3-1) "Attacking Affirmative Action". NOW on PBS (PBS). August 29, 2008. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
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10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "Elections Search: Results: November 1998 General".Washington Secretary of State. State of Washington. Retrieved2009-04-28.
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12. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "State Proposal 2006-2: Constitutional Amendment: Ban Affirmative Action Programs". Department of State website. State of Michigan. May 10, 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
13. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Zeveloff, Naomi (November 7, 2008). "After Colorado loss, Ward Connerly may pull the plug on affirmative-action bans".The Colorado Independent. Retrieved 2008-11-26.
14. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Hill, John (2008-01-10). "Connerly endorses Giuliani". The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved 2009-04-28.^{[dead link]}
15. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Herek, Gregory M. "Background: How the University of California Enacted Domestic Partner Benefits". Sexual Orientation: Science, Education, and Policy website.
16. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Freedberg, Louis (1997-12-31). "An Unlikely Champion of Gay Rights". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
17. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ MacDonald, Heather (2004-01-26). "The Diversity Taboo". The Perils of Reversity blog.^{[dead link]}
18. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Sullivan, Andrew (July 3, 2008). "Connerly on Proposition 8". The Daily Dish. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved2009-04-28.
19. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "News Release: ACRI Criticizes Federal Government's Rejection of a multiracial Census Box". American Civil Rights Institute. July 9, 1997. Archived from the original on 1998-04-25.
20. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ David L. Brunsma, "Public Categories, Private Identities: Exploring Regional Differences in the Biracial Experience",Social Science Research, Vol. 35, No. 3, Sept 2006, pp. 555-576, accessed 22 February 2011
21. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "Message from Ward Connerly". The Multiracial Activist. April 4, 2002. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
22. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Elder, Larry (August 6, 2009). "10 'Teachable' Race Summits in Search of a Beer". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved2013-03-08.
23. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Jacoby, Jeff (December 31, 1996). "Another year of hate speech from the left". The Boston Globe. Retrieved2009-04-28.
24. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ McWhorter, John (September 13, 2002). "Racial Profiling".The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
25. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Pooley, Eric (June 23, 1997). "Fairness or Folly?". TIME. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
26. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "Editorial: Initiative could hurt integration efforts". San Francisco Chronicle. September 2, 2003. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
27. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Perry, Tony (June 25, 1998). "Connerly to Lead GOP Fund-Raising". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-04-28.

• • Mikailian, Arin (January 17, 2007). "Students protest controversial speaker". Daily Trojan. Retrieved2009-04-28.^{[dead link]}
  • Sack, Joetta L. (January 26, 2005). "Calif. Regent Ward Connerly Closes Controversial Tenure". Education Week. Retrieved 2009-04-28. (registration required (help)).

28. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Vincent, Norah (March 28, 2000). "The New Math on Race". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
29. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "Who is Ward Connerly?". BAMN website. Retrieved2009-04-28.
30. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Solis, Suzanne Espinosa (May 8, 1995). "Affirmative Action Critic Used His Minority Status". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
31. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Lefebvre, Ben (January 11, 2006). "Wham BAMN". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved 2009-04-28.

Further reading

• Lynch, Michael W. (February 1998). ":{':(style="padding-left:0.2em"):}:Racial Preferences Are Dead.' Anti-quota activist Ward Connerly on…". Reason.
• Connerly, Ward (August–September 2001). "Let's Rid Ourselves of Those Silly Race Boxes". The Abolitionist Examiner.
• Connerly, Ward (January 2, 2003). "The Cancer of Race: The lessons of the Lott affair". National Review. Retrieved2009-04-28.
• "Letter to Ward Connerly". July 2003. Congressman John Dingell's 'Go Home' Letter to Ward Connerly prior to the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) launch, and counter-responses from Connerly and others.
• "A Candid Discussion About Racial Preferences". The Primary Source. Jan 24, 2007. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007.
• Peter Schwartz, Ward Connerly and Richard Sander (panelists) (November 5, 2007). *Affirmative Action: A Diversity of Criticisms Panel Discussion* (RM). A panel discussion, held on the 11th anniversary of the passing of Proposition 209, offers a variety of critical perspectives on affirmative action. Addresses: what are the actual effects of affirmative action programs? And what are the ideas and ideals that lead many to support it? What should be the government’s role in fighting discrimination or promoting diversity?
• *Booknotes* interview with Connerly on *Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences*, April 30, 2000.
• Connerly, Ward (5 February 2013). "Colin Powell's Betrayal of the GOP". Featured Column Library. Flashreport.org.
• Institutional racism - In Civil Service Institutional racism

Ward Connerly's Falling Star

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

No. 43 (Spring, 2004), pp. 26-29

Published by: The JBHE Foundation, Inc

Article DOI: 10.2307/4133536

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4133536

Page Count: 4

==

Californians reject deceitful Proposition 54, but affirmative action foes promise to try again

Alvin Rosales

January 2004

During 1968-69, students led strikes at San Francisco State University against a school system that deprived masses of youth an education pertaining to their own heritage and culture.

Eventually, these monumental strikes were victorious, leading to the implementation of what is now known as an ethnic studies program.

Some 34 years later, University of California Regent Ward Connerly invented Proposition 54, an attempt to backtrack the progress brought about by these strikes.

This state ballot proposition, defeated in October 2003 by a nearly 2-1 margin, would have banned record-keeping about students’ ethnicities and nationalities — records that show just how necessary and effective programs such as ethnic studies can be.

Attempting to silence the needs of the people. Connerly, an African American who authored a previous proposition banning affirmative action in California education and contracting, contended that collecting race-based information prohibits progress towards an "equal and colorblind" society.

This is nonsense! Not only do colleges use the information Connerly would have deleted to address various educational concerns, statistics of this nature are imperative in addressing health issues.

Immediately after the introduction of Prop. 54, local and nationwide organizations such as the California Medical Association and the American Cancer Society took firm public stands against it. So too did the past two surgeon generals and Kaiser Permanente, a medical institution that had never before taken a political stance.

Apparently, I am not the only one who disagrees with Ward Connerly and his Prop. 54 associates.

According to information collected by local school districts in San Diego county, teenage Filipina girls (pinays) have the highest rate of suicidal thoughts and tendencies. To me, this is an important statistic to know in order to fight the problem, especially for school counselors, psychiatrists, Filipino families, and doctors.

Knowing information such as this, related organizations can do extended research, determine why these rates are so high, and take the necessary actions to prevent individual tragedies from happening.

You can’t fool all of us! One would assume that the vast majority of voters, if presented with this framework, would say NOto Prop. 54. However, the result of the October 7 ballot — 36 percent YES and 64 percent NO — isn’t exactly a comfortable margin of defeat (although this is the first time California voters have rejected one of Connerly’s racist propositions).

Something that certainly does not help the equation is the right wing’s success in deceiving the public. Through rhetoric and propaganda, conservatives are able to twist the linguistic understanding of voters and have them vote in a way that is opposite to their actual beliefs.

The wording on the October 7 ballot read, "Prohibits state and local governments from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin." And throughout the campaign, Connerly frequently referred to Prop. 54 as "the Racial Privacy Act."

Honestly, at its surface level, Connerly’s choice of language is appealing. The last thing I would want to be is "classified" and I would certainly embrace the concept of "racial privacy." At a public forum I attended at UC Berkeley, Connerly’s representative Justin Jones made sure to encourage this misapprehension of 54’s true meaning by choosing non-offensive language to answer (dodge) his questions.

Voters’ lack of understanding and failure to analyze 54’s larger implications are exactly what Connerly counted on. Politicians like Ward Connerly rely on oblivious, everyday news-watching citizens to view a measure or proposition at its surface level, armed with information supplied only by the mass media, and vote accordingly.

In this case, Connerly wrote an oppressive proposition that would take away the civil rights and liberties of many American people, tailored the language to be "eye-friendly," and hoped that enough voters would be fooled.

He’ll be back, we’ll be waiting. Fortunately, Connerly was wrong!

I and many others worked against Prop. 54 in the Filipino and Filipino-American community. We split the San Francisco Bay Area up into different sectors and phone-banked to as many constituents as our resources and woman/manpower would allow. We traveled to various universities and colleges to speak about 54’s hidden implications and to register students to vote, and we distributed as many self-produced and self-funded informational flyers as we were able in the short amount of time available.

Enough may have been done to prevent Prop. 54 from passing, but "enough" still left a large percentage of the voting population without the analysis needed to see through its misleading language. There is much work to be done to ensure that the oppression represented by Prop. 54 will not happen.

After the initiative’s defeat, Connerly stated that he would not give up and that he would rewrite his proposition and try (to fool us) again. As students, teachers, activists, organizers, and educators, we must prepare ourselves and continue to do what we do without hesitation.

On a hunch that Ward Connerly subscribes to this publication, I’d have to say to Mr. Connerly: I agree, I too long to live in an equal and colorblind society. Just one thing, though — instead of working to deny and hide our differences, we should work to recognize and embrace them.

Guest writer and recent college graduate Alvin Rosales, 22, of Santa Clara County, Cal., is active in Bagong Bayan ("New Nation"/"New People"), an organization of Filipino and Filipino-American youth and students.

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About Mr. Ward Connerly - American Civil Rights Institute

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Ward Connerly is founder and ward_1 President of the American Civil Rights Institute – a national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the public about ...

American Civil Rights Institute

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American Civil Rights Institute ... Ward Connerly comment on the Fisher v University of Texas decision: The SCOTUS has, once again, ... As President John F….

About ACRI - American Civil Rights Institute

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Based in Sacramento, California, ACRI's initial focus is on three areas: assisting ... ACRI was established by Ward Connerly and Dusty Rhodes (President of ...

American Civil Rights Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jump to **Ward Connerly** - Ward, the President of the American Civil Rights Institute focused on educating the public about the need to move beyond race, ...

Ward Connerly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly (born 1939) is an American political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent (1993–2005). He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute ... While in college, Connerly was student body president, was active as a Young Democrat, and ...

The American Civil Rights Institute: Taking CCRI to the National Stage ...

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Federalist Society

The American Civil Rights Institute: Taking CCRI to the National Stage .... Ward Connerly Founder and President, American Civil Rights Institute See Profile ...

Ward Connerly's Anti-Equal Opportunity Efforts

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Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

... opportunity initiatives in higher education, employment, and contracting. Connerly is president of the anti-equal opportunity American Civil Rights Institute.

Foes of Affirmative Action Form a National Group - NYTimes.com

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The New York Times

Jan 16, 1997 - ... the American Civil Rights Institute to argue ''aggressively'' that the rest of the ... Still, Ward Connerly, the black Sacramento businessman who led the ... the president of the National Review, the conservative magazine; Clint ...

American Civil Rights Institute - Ballotpedia

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Ballotpedia

Jun 2, 2016 - The American Civil Rights Institute, or ACRI, is a national ... It was founded by Ward Connerly and by Dusty Rhodes, the president of National ...

American Civil Rights Institute | Right Wing Watch

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Nov 7, 2006 - Founder Ward Connerly and the American Civil Rights Institute ... hurt GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush, may have doomed the ...==