Don’t Sign Anti-Affirmative Action Petition

April 19, 2008
by Marcus E. Hammond

Roving petitioners seeking signatures for the so-called Missouri Civil Rights Initiative say that it seeks to end inequalities. Here’s the truth: This petition seeks to change the state constitution to eliminate and/or ban programs that help to level the playing field for women and cultural minorities! Furthermore, it’s not being sponsored from within Missouri. It’s being organized by a rich California businessman named Ward Connerly, who is working in five states to get ballot initiatives passed to end affirmative action. If enough signatures are gathered in Missouri.

by the May 4 deadline, the question will be added to the November ballot.Connerly insists that the playing field is now level for all races, ethnic groups and genders, citing as proof the fact that an African American man and a woman are vying for the Democratic nomination. Women and minorities have made significant strides over the years, in part because barriers were lifted by affirmative action programs. This initiative seeks to turn back progress. Although we like to think that everyone is truly running a fair race, that actually is not the case. As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965:

You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying ‘you are free to compete with all the others’, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

According to the Affirmative Action Research and Policy Consortium, “The race is not fair, not because any group of runners are unfit to compete, but because we are not all running on the same track. People of color find their track is blocked by obstacles of racial discrimination as it plays out in education and employment opportunities. People in poverty also find their track littered by unfulfilled basic needs. Women find their lanes blocked by an impenetrable ‘glass ceiling.’ Meanwhile, those unencumbered by race, class or gender discrimination are privileged to run a race where their ability to compete is not impeded by arbitrary barriers.”

After a similar ballot question passed in California, there was a 28 percent drop in tenure-track appointments of faculty in underrepresented minority groups and two-thirds of minority-owned firms in the transportation construction industry that were in business in 1996 (when it was passed), are no longer in business. After the ban in Michigan, Native American college enrollment dropped by 13.5 percent and Hispanic enrollment by 12.6 percent.
This initiative would affect such issues as:

• Education (financial aid, student housing, faculty recruitment and employment, private foundation grants)
• The financial impact to the state that changes in civil rights programs will have, such as hurting our ability to attract new companies and losing an unknown amount of federal funding connected with diversity and affirmative action programs.
• The protection of the integrity of
  Missouri elections. Connerly is attempting to amend our constitution for his own political purposes.

Many Democrats and Republicans agree that affirmative action (not to be confused with quotas) is necessary. President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain support affirmative action, as long as it does not equal quotas. Sen. Barack Obama is on record as supporting affirmative action for contracts, education and employment, and Sen. Hillary Clinton recognized that many middle-class blacks and professional women felt they needed affirmative action to win government contracts or to get ahead in their respective workplaces, and rightly so. In 2006, the annual average weekly earnings of women in full-time wage and salary positions was $600, compared to the $743 earned by men, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Additionally, women are underrepresented in many occupations, meaning they comprise less that 25 percent of total employment. Some of these occupations are architects, construction and building inspectors, and detectives.

Here’s what you can do to help keep this initiative off the ballot in November:

• Refuse to sign or support petitions for the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative.
• Encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues not to be fooled by the signature-gatherers, whose pay is based on how many signatures they collect. If you encounter someone who has signed without realizing what it was or was misled into signing it, report it to 1-877-644-0466. Affidavits are available to reverse that.
• Donate money to help stop Ward Connerly.

Many notable national organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and numerous city and regional organizations seek to help defeat this dangerous initiative. After the ACLU and others supported a challenge to the petition that was filed in Oklahoma Supreme Court, the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative filed a motion to withdraw the petition because the group said it did not have enough signatures.

You can make a difference. Don’t be fooled in April. Decline to sign! For more information, call 1-877-644-0466 or visit www.wecanmo.org.

Marcus E. Hammond lives in Kansas City, MO. He can be contacted at Tumble_Stud79@yahoo.com