Color cops on campus
CONNERLY, WARD
Color. Cops on Campus by Ward Connerly In case you missed it, the "preference cartel" unveiled its propaganda campaign in the third and fourth weeks of April. This campaign is designed to convince...
...Without these programs as Texas and California have shown, Blacks simply 'need not apply.'" It is tragic that a black-owned newspaper would suggest to young black people that if colleges and universities refuse to give them preference, there is no point in applying...
...Because I have refused to take up the cause of long-estranged relatives who show up on my doorstep every four or five years, but only when they need a favor, some of them are not happy...
...First, on April 14, the Association of American Universities (AAU) adopted a "Diversity Statement" at its annual meeting...
...Drawing on comments provided by "relatives" who preferred to remain anonymous, the article suggests that I was never as poor as several public accounts have said I was...
...General Colin Powell next stepped up to the plate in an appearance on Meet the Press on April 27...
...If higher education is so flush with money that it can waste it on such expenditures, perhaps the governing boards and taxpayers of every one of the colleges that belong to the AAU should take a closer look at their budgets...
...Showing its indifference to the effect of affirmative-action preferences on innocent people, the editorial continues, "While the preferential treatment of Blacks and members of other minority groups is unfair to some Whites who might otherwise gain admission to colleges and universities, it is necessary to ensure that people of all races have an equal opportunity to pursue a higher education...
...Brace yourselves, America, for a new wave of vitriol, falsehood, and misrepresentation on the question of race and racial preferences...
...In addition, these relatives have often called on me for personal loans, which I stopped granting after several failures to repay, and for assistance in either hiring or finding jobs for them or their children...
...That the chief administrators of so many American universities would publicize their 'strong conviction' in favor of discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity is a sad commentary on the moral, legal and intellectual compass of contemporary academic administration...
...In response to a question, Powell seemed to take exception to Tiger Woods's objection to being called an African American...
...Prior to the article's publication, I learned that the writer had been talking with relatives of mine who are not happy with my affirmative-action position...
...Around the same time, the Michigan Chronicle, one of Michigan's largest black-owned newspapers, ran an editorial headed "Affirmative action rollback damaging...
...Here's what another higher-education organization—the National Association of Scholars, whose nearly 4,000 members are university faculty, administrators, and graduate students—had to say about the AAU's action: "To be precise, the AAU statement endorses racial and ethnic discrimination in college admission...
...Parts of it are startling: "If California regent Ward Connerly, who seems to be a Black man in skin color only, takes his crusade nationwide as he has threatened to do, he may do more damage to the aspirations of Blacks academically than George Wallace or Lester Maddox ever did, and that is despicable...
...I have no doubt that much of this activity is being orchestrated by a well-oiled preference machine...
...Closing out that week, a San Francisco tabloid, San Francisco Focus, published a profile of me that had been in the making for several months, but whose release was timed to coincide with the events mentioned here...
...Soon, the women's lobby will surface...
...If one compares these events with the 209 campaign, the similarities are striking...
...pro-preference journalists and writers will help their allies by doing their opposition research for them, which will show up as "profiles" of anti-preference figures...
...The AAU's statement is a replica of the one issued by the chancellors of the University of California at Berkeley and at Los Angeles during the height of the campaign for Proposition 209, the ballot initiative passed by California voters in November 1996 barring the state from giving preferences on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin...
...I know that some ethnic newspapers resort to polarizing tactics to build up circulation, but this is truly outrageous and can fairly be called "race-hustling...
...It was revealing of the writer's bias that he refused to print one word of what was told to him by my aunt— the person with whom I lived for much of my childhood...
...To make sure that the statement received sufficient attention, the AAU took out a three-quarters-page advertisement in the New York Times at a cost of over $40,000, a sum that could have supported a lot of scholarships and reductions in student fees...
...Powell reminded us that there is racism in America and said that affirmative-action programs are needed to help young black kids in the "inner section of Philadelphia...
...and countless debates will be scheduled in venues that are hostile to anti-preference forces...
...Ward Connerly, a businessman, is chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute...
...i suspect that its timing is aimed at influencing the Ninth U.S...
...So, instead of opposing preferences and the costly, odious regulatory infrastructure created to implement them, business leaders have mostly chosen to go along...
...I cannot argue against preferences for everyone except my relatives, and if this angers them, too bad...
...This campaign is designed to convince the American people that race, gender, and ethnic preferences are good for us...
...They know it is politically safer to promote preferences than to be against them...
...Circuit court of Appeals as it weighs the American civil Liberties Union's petition for a rehearing of the court's recent decision upholding the constitutionality of California's Proposition 209...
...Then on April 25, some of the giants of the corporate world, operating under the name National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc., took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal reaffirming their support for affirmative action...
...One of the unfortunate lessons of the 209 campaign, which I chaired, is that many corporate executives have spines of jello...
...These are middle-class people who believe society is obligated to give them preference because of their skin color...
...newspapers will be deluged with op-ed pieces written by preference proponents...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 36
