This column originally appeared in the Aspent Times on October 16, 2008.

As voters begin receiving ballots by mail, they are being asked to support the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. If passed, this proposed state constitutional amendment would — once and for all — prohibit our government from discriminating on the basis of race or gender in public education, public contracting, and public hiring.

Every day in Colorado, our government preaches to women and minorities that we are intellectually inferior second-class citizens. We’re told that because of our biology, we need special preferences to succeed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Disadvantage and discrimination transcend race and gender lines in today’s America.

Sadly, more than four decades after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Colorado’s colleges and government agencies still use race and gender every day as factors in deciding who to admit or who to hire. Should Amendment 46 pass, not a single valuable outreach program would be eliminated — only race or gender restrictions would be abolished. In the 21st Century, this approach makes sense.

Over the last four decades, America has seen a 20-fold increase in the number of interracial marriages. Even Barack Obama, born to a black father and a white mother, has a sister who is a different race. She and Barack have the same mother, but she has an Asian father. Under many preference schemes, he would qualify for assistance as an “underrepresented minority”; she, meanwhile, would not. According to the U.S. Census, whites will be in the minority within a generation and by 2042, more than 16 million Americans will self-identify as multiracial.

Gender preferences are similarly out of place in 2008. Today, females account for 56 percent of all undergraduate and graduate students in Colorado. They also represent 47 percent of all law students and 48 percent of all medical students.

In the three other states where initiatives similar to ours have been put before voters, including California, Washington, and Michigan, they have been met by overwhelming voter support. National independent polls show that well over 60 percent of Colorado voters who have made up their minds on our initiative, including Republicans and Democrats, support our initiative language.

A hard look at the numbers shows that since California voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996, minority enrollment has grown at seven of nice UC campuses. Women now account for well over half the UC student population. Dropout rates are down, and of equal importance, women and minorities are no longer haunted by the assumption that they needed special preferences to succeed.

Our opposition has tirelessly fought our efforts. They’ve tied us up in frivolous litigation and have launched vicious false accusations at press conferences. They unsuccessfully begged the Supreme Court to reject our language. And while they continue to falsely accuse us of “deceit,” three courts have struck down their accusations.

While an Aspen Times editorial (“Don’t set serious precedents,” Oct. 10) wrongly claimed earlier this month that our initiative would raise taxes, the assertion was a technical error as the editorial staff was actually referring to another initiative. In fact, our initiative could save our state money. An independent University of California study shows that when race and gender preferences are eliminated in public contracting, taxpayers save between 3 and 5 percent annually.

Amendment 46 insists that our government treat us all fairly, regardless of our race or gender. In the continued fight for equal rights, such a progressive commitment is long overdue.

Jessica Peck Corry is the executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (jpc@coloradocri.org). She is also the director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project and serves on the University of Colorado’s Blue Ribbon Diversity Commission.

“Yes” on 46 for equal opportunity

By Jessica Peck Corry

In 2008, voters should “just say no” to government-initiated discrimination and vote “yes” on Amendment 46, the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative.

If passed this November, our measure would prohibit the government from discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race or gender in public hiring, public contracting, and public education. The move would allow us to open our outreach efforts to every disadvantaged individual seeking a good education or a quality job.

The Post, in an Oct. 8 editorial, disagrees. It wants readers to believe that race and gender play relatively small roles in university admissions decisions. The Post has no proof for this assertion. In fact, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education has refused to release admissions statistics that would show the role that race and gender actually play.

Earlier this year, CCHE was approached by the Center For Equal Opportunity, a national civil rights organization, seeking to compile admissions demographic data. The request was denied.

In other states where CEO made its requests, however, including Nebraska and Arizona, we now know that race plays an incredibly discriminatory role in how public institutions admit students. According to study author Dr. Althea Nagai, the odds favoring African-Americans over similarly qualified whites at the University of Nebraska law school was 442 to 1. During the two years studied — 2006 and 2007 — 389 whites were rejected by the school despite higher LSATs and undergraduate GPAs than the average black student admitted.

Similar discrimination was found at the University of Arizona and Arizona State law schools, where nearly 1,000 white students were denied admission in 2006 and 2007 even though they had higher undergraduate GPAs and LSATs than the average black student admitted. In addition, more than 100 Asian and Latino students were similarly denied admission for lower-qualified students.

At the University of Colorado, race and gender segregation are ingrained in every aspect of campus life. Millions of taxpayer dollars are used every year to administer race- and gender-segregated guidance counseling, scholarships, orientations, and other educational programming.

Voters should support Amendment 46 because fairness and equality dictate that our affirmative-action efforts — designed initially to fight the effects of discrimination — don’t discriminate. If we want to promote diversity, we must lay to rest the false notion that diversity is tied to our biology and not our own unique life experiences.

If we look to the examples of states that have passed similar initiatives, including California, we see that women and minorities succeed when their inferiority is not presumed by government officials. In the 12 years since voters passed a prohibition on race and gender preferences in California, the UC system has seen admissions rates of racial minorities rise at seven of nine campuses. But more importantly, minority students systemwide are much more likely to graduate now than they were previously. And today, as is also the case in Colorado, 56 percent of all UC undergraduate students are women. The bottom line: Women and minorities don’t need to be singled out for special help to succeed.

Amendment 46 acknowledges what we already know, which is that America is becoming an incredibly diverse place where race is no longer so easily defined and gender is no longer the impediment to success that it once was. Our outreach efforts should be tied to economic disadvantage — a variable that doesn’t require the government to discriminate or pit one race or gender against another. A “yes” vote on Amendment 46 this November is a vote for fairness and equality.

Jessica Peck Corry is executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative campaign.

Affirmative action on ballot in some U.S. states
Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:06pm EDT
Keith Coffman - Analysis

DENVER (Reuters) - When voters in Colorado select a new U.S. president on November 4, they will also be asked whether to eliminate policies that give preference in government hiring to women and blacks.

It is just one of about 150 ballot initiatives in 35 states that will coincide with the White House race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

The Colorado initiative and a similar one in Nebraska are the latest skirmishes in America’s ongoing debate over “affirmative action” — policies aimed at redressing racism by giving minorities preference in hiring, college admissions and other areas such as government contracts.

They are policies that are slowly being rolled back and that no longer follow the partisan script of liberal Democrats supporting them and conservative Republicans opposed.

That fact is underscored in Colorado by polls that show that Obama, who would be the first black president, will likely take the state — a closely contested battleground — but the measure, known as Amendment 46, will likely pass.

Neither presidential candidate has made the issue a centerpiece of his campaign, another indication the issue is losing its partisan edge, unlike abortion or gay marriage, which energizes both parties’ core voters.

The Colorado initiative is led by the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, an offshoot of the American Civil Rights Institute. The latter has led successful efforts in recent years to pass similar measures in California, Washington and Michigan — all liberal-leaning states, which highlights Democratic divisions on the issue.

“I think affirmative action generally has lost its appeal and the Democratic Party has always been divided on the issue between its working-class union base and its upscale professional side,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Polls in recent years show that many Americans support the rationale for such programs but still see them as unfair.

DECEPTIVE WORDING?

Critics of the measures say they are worded deceptively and helps to explain their success even in liberal states.

“They are deceptively written because they talk about eliminating discrimination,” said Kristina Wilfore, the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

The initiative in Colorado says the following: “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.”

Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based independent pollster and analyst, said the measure appealed to an American sense of fairness and desire for a “color-blind” society — and Obama’s own campaign has tried to move beyond issues of race.

“Obama will win the state and Amendment 46 will pass. … It’s a reflection of the national disposition. It passes everywhere. California is even more liberal than Colorado and it passed there,” he said.

Opponents of the measure in Colorado include the state’s Democratic governor, Bill Ritter, and a coalition of chambers of commerce, including the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, the Asian Chamber of Commerce and the Black Chamber of Commerce.

The chambers of commerce in Colorado have said a diverse workforce is needed in a global economy, although, if passed, the amendment would not apply to the private sector directly.

Supporters of affirmative action also point to persistent income and other disparities that still exist between black and white Americans and other minorities as well as gender inequalities.

Colorado for example is about 4 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic, according to U.S. census data, which also shows that only 1.5 percent of firms in the state are black-owned and only about 5 percent Hispanic-owned.

But Shawn Coleman, 30, an African-American Democratic precinct captain and Obama supporter who also strongly supports Amendment 46, says racial preferences do not take into account economic circumstances.

“I do believe if you are willing to work hard and get by on merit, then you can succeed here in Colorado,” he said.

“Preference programs are putting a band-aid on it. Regardless of your race or gender, if you come from a low-income background that is going to be your biggest challenge in regards to education and employment,” he told Reuters by phone.

Obama has said he supports affirmative action “as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination,” but has also said minorities from affluent backgrounds like his own children might not be in need of special treatment.

McCain has said he opposes “quotas.”

“This is not a partisan issue … we have liberals, we have conservatives,” said Jessica Peck Corry, the executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative.

(Writing and additional reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Eric Beech)

Time to ban preferences
Vote yes on Amendment 46
Rocky Mountain News

Published October 2, 2008

A surge in interracial marriages and immigration has meant racial and ethnic lines - artificial strata defining us by the color of our skin and not by the content of our character, the ideal stressed by Martin Luther King Jr. - are blurring, and will only continue to get fuzzier.

Thinking beyond the narrow check boxes by which we are supposed to classify ourselves on census forms is a good thing. America is still the melting pot - but one that is more tolerant than ever of diverse cultural traditions.

Amendment 46 will reinforce this progress by ensuring that government maintains a level playing field for all Coloradans. It prohibits the state “from discriminating against or granting 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.”

Opponents of Amendment 46 are issuing dire warnings regarding its impact on the state. Gov. Bill Ritter this week went so far as to claim that Amendment 46 “undercuts Colorado and destroys years of progress on education, health care and work-force development.” Yet the amendment doesn’t even cover “health care” - except maybe some programs in university medical or dental schools. And it’s already illegal to discriminate when providing health services. You can’t have a public dental clinic refusing to treat, say, white men or black women.

As for “work-force development,” the governor may believe that the state must discriminate or grant preferential treatment based on race, sex or other categories in order to create a diverse workplace, but we disagree - and we bet most Coloradans do, too. You don’t vanquish discrimination with more discrimination. You do it by enforcing equality before the law - a fundamental constitutional principle that Americans expect their government to uphold, not actively undermine.

Predictably, most state colleges and universities have joined the coalition attacking Amendment 46. Metro State and Colorado Community College System trustees voted unanimously to oppose Amendment 46, even though their essentially open enrollment policies mean they won’t have to turn away any minority or female applicants as a result.

The University of Northern Colorado, meanwhile, contended in its resolution that the amendment “may have a significant chilling effect on efforts to promote diversity by means other than the granting of preferential treatment.” But why, so long as the efforts referred to don’t discriminate?

Some critics mention selective scholarships that could be threatened or cite the potential loss of programs encouraging girls to consider math and science careers. We find it rather jarring to hear people in this day and age defend ethnic-based scholarships - especially when it’s clear that the major barrier to educational access is poverty and not ethnicity. Amendment 46 does nothing, of course, to prevent people from targeting aid to those in need.

If you want to extend a helping hand to kids growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods, Amendment 46 will not prevent you from doing so. If you’re a student coming from economic hardship, you could still have that considered on your college application.

Meanwhile, if private donors wish to support female-only programs aimed at shoring up the confidence of girls interested in math and science, they still can. But taxpayer dollars would not be used for such a purpose - at least not without similar programs being aimed at boys - because government has a special responsibility to uphold equal opportunity.

Amendment 46 opponents argue that after the passage of a similar measure two years ago in Michigan the percentage of minority contractors getting government work declined; they clearly believe discrimination accounts for the difference. Preferences are needed, they claim, to level the playing field and give women and minorities a fair shot at success.

We think a wealth of evidence across contemporary America - in government agencies as clearly as anywhere - undercuts this pessimism. Bigotry has hardly been banished from America, of course, but it is no longer credible to maintain that it is a major obstacle to creating a diverse state work force, university student body or faculty, or a nondiscriminatory system of contracting.

The man behind Amendment 46 - and similar initiatives this November in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma - is Ward Connerly, a black businessman who served 12 years on the University of California Board of Regents. As Connerly frequently points out, an African-American is one step away from the presidency. Talk about the ultimate glass ceiling being busted to smithereens.

Coloradans should take the cue to move beyond preferential treatment and embrace equal opportunity. Vote yes on Amendment 46.