OCR Text |
Show AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: PATH TO EQUALITY OR REVERSE DISCRIMINATION? Natalie A. Noel Two examples of the many public interest groups and parties that filed amicus briefs are, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Rights Council (JRC). Both filed amicus briefs in support of DeFunis's case, while the NAACP and other civil rights organizations filed amicus briefs in support of the University of Washington. The primary interest of the JRC was founded upon the history of anti-Semitism in American higher education. Up to the 1950s, many Jewish applicants encountered problems in their attempt to enter certain undergraduate schools and many professional graduate schools of law and medicine. Many schools limited the number of Jews admitted by using a quota-based admissions process. Thus, this background of religious quotas designed to exclude Jewish applicants from university and college admission led the JRC to reject the idea of positive, or benign, racial quotas that have resulted in their former exclusion. The JRC contended that any racially preferential policies violate the Fourteenth Amendment because, as in the case of DeFunzs, there were better qualified students who were not accepted. Though not opposed to university recruitment efforts targeted toward qualified minorities, the JRC affirmed their opposition to university admissions processes that used quotas, goals, or set-asides. (Ball 2000, 30). In contrast to the JRC and other opponents of preferential based affirmative action, amicus briefs in support of Odegaard in the case against UWSL, center on the notion put forth by Justice Blackmun and Marshall in the Bakke case, "that color-blindness has come to represent the long-term goal. It is now well understood...that our society cannot be completely color-blind in the short term if we are to have a color blind society in the long term" (Ball 2000, 35). Thus, this argument for racially preferential policies seeks to achieve equity in the long term by advocating positive racial classifications that necessitate making racial distinctions in the short term. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN LAWMAKEVG CITIZEN ACTIVISM As twenty states allow citizens to propose laws, and to vote directly on laws through the initiative process, it is not surprising that a contentious issue like affirmative action would result in ballot measures. A most notable example of a citizen activist opposed to preferential treatment is University of California Regent, Ward Connerly. Connerly spearheaded the effort to eliminate racial preferences in the University of California system and on July 20, 1995, Connerly and other Regents voted to end the University of California's nearly 29-year old policy of giving preference for minorities and women in admissions and jobs. The impact of the policy change resulted in an 81 percent drop in minority enrollment in Berkeley's law school. With regard to the immediate drop, Connerly conceded that, "No one can look at the sharp decline in non-Asian minority admissions and not feel sad- dened...but I see plenty that is positive." Connerly asserted that, "those blacks who will enter Berkeley today can say with pride that they were admitted on their own" (Terry 1998). Though Connerly is strongly against preferential treatment based on race and gender, he is a proponent of preferences based on economic need. Connerly advocates giving extra consideration to qualified students who are poor (Terry 1998). Likewise, in the wake of the Regents' change in policy, and in order to address the immediate decrease in minority enrollment, the Regents adopted policies to target low-performing schools and began sending tutors with the goal of helping minority students become more academically competitive. In 1996, about one year following the University of California Board of Regents ban on preferential treatment based on race and gender, California voters passed by a 54 to 46 percent margin a controversial ballot initiative, Proposition 209. The crux of Proposition 209, the Prohibition Against Discrimination or Preferential Treatment by State and Other Public Entities, stipulated that "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." Also called the California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209-like the 1995 California Board of Regents ban on preferential treatment of race and gender-was also led by Regent Ward Connerly. He asserted that, "We can continue perpetuating the outdated premise on which race and gender preferences are based...that blacks, women, and other minorities are incapable of competing without a handicap. Or we can resume the journey to a fair and inclusive society. I wouldn't accept a job or college admission based on color. I would not want the stigma, the cloud hanging over me. There could be no greater insult" (Terry 1998). Opponents of Proposition 209, claimed that with regard to university admissions it "reinforces the 'who you know' system that favors cronies and the powerful." Similarly, they assert that "whether intentional or not, it pits communities against communities and individuals against each other" (Proposition 209 Initiative Constitutional Amendment 1996). However, proponents of Proposition 209 countered that the California Civil Rights Initiative, or Proposition 209, simply restated parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Similarly, they asserted that instead Proposition 209 "will stop terrible programs which are dividing our people and tearing us apart." Furthermore, they argued that Proposition 209 will "bring us together under a single standard of equal treatment under the law" (Proposition 209 Initiative Constitutional Amendment 1996). The debate over California's Proposition 209 evolved into much more than an individual state proposition. Soon the entire country became embroiled in the issues surrounding the controversy. Proposition 209 merely added fuel to the already flaming national debate sparked by Bakke. |