Connerly proposes to bar ethnic questions

By Timothy Kudo
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Classifying people by race and ethnicity for public education,
contracting or employment throughout the state will stop in 2005 if
a proposal by UC Regent Ward Connerly’s American Civil Rights
Coalition reaches the 2002 ballot and is passed by California
voters.

The proposal, titled the “Racial Privacy
Initiative,” is currently under review by the state attorney
general, after which it will require 670,816 signatures to make it
to the November 2002 ballot.

If passed, questions about ethnicity on UC applications would
either be eliminated, or the information gathered would not be
released to the news media or public.

“In one of the most racially and ethnically diverse places
in the nation, where people are marrying across racial lines, the
whole concept of race is becoming anachronistic,” Connerly
said.

The proposal allows for racial and ethnic classifications to be
made if there is a “compelling state interest” and the
state government approves such exemptions. Exemptions are also
allowed if federal law is violated.

According to Kevin Nguyen, executive director of ACRC, the
proposal is being made to protect “information that is
inherently private in nature.”

“When this info is made available to the government, it
has a tendency to use it in malicious ways,” Nguyen said.

An extreme example, he said, of this type of misuse can be seen
during the World War II internment of Japanese Americans who were
uncovered using census data.

Nothing in the proposal prevents enforcement of civil rights and
anti-discriminatory practices, Nguyen added.

“We value diversity, but we encourage people to think of
diversity as more than just skin deep,” he said.

According to UC spokesman Brad Hayward, the affect of such a
proposal is unclear, but it could hinder holding the university
accountable for admissions selections.

“We request (ethnic data) because it helps identify trends
in the admissions process,” Hayward said. “It’s a
useful analytical tool in determining how well we’re serving
all the people of the state.”

News of the proposal drew immediate criticism from other UC
regents as well as the chair of the UC Student Association, which
represents student interests at the state level.

“Ward Connerly is a maniac when it comes to the issue of
race,” said Student Regent Justin Fong. “Connerly is
not pro-diversity at all; he is anti-diversity because he honestly
doesn’t see any value in it and I think the man has blinders
on.”

In 1995, Connerly was the proponent of the regents’
proposals SP-1 and SP-2, which ended the use of affirmative action
throughout the university. Then in 1996, Proposition 209, which
Connerly also championed, was approved by California voters, ending
affirmative action throughout the state.

Since then, he has worked for the elimination of affirmative
action programs throughout the country.

Nguyen said there were also fears that admissions personnel
continue to take race into account in accepting students.

But Thomas Lifka, assistant vice chancellor of student academic
services at UCLA, said such data is not offered to people with a
say in admissions.

Regent William Bagley, who is working to repeal SP-1 at the UC
Board of Regents May meeting and saying there are enough votes to
do so, wisecracked at his fellow regent’s effort.

“I am going to sponsor an initiative to ban the teaching
of evolution and I am going to use the regents as my fulcrum to
move that cause along,” Bagley said.

On a serious note, he added that, “Regardless of
affirmative action … we’re now talking about qualified
minority students.”

“The banning of the boxes would be counterproductive and
deleterious to our effort to recruit qualified minorities,”
he continued.

Fong felt similarly about Connerly’s political involvement
while still retaining his position as regent.

“If he wants what’s best for the University of
California, then I think he should either resign from the board or
wait till his term is over and then run his campaigns,” Fong
said.

Connerly spurned Fong and Bagley’s arguments as something
“he would expect from those two.”

“If horse manure were music, their argument would be a
symphony,” he said.