Connerly blatantly misuses UC to further his ideology

  Michael Weiner Weiner is a fourth-year
history and political science student. His column analyzing issues
of interest to the UCLA community runs on Mondays. Send email to
[email protected]

Ask your average UCLA student to name a member of the UC Board
of Regents, and you’re likely to come up with the same answer
just about every time: Ward Connerly.

Since being appointed to the board by former Gov. Pete Wilson in
1993, Connerly has been a lightning rod of controversy ““
orchestrating the regents’ 1995 vote to end the
university’s use of affirmative action in admissions and
hiring, and then adding insult to injury by leading the campaign to
pass Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot initiative that banned
affirmative action statewide.

Now, Connerly is back with another misguided and insidious
ballot measure. He is currently circulating a proposal known as the
“Racial Privacy Initiative,” which would prevent state
institutions from collecting data on the race or ethnicity of their
students, employees and contractors starting in 2005. In order to
make the November 2002 ballot, the measure must first be approved
by the state attorney general. Sponsors must then collect the more
than 650,000 signatures required for ballot placement.

For the University of California, such a law would be yet
another barrier in the effort to enroll a diverse and
representative student body. Without accurate data on the
backgrounds of its students, the university will not be able to
gauge how well it is fulfilling its mission as a public university,
an institution that should be equally accessible to all of
California’s citizens.

Since joining the Board of Regents eight years ago, Connerly has
used his position to effectively politicize the administrative
structure of this university by placing it at the center of one of
the most contentious public debates of our time. To some extent,
politics must be a part of the university at the institutional
level, since at its foundation, the UC is fully owned and operated
by the citizens of the state.

But Connerly has always had another purpose in mind ““ to
use the UC as an instrument to further his own narrow ideological
agenda. This is fundamentally unethical and betrays the sacred
public trust regents are granted to represent the citizens of the
state and the principles and mission of public higher
education.

Not since Ronald Reagan was governor of California in the 1960s
and ’70s has the UC been so blatantly misused by a public
official in order to leverage a right-wing political agenda. In
fact, it is fair to say that Ward Connerly is the worst thing to
happen to this university since Reagan and the yes-men on his Board
of Regents decimated the fundamental principles on which public
universities are supposed to be based: academic liberty, freedom of
speech and association and free education for all.

The abuses of Reagan and his minions are well-established. They
include slashing the university’s budget, instituting tuition
fees, undermining the authority of administrators, violently
crushing student protests and blocking academic activity that did
not mesh with the governor’s ideological goals.

While the scope of Connerly’s attack on the university has
not been as far-reaching as Reagan’s, it has had similarly
negative effects. The ban on affirmative action, and the subsequent
precipitous drop in underrepresented minority students, undermined
two essential aspects of the UC’s mission.

First, as a public institution, the University of California has
a responsibility to be accessible to all of the residents of this
state, without regard to race and class. The use of affirmative
action demonstrated that the university was committed to this
central tenet of its mission, despite the persistent educational
inequality that holds back minority and economically disadvantaged
students.

Second, diversity on campus is not just an issue of social
engineering. A diverse student body serves the essential
educational function of ensuring that disparate and unpopular
viewpoints are given an appropriate hearing, both in the classroom
and in the campus culture.

If it passes, the “Racial Privacy Initiative” would
deny the citizens of this state the data they need to hold their
university accountable for fulfilling its mission. In a move
verging on totalitarianism, Connerly is attempting not only to
cover up the damage he has already done but also to prevent
conscientious officials from undoing that damage.

This latest attempt is classic Connerly. It’s an action
aimed at promoting a reactionary political agenda without regard
for the consequences imposed on the institution whose best
interests he is supposed to look out for. At this point, the best
thing Connerly could do for the University of California would be
to resign.