Asian coalition mobilizes to campaign against Racial Privacy Initiative

UCLA’s Asian Pacific Coalition has begun its fight against
the Racial Privacy Initiative ““ which could ban collection of
race and ethnic-related data in California ““ more than a year
before the measure hits the ballot.

APC is forming a task force to campaign against the RPI, slated
for the California ballot in March 2004.

If passed by a majority of voters, the initiative would prohibit
the state from tracking race-based statistics on everything from
the possibility of racial profiling by law enforcement to
University of California admissions.

The proposal has encountered heated opposition from student
groups on campus, including APC, which held a meeting in January
for their newly created task force.

Coalition Director David Chung said the task force’s
mission is to inform community members about the impact the RPI
could have and to make sure everyone understands what he calls a
deceptively complicated issue.

At the meeting, coalition leaders passed around the
initiative’s complete text while they noted the
policy’s harmful effects would affect not just minorities but
all Californians.

Speakers mentioned that under the proposal, the state would be
barred from collecting important statistics such as hate crime
data, high disease rates in certain races, and data measuring the
effectiveness of outreach programs.

APC staff member and third-year political science student
Priscilla Chen said it is important to reach out to students now
even though the issue isn’t on the ballot until next
year.

“It seems like it’s really far away, but it takes a
lot of time, manpower and support to educate the whole
campus,” Chen said.

Chen and her fellow activists apparently have their work cut out
for them, as 70 percent of students said they are uninformed about
the RPI in a recent USAC poll. The poll, however, was
unscientific.

The coalition also expressed its dislike of the term
“privacy” in the policy’s title, saying a more
accurate description of the proposal would be “Racial
Information Ban.”

The task force is still in the process of being formed, but
currently has 10-15 members drawn from APC and 20 other
organizations associated with the coalition.

Chung said the task force plans to hold a series of speaker
trainings spring quarter for people on the task force so members
can properly articulate the issue.

The task force will initially focus its efforts on speaking to
students via presentations in classrooms and around campus.

As the vote approaches later this year, their focus will turn to
voter registration drives in order to make sure students express
their views.

After a successful campaign in 1996 to pass Proposition 209,
which effectively banned affirmative action in California, UC
Regent Ward Connerly has spearheaded the RPI.

“I’ve always felt it was idiotic or at least
offensive to categorize and classify citizens on skin color and
physical traits into groups,” Connerly said.

Chung said the fact that Connerly is black makes people unsure
of how to view the issue.

“We have to be careful when people of color are pushing
these agendas,” he said.

A plethora of opposition to Connerly’s proposal has
emerged in recent months, including criticism from MEChA, the
African Student Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and UCLA
Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

However, Chung emphasizes that while vocal support for their
cause is appreciated, it all depends on the number of votes.

“It doesn’t matter if the chancellor comes out
against it; it doesn’t matter if Gray Davis comes out against
it; what this is going to come down to is the vote,” Chung
said.