Ignoring race stats dangerous

I consider myself an ally of Thomas Wood, the co-author of
Proposition 209, despite the fact that I consider myself a
politically liberal-minded person. I’m his ally not because
he believes that race is an irrelevant factor in hiring and higher
education admissions. But rather because we both agree that the
Classification of Race, Ethnicity and National Origin initiative,
which would prohibit the state from collecting any data classifying
anyone by race, ethnicity, color or national origin, is inherently
destructive. CRENO, formerly known as the Racial Privacy
Initiative, is the newest creation of Proposition 209’s
strongest proponent Ward Connerly.

Last Saturday the California Republican Party voted unanimously
to support the initiative.

This comes as no surprise.

Californian Republican leaders have a history of alienating
moderates and people of color. The California Republican Party
greatly differs from the national Republican Party. In fact, its
extremist views have been key influences in pushing through state
propositions such as Proposition 187, which took social services
away from undocumented workers in 1994; Proposition 227, which
nearly eliminated bilingual education in 1998; and yes, Proposition
209, which excluded race as a factor for admissions and hiring
policies in 1996.

The California Republican Party’s choice of leadership
shows how the party has deteriorated and grown further from the
national Republican Party’s efforts to appeal to moderates,
people of color and women. For instance, former state Republican
Vice Chairman Bill Back, who circulated an essay suggesting that
the United States would have been better off if the slave-holding
South had won the Civil War, came very close to becoming chairman
of the California Republican Party. Even President Bush’s
campaign spokesman Raoul Contreras spoke out against the decision
to back the initiative, as reported by the San Jose Mercury
News.

Let us take a hypothetical look at the state of California in
the year 2025 if a majority of California voters decide to prohibit
the collection of racial statistics in March 2004. Twenty years
will have gone by without anyone ever having to check off what
Connerly calls “the silly little boxes.” Twenty years
of public policy and academic research on everything from K-12
education, public health and hiring practices in state agencies
““ and race will never have been considered as a factor for
anything, despite the massive inequalities.

According to the California Department of Education’s
rates for high school sophomores from March 2001 to May 2002, 65
percent of white students passed the California High School Exit
Examination. Compare that to 28 percent of black students and 30
percent of Latino students who passed the exit exam.

How is it possible to close these achievement gaps among
students without considering race as a factor when the inequalities
are so blatant? How do Republicans expect to fulfill promises of
improving public education to all California students by
prohibiting the collection of this information?

Additionally, the racial and ethnic makeup of California
institutions will have changed dramatically in twenty years.
Consider the drastic changes in the racial and ethnic makeup that
has already occurred in California schools. According to the
California Department of Education, white students made up 56
percent of all students in the 1981-1982 academic year. In the
2000-2001 academic year, white students decreased to 37 percent and
Latinos increased by a whopping 16 percent, from 26 percent to 42
percent. If we don’t know who makes up the population, how
can the state government effectively serve the whole
population?

CRENO proponents like to point out an insignificant provision,
which exempts medical research from the initiative. But this
exemption only applies to “public health experiments that
call for volunteer subjects of a certain racial background”
and private medical records. What about access to healthcare?
Almost a third of Latino children are uninsured and 41 percent of
middle-aged adult Latinos are uninsured in California, according to
the Latino American Medical Association. CRENO’s medical
research exemption fails to address the social concerns as well as
large-scale research obtained by surveys that depend on state
agencies for data on race and ethnicity.

Despite the current discrepancies of resources allotted to
communities of color and those allotted to whites, researchers
would be unilaterally forced to overlook race as a factor if CRENO
passes. In 20 years, researchers might have trained themselves to
ignore race as a factor because the information will have simply
been unavailable.

No matter how you use racial statistics, it’s at least
important to know that the information is available. Wood has said
he opposes CRENO because it would make the enforcement of
Proposition 209 impossible. I oppose CRENO because it prohibits the
collection of vital information, especially for the people of
California.

It’s ironic that my colleague Ward Connerly, a regent of
one of the most prominent research institutions in the country, is
working to implement this ban on information. If Connerly’s
ultimate vision of a race-blind society is reflected by the
attitudes of the white male-dominated leadership of the California
Republican Party, then I’d hate to think of
California’s bleak future with CRENO in effect.

Ligot-Gordon is the 2002-2003 UC student regent.