Protesters Hope To Defend State Constitutional Language
POSTED: 8:34 am CST February 27, 2008
UPDATED: 2:31 pm CST February 27, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. -- A renewed debate over affirmative action is finding a new battleground in Nebraska.
A petition is circulating that wants to change the state constitution's stance on discrimination and preferential treatment. Protesters said the language bans affirmative action.
Under fire are seven words in the state constitution: "Discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to." Anti-affirmative action advocates are circulating a petition for a ballot initiative that adds these words: "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."
On Thursday, California businessman Ward Connerly, who is the man behind the proposal, will speak at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Dayton Headlee, the student leader who coordinated the event and chair of the Nebraska College Republicans, said the law allows other ways to help people who need it.
"It allows affirmative action, as it's titled to continue based on socioeconomic status and groups that have typically not been well represented," Headlee said. "Giving somebody a leg up always gives somebody else a leg down. (The proposal) removes discrimination by race or gender from the public sphere."
Protestors argued that the amendment would spell doom for University of Nebraska outreach and athletic programs that help develop minority youth. The opposition brought its own big names, including former Health and Human Service Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan.
"We need to do everything to see that all of our citizens have the opportunity to develop their talents fully," Sullivan said.
Sullivan and his backers said affirmative action is not preferential treatment, but rather levels an unbalanced playing field.
"Affirmative action is necessary," said the American Association for Affirmative Action's Renee Dunman. "It prevents discrimination."
The Connerly petition needs about 115,000 signatures to make it on the November ballot.
Connerly is scheduled to speak at UNO's Milo Bail Center at 4 p.m. Thursday. Protesters said they will gather there an hour earlier. http://www.ketv.com/newsarchive/15423766/detail.html
1 comment:
Ward Connerly and his paid minions from Lawrenceville, Georgia have come to Nebraska, have enlisted local shills to advance their agenda, and are proposing to solve a situation that we've yet to identify as a mere concern, much less a “problem” that Nebraskans need help solving.
Mr. Connerly is traveling the country as the well-paid mouthpiece for and self-anointed savior of “equality." He’s made a very good living disparaging and disrupting well-intended, and legal I might add, efforts to enhance the participation, representation, and advancement of women and “minorities” in the arenas of employment, education, and government contracting. His weapons of choice in building his legacy are misinformation, the inculcation of fear and divisiveness, and the mischaracterization of affirmative action as “reverse discrimination,” granting of racial preferences, or affording opportunities to undeserving, unqualified individuals. Affirmative action in Nebraska is none of these things.
Some folks are buying Connerly’s brand of snake oil. Some have been hoodwinked, tricked, and bamboozled by his tactics and rhetoric. Many have not. In fact, Connerly-inspired efforts to place anti-affirmative action referendums on state/local election ballots, or to change state constitutions or city charters, have been rejected outright by voters, or passed under clouds of suspicion focused on voter fraud, or tainted by attempts to obfuscate and dissemble through clever, deceptive wording… a vote “for” is a vote “against”… a vote “against” is a vote “for.” Because polls show that “affirmative action” continues to have support throughout this country, those opposed to it must resort to trick plays, smoke, mirrors, and “slight of tongue.”
Having failed to achieve a national ban on affirmative action at the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Connerly is now obligated to revert to a strategy of attaining state constitutional bans on affirmative action through ballot initiatives. He’s targeted several "easy" states to canvas. The plan is: identify the "easy" targets, attack often and systematically, obtain signatures by any means necessary, exploit the process, do the damage, go back home to California or Georgia. It’s slick, but it’s not the way we do business in Nebraska.
Here's the message we need to send to Mr. Connerly, his minions and local shills: integrity, honesty, common sense, and fairness are still bedrock values in this part of the country, and are not necessarily trumped by partisan politics. And, there's probably a few things we love more than Big Red football in Nebraska -- our constitution, our legislature, and the integrity of the processes to change our laws and our constitution.
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