American Constitution Society Announces Issue Brief "The State-by-State Assault on Equal Opportunity"

ACS is pleased to distribute an Issue Brief by Melissa Hart, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, entitled The State-by-State Assault on Equal Opportunity.In this Issue Brief, Professor Hart describes the effort to place measures on the ballot in states around the country to eliminate all forms of affirmative action, the arguments being made in support of these initiatives, and the impact they have had in the states where they have been adopted. Professor Hart argues that affirmative action programs help foster true equality and ensure civil rights for women and people of color, by removing down barriers to opportunity and giving long-excluded communities a fair chance to achieve their full potential. Nonetheless, according to Professor Hart, a small group of well-funded opponents of equal opportunity, working state-by-state to make affirmative action illegal, have succeeded in three states so far (California, Washington and Michigan) and are likely to have their initiatives on the ballot this November in Colorado and Nebraska.Professor Hart argues that the proponents of these measures use deceptive language and foster confusion over its meaning, that they rely on false premises and a notion of formal equality that ignores the discrimination that persists in our society, and that where these measures have been adopted, they have had very harmful consequences - most notably, reducing diversity on university campuses. She further suggests that these measures and the debates they spark change the discourse on equal opportunity in damaging ways going beyond any single state's boundaries. Objecting to the idea that proponents of equal opportunity should "surrender," however, she notes that efforts in several states to fight back against these initiatives have been successful, most recently in Arizona, where last month the Secretary of State ruled that an insufficient number of valid signatures had been gathered for placement of the measure on that state's ballot. Professor Hart concludes that "with concerted political and educational efforts, supporters of equal opportunity can prevail against this misleading and destructive campaign. It will require focus and a sense of urgency, but success is eminently possible - and well worth the effort."The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is one of the nation's leading progressive legal organizations. Founded in 2001, ACS is a rapidly growing network of lawyers, law students, scholars, judges, policymakers and other concerned individuals. Our mission is to ensure that fundamental principles of human dignity, individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, and access to justice enjoy their rightful, central place in American law. For more information about the organization, which has established student chapters at over 160 law schools around the country and lawyer chapters in 30 cities, please visit, www.ACSLaw.org.The views of the authors are their own and should not be attributed to ACS. This issue brief is available online at http://www.acslaw.org/node/7123.

Contributed by: Marshall Rose, AAAA Task Force on Equity in the States