About MCRI, Connerly's initiative in Michigan, read this and be happy:
Affirmative action foes say effort on track
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative says petition deadline will be met
Thursday, November 25, 2004BY DAVE GERSHMAN
News Staff Reporter
The state petition drive and campaign to ban affirmative action in state
government and university admissions may have lost its high profile in
recent months, but it is still active and organizers say they expect to have
enough signatures by January to put the issue before Michigan voters.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative says it has more than half of the
nearly 318,000 signatures needed to place a question on the statewide ballot
in 2006.
Legal challenges and controversy forced the group to scrap its plan to place
the question on the November 2004 ballot, but it restarted its campaign in
July, using volunteers and paid signature gatherers.
Once enough signatures are gathered, the group will switch its focus from
the petition drive to a "grass-roots campaign" in support of banning racial
preferences, said Chetly Zarko, MCRI's spokesman.
The campaign started after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2003 to
uphold the University of Michigan Law School's consideration of race in
admissions. At the same time, the court struck down the U-M undergraduate
school's race-conscious policy as too formulaic, but allowed U-M to revise
its admissions policies to still consider race as a factor in increasing
campus diversity.
If the MCRI campaign is successful, Zarko said, it will force U-M to "solve
some real problems" instead of using affirmative action to boost diversity.
U-M should tackle the achievement gap between racial groups in the state's
K-12 schools, Zarko said. A University of California regent, Ward Connerly,
is one of the backers of MCRI, and his organization has helped fund the
campaign in Michigan. The University of California system has stopped using
affirmative action in its admissions.
"The University of California targeted 150 of the lowest performing schools,
sent guidance counselors and professors to try to help schools out," Zarko
said. "That program has had quite a bit of success. I would call that true
affirmative action."
Defenders of affirmative action in Michigan, however, say MCRI has waged a
misleading campaign. David Waymire, a spokesman for Citizens for a United
Michigan, a group of businesses and community leaders, said the MCRI does
not have a groundswell of support.
Waymire said the Michigan ballot question would have widespread effects. He
said it also would hurt programs for women, for example. It would force
schools to end programs for young girls to meet women working in
male-dominated careers, such as engineering, or to add boys to the programs.
"We have racism, we have sexism in our society," Waymire said. "Are we going
to take away all the tools we need to address this?"
The MCRI campaign restarted in July after a three-judge appeals court panel
ruled in its favor in a dispute about the language on its petitions. The
campaign can now essentially choose any 180-day period to gather all of
signatures, as long as it submits them to the state by July 2006, in time
for the November 2006 general election. Rather than wait any longer, Zarko
said, MCRI plans to submit in January 2005 or sooner.
Defenders of affirmative action, such as The Coalition to Defend Affirmative
Action & Integration and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, or BAMN,
continue to challenge the wording of the MCRI petitions. BAMN has appealed
the appeals court's ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Zarko, however, said he is confident the Supreme Court will uphold the
decision of the appeals court. A spokeswoman for BAMN did not return phone
calls to comment.
A poll by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA, released in April, found 64 percent of
state voters would support the petition language being circulated by MCRI.
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-11/110138100045770.xml