Free Republic

So on Sept 16th, just days after the FBI-foiled the Jihad bomber “Muslim terrorist attack’, what does uber left-wing Ms. Duckworth do? She doubled down in her Hamas-linked-CAIR support, put on a hijab and stated: the growing minority population makes the white community uncomfortable, and whites would have to overcome their ‘racism.’ Introducing her at that meeting was the Executive Director of the Chicago chapter of Hamas-CAIR, Ahmed Rehab. Watch Mr. Rehab discuss the controversial Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamic supremacist conference in Chicago in June, 2009. That same Hizb ut-Tahrir conference featured this illuminating exchange between an audience questioner and a conference...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state appeals court has given San Francisco a chance to reinstate an affirmative action program for minority and female contractors, saying a history of discrimination may justify preferential treatment despite California's Proposition 209. A judge who struck down the 20-year-old program in 2004 failed to review San Francisco's claims that long-standing and pervasive discrimination by both city employees and contractors resulted in firms owned by minorities and women being illegally excluded from winning city business, the First District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday. If San Francisco can prove those claims, it may be able to show...

SACRAMENTO - Just when California is poised to ramp up road construction, Caltrans may roll back a civil rights program that has steered tens of thousands of federally funded contracts to woman- and minority-owned small businesses across the state. State Department of Transportation officials say they prefer to continue administering the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program -- which pushes contractors to give a percentage of their contracts to women and minority subcontractors -- but a federal court decision could kill the decades-old quota system. A ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May would force Caltrans to prove...

A majority of small and midsize business owners and managers surveyed in a Crain’s poll support a state constitutional amendment banning racial, gender and ethnic preferences in state government and universities.The findings mirror another poll by John Bailey & Associates, which was commissioned by the Detroit Regional Chamber. Crain’s poll, conducted by EPIC-MRA, had a larger sample size. (See box, Page 88.) ... Ward Connerly — a former University of California regent and a nationally known opponent of racial preferences — is backing the Michigan initiative. A group called the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative circulated petitions in the state. Jennifer...

<p>Ward Connerly filed suit against state officials Tuesday, claiming a newly signed law violates California's constitutional ban on race-based preferences.</p> <p>Connerly contends that AB 703 is an "end run" around Proposition 209, passed by voters in 1996 to prohibit preferences in state hiring, contracting and education.</p>

<p>With less than a month to go before the Oct. 7 recall election, support is crumbling for a ballot measure that would restrict the state from collecting certain racial data, according to a Field Poll released Wednesday.</p> <p>Proposition 54 is favored by 40 percent of likely voters, down from 46 percent in an August survey. Forty percent also oppose the initiative by Ward Connerly, while two in 10 voters remain undecided. "It's looking ominous for its chances of passage," said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo. "When you lose your margin, it's pretty much over," unless some new factor emerges in the campaign.</p>

Thomas Sowell, the famous economist and writer, has written eloquently about the ways that people of different racial and economic backgrounds gravitate to different professions and neighborhoods. It's as natural as the sun coming up in the morning and as typical in the United States as it is in Indonesia or Albania.No one is shocked that many donut stores in Southern California are owned by Cambodians. Or that motels are owned disproportionately by people of Indian descent, or that Indians also are well represented in the computer programming field. Basketball has long been the province of black Americans, although an...

SACRAMENTO, CALIF.-Ward Connerly, campaign chairman of Yes on Proposition 54, announced today that he would hold a press conference today at 1 p.m. in the Santa Barbara Room in Sacramento’s downtown Hyatt Regency hotel, located at 1209 L Street. Mr. Connerly will comment on recent developments in the Prop 54 campaign. He will be joined by Prop 54 Northern California chairman and Prop 209 co-author Dr. Glynn Custred. The following is the text of the conference.STATEMENT OF YES ON PROP 54 CAMPAIGN September 8, 2003 At this stage of the campaign for Proposition 54, I don’t know which is worse,...

PROP 54 CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN WARD CONNERLY TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY AT SACRAMENTO’S DOWNTOWN HYATT REGENCYSACRAMENTO, CALIF.-Ward Connerly, campaign chairman of Yes on Proposition 54, announced today that he would hold a press conference today at 1 p.m. in the Santa Barbara Room in Sacramento’s downtown Hyatt Regency hotel, located at 1209 L Street. Mr. Connerly will comment on recent developments in the Prop 54 campaign. He will be joined by Prop 54 Northern California chairman and Prop 209 co-author Dr. Glynn Custred.Dr. Custred is a professor of anthropology at California State University, Hayward and a member of the Board...

WALNUT CREEK - Tom Wood and Glynn Custred used to agree on most everything that had to do with race.They agreed that race-based affirmative action was wrong. They agreed on the need to ban racial preferences in state admissions, hiring and public contracting. And so they authored Proposition 209, the initiative that made California the first state to abolish race-based affirmative action.But those lockstep days are over. The two strongly disagree on the latest initiative designed to change the way Californians think about race. Proposition 54, spearheaded by UC Regent Ward Connerly, who campaigned for Prop. 209, is a constitutional...

August 28, 2003FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Diane Schachterle (916) 444-2278or ds@racialprivacy.org CONNERLY AND NGUYEN CHASTISE LEGISLATORS FOR UNCIVIL DISCOURSEYesterday, the California Legislature convened a "hearing" to consider Proposition 54. As predicted, the hearing was nothing more than a sideshow orchestrated to allow the opponents of Proposition 54 to showcase their irresponsible fearmongering charges against the initiative. That is precisely why the chair of the American Civil Rights Coalition, Ward Connerly, refused to legitimize such an event by attending.Connerly had this to say about Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally's demeaning treatment of Kevin Nguyen, Proposition 54 proponent: "Kevin is a man of unparalleled dignity...

SACRAMENTO, CALIF.-Ward Connerly, campaign chairman of Proposition 54,proudly announced today that Dr. Glynn Custred, co-author of Proposition 209, has strongly endorsed Prop 54 and has pledged his full support in the campaign for the initiative that will bar state government from recognizing, classifying, categorizing or dividing its citizens by race, color or ethnicity. Dr. Custred is a professor of anthropology at California State University, Hayward and a member of the Board of Directors of Americans Against Discrimination and Preferences, an educational organization. He also serves as the President of the California Association of Scholars and is on the Board of...

Commentary and news from Pacific Legal Foundation (www.pacificlegal.org) The PLF Sentry Vol. 3, No. 15 August 22, 2003DAVIS SIGNS ASSAULT ON PROPOSITION 209; PLF POISED TO POUNCEProposition 209 is the voter-passed amendment to the California Constitution which forbids state and local governments from playing favorites by race in public hiring, contracting and education. The latest in a long line of assaults on Prop. 209 by proponents of racial spoils is Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally's bill that would play inventive word games with key mandates in the initiative. The Dymally legislation, A.B. 703, would require that the words "discriminate" and "preference" be...

Please Distribute: American Civil Rights Coalition P.O. Box  188350 Sacramento CA 95818www.acrc1.org GOVERNOR DAVIS RENEGES ON CAMPAIGN PROMISE NOT TO UNDERMINE WITH THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE ON PROP 209 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:  Diane Schachterle 916-444-2278 SACRAMENTO -- Last week, Governor Gray Davis signed AB 703, authored by Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally.  Regrettably, the Governor has chosen to renege on a campaign promise to the people of California, made during the 1998 gubernatorial campaign when Davis stated that he would do nothing to undermine the will of the people regarding the enforcement of Proposition 209, now Article 1 Section 31...

For distribution: Already, numerous articles are coming out of the mainstream press concerning CA's Proposition 54 -- The Racial Privacy Initiative (Classification by Race, Ethnicity or National Origin Initiative) to be voted upon at/whenever the "recall" vote is scheduled. Currently, this vote is scheduled for October 7, 2003. The following article appears at the RPI website, and is authored by Ward Connerly, Chairman of the RPI. Opponents to the RPI are using "any means possible" to delay this vote. Opponents are collectively lying about this initiative. Most particularly with regards to "medical matters" for minorities. Section (f) of Proposition 54...