Free Republic

Ward Connerly again. As if a year that has given us corporate criminality, pedophile priests and a new Adam Sandler movie were not already odious enough, now the notorious University of California regent is back in the headlines. For those who don't know, Connerly is the black — and he would probably disavow that characterization — activist who spearheaded the successful 1996 drive to end affirmative action in Golden State government and universities. Connerly's latest crusade? The so-called Racial Privacy Initiative, which, if approved by voters, would prohibit the state from collecting most forms of racial data on its citizens....

<p>As if a year that has given us corporate criminality, pedophile priests and a new Adam Sandler movie were not already odious enough, now the notorious University of California regent is back in the headlines. You remember Connerly, the black -- and he would probably disavow that characterization -- activist who spearheaded the successful 1996 drive to end affirmative action in Golden State government and universities and, more recently, failed to do the same thing in Florida.</p>

Connerly Initiative Promotes Racial Balkanization By YVONNE SCRUGGS-LEFTWICH, Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich is executive director of the national Black Leadership Forum Inc. Ward Connerly, the University of California regent who spearheaded the successful 1996 initiative to abolish affirmative action in California schools and government, is again pretending race doesn't matter. He now is godfather to the Racial Privacy Initiative, which, if passed by California's voters, would forbid state agencies to note the race of anyone seeking access to public benefits. This, the initiative's supporters contend, would make prejudice and racism disappear. The effort is at least naive and certainly wrong. Here's why:...

Color Schemes Can affirmative action be reconciled with liberal individualism? By Richard A. Epstein The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, by Glenn C. Loury, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 226 pages, $22.95 Glenn Loury is an intelligent but angry man with a mission: to explain both the origins and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Loury, a professor of economics at Boston University, was once that rarest of beings, a black conservative intellectual, with a strong belief in self-reliance and a deep suspicion of affirmative action. In recent years his ideology has changed. His migration to the...

<p>An initiative to stop California from classifying its 35 million residents by race likely lacks enough signatures to make the ballot in November, the state said Thursday.</p> <p>Instead, the initiative will probably go to voters during the March 2004 presidential primary, said Alfie Charles, spokesman for the secretary of state's office.</p>