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IN THIS ISSUE

Table of Contents

Letter from the President: Connecting the Dots

Notes on the Right: The Enduring Importance of Strategy

EJS December 8 Fundraiser Features Harriet Tubman Jazz Oratorio

Vote Yes on 89: 'Clean Money' Initiative

First California, Now Michigan: Putting Race up for a Vote

Supreme Court to Revisit Brown v. Board in School Cases

EJS, CTA Look at Unconscious Bias in Schools

U.N. Committee Criticizes Racism in U.S.

New Voting Rights Act Under Attack

A First Look at the Roberts Court

Latina/o Law Student Symposium

Foundations Support EJS Efforts to Balance Racial Justice Debate

Farewell from our Irmas Fellow

Staff News and Notes

Newsletter Editors:
Elaine Elinson
Miguel Gavaldón

Email Feedback

First California, Now Michigan:
Putting Race up for a Vote

 
By Elaine Elinson and Shannon Seibert

On November 7, Michigan voters will vote on Proposal 2, the so-called “Michigan Civil Rights Initiative,” sponsored by the father of Proposition 209, Sacramento businessman Ward Connerly. Like California’s Proposition 209, the Michigan ballot initiative would eliminate affirmative action from public education, contracting, and employment. Since the passage of 209 in 1996, the levels of underrepresented minority students in California’s public institutions of higher education have fallen  sharply, with the steepest  drops at UCLA and Berkeley. This fall, UCLA has just 96 black freshmen out of a class of more than 4,700, a 30-year low.

Under the banner of One United Michigan, a broad coalition has rallied to oppose the measure.   One United Michigan includes business, labor, academic, minority, women’s and religious organizations. Virtually ever major newspaper  in the state has editorialized against the measure, arguing that Michigan’s affirmative action and outreach programs  provide opportunities for women and minorities and that this initiative would adversely affect or reverse equal opportunity programs designed to overcome discrimination.

The breadth of organizations that are campaigning against the measure include both the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor, the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, the American Association of University Women, the Michigan Conference United Church of Christ, NOW, the Association of Michigan Universities and numerous city councils and chambers of commerce. (See http://www.oneunitedmichigan.org/About/orgs.html for a complete list).

Veterans of California’s fight against Proposition 209 have also rallied to oppose the measure.  EJS President Eva Paterson traveled to Ann Arbor in early October, explaining in the strongest terms how Connerly’s California measure has been a setback for women and people of color in California. “Not only do the numbers of admissions in our public university system tell the bleak consequences of Proposition 209, this pernicious measure has also had a chilling effect on the hopes and aspirations of African American, Native American, and Latino students in California. – an immeasurable impact, yet equally as significant as the numbers.” 

Paterson noted that this year, just 2% of the freshmen at UCLA are African American – even lower than 1973, the first year such data was available.

Former UC Berkeley admissions director Bob Laird also went to Michigan to talk about the disastrous impact of Proposition 209 on the UC system.  In addition, Monique Morris of the Discrimination Research Center and Paul Turner of the Greenlining Institute aired their views in an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press [link to September 8, 2006 op-ed] “The good people of Michigan should not endorse a resegregation of contract awards and job opportunities…[G]ains made by California in reducing disparities in income, home ownership and wealth have suffered to Proposition 209.  Michigan should look to expand equal opportunity and fair competition, not limit it,” Morris and Turner wrote.

National organizations like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP and the Urban League have also sent organizers and speakers to Michigan to bolster state civil rights and women’s groups to defeat the measure. 

In September, 2,000 Michiganders marched to the State Capitol in Lansing holding signs like "Don't Roll Back Progress" and "NAACP: Save Affirmative Action." Many of them chanted "Vote No on Proposal 2.  Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm addressed the crowd, stating, “"This is a moral issue as well as an economic issue. We need to create an educated society, and in order to do that, everyone needs to receive the same opportunities.”

Connerly declared his intent to place an anti-affirmative action initiative on the Michigan ballot the day after the Supreme Court’s 2003 decisions in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger upholding the use of race as a factor in university admissions. Connerly recruited Jennifer Gratz, the named plaintiff in the case against the undergraduate admission program to the University of Michigan, to lead the Michigan effort.

A recent poll by the Detroit Free Press showed that the only group of voters that supports the initiative are white males.  African Americans, who are 14% of the state population, overwhelmingly oppose it.  The One United Michigan campaign has just begun airing a series of television ads showing how the measure would eliminate or decrease educational and employment opportunities for women.

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