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Top Foe
of Affirmative Action Leaves California Regents
By DEAN E. MURPHY
The New York Times
January
21, 2005
Ward Connerly,
a black Sacramento millionaire who for a decade has led a turbulent
crusade against race preferences, is leaving his bully pulpit
at the University of California.
Mr. Connerly
attended his last meeting here on Thursday as a member of the
university's Board of Regents, and was given a resolution of appreciation
and a standing ovation from his colleagues. The resolution described
him as a ''catalyst for change,'' a reference to a 12-year term
that deeply divided the university and the state and thrust the
board into the center of a rancorous national debate about affirmative
action.
''I am relieved
that it has come to an end,'' the 65-year-old Mr. Connerly said
in an interview. ''Twelve years is a long time. I've tried to
use those years wisely and to pursue the things that I believe
in, not to shrink from anything. And as a result of that, it has
placed a little bit of added stress on me.''
In comments
to the Regents, he warned that there would be ''great temptation''
to revert to previous policies on race.
''For God's
sake,'' he said, ''don't do it.''
It was Mr.
Connerly, a Republican, who led an effort by the Regents in 1995
that banned affirmative action in admissions policies throughout
the University of California system. The following year, he championed
a successful statewide ballot measure that prohibits state and
local governments from using racial and sexual preferences in
hiring, contracting and college admissions.
A similar
measure later passed in Washington State, and Mr. Connerly is
trying to get one on the ballot next year in Michigan. He said
he was also considering ballot measures in several other states.
''If you gain
some degree of public visibility,'' he said, ''you don't lose
that just because you no longer have a title.''
His critics
agreed.
''It is good
news because he'll no longer be able to lower the number of minorities
at California's flagship universities,'' Julian Bond, chairman
of the N.A.A.C.P., said of Mr. Connerly's departure. ''It is bad
news because he'll now have more free time to take his devilry
around the country.''
Christopher
Edley Jr., dean of the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University
of California, Berkeley, who was a founder of the Civil Rights
Project at Harvard, said in an e-mail interview that Mr. Connerly's
''name recognition rivals that of the past decade's highest state
officials'' as both ''villain and hero.''
''He's been
both profoundly wrong and phenomenally effective,'' Professor
Edley added, ''touching millions of lives not just in California
but nationwide.''
Former Gov.
Pete Wilson, a Republican who named Mr. Connerly to the 26-member
Board of Regents in 1993, described him as a ''rare human being''
who was driven to do the right thing but whose legacy with the
board ''depends entirely upon the ideological holding of the person
that you are asking.''
''Ward is
tough-minded and strong-willed, and what he was doing was a matter
of intense conviction,'' Mr. Wilson said. ''He reminds me of the
phrase 'One man with courage makes a majority.'''
Mr. Connerly's
single 12-year term officially ends on March 1, but the Regents
do not meet again before then. He said in the interview that he
had not sought reappointment and had not been approached by Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger about staying on.
A spokeswoman
for the governor would not comment, citing confidentiality of
personnel matters. Mr. Wilson, who is closely aligned with Mr.
Schwarzenegger, said it was not uncommon for a new governor to
seek his own appointments to state boards.
It is also
possible that Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, did not relish
a confirmation fight in the Democratic-controlled Legislature
at a time when he is involved in intense negotiations over his
proposed state budget. Mr. Connerly's appointment to a second
term would most certainly have raised the ire of his critics,
many of whom blame him for the sharp drop in the number of black
and Latino students at some University of California campuses,
most notably at Berkeley and Los Angeles.
''I think
he did a grave disservice to the university,'' said one frequent
foe of Mr. Connerly, Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice
Society, which favors affirmative action. ''I think history
will not look kindly on what he did.''
Mr. Connerly
said that the drop in black and Latino enrollment bothered him
but that the responsibility fell on the students, not him.
''I would
like to see more of them there,'' he said, ''but that is something
for them to achieve, not for the government by fiat to say we
are going to move people around.''
He said his
biggest disappointment was his failing to persuade university
officials, and later the state's voters, to stop thepractice of
collecting data based on race, ethnicity or national origin. A
ballot measure that would have ended that practice was defeated
in 2003. Mr. Connerly said that his own ancestry is black, Irish,
French and Choctaw but that the ''one-drop rule'' boils his identity
down to black.
''I think
with the fullness of time, that too will move forward,'' he said,
''with or without me.''
Copyright
2005 The New York Times Company
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