Affirmative Action on Ballot in Three States: A Debate

Affirmative action programs in at least three more states could come to an end this November, thanks to proposed ballot measures spearheaded by California millionaire and former University of California regent Ward Connerly. The states in question are Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska. Opponents of affirmative-action had also been campaigning in Missouri and Oklahoma but failed to gather enough signatures to get their initiatives on state ballots.

We’re joined now by two guests on opposing sides of the debate here in Colorado:

Jessica Peck Corry is Executive Director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which is the name of the proposed anti-affirmative action constitutional amendment, Amendment 46. She is also the Director of the Campus Accountability Project and Property Rights Project at the Independence Institute, a Colorado-based free market think tank.

Melissa Hart is President of Coloradans for Equal Opportunity, a group that is opposed to Amendment 46. She is one of the authors of a competing amendment, called the Colorado Equal Opportunity Initiative or Amendment 61. It would allow Colorado to maintain its affirmative action programs. Melissa Hart is also a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Melissa Hart, President of Coloradans for Equal Opportunity. She teaches law at the University of Colorado.

Jessica Peck Corry, Executive Director of Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. She is the Director of the Campus Accountability Project and Property Rights Project at the Independence Institute, a Colorado-based free market think tank.

AMY GOODMAN: This is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. I’m Amy Goodman. We are on the road in Denver, Colorado and we will be here broadcasting from free speech TV today and on Tuesday and then we will be broadcasting from grassroots TV in Aspen, Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday. Well, affirmative action programs in the least three more states could come to an end this November thanks to proposed ballot measures spearheaded by California millionaire and former University of California regent Ward Connerly. The states in question are Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska. Proponents of affirmative action have also been campaigning in Missouri and Oklahoma but failed to gather enough signatures to get their initiatives on state ballots. I am joined right now by two guests on opposing sides of the debate here in Colorado, Jessica Peck Corry is executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which is the name of the proposed anti affirmative constitutional amendment that’s Amendment 46. She’s also director of the Campus Accountability Project and Property Rights Project of the Independence Institute, a Colorado based free-market think tank. Melissa Hart is also with us She is president of the Coloradoans for Equal Opportunity, a group opposed to Amendment 46. She is a University professor at the University of Colorado. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with you, Jessica. Explain the amendment that is now on the Colorado ballot to be voted on in November.

JESSICA PECK CORRY: This amendment would prohibit the government from considering a candidate’s race or gender in college admissions or any sort of educational environment as well as public contacting in hiring.

AMY GOODMAN: How did it get on the ballot? Talk about what’s behind it, how you got involved.

JESSICA PECK CORRY: Sure. Well, this has really been in a eight-year effort here in Colorado, homegrown. We’ve had some national support, which has been very helpful. But there is a coalition, a very broad based citizen lead collision here in Colorado. And this has been sort of a personal crusade in my own life. I’m the youngest of four children from a single-parent family and so I’ve always believed very strongly in an individual’s ability to make it, but also in the belief that we should no longer treat minorities and women like we’re second-class citizens or just make assumptions about our gender or race as related to our ability to compete.

AMY GOODMAN: And so what does the bill exactly say?

JESSICA PECK CORRY: The bill says that the government, the amendment says government shall not discriminate nor grant preferential treatment on the basis of race or gender, and those three are areas that we’ve talked about. Government contracting, hiring, and [inaudible].

AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible] What is the matter with this?

MELISSA HART: Well there are a lot of things that are the matter with this bill. First of all, although I know that Ms. Corry has been working on this question of affirmative action for a long time, this is a bill that is an identical to proposition 209 passed in California 12 years ago. Ward Connerly from California is bringing this around the country into different states, taking identical language and passing it without thought to be different circumstances in different states and the effect it will have. This is not a Colorado bill. It is being brought into our state and funded by out of state interests, not by in state interest. And I think a lot of us here in Colorado are tired of the out- of-state coming and amending our constitution about anything. Second, in terms of the substance of the bill, it uses language that is deceptive. It says – what the language actually says, it starts the state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual on the basis of various categories. And lots of people reading that bill think oh, I agree, the state shall not discriminate and think that they support it and do not understand that what the bill is actually intended to do is end any kind of affirmative action programs, including recruiting and training and programs designed to create opportunities for groups that are constantly, continually not in the past but right now denied opportunities on a regular basis. And so that deception I think is very troubling to a lot of us here and we do not wanted here.

AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Corry, what about Melissa Hart’s first point that this is outside initiative that have been brought into the state?

JASSICA PECK CORRY: It is simply is not true. 2000-2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, there were all citizen led efforts at the state capital where we presented language just like this. And in those situations, Ward Connerly had nothing to do with it. That being said, in the states where these initiatives have been proposed by Ward Connerly, and I’m assuming he worked with citizen coalitions there as well, there’s been an incredible broad base of support winning by 58, 54-58% in Washington, California, and Michigan. So I think people are ready for this. My concern is that we look at race and gender as proxies’ for the real problems we face. We have class based problems in this country. In Colorado, in particular, we have about a 70% white population. We have incredible levels of advantage or disadvantage based on geography, based on parent income – and there’s not a single affirmative action program that would be destroyed through this initiative if these programs are open to everybody based on race and gender. Lets get to the heart of the problem and that’s that we’ve got poor kids who can’t make it and those kids may be boys, girls, they may be black, white, Latino, Asian, or whatever. And that’s what we’re talking about. Lets try a progressive new approach here.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Hart?

MELISSA HART: Again, I can’t disagree that there’s a class based problem in the country that also needs addressing, but for suggesting that the only issue is class and there are not still disadvantages in our society that come with being a woman or with being minority, regardless of your family income, but again in particular with family income, it is ignoring the reality that people face discrimination on a regular basis. The kinds of programs that will be eliminated if this initiative passes in Colorado include programs like a University of Colorado program that gives girls, and it is specifically targeted to girls, who are interested in engineering and math, an opportunity to develop that interest in high school. It is simply not true to suggest that the reality of a drop-off in interest in science and math is the same for girls and boys. It is not the same for girls and boys. Girls who start out interested in math and science end up going into other fields because they are discouraged along the way, having programs that acknowledge that and that provide opportunities is not treating girls as second- class citizens, its giving them the opportunity to be at the same place that boys are and having programs that recruit in minority neighborhoods where the opportunities to go to college are not as widely understood is not treating minorities as second-class citizens, its giving them opportunities that are denied.

AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Peck Corry.

JESSICA PECK CORRY: Well, what is race? That is one of the biggest complications. One in ten Colorado students decides when they fill out their college applications that they will not define by race. We have a 20 fold increase in the number of interracial marriages in America. I look at my own family, four children, two of them married immigrants. How do we define the race of their children? Are they the oppressor or the oppressed? Are they disadvantaged or advantaged? We’re too diverse as a country to simply put people in these boxes. Let’s go to Colorado’s poor schools, let go to Manual high school, which we were just talking about before we came on air, lets reach out to every kid there, not just the black kids or not just the women.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Hart, how are you organizing against this initiative?

MELISSA HART: There are a couple different things. One of the things that Coloradans for Equal Opportunity and other groups are doing is to challenge the fraudulent collection of signatures that went on for Amendment 46. Our hope frankly is that this misleading initiative won’t be on the ballot at all because of the kind of dishonesty that went on in collecting signatures. So that effort is continuing, at the same time, we’ve proposed a homegrown alternative initiative to Amendment 46 that also says preferential treatment on the basis of these categories will not be permitted but then defines preferential treatment specifically so that it can’t be used in a far-reaching way to eliminate equal opportunity programs. What initiative 82, for which we’re collecting signatures right now, does is it defines preferential treatment as using quotas or rewarding points solely on the basis of various protected characteristics. That way we can get rid of things the people genuinely don’t like and make clear they are not acceptable within Colorado, that is quotas and point systems, without getting rid of the programs that there is generally very huge public support for.

AMY GOODMAN: And who is supporting you?

MELISSA HART: Well Coloradans for Equal Opportunity is a coalition that has been created to support this initiative, Colorado Unity is an organization that supports education about affirmative action that has been very helpful in trying to get more education about the issues in our state.

AMY GOODMAN: The other grass-roots groups?

MELISSA HART: Those are the two primary grassroots. Colorado Progressive Coalition has been incredibly supportive. I think just generally a huge Colorado effort, not grassroots groups, but just individuals.

AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Peck Corry, how are you try to get this passed?

JESSICA PECK CORRY: I just need to quickly say fraud allegations have been repeated again and again and we’re rigorously defending our signatures. We reject any notion there was any fraud whatsoever. I cannot talk about specifics because it is pending litigation but we have every confidence that we’ll be on the ballot. We are working small-business owners, we’re working with families. We have hundreds of people on our email lists, we’re going to go out and talk to people about this. Colorado is ready for a progressive new approach and that is looking at the individual, not putting minorities and women into boxes saying they cannot make in this world on our own.

AMY GOODMAN: Well we are going to leave it there. We will connect to your web sites. Thank you both for being with us. Our guests are Melissa Hart, President of Coloradans for Equal Opportunity, as well as Jessica Peck Corry, executive director of Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from Denver, Colorado.

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