Don't miss our April virtual affirmative-action roundtable--a timely and provocative discussion with participants in both camps, including Ward Connerly, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, Roger Clegg, Ted Shaw and others. Find out what the nation's foremost affirmative-action authorities--both pro and con--have to say about its future. Is an era coming to an end?

Ending Affirmative Action: Ward Connerly's Big Plans for 2008

What happened? Long-time affirmative-action foe Ward Connerly has big plans for the 2008 election, and it has nothing to do with Sen. Barack Obama. After successfully campaigning to ban affirmative action in Michigan, Connerly announced his hopes for a "Super Tuesday" in 2008, with ballot initiatives in up to nine states--he intends to publicize these states next month. Might yours be one of his targets?  

What's in the blogs? On March 6, Connerly is scheduled to present at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center as part of its "Variety: Left and Right" lecture series. At least one student is concerned. Why? Cosponsored by the right-wing Federalist Society and titled "A Black Man's Opposition to Affirmative Action," Connerly's presentation "will be the most audacious public assault" on the university's diversity initiatives to date. What's at stake, and is it merely coincidence that Connerly will speak in the city where school integration is on trial? Read more.

One lawyer calls Connerly on his game, explaining what his recent victory in Michigan means, illuminating the three mistruths around which he constructs his campaigns and why they are successful. Is Jim Crow's legacy carrying on in ballot initiatives? This writer says yes. Read more.

Connerly has his own thoughts on the implications of his successful campaign to end affirmative action in Michigan. Read his Top 10 Lessons from the "Michigan win."  

Who's returned to the debate? Former U.S. Civil Rights Commission (UCCR) Chair Mary Frances Berry--who was ousted after criticizing then-President Ronald Reagan's affirmative-action policies and subsequently reinstated after filing suit--draws attention to the real reason Michigan voters, primarily white ones, approved Proposal 2: fear. Who does she say benefits most from affirmative action? It's not blacks or Latinos. Read more.

Berry stands in stark contrast to current UCCR Vice Chair Abigail Thernstrom, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow in cahoots with Ward Connerly and Linda Chavez. (See also: Who Is Paying to End Affirmative Action?) In a recent appearance for a Washington, D.C.-based panel on "Trumping the Race Card," Thernstrom accuses Republican political leaders of "pandering to so-called civil-rights leadership," accusing Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick of reverting to "Al Sharpton rhetoric" in his recent comments on the impending Supreme Court school-integration cases. What else did Thernstrom say, and who else participated? Read more.

Does 'Race-Neutral' Work?

What happened? The Supreme Court rejected a petition by three Michigan public universities--University of Michigan (UM), Wayne State and Michigan State--to delay the enactment of Proposal 2, which outlaws affirmative action in public education, employment and contracting. Mainstream coverage has focused on race-neutral alternatives, but are these a viable substitute for affirmative action?

What's next for UM? One of the alternatives is to adopt a "10 percent plan" modeled after the Texas program. But Texas Lt. Gov David Dewhurst announced last week he will ask the university to expand its budget for student outreach--the "10 percent plan" is "pricing our youngsters out of college." Who opposes the budget increase? And what should happen if Michigan takes the same route? Read more.

One professor devised a digital plan to promote diversity in which candidates are electronically divided into pools based on similarity. Admissions officers pick from different pools, thereby ensuring diversity in its selections--theoretically, at least. Is race considered a factor in diversifying the applicant pool? It's illegal for UM and public universities in California, Washington state and Florida to consider race in admissions. Is this "digitalized diversity" a legitimate option, and more importantly, will it work? Read more.

What are other universities doing? Wayne State, for example, is incorporating factors such as "Have you overcome discrimination" or "Are you multilingual?" in admissions decisions. Some argue these questions disproportionately put students of color in the ring; others submit they give the same advantage to whites. The University of Virginia apparently uses comprehensive review. How does it work? What's the problem with this approach? Read more.

What's in the blogs? Regardless of whether admissions policies may be reformed, many bloggers skirt the issue altogether and say we shouldn't consider race at all. Read more. Some bloggers are harsher than others--one calls race-neutral plans "modern day liberalism at its naked best."

Conservative bloggers are capitalizing on recent successful challenges to affirmative action to decry its utility altogether. One Connerly supporter says affirmative action constitutes a "crutch for the less prepared and discriminates against those most qualified for the rigors of university life." This blogger and others mock public universities for "scrambling to find race-blind alternatives" (The New York Times' language) to affirmative action. Is an era coming to an end? Read more.

School Integration on Trial

What happened? A federal appeals court ruled that "lowest-in-the-nation" property taxes are not the reason segregation in higher education prevails in Alabama--a decision that supports the state's contention. Others argue that low property taxes mean the state government must shell out more money for K-12 funding, which means higher education must raise tuition to pick up the slack. Who gets left behind? Read more. 

A mandatory desegregation order effective since 1963 was upheld by Tennessee's Jackson-Madison County School district Thursday night in a 5-4 vote split along racial/ethnic lines. School districts with such orders are entitled to request they be lifted, but there are risks involved--and some board members don't trust the district to improve K-12 on its own. Why did the board vote to retain the order, and why is this a big deal? Read more.

Affirmative-action foes call for improved K-12 education to level the playing field, but is increased funding sufficient to achieve this objective?

What's in the blogs? Nope, says Barry Gold, associate professor of management at Pace University's Lubin School of Business. Increasing funding to urban school districts isn't enough, according to his recent study on segregation in four New Jersey school districts. Gold says kids in urban districts need to be taught like kids in suburban ones before educational disparities will improve. Is this likely? Read more.

Echoing Mary Frances Berry's sentiments on higher education, attorney Lafe Tolliver exposes whites' underlying fears about affirmative action as it relates to school integration. Sardonically drawing on experts' work on racial/ethnic disparities, Tolliver scorns the notion of dismembering Brown v. Board of Ed on the account that separate still is not equal. Read more.

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