Ward Connerly is a Black California businessman and politician who has spent the last decade waging national and state campaigns to ban affirmative action. He's succeeded in three states thus far--California, Washington state, and most recently, Michigan--and aims to add five more states to his tally in November 2008.

Read DiversityInc for weekly updates on the battles in each of the five states he's targeting in November--Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Missouri and Arizona.

Affirmative Action

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Connerly told The Associated Press (AP) in one case that his resolution is vital to our nation's ability to compete on a global scale.

Connerly advocates his "colorblind" campaign based on our current national presidential election, saying that because we have a white woman and a Black man who are both viable candidates, we've reached a level playing field in this country. But students and politicians in the five states where he's trying to end affirmative action in November aren't buying it.

Read our last update and recap of the issues to learn how you can help.

Here's what's going on this week:

1. Nebraska: The spotlight was on this state this week, with Connerly traveling to the University of Nebraska-Omaha to give a speech to a less-than-receptive 200-student crowd Thursday, reports KETV.com.

The students applauded each other's interrogations, asking Connerly how much he made on an annual basis and whether he was funded by the Ku Klux Klan, according to AP. 

Just last week, Nebraska Sen. Mark Christensen pulled an anti-affirmative-action constitutional amendment he introduced because of alleged "pressure" and "blackmail" from other senators, reports AP. The bill was proposed after Marc Schniederjans, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor, allegedly experienced a "blatantly discriminatory incident at the university," which he wouldn't describe, that "convinced him the university was using unfair preferences," reports AP. 

How does Connerly explain the national outrage over his campaigns? "Any time you take something away from a group of people, they're going to scream," he told AP.

ReNee Dunman, president of the American Association for Affirmative Action, traveled to Nebraska to testify against Christensen's bill. "If they believe it's synonymous with racial preferences, then just use the words 'affirmative action,'" she told AP. "Then you can be sure you know the voters know what they're voting against." Read a leadership profile of ReNee Dunman in the December 2006 issue of DiversityInc magazine.

While Connerly says the number of students of color enrolled in state universities may decline immediately after the proposal passes, should it get that far, they willll eventually increase. But history in California tells us that's not the case.

Read how affirmative-action foes twist the facts and check out the impact Connerly's affirmative-action ban has had on California state universities. That's one reason students at University of Nebraska-Lincoln are banding together under "Students United for Nebraska" to challenge Connerly's efforts. Petitioners in the state need about 114,000 signatures (10 percent of the state's registered voters) by July 4 to get the proposal on the November ballot.

2. Missouri: Religious groups are banding together to fight Connerly's proposed affirmative-action ban along with a coalition of community, faith-based and economic-development groups in the state. The latest members to join are Missouri Episcopalians, who are taking action with the Diocese of Missouri to preserve affirmative action.

The Rev. Emery Washington, chair of the diocese's Commission on Dismantling Racism, told Episcopal Life Online that Connerly's proposed constitutional amendment would "tie the hands of those trying to build more dynamic and diverse classrooms, congregations, workplaces and communities." Washington adds that Connerly's presumption that the "quest for racial equality in America is completed" is blatantly false, and he is urging constituents in his state and others to reject the proposed affirmative-action bans.

"The idea is to prevent 'Connerly's hired guns' from coming up with enough signatures in this petition drive, which ends May 2," Washington told Episcopal Life Online. Washington and others held a rally Feb. 13 to officially launch a counter-attack called the "Decline to Sign" campaign, led by WE-CAN (Working to Empower Community Action Now). Click here to see how you can help out.      

A Missouri student-government association is planning a town-hall meeting March 11 to further discuss the implications of Connerly's "civil-rights initiative."

Who's funding the Missouri "Civil Rights Initiative"? The Missouri Catholic Conference, according to this blog. Edee Baggett, who runs the Missouri Catholic Conference's collection endeavors, also is leading the efforts to gather enough signatures to put Connerly's proposal on the ballot in 2008, reports Fired Up Missouri.    

But it's not only religious and community-based groups that are coming together to fight Connerly. The St. Louis construction industry is separating itself from the proposed ballot measure after speculation that its white-male leaders may partly be behind it, reports STL Construction Net. (There have been multiple national "reverse-discrimination" cases involving white-male contractors who believe affirmative action discriminates against them by calling for set-asides for minority- and women-owned contractors under federal law. Read The White-Male Question: Are You a Victim of Reverse Discrimination? to learn all about this phenomenon.)

3. Oklahoma: Affirmative-action supporters are claiming Connerly's cronies used fraudulent means to get voters to sign a petition to get his affirmative-action proposal on the ballot in Nov. 2008, reports The Joplin Globe. Representatives from the Michigan-based affirmative-action group BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) are calling this "racially targeted voter fraud" and alleging that petitioners are using illegal means, including unregistered voters and duplicate signatures, to get their proposal on the ballot. Connerly told local papers that his campaign is "looking into" allegations that petitioners are using multiple signers from the same address but says overall the charges are "ridiculous." Oklahoma is the only one of the five states in which Connerly is campaigning that already has secured enough signers, should they be legitimate, to get his proposal on the November ballot. The secretary of state, whom the Joplin Globe reports found "duplication and irregularities" on the petition, has the option to certify it or defer to the state or Supreme Court, but it's unclear which position will be taken.

4. Colorado: Black activist Vern Howard conveyed the real story behind Black History Month celebrations in high-school social-studies classes this week to educate students on the nature of affirmative action, which Howard says originally was designed to ensure people of color and women received fair, equitable opportunity to earn government contracts, reports The Fort Morgan Times. Howard then explained to students how, at the behest of presidents and other leading government officials, the legislation expanded to cover housing and other realms from which Black people traditionally were excluded or in which they were discriminated against. He also debunked myths that affirmative action means students of color have a better shot of gaining academic scholarships. Although these students most likely can't vote should Connerly's anti-affirmative-action proposal end up on the state's ballot in November, perhaps they'll go home and educate their parents as to the very real threat it presents.

5. Arizona: Not much new this week in this state's battle, but a previous article from The Chronicle of Higher Education denotes the risk to the university's programs. Student recruitment, faculty outreach and retention and professional-development programs could be negated if Connerly's proposed affirmative-action ban passes in the state.

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