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True Solution To Affirmative Action Ballot Initiatives Is Found Within Ourselves
By Kevin Fobbs
May 3, 2004

First came the Supreme Court decision and then came the rush to judgment on both sides of the question of Affirmative Action and the battle lines were apparently clearly drawn. Harrison Township which is a Macomb County community known locally more for Metropolitan Beach and boating than for giving birth to the anti-Affirmative Action state ballot initiative. Residents in neighboring Chesterfield Township were victimized by a cross burning. The Macomb County Commission experienced racial difficulty in their hiring practices last fall and are in the process of implementing long needed changes within their hierarchy. Macomb County has long had a reputation for racial insensitivity. Whether the reputation was earned or unearned may well remain to be seen for quite some time. What is true today is that this Macomb County initiated, state wide ballot initiative seems to be sputtering to a dramatic halt.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June in the University of Michigan case to disallow the racial preference formula used in its general admissions, but kept the admissions standards for its law school, Ward Connerly hero of the anti-affirmative action efforts in California decided he wanted to brand his formula on Michigan and found willing and sympathetic ears in Jack Brandenburg, R-Harrison Township, a cochair of the current statewide campaign and his ballot initiative Macomb County partner, Leon Drolet, R-Clinton Township, both state representatives.

It is fair to say that both Macomb County officials were looking for a solution to what has been perceived as unfair preferential treatment in job and higher education preference, even though what is typically brought up is usually anecdotal evidence and based more on hearsay attribution and not necessarily upon clear and convincing proof.

We are familiar with both petition leaders and they appear to want to do in their minds what is best. What we are suggesting is a little help for their publicly voiced good intentions.

Last year NuPac agreed with Michigan Republican State Committee Chairman Betsy DeVos in calling on all people in Michigan, and particularly for political leaders in both parties to speak responsibly and work together to lessen racial tensions and de-politicize racial issues. In her statement Chairman Devos said, "Many in the political arena look for ways to inflame racial tensions and racial resentment hoping to gain political advantage," ...This happens on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican.

Last year, in addressing the U.S. Supreme Court Affirmative Action decision President Bush said, "My Administration will continue to promote policies that expand educational opportunities for Americans from all racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. There are innovative and proven ways for colleges and universities to reflect our diversity without using racial quotas."

The fact is many minority and urban students come from environments where educational equality has been denied and other negative societal impactors have affected their ability to learn, to compete, and to thrive in an environment conducive for maximum learning, before they even have the opportunity to matriculate to an institution of higher education.

At the federal level, those challenges must be addressed, and this President has done just that! President Bush increased funding to Title One by 41 percent. In Detroit's Public School the funding for Title One went from $90.9 million when he entered office in 2001 to over $139.2 in fiscal year 2004. This represents a 40percent increase. With Ready First, which is a preschool education program, the President increased the funding to over $1 billion, representing a 300 percent increase.

The President has addressed the true barriers to equality with his initiatives to close the housing inequality gap, to create and improve the health of families who live in urban areas, to improve inadequate housing by creating affordable housing, and by breaking the long stranglehold that welfare has had on families in urban areas by creating new welfare reform opportunities that transform families and restore respect to mothers and fathers.

The citizens of Michigan want to know what the real answer is to finding the balance for creating a society that does not discriminate while simultaneously guaranteeing that everyone is granted equal access to education, jobs and opportunities without using race, ethnicity or in the case of this ballot initiative gender as part of the equation. Do we really have to wait until 2025, as the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated to make certain our national target goals are reached?

Should we take some guidance from the voters in Florida, Colorado, and Ward Connerly's last and failing effort in California as a sign to what the public, and more importantly the voters will and will not tolerate? Is just voting in support of or against an initiative all we should expect to do to bring about true fairness and equality?

We don't think so. We firmly believe that after these roadblocks are removed with the defeat of this ballot initiative, different steps are necessary and must be taken to insure that true equality will emerge. These steps must not represent additional roadblocks.

A Michigan Appeals Court is looking into what the opposition's claiming is "misleading language in the petition." Then there are Circuit court judges in Ingham and Wayne County who seem to differ on the challenges to the petitions. One says yes, and the other says no to legal challenges.

The largest hurdle remains. They have to collect 317,000 signatures in a 180-day period, and the clock has been running since January. That drop dead deadline ends July 6, if this initiative is to appear on the November general election ballot. Unfortunately for the petition signature collectors, the ringmaster of this effort, Ward Connerly has not really been able to step up to the plate and participate in the petition drive he initiated.

Where does that leave those of us in Michigan?

NuPac has advocated very practical steps on this initiative all along. We have advocated the President's position on this effort and we have also articulated the solution which should be embraced by all those who are fair-minded, and truly want to see a society that does not turn it's back on those in need to provide educational opportunity, but at the same time will not use racial and ethnic preference as the hammer that it has been used in many instances in the past. We believe the negative societal impactors that have been barriers to achievement must be lifted. As Detroit City Councilwoman, Sharon McPhail indicated in the Roundtable with U.S. Education Secretary Ron Paige, poverty is one of those barriers that must be addressed.

Secretary Paige agreed with Councilwoman McPhail, and he highlighted the efforts of training of teachers and the corresponding rising achievement rates Dr. Burnley, Detroit School Board Supt. had achieved. CEO Burnley acknowledged the achievement of his teachers and said numbers would be up further after this school year.

That may well be true, but there is also the sobering truth that still haunts the families of these students and especially African American children and their parents. There remains a haunting imbalance in what Secretary Paige called the Achievement Gap. The "No Child Left Behind Act "squarely addresses this issue. The strangling numbers of low academic achievement by African American fourth graders in Math, Science and reading is actually defacto apartheid.

The solution to this crisis will solve the need for a petition drive to end Affirmative Action in preferential treatment.

On Thursday evening, April 8th before Detroit faith-based leadership and educational leaders and supporters and again on Friday morning in Dearborn speaking to over 75 elected officials, educational, faith and civic leaders, Secretary Paige clearly laid out the solution to what President Bush has labeled the "Soft Bigotry of low expectations which is truly the Civil Rights revolution of the beginning of the 21st Century. Leaders from Grand Rapids, Lansing, Wayne, Oakland and Macomb County listened intently. There was general agreement to join hands and not to point fingers.

In conclusion, the real solution is not countless petition drives and reactionary ballot initiatives. The true healing and the true drive that we should be working toward is to clearly embrace workable collaborations to end this soft bigotry.

The real solution is to begin to ask yourselves what is the one thing I can do to insure that I am part of the solution, and be a true caring and compassionate human being, to assist my fellow Americans to learn how to read, to be a mentor for a family through my Church, through my rotary club or through my community organization, or through my business organization or even golfing or bowling league.

You see, we too often underestimate how creative we can truly be, because we limit ourselves to the oldest excuse in the book, besides the overly used, "it's not my problem." Or "I got mine, let them get theirs."

As a society, we are often too willing to point fingers, while we clasp an ice cold beer or a glass of wine in our hand, instead of joining hands to give a half hour a month or an hour a year to a program that mentors youth, deals with family literacy, or helps young teens who are on the wrong path to under performance and help them on the road toward achievement and success. We are the solution, and we must not be too tired, too un-involved, too arrogant, too bigoted, too distant, too uncaring and too disconnected from ourselves to help mend the broken circle of achievement.

There are better answers than failing ballot initiatives. If we appeal to the better angels in all of us, all of the boats for all Americans will rise on the sea of opportunity, for one nation, with equal justice under God for all.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.