Issues on the line

SF State journalism student Mark Jordan is not sure if it's discrimination, but he's sure it's not fair. As a white male, looking through internship catalogues, he is disturbed by some opportunities that are limited to minorities and women. He just doesn't think it's right.

"It just makes me upset that I've put all this work into school and I've gotten myself through school," Jordan said. "I've put as much energy into it as everybody else and they're saying you can't apply 'cause you're a white man."

For Jordan, affirmative action is no longer the way to fix inequity. He said forcing corporations and universities to hire based on color or social status is not productive.

"Don't eliminate a program and have absolutely nothing," he said. "There are problems with affirmative action ... right now it's what we have."

This is just one side of the debate over affirmative action that has been rocking California and the nation. On the other side, many supporters of affirmative action say the elimination of the policy in California will take the state back to the Jim Crow days of hiring whites only and segregated neighborhoods.

"I think we need those types of boundaries to ensure that people won't be discriminated (against)," said SF State theater major Christina Sands. "Without them, it would be easier for prejudicial attitudes to come out. I don't want to let that happen."

For many, the debate began in July when the University of California Regents voted to end race-based preference in the UC system. With Gov. Pete Wilson backing the position, the new policy will be implemented in January.

Although the UC Regents voted to end the policy, many supporters of affirmative action are fighting to overturn the vote.

Those who are fighting the UC decision now find themselves facing a bigger threat to affirmative action -- an initiative that is trying to make its way to the November 1996 ballot.

It is called the California Civil Rights Initiative, and its authors propose it will end affirmative action in state employment, contracting and education.

Thomas Wood and Glynn Custred are the authors of the initiative. Custred is currently a professor of anthropology at Cal State Hayward. Wood is a former professor at Fresno State University.

The Golden Gater was unable to contact the authors.

While the initiative is getting a lot of attention throughout the state, groups against it are teaming up to defeat it.

A group that developed this summer in reaction to the UC ruling is the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action by Any Means Necessary. The statewide coalition, composed of college students and other political activists, is determined to force the regents to overturn the vote, stop the UC administration's attack on affirmative action and defeat the CCRI.

Coalition members from SF State also feel there's a need to defend remedial programs at the university. Philosophy major James Hill is a member of the group.

"If we allow the take-away of affirmative action to occur without generating massive resistance and a tremendous social upheaval in this state, it will set the stage for what will happen in the rest of the country," he firmly stated.

Currently the coalition is fervently focusing on trying to shut down the next regents meeting, which is taking place this morning at the University of California San Francisco.

"To take away affirmative action on the federal level and to take away minority business set-asides would really mean returning to Jim Crow essentially," Hill said as he pounded his fist into his hand. "They're serious about taking away affirmative action, and we're serious about maintaining it by any means necessary."

Becky Roberts, also a member of the coalition, said "to overturn (affirmative action) is to deny racism exists, deny sexism exists and to deny that society has any responsibility to its members."

While groups rally on both sides of the issue, there are those who just wish there wasn't a need for affirmative action. Physical therapy major Lisa Mufarreh is one of those people.

"Even though it would be nice to not even think about it (affirmative action), it all comes down to equal rights and protection," she said. "You need to depend on it for equality. It would be nice living in a world without it even existing.

According to facts and information from the CCRI World Wide Web page (http://www.cal-net.com/ccri/), it will prohibit state and local governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, public education or public contracting.

However, the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Title IV and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act already prohibit such discrimination.

Joe Gelman, CCRI campaign manager, said the initiative is important because affirmative action deals with preferences and is a violation of the original principles.

"It's clear they (Wood and Custred) felt some of these policies have basically become discriminative in nature," he said. "They (policies) have in fact violated the original principle of the original civil rights movement."

The CCRI web page states "that noble goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- equality before the law -- has been twisted into government-sanctioned discrimination."

Biology major Maricruz Lazcon said those claims are unfair and that she will definitely vote against the initiative.

"I'm really for affirmative action. I really don't think that what the Anglo people are thinking is fair," she said. "It's just to benefit everyone and make everyone equal. They're seeing it as a racial thing."

Could the CCRI pass?

The CCRI needs 694,000 signatures by February to get on next November's ballot. Gelman said he is confident the initiative will pass. He quoted the Los Angeles Times' most recent poll as saying 65 percent will vote yes, 25 percent no and 9 percent are undecided statewide.

Michael Harris of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights in the San Francisco Bay Area said there are three propositions that may be on the November ballot that will preserve affirmative action. If the CCRI makes it to the ballot, a group called the Coalition for Affirmative Action is expected to wage a campaign against it, Harris said.

Lazcon also believes the initiative will pass because of the passing of Proposition 187 last year. The proposition, which is currently tied up in court, denies public benefits, including access to public education and all but emergency health care to undocumented residents of California.

"What I've been learning in my government class is that the civil rights initiative sounds good because of the way they phrase it, but there are little words that you really have to be careful with," Lazcon said.

While many people say equality for all will go out the window if the initiative is passed, Gelman said either those people are ignorant or don't understand the initiative.

"The language of the CCRI is very very clear. It doesn't get any clearer than that," he said.

Social work major Emmet Neal said that without affirmative action, equal opportunity will not be available.

"We won't be guaranteed anything. We will be discriminated against like it was in the '30s, '40s and '50s ... racism will be at its all-time high," he said.

Gelman said once the initiative is passed they will implement the original message that was brought forth in the '60s Civil Rights movement.

"We will reassert the original meaning of the Civil Rights movement, and we will reassert the spirit that (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) talked about -- judging people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," he said.

Jordan has his own ideas as to how the issue of equality can be resolved.

"I feel there should be other programs installed where the younger children in underprivileged areas can be more competitive when it comes to getting into schools," he said. "Why not try to make those communities that are being deprived have more programs so you can bring them up to the competitive level that the upper middle class and middle class have?"

Jordan said he still has opportunities in the field of photojournalism, but he does not see the need to exclude hiring.

"I've worked really hard to get what I've been getting," he said. "I feel we definitely still need help programs and we need things like affirmative action, but I just think it's a little outdated."

Yi Liu, a member of Coalition, said since affirmative action was started it has been attacked by courts and politicians, who have weakened its effectiveness.

"It (CCRI) is basically saying to black people that all the inequality and racism you face is your problem. It will further racism," Liu said.

Affirmative action has outlived its stay, according to Gelman.

"These programs were never advertised as being permanent solutions," Gelman said. "They were advertised as a temporary remedy. It doesn't mean discrimination doesn't exist. Discrimination will always exist for one reason or another."

Jordan has had two daily newspaper internships and has received a $4,000 journalism scholarship. He said it's hard for a white male to speak out and say he wants the same chances as anybody without sounding like a "pro-white male."

"It (affirmative action) did a very good job of integrating the society for quite a while when there wasn't any minorities anywhere. There are a lot of minorities in high positions all over, and it's just time maybe we need another program to balance things back out."

[ Golden Gater Online November 16, 1995 ]

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