In Troy Buckner-Nkrumah's diatribe (Gater, May 4), he questioned the position of the American Jewish Congress "on social issues such as affirmative action." Since he has never sought to ask us this question, we felt that an answer would be welcome. AJC was founded more than 75 years ago on the proposition that for Jews to thrive in America, pluralism and democracy must also thrive.
We always understood that everyone's civil rights must be protected. To that end, AJC was paretically responsible for the civil rights laws that we take for granted. We helped write the laws. The very concept of using courts to resolve civil rights violations was partially created by the AJC. Last year, AJC played a major role in the "No on 187" campaign, where our executive director was a co-chair of the campaign.
This year, the board of directors of AJC voted unanimously to oppose the anti-affirmative action civil rights initiative. Speakers from AJC have already fanned out over California to discuss why the initiative is a very bad and dangerous idea.
This long history is exactly why AJC agreed to represent Kenyan McCarthy and the Student Struggle Slate. We felt that it was important for democracy to properly function not only on the state and federal level, but also at our colleges.
For more information on the AJC, please call 415-974-1287.