Connerly’s Trivial Pursuit

When Ward Connerly, California’s self-designated racial policeman, gets mad, his anger cascades into voting booths across the country.

Last month’s Supreme Court decision in a University of Michigan case that allowed schools to consider race as one factor in admissions really ticked him off: An “aberration ... not consistent with where this country is or where it ought to be” -- that’s how Connerly sees it. Connerly is the author of Proposition 209, the constitutional amendment that California voters passed in 1996 banning the consideration of race or ethnicity in school admissions and hiring.

Military generals and corporate bigwigs went to the Supreme Court to defend diversity in barracks and boardrooms; therefore it’s not at all clear that Connerly’s views represent majority opinion. That news would hardly stop Connerly, who sees the court’s decision as a rallying cry for the good citizens of Michigan to take matters into their own hands. He and other opponents of affirmative action are planning a Proposition 209-style initiative for that state and are considering similar measures in Colorado, Arizona and Missouri. Their goal is a sort of “Super Tuesday” on affirmative action in November 2004.

Nor is he finished with California. Connerly is leading the charge for a March initiative that would bar the state from collecting most kinds of racial data.

Connerly’s quest for a colorblind society is an odd contrast to his obsession with his own racial heritage. He’s not only black, Connerly has said often, but also has French, Irish and Native American ancestors. That’s a so-what and an of-course; most African Americans have multiracial forebears. What Connerly fails to see in speaking of his racial apportionments, ironically, is that race evidently still matters. It’s also a good bet that voters worry far more about the stability of their jobs, the quality of their kids’ schools and the threat of terrorism than they do about perceived affirmative action slights.

Connerly could have made use of his position as a University of California regent to acknowledge and embrace the realities of how the nation’s racial past affects its present, positively as well as negatively. Instead he’s turned that platform into a mere soapbox for a repetitive, increasingly narrow message.