Groups March for Affirmative Action : Demonstration: In Downtown L.A. protest, women’s organizations target proposed ballot measure that would eliminate the programs.

Vowing to fight a rising national and local tide, nearly 75 representatives of various women’s organizations marched from City Hall to the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in Downtown Los Angeles Thursday to protest a proposed ballot initiative that would eliminate most affirmative action programs.

“For every white male in California who thinks this initiative is right, he better sit down with his wife or his daughter because it will be these people who will be unemployed,” said Tammy Bruce, president of the Los Angeles chapter of National Organization for Women.

The multiracial coalition, ranging from construction managers to lawyers, said it plans to present a detailed outline of its concerns to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Gov. Pete Wilson, who has already voiced his support for the proposed anti-affirmative action measure.

Organizers hoped that the march would force Riordan, who has yet to take a position on the issue, to support affirmative action.

Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez noted that women and minority business owners have been among the leaders in Los Angeles’ economic recovery effort, and said the mayor will continue to study the issue before announcing his position.

Thursday’s march was part of a statewide effort by dozens of organizations, including NOW, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Asian Pacific Women’s Network, to fight the proposed initiative.

“When Gov. Wilson announces his presidency (bid) today,” Fund for the Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal said Thursday, “he should remember what we told President Clinton last week. And that is that affirmative action cannot be deserted.”

Smeal, who flew from Washington to Los Angeles for the march, said, “The glass ceiling study released last week clearly shows that women are fighting for their very existence.”

Author Susan Faludi told the rally that she was admitted to Harvard University in the 1960s because of affirmative action and that she is “proud to be an affirmative action baby.”

Beverly King, of the Black Women’s Caucus, which represents more than 1,000 women in California, told the demonstrators and passersby that recent studies confirm that affirmative action programs ushered in nationwide more than 30 years ago are still necessary.

“Those who suggest, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that affirmative action has outlived its usefulness,” King said, “must validate the racist, sexist and political motivation behind their attack.”