Foes Square Off on Affirmative Action : Debate: Backers say proposed initiative ending race and gender hiring preferences would create colorblind society. Opponent Willie Brown compares it to Jim Crow doctrine.

In an opening debate on one of the hottest issues of the day, three leading proponents of an initiative to abolish affirmative action defended their idea Wednesday as one that would create a colorblind society in which race, ethnicity and gender would play no role in hiring, contracting or college admissions.

But the proponents--anthropology professor Glynn Custred, philosopher Thomas E. Wood and Los Angeles commentator Errol Smith--sometimes struggled to respond to their opponents, as Assembly Speaker Willie Brown accused them of promoting an idea reminiscent of the separate-but-equal doctrine of Jim Crow.

“I believe that your position is so flawed with a lack of data and a lack of information and a lack of clarity of thought that it comes from a space and place in this nation that is very very troubling,” Brown said. “It’s what put in place the Jim Crow laws. . . . It is a reaffirmation of every single solitary discriminatory sanction that this country ever tolerated.”

The debate occurred in a lecture hall before 200 students and others at McGeorge Law School. The event was sponsored by the Federalist Society and moderated by Court of Appeals Justice Robert Puglia.

The debate shifted from academic discussions of constitutional law and Reconstruction-era efforts to remedy discrimination to fiery exchanges in which Brown demanded that the proponents produce evidence of wholesale reverse discrimination that would justify what he, Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles) and McGeorge professor Brian Landsberg branded as a radical, sweeping and ill-conceived initiative.

“There is evidence. I don’t have it with me tonight,” replied Custred, a professor at Cal State Hayward, who along with Wood is the prime sponsor of the proposed “California civil rights initiative.”

The debate opened when Smith issued a plea to keep the tone on “high ground.” But after he mispronounced Caldera’s first name, the Los Angeles Democrat issued a sharp rebuke, saying Smith’s assumption evidently was based on the “color of my skin.”

Later, Smith, an African American, pressed Brown on whether he believes “there is an official position” that must be taken by racial minorities. Brown shot back that while he does not believe there is such a stand, “I think your position is cockeyed.”

“Thank you for giving me a license to think,” replied Smith, who contended several times that abolition of affirmative action would give reality to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a society in which people would be “judged by the content of their character.”

The debate Wednesday took place even though the initiative has neither qualified for the 1996 ballot nor even been submitted to the state attorney general, a first step before signatures can be gathered.

Custred and Wood do, however, have political consultants helping them campaign, and the initiative that has not yet materialized already has become one of the raging issues of the year here and across the country.

Wood said he expects the measure will be on the ballot in November, 1996. Wood is a former college philosophy teacher. His biography describes his current job as executive director of the California Assn. of Scholars, “widely regarded as the principal force fighting P.C., or political correctness, on the state’s campuses.”

As it is now worded, the initiative seeks to prohibit discrimination in hiring, college admissions and contracting based on race, gender and ethnicity. Wood said that individuals who are victims of discrimination could get redress from the courts--a point disputed by the opponents.

Wood said the initiative would return California to the original intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that sought to stop discrimination by ensuring that race played no role in hiring.

“Preferences are a phony solution (to discrimination). They’re a bookkeeper’s solution,” Custred said, suggesting that government instead attempt to improve the life of poor people by identifying and giving special help to their brightest children. “We’re not looking at the underlying causes.”

Landsberg, a former Justice Department official, called the California Civil Rights Initiative a “violation of truth in packaging” that, despite its title, does nothing to promote civil rights.

“Why is it immoral to lift up the oppressed?” Landsberg asked. “The last three decades have seen slow but steady progress. A ban on affirmative action would end that progress,” he said.

Caldera labeled the initiative a “blunt instrument” that would create an unnecessary constitutional initiative when the Legislature might be willing to fix whatever real problems exist in affirmative action.

But Smith contended that no action would be taken without an initiative and demanded to know whether the Legislature would have motivation to act if there were no threat of the initiative.