Group Will Try to Preserve Affirmative Action : Activism: Campaign against proposed initiative to end sex and gender preference programs is planned.

Vowing to fight for the preservation of affirmative action statewide, about 25 community activists gathered here Sunday to form a countywide coalition to campaign against the proposed California Civil Rights Initiative.

The activists, representing various ethnic and civil rights groups, said they wanted to heighten awareness in local communities about the so-called civil rights initiative which, if approved by voters, would end race and gender preference programs in the state.

“When we exclude people with wonderful talent, everyone suffers,” said Jeanne Costales, a Lake Forest resident and vice chair of the local Democratic party. “If we leave out the nutmeg, the pie is not as good. . . . We’re better when all of us participate in the economic pie.”

Costales said she decided to organize Sunday’s meeting--which was billed as a local affirmative action summit--after reading about four UC Irvine students who conducted a dramatic 15-day hunger strike protesting a decision by the University of California regents to ban affirmative action in the university system’s admissions policies.

“I was amazed that people who observed these hunger strikers were saying that affirmative action was a black issue or a Mexican issue,” said Costales, a retired Red Cross employee. “We want people to know that affirmative action is a human-rights issue.”

Among the activists who flocked to a small room inside the Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church were representatives of the clergy, the NAACP’s Orange County chapter, 100 Black Men of Orange County, Mexican American National Women Assn., and the League of Women Voters.

After a brief discussion, the activists also voted to work toward placing an opposing initiative on next November’s ballot.

That initiative, dubbed the California Economic and Educational Opportunity Initiative, would mandate the state to continue affirmative action programs for women and minorities.

The initiative’s chief proponent is Roland Holmes, a Mission Viejo resident who is also chairman of the state’s Black Conservative Network, a group of black Republicans.

Holmes said his group had already collected about 225,000 signatures statewide and was aiming to collect twice that number by February in order to qualify for next November’s ballot.

Holmes said he was pleased that local activists pledged to support his effort.

“People think affirmative action is a handout, and we have to work to change that attitude,” Holmes said. “I’m still looking for the executive who fired a qualified person to hire an unqualified person.”

Costales said the local coalition will meet next Sunday to plan their campaign. “Before this meeting, we were all working for the same thing,” Costales said. “Now we’re all working together.”