Initiative on Affirmative Action

Gail Heriot (letter, June 21) states, “CCRI will not prohibit affirmative action in the original sense of those words.”

The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) will eliminate all voluntary affirmative action programs in the public sector for the state of California, including every local government. The CCRI is a constitutional amendment. It would ban all race- or gender-based corrective action, no matter what pattern of exclusion had previously existed in a given situation. CCRI would end all training, outreach, mentoring and recruitment programs that focus on minorities and women, even when there is an absence of them in the work force. Any program designed to enhance the preparation of minorities and women would be banned under CCRI because they are benefits generally not available to white males.

The major focus of affirmative action is recruitment and outreach to minorities and women in areas where they were not given equality of opportunity in the past. Through goals and timetables (not quotas), we ensure equality of opportunity is given to all. CCRI’s passage would ban all goals and timetables.

The CCRI is anti-affirmative action. CCRI removes efforts for inclusion while offering no alternatives to remedy years of exclusion of women and people of color.

JOHN HILL

Affirmative Action

Compliance Officer, L.A. County