Rejection of Ex-Klan Leader in Debate Urged

A University of California regent who heads the campaign for Proposition 209 on Thursday asked the president of Cal State Northridge to withdraw an invitation to a former Ku Klux Klan leader to oppose affirmative action in a campus debate, calling the invitation a political ploy to portray the proposition as racist.

Proposition 209, which is on the November ballot, would end racial and gender preferences by state and local government agencies in hiring, promotion and college admissions.

Regent Ward Connerly wrote to CSUN President Blenda Wilson that the invitation to former Klan wizard David Duke should be withdrawn “unless it is your choice to dishonor your university and the integrity of the issue before us.”

Connerly said he would not accept a student government invitation to appear beside Duke in defense of the proposition in a campus debate Sept. 25.

“Duke and the Klan are despicable, and I will not be part of giving them a forum to articulate their hatred,” Connerly wrote.

A university spokeswoman replied that it was not Wilson who invited Duke, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana, but the student government.

Wilson does not plan to interfere and is “proud of the fact the students are using their own funds and that the decision was reached through a democratic process,” the spokeswoman said.