Campus Abuzz as D-Day Arrives

The final batch of tickets for today’s affirmative action debate at Cal State Northridge was snapped up Tuesday, as a last ditch legal challenge by Proposition 209 proponents failed to block the debate.

More than 100 students were lined up outside the CSUN Student Union when the ticket office opened at 9:30 a.m. By noon, all 430 tickets for a closed-circuit television viewing of the debate--which pits ex-Klansman David Duke against civil rights activist Joe Hicks--were gone.

The participation by Duke, an avowed racist who has served in the Louisiana Legislature, has sparked unprecedented interest on and off the campus and provoked emotional demonstrations among students. Groups that support Proposition 209, aimed at outlawing affirmative action by state and local government agencies, contend that Duke was invited as a ploy by student opponents of the measure to tarnish the proposition by associating it with the Ku Klux Klan.

At a rally and student government meeting Tuesday, representatives of several student organizations protested Duke’s planned appearance. Some threatened to try to block the debate, others called for greater participation by students in the debate.

A demonstration by a UC Berkeley-based group, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action by Any Means Necessary, almost led to violence, as angry CSUN students shouted down a handful of coalition demonstrators who were urging students to disrupt the debate before Duke gets a chance to speak.

Scott Reed, an organizer with the Berkeley group, said he expects hundreds of protesters to rally at the college today in an attempt to block Duke’s appearance. “We don’t believe the racist should be allowed on campus,” said Reed, who brought a group of about 15 organizers with him from the Bay Area this week.

Reed said protesters will march, carry signs, shout and “use any means necessary” to prevent Duke from speaking. He and others passed out leaflets Tuesday urging students to join a demonstration outside the Student Union at 1 p.m. today. Reed said members of student groups from Oakland, Berkeley, Hollister and San Diego are expected to join the protest.

“We want Duke to know that his views are not welcome in California,” Reed said. “We’re going to tell him, ‘Go back to Louisiana.’ ”

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Later, at a Student Senate meeting, members of the campus Republican Club said they have signatures of 2,500 students who want to recall Senate President Vladimir Cerna, who helped organize the debate. Perry H. Rod, a 17-year-old freshman who organized the campus GOP group, urged Cerna to resign within a week and accused him of misusing student funds by paying Duke $4,000 for his participation.

Tamara Benefield, treasurer of the Black Student Union, also appeared before the campus senate, urging that students be allowed to participate in the debate and to confront Duke with questions about the KKK. The debate format calls for written questions only, focused on affirmative action issues.

Meanwhile, in the second court hearing in as many days, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge William MacLaughlin again rejected a request by Proposition 209 supporters for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the debate.

The lawsuit, filed by the Individual Rights Foundation on behalf of a CSUN graduate student, contends that the use of student fees to pay Duke and Hicks $4,000 each constitutes an improper use of government funds and an attempt by the opponents of Proposition 209 to sabotage the initiative by linking it in voters’ minds with racism.

“My objection isn’t to allowing David Duke to speak--he has his 1st Amendment right too,” said Patrick Manshardt, attorney for the Individual Rights Foundation. “This isn’t free speech, it’s $8,000 speech . . . It’s a dirty political trick, and not even a particularly well-executed one. I’m hoping this will backfire on them.”

But after an hour of arguments by both sides, MacLaughlin quickly dismissed the group’s claim.

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“The judge wanted more evidence that there is some complicity between the campaign [against Proposition 209] and the students,” Manshardt said. “We know what’s going to happen now. We’re going to see TV commercials the last two weeks of the campaign with white sheets and David Duke, saying ‘A vote for 209 is a vote for David Duke.’ ”

In fact, opponents of Proposition 209 say they do not intend to wait until two weeks before the Nov. 5 election to use Duke’s image as a campaign tool.

Today’s CSUN campus newspaper, the Sundial, will feature full-page ads by a coalition called Californians for Equality with a picture of “former KKK leader” Duke, sandwiched between photos of Gov. Pete Wilson, a leading backer of the initiative, and campaign co-chairman Ward Connerly, a University of California regent.

“Look Who Wants to Turn Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream Into a Nightmare,” the headline on the advertisement reads.

“I don’t think this is going to backfire at all,” said Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles), a member of the No on 209 Committee. “I think what it does is show people who are worried about whether 209 is an unfair remedy that this discussion is not just about affirmative action, it’s about racial separation, hatred and division.”

Archie-Hudson said the committee formed to oppose Proposition 209 had no role in selecting Duke as a representative of the anti-affirmative action view in the campus debate.

“There is absolutely no connection,” she said. “We did not invite David Duke and the supporters of 209 know this.

“What troubles them is that David Duke is an extremist and a racist and they won’t want to be associated with him. But if they were talking about really trying to find some way to make the playing field level for minorities and women, David Duke wouldn’t be here. The students invited him because 209 represents what David Duke represents.”

In a related development Tuesday, a state legislative committee held the first of four informational hearings on Proposition 209.

Although the sparsely attended Burbank hearing was slated to discuss the initiative’s impact on public education programs, most of the speakers at the 3 1/2-hour session instead repeated familiar arguments for and against affirmative action programs for women and minorities.

Neil Gotanda, a law professor at Western State University in Fullerton, presented the results of a study conducted last summer by the college’s law review students. Gotanda said the study suggested the initiative could cause “sweeping changes at every level of California education.”

Gotanda said passage of the proposition could jeopardize a broad array of public educational programs, including university courses in ethnic and women’s studies, recruitment and scholarship programs targeted at women or minorities, and even school celebrations of ethnic holidays such as Cinco de Mayo.

Tom Wood, a co-author of the proposition who also testified at the hearing, dismissed Gotanda’s contention that the initiative could end ethnic and women’s studies or school observations of ethnic holidays.

As long as the faculty and students involved in such programs were not restricted according to race, nationality or gender, the celebrations could continue, Wood said. However, he did agree that scholarships limited to women or minorities would be prohibited, along with girls-only math or science programs.

The hearings, held by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, will continue this week and next in Sacramento, San Diego and Fresno.

Times staff writer Martha Willman contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

David Duke

Age: 46

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in History from Louisiana State University in 1974.

Background: A former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and founder and former President of the National Assn. for the Advancement of White People, Duke has spent his career opposing affirmative action, gerrymandering designed to help minority candidates gain congressional seats and the welfare state. Duke says he left the Klan in 1979. He also served in the Louisiana state Legislature from 1989-1992. He ran for but failed to win a U.S. Senate seat in 1990, Louisiana governorship in 1991 and the U.S. Presidency in 1992. He finished fourth in a bid for the U.S. Senate in last week’s Louisiana primary.

Joe Hicks

Age: 55

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Radio and Television Broadcasting from Cal State Los Angeles in 1973.

Background: Hicks, a Los Angeles-based civil rights advocate, is the Executive Director of the MultiCultural Collaborative of Los Angeles, a public interest and advocacy group working to calm inter-ethnic tensions. Hicks also served as the communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles. Hicks worked against hate crimes and for police reform, human rights, and cooperation between racial, ethnic and religious groups.

Events Leading to the Debate

David Duke, former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard, ex-Louisiana legislator and one-time Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, appears today in an affirmative action debate with Los Angeles civil rights activist Joe Hicks on the Cal State Northridge campus. The following is a chronology of events leading up to the debate which is being closely watched by the American press, pundits and voters nationwide.

Tuesday, Sept. 3: Rejecting critics’ charges of “mindless political theater,” the Cal State Northridge Student Senate votes to invite Duke to debate affirmative action with a civil rights leader.

Thursday, Sept. 5: Ward Connerly, a University of California regent who heads the campaign for a state proposition to end government racial and gender preferences, asks Cal State Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson to withdraw the Duke invitation “unless it is your choice to dishonor your university and the integrity of the issue before us.”

Friday, Sept. 6: California Governor Pete Wilson weighs in heavily against Duke’s scheduled appearance as political consultants on both sides say that if Duke’s invitation was a ploy to defeat Proposition 209, the move will backfire. One called the invitation “stupid.”

Tuesday, Sept. 10: The debate over Duke’s appearance balloons into a national controversy over affirmative action and Proposition 209 as well as the Klu Klux Klan. On this day, Duke appears on four California-based radio talk shows. During the week, he is featured on CNN as well as several national and regional newspapers.

Friday, Sept. 13: Cal State Northridge’s student leaders agree to pay Los Angeles civil rights activist Joe Hicks the same $4,000 speaker’s fee promised to David Duke. Hicks had agreed to accept $1,000.

Tuesday, Sept. 17: Cal State Northridge student senator Mark Short, who earlier in the month had cast one of the deciding votes to invite Duke to appear in the debate, tells the senate he has changed his mind. but his fellow students will have none of it.

Friday, Sept. 20: Ward Connerly announces that he will hold a rally “somewhere near the campus” at the time Duke appears at Cal State Northridge.

Monday, Sept. 23: Groups favoring Propostion 209 lose a court battle to keep Duke from appearing on campus. Proposition supporters had claimed that Duke was invited as a campaign tactic by opponents to smear the initiative as rascist.

Time for a Debate

Extensive preparations have been made for today’s debate on Prop. 209 between ex-Ku Klux Klansman David Duke and civil rights activist Joe Hicks, which is expected to draw one of the largest crowds ever to a student-sponsored debate at Cal State Northridge.

* Location: The debate will be staged in the University Student Union’s Northridge Center; a 7-foot closed-circuit TV screen will be set up in USU’s Performing Arts Center for overflow crowd.

* Time: Northridge Center doors open at 12:30 p.m. Performing Arts Center doors open at 1:15 p.m. Debate starts 2 p.m.

* Seating: 770 in Northridge Center, 490 in the Performing Arts Center

* Tickets: All tickets have been taken. They were distributed for free on a first come, first served basis to students and the public.

* Security: Spectators in the Northridge Center will be searched with metal-detecting wands. Los Angeles Police Department will conduct bomb sweeps before the debate. Thirty officers from the state’s critical response unit, which handles crowd control and emergency situations, will augment the university’s 15-officer force. Approximately 100 LAPD officers will be on alert in case they are needed.