Prop. 209 Debate at Cal State Northridge

* The Sept. 25 debate between David Duke and Joe Hicks on Prop. 209 accomplished nothing except further racial polarization. It was noteworthy that imported cause-niks from the Berkeley area generated most of the violence. However, there was a comment made by Hicks that can’t be passed over. He said that whites were getting aced out by more qualified minorities. This ranks with all the mythical studies quoted by Hicks that, given no affirmative action, similarly qualified minorities would not get hired in competition with whites.

I have had several personal encounters with affirmative action including being an aerospace worker with two master’s degrees and nearly 20 years’ relevant experience. Applying to a major Los Angeles aerospace company for any one of five listed jobs for which I was qualified, I was told by the personnel director, whom I knew, that they were only hiring women and minorities from within the company. Failing that, they would look for women and minorities outside. I asked him if he would put that in writing, and of course, he laughed.

Affirmative action is clearly discrimination of the most definite kind, no matter what studies Hicks quotes. R.M. GREENE

West Hills

* Re “Perspectives on the CSUN Debate,” Commentary, Sept. 25:

Gov. Pete Wilson, UC Regent Ward Connerly, CSUN professor Phillip E. Present and other affirmative action foes seem quite uncomfortable in receiving support for Prop. 209 from Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan official. The supporters of this divisive and iniquitous piece of work have argued nonstop that there are no racist undertones to it, and anyone challenging this stand is accused of making personal attacks instead of debating the issues. Present’s allusion to San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s lack of “rationality” in his opposition to Prop. 209 seemed pretty personal to me.

We opponents of this proposition hold that affirmative action, in both the public and the private sectors, is still sorely needed because the racism that caused these policies to come into being is very much alive and well, and Duke is the personification of that racism.

ROBERT BOONE

Los Angeles

* The Sept. 25 Times featured a telling combination of articles. one story concerned the appearance of Duke at Cal State Northridge and the continuing debate about affirmative action. Another story told of the actions of Korean families to get their children into Harvard. One Korean mother, working to improve her son’s chances of getting into the Ivy League, said, “Isn’t that every parent’s duty?” These families are taking affirmative action, not expecting it or demanding it.

JOEL GARFIELD

Tarzana