Prop. 209 to End State Affirmative Action

I am a student who attends Dorsey High School. I have strong feelings against Prop. 209.

The reason that affirmative action was put into place was because the government wanted to help minorities, who did not have the same opportunities as white males. This fact has not changed. Affirmative action was also created to have a balanced environment in the workplace; this fact has not changed. In reality, 97% of high-level corporate jobs are held by white men. Until this fact has changed, we cannot eliminate affirmative action.

It has been only 76 years since women have had a say in our government. Still, today, women make less money than men. For African Americans the right to equality came only in the late 1960s. It has only been 30 to 40 years since blacks have been able to integrate schools and public facilities. Minorities have only been equal for a short amount of time, not enough time to equal the power white men have had since the beginning of America.

BARI REED

Los Angeles

I’m not an academic, an educational expert or a political activist. I’m a businessman, father and a citizen concerned about the state of education in my community. “Resist the Call of the Privileged Class” by John D. Maguire (Commentary, Oct. 24) has only heightened my concern.

Maguire writes that Prop. 209 “pits Americans against one another.” Has affirmative action brought us closer together? Maguire asserts that white males are so afraid that they “eagerly and scandalously designate scapegoats,” presumably for society’s ills, even at the expense of their own freedoms. Have the proponents of affirmative action not designated the white population as their scapegoat? Maguire writes that proponents of Prop. 209 are “desperate to restore the old order.” Are these proponents actually seeking preferential treatment for whites?

Before going to the polls we should ask ourselves what perhaps is the central question in this debate: Was the premise of affirmative action to promote equal opportunity or preferential treatment? If the answer is preferential treatment, and by that we mean lower educational standards, what will be the advantage of an education in the first place?

STEPHEN SPRAGUE

Garden Grove

Maguire made three major points in opposition to Prop. 209.

He stated that Prop. 209 will lead to “divisiveness.” My comment: 209 will end divisiveness by eliminating ethnic group preferences. If we are all treated equally, there can be little or no divisiveness.

He said, “Proponents [of 209] are desperate to restore the old order.” Comment: The old order is racism. The present system is affirmative action and quotas. This is racism because decisions are made according to color or ethnicity. Prop. 209 will bring a new order of equality where no race or group is favored.

He said Prop. 209 is “restoring a system that favored one segment of the population over all others.” It is the present system that favors one group over another.

RICHARD A. REYNOLDS

Lomita