Jackson Assails ‘Resegregation’

Allying himself with a national Latino rights group, the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday called on President Clinton to cut federal funding to California if an investigation finds that racial and ethnic discrimination has grown since affirmative action programs were abolished last year.

Jackson, the famed orator and civil rights leader, raised the radical idea at the national convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens, where he also strongly hinted at another presidential run in 2000.

The convention of LULAC, the oldest Latino rights organization in the nation, with a membership of 150,000, runs through Saturday at the Anaheim Marriott. President Clinton is scheduled to address the convention by interactive television early this morning.

Jackson said California is in the process of “resegregation” because it cut affirmative action admissions policies at state universities last year and because voters in November passed Proposition 209, which repealed state government affirmative action programs. Admissions at law schools of African Americans and Latinos dropped 80% last year as a result, he said.

President Clinton opposed Proposition 209 and has advocated maintaining affirmative action in some form. But Jackson said he has not done enough to protect such programs in California.

“[Gov. Pete] Wilson has challenged President Clinton, just as [George] Wallace challenged [President] Eisenhower” during school desegregation in the ‘60s, Jackson said. “The president we elected must stand tall and must not blink.”

Specifically, Jackson said the U.S. Department of Justice should investigate California’s schools and agencies, and “their eligibility to federal loans and aid should be challenged. . . . If there is evidence of race and sex discrimination, then this state or any state forfeits its access to federal funds,” he said. “We need the law enforced now.”

At a news conference, Jackson, who directs the Chicago-based Rainbow Coalition, and LULAC President Belen Robles said they would work together for a repeal of Proposition 209.

Robles, who is on paid leave from the U.S. Customs Service while she runs LULAC from its El Paso, Texas, headquarters and is running for a fourth term as the organization’s leader, seconded Jackson’s call for a cut of federal funds to protest the abolition of affirmative action programs. Robles said she and other community leaders will meet with Jackson in Washington on July 10 to discuss that and other strategies to repeal the proposition, as well as to address voting rights and health-care issues.

At a luncheon that drew several thousand LULAC members, Jackson called for Latinos and African Americans to join together to fight a growing backlash against the poor and ethnic minorities.

“Unless we work together, there’s a tendency to manipulate or divide and destroy,” he said, adding that at his urging, his sons learned to speak Spanish as children. “We can put together a common agenda beyond fighting over what’s left.”

Several times, most notably when he called for a Latino to be named to the Supreme Court, Jackson brought the crowd to its feet. And he acknowledged the growing political clout of Latinos, who cast 5.2 million votes in the last presidential election.

Jackson didn’t address any of the issues facing immigrants, such as cuts in Social Security benefits to legal immigrants and a growing anti-immigrant sentiment, which were prominently featured on the LULAC agenda through the week.

Jackson did make an unabashed plea for money and support in advance of a presidential bid in 2000. Referring to donation envelopes left on tables at the LULAC luncheon, Jackson said, only half in jest, “I hope you’ll give something, even a peso, just to show me you like me.”