Jackson Leads Protest of Prop. 209

Thousands of Proposition 209 opponents from throughout the state marched across the Golden Gate Bridge on Thursday as the initiative barring affirmative action programs took effect after nearly a year of legal wrangling.

The immediate impact of the measure’s implementation was unclear because many state agencies and large cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles refused to change their municipal policies.

San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown, along with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, led throngs of peaceful protesters across the bridge’s pedestrian walkway Thursday morning as horns honked and bands played.

“We cannot let state regulations overrule national rights,” Jackson said of California’s voter-approved measure. “This is the same kind of backlash that we’ve seen in the past.”

Meanwhile, the White House held open the possibility of new challenges to block Proposition 209, which prohibits preferential treatment based on race or gender in public employment, education and contracting.

Deputy White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said senior White House legal advisors and Justice Department officials were conferring “to review what our options might be.”

But Lockhart shed little light on what alternatives might be available beyond seeking a U.S. Supreme Court review of last week’s federal appellate court decision that allowed Proposition 209 to go forward.

“I think there are a lot of things they are considering, and when they reach a conclusion we’ll make that known,” Lockhart said on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where President Clinton is in the midst of a three-week vacation.

The appeals court, finding that California has the right to enforce Proposition 209, denied a request by the American Civil Liberties Union and others to keep the measure from taking effect pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.

In Sacramento, the state Senate on Thursday rejected the reappointment of University of California Regent Tirso del Junco, who voted in 1995 to scrap affirmative action in UC admissions.

An emotional Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer urged the Senate to reject Del Junco, saying the board has become overly politicized during the time the regent has been chairman.

Lockyer (D-Hayward) is one of the most partisan politicians in Sacramento. But he said politics must be kept out of the University of California, warning: “We’re letting it go down the tubes.”

Del Junco, 72, has been a regent for 12 years. He is the first sitting regent in the state’s history to have been rejected for a second term.

Gov. Pete Wilson, who nominated Del Junco to a second term, suggested that Democrats opposed Del Junco because of his opposition to affirmative action programs designed to give women and minorities a share of university admissions and jobs.

“It is downright cynical that those who profess to want diversity at the University of California would reject so eminently qualified a candidate as Dr. Del Junco,” Wilson said. “Clearly, those in the Senate who rejected Dr. Del Junco want diversity only when the individual is in lock-step with their political ideology.”

Del Junco had insisted that he had kept politics out of his work on the UC board, despite his Republican Party activism. During the confirmation process, he also called for stronger efforts to recruit minority students to attend the university.

He could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Calling Del Junco “the most successful Republican leader in this state in 25 years,” Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) said: “This is all about partisan politics.’

But partisan politics have plagued Proposition 209 since its inception. The measure--which was on the November ballot and grabbed national attention leading up to the vote--became enmeshed in the presidential campaign.

Late in the campaign, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole endorsed the measure, and Clinton made his opposition to the plan clear. Since then, most notably during a speech in late spring in San Diego, Clinton has spoken out in favor of increased efforts across the country toward racial accommodation.

In San Francisco on Thursday, Jackson organized the Golden Gate Bridge protest march against Proposition 209 to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington.

“It is poetic injustice that on this day, 34 years from the day that the dream of hope and inclusion was projected, that Proposition 209 has been unleashed like a Scud missile, with the effect of bludgeoning the dreams of this generation,” Jackson said during a rally after the march.

Jestine Singleton, 60, drove overnight from Riverside with a church group to join the demonstration.

“This is history,” she said. “What we’re trying to show is that 209 never should have happened. We’ve still got the dream. It’s still coming.”

Gerstenzang reported from Edgartown, Mass., and Morain reported from Sacramento. Associated Press contributed to this story.