Supreme Court Refuses Prop. 209 Challenge

Re “High Court Allows Prop. 209’s Repeal of Affirmative Action,” Nov. 4: The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear California’s Prop. 209 was repugnant to me. It gives the government, private industry and schools the right to go back to discriminating against minorities under the disguise that they do not qualify.

It is not mentioned when speaking of affirmative action that a lot of minorities who qualify are left out because it is inherent to favor whites just for the fact that they are white. What kind of people do we have sitting on the Supreme Court?

ST. ELMO REYNOLDS JR.

Los Angeles

Your Nov. 4 editorial’s (“A Court in Fantasy Land”) characterization of the Supreme Court’s decision not to review the lower courts’ decisions on Prop. 209 was a bit “fantastic” itself. It is not the court’s job to take cases based on their potential to foster debate. Moreover, had it accepted the case, the court would not have addressed the “whole notion of ‘preferences’ in American society.” Only race and gender preferences would have been at issue.

In any case, we already had a debate in California, and the courts have decided that the voters, whether or not they behaved wisely, behaved constitutionally. This hardly “forecloses” future debate in California or anywhere else.

WILLIAM FORD

Whittier

People like your cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, who use Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to justify Prop. 209 (Nov. 5) ignore the circumstances that existed at the time.

When King stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial that day, white men controlled every aspect of American society. They determined who got accepted, hired, promoted or fired and they favored their own kind to the detriment of women and minorities. King was merely asking them to be fair when they judged black children.

Affirmative action programs were established to assure women and minorities a fair shot at opportunity.

Now Prop. 209 supporters promise a colorblind society in which people will be judged by their character and abilities without regard for their gender or skin color. We need to ask who will be doing the judging in this utopia. I am enough of a pessimist to fear that it will be the same guys who were doing it before affirmative action and that they will, once again, be free to act on their prejudices.

VICTOR SILVA

Hermosa Beach

The true test of the sincerity of the promoters of Prop. 209, the across-the-board repeal of affirmative action: Apply the proposition across the board to athletes and athletic programs.

CECIL LOTIEF

Irvine

I think it is time for all black Americans to stand up for our tax dollars. If you want an all-white society, let the whites pay all the taxes. If minorities and women refused to pay taxes, this would truly become a colorblind country. Think tax dollars.

PATSY McKISSICK

Los Angeles