Ward Connerly's Newest Whine

Review on Mother Jones of Connerly's newest book, Creating Equal, which was published by the Bradley Foundation's new publishing arm, Encounter Books

Also see:

Conversations between Connerly and the MoJo book reviewer, Michele Landis

Read the full report >

PERSON PROFILE

Ward Connerly

Ward Connerly & the
American Civil Rights Institute

P.O. Box 188350
Sacramento, CA 95818
Phone: (916) 444-2278
Fax: (916) 444-2279

Ward Connerly is one of the country’s leading opponents of affirmative action. In 1995, as a member of the University of California Board of Regents, he introduced the resolution that overturned affirmative action in that state’s university system, the largest in the country. Ward Connerly is one of the country’s leading opponents of affirmative action. In 1995, as a member of the University of California Board of Regents, he introduced the resolution that overturned affirmative action in that state’s university system, the largest in the country.

Two years later he founded an organization called the American Civil Rights Institute, funded in large part by the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee. The ACRI led the California Civil Rights Initiative, a successful campaign for a ballot referendum (Proposition 209) to end all affirmative action programs in California state government.

Connerly then took his campaign on the road, helping anti-affirmative action advocates in the state of Washington get a similar proposition (I-200) on the ballot. That proposal also passed. Connerly and the ACRI have now set their sights on Florida and beyond.

Affirmative action isn’t Connerly’s only target. In a quote appearing in the San Francisco Examiner, Connerly said that he wasn’t convinced ethnic studies reflected “a sound academic curriculum rather than the political correctness mind set.” In the same article he called for a review of “all of the infrastructure created back in the 1970s and ‘80s as a result of black nationalism and the black power movement.”

He has recently written a book, called “Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences,” which is both an autobiography and an argument for the elimination of affirmative action. The book is published by San Francisco-based Encounter Books, a new conservative publisher also funded by the Bradley Foundation.

Who is Ward Connerly?

Wardell Anthony Connerly was born in Leesville, La., on June 15, 1939. His father, Roy Connerly, left when his son was two. When his mother died two years later, the young Connerly went to live first with an aunt and uncle and then a grandmother. ¹

Connerly has stated he is one-quarter Black, three-eighths Irish, one-quarter French and one-eighth Choctaw.² While he has variously described himself as both Black and multiracial, he strongly rejects the term African American.³

Today Ward Connerly and his wife Ilene live in an upscale California suburb called Arden Oaks. The Connerly home is “a spacious, shingle-roofed ranch with a pool, assessed at nearly $500,000, with an RV parked on the drive. He bought half-shares in four racehorses, and named one of them Two-O Nine,” after the ballot proposition that many charge will help prevent other Blacks from achieving this level of affluence.⁴

While Connerly likes to describe himself as a self-made businessman, he had some unusual help. It could be said he had his own personal affirmative action program, in the person of former Republican California governor Pete Wilson.

Connerly began his climb up and out of poverty in the community redevelopment arm of California’s Housing and Community Development Department. In 1968, Wilson, then a young legislator from San Diego, became chairman of the newly formed Assembly Committee on Urban Affairs and Housing. Wilson made Connerly his chief consultant.

At that time, Wilson was pushing a scheme to promote individual tenant ownership of public housing units. Later promoted nationally as an anti-poverty measure by former HUD chairman Jack Kemp, unit ownership would have the practical effect of unloading aging housing projects onto the poor themselves. It would in effect turn low-income tenants into their own slumlords. The tenants would get responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of deteriorating buildings, the cities would get an increased tax base, and the government could rid itself of one more “entitlement” - the obligation to provide low-income housing to the poor. It would also open the profit door to a host of private companies offering various “services” to the new tenant-owners, such as insurance, repairs, maintenance, security, et cetera.

Connerly's relationship with Wilson was the key to his personal advancement. First, he helped Wilson write a series of land-use laws. Then, in 1993, Connerly and his wife Ilene founded Connerly & Associates, a lucrative consulting business that guides municipalities through the implementation of these same laws he helped write for Wilson's committee.

Connerly & Associates also manages the assets of several construction-related associations.⁴ Perhaps not coincidentally, large white-owned construction companies happen to be among the most vocal opponents to affirmative action.

Connerly was not ungrateful for Wilson's help. According to the government watchdog group Common Cause, Connerly has contributed $108,000 to Wilson's campaigns and has helped him raise millions more. He also serves as chairman of the California Governor's Foundation, which maintains Wilson's homes in Los Angeles and Sacramento.⁵

Connerly, now a member of the California Chamber of Commerce, often points to his own financial success as proof that affirmative action isn't needed. His opponents, however, accuse him of hypocrisy, charging that his own business is registered as a "minority" company, allowing him to benefit from affirmative action programs he now wants to eliminate for others.

"Someone put a story on the Internet that I had registered as a ’minority’ company," he said in a presentation in Mequon, WI on April 19, 2000, "and once you get something on the Internet, you can't fight it, it stays there forever." He was referring to an article in a San Francisco paper.

Another reference to this issue appears in "The New American," a publication of the John Birch Society, an ultra-right wing, racist organization that supports attacks on affirmative action. The reference attempts to defend Connerly, but actually provides proof of the charge that he has registered as a "minority" business.

In an article entitled "Battling Reverse Discrimination" (Dec. 9, 1996) William F. Jasper wrote, "Connerly flatly denies the charge. ‘If I designated myself ... a minority contractor, I could make a nice piece of change,’ he says. ‘But I don’t. I won’t be defined as an affirmative action businessman.’"

However, the article continues, "[Connerly] concedes that in a few cases new laws and regulations have forced him to certify his company as a minority-owned enterprise in order to keep previous contracts with public agencies. Charles Imbrecht, chairman of California’s Energy Commission, which is one of Connerly’s clients, agrees that [Connerly] is being wrongly accused. ’Mr. Connerly’s self-certification as a minority business enterprise simply means that his firm can meet the requirement that 15 percent of the funds ... do not need to be directed to a separate certified minority firm,’ says Imbrecht."

At any rate, it was political activism, not financial success that has gained Connerly both fame and notoriety.

In a meeting that Connerly describes as a turning point in his life, Pete Wilson introduced Connerly to then-governor Ronald Reagan.

”Although Pete had begun to introduce me to Republicanism, it was my meeting with Governor Reagan that had such an enormous influence. The day after my meeting with the governor, I changed my party affiliation to Republican.” ⁶

Politically, Connerly has described his own politics as libertarian.⁷ As a UC regent he voted in favor of providing domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian UC employees and has expressed some support for a woman’s right to abortion. However, he is obviously proud of his strong ties to the larger neo- conservative movement.

”Every day that I speak out as an ordinary citizen,” he said in remarks March 23, 2000 at the Reagan Library, “I do so as a product, a disciple, of that Reagan revolution - a revolution that produced a band of citizens at Americans for Tax Reform, American Enterprise Institute, Empower America, Claremont Institute, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution, the Young America’s Foundation, and a host of other think tanks, talk show hosts, and activist organizations dedicated to making America better by completing the Reagan Revolution.” ⁶

In 1993, after becoming governor, Wilson appointed his friend to an unpaid 12-year term on the University of California’s Board of Regents, where he became chairman of the Finance Committee. Two years later he led the drive to end affirmative action policies at the University. About that time, an article in a Black magazine called Ward Connerly "the most hated Black man in America."

In 1997 - on the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. – Connerly announced the establishment of the American Civil Rights Institute. Serving as chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative campaign (Proposition 209), he led the effort that overturned affirmative action in state government.

The American Civil Rights Institute

Connerly’s organization describes itself this way on its web site:

"The American Civil Rights Institute is a national civil rights organization created to educate the public about racial and gender preferences. Based in Sacramento, California, ACRI's initial focus is on three areas:

Assisting organizations in other states with their efforts to educate the public about racial and gender preferences, assisting federal representatives with public education on the issue, and monitoring implementation and legal action on California's Proposition 209."

ACRI Funding

In its first two years of operation, ACRI received twelve grants totaling $925,000 from two of the largest and most reactionary foundations in the country: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee and the John M. Olin Foundation of New York.⁸

Bradley is the largest, richest, and most politically influential of the conservative foundations. It is a major funder of most of the neo-conservative organizations, think tanks, legal offices, publications and authors that Connerly extols as seeking to complete the Reagan Revolution - really, a counter-revolution against all the economic and social gains won through the labor struggles of the Thirties and the social movements of the Sixties and Seventies.⁹

Bradley supplied $600,000, including $100,000 “to support a book project entitled ‘Toward One Nation,’” $200,000 “for general operating costs” and $300,000 “to support a public education initiative.”¹⁰ The latter grant was probably to get the anti-affirmative action proposition on the ballot in the state of Washington. Efforts there were faltering when Connerly showed up with enough money to hire petitioners to collect the necessary signatures.

The Olin Foundation contributed $325,000 to support “activities and programs on race relations in the U.S.” ¹¹ Olin, based on a family fortune built on munitions manufacturing, is a major source of funds for the Heritage Foundation, the country’s largest conservative think tank.

Who's Who in the ACRI

While the Institute is usually presented as if it were founded and run by Connerly alone, he had some important help - all of it from rich, white, well-funded, conservative political activists. The other founders of the Institute are: ¹²

Thomas L. Rhodes - Co-Chairman, ACRI; Board Member, Bradley Foundation

Clint Bolick - Director of Litigation, Institute for Justice

Grover Norquist - President, Americans for Tax Reform

Quenton Kopp - State Senator, San Francisco.

Thomas L. (Dusty) Rhodes, co-chairman of the ACRI, is a board member of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the principal financial backer of the ACRI. Formerly with Goldman, Sachs & Co., a major Wall Street global investment banking and securities firm, Rhodes is now chairman of Bradley's investment committee. ¹³

Rhodes is also president of the conservative National Review, founded by William F. Buckley, and a member of that magazine’s Board of Directors. He is chairman of the Empire Foundation for Policy Research and the founder and chairman of Change-NY.¹³

These groups have led the campaign in New York to end open admissions in the state university system.

Rhodes has also served as a trustee of the Heritage Foundation (1993-1999); a trustee of the Manhattan Institute, where Charles Murray worked as a Bradley Fellow for many years (1996-1998); and a board member of National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, a Bradley-funded outfit headed by another African-American neo-conservative, Robert L. Woodson, Sr. (1996-1997). He is also a founder of the Club for Growth, a new Political Action Committee, or PAC, formed to support electoral campaigns against moderate Republicans.¹⁴

Rhodes has also been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (1991-1997) and was the founder and director of the Project for the Republican Future (1993-1995). He currently serves on the boards of numerous financial and investment companies.¹⁴

Clint Bolick worked as an assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was EEOC chairman. While working for the Bradley-funded Landmark Legal Foundation, Bolick led the defense for the first Wisconsin school voucher program. When Wisconsin expanded vouchers to include religious schools, Bradley paid for Bolick and attorney Kenneth Starr (yes, that Kenneth Starr) to defend the plan in court.

Bolick has a particular interest in the issue of race. In fact, The New York Times described him as “the maestro of the political right on issues of race... increasingly setting the tone and defining the terms of the national debate.” He is the author of “The Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision?” published by the Cato Institute. He also drafted the bill that would end all affirmative action programs on the federal level.

Bolick achieved national notoriety for his pivotal role in the conservative attack on Lani Guinier, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and President Clinton’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal attacking Guinier as “Clinton’s Quota Queen.” This obvious attempt to conjure up the racist stereotype of a “welfare queen” set the tone for the opposition. Bolick also teamed up with the Bradley-funded Free Congress Foundation to orchestrate anti-Guinier attacks.¹⁵

Bolick has also criticized attempts by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to challenge employment discrimination in police and fire departments, to ensure bi-lingual education for Indian and Spanish-speaking students, as well as proportional representation.¹⁶

In 1991, Bolick co-founded the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice, a Bradley-funded law firm that specializes in recruiting African American clients for court suits promoting the deregulation and privatization of business. The Institute has been prominent in court cases involving the groundbreaking school voucher programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland.

In 1997, the Institute went to bat for the ACRI, filing a brief to overturn a federal injunction against Proposition 209. ¹⁷

Grover Norquist is a well-connected Republican activist with close ties to business and the media. ”He was on the campaign staff on the 1988, 1992, and 1996 Republican Platform Committees, and formerly was Executive Director of the College Republicans. He has also worked in policy positions for other Republicans, including serving on the National Commission Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service.

"Adept at media appearances, Norquist writes a monthly politics column for the American Spectator magazine, and frequently speaks at regional and state think tanks of the movement. He is also well connected with large scale U.S. business interests, having served as economist and chief speech writer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (1983-1984)."⁸

Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a non-profit that describes itself as “a coalition of taxpayer groups, individuals and businesses opposed to higher taxes at both the federal and state levels. ATR organizes the TAXPAYER PROTECTION PLEDGE, which asks all candidates for federal and state office to commit themselves in writing to oppose tax increases.” The ATR, which Norquist founded in 1985, "supports a flat tax rate, school choice and tighter controls on the right to sue for injury. It opposes gun control, abortion and ‘all tax increases.’" ¹⁸

The ATR is funded by the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation. Between 1995 and 1998, the ATR Foundation received nine grants totaling $450,000 from Bradley and Olin.¹⁸

"As President of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), Norquist helped the Heritage Foundation write the Republican’s 1994 Contract With America. Shortly thereafter, Norquist led a right wing charge to ‘de-fund’ the left, declaring that ‘We will hunt [these liberal groups] down one by one and extinguish their funding sources.’ " ¹⁹

Although a non-profit, ATR is closely associated with Republican political campaigns. The group has spent millions of dollars in so-called “soft ads” to support conservative Republicans.²⁰ In October of 1996, it was given $4.6 million by the Republican National Committee for a direct mail campaign on Medicare. ²¹

Quenton Kopp is an independent California State Senator from San Francisco. A kind of conservative populist, he has a reputation as a political maverick.

Encounter Books

Ward Connerly’s book “Creating Equal” is published by Encounter Books of San Francisco, a new right- wing publisher started with a $3.5 million grant by the Bradley Foundation.²² ”Obviously, Connerly’s a high-profile guy and leading off with his book shows Encounter is pretty savvy,” said Publisher’s Weekly news editor Calvin Reid. “His book will no doubt generate a whole lot of publicity. I expect the book to do well. He’ll certainly be the darling of every conservative talk show in the country.” ²²

Publisher’s Weekly did its best to help that success, featuring the book in a special boxed article.

The publishing venture represents a new direction for Bradley, according to the foundation’s president Michael Joyce, who previously headed the Olin Foundation. ”Instead of giving money to authors in the hope that they can find a publisher,” said Joyce, we [decided] we would publish them and market them.” ²²

In the past, Bradley has supported some 300 non-fiction books in some way,²² including the controversial book “The Bell Curve” by Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein, which argued that Blacks are genetically inferior to whites. During the 10 years that Murray had worked on the book, he was supported with Bradley grants totaling a million dollars.

Money for the new publishing house is channeled through the non-profit Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc. In the years 1991, 1992, 1995 and 1998, the non-profit received 14 grants totaling $520,000 from the Bradley and Olin foundations.⁸

Encounter’s editor-in-chief and publisher is writer Peter Collier, a former New Left Sixties activist who has made a career out of attacking his former progressive ideals. His many efforts include the 1997 book “The Race Card: White Guilt, Black Resentment, and the Assault on Truth and Justice.”

While there’s precious little money to fund progressive writers, the same isn’t true for former progressives. Collier had been a leader of the student movement in Berkeley, Calif. and later editor of the left-wing magazine Ramparts. When he began what he calls his “long goodbye” from the left - which coincided with a time of declining financial support for magazines like Ramparts - he and fellow ex-radical David Horowitz began a project to “rethink” the legacy of the movements against racial injustice, poverty, sexism and the Vietnam War.

“Bradley funded some of that effort, which later yielded several books, notably 1989’s ‘Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.’ [Bradley president Michael] Joyce and Collier have remained in touch since then.”²²

A description of Ward Connerly’s book on Encounter’s web site says:

"Creating Equal tells the human story behind Connerly’s fight against race preferences. In this very personal book, he describes how his commitment to racial justice grew out of a proud black family that refused to be broken by poverty or to take refuge in the dependency he believes keeps blacks at the bottom of the social ladder. He tells how his interracial marriage helped him see the human heart as the place where America’s racial problems will ultimately be solved. He tells how his independence and unwillingness to ’blame the system’ led to the fulfillment he believes is available to all black people who leave ‘the liberal plantation.’"

”Creating Equal” is among the first of 14 books planned for the year 2000 by the new publisher. Other titles Encounter will publish this year include “The World According to Gore” by Debra J. Saunders, and “The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America,” by Roger Kimball.

Connerly in Florida

In Florida, Connerly’s ACRI is pushing for a ban on affirmative action in government contracting and state university admissions. He hopes to have a constitutional amendment to that effect on Florida’s ballot in November 2000.

To qualify, Connerly must produce the verified signatures of more than 435,000 voters. He estimates the effort will cost between $2 million and $10 million, depending on whether the Florida Supreme Court allows one referendum question to cover all aspects of the proposed ban. In any event, it’s not a campaign most grassroots organizations could hope to win.

But then again, this isn’t a grassroots campaign. The referendum effort is being funded by the Florida Associated General Contractors Council. Connerly says the Council will fund the startup phase, but he expects to raise half the money out of state.

"Already, the Florida Civil Rights Initiative has collected about $60,000 in donations, mainly from white contractors who believe preferences keep them from getting state business," said Herb Harmon, the Tallahassee-based consultant who is Connerly’s point man in Florida."²³

According to State Sen. Daryl Jones (D-South Dade), white contractors already control 98% of state contracting, and the contractors’ association has "retained Mr. Connerly to help them obtain the remaining 2%." Jones is a member of the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators, which opposes the campaign.

"We have not retained (Connerly) in any way," counters Allen Douglas, executive director of the contractors group. "He was looking at Florida. It was one of five states he was considering. We told him we would support him, if Florida was his next state."

Douglas is treasurer of the Florida Civil Rights Initiative, which will raise money to place the amendment on the ballot. He maintains the contractors’ council, representing about 2,000 commercial contractors in Florida, is sponsoring the amendment but paying Connerly nothing. Connerly says the contractors’ council has neither paid him nor covered his expenses, but that they are financially supporting his petition drive.

So the breakdown is this: The conservative foundations like Bradley and Olin fund the ACRI, the white contractors fund the petition campaign, and Connerly acts as public spokesperson, imploring the Black community to “get beyond race.”²⁴

Meanwhile, a coalition of groups representing Blacks, women, Hispanics and Asians, called Floridians Representing Equality and Equity, is meeting to oppose Connerly’s effort. "It’s as serious a fight, I think, as the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s," said Leon Russell, state chairman of the NAACP. Russell said the coalition might try to get its own constitutional amendment on the 2000 ballot to protect affirmative action.²³

The Gainesville Sun reported December 10, 1999, that Connerly was "scaling back" his petition drive to place an anti-racial preference measure on the November 2000 ballot, "a sign that Florida’s complex ballot process is frustrating his campaign."

Meanwhile, Republican governor Jeb Bush is pushing his own program attacking affirmative action; one that Connerly complains is too limited. The governor’s "One Florida" initiative would end state affirmative action programs in university admissions and in hiring and contracting practices in the state agencies Bush oversees. It will not end race-based affirmative action programs in local government, where Connerly thinks most preferences exist, and it will not stop race from being used as a factor in admissions to public schools’ gifted classes. It would increase university scholarships based on financial need by more than $20 million and is promising university admission to the top 20 percent of each Florida high school.

The plan is backed by most Republican leaders in the state who worry that Connerly’s more drastic proposal could cost their party votes in a presidential election year. Connerly says One Florida is "admirable" but not broad enough to make him end his Florida campaign.

"Right now, I am certainly not ready to fold up the tent," Connerly said.²⁵

Both One Florida and Connerly’s proposal, however, are strongly opposed by Florida’s African American community as well as many others.

On March 7, 2000, as the Florida legislature began its annual session, more than 50,000 people marched on the State Capitol to oppose One Florida. The Tallahassee Democrat reported the demonstration was the largest protest demonstration ever held in Florida’s capitol. Marchers came from as far as Canada and California.

"This is not about Florida alone," said Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, "it’s about our nation."

Others who addressed the crowd included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition; Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League; and Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women.

"This doing away with affirmative action is like a cancer, and we need to stop it aggressively," said U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat before the march. Brown said she expected the civil rights and labor groups to consider calling an economic boycott of Florida, as had been done in South Carolina to force state officials to remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol dome. Meanwhile, on the same day, arguments began before the Florida Supreme Court over the legality of Connerly’s referendum effort, specifically as to whether voters could be confused and misled by the wording of the measure.

References

1 The Miami Herald, May 14, 1999

2 The New York Times, July 27, 1997

3 “If you want to call fair-skinned people who are, for all intents and purposes white, if you want to call them black because they they somehow self-identify as black, go ahead. I don’t care, but African-American is a term that I don’t like. In fact, I hate that term, because it presumes my ethnic background or my national origin, and when you say that I’m African-American, especially when my African ancestry is less than all the rest of me, you’re embracing that one-drop rule mentality. So, I fight the one-drop rule, because I am of mixed origin. My wife is white, and my grandkids are all of me, all of my wife. Their mother is half-Vietnamese. For us, these silly little boxes on these application forms have got to go. Implicit in all that I do and say is my personal agenda of getting rid of those friggin’ boxes and getting the nation beyond the point at which you demand that I identify myself as a black man or an African- American. I won’t argue the point right now, because I don’t have enough time in my lifetime to to do so. But my eye is constantly on the ball of getting rid of that mindset in America.” [Interview by Ward Connerly in Interracial Voice, March 24, 1999]

4 The Miami Herald, May 14, 1999

5 J.B. McCampbell, about ...time Magazine, November-December 1997

6 Remarks by Ward Connerly at the Ronald Reagan Lecture Series, March 23, 2000, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

7 San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 31, 1997

8 From the Media Transparency web site

9 See RightWatch Briefing Paper No. 1: The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

10 Bradley annual reports

11 Olin annual report

12 Political Research Associates, Cambridge, Mass.

13 ACRI web site

14 Club for Growth web site

15 From The Feeding Trough, a report by A Job is a Right Campaign

16 Testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Congress, Subcommittee on the Constitution, July 17, 1998

17 Institute for Justice web site

18 The Oregonian, August, 1999

19 From Buying a Movement, a report by People for the American Way

20 Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 1999

21 National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

22 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 26, 2000

23 St. Petersburg Times

24 Quotes from The Miami Herald, March 23, 1999

25 The Gainesville Sun, Nov. 11, 1999

This report generously prepared by:

A Job is a Right Campaign
PO Box 06053

Milwaukee, WI 53206
Web: www.execpc.com/~ajrc

Structural barriers are Republicans' last best hope

Tamar Lewin reported in the New York Times Friday on the results of Ward Connerly's crusade to end affirmative action. Connerly has killed affirmative action by initiative votes in California (1996), Washington (1998) and Michigan (2006). He aims to spread his poison to 10 more states in 2008.

Read the full report >

ThinkProgress.org
January 17, 2007

Ward Connerly: Affirmative Action Is ‘Boloney,’ People Should Just ‘Frequent The Racetrack’

Ward Connerly has led the right wing’s fight against diversity in schools, pushing ballot initiatives to ban affirmative action around the nation. Earlier in the week on PRI’s To The Point radio show, Connerly said that schools don’t need to be integrated because people can find other places to “get along with others.” He then offered the racetrack as an alternate venue, noting, “I love horseracing, and I– whenever I can find the time I will frequent the racetrack, and I find myself thrown in with people from all around the globe.”

Read the full report >

Walter Nowinski
Michigan Daily
November 7, 2006

Affirmative action banned [in Michigan]

Ward Connerly wins one

Michigan voters dealt a firm blow to the University's affirmative action programs yesterday, voting decisively in favor of Proposal 2, which bans the consideration of race, gender or national origin in college admissions, hiring and contracting.

Read the full report >

Think Progress
November 3, 2006

Ward Connerly - Leader of Michigan Initiative To End Affirmative Action -- Welcomes Ku Klux Klan Support

The man leading the effort to ban affirmative action in Michigan, Ward Connerly, welcomes the support of the Ku Klux Klan. Connerly said, “If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them. Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate.”

Read the full report >

GeorgeCurry.com
February 18, 2004

Ward Connerly Maligns Black Colleges

It’s getting to be axiomatic: If Ward Connerly attacks a program or institution, you can be assured that it is serving a valuable purpose for African-Americans

Read the full report >

SFGate.com
October 7, 2003

Prop. 54 defeated soundly

Proposition 54, a constitutional amendment proposed by UC Regent Ward Connerly to ban most state agencies from collecting racial and ethnic data died Tuesday night after opponents successfully focused the attention on its possible effects on health care

Read the full report >

Black Commentator
August 13, 2003

Ward Connerly's Crusade to Erase Black People

The Racial Privacy Act: Pure Racist American Illogic

The intended effect of RPI is to make it nearly impossible to compile evidence of the existence of racism, or to create public policy that would counter the effects of racism, or to identify the victims of racism. A “color blind” society would be achieved by blinding citizens and government to the facts of bias

Read the full report >

Fresno Bee
June 27, 2003

4 years of crusading pays Connerly $2.1m

Groups he created gave him $700,000 last year

In his crusade against racial preferences, Ward Connerly portrays himself as fighting a political power structure financially vested in the status quo, but there's a flip side: He's making big bucks himself

Read the full report >

LA Times
February 19, 2001

Compassion, Ward Connerly style

When the president of the University of California announced that he would propose that the school no longer use the SAT test in admissions, Connerly replied in the LA Times that "Dick has been under a lot of pressure from these race-preference advocates in Sacramento who have told him, quote: 'Get more of my people into the university; I don't care how you do it.'"

Read the full report >

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