Initiative seeks to ban race data
collection
The man behind the 1996 voter-approved initiative that banned
most state affirmative action programs wants voters to pass another
initiative to stop the state from collecting racial
information.
Ward Connerly’s American Civil Rights Coalition was given
permission this month to start collecting the 1.2 million
signatures needed to get the proposed initiative onto the March
2002 ballot. The signature-collecting campaign is expected to cost
$2 million.
Connerly, a University of California regent, said the state has
no need for such race data.
“You can’t discriminate, you can’t give
preferential treatment, so why the devil are you collecting the
data?” he said at a press conference Wednesday.
The initiative, if passed by voters, could complicate the way
the state makes population estimates because different races have
different life expectancies, said state finance spokesman Sandy
Harrison.
UC spokesman Brad Hayward said the university is required by
federal law to collect racial information on its students. Although
it is not required by law, the university also collects information
from those seeking admission.
Majority of ninth-grade students take new
test
More than three-fourths of public school ninth-graders took the
new state high school graduation test last month, education
officials said Thursday.
About 350,000 of the 450,000 freshmen took both the English and
math portions of the test, which were given for the first time on
March 7 and 13, officials said.
The relatively high participation rate encouraged state
education officials, who worried that confusion about whether the
test would count this year would decrease participation.
“I think that’s a positive response to somewhat less
than great circumstances,” Phil Spears, director of the
Department of Education’s testing division, told the state
Board of Education meeting Thursday. But students who took the test
won’t know until August if they passed or not. Those who
didn’t pass will have eight more chances to take the
test.
School officials reported no major problems, except for concerns
about the disruption of school time for the four-hour test, Spears
said. The department is exploring whether future tests can be given
on Saturdays.
Many students got tired taking the English test, which features
92 multiple-choice items and two essay questions, some school
officials said.
Group decries ‘B.C.’ cartoon as
anti-Semitic
A Jewish human rights group on Thursday denounced a forthcoming
“B.C.” cartoon as anti-Semitic and called upon the
1,300 newspapers that run the strip to either withhold its
publication or editorialize against it.
The cartoon, slated to run on Easter Sunday, shows a lighted
menorah with the last words uttered by Jesus printed above it. With
each successive panel, one of the menorah’s flames is
snuffed, leaving at the end a cross standing in place of the
seven-branched candlestick.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, said the cartoon strip was an attack on Judaism.
“It’s basically saying the Jewish people will not
exist ““ they will be consumed by Christianity and they will
not exist,” Hier said. “All the bad things that have
occurred ““ the pogroms, the blood libels, all started from
misunderstandings and attacks like this.”
In a statement, Johnny Hart, the artist who draws the cartoon,
said the purpose of the strip was to honor Christianity and Judaism
alike.
“˜”˜I regret if some people misunderstood the strip,
and it hurt their feelings. This is a holy week for both Christians
and Jews, and my intent … was to pay tribute to
both,” Hart said.
Compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports.