Daily Bruin File Photo Racial Privacy Initiative backer and UC
Regent Ward Connerly listens in at a board
meeting. “¢bull; 1995: Connerly introduces and gets SP-1
and 2 passed through the Board of Regents, ending the use of
affirmative action in admissions and hiring in the UC. “¢bull;
1996: He leads the Proposition 209 effort, which is approved by
voters and ends state agencies’ use of affirmative action in
hiring. “¢bull; 2002: He is currently pushing the Racial Privacy
Initiative to prevent the collection and maintaining of racial data
by most state agencies.
By Robert Salonga
DAILY BRUIN STAFF
[email protected]
The California Constitution states that politics should have no
place on the UC Board of Regents ““ but history shows that
their actions and decisions have far-reaching influence on state
policy and universities across the nation.
The latest installment of regent-driven politics is the Racial
Privacy Initiative, backed by Regent Ward Connerly. Since his
appointment by then-Gov. Pete Wilson in 1993, Connerly has
spearheaded multiple efforts to end affirmative action in the UC,
California and other states.
The RPI would eliminate state classification by race and prevent
most state agencies from collecting and maintaining racial data.
Prisons and hospitals would be exempt from the initiative.
“I’ve always felt it was idiotic or at least
offensive to categorize and classify citizens on skin color and
physical traits into groups,” Connerly said.
“Now here in the 21st century, people are marrying across
lines of race, and we still have the same outmoded classification
system,” he added.
Some regents believe it is naive of Connerly and his supporters
to think that there is no longer a need for the state to collect
racial data.
Student Regent Tracy Davis said the RPI could be “horribly
damaging” to the university.
“I’ve never believed that ignorance is bliss,”
Davis said. “Are we foolish enough to believe that race and
ethnicity don’t matter anymore?”
She also mentioned possible impediments to demographic research,
since as a state agency it would not be able to collect race-based
data.
“Dissertations require original data research, and a lot
of (graduate) students I know are passionate about issues about
race and ethnicity,” said Davis, a doctoral student in higher
education and organizational change.
Regent Velma Montoya would not take a political stance on the
RPI citing it is not regental policy, but was concerned about its
possible effects on social science research.
“I don’t want professors to be thwarted,” she
said.
Connerly argued these effects are exaggerated.
“It may impair the ability to social science researchers
who want the government to gather data for them,” Connerly
said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t collect it on
your own.”
Gov. Gray Davis has not yet taken a solid stance on the RPI, a
spokesman for the governor said.
“He’s wary of a possibly divisive initiative,”
said Roger Salazar, press secretary for the Gov. Gray Davis
Committee. “He’ll have to take a close look at
it.”
The RPI’s fate depends, first of all, on whether it lands
on the November 2002 ballot. The California Secretary of
State’s office is currently verifying that it passed the
threshold of 670,816 petitioned signatures to qualify.
Connerly and his American Civil Rights Coalition hope the
counting process will push it past the Secretary office’s
deadline of June 27. If this happens, the initiative would
automatically be placed on the March 2004 ballot, where they hope a
presidential primary’s typically low voter turnout may help
their cause.
In 1995, the Regents passed SP-1 and 2, policies that ended the
use of the consideration of race, gender or ethnicity in admissions
and hiring throughout the UC. Both were introduced by Connerly.
He successfully garnered voter support of Proposition 209 in
1996, ending state agencies’ use of gender, race and
ethnicity in hiring. Thus, when SP-1 and 2 were repealed by the
regents in May 2001 the effort was widely considered to be symbolic
because 209 remains state law.
Connerly then got similar initiatives passed in Florida and
Washington.
His efforts against the consideration of race and ethnicity in
admissions and hiring have led many, including some regents, to
accuse him of using his position as regent to further his
ideological pursuits.
William Bagley, a former regent and longtime foe of
anti-affirmative action policy, said the UC must not be used as a
political vehicle and has openly criticized Connerly for his
pursuits.
But in terms of separating one’s politics from their
duties on the board, some regents said this is a near
impossibility.
“It’s essentially asking someone not to be
themselves,” Davis said. “If we wanted to make it
nonpolitical at all, then (regents) shouldn’t be appointed by
the governor.”
Connerly stressed that the entire board, not individual regents
themselves, function independently of the state.
“As a regent I have the right to still operate as a
private citizen,” he said.
Several regents are also political donors to Gov. Davis. Recent
gubernatorial appointee Haim Saban gave $7 million to the
Democratic National Party ““ the largest single soft money
donation in history. Saban regularly donates to the governor.
In the grander political arena, Regent Gerald Parsky headed
President Bush’s 2000 campaign in California, and interim
Regents’ Chair John Moores held a fundraising dinner for the
RPI in January.
Moores declined to comment on ballot issues now that he is
serving as chair.
Keeping a clear distinction between politics and the board often
proves troublesome for the regents.
“It’s difficult for us to separate our political
backgrounds from the issues we face (on the board),” said
Alumni Regent Jeffrey Seymour.
Political conflict is not new to the UC, and has shadowed the UC
throughout its development over the last century.
At the beginning of the Cold War in 1950, the regents issued an
ultimatum to university faculty to declare in their contracts that
they did not support communism. Fifty deans throughout the
university formally opposed this clause.
On Oct. 6 of that year, the regents fired 31 UC faculty members
for not signing a loyalty oath declaring they were not communist
sympathizers.
In 1967, the Regents voted to fire then-UC President Clark Kerr
when they disapproved of how he handled a student protest at UC
Berkeley and his opposition to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan’s
proposal to institute tuition at the UC. Even today in-state
students pay registration and education fees, but no actual
tuition.
This sparked an 8,000-student demonstration at MAC Pavilion (now
Pauley Pavilion), protesting the cuts, tuition proposal and Kerr’s
termination.
Not long after, on June 19, 1970, the regents dismissed UCLA
philosophy professor Angela Davis when she publicly acknowledged
her ties to the Communist Party.
From the loyalty oaths to the RPI, the regents have been in the
middle of political debate since the beginning of the university
““ whether they are supposed to or not.
“It is a vast multibillion dollar institution that’s
in the public eye,” Connerly said. “Those who say the
regents shouldn’t be involved (in politics) neglect the
history that the UC has always been involved.”