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Activist, businessperson
As one of the most visible leaders in the fight against affirmative action in the United States, Ward Connerly has stirred a great deal of controversy. Developed to offer women and minorities the same opportunities as white males, affirmative action laws often establish quotas in areas such as college admission, hiring and promotions, and government contracts arenas in which they have widely suffered discrimination in the past. Connerly, however, believes that such programs hamper the motivation to succeed and are thus more of a detriment than a boon to those people it intends to assist. Thus, he has worked diligently to repeal affirmative action, starting with admissions and hiring rules at the University of California, where he serves on the Board of Regents. Subsequently, through his efforts, the entire state passed a proposition to end any kind of preferential treatment based on race, gender, or national origin, and Connerly is trying to expand his crusade into other states as well.
What makes Connerly even more of a volatile figure in this battle is the fact that he himself is African American. Despite outcries from other prominent black leaders who feel he is doing a disservice, he insists that he is looking out for fellow blacks, rather than trying to stifle their success. Explaining his position to B. Drummond Ayres Jr. in the New York Times, he stated, "Nobody ever gave me any race or sex preferences. And I made it anyway high school, college, my own big business, important friends. If I could make it, anybody can, because the playing field is a lot closer to level now. The truth is that preferences at this point are not just reverse discrimination, they're degrading to people who accept them. They've got to go."
Connerly was born on June 15, 1939, in Leesville, Louisiana. His father left the family when he was two years old, and his mother died two years later. Raised by relatives, he lived in Washington state, then moved to Sacramento, California, to live with an uncle. By age 12 his grandmother obtained legal custody of him, but had little means to raise him. He has said that she raised chickens and sold eggs to help feed the family, and sometimes had nothing to eat but sweet potatoes. He once related that when he was 13, a representative from the welfare office paid a visit and made him so embarrassed of living on public funds that he landed a job as a janitor making 65 cents an hour in order to support the household.
Later, however, extended family members came forward to dispute Connerly's memories of an impoverished childhood. One uncle, according to A. Lin Neumann in the Nation, said that Connerly lied about having nothing to eat, and a first cousin in the same article recalled, "There were no chickens. Nobody sold eggs." However, Eric Pooley in Time suggested that Connerly's family was contradicting his anecdotes about his poor childhood because they disagreed with his politics, and Pooley interviewed an aunt who corroborated his stories. Connerly, meanwhile, insisted his personal history was accurate.
After high school, Connerly commuted to American River Junior College, where he was voted student president. Later he enrolled at Sacramento State College, again serving as student body president there. He was the first in his family to earn a college degree, graduating with a bachelor of arts in political science with honors in 1962. While a student, in 1959 he led a protest concerning housing discrimination, which captured the attention of lawmakers. They asked him to testify during debates on a fair-housing bill, which later passed.
Immediately after graduation, Connerly went to work at Sacramento's re-development agency, then moved to the state department of housing and urban development, rising to a managerial position. There, he became friends with legislator Pete Wilson, who was just about to become chair of the housing committee for the California State Assembly. Wilson hired Connerly in 1969 as the chief consultant for a new State Assembly committee on urban affairs, and the two remained close ever since. After the Republicans lost their majority in the Assembly, Connerly returned to work at the state housing department, where he was promoted to deputy director.
By 1973, on advice from Wilson, Connerly decided to step away from his stable government employment and open his own consulting and land-use planning company. It thrived, and by 1990, employed 15 people. Though some of his critics believed that Wilson contributed to his success, others disagreed. In addition, a Jet article cited a story in the San Francisco Chronicle which stated that he had accepted $140,000 over the years in affirmative action contracts from the government. Though roughly half of his business did indeed come from the government, Connerly disputed that it was affirmative action money, telling Donna St. George of the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, "I don't think there's a minority around who hasn't benefited from the climate of inclusion that affirmative action has fostered. But I have never gone after the preference." He mentioned that he never listed himself on minority rosters, nor did he apply for minority "set-asides." However, Ayres in the New York Times reported that Connerly had indeed listed his firm as minority-owned in order to "keep all the benefits of a government contract." Pooley in Time, on the other hand, noted that Connerly had only disclosed his race after it was required.
Meanwhile, Connerly raised funds for the Republican party and was a generous donor himself, contributing $120,000 to Wilson's gubernatorial campaigns from 1990 to 1995. However, he was not in the political spotlight by any means, and held moderate views on such topics as abortion and gay rights. In 1993, Wilson appointed Connerly to the University of California Board of Regents, a 26-member group. In that position, he became aware of racial issues at the institution, and began to believe that racial quotas in hiring and admissions were a form of reverse racism against whites. His opinion was sealed in the summer of 1994, when a couple named Jerry and Ellen Cook approached him to say that their son had been rejected by the university's medical school, even though he had won acceptance at a number of higher-prestige institutions. Jerry Cook, a statistician, offered proof to Connerly that whites and Asians were often turned down, despite having better grades and test scores, to make way for other minorities.
Subsequently, Connerly developed a proposal that would base admissions solely on academic merit. However, he later amended his plan to acknowledge social and economic factors in admissions, but not race. In July of 1995, the University of California Board of Regents debated this plan in the midst of a tumultuous protest by activist Jesse Jackson that drew several hundred peaceful demonstrators. In the end, the board voted 15-10 to end racial preferences in hiring and contracting by January of 1996, and 14-10 to end preferences in admissions.
Meanwhile, a statewide movement was growing to abolish racial preferences. A group of academics in 1994 had formed the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which was pushing a ballot measure called Proposition 209. It read, "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting." This would effectively end affirmative action programs in the state. However, as of 1995, this group was suffering from lack of funding and poor management.
Connerly previously had hesitated to join CCRI, fearing a backlash against his family or business, because he had received phone threats after his involvement at the university. "I knew I would have to contend with the characterizations of `sellout' and `Uncle Tom' and `traitor,'" he remarked to Michael Lynch in Reason. But by the end of 1995 he agreed to join them, and with help from Wilson, managed to gather the extra 700,000 signatures and then some to add to the existing 200,000 in order to get Proposition 209 on the ballot in November of 1996. As a result, he was accused of riding the issue for the sake of helping the political career of Wilson, who was planning to run for the presidency in 1996. Others, however, vouched for his sincerity. Indeed, he weathered severe criticism from those who opposed his position. Even total strangers in public would sometimes point accusing fingers at him, and one scathing editorial cartoon compared him to a Ku Klux Klan member.
However, Connerly remained devoted to his cause. In an interview for Black Enterprise, Connerly compared affirmative action to slavery, claiming that it leaves blacks dependent on, and dominated by, whites, who make the decisions on whether to allow them special consideration in matters of education and employment. He noted in the article, "There is absolutely no reason for black Americans to believe that they cannot succeed on the strength of their own talents, hard work, and initiative," adding that "affirmative action, which served this nation well for many years, has outlived its usefulness." As a counterpoint, Willie Brown, who was running to become mayor of San Francisco at the time, in the same interview suggested that affirmative action programs needed to be expanded, not eliminated. He felt this was necessary in order to continue "to move as many women and minorities as possible into the economic mainstream," citing the economic health of the state of California as a concern.
In spite of high-stakes backing to defeat the measure from groups like the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations, Proposal 209 passed in 1996, 54 to 46 percent. Immediately, though, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit and won a temporary restraining order to prevent it from being enacted. In December, the Clinton administration announced it would also challenge the constitutionality of the proposition, claiming that it violated the 14th Amendment. But in spring of 1997, an appeals court lifted the injunction banning enforcement of the proposition, moving the fight to the California Supreme Court. It became law that summer.
Also in 1997, Connerly founded the American Civil Rights Initiative to take his battle against affirmative action nationwide. A similar referendum to California's in Washington later won with 58 percent of the vote. By 1999, Connerly had taken up the cause wholeheartedly in Florida, hoping to gather enough signatures for a ballot proposal in 2000 elections. However, Republican and Democrat leaders in the state were opposed to his efforts. A writer for Time suggested that in an election year, the hot-button issue scared off politicians, especially in a climate that seemed to favor moderates and eschew such polarizing issues. Still, some polls showed strong support for the measure.
In the meantime, Connerly also made news for supporting a platform that seemed to run counter to his affirmative action opposition. In 1998 he became a staunch supporter of the University of California's proposal to offer health benefits to domestic partners of gay employees. This was an even more volatile subject than race, as he explained to Louis Freedberg in Washington Monthly: "Blacks will get in your face and get angry with you, but the level of debate doesn't begin to compare with this one. People start talking about morals, the Bible, degenerates, and before you know it, you're off in a terrible debate in which you just can't reason with people." The proposal to offer the benefits at the university barely squeaked by on a vote of 13-12. Connerly explained that his position stemmed from his libertarian viewpoint that government should not infringe on personal liberties.
Connerly also attributed his empathy for gay partners to his own interracial union. According to Freedberg in Washington Monthly, he once wrote that when he was married, "There were those who said that such unions were immoral, unnatural, contrary to the Bible, and would lead to the deterioration of society," and added, "The ignorance and nonsense about interracial marriages 35 years ago is just as absurd today with reference to sexual union." His wife, on the other hand, who is white, told Tharp in U.S. News & World Report regarding her marriage, "We've had very few bad experiences." Connerly met his wife, the former Ilene Crews, in college, and they have a son and daughter. In addition to his black heritage, Connerly has a grandmother of Native American and Irish background and a white grandfather of French descent. Connerly runs his business out of a restored Victorian home in Sacramento, and earns up to $450 an hour for his consulting services. PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born June 15, 1939, in Leesville, LA; married Ilene Crews, 1962; children: one son, one daughter. Education: Attended American River Junior College; Sacramento State College, B.A. in political science, 1962. Addresses: Office Connerly & Associates, 2215 21st St., Sacramento, CA 95818. CAREER
Worked as civil servant for state housing agencies, 1962-69 and served as deputy director of California's department of housing and urban development, 1971-73; chief consultant to California State Assembly committee on urban affairs, 1969-70; Connerly & Associates, president and chief executive officer, 1973 ; chair and main spokesperson for California Civil Rights initiative, 1995 , and American Civil Rights Initiative, 1997 . Member of University of California Board of Regents, 1993 . FURTHER READINGS Books
Contemporary Black Biography, volume 14, Gale Research, 1997. Periodicals
Black Enterprise, November 1995, p. 156.
Christian Science Monitor, November 16, 1999, p. 2.
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 28, 1995, p. A27.
Economist, March 29, 1997, p. 34.
Forbes, May 5, 1997, p. 90. |
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