Mo. affirmative action at risk

By Gwen Daniels
March 4, 2008

MU graduate student Winston Tracy takes notes and names on his laptop while Legion of Black Collegians Political Director Anthony Martin directs Sunday’s meeting regarding the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative. LBC is working against the initiative.

Graphic/Megan Decker

(Click graphic to enlarge)

The Missing Minority campaign will oppose the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would eliminate affirmative action programs for minority students at state universities.

MU students met Sunday to plan the first steps of the campaign.

Members of the Legion of Black Collegians and its umbrella organizations will work together on the Missing Minority campaign, LBC Political Director Anthony Martin said. The Missouri Students Association is also helping with the campaign.

MoCRI is sponsored by the American Civil Rights Institute, which has led similar initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan, and ACRI founder Ward Connerly. David Wasinger, a member of the UM system Board of Curators is an attorney for MoCRI. The Board of Curators is the governing body of the UM system.

Instead, affirmative action programs would target students at designated poverty-stricken “inner-city” or “rural” schools, the Web site said.

Jennifer Gratz, ACRI Director of State and Local Initiatives, said MoCRI would restore the original intent of affirmative action programs.

“If you go back to the original definition of affirmative action, back to what President Kennedy said in his executive order, he said ‘we shall take affirmative action to guarantee that people are treated without regard to race’,” Gratz said. “Civil rights initiatives are in line with that definition, but some programs that people call affirmative action programs today are the opposite of that position - these programs treat people with regard to race. Somewhere along the line, our government and other institutions, in my opinion, have hijacked the definition of affirmative action and flipped it on its head.”

President John Kennedy issued an executive order in 1961 calling for government contractors to take affirmative action to give equal treatment to citizens without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin.

“The initiatives will end race and gender preferences, whether they’re called affirmative action programs or something else, specifically the initiatives will prohibit programs that give preference based on race or sex,” she added.

MU graduate student Winston Tracy, who is leading the Missing Minority campaign at MU, said affirmative action programs for minority students are still necessary.

“Certain groups, females and minorities, were obviously discriminated against and placed behind other groups, and because of that, the same opportunities did not exist,” Tracy said.

Affirmative action programs give deserving but underprivileged minority students the opportunity to attend college, he said.

“It’s a foot in the door for the lower, repressed class, the minority that may not be given a chance because our world isn’t perfect,” Martin said.

If the initiative passes, universities across the state, including MU, could not offer minority scholarships.

Without these scholarships, minority enrollment at MU could suffer, Tracy said.

“Taking away affirmative action is taking away the chance to even be able to succeed for minorities, especially at the University of Missouri,” he said.

After the California Civil Rights Initiative passed in 1996, minority enrollment decreased at universities in California, Martin said.

Gratz said it is important to focus on graduation and retention rather than enrollment alone.

In California, “graduation rates are up,” she said. “What no one told the public is that, yeah, they may have been admitting a lot of people, but their graduation rates and retention rates were horrible.”

On April 9, students who oppose MoCRI will participate in a peaceful march and rally in protest of the initiative, Tracy said. Groups at all the Big 12 schools will hold rallies on April 9, he said.

“We want to hopefully to gather people’s attention and raise awareness that we can begin to talk about it and educate people about it,” Tracy said.

They hope to make clear that affirmative action programs do not fill enrollment quotas or limit enrollment in any way, Tracy said.

“With affirmative action, a lot of people believe that by enrolling an African American into school, it takes away from another person who might be deserving to get into school,” he said. “With a school like the University of Missouri, that’s not the case. We don’t have a cap on enrollment, so as many people can come as possible, so allowing one person in does not mean anther person cannot come in.”

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Mo. affirmative action at risk

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