Students express opinions about MoCRI initiative

By Gwen Daniels

Published May 6, 2008

MU students are weighing in on the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, which will not be on the ballot in November.

The proposed amendment would have eliminated race- and gender-based affirmative action programs for minority students at state universities.

The Missing Minority Campaign at MU organized a protest march and discussion forums in opposition to MoCRI.

Legion of Black Collegians President Anthony Martin said the campaign started early to oppose MoCRI.

“We were working toward our goal from the start of the school year,” he said. “We were taking a more proactive role.”

The campaign was the catalyst for both discussion and action, said graduate student Winston Tracy, who leads the Missing Minority Campaign at MU.

“We were a spark to not only create educational opportunities to learn more about affirmative action, but also to put forth a lot of action to make sure our voices were heard and that the issue was not silenced,” he said. “Without the campaign I don’t know where that spark would have come from.”

Tracy said the discussion forums were an especially effective tool for spreading the word about affirmative action.

“I talked to students who changed their mind after the forum,” he said. “The student support was phenomenal.”

But Mizzou College Republicans Vice President Marcus Bowen said affirmative action programs perpetuate racism in America. Awarding minority scholarships essentially uses one form of racism to reverse another form of racism, he said.

“In my opinion, racism is always wrong, whatever the means,” he said. “You’re creating far more division than unity. Racism is an evil. The worst thing we can do is to introduce and support legislative policy that further engrains a bad part of our society.”

Bowen said he thinks with more time and financial resources to raise awareness, the initiative will make it onto the ballot in 2010.

But Mizzou for Obama Director Glenn Rehn said he thinks the response would be even less supportive.

“We could very well be sitting with the first black president of the United States,” he said. “People are going to be a little more aware of the racial divide in the country and the work we still have to do.”