A colorblind California?

With one in seven California kids born to parents of different races, Ward Connerly says it's time to stop collecting outmoded racial data. But even some old allies say Connerly's is an idea whose time has not yet come.

By Pamela Burdman

May 9, 2002 | Five years ago, University of California regent Ward Connerly proposed a novel reform to the controversial UC admissions system: anonymous applications, devoid of information about race or ethnicity, a move the diehard opponent of affirmative action hoped would eliminate admissions officers' temptation to consider such factors when deciding who attends the prestigious state system. But Connerly, the campaign chair of California's Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot measure banning racial preferences in state decision-making, was ignored by the UC administration.

Now Connerly is taking another shot at the same goal, with a proposed statewide ballot initiative to prevent California from collecting racial data in the first place. Dubbed the "Racial Privacy Initiative" by supporters, Connerly's proposal would eliminate the racial check boxes that Californians encounter on state government forms ranging from job applications and school enrollment papers to birth and death certificates.

"There is some vision that all of us have for this state, one in which we're treated as individuals, regardless of our ancestry or physical traits," Connerly says, explaining why he's made this his new cause. "Californians are increasingly marrying across the old lines of race and ethnicity, having children, and making the race boxes essentially obsolete." Indeed, in 1997, 14 percent of all California births were to parents of different races, making mixed-race kids the third largest group, behind whites and Latinos and ahead of Asians and blacks. (In fact, Latinos aren't a racial group, but are treated as one on most state forms.)

Even in the post-209 era, UC and other state agencies say they have research, statistical and social policy reasons for continuing to gather racial data. But Connerly isn't convinced. "If you can't use race to favor or disfavor someone, then the question is why do you need the government involved in race at all?" asks Connerly. "This is a logical sequel to 209. Until I am senile or no longer draw a breath, I will constantly urge the government to embrace race-blind policies."

But opponents say the measure would cripple racial anti-discrimination laws, thwart successful social policy that's been appropriately shaped by race -- efforts to reduce high breast-cancer death rates among black women, for instance, or cervical cancer among Latinas -- and endanger the progress California has made in leveling differences among racial and ethnic groups. (Supporters say the measure would let the state continue to collect crucial racial data, including medical data, but the initiative's true impact is hotly debated.)

And while opponents call the measure the "Connerly Initiative," hoping to link it inextricably with a man civil rights groups consider the enemy, the opposition transcends California's civil rights establishment: Even some of Connerly's allies in his Prop. 209 campaign are stepping forward to oppose his new measure.

Connerly's proposal is likely to be seen as the latest example of ballot-initiative backlash against the state's unparalleled diversity. California voters ended affirmative action in 1996 and bilingual education in 1998, and passed a measure blocking benefits to illegal immigrants in 1994 (though that one was struck down by the courts). Other states have adopted some version of those bellwether initiatives.

Like those measures, Connerly's new initiative enjoys an early lead in the polls. A recent Field Poll showed that 48 percent of voters were inclined to back it, with 34 percent opposed and the rest undecided. The numbers tracked pretty closely to how voters came down on 209 six years ago, said Field pollster Marc DiCamillo: "It looks like, on the first blush, it's tapping into the same sentiment and the same voters."

Yet six years after 209's passage, Connerly faces a more diverse electorate, whose decisions may be less predictable, as well as an unexpected obstacle: a fight for the legacy of 209. Connerly considers racial privacy the logical conclusion of the prohibition against racial preferences -- if the state can't use racial data to privilege or discriminate against individuals based on race, he argues, why collect it at all? But at least one of Proposition 209's authors disagrees, and he is going public to defend his baby.

"At the outset of the 209 campaign, opponents said this is just the first step by right-wing fanatics to gut civil rights in America," recalled Thomas Wood. "I want to tell people that this was never part of the agenda of 209. It's not 209.

"In fact, I am opposed to the Racial Privacy Initiative. The debate should be over what you do with the data. It shouldn't be in favor of some proposal that puts us in a state of racial ignorance so that we don't know whether the laws are being enforced. If you remove the power of the state to collect data, you are gutting the anti-discrimination laws, including 209," said Wood, who runs the California Association of Scholars, the state branch of a nationwide network of conservative academics.

Whether Wood is correct about the initiative's potential impact is hard to determine, because the measure itself would be tempered by a thicket of federal requirements as well as various exemptions, including those for medical research and law enforcement. Almost no two people seem to agree on the initiative's actual effect.

And no one yet knows whether Connerly's personal crusade has the makings of a successful political movement. But he has enough support already to qualify his initiative for the state ballot. With the 980,000 signatures turned in by the campaign last month, the measure is expected to clear the tedious counting process and win a spot on the ballot this November, though it's possible it will be held over until the March 2004 election.

Next Page: How collecting racial data equals "racial profiling"

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