Barack Obama, Ward Connerly and affirmative action

With the election of Barrack Obama as President of the United States, some are arguing that his success should mean the end of affirmative action. Before decrying its end, I think that people need to understand what it is and what it is not and frame their arguments based on facts, not fiction.

At the federal level, affirmative action is an Executive Order (11246) which imposes a contractual obligation on organizations that wish to do business with the federal government. It is thus voluntary. Organizations may simply elect not to do business with the federal government and avoid any affirmative action obligations. Of course, they would still have to comply with federal Equal Employment Opportunity Laws. As a term of their contract, organizations are required to take proactive steps to correct present discrimination and prevent future discrimination. They do so through good faith efforts.

The groups covered are: racial minorities, women, veterans and persons with disabilities. Lost in the vitriolic and divisive arguments about affirmative action is that white men who are veterans are beneficiaries of affirmative action. Further, statically, white women have been and continue to be the biggest beneficiary of affirmative action.

Affirmative action does not require quotas (that is, that an organization hire a rigid amount of persons covered by affirmative action) nor does it require or encourage the hiring of unqualified persons. It is an access tool used by employers to broaden the sourcing strategies that they use in the employment process. The reality is that many employers simply do not think broadly enough about diversity when seeking applicants for employment and or when there are promotional opportunities available. Affirmative action serves as a check on the monolithic approach to recruiting and retention that is still prevalent in many organizations.

Besides employment, affirmative action is used in colleges and universities as a way of recruiting students to campus environments that continue to be monoccultural. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that affirmative action in admissions is legal so long as rigid numerical targets are not practiced. Were it not for affirmative action, an entire generation of racial minorities, women and other long marginalized groups would not have attained the educational credentials necessary to shatter the glass and concrete ceilings that continue to exist as a part of American organizational life. This is a fact.

The Connerly effect

At the state level, Ward Connerly has worked to pass "civil rights" legislation which prohibits "discrimination" by state governments in employment, college admissions, contracting as well as awarding scholarships and grants. Realizing that America is not the meritocracy he ostensibly claims it is, Mr. Connerly does not disclose that his efforts are targeted at eliminating affirmative action. He chooses instead to use racial skullduggery and label his initiatives "anti-discrimination" or "civil rights" legislation. Mr. Connerly has a complicated relationship with full disclosure in his anti-affirmative action crusade. This complicated relationship is starting to reveal itself.

It begins with his fundamental and deliberate doctrinal misunderstanding of affirmative action. He peddles the view that affirmative action is "reverse discrimination" in that it discriminates against whites in favor of blacks and other minorities. First, as a definitional matter, there is no such thing as "reverse discrimination". An action is either discriminatory or it is not, it cannot be reverse. Whites who feel that they have been discriminated against can and do file claims of discrimination under existing Equal Opportunity Laws since they are covered under these laws.

Second, in American history we have always had those blacks who have felt it necessary to curry favor with whites by riding in on proverbial moral horses to save the white man from harm caused by racial minorities. This is depicted in the movie Birth of a Nation where blacks defend whites against other blacks and in the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner when Isabel Sanford's character tells Sidney Poitier's character that she "is keeping an eye on him" because she does not believe that he is good enough to marry the white daughter who Sanford has so slavishly served as maid and surrogate mother.

The racial apologists also include Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Walter White of the NAACP, Alan Keyes who is always running for something but elected to nothing and the now chagrined Shelby Steele author of Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.

Connerly then comes from a long line of black apologists who believe that white people need defending and that he (yesa massa) is the perfect one to do it. Connerly has been successful in getting voters in California in 1966, Washington in 1988 and Michigan in 2006 to ban affirmative action. Voters in Colorado rejected his efforts on November 4, 2008. He has introduced anti affirmative action legislation through various means in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma this year. However, all failed to qualify under election laws to be put on the ballot.

I am Ward Connerly and I approve this message

It is however, possible that Connerly has another motive for being such a vigorous opponent of affirmative action. It could be that he does not believe that he has benefited from it. In fact, he could actually believe that he was appointed to the California Board of Regents by then Governor Pete Wilson, because he was uniquely qualified (though the uniqueness of those qualifications are not clear) and that Governor Wilson did not consider Connerly's race at all when making the appointment.

In fact, Connerly may believe that Governor Wilson did not even notice that Connerly is black. There could also be another reason. Throughout history, blacks have acted in our own self interest and have thrown other blacks under the proverbial bus when there was an opportunity to profit financially. D.L. Hughley has done it with his new show on CNN as have scores of rappers and others.

Show Connerly the money

Mr. Connerly's complicated relationship with full disclosure has come into full view. According to the American Conservative, from 1995-2005, Mr. Connerly and his non-profits took no action to oppose affirmative action. Yet, during that same time period, he raised nearly two million dollars per year. Further, "In 1998, 22 percent of his nonprofits' revenue was paid to Connerly in salary or to his firm. By 2001, Connerly's salary and the fees charged by Connerly and Associates ate up 49 percent of the nonprofits' combined revenue.

Most of the money paid to the firm was listed on tax forms as ''speaking fees.'' In 2006, when Connerly took up a concrete goal in political activism--ending Michigan's affirmative action policies-the cut of nonprofit revenue paid to him and his firm rose to 66 percent of total receipts, nearly $1.6 million.' Asked to explain this, he told The Conservative, ''It's based on a formula that is devised by our auditors and accountants-a base salary of $300,000 and then compensation for speeches and things. I pay Connerly and Associates for those services out of funds I receive for ACRI, so they [Connerly and Associates] in fact became a sub-contractor to me.''

There are legitimate reasons to both support and oppose affirmative action. However, when someone has been the father of opposition, he has an obligation to disclose his financial interest in the opposition. Once again, we find someone trafficking in discrimination while pretending to oppose it. How then can America pretend to be "post-racial?"