LINCOLN, Neb.

Ward Connerly, a national figure in a battle against affirmative action, says the Democratic presidential contest between Sen. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shows that “institutional racism and institutional sexism are no more.”

The former California regent spoke in an interview Tuesday and later to a hostile crowd of about 200 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Students cheered at each others’ questions, jeered at Connerly’s responses and asked how much he earned from the American Civil Rights Coalition.

One student asked if Connerly was supported or funded by the Ku Klux Klan. Connerly said no, and called it “a stupid question.” He also said it wasn’t about making money and that he made $300,000 from the foundation.

“Before I got into this, my salary from my company was over $2 million a year,” Connerly said.

Nebraska is one of five states being targeted by the California group Super Tuesday for Equal Rights Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona are the others. Connerly, who leads the Super Tuesday group, was a key force behind California’s successful ballot measure banning considering of race and gender in public hiring, contracting and school admissions in 1996.

Connerly’s supporters are gathering signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment in Nebraska that would bar “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.”

The crowd of mostly students Tuesday cheered when a speaker referred to the death of a constitutional amendment (LR233CA) that was pulled Monday by the state senator who introduced it.

Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial said he withdrew the measure because of pressure from other senators who threatened to torpedo his other bills.

“Some people would call it extortion,” said Dr. Marc Schniederjans, the UNL professor who filed the petition. “Some people would call it blackmail.”