Some affirmative action and diversity program critics are cheering President Barack Obama’s election because they believe his success dramatically undermines the argument that discrimination remains a significant barrier for minorities in American life. Ward Connerly Jr., arguably the most visible anti-affirmative action activist in the United States, has proclaimed that Obama’s victory, making the Illinois senator the first African- American elected U.S. president, reinforces color-blindness as a rationale for eliminating race-conscious affirmative action.
“Although I did not vote for him, I think he earned the election by the rules of merit. He ran the best campaign … The election of Obama to be our president reconfirms that the American people are ready for” color-blind policies that prohibit race-conscious affirmative action, Connerly told a group of 200 conservative scholars at the National Association of Scholars (NAS) national conference last month.
Vowing to keep the fight going to eliminate policies that allow race to have a role in public life, Connerly declared that state ballot initiatives still represent the best means to overturn race-conscious affirmative action, even though such efforts saw more setbacks than success this past election season. While voters in Nebraska approved a ban on race-based affirmative action at the polls, Coloradoans voted down a similar ban this past November. Efforts led by Connerly to get affirmative action considered on state ballots in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma failed to qualify as ballot initiatives in 2008.
That Connerly’s advocacy for eliminating raceconscious affirmative action in higher education finds deep and abiding support among groups, such as NAS, practically ensures colleges and universities should expect new challenges to their pro-diversity programs in the coming years. During its recent conference, NAS officials and speakers, noting Obama’s election, took stock of their past opposition to race-conscious affirmative action and expressed interest in combating it anew.
