With less than a month left in the battle to place a controversial anti-affirmative action item in the California general election, a critical moment may have slipped past affirmative action supporters.

Plagued by fragmentation and the absence of a clear political target, opponents have allowed the public discussion of the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) to fade away while the initiative's supporters inch towards an electoral victory.

CCRI prohibits state and local government from discriminating or granting preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, education and contracting.

UC Berkeley student activist Hatem Bazian admitted that the groups fighting to preserve affirmative action programs are not unified in purpose or strategy, blaming the fragmentation on the movement's spontaneous creation more than a year ago.

"Part of it is crossing bridges that haven't been crossed before and building bridges where they haven't existed," he said, adding that the various groups are currently in contact with one another and that he expected to see a unified campaign by this summer.

Meanwhile, in a last-minute push, organizers of the measure reportedly are ready to spend up to $.70 for each signature to ensure that they achieve the 700,000 signatures required to place the measure on the ballot.

In the aftermath of the UC Regents' July decision to ban affirmative action programs in university hiring and admissions procedures, the sporadic protests which have emerged make the need for unity in a movement whose strength lies in mass support clear.

The first large-scale protest to follow the regents' vote came to the UC Berkeley campus more than a month after the decision, drew approximately 500 participants and lasted little over an hour.

A second strike came at the September 1995 regents' meeting, where protestors stormed inside the meeting chambers and promptly began arguing about what to do next.