Petitions Started for Affirmative Action Ban Petitions Started for Affirmative Action Ban
If group succeeds, issue will go before voters in November
Detroit Free Press
http://www.freep.com/news/education/affirm13_20040113.htm
By Dawson Bell, Free Press Staff Writer
January 13, 2004; Section: Education News
Jennifer Gratz, 26, a plaintiff in the University of Michigan admissions case, holds the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative petition while embracing Dr. Carl Cohen, U-M philosophy professor who was involved in the case.
The passionate debate over affirmative action and racial preferences moved to the streets of Michigan on Monday with the launch of a petition drive aimed at ending use of race and gender in decisions about government hiring and contracting and university admissions.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative needs to collect 318,000 signatures in six months to qualify its proposed constitutional amendment for the November ballot.
Opponents, who mounted a small but spirited demonstration outside the hotel where the campaign was launched, said they'll try to make sure that doesn't happen.
The campaign will be run by Jennifer Gratz, a 26-year-old Southgate native who was a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits against the University of Michigan over the use of race in admissions decisions.
The U.S. Supreme Court's split decision last summer to allow the limited use of racial preferences in university admissions prompted the ballot drive.
But backers of the proposal admitted Monday they face long odds.
Supporters of affirmative action -- including a group of business, labor, civic and religious organizations that plans its own announcement today in Lansing -- said they will actively discourage voters from signing petitions. And even without opposition, gathering 2,200 signatures a day for six months is formidable for the best organized campaigns.
And Gratz and her colleagues admitted Monday that their campaign isn't one of them . . . at least not yet.
She is one of two full-time staff, along with Manager Tim O'Brien, a Detroit-area public relations consultant and political activist.
They hope to collect up to a quarter of their target of 400,000 signatures with volunteers, while using paid circulators for the rest. Gratz said Monday the group wants to raise $1 million for that purpose, and another $3 million for a fall campaign.
Bill Ballenger, publisher of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, said Monday it is impossible to predict how this effort will fare. Although consistently supported by a strong majority of voters in polls, there's no guarantee the group has the wherewithal to get the needed signatures, he said.
Very few ballot proposals have succeeded in meeting Michigan's high signature collection threshold without the backing of an existing support infrastructure, Ballenger said.
But there have been a few movements that could legitimately claim to have generated their own grass roots, Ballenger said. Most notably among those were the antibusing movement of the early 1970s and the antitax recalls of a pair of state senators in 1983.
State Rep. Jack Brandenberg, R-Harrison Township, one of three legislators who attended Monday's news conference, said the campaign against the use of race by government decision makers may have limited resources and few institutional allies, "but we have miles and miles of heart."
Brandenberg said he has signed up 75 volunteers in his Macomb County district to help.
But the passion on affirmative action has two sides. Opponents of the ballot proposal, denied entry to the Farmington Hills hotel conference room where the news conference was held, engaged in loud arguments outside while being monitored by Farmington Hills police.
Backers of the proposed ban "won't let us in because we're prepared to tell the truth about segregation in Michigan," said Tanya Troy, a spokeswoman for BAMN (the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary).
"We have the most segregated state in the nation in terms of education. This attempt to do away with affirmative action will only increase the level of segregation."
Contact DAWSON BELL at 313-222-6604 or dbell@freepress.com. Staff writer Maryanne George contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2004 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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