Connerly: Race-Gender Ballot Plan Will Succeed Connerly: Race-Gender Ballot Plan Will Succeed
Detroit Free Press
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/conn7_20040507.htm
By Dawson Bell, Free Press Staff Writer
May 7, 2004; Section: Michigan News
KALAMAZOO -- The national leader in the drive to ban government use of race and gender preferences guaranteed on Thursday that the issue will be placed before Michigan voters, if not this year, then in 2006.
Ward Connerly, a California businessman and activist speaking before 300-400 people on the Kalamazoo College campus, said legal challenges have pushed back the timetable for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.
But "it's only a speed bump, not a stop sign," he said.
Connerly was making his first public appearance in Michigan since last year, when, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision opposing the use of race in admissions at the University of Michigan, the ballot proposal was launched.
Since then, Connerly has been treated for prostate cancer, he said, and the campaign has stalled.
But he said Thursday that he is "well and healthy and on the road to recovery."
A counterdemonstration sponsored by the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People preceded, but didn't disrupt, Connerly's speech.
Copyright © 2004 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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