Students Disrupt Election VoteStudents Disrupt Election Vote
Hundreds storm meeting hurling insults at panel trying to certify affirmative action ban for 2006.
The Detroit News
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051215/POLITICS/512150335/1003/METRO
By Mark Hornbeck / The Detroit News
December 15, 2005
LANSING -- Following a raucous, table-tumbling protest involving a couple of hundred impassioned Detroit area students, a state elections panel bucked an appellate court order Wednesday and failed again to place an affirmative action ban proposal on next year's ballot.
The Board of State Canvassers voted 2-1, with one member not voting, to certify the so-called Michigan Civil Rights Initiative for the November 2006 ballot. It takes three votes to certify.
The meeting was disrupted by an opposition group, By Any Means Necessary, which recruited students from Cody, Cass Tech, Crockett and Mumford high schools in Detroit and Oak Park High School to swarm the meeting and keep the board from voting.
Students chanted "no voter fraud" and "they say Jim Crow, we say hell no," danced on chair seats and made obscene gestures at the board.
At one point, many of the protesters rushed toward the board members, overturning a testimony table. Lansing police officers were called to restore order.
The board recessed for lunch, returned to a different room at the Lansing Center 90 minutes later and managed to vote on the issue over shouts from a smaller group of protesters.
One 17-year-old woman connected with the protest was arrested for disorderly conduct outside the meeting, Lansing police said.
"The board did not do the people's business today and I expect the court (of appeals) to take action," said board Chairwoman Katherine DeGrow, a Republican who voted yes.
"It was lawlessness that circumvented government from doing their business, circumvented a citizen's right to petition."
The State Court of Appeals has twice ordered the board to place the issue before voters, and twice the board has fallen short.
The latest order came last Wednesday.
Board members have expressed concerns that petition signers were misled about the proposal's intent, but the court ruled the board has no authority other than to determine whether enough valid petition signatures were gathered. A half-million were collected, 317,000 are required.
Backers of the effort filed a motion later in the day to hold Mitchell and O'Connor in contempt of court.
"Their (the opposition group's) tactics are obvious delay, delay, delay," said Jennifer Gratz, executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.
Patrick O'Brien, an assistant attorney general, said board members most likely will face fines if convicted of contempt.
Republican board members DeGrow and Lyn Bankes voted in favor. Democrat Paul Mitchell voted no and Democrat Doyle O'Connor did not vote.
Mitchell, an African-American, earlier had said he was prepared to vote to certify, and tried to explain that to the angry crowd above shouts such as "be a black man about it."
O'Connor, who repeatedly said he opposed the ballot initiative but that the board had no authority to stop it, indicated he couldn't hear the motion.
By Any Means Necessary promised to take the issue to the state Supreme Court next week.
"We'll be asking to set aside the Court of Appeals decision," said George Washington, an attorney for the group.
The ballot proposal would end racial and gender preferences for college admissions and government hiring and contracting, which means most public sector affirmative action programs would be scrapped.
Opponents say proponents purposely misrepresented the initiative's intent when circulating petitions in Detroit and elsewhere. No state agency has investigated the allegations.
David Waymire, spokesman for Citizens for a United Michigan, a coalition of political, civic, business, labor and religious groups formed to oppose the initiative, said his organization doesn't condone By Any Means Necessary's tactics.
"But we do agree with them that there was fraud and that someone should investigate," he said.
Ashley Boykin, a protesting 15-year-old student from Oak Park High School, said it was "a great day. It made me feel good. It gives us a chance for a future."
The Associated Press contributed to this story. You can reach Mark Hornbeck at (313) 222-2470 or mhornbeck@detnews.com .
Copyright © 2005 The Detroit News
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