TITLE

National Lawyers Guild Fact Sheet on Connerly's Initiative (2002)

WHY IS INFORMATION ON RACE SO IMPORTANT?

· The Public Health of Many Californians Would Suffer

Race and ethnicity data makes a life and death difference in diagnosing and preventing disease; it can save thousands of lives. That is why doctors and public health leaders strongly oppose the RPI.

A fundamental principle of public health is to look at demographic data, including age, sex, race and ethnicity, to determine what causes illnesses and how to prevent them. Without this information, public health professionals won't know where to target their prevention, education, outreach, and research efforts. Doctors, nurses, and health experts use race and ethnicity data to find out things like the following:

Which groups are is suffering the highest rates of asthma, breast cancer, or AIDS? In which communities are illnesses increasing, despite prevention efforts?

Where do we target resources, to make sure that diseases like meningitis, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases do not spread?

Where is teenage smoking the biggest problem? Where should the government target its anti-tobacco ads?

Consider these facts:

Rates of breast cancer are higher among white women than some other groups. What is about this population that increases their risks of this devastating illness? Likewise, the prognosis for African-American women who are diagnosed with breast cancer is worse than for white women. Asian-American women with breast cancer are more likely to receive a diagnosis at a later stage and have larger tumors at diagnosis as compared to U.S. non-Hispanic white women. Why? Do they receive worse medical care?

Rates of cervical cancer among certain ethnic groups are very high. If caught and treated early, cervical cancer is treatable. Are there cultural issues that pose barriers to women receiving gynecological exams? Are there language barriers involved? Without data that is specific to each community, we will not be able to develop effective educational programs, and as a result countless numbers of women will suffer or die unnecessarily.

Childhood lead poisoning is a devastating yet preventable disease. State data shows that minority children get poisoned at three or four times the rate of white children. This data allows public health workers and communities to target prevention efforts at kids most at risk- for example, by educating Asian-American families about traditional remedies laden with lead. Or consider this: When a recent lead poisoning epidemic hit southern California, one of the first things public health officials asked was what was race of the kids were who were getting poisoned. Because investigators determined that they were predominantly Latino, doctors were able to trace the problem to lead-based candy wrappers coming from Mexico. Data on race potentially saved hundreds of young kids from brain damage, learning disabilities, and the other harmful consequences of lead poisoning.

Some communities depend on fish they catch from San Francisco or Santa Monica Bay or other places for food. Yet parts of these waterways are so heavily contaminated that eating fish from them is unsafe. To protect the public from these dangers, government agencies must post warning signs; but without knowing which populations fish heavily in these areas, agencies won't know which languages should be used on these important signs.

· We Would Become Ignorant about Critical Environmental Hazards

Many studies show that environmental hazards, ranging from living near toxic dumps or other polluting facilities, breathing unhealthy air, suffering from childhood lead poisoning or pesticide-related illnesses, or eating contaminated fish, are disproportionately concentrated in minority communities, and that race, not income or education or other factors, is the most important reason for this. Some of the most important demographic data on which these studies are based comes from the California Department of Finance, the Department of Health, and County Health Departments, and could no longer be collected if the RPI were enacted into law.

For instance, studies show that the likelihood of attending public schools in Los Angeles surrounded by heavily polluted air - and of performing more poorly on standardized testing - is directly linked to the percentage of minority children attending the school. In the Los Angles metropolitan area, the average cancer risk from air emissions are 35% greater for Latinos and 28% greater for Asian Americans and African Americans than for whites, even after taking income, education, and numerous other factors into account. Minorities are three times more likely than whites to live within ½ mile of Los Angeles County's registered hazardous waste facilities. In the Bayview Hunters Point section of San Francisco, where 91% of the residents are people of color, there are 10 times the number of water discharges and four times the number of air dischargers and hazardous materials storage facilities per capita than anywhere else in the city. These inequalities in environmental harms, moreover, contribute to poorer health conditions typically present in these communities.

Do we want to live in a society where a person's race determines whether they get to breathe clean air or drink clean water? Without evidence about how pollution and other environmental hazards are distributed through society, we will never be able to take steps to remedy this serious and persistent problem.

· California Children Would Suffer

Child welfare research has demonstrated that children of color experience poorer outcomes and receive fewer services. Race-based data collected by the state is essential to finding children in need and providing medical care. Data collected by a state university research center shows that one in three immigrant children have not had a doctor visit in the past year - twice the rate for other children. Race-based data has also allowed state and other agencies to document that inadequate health insurance is a factor in poorer health outcomes. For example, 3 of 8 Latinos have no medical insurance, compared to only 1 of non-Latino whites.

The State's Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board collects race-based data to determine which children do not have medical insurance, so that their families and communities may be properly educated about programs such as the Healthy Families Program - which provides critical health benefits for families who do not qualify for Medi-Cal but are still very low income. Race based data allows these programs to make practical decisions about outreach to different communities, what language materials must be printed in, the needed language skills of employees, and the quantity of bilingual employees needed to administer the program.

· Educators Would be Hampered in their Efforts to Improve
the Performance of all Students

The California Department of Education collects and publishes demographic information, along with other statistics related to all students educated in California. Educators use the information for many purposes, one of which is to pinpoint disparities in students' academic performance, in order to equalize educational opportunities and improve achievement.

Unfortunately, the current disparities are stark.. For example, the drop-out rate for high school students is two to three times as great for African Americans and Hispanics as it is for white students. Likewise, the 2001 High School Exit Exam showed that 76% of Asians and 82% of whites passed the English portion while only 50% of African-Americans and 48% of Hispanics passed. The disparities on the math portion of the test were even more pronounced. Without demographic data collected by the Department of Education, educators would be hindered in their efforts to turn around what one legislator has called "abysmal" results.

Students of color are also more likely to be in crowded schools, less likely to have credentialed teachers and more likely to be punished for acting out at school. Minority students are also less likely to have a teacher from their same background or see themselves represented in books or other teaching materials. Without this data, educators cannot even begin to try and solve these critical types of problems.

· We Won't Know if our Society is Becoming More or Less Discriminatory
Because progress has been made in the area of civil rights over the last 50 years, many people mistakenly believe that racial minorities in the United States no longer suffer significant discrimination, and instead are as well off as whites in terms of jobs, incomes, schooling and health care. Although the gap has narrowed somewhat, huge differences remain, as the facts above show. Many are not aware that African-Americans are still about twice as likely to be unemployed, hold lower-paying jobs and lack health insurance. And as court cases continue to show, they are still targets of hates crimes, as well victims of discrimination by stores, restaurants, and employers.

In order to learn the true facts about discrimination - where it still exists and why - we need information. Statistics on race are also critical to monitoring whether or not discrimination is decreasing or increasing and whether our state's programs really are color blind. Without racial data, state and localities won't know, for example, how many hates crimes are occurring and whether they are increasing or decreasing. Nor would we know whether the notorious practice of stopping African Americans for "driving while black" is increasing or on the wane. Likewise, the state and cities won't be able to track participation by minority businesses in state and municipal contracting and other programs.

The RPI would not make us a color blind society - it would just make us ignorant to the truth about the role of race in our society. Keeping people ignorant is not the answer. As one court decision recently emphasized, accurate and up-to-date information is the essence of intelligent legislative and administrative actions. An informed society is the hallmark of an educated, democratic, open society. Don't let the RPI keep us in the dark.