Racial privacy initiative qualifies for 2004 ballot

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/07/15/state1650EDT0162.DTL

July 15, 2002

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- An initiative to ban the state from racially classifying students and state employees has qualified for the March 2004 primary election ballot.

Titled "Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color or National Origin," the constitutional amendment proposed by University of California regent Ward Connerly would prohibit separating, sorting or organizing individuals based on their race. The initiative does not prohibit classification by sex.

Exemptions from the ban would include law enforcement descriptions, prisoner and undercover assignments and action taken to maintain federal funding. Any other exemptions would require a two-thirds vote in the Legislature and approval by the governor.

Connerly's American Civil Rights Coalition submitted over 980,000 signatures in April, of which it needed 670,000 to qualify for the ballot.

The initiative did not qualify in time for the November ballot, but for March 2004, county election officials found 694,586 of the submitted signatures to be valid by last Friday's deadline.

Opponents say the ban prevents the tracking of racial discrimination through the data. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has opposed the initiative, calling it "bad public policy for California and a bad precedent for the nation."

Connerly, the author of the "racial privacy initiative," as it is commonly known, has called it the next step toward a "colorblind society" and has said that gathering race data does not help people and certainly cannot prove discrimination.

"This gives the people of California -- and indeed, the nation, since this is the start of a national revolution -- a chance to decide our future with regard to 'race,"' Connerly said Monday. "We will give our society a chance to move forward, beyond restrictive and arbitrary racial boxes."

Voters will decide the initiative's fate on March 2, 2004.