Posted on March 6, 2007

The Continuing Battles On The Road To Equal Treatment

Ward Connerly, Heritage Foundation, March 2, 2007

Few Americans can speak more eloquently of the lessons learned in the journey toward equal treatment—or address more poignantly the battles still before us—than Ward Connerly. His tireless crisscrossing of the nation speaking about race preferences on behalf of the American Civil Rights Institute have taught him as many lessons as he has imparted to his hundreds of audiences. His devotion to the civil rights cause is inspiring and noteworthy, including his campaigns to end sexual and racial discrimination through quotas and preferences in California, Washington, and most recently, in Michigan.

He continues to envision a future for the movement that will see an end to such divisive and unfair preferences in America. Advancing this endeavor on Election Day 2008, Mr. Connerly and coalition partners will offer Civil Rights Initiatives in several states. As part of his remarks, Mr. Connerly promises to announce at least one or more of the states chosen for “Super Tuesday for Equality in 2008.” Join us for this important assessment of where we are as a nation on the road to true equality for all of our citizens.

[Editor’s Note: You can listen to Mr. Connerly’s speech or download it here.]


Ward Connerly, who led the successful ballot measure campaign in November to bar the use of racial preferences in Michigan, offered a few more hints in a speech Friday about which states would be next on his list of targets. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Connerly said that his American Civil Rights Initiative would sponsor ballot initiatives in five states on election day in 2008, and that the states would be chosen by April from among a current list of nine: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. Connerly said the group’s decision would rest on the states in which there was the strongest local support, so that it would not be “subject to the carpetbagger characterization, too much,” and that it was “leaning very strongly in the direction of Colorado and Oklahoma” as two likely targets. Connerly, whose track record in taking aim at affirmative action dates to his days as a regent at the University of California and includes passage of a statewide initiative in Washington State, said he believed November’s successful drive in Michigan would make future efforts “a lot easier,” given that it overcame almost unanimous opposition from university and government officials, business leaders and even the clergy.