EDITORIAL
Backward in California
The Boston Globe
August 6, 2003

THE SACRAMENTO businessman and University of California regent who successfully pushed through a ballot measure banning affirmative action in public hiring, contracting, and college admissions is back to his old tricks. This time Ward Connerly is seeking to ban the very collection of the data used to justify and shape affirmative action programs and other efforts aimed at easing racial and ethnic disparities. Despite its innocuous name, the Racial Privacy Initiative is a harmful and ill-conceived attempt to remove not only the proof that disparities exist in education, public health, and law enforcement but also the incentive to correct them. Instead of being a step toward creating a colorblind society, as Connerly and his allies claim, the proposition would be a step backward for California.
The proposition is headed for the Oct. 7 ballot, which also features the effort to recall California's Democratic Governor Gray Davis. Initiative opponents filed suit Friday in federal court arguing that the secretary of state's decision to move up the vote on the proposition from next March to the recall ballot violates the Voting Rights Act because it would not allow time for adequate public debate. Opponents are right that more time is needed to increase public awareness of the divisive and wrongheaded nature of the proposal.
The initiative would prohibit any government agency in California from collecting data on race, ethnicity, color, or national origin and using it to classify those involved in public education, contracting, or employment. The only exception would be if the Legislature found a compelling state interest to gather such data and approved it by a two-thirds vote in both houses -- a required ''supermajority'' that undermines the meaning of democracy. The initiative, Proposition 5