The Other Question
A week from today Californians will settle the recall. And decide who has to deal with Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative.
by Bill Whalen Weekly Standard
09/30/2003 12:00:00 AM
WHAT IF TIGER WOODS, frustrated by his inability of late to win one of golf's majors, enrolled at UC-Berkeley to finish the degree he started years ago at Stanford? Tiger would have to identify himself by race, and that would land him in the rough. Woods calls himself a "Cablanasian" (Caucasian, black, Native American, and Asian). But because his father is African American, that's how Berkeley would categorize him. If Tiger enrolled in California's CSU system, he'd have to either choose a single race or list himself as "decline to state."
Welcome to the outdated way the state of California approaches racial categorization in our multicultural age. Welcome, in short, to Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative, which is on the recall ballot and would amend California's constitution to halt the collection and use of most racial and ethnic data by state agencies.
Prop. 54 is the brainchild of Ward Connerly, the same UC regent who backed Proposition 209, which ended racial quotas in state hiring and contracting and public university admissions. Connerly has been a lighting rod ever since 209's passage in November 1996, especially when he began exporting the quota debate to other states, most notably Florida and Michigan. Liberals loathe the man's politics and seem to detest the man himself, even going so far as to suggest that he's a traitor to his own race (Connerly may appear to be African American, but he's multiethnic--and married to a Caucasian woman).
Yet Prop. 54 has not yet emerged as a hot-button issue in recall--at least not on the order of 209 or Proposition 187 (illegal immigration), or even Governor Gray Davis's signing of a new law granting drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants. Why has 54 gone largely unnoticed? Two words: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The leading Republican candidate so dominates recall media that little room is left for an argument over the Connerly initiative. Plus, Arnold opposes Proposition 54, which defuses the topic as a talking point for Democrats who'd like nothing better than to convince minority voters that Schwarzenegger is a civil rights terminator.
That's a shame because Proposition 54 is a debate that's overdue in a state that bills itself as the world's most diverse civilization. On the yes side, conservatives defend the ideal of a colorblind society (prominent "Yes on 54" backers include George Will and the Hoover Institution's Shelby Steele). The no side takes a more passionate approach, claiming the initiative will prevent a collection of information necessary to track diseases among minorities and environmental hazards in lower-income parts of California.
On Sunday, the no side--the California Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union--raised the stakes by releasing a new TV ad featuring former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. "As surgeon general, I faced many decisions affecting life and death," says Koop. "On October 7, you'll make a life-and-death decision affecting every Californian." The ad compliments an earlier anti-54 ad by Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, in which the recall candidate says the initiative's side effects are "more important than politics."
(The courts may not like Bustamante's use of funny money to pay for that ad, but it's been effective in moving the public. Polls show support for Prop. 54 slipping from 50 percent in July to roughly 40 percent a week before the election.)
Connerly's calls these claims "scare tactics." He notes that the initiative does include an exemption for what it describes as "medical research subjects and patients." Besides, Connerly says, if Prop. 54 did pass, he'd work with the legislature to find new avenues for health-related research.
In fact, a closer look at Connerly's initiative shows it doesn't have the Armageddon-like effect its opponents suggest. Even if voters approved Prop. 54, the University of California would still monitor the racial makeup of its student body (but not the number minority applicants denied admission). California's Department of Education would still be required to track the math and language scores of racial groups at many grade levels. Connerly inserted a 10-year exemption (expiring in 2015) for data collected by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. What's less clear is what happens to racial data stemming from birth and death certificates (54's supporters say that's covered by the "medical" exemption).
There's a catch to all of this, though, and that's trying to get Californians to be of one mind on a topic that's part of the divide in how Californians vote. According to a survey conducted for the California Wellness Foundation, 66 percent of "yes" voters on Prop. 54 want to recall Davis while "no" voters are more evenly divided (45 percent favor recall, 48 percent oppose). The "yes" vote favors Schwarzenegger over Bustamante, 30 percent to 17 percent. The opposite is true on the "no" side, with 39 percent saying they'll vote for Bustamante and only 13 percent siding with Schwarzenegger.
Ironically, while Prop. 54 may fail at the polls a week from today, the issue of racial data will have to be addressed by whoever emerges as the recall winner. That's because current state law is full of inherent conflicts. In California, residents are asked to list their race on birth and death certificates. But that's not the case when applying for a marriage license. Race is required when asking for a home loan, but not for credit cards or most business loans. Davis himself has only added to the misery: thanks to a bill he just signed into law, California voter-registration documents will include a space for racial identification.
And there's the matter of keeping pace with the feds, who are a step ahead of California in terms of monitoring America's blended society. Three years ago, the U.S. Census Bureau began a new policy of tracking Americans who identify with as many as six different races. Contrast that to the University of California's counting only one race no matter how many boxes a student checks. Nearly 95,000 California residents identified themselves in the last census as belonging to three or more races (California has twice as many multiracial residents (1.6 million) as the next closest state, New York).
It's a challenge for the next governor--especially if that leader is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has avoided Prop. 54 like it meant carpooling with Arianna Huffington.
Bill Whalen is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he follows California and national politics.
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