Ward Connerly
Encyclopedia
Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly (born June 15, 1939) is an American
political activist, businessman, and former University of California
Regent
(1993–2005). He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences. He is considered to be the man behind California
's Proposition 209 prohibiting race- and gender-based preferences in state hiring, contracting and state university admissions, a program formerly widely known as affirmative action
.
. Connerly has said that he is one-fourth black and half-white, with the rest a mix of Irish
, French
, and Choctaw
American Indian. He identifies as multiracial. He grew up in an African-American community, but the children met some discrimination in school because of their light skin. In a Louisiana state census, the family were classified as "colored", a category that historically covered the Louisiana Creole
people (other categories were negro and white.)
His father, Roy Connerly, left the household when Ward was 2, and his mother died when he was 4. The young Connerly lived first with Bertha and James Louis, his maternal aunt and uncle. They moved to Bremerton, Washington
and then to Sacramento, California
, as part of the Great Migration
by millions of blacks out of the South
in the first half of the twentieth century to seek better opportunities. Connerly next lived with his maternal grandmother, Mary Smith Soneia, who had also moved to Sacramento. (She was the daughter of a Choctaw
man and white woman, and she had married a Cajun
of mixed heritage.) When she had difficulty supporting the two of them, Ward took many jobs as a boy. His uncle James taught him virtues of hard work and perseverance.
Connerly attended Sacramento State College
, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts
with honors
in political science
in 1962. While in college, Connerly was student body president, was active as a Young Democrat, and joined Delta Phi Omega
, a white fraternity. Later he was made an honorary member of Sigma Phi Epsilon
fraternity. During his college years, Connerly campaigned against housing discrimination and helped to get a bill passed by the state legislature banning the practice.
In addition to his political activities, Connerly is a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento, California
.
(who would become governor
in 1991).
Encouraged by Wilson, Connerly left his government job in 1973. He started his own consulting and land-use planning company, known as Connerly and Associates, Inc., and together with his wife as partner, made a strong success of it.
In 1993 he was appointed to the University of California Board of Regents, where he served until March 2005. During this time, he became deeply involved in working to repeal state affirmative action programs.
program. In 1994, he heard from Jerry and Ellan Cook, whose son had been rejected at the University of California, San Francisco
(UC) Medical School. Connerly became convinced that affirmative action, as practiced by the UC, was another kind of racial discrimination. Cook, a statistician, had presented data showing that white and ethnic Asian students were being denied admission despite having better grades and test scores than other students who were being admitted.
Connerly proposed abolishing the controversial racially based programs, while allowing the university to consider social or economic factors. The regents passed the proposal in January 1996 despite protests from activist Jesse Jackson
and other supporters of affirmative action. Some believe that the UC system had effectively discriminated against ethnic Asian applicants. The year after affirmative action was abolished, the number of Asian students admitted to UC increased markedly.
The UC regents developed a new system, including essay requirements that served to reveal the applicant's race and ethnicity. The new measures, titled "comprehensive review" have not yet been challenged to the California Supreme Court or the Supreme Court of the United States
.
In 1995, Connerly became the chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign and helped get the initiative on the California
ballot as Proposition 209
. The Carnegie
, Ford
, and Rockefeller Foundation
s, the ACLU, and the California Teachers Association
opposed the measure. It passed by 54.6%.
In 1997, Connerly formed the American Civil Rights Institute. ACRI supported a similar ballot measure in Washington state, Initiative 200
, which would later pass by 58.2%.
ACRI worked to get a measure on the ballot in the 2000 Florida election. The Florida Supreme Court
put restrictions on the petition
language. Through a program called "One Florida," Governor Jeb Bush
later implemented key portions of Connerly's proposal. He helped to keep it off the ballot by achieving some of its key goals through legislation.
In 2003, Connerly helped place Proposition 54
on the California ballot, which would prohibit the government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, with some exceptions, such as for medical research. Critics were concerned that such a measure would make it difficult to track housing discrimination and racial profiling activities. Editorials in newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle
and Los Angeles Times
criticized the measure, saying that the lack of such information would hamper legitimate medical and scientific purposes. The voters did not pass the measure.
In 2003 the Supreme Court ruled on affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan in Gratz v. Bollinger
and Grutter v. Bollinger
; it ruled the undergraduate affirmative action program was unconstitutional for the way it applied the program, but that the process at the University of Michigan law school could continue. Jennifer Gratz invited Connerly to Michigan to support a referendum measure similar to the 1996 California amendment. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
appeared on the November 2006 Michigan ballot and was passed 58% to 42%.
For the 2008 elections
, Connerly headed a campaign which he called "Super Tuesday for Equal Rights". It was directed at dismantling affirmative action programs in five different states via ballot measures. In three of the states, Connerly's initiatives failed to make it onto the ballot. In Colorado, voters rejected Amendment 46 (or the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative) by a very slim margin. Voters in Nebraska
were the only ones to approve a new anti-affirmative action measure, called Initiative 424.
philosophy. In January 2008, Connerly endorsed Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
.
, and their agreement on the question of affirmative action, Connerly led efforts to grant domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian domestic partners in all state universities over Wilson's objections. The UC regents narrowly passed the initiative.
Connerly says his views on gay rights stem from his libertarian viewpoint that governments, including government-run universities, should not discriminate, whether it is by favoring some students because of their race, or by excluding others from spousal benefits based on their sexual orientation.
The conservative advocacy groups Family Research Council
and Traditional Values Coalition
criticized Connerly's support for domestic partner benefits. In reference to Connerly, Robert Knight, Director of Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council, said, "no true conservative would equate homosexual households with marriages, because we believe that without marriage and family as paramount values, hell will break loose."
on California's November 2008 ballot that would ban same-sex marriage
in California, Connerly stated, "For anyone to say that this is an issue for people who are gay and that this isn't about civil rights is sadly mistaken. If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people."
Connerly began to ally with prominent members of what has become known as the multiracial movement. Prior to leading the Racial Privacy Initiative (Proposition 54
) in California, Connerly forged ties with the publishers of Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist
, prominent publications for the multiracial movement. Eventually, Connerly enlisted the help of several outspoken members of the multiracial movement to assist with the campaign for the Racial Privacy Initiative.
said about Connerly, "He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black." Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, characterized this attack as part of the personal abuse conservative blacks received from liberal blacks who opposed their programs.
After Connerly published his autobiography, Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences in 2000, some relatives claimed his accounts of an impoverished childhood were exaggerated or false. Connerly's aunt Bertha Louis, whom he had lived with and who was close to his grandmother, confirmed his account and said his detractors "are just lyin' on him. It's jealousy and it's hatred, as low as you can get."
Connerly's opposition to affirmative action has generated both opposition and support. Connerly believes affirmative action is a form of racism and that people can achieve success without preferential treatment in college enrollment or in employment. He thinks that selective affirmative action discriminates against minorities such as Asian Indians and South East Asians, as some of their people have experienced discrimination in the past, but they do not receive the benefits of race-based admissions. Critics contend Connerly fails to recognize the damaging extent of past racism for African Americans and Hispanics, that contemporary institutionalized racism is pervasive and powerful, and that affirmative action can overcome the residual effects of past discrimination on people of color.
The Detroit-based pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary
(BAMN) said that as CEO of Connerly & Associates, Inc., Connerly benefited financially from state affirmative action programs in contracting. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the same facts. California requires state agencies to award 15 percent of all contracts to firms classified as minority owned. Minority-owned firms that were not classified as such were not eligible for the set-asides. This created an incentive for organizations to register their ownership by race, in order to compete. State agencies may have been reluctant to do business with minority-owned firms that were not registered as such, since they would not get full credit for implementing affirmative action in contracting. Some criticize these results as having created a form of state-sanctioned discrimination against non-registered minority-owned firms.
BAMN also noted that Connerly earned as much as $400,000 as a spokesman for the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) and the American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC). BAMN seeks to repeal Proposition 209 and to restore affirmative action programs, especially for student university admissions. BAMN opposed Connerly's efforts to put the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
on the 2006 Michigan Ballot, and disrupted a Michigan Board of Canvassers meeting that year in protest.
In relation to Attacking Affirmative Action, a program on Now on PBS in August 2008, Connerly said,
In December 2002, at a birthday party celebrating Strom Thurmond
's 100th birthday, Republican Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott said, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either.”
In a CNN
interview the next day, Connerly said, "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation
and believe in equality of the races…" Asked why he called for Lott to step down as Senate Minority Leader, Connerly said:
In 2006, while campaigning for Michigan's Proposal 2 to end state affirmative action programs, Connerly was filmed saying, "If the Ku Klux Klan
thinks that equality is right, God bless them. Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate." Responding to critics, Connerly issued a written statement clarifying his remarks. It said,
In their book Game Change
(2010), Time Magazine's Mark Halperin
and New York magazine's John Heilemann
reported on a private conversation by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
. In 2008, Reid had said about then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama
, that he believed the nation was ready to elect a "light-skinned" black man "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." A public controversy erupted over his comments.
Ward Connerly, writing an "Opinion" piece in the Wall Street Journal, said,
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
political activist, businessman, and former University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
Regent
Regents of the University of California
The Regents of the University of California make up the governing board of the University of California. The Board has 26 full members:* The majority are appointed by the Governor of California for 12-year terms....
(1993–2005). He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences. He is considered to be the man behind California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's Proposition 209 prohibiting race- and gender-based preferences in state hiring, contracting and state university admissions, a program formerly widely known as affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
.
Early life
Wardell Anthony Connerly was born June 15, 1939, in Leesville, LouisianaLeesville, Louisiana
Leesville is a city in and the parish seat of Vernon Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 6,753 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Fort Polk South Micropolitan Statistical Area. The city is home to the Fort Polk U.S. Army installation...
. Connerly has said that he is one-fourth black and half-white, with the rest a mix of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
, French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, and Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
American Indian. He identifies as multiracial. He grew up in an African-American community, but the children met some discrimination in school because of their light skin. In a Louisiana state census, the family were classified as "colored", a category that historically covered the Louisiana Creole
Louisiana Creole
Louisiana Creole can refer to:* Louisiana Creole people* Louisiana Creole French language* Louisiana Creole cuisine...
people (other categories were negro and white.)
His father, Roy Connerly, left the household when Ward was 2, and his mother died when he was 4. The young Connerly lived first with Bertha and James Louis, his maternal aunt and uncle. They moved to Bremerton, Washington
Bremerton, Washington
Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. The population was 38,790 at the 2011 State Estimate, making it the largest city on the Olympic Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap...
and then to Sacramento, California
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
, as part of the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
by millions of blacks out of the South
The South
-Geography:* Southern United States* South of England* South of France* South Italy* South Korea* Republic of Ireland* South Province * Global South, the developing nations of the world-Other uses:* The South , by Victor Erice...
in the first half of the twentieth century to seek better opportunities. Connerly next lived with his maternal grandmother, Mary Smith Soneia, who had also moved to Sacramento. (She was the daughter of a Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
man and white woman, and she had married a Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
of mixed heritage.) When she had difficulty supporting the two of them, Ward took many jobs as a boy. His uncle James taught him virtues of hard work and perseverance.
Connerly attended Sacramento State College
California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sacramento, popularly known as Sacramento State, is a public university located in the city of Sacramento, California. It is part of the California State University system...
, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
with honors
Honors student
An honors student is a person recognized for achieving high grades or high marks in their course work.Honors students may refer to# Students recognized for their academic achievement on lists published periodically throughout the school year, known as honor rolls, varying from school to school, and...
in political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
in 1962. While in college, Connerly was student body president, was active as a Young Democrat, and joined Delta Phi Omega
Delta Phi Omega
Delta Phi Omega , is the largest and fastest-growing, nationally based South Asian-interest sorority in the United States, with over 1300 sisters in thirteen chapters and twenty-seven colonies....
, a white fraternity. Later he was made an honorary member of Sigma Phi Epsilon
Sigma Phi Epsilon
Sigma Phi Epsilon , commonly nicknamed SigEp or SPE, is a social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College , and its national headquarters remains in Richmond, Virginia. It was founded on three principles: Virtue,...
fraternity. During his college years, Connerly campaigned against housing discrimination and helped to get a bill passed by the state legislature banning the practice.
Marriage and family
Connerly is married to Ilene Connerly, a woman of European-American descent, whom he started dating in college. They have two children. She is his equal partner in the firm of Connerly & Associates.In addition to his political activities, Connerly is a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento, California
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
.
Career
After college, Connerly worked for a number of state agencies and Assembly committees, where he developed a broad range of contacts. He worked for the Sacramento re-development agency, the state department of housing and urban development, and the State Assembly committee on urban affairs. During the late 1960s, Connerly became friends with then-legislator Pete WilsonPete Wilson
Peter Barton "Pete" Wilson is an American politician from California. Wilson, a Republican, served as the 36th Governor of California , the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator , eleven years as Mayor of San Diego and...
(who would become governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
in 1991).
Encouraged by Wilson, Connerly left his government job in 1973. He started his own consulting and land-use planning company, known as Connerly and Associates, Inc., and together with his wife as partner, made a strong success of it.
In 1993 he was appointed to the University of California Board of Regents, where he served until March 2005. During this time, he became deeply involved in working to repeal state affirmative action programs.
Campaign against affirmative action
After his appointment to the University of California board of regents in 1993, Connerly began to learn more about the workings of its affirmative actionAffirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
program. In 1994, he heard from Jerry and Ellan Cook, whose son had been rejected at the University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
(UC) Medical School. Connerly became convinced that affirmative action, as practiced by the UC, was another kind of racial discrimination. Cook, a statistician, had presented data showing that white and ethnic Asian students were being denied admission despite having better grades and test scores than other students who were being admitted.
Connerly proposed abolishing the controversial racially based programs, while allowing the university to consider social or economic factors. The regents passed the proposal in January 1996 despite protests from activist Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...
and other supporters of affirmative action. Some believe that the UC system had effectively discriminated against ethnic Asian applicants. The year after affirmative action was abolished, the number of Asian students admitted to UC increased markedly.
The UC regents developed a new system, including essay requirements that served to reveal the applicant's race and ethnicity. The new measures, titled "comprehensive review" have not yet been challenged to the California Supreme Court or the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
.
In 1995, Connerly became the chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign and helped get the initiative on the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
ballot as Proposition 209
California Proposition 209 (1996)
Proposition 209 is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. It had been supported and funded by the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, led by University...
. The Carnegie
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York, which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," is one of the oldest, largest and most influential of American foundations...
, Ford
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
, and Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
s, the ACLU, and the California Teachers Association
California Teachers Association
The California Teachers Association , initially established in 1863 as the California Educational Society, is by far the largest teachers' union in the state of California. It is considered by many to be the most powerful union in California...
opposed the measure. It passed by 54.6%.
In 1997, Connerly formed the American Civil Rights Institute. ACRI supported a similar ballot measure in Washington state, Initiative 200
Initiative 200
Initiative 200 was a Washington State initiative to the Legislature promoted by California affirmative-action opponent Ward Connerly and filed by Scott Smith and initiative entrepreneur Tim Eyman. It sought to prohibit racial and gender preferences by state and local government. It was on the...
, which would later pass by 58.2%.
ACRI worked to get a measure on the ballot in the 2000 Florida election. The Florida Supreme Court
Florida Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the State of Florida is the highest court in the U.S. state of Florida. The Supreme Court consists of seven judges: the Chief Justice and six Justices who are appointed by the Governor to 6-year terms and remain in office if retained in a general election near the end of each...
put restrictions on the petition
Petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....
language. Through a program called "One Florida," Governor Jeb Bush
Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush; the younger brother of former President George W...
later implemented key portions of Connerly's proposal. He helped to keep it off the ballot by achieving some of its key goals through legislation.
In 2003, Connerly helped place Proposition 54
California Proposition 54 (2003)
Proposition 54 was a California ballot proposition on the October 7, 2003 gubernatorial recall election ballot. It failed to pass with 3,144,145 votes in favor and 5,541,314 against...
on the California ballot, which would prohibit the government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, with some exceptions, such as for medical research. Critics were concerned that such a measure would make it difficult to track housing discrimination and racial profiling activities. Editorials in newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
and Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
criticized the measure, saying that the lack of such information would hamper legitimate medical and scientific purposes. The voters did not pass the measure.
In 2003 the Supreme Court ruled on affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan in Gratz v. Bollinger
Gratz v. Bollinger
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 , was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy...
and Grutter v. Bollinger
Grutter v. Bollinger
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School...
; it ruled the undergraduate affirmative action program was unconstitutional for the way it applied the program, but that the process at the University of Michigan law school could continue. Jennifer Gratz invited Connerly to Michigan to support a referendum measure similar to the 1996 California amendment. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative , or Proposal 2 , was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the...
appeared on the November 2006 Michigan ballot and was passed 58% to 42%.
For the 2008 elections
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
, Connerly headed a campaign which he called "Super Tuesday for Equal Rights". It was directed at dismantling affirmative action programs in five different states via ballot measures. In three of the states, Connerly's initiatives failed to make it onto the ballot. In Colorado, voters rejected Amendment 46 (or the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative) by a very slim margin. Voters in Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
were the only ones to approve a new anti-affirmative action measure, called Initiative 424.
Party identification
Ward Connerly identifies as a Republican with a libertarianLibertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
philosophy. In January 2008, Connerly endorsed Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
.
Support for domestic partnership benefits
Despite his close political relationship with former California Governor Pete WilsonPete Wilson
Peter Barton "Pete" Wilson is an American politician from California. Wilson, a Republican, served as the 36th Governor of California , the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator , eleven years as Mayor of San Diego and...
, and their agreement on the question of affirmative action, Connerly led efforts to grant domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian domestic partners in all state universities over Wilson's objections. The UC regents narrowly passed the initiative.
Connerly says his views on gay rights stem from his libertarian viewpoint that governments, including government-run universities, should not discriminate, whether it is by favoring some students because of their race, or by excluding others from spousal benefits based on their sexual orientation.
The conservative advocacy groups Family Research Council
Family Research Council
The Family Research Council is a conservative or right-wing Christian group and lobbying organization formed in the United States in 1981 by James Dobson. It was fully incorporated in 1983...
and Traditional Values Coalition
Traditional Values Coalition
The Traditional Values Coalition is a conservative Christian organization that represents, by its estimate, over 43,000 Christian churches throughout the United States of America...
criticized Connerly's support for domestic partner benefits. In reference to Connerly, Robert Knight, Director of Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council, said, "no true conservative would equate homosexual households with marriages, because we believe that without marriage and family as paramount values, hell will break loose."
Support of same-sex marriage
In response to Proposition 8California Proposition 8 (2008)
Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections...
on California's November 2008 ballot that would ban same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
in California, Connerly stated, "For anyone to say that this is an issue for people who are gay and that this isn't about civil rights is sadly mistaken. If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people."
Support of multi-racial category on government forms
On July 9, 1997, the American Civil Rights Institute expressed disappointment with the federal government's decision to reject the addition of a multi-racial category on the Census and other government forms that collect racial data. Since 2000, the Census Bureau allows individuals to identify more than one racial/ethnic category on the census form, although it does not yet have a multiracial category.Connerly began to ally with prominent members of what has become known as the multiracial movement. Prior to leading the Racial Privacy Initiative (Proposition 54
California Proposition 54 (2003)
Proposition 54 was a California ballot proposition on the October 7, 2003 gubernatorial recall election ballot. It failed to pass with 3,144,145 votes in favor and 5,541,314 against...
) in California, Connerly forged ties with the publishers of Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist
The Multiracial Activist
The Multiracial Activist is a libertarian-oriented activist journal covering social and civil liberties issues of interest to individuals who perceive themselves to be biracial or multiracial. In addition, interracial couples and families and transracial adoptees are also constituencies...
, prominent publications for the multiracial movement. Eventually, Connerly enlisted the help of several outspoken members of the multiracial movement to assist with the campaign for the Racial Privacy Initiative.
Personal
In 1995, then California State Senator (and current congresswoman) Diane WatsonDiane Watson
Diane Edith Watson is a former US Representative for , serving from 2003 until 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party...
said about Connerly, "He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black." Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, characterized this attack as part of the personal abuse conservative blacks received from liberal blacks who opposed their programs.
After Connerly published his autobiography, Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences in 2000, some relatives claimed his accounts of an impoverished childhood were exaggerated or false. Connerly's aunt Bertha Louis, whom he had lived with and who was close to his grandmother, confirmed his account and said his detractors "are just lyin' on him. It's jealousy and it's hatred, as low as you can get."
Affirmative action and desegregation
Asked in 2003 if Proposition 54 could derail school integration efforts in California, Connerly said: "I don't care whether they are segregated or not… kids need to be learning, and I place more value on these kids getting educated than I do on whether we have some racial balancing or not."Connerly's opposition to affirmative action has generated both opposition and support. Connerly believes affirmative action is a form of racism and that people can achieve success without preferential treatment in college enrollment or in employment. He thinks that selective affirmative action discriminates against minorities such as Asian Indians and South East Asians, as some of their people have experienced discrimination in the past, but they do not receive the benefits of race-based admissions. Critics contend Connerly fails to recognize the damaging extent of past racism for African Americans and Hispanics, that contemporary institutionalized racism is pervasive and powerful, and that affirmative action can overcome the residual effects of past discrimination on people of color.
The Detroit-based pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary
BAMN
BAMN stands for By Any Means Necessary, and its full name is the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary...
(BAMN) said that as CEO of Connerly & Associates, Inc., Connerly benefited financially from state affirmative action programs in contracting. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the same facts. California requires state agencies to award 15 percent of all contracts to firms classified as minority owned. Minority-owned firms that were not classified as such were not eligible for the set-asides. This created an incentive for organizations to register their ownership by race, in order to compete. State agencies may have been reluctant to do business with minority-owned firms that were not registered as such, since they would not get full credit for implementing affirmative action in contracting. Some criticize these results as having created a form of state-sanctioned discrimination against non-registered minority-owned firms.
BAMN also noted that Connerly earned as much as $400,000 as a spokesman for the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) and the American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC). BAMN seeks to repeal Proposition 209 and to restore affirmative action programs, especially for student university admissions. BAMN opposed Connerly's efforts to put the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative , or Proposal 2 , was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the...
on the 2006 Michigan Ballot, and disrupted a Michigan Board of Canvassers meeting that year in protest.
In relation to Attacking Affirmative Action, a program on Now on PBS in August 2008, Connerly said,
"I think that in some quarters, many parts of the country, a white male is really disadvantaged… Because we have developed this notion of women and minorities being so disadvantaged and we have to help them, that we have, in many cases, twisted the thing so that it's no longer a case of equal opportunity. It's a case of putting a fist on the scale."
Comments on racial controversies
- Trent LottTrent LottChester Trent Lott, Sr. , is a former United States Senator from Mississippi and has served in numerous leadership positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate....
's comments about Strom Thurmond:
In December 2002, at a birthday party celebrating Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
's 100th birthday, Republican Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott said, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either.”
In a CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
interview the next day, Connerly said, "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation
Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
and believe in equality of the races…" Asked why he called for Lott to step down as Senate Minority Leader, Connerly said:
- Ku Klux KlanKu Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
support for Prop 2 in Michigan:
In 2006, while campaigning for Michigan's Proposal 2 to end state affirmative action programs, Connerly was filmed saying, "If the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
thinks that equality is right, God bless them. Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate." Responding to critics, Connerly issued a written statement clarifying his remarks. It said,
"Throughout my life I have made absolutely clear my disdain for the KKK. However, like all Americans, I hope that this group will move beyond its ugly history and agree that equality before the law is the ideal. If they or any group accepts equality for all people, I will be the first to welcome them."
- Harry ReidHarry ReidHarry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...
's 'Negro dialect' comment:
In their book Game Change
Game Change
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime is a book by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2008 United States presidential election. Released on January 11, 2010, it was also published in the United Kingdom under the title Race of...
(2010), Time Magazine's Mark Halperin
Mark Halperin
Mark E. Halperin is the senior political analyst for Time magazine, Time.com, and MSNBC and serves as a board member on the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. He is the co-author of Game Change.-Personal:Mark Halperin is the son of Morton Halperin and Ina Young. He has...
and New York magazine's John Heilemann
John Heilemann
John Arthur Heilemann is an American journalist for New York magazine, where he mainly covers US politics. He previously was a staff writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist. He is the coauthor of the No...
reported on a private conversation by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...
. In 2008, Reid had said about then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, that he believed the nation was ready to elect a "light-skinned" black man "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." A public controversy erupted over his comments.
Ward Connerly, writing an "Opinion" piece in the Wall Street Journal, said,
"For my part, I am having a difficult time determining what it was that Mr. Reid said that was so offensive ... Was it because he suggested that lighter-skinned blacks fare better in American life than their darker brothers and sisters? If so, ask blacks whether they find this to be true. Even the lighter-skinned ones, if they are honest with themselves, will agree that there is a different level of acceptance ... Was it because he used the politically incorrect term "negro"? If so, it should be noted that there are many blacks of my generation who continue to embrace this term. In fact, "negro" is an option along with "black" and "African-American" on the 2010 Census."
Legacy and honors
- He published an autobiography Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preference in 2000, published by Encounter Press.
- He was made an honorary member of Sigma Phi EpsilonSigma Phi EpsilonSigma Phi Epsilon , commonly nicknamed SigEp or SPE, is a social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College , and its national headquarters remains in Richmond, Virginia. It was founded on three principles: Virtue,...
, a fraternity founded at the University of RichmondUniversity of RichmondThe University of Richmond is a selective, private, nonsectarian, liberal arts university located on the border of the city of Richmond and Henrico County, Virginia. The University of Richmond is a primarily undergraduate, residential university with approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate...
in 1901. - Connerly was inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame.