California Bus Tour Exposes Deceptive Proposition 209
Eleanor Smeal, Jesse Jackson, Patricia Ireland, and Dolores Huerta Travel California to Save Affirmative Action
To reveal the deceptive nature of Proposition 209, the California initiative that, if passed, would wipe out state affirmative action programs and allow sex discrimination, Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal, NOW President Patricia Ireland, United Farm Workers Vice President Dolores Huerta, and National Rainbow Coalition President Jesse Jackson, just completed a 12-day statewide bus tour.
Proposition 209, formerly known as the California Civil Rights Initiative, would amend the California constitution to abolish affirmative action for qualified women and minorities in public education, public employment, and public contracting. In addition, Clause 'C' of Proposition 209 would explicitly allow sex discrimination in public employment, public contracting, and public education.
The bus tour visited fifteen campuses and major California cities including Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Smeal, Ireland, Huerta, and Jackson met with local elected officials, labor leaders, business leaders, and civil rights leaders, and participated in outreach activities such as the Los Angeles AIDS walk and neighborhood walk-throughs.
"Proposition 209 is deceptive because it is titled on the ballot as a Prohibition Against Discrimination or Preferential Treatment," said Smeal. "Unless they know better, average people who support women’s rights and civil rights could walk into the voting booth and vote for this measure. But lawyers across the state, including the independent, nonpartisan California legislative analyst, have concluded that Proposition 209 would abolish affirmative action. We must alert California voters to the threat this dangerous measure poses to equal opportunity for women and people of color."
Hundreds of students helped organize the bus tour’s campus visits as part of Freedom Fall ‘96, a student organizing project sponsored by the Feminist Majority. The 300 interns who are part of Freedom Fall ‘96 are working on 50 California campuses and have recruited thousands of volunteers to help put up STOP Prop 209 posters and to organize voters on election day. Recently the Freedom Fall interns held a ‘funeral’ for women’s rights and civil rights, in which they carried a coffin to the office of California governor Pete Wilson, a strong supporter of Proposition 209. "Our hopes for equality and equal opportunity will die if 209 passes," said Nohelia Canales, a 22-year-old medical student.
Prominent national women’s, civil rights, and labor leaders, as well as celebrities, will be featured on posters and radio ads revealing the deceptive nature of Proposition 209.ÊThe words of Jesse Jackson, Gloria Steinem, Rosa Parks, Anita Hill, and others on posters will highlight that Proposition 209 would destroy years of civil rights work, cause women to lose maternity benefits, make it harder to enforce sexual harassment laws, and destroy girls’ sports programs. The voices of Ellen DeGeneres and Alfre Woodard will be heard on radio ads educating voters that Proposition 209 will eliminate affirmative action for women and people of color.
A California Superior Court judge agreed that Proposition 209 was misleading. In early August Judge James T. Ford ordered the California attorney general to rewrite the state’s official voter information pamphlet to make clear that Proposition 209 seeks to abolish affirmative action. However, an appeals court reversed this ruling and the California Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The backers of Proposition 209 are so eager to hide its true nature that they have expressed outrage about a fellow Proposition 209 supporter: David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan member from Louisiana. Duke was invited to debate affirmative action at California State University Northridge, and created an uproar as he toured California before the debate, speaking on talk shows about his support for Proposition 209 and his opposition to affirmative action and the increasing minority population in the U.S. California governor Pete Wilson and University of California board of regents member Ward Connerly, both strong advocates of Proposition 209, publicly criticized David Duke’s support of the initiative.
"David Duke’s support exposes Proposition 209 as the anti-civil rights, anti-women’s rights initiative it is," said Katherine Spillar, National Coordinator of the Feminist Majority and a leader of the STOP Prop 209 campaign.
The Los Angeles Daily News revealed another hidden purpose of Proposition 209. In a confidential teleconference between Pete Wilson, Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, and sixty California business executives, Wilson and Gingrich said Proposition 209 was being used to win a Republican Congress.
|
