"The so-called Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is neither civil, nor is it right"

If MLK were still around, the above sounds to me like something he might say. I heard the unattributed quote just last evening, while leaving the meeting at which the Ypsilanti Board of Education unanimously voted to oppose the misleading and misnamed Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI). It (the quote, I mean) couldn't be more true. I urge all Michigan voters to oppose this ill-conceived ballot proposal. If it is enacted, Michigan will take enormous steps backward. The clock will be turned back on our civil rights to just after the era of legalized segregation, and 50+ years of progress in constitutional law, including many of the gains of Brown vs. Board of Education, will be of little consequence to residents of Michigan. Our great state, despite the progress we have made, contains some of the most segregated cities in the nation. Our state suffers disparity on the basis of both gender and race in educational attainment, employment, home ownership, household income and more. This ballot proposal will do nothing to improve this sorry state of affairs, and instead accomplish the contrary, making things worse for generations to come. The politics of race, polarization and division permeate the MCRI campaign. The proponents of of the MCRI seek to oversimplify a complex issue and appeal to feelings and emotions by using value-laden, misleading terminology. Fundamentally, nobody can disagree with the truisms they set forth (like "discrimination is bad" and "meritocracy is good"). However, the MCRI does not create a meritocracy, and failure to enact it does not create or cause discrimination. To suggest this is the case, as its proponents do, is to actively mislead and obfuscate the real impact and goals behind the campaign. To provide just a few examples, if the MCRI is enacted, it would prevent all public entities from providing their students the opportunity to learn in a diverse environment. It would ban all public educational outreach programs that attempt to increase girls' interest and participation in sports or professions in which they are traditionally under-represented, such as business, medicine, and engineering. It would prohibit all public scholarships that are geared toward increasing women or minority participation in various educational fields and professions. It would eliminate public programs that seek to encourage men to enter fields in which they are under-represented, such as in elementary education. I could go on and on. It is important to realize that if the MCRI is enacted, we will see a radical change in our collective ability to provide equal opportunity to all of our citizens and residents. MCRI is funded by out-of-state conservative interests. The MCRI was floated and paid for primarily by out-of-state interests. Its primary proponent, Ward Connerlly, a resident of California, funded over 70% of the campaign with his own personal contributions and those of his conservative supporters, such as Rupert Murdoch (head of the FOX News empire) and the late Joseph Coors (beer baron known for championing conservative Republican causes). This is not a home-grown, grass roots effort. This is an effort by people who primarily live outside of Michigan. This is an effort by people who want to push it in other states and are using Michigan merely because it is easy to get ballot proposals started here. MCRI will prevent us from ensuring that every child in our state is provided an equal opportunity to learn and succeed in life. Creating equal opportunity does not equal treating everybody the same. If this were the case, we'd simply teach every child the same thing, and if they didn't get it, tough. They'd just fail. To provide equal opportunities to all, we must be permitted to take into consideration societal factors that impact the ability of various groups within our society to equitably access education, employment, public and private resources and more. We must be permitted the tools the assess the success of various groups and respond to the conditions that chronically cause them to fail to succeed or be under-represented in certain segments of our society. Nowhere is this more important than in our public schools. We have disparities between boys and girls and between races in many areas, including disciplinary infractions, educational achievement, involvement in sports, graduation rates and more. To actively vote to deprive our schools of the tools we need and use on a daily basis to ensure that all our children are prepared for the future and given an equal opportunity to learn would be a tragedy unlike anything in recent memory. Vote NO on Proposal 2. I urge you to vote against this ballot proposal. Join me, along with an enormous number of organizations, such as the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Women, NAACP, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, and more in opposing the MCRI. Vote NO on 2 is the one thing Governor Granholm and Dick DeVos agree on. Voting for the MCRI will be a disaster for Michigan and for its citizens. Vote NO on Proposal 2. UPDATE: You can listen to my comments from the School Board meeting on this issue by clicking here (Quicktime required). If you don't have Quicktime, you can download it by right-clicking and then re-associating the file with whatever you use to listen to mp3s.