8-28-00    

Reverse the Ban On Affirmative Action in the UC System Now!

 
What students do over the next year in California will determine whether or not the ban on affirmative action in the UC System is reversed. 

During the Spring 2000 semester, Republican UC Regent William Bagley announced, with great fanfare, his aim to have the Board of Regents reverse their 1995 decision banning affirmative action in the UC System. This effort by William Bagley has had the private support of a majority of Regents on the board. However, the board has so far failed to reverse the ban. If a motion to reverse the ban were put to a vote by some forward-looking Regent, it would pass now. 

The Regents have failed to take a vote so far because the board is a collection of cowardly politicians who are letting their worries about potentially losing votes to Al Gore or George Bush in this presidential election year get in the way of doing the right thing. Such a board will not do the right thing unless we act.

Now is the time to act. The next year at UC Berkeley can be a historic turning point in the national fight in defense of integration and affirmative action. The UC Board of Regents must reverse the ban on affirmative action in the UC System now! Their action or inaction is decisive. If the Regents are not prepared to take this stand they will be saying to black, Latino, and other minority students that they don't care about us or the atmosphere that we have to go to school in. It will increase the sense on the part of black, Latino other minority and progressive students that we go to school on a racist campus and that the UC System and UC Berkeley are racist institutions. All declarations by the board of Regents and administrators of a commitment to outreach and recruitment will be seen as empty words to cover for racist actions.

We can win this fight-but only if we rise to this historic challenge and build the movement to defend affirmative action aggressively during the coming school year. We must fight for equality. We must fight against the racist inequality and the sexism that structure opportunity and education in American life. In doing so we will have a tremendous opportunity to direct the course of history-to awaken the nation the way that black students and youth did at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

Reversing the ban on affirmative action in the UC System would be a tremendous victory for black, Latino, other minority and progressive students in the UC System and a humiliating defeat for Ward Connerly and the racist Republicans who pushed the ban. It will also have a decisive impact on the growing national movement in defense of integration and affirmative action. 

The national attack on affirmative action and the new movement:

The Regents' ban on affirmative action in the UC System in the summer of July 20, 1995 sparked a destructive national political process aimed at eliminating every policy that takes race into account as a means of offsetting the racist inequality and discrimination that pervades our society. Following the Regents' ban, a small number of wealthy Republican politicians and well-funded racist law-firms initiated ballot initiatives and court suits against affirmative action across the country in Michigan, Washington, Florida and elsewhere, beginning with Proposition 209 in California. 

The attack on affirmative action is part of a national attack on integration and all the gains of the civil rights struggles of the 50's and 60's. In the last five years since the Regents' ban, the destructive nature of the attack has become clear to the entire nation. In elite universities and graduate schools across the country, the ending of affirmative action has meant a dramatic decline in the numbers of underrepresented minority students. The Regents' ban has had a devastating impact on enrollment of underrepresented minority students at the two flagship UC campuses, UCLA and UC Berkeley. Now busing and other integration plans in K-12 public education are under attack as well.

A new civil rights movement is emerging in response to these attacks. Students in California have a great opportunity to give leadership to the country and change history. The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) has been the leading student organization of the movement to defend affirmative action and integration at UC Berkeley and nationally. 

The movement is dynamic but uneven. Campuses have begun to stand up against the resegregation of higher education; black people in cities and communities around the country are seeking a next step to oppose racism in America. Different outpourings of this young movement have been seen over the last nine months, including the massive demonstrations against the Confederate flag in South Carolina. In Florida, over 30,000 people marched on the state capitol against Republican Governor Jeb Bush's executive order attacking affirmative action. The outburst of criticism and discontent that led to the shutting down of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington last November expresses some of the same general oppositional sentiment although taking a somewhat different direction. 

This growing new civil rights movement now faces a historic turning point. Trials in both the undergraduate and law school anti-affirmative action lawsuits at the University of Michigan are scheduled to go to trial over the next school year and are headed for the U.S. Supreme Court-they will decide the legal fate of affirmative action for the entire nation. These legal cases are critically important for the future of black, Latino, and other minority students across the country; they are our generation's Brown v. Board of Education. A victory for the defenders of affirmative action in these cases will set the stage for an overturn of Proposition 209. Because of the first-ever successful intervention of minority students into lawsuits challenging affirmative action in education in the University of Michigan cases, the beneficiaries of affirmative action and the leaders of the movement for its defense will be defending affirmative action in the courts. They will be the bridge that brings the emerging movement into the courtroom.

Despite its insufficient coordination, if the new civil rights movement continues to grow and develop, we can defeat the attacks on affirmative action and be in a strong position to take the whole society a big step toward long-promised and long-deferred equality and integration. To take the next step forward, the movement needs new, outspoken leaders-young leaders who will represent and fight for the emerging movement, students who are proud to stand against racist inequality and discrimination in words and deeds.

Students at UC Berkeley have a central role to play in these historical events:

Reversing the ban on affirmative action in the place where the attack began would signal a turning point in the struggle for equality. It would send a loud and clear message that the attack on affirmative action and integration is a historic mistake, that it must not continue, and that it must be reversed. It would provide a tremendous push in the will to struggle of blacks, Latinos, other minorities and anti-racists across the country. Rather than being the beacon of resegregation, the UC System will be a beacon of progress.

The attacks on affirmative action and integration have put American society at a crossroads. We will either move backward toward increasing segregation and inequality, or we will move forward toward integration and equality for black and Latino people and women of all races. Just as mass struggle defeated Jim Crow segregation, mass struggle can defeat these attacks. The increasing strength of the emerging civil rights movement can reverse the ban on affirmative action, secure a victory for affirmative action at the Supreme Court level, and set the stage for an overturn of Proposition 209. Our commitment to struggle and our actions will play a pivotal role in the outcome of this historic struggle.

Those of us who stand in the proud tradition of the Civil Rights Movement-those of us who oppose the racist inequality of our society-must act now. California must lead the nation in this emerging new civil rights movement.

Program of BAMN: 1) Defend affirmative action! No resegregation of higher education! 2) Stop the implementation of the racist, sexist Proposition 209 in California. 3) Force the University of California Regents to rescind their vote to destroy affirmative action. 4) Build mass, militant actions to stop the University of California, University of Michigan and other university administrations from implementing any anti-affirmative action policy in employment and/or admissions. 5) Stop the implementation of the racist anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in California. 6) Build a mass, militant, integrated, independent movement that uses any means necessary, including education, rallies, marches, building occupations and strikes to defend affirmative action, win our demands and to fight for equality in American society. 7) Use democracy to build the movement. Hold open mass meetings and conferences, vote on strategies and tactics, and elect a steering committee accountable to the members of the Coalition. 8) Build a democratic statewide coalition that is financially and in every way independent of the Regents, University of California, University of Michigan and other administrations and government. Open it up to anti-racist activists and organizations from high schools, community colleges, state universities, unions, black, Latino and other minority organizations, anti-racist groups, women's rights groups, lesbian/gay organizations, etc. 

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
www.bamn.com - Hotline/voicemail: (510) 895-3068 - california@bamn.com