If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck....

The opposition to Prop. 107 keeps saying that race and gender quotas don't exist at the University of Arizona. If these aren't quotas, then we don't know what is.

Goals by Job Group Report
Job Group	Description	Female	Minority
1202	Administrators-Director Level		25%
1242	Administrators-Assistant Director Level	63%
2101	Faculty-Agriculture-Tenure Track	39%
2163	Faculty-Education-Not on Track		21%
2201	Faculty-Fine Arts-Tenure Track	56%	17%
2221	Faculty-Humanities-Tenure Track	57%
2261	Faculty-Science-Tenure Track	31%
2340	Faculty-Pharmacy	49%
3240	Research Support-Specialists-Appointed		24%
3260	Research Scientists	49%
3320	Scientists-Other	41%
3420	Engineers	18%	24%
3520	Curators, Curatorial/Museum Specialists		19%
3540	Computing Managers	33%
3567	Computer Specialists-Appointed		24%
3568	Computer Specialists-Staff, Senior/Principal	32%	27%
3569	Computer Specialists-Staff, Other	36%
3780	TV, Radio Broadcast Occupations	51%
5020	Animal Technicians	73%
5140	Media Technicians	53%
5160	Staff Technicians		30%
6060	General Maintenance	21%	53%
7020	Agricultural Related Occupations	32%
7080	Drivers	53%
7100	Food Preparation Service Occupations	51%
7160	Supervisors-Service/Maintenance	52%	59%
7200	Materials Handlers, Controllers, Trades Helpers	30%

This chart is prominently posted on the University of Arizona's website here.

Not true that Yes on 107 has gotten it wrong on higher education

Blog for Arizona has written a piece entitled, "How the Yes on Proposition 107 side gets it wrong on higher education." The article's premise is that gender preferences in universities aren't bad, because women do well anyways, and race preferences for minorities aren't bad, because they aren't doing as well. Note the contradictory arguments. 


The article selectively uses a few cherry-picked success rates for women in higher education, and says that is evidence there is nothing wrong with using affirmative action to put them in more academically competitive universities than they would have qualified for on their own merit. But that is ignoring the whole picture. Just because more women go to college now than men, and do fine at universities like Harvard, does not mean the vast numbers in the middle will do well at some of the middle-to-top-tier universities. Statistics show that the failure rates for women and minorities increase at those middle-to-top tier universities when they are artificially pushed ahead of their abilities. 


Even if women were doing wonderfully as a whole everywhere in higher education, isn't that an argument to get rid of preferences for them?


Regarding minority preferences in higher education, the article claims that because one school, George Washington University, claims to have high minority graduation rates due to its aggressive affirmative action policies, it must not be true that minorities suffer poor graduation rates when pushed into schools beyond their academic abilities. Well, that bold statement from a school which obviously has an agenda contradicts actual evidence from schools after the passage of California's Prop. 209, a similar initiative in California. The 4-year graduation rate for blacks and Latinos at UC-Davis prior to Prop. 209 was a mere 26%, whereas after it passed, it doubled to 52%. That is a huge difference. 


This doesn't mean that some women or minorities are dumber or less capable than others. It just means you can't paint everyone with the same broad brush. Individuals are unique. If there are some who don't perform as well academically, there will also be some white males who don't perform as well academically. Maybe much of it is due to a disadvantaged upbringing. But disadvantaged upbringings aren't a race or gender problem. Putting a band-aid on the problem isn't going to fix the problem. By the time a student makes it into college, it's usually too late to try and catch them up, teach them better study habits, etc. Efforts to help the disadvantaged need to be made earlier on in a child's life, and shouldn't be based on skin color or gender. A Harvard study of affirmative action found that 86% of the blacks at the 28 universities looked at were middle or upper class - affirmative action is primarily helping non-disadvantaged blacks. 


Prop. 107 won't eliminate minority and women recruitment and retention programs, as the article claims. Where similar initiatives have passed in other states, those programs have remained. Not a single one has been eliminated. They have simply made minor adjustments and opened up their membership to non-minorities and men. 


It is time to end the cherry-picked sob statistics and look at the the whole picture. Martin Luther King, Jr. once had a vision of a society where his children wouldn't be judged by the color of their skin. We're never going to get to that stage if we turn around and judge people by their skin right back. 

Refuting the "5 reasons to reject Prop. 107" article

The blog Three Sonorans has written a piece on why to vote against Prop. 107. All five of their arguments can be easily refuted.


1) The article claims that Prop. 107 does not come from Arizona. This isn't accurate. The Arizona State Legislature referred it to the ballot - every single Republican state legislator (except one who was absent) voted to refer it to the ballot. The article points out that funding for Prop. 107 - now that it is already on the ballot - comes from Ward Connerly's Civil Rights Institute, out of California. The article conveniently overlooks the fact however that virtually all of the funding for the opposition also comes from out of state - from unions, and one in-state union. Their biggest contributor to the opposition is the Service Employees International Union, based out of Washington, D.C. If they don't have a problem with their money coming from out of state and unions, why do they have a problem with the other side? At least Yes on Prop. 107 follows the law and puts "out of state funding" on their signs. The opposition committee doesn't bother to put that on their signs.  


2) The article claims that discrimination is already illegal, under state law and the Constitution. State law prohibits some kinds of discrimination, and the Constitution vaguely prohibits discrimination, but the truth is reverse discrimination is occurring in many places. Every time a woman or minority-owned business gets a 7% bid preference from the City of Tucson, reverse discrimination occurs against the equally qualified bidder who bid less but was denied the contract. Every time a woman or minority is admitted to our universities over someone else equally qualified due to their race or gender, reverse discrimination occurs. Every time a woman or minority receives a faculty position at the University of Arizona that is denied to someone else due to their race or gender, reverse discrimination occurs. And these are just a few of the many places this is occurring in Arizona. Why should my daughter receive a benefit but not my son? Why should my half-Hispanic child receive a preference but not my other child? 


3) The article claims that Prop. 107 is anti-Civil Rights and will roll back equal opportunity. Not sure what this vague statement means. If it means Prop. 107 will roll back race and gender preferences that cause reverse discrimination, well that's true. When affirmative action was implemented in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it was only meant to stop discrimination against someone. Not push people ahead of others. Unfortunately extreme activists have turned the 1964 Civil Rights Act on its head, and gone way beyond the affirmative action it intended, morphing it into preferences which now reverse discriminate. Prop. 107 would eliminate that reverse discrimination and follow through with the true intent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which was to treat people equally and not discriminate based on race or gender.


4) The article says that Prop. 107 claims to be about ending quotas, but quotas don't exist in Arizona. This isn't true. Quotas blatantly exist everywhere, although the wording is disguised to pretend they're not quotas. For example, look at the University of Arizona's blatant quotas for faculty hires. They refer to these quotas as "federally mandated placement goals" instead of "quotas." Clever. But they're not fooling anyone. If they're not quotas, then what are they? They list a distorted quota goal of 63% women for Administrators at the Assistant Director Level. Women barely make up more than half the population! They want 53% of General Maintenance positions to go to minorities. These  are outrageous and only some of many listed on that page. 


5) Finally, the article claims that Prop. 107 will cost Arizona jobs, saying where it has passed in California, minority and women owned businesses went out of business. But there is no evidence that those businesses went out of businesses due to the initiative there - they could have gone out of business for other reasons. 
If anything, Prop. 107 will create more jobs, because it will take away the expensive bid preferences given to minority and women owned businesses that are costing taxpayers more money. Instead, the most cost-effective businesses will win the bids, the ones that are the most prudent about cutting costs, therefore creating more employment. 


For other myths from the Prop. 107 opposition and the response refuting them, click here

New Poll: Independents Support Prop. 107

For Immediate Release

October 29, 2010

Contact Leon Drolet at 602-845-0107

www.arizonacri.org

New Poll: Independents Support Prop. 107

Registered independents strongly support Proposition 107, the proposed constitutional ban on affirmative action, according to a new poll conducted October 28^th – 29^th. The state-wide poll of 556 likely-voting registered independents reveals that independents support Prop. 107 by a margin of 58% - 42%. The poll was conducted by Dynamic Interactive and commissioned by the Yes on 107 campaign.

Proposition 107 would amend the Arizona Constitution to ban race and gender based affirmative action in public hiring, contracting and public education.

Poll participants, all of whom are registered independents with active vote histories, were asked the following question:

“Proposition 107 would make it unconstitutional for the government to use “affirmative action” programs that grant preferential  treatment based on race, skin color or sex in hiring, promotions, public contracting or college admissions.  Do you plan on voting yes on 107 to end quotas, diversity goals, and set-aside programs or do you plan on voting no on 107 to keep affirmative action in place?”

Voters were then asked who they were supporting for Governor: Republican Jan Brewer or Democrat Terry Goddard. Brewer led Goddard with registered independents by a 53% - 47% margin. Eighty percent of independents polled who supported Brewer also support Prop. 107, and 33% of independents supporting Goddard support Prop. 107.

“Arizonans are a fair people,” said Rachel Alexander, Chair of the Yes on 107 campaign. “The principle of treating every citizen equally crosses all political party lines. Independent voters support 107 because they want to end government ‘affirmative action’ policies that divide citizens by race and treat us differently.”

Opponents of Prop 107 now believe that admitted colorblind policies promote institutional racism!!

Listen to this clip from a No on 107 spokesperson (recorded at a press conference that they held on 10/27/2010) who first says that Prop 107 will continue institutionalized racism and then admits that Prop 107 is a colorblind policy. Even George Orwell couldn’t do enough mental gymnastics to follow this logic.

Vote YES on 107 to end “affirmative action” policies that give preference based on race or sex in college admissions, public contracting, and public employment. A Yes vote on 107 will promote the original ideal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: Colorblind government.


Click here to listen

Radio interview with Ward Connerly about Prop. 107

Click here to listen

Arizona Republic editorializes in favor of Prop. 107 - AGAIN

Affirmative action no longer needed

Oct. 26, 2010
The Arizona Republic

Affirmative action wasn't meant to be a perpetual-motion machine. The policy served an important purpose, making up for missing opportunities in education and the workplace. But over time, the drawbacks have come to outweigh the advantages.

Voters should pull the plug. They should approve Proposition 107, which would amend the Arizona Constitution to ban affirmative-action programs in public employment, public education or public contracting.


Activist Ward Connerly, a former University of California regent and founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, argues persuasively against racial and gender preferences. Instead of creating a level playing field, they skew the game. Qualifications are subordinated to minority or gender status - certainly not the fair play that Americans value.

Affirmative action can raise unjust doubts about genuine achievements. Connerly tells how the African-American pilot of a commercial airliner thought he saw fear in the eyes of passengers, who wondered if he was truly qualified for the job.

Discrimination hasn't disappeared in America. But we have legal tools, including the authority of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to deal with it directly.

When former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor voted to support affirmative action in 2003, she voiced the expectation that racial preferences would no longer be needed some day. O'Connor thought it would take another 25 years.

There's no reason to wait that long.

The time has come to end affirmative action. Arizonans should vote "yes" on Prop. 107.