Northwest passage? The state of Washington's Initiative 200 is next round in national struggle over affirmative action

Black Issues in Higher Education, Sept 17, 1998 by Patarick Mazza

The state of Washington's Initiative 200 is next round in the national struggle over affirmative action

Seattle -- Activists seeking to roll back affirmative action programs won a 1996 election victory in California, but stalled in Houston in 1997. Now, they are seeking to jump-start their national campaign with an initiative on the Washington state ballot this November.

Initiative 200 would bar state and local governments from, "discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, education, and contracting."

Its proponents advertise it as "The Washington State Civil Rights Initiative." A virtual replay of California's Proposition 209, I-200 received $178,000 -- money that helped fund paid signature gatherers -- from Prop 209 supporter Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute.

According to Michelle Ackerman, the communications director for NO! 200, anti-affirmative action forces have targeted Washington state to re-start what is perceived to be a stalled national agenda.

"It's very clear that's what this would do," she said.

John Carlson, the chairman of Yes on Initiative 200, said victory would "hasten the pace of change, [although] change is coming anyway."

As in the California ballot, where Connerly was a high-visibility figure, 1200 has an African American among its four co-chairs, Mary A. Radcliffe.

"I'm against discrimination of any kind," said Radcliffe, who cites a background as co-chair of an Olympia Episcopal Diocese racial issues committee and with diversity groups at U.S. West, where she retired as assistant to the president of the phone company's Washington branch.

"It's really very troublesome when people achieve and then someone slaps them in the face and says, `Did affirmative action get you there?'" she added. "Coming from the South, going to high school in the fifties, we didn't have to worry about what someone achieved. People knew you did it on your own."

An Important Battleground

For both sides, Washington is a high-risk battleground. A loss in the overwhelmingly White state might spell trouble for affirmative action rollbacks. After all, Washington is a state with a liberal reputation that in 1996 elected the nation's first Chinese American governor. And Seattle, where Whites represent the vast majority, put a Black mayor in office.

If Washington passes I-200, "It would send a demoralizing message," said Dr. Ronald Takaki, a University of California-Berkeley ethnic studies professor who was active in the fight against California's Prop 209. "Whites in Washington don't have to be anxious. Minorities are not there in large numbers, [In California], Whites wouldn't vote for a minority for state office."

Major Washington corporations have swung behind NO! 200 -- including Microsoft, Starbucks, Weyerhaeuser, and Boeing, although Boeing is facing a major racial discrimination lawsuit that drew a visit by Jesse Jackson. As if to underscore concerns about impacts on the Washington economy, the National Association of Black Journalists is holding off a decision on a prospective 1999 Seattle convention pending election results.

Couched as a civil rights measure, I-200 plays well with Washington voters. A Seattle Times poll conducted in late June found when the ballot title was read, 64 percent were in favor, 25 percent opposed, and 11 percent were undecided. When respondents were told the initiative would end affirmative action, support dropped to 49 percent, with 35 percent opposed, and 16 percent undecided.

"It's basically what we know," said Ackerman, who cited Prop 209 exit polls showing 27 percent of "yes" voters thought they were supporting affirmative action.

I-200 opponents unsuccessfully sued to have the ballot title spell out the consequence, ending race- and gender-based affirmative action.

"We have a really tough battle," Ackerman said. "If all the people know is the ballot title, we've got a problem. The ballot title is a poll-tested code. On the face of it, it sounds good. Would you ban discrimination? The poison underneath is, `Do we want to ban discrimination against White men?'"

Carlson found the poll results "understandable. Affirmative action means different things to different people. We like the ballot title because it says what we think the initiative does."

Perhaps ironically, the majority of state employees hired through affirmative action are White women and men. White males hired through targeting veterans and older workers outnumbered affirmative action hires for any racial minority. Those efforts would remain untouched.

"What we learned from our loss is how Ward Connerly and company racialized affirmative action," Takaki said. "They covered up the facts that the primary beneficiaries in California have been women, especially White women. We made a strategic mistake by not challenging this racialization. Affirmative action is in the interest of White women and a lot of White men whose wives are employed in professional occupations."