Losing the Soul of the GOP: Republicans make a rotten peace with race preferences - in-depth look at affirmative action

Ward Connerly

We learned recently that the Bush administration will defend a government contracting program that is an explicit system of preferences and quotas, based on race. I'm not the least surprised. Why? Because as governor of Texas and as a presidential candidate, George W. Bush avoided taking a position on affirmative action or "triangulated" on the issue in ways that would make Bill Clinton green with envy.

He was essentially silent about the Hopwood case, centering on the University of Texas. He took no position on Measure A in Houston, a ballot initiative patterned after California's Proposition 209 (banning preferences in public institutions). As a presidential candidate, he ducked questions concerning 209: What, after all, did he think about it? In his final debate with Al Gore, he seemed to pray silently that the moderator would step in and call "time" when a question about affirmative action was on the floor. He sought to please everyone and offend no one by expressing support for something named "affirmative access."

While in the White House, Bush and my good friend John Ashcroft, the attorney general, have seamlessly embraced the issue of "racial profiling" as if it were an epidemic threatening black America. Then we have the decision in support of continued discrimination in government contracting. When it comes to issues of race and preferences, Bush and a host of other Republican leaders have been drifting tragically leftward for about five years. Mesmerized by the quest for skin-color "diversity," and hoping to "broaden the base" of the party, they have been moving away from the Republican rank-and-file in ways that are fundamentally transforming the party-the party that should carry the banner of Equality for All.

Let's look at some facts, beginning with the 1996 Republican convention.

That year, the most important state ballot initiative was Proposition 209. The cause of getting rid of race preferences was deemed so important that the party included an endorsement of 209 in its platform. That action, sadly, marked the end of the party's clear and unequivocal commitment to true equality and the beginning of its current Jekyll-and-Hyde posture.

Perhaps significantly, even as the party was endorsing Prop. 209, it was denying the requests of then-California governor Pete Wilson and Bill Bennett that I, as chairman of the 209 campaign, address the convention. The reason given was that my appearance might "send the wrong message" to minorities about the GOP's commitment to "diversity." At the convention, I sat as a California delegate while Colin Powell took center stage and voiced his support for affirmative action, opposing the party on a key issue, an issue of principle and conscience.

Several months later, when a number of Republicans and others in Arizona sought to pass a bill in that state's legislature outlawing race preferences, we were told by several Republican legislators that they had received calls from Sen. John McCain urging them not to support such a measure because-again, as always-it might "send the wrong message."

When I met with Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997 to enlist his support in getting Congress to act against preferences, he deferred to Rep. J. C. Watts (another good friend of mine). J. C. responded, "Not now, Ward. It's not the right time." He wanted Congress to approve more enterprise zones, school choice, and other initiatives before turning to race preferences.

When we sought the support of Florida governor Jeb Bush and the (Republican-controlled) Florida legislature in placing on the ballot an initiative ending preferences in the state, the governor opposed us by calling us (me, in particular) "divisive." He then tried to preempt our initiative by announcing his "One Florida" plan, a series of baby steps that ended preferences in university admissions while strengthening them through race-conscious "diversity" measures elsewhere.

To think politically for a moment: A full 70 percent of Florida voters indicated that they would vote to end preferences. Yet the chairman of the Florida Republican party said, "Mr. Connerly has a solution looking for a problem which does not exist in Florida."

When I was invited by the Michigan Republican party to address them in 1999, the invitation was suddenly withdrawn after the office of Gov. John Engler contacted my office to request more information about me. I received a letter of apology from the party a few days later with an oblique reference to "political considerations."

In 2000, George W. Bush spoke to the NAACP's convention, and he used the occasion to apologize for his party, saying that it had failed to conduct itself as "the party of Lincoln." I was not alone in wondering, "What is he apologizing for? What have we done to dishonor Lincoln?" Bush should have told the NAACP that Democrats take black Americans for granted, not seeing them and other "minorities" as individuals but as groups. The GOP should dedicate itself to individual rights-which is the ultimate definition of civil rights.

At the Republicans' own convention that year, Colin Powell again took center stage to heighten his rhetoric against those of us who are opposed to race preferences. In blasting his fellow Republicans, Powell has done far more to preserve preferences-despite the opposition he expressed to them in his autobiography-than has Jesse Jackson. Certainly my own life has been more grief-filled because of Powell's party-sanctioned speeches than because of all the attacks on me by Jackson and the rest of the preferences cartel.

Not only were the likes of me kept from addressing the party convention in 2000 (as before)-our requests to purchase booth space to exhibit the literature of the American Civil Rights Institute were denied by both the national GOP and the Florida GOP.

More recently, in California, our efforts to get the government out of the business of asking citizens about their race-through a ballot measure called the Racial Privacy Initiative-are being opposed by a handful of Republican officeholders and party managers. The contention is that our initiative will damage efforts to "rebuild the party" by "attracting more minorities."

There is a lot of fuzzy-headed and unsupported punditry making the rounds that the California GOP has fallen on hard times because of three "controversial" ballot initiatives: 187 (illegal immigration), 209 (race preferences), and 227 (bilingual education). Those who subscribe to this view are never able to explain how the GOP is harmed by initiatives that are popular with the voting public. Even blacks, the largest voting bloc in support of preferences, supported 209 at three times the rate of their usual support for GOP candidates.

Yet mysteriously, the three Republicans who have had the most success with the California electorate over the course of the last decade-Pete Wilson, Ron Unz, and yours truly-played no role whatever in the Bush presidential campaign (which included, of course, a mammoth defeat in California). We were avoided because of the issues with which we are identified and the desire of the candidate not to be found guilty by association.

This strategy of avoidance has been a truly remarkable phenomenon. When I was in Austin early in 1999, I was entering the Texas capitol just as Gov. Bush was doing the same. He graciously welcomed me to Texas and said he wanted me to come to dinner one day soon. When my staff and I followed up on the invitation, the Bush people informed us that the invitation would be delayed until the Texas legislature adjourned. Several weeks after the legislature had adjourned, I was told by a key Bush adviser that he would arrange for me to meet and travel with the governor during an upcoming visit to California. Bush came and left without any contact with me. Finally, we were told just before the inauguration that as soon as the president got "settled in" an invitation would be made to discuss the issues of concern to me. Months later, with the president well "settled in," calls from my staff to arrange that meeting are not even being returned.

Well, reality has finally "settled in" for me: I sense that the only chance I will have in my lifetime to discuss race preferences with an American president has already occurred. Strangely, it was Bill Clinton who provided that opportunity. I do not expect as much out of George W. Bush.

Throughout the last presidential campaign, I was criticized roundly, by both critics and allies, for urging Bush to announce a clear and unequivocal position on preferences. "Cut him some slack," they said. "He's with us, and will make some changes once he gets elected." Also, "Don't give Al Gore an issue to beat our guy over the head with." And, "Don't jeopardize our chance of getting a favorable Supreme Court," a Court that would abolish preferences for all time.

Often I expressed skepticism that Bush would govern decisively on an issue that he had dodged during the campaign. "What basis do we have for expecting courage and commitment to appear suddenly after the election?" I asked. A few others did as well.

Bush's recent decision to defend a morally indefensible government contracting program-the one that resulted in the rejection of the low bid by Randy and Valery Pech of Adarand Constructors, because they are white-speaks volumes about the decline of fundamental values of citizenship in America. Because the victims are white, we look the other way and rationalize our indifference by talk of "providing access to minorities."

When I think of the Pechs, I am also reminded of Xiaolin Li, a student of Vietnamese descent who was a candidate for a "minorities only" scholarship funded by the (tax-exempt) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This program is operated by the United Negro College Fund, and while it excludes whites from eligibility it also sets a higher standard for Asians. Miss Li was in financial need, had a 3.7 grade point average, and boasted an SAT score of 1,380-academic performance that greatly exceeds that of the average black student. But she was rejected because she didn't score high enough in the "non-African- American" pool of candidates. As the young lady said to me in a letter, "It just seems that being Asian has hurt me."

Yet people like her simply don't matter to some of us when we think we are engaged in the noble project of providing "access" to members of anointed minority groups. We don't realize that innocent people are harmed in our preferential schemes. As the critic Shelby Steele often says, "Whenever you give someone a preference, you discriminate against someone else." Why is that so hard to understand?

I became a card-carrying Republican in 1969. No one recruited me (I am a "person of color") in an effort to increase the party's "diversity." In fact, no one much cared whether I became a Republican or not. What inspired me was the bold and decisive leadership of California's governor, Ronald Reagan. He was unequivocal in his views, and those views were right.

Although the "civil rights" establishment sought to portray Reagan as anti-black, millions of Americans like me ignored that portrayal and became Republicans because we respected Reagan and his beliefs. He governed with good humor and made clear that our skin color or ancestry was of no concern to him. We knew that, in his eyes, we were equals. What he wanted from us was that we embrace the pillars of freedom in which he believed. Clarence Thomas and I and numerous others were not "black Republicans"; we were just Republicans. That anonymity and feeling of blending into the political fabric of our nation is what attracted us. We sought no special favors, nor wanted any. This group is reflected in the 27 percent of black people who voted for Proposition 209. Imagine the political effect if Bob Dole or George W. Bush could get that same percentage of black voters!

I regret to say that if I had no political affiliation today, I would not be tempted to become a Republican. In its quest for skin-color diversity, the Republican party is subverting its philosophical foundation. The sad fact is, when it comes to principles of individual rights and colorblindness, the Grand Old Party isn't so grand anymore. Principled positions on preferences, bilingual education, and so on are now characterized as "divisive," as "culture war" annoyances, to be avoided at all costs.

The leadership of our party-grossly out of step with ordinary Republicans-doesn't have the stomach to defend the party's principles. But that's not the worst news: The worst news is that the leadership is all too eager to help our opponents on the left when they want to shoot us down for daring to defend, explain, and promote our traditional principles.

Truth is, for the last five years, race, gender, and ethnic preferences have been on the ropes-but the knockout blow has been blocked, in part because of the support the Republican grandees give to preferences, either tacitly or explicitly. As long as identity politics and the obsession with skin-color diversity get top billing in the Republican party, there will be no leadership from Republicans, including the Bush administration, to end preferences. They will prefer the slow and agonizing death that preferences will eventually suffer at the hands of court decisions, even as they seek to influence the Supreme Court to delay that richly deserved demise. All the while, people like the Pechs and Xiaolin Li will be expected to seethe in silence, as the nation redefines discrimination against some as "access" for others.

I think of a momentous question posed in the Bible: "[W]hat is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" In this spirit, I ask: How much skin-color diversity does the Republican party require in exchange for its highest principles?

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