Black University of CA regents member fostered move to review affirmative action

Jet, August 7, 1995

The man behind the recent controversial vote by the University of California's Board of Regents to kill affirmative action is Ward Connerly, a 56-year-old successful Black businessman.

Connerly's is a life of ironies. He has felt the bitter sting of racism, yet he has spearheaded the effort to end the program aimed at leveling the playing field. And Connerly has received more than $140,000 in government affirmative action contracts, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Born in Louisiana and raised in Sacramento, CA, Connerly told the Chronicle of Higher Education that as a child he had to wait in a car while an aunt who could pass for White bought food for the family at restaurants. His father left home when he was one-year-old and his mother died a few years later. He lived with relatives and was taken to Sacramento at age seven.

In 1959, while a student at Sacramento State College, he protested against unfair housing in a nearby area. His effort caught the attention of a politician who invited Connerly to testify. A fair housing bill soon passed.

Connerly had first-hand knowledge of housing discrimination. He found that landlords pulled out their `no vacancy' speeches for him but welcomed his wife who is White.

Now, he and his wife Ilene own a successful land-use consulting business with 15 employees. Connerly, who is very active in Republican politics, was named to the 26-member Board of Regents two years ago by Gov. Wilson. He pointed out that he has contributed $120,000 to Wilson's campaigns since 1990. He said he has known Wilson for 26 years.

Of the 26 Regents, only two are Black. Eighteen of the 26 are political appointees and 17 of them were selected by Republican governors. Connerly proposed ending affirmative action last January.

"People have consciously, in the academic world, bought off on the notion that groups ought to be represented, that there ought to be parity," Connerly told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "It is a fundamentally different view than the one I grew up with, of individuals working hard to succeed and working hard to move up that ladder on the basis of individual effort."