Tuesday, December 07, 2004

• Connerly calls it quits and takes his show on the road

  JC

  A surprise move from Connerly has him declining any possible re-appoinment to the UC Board of Regents. Black America Web reports that Ward is ending his time on the Board of Regents in order to focus his efforts on his campaign in Michigan to end affirmative action. Keep watching...his work is far from over....

   

  In a surprise move, Connerly told BlackAmericaWeb.comthat he doesn't want to be reappointed to the board. “Twelve years is long enough,” he said. “I have no intent of seeking reappointment. I would not accept it if it were offered. I like to render public service, but this goes beyond.”

   

  While surprised by what Connerly said, members of BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), a national coalition of activists that supports affirmative action in higher education that mounted a petition drive calling for his removal, doesn't intend to let up. BAMN has been circulating petitions calling for Connerly’s rejection for about a year, said Joyce Schon BAMN organizer. “We need to remove Connerly from the Board of Regents because he has allowed the racist, small-minded right wing to employ him to be their front person for their campaign against affirmative action,” Schon said. “And he has now taken that campaign to Michigan.”

   

  Connerly is now pushing a petition drive to put a racial preference ban on the 2006 ballot in Michigan. That state became an affirmative action battleground in 2003 because of split U.S. Supreme Court decisions that upheld consideration of race in the University of Michigan's law school admissions policies, but banned an undergraduate admissions program that granted special consideration to minorities.

   

  When his term on the California Board of Regents ends, Connerly said he will focus more of his attention on the Michigan campaign.

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