By Eric E. Clingan
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 11, 1998

The racial divide

Arizona Daily Wildcat Eric E. Clingan

The darkest skies over many a Lake Havasu evening have been witness to waves of spring break revelers rocking their houseboats on the still waters. But away from the lake itself, closer to town and on what should be firmer ground, a radiant light has broken out with the spontaneity of a struck match.

Indeed, it was but a single match which sparked this terrifying sight. On the front lawn of Darlene Jones' modest home burned a grotesque symbol of America's era of hate. A fiery crucifix cast a forbidding shadow, charring a hellish hole into the yard where Darlene's 11-year-old daughter and teenaged son had played only hours before.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles south in Phoenix, one legislator continues to seek passage for what could become a burning cross at every polling place on election day, 1998.

Senator Scott Bundgaard,R-Glendale, has offered Senate Concurrent Resolution 1005 (SCR 1005), calling for a statewide vote in November to amend Arizona's constitution to read: "This state shall not discriminate or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting."

As provocative to racial divisions as a burning cross, this volatile resolution and its significance to the far right was not lost on Arizona's three university presidents, who rearranged their schedules to attend last week's hearing on the malicious measure.

The bill's misguided swipe at affirmative action prompted UA President Peter Likins to comment, "It's a solution in search of a problem."

Bundgaard's model, California's 1996 grass-roots Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, banned affirmative action programs in that state. However, as Likins and almost 100 others made it clear in that hearing room, circumstances which gave birth to California's initiative are not present in Arizona.

In fact, those circumstances cannot ever be present here. A reality check of Arizona's Civil Rights Act reveals Section 41-1463B: "It is an unlawful employment practice for an employer: 1) To fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to . . . his employment because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, age, handicap, or national origin." Such clarity is succinctly prefaced by Section 41-1463A, which unequivocally states: "Nothing contained in this article shall be interpreted to require that the less qualified be preferred over the better qualified simply because of race, color, religion, sex, age, handicap, or national origin."

Therein lies the root of Likins' aptly diagnosed non-problem. Affirmative action, as a public policy, is a non-sequitur in Arizona.

Of course, the harrowing experience of Darlene Jones and her family does not altogether suggest the necessity for affirmative action. It does, however, amplify the current dissonance between races in this state, the only one to publicly veto a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. For this reason, legislators would be wise to approach blatantly racially divisive issues with a greater understanding of what affirmative action is and who it truly affects.

For example, one could look at the resolution's restrictive language regarding exactly what characteristics can not be, "Grant[ed] preferential treatment." SCR 1005 limits itself to prohibiting government-based hiring preferences on account of "race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." (If you're counting, that's four parts racial to one part gender.) The bill, however, wholly ignores Arizona civil rights statutes as a starting point for its questionable intentions, as "religion, age, and handicap" are nowhere listed in its language. These three classifications are included in current law. As such, this short-sighted, haphazard approach to lawmaking would result in the creation of a loophole allowing the government the protection of constitutional ambiguity if it should decide to give preferential treatment to Jews or Christians, the disabled or the elderly in its hiring practices.

Although Bundgaard repeatedly failed to return phone calls regarding this issue and although the senator could not provide the name of one non-politician in support of his bill in last week's hearing, it can be assumed that he had access to, and reviewed, the state's current civil rights laws. The drafter's obvious omission, then, of religion, age and handicap, combined with the laser beam-like focus on race and ethnicity will provide yet another golden opportunity for liberal Democrats to paint conservative Republicans as racist, self-serving bigots.

Conservatives should unite behind the anti-affirmative action movement, but only in relevant situations which call for all biases to be removed in their entirety. Otherwise, we risk playing into the hands of critics like the Rev. Oscar Tillman, President of the Arizona branch of the NAACP, who, unarguably in this instance, point out that race is the single motivating factor behind this bill.

Darlene Jones suffered through the re-opening of racial wounds that this nation clearly would prefer to heal once and for all. Terrifying and violent acts such as cross burning should be a thing of the past, along with outdated hiring programs that work on the basis of discrimination and quotas, regardless of the class what benefits. Still, by proposing racially divisive, unneeded resolutions like SCR 1005, the far-right threatens to throw dangerous fuel on the fire come election day.

Eric E. Clingan is a senior majoring in political science. Turns out, he's professional comedian, too! You can catch his act at Laff's Comedy Cafe theweek of March 4-9.