AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: GOOD IDEA GONE BAD

America has had a long experiment with affirmative action that began, for the most part, under the Nixon administration in 1971. Sadly, what began as an effort to provide positive outreach to underprivileged minorities -- including them in ways they seldom had been included before -- mutated into a rigid system of quotas and preferences. There were quotas for hiring, quotas for promotions, quotas for contracting and quotas for admission into many institutions of higher education.

The story of how a sincere effort to include minorities was perverted into an un-American system of quotas and preferences is a cautionary tale. When the civil rights acts of the 1960s were being debated in the U.S. Senate, the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota eloquently defended the measures against opponents who, even then, claimed that the proposed laws would be used to justify a regime of quotas. "The plain language of this act prohibits any form of quotas or preference," Humphrey insisted. "I will personally eat this entire bill if it ever imposes quotas."

Sadly, before Humphrey died in 1976 courts and bureaucrats had begun imposing precisely that. And the quotas came.

It is fundamentally un-American to discriminate against one citizen, or group of citizens, in favor of another individual or group on the basis of skin color or national origin. Yet this is precisely what government has been doing for more than a generation now. Then, in 1996, in California, along came the initiative called Proposition 209. Led by a courageous and distinguished black businessman named Ward Connerly, Prop 209 simply proposed outlawing any form of discrimination based on race. After a long and bitter campaign marked by plenty of dishonest appeals by opponents, voters adopted 209 by a huge, 700,000-vote margin.

In the year since its passage, 209 has survived court challenges to take effect as the law of California. Most recently, last week the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had unanimously upheld Prop 209. With similar initiative campaigns under way in the states of Washington and Florida, it would appear that the sun is indeed setting on the quotas and preference industry.

Or is it? Last week also saw a Prop 209-style measure rejected by voters in the city of Houston by the same 54-46 margin California voters had adopted it. Houston has a rigid system under which 20 percent of all city contracts had to be awarded to minority firms. This result occurred after the outgoing mayor persuaded the city council to change the ballot wording. The ballot originally stated: "The City of Houston shall not discriminate against, 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 and public contracting." The politicians changed this 209-style language to: "Shall the Charter of the City of Houston be amended to end the use of affirmative action for women and minorities in the operation of City of Houston employment and contracting, including ending the current program and any similar programs in the future?"

It seems clear that when the language was changed in this manner, the result was foreordained. Ballot language can be decisive, and there is every reason to believe that in nearly any jurisdiction in America, when Prop 209-style language is put before voters, they will adopt it, often by overwhelming margins. combine this with the steady drift of judicial decisions striking at quotas and preferences, and it isn't hard to see the curtain being rung down on America's long experiment with this un-American form of dispensing favors.