KINDER COMMENTARY: CONNERLY: FIGHTING THE BATTLES OF RACE AND GENDER QUOTAS

It was an honor last Wednesday, during a busy week of travel and meetings, to join in as a host for the man who spearheaded the successful campaign for the California Civil Rights Initiative in the Golden State last year.

Sacramento businessman Ward Connerly arrived in St. Louis Wednesday afternoon for an evening lecture at St. Louis University. Connerly is the distinguished African-American business leader who has spoken so eloquently on behalf of equality under law and its necessary corollary: An end to racial- and gender-based quotas and preferences.

After an introduction by St. Louis U. law student Nathan Cooper, who was an outstanding student at Southeast Missouri State University from 1992 to 1996, Connerly took the stage to a standing ovation from slightly more than half the crowd. From the other half of mostly minority students, Connerly told me over dinner later in the evening, there emanated what he called "enormous hostility." To this unpleasantness he long ago grew accustomed.

Coolly, respectfully and with the tremendous courage he has consistently demonstrated throughout his battle, Connerly made his case for more than 30 minutes. Quotas and preferences are wrong and fundamentally un-American, Connerly said. A native of the Jim Crow South, born and reared in Louisiana 58 years ago, Connerly said he is well-acquainted with racism and discrimination.

Connerly confidently stated, "I truly believe we are seeing the end of an era. The curtain is closing on a bizarre chapter of unconstitutional and grossly unfair quotas and preferences. It will probably take about five years to wipe it all up, but we are seeing the early stages of the end."

Already this year, the battle has spread to other cities and states as principled citizens are attempting to replicate the California success for which Connerly was the sparkplug. In Houston, voters will decide this Nov. 4 whether they want to adopt a similar resolution. In this regard, it is interesting to note that exit polling showed that 30 percent of African-Americans voted for the California proposition last November, ending preferences overnight. Connerly offered the estimate that another 30 percent of black voters would vote for a phased-out withdrawal from quotas, and still another 30 percent would do so if persuaded that white people would be fair -- that whites wouldn't revert to former patterns of discrimination.

Meanwhile, major efforts have been launched in the states of Florida and Washington to put such propositions on their 1998 ballots. Others may follow. Missouri, it should be noted, is one of 22 initiative and referendum states.

Connerly followed his long speech with a question-and-answer session and a reception in which he was surrounded by hostile young questioners who followed him out into the cool St. Louis evening. He was patient with all. "I just believe it is so important to engage these people, to take them seriously and try to answer their concerns," he told me.

Ward Connerly is one of the great men of our time.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.