TIME IS RIPE TO END THE INEQUITIES OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

It appears the debate over the meaning, import and reach of racial and gender preferences and quotas is about to come to Missouri. If so, it will be all to the good. It is past time for Missourians to reflect on what these perversions of the original civil rights revolution have done and are doing to our country -- and whether we want them to continue.

A proposed constitutional amendment in the form of Senate Joint Resolution No. 3 is being sponsored by state Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau. The resolution reads:

"Neither the state nor any of its political subdivisions or agencies shall 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, public education or public contracting."

This language tracks that of the California Civil Rights Initiative, adopted last November by a 54 percent majority after a rancorous campaign in the Golden State. That campaign featured near-desperation tactics by opponents, who invited David Duke, the notorious Nazi, to speak for the initiative. Duke's appearance, vigorously opposed by supporters of the initiative, was recorded for TV ads against the initiative. Those pathetic ads aired in the final weeks, with the message that if a character as repulsive as Duke favored the CCRI, then it couldn't be what its supporters said it was. It is hard to think of any campaign tactic in recent American history as brazenly dishonest. To their everlasting credit, California voters saw through this misleading nonsense.

The California vote, combined with a string of recent Supreme Court rulings, make it increasingly clear that the curtain is being rung down on quotas and preferences, the more extreme manifestations of affirmative action. If this be the case, it will move us back to the color-blind language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to the unanswerable appeal of the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. At the core of that movement was the appeal of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate in a few days, delivered at the famous march on Washington in 1963: "I have a dream ... that someday my children will live in a country where they are judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin."

In one sense it is almost comical to hear opponents of measures such as the CCRI and SJR 3 try to argue that these words, which outlaw discrimination on their face, somehow violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection. On the contrary, they are moving us back toward color-blind justice and equal justice under law for all Americans. In California, the America Civil Liberties Union managed to find a liberal federal judge to put a temporary hold on enforcement of the CCRI, pending hearings. He should and probably will be overturned.

Americans overwhelmingly believe government shouldn't be in the business of discrimination, as we have been for 25 years through quotas and preferences. Rights attach to individuals, not to groups. SJR 3 is a healthy step toward the original American ideal of color-blindness and should be adopted by the General Assembly and sent to the people for a vote.