In this op-ed, Peter Schrag asks:
"Will California's public agencies, state and local, be allowed to continue to collect and keep vital data by race and ethnicity?"
We need letters to the editor pointing out that this data is not vital and in particular, making the case that the data that is collected is completely unscientific, inconsistent in collection methods and based on arbitrary and meaningless classifications. We need to hammer this point home everytime this "vital data" argument surfaces. Visit this url to send a letter to the editor.
Race and gubernatorial recall: Can they be linked?
by Peter Schrag
Alameda Times-Star
AS CALIFORNIA speeds toward the Oct. 7 recall election, a voter initiative that's a major issue all its own has nearly vanished into the shadows: Will California's public agencies, state and local, be allowed to continue to collect and keep vital data by race and ethnicity? By sheer accident, it's on the same ballot as the recall.
Ward Connerly, the Sacramento businessman and University of California regent who is the measure's chief sponsor, calls it the Racial Privacy Initiative, or RPI, but on the ballot it's Proposition 54, the Classification By Race, Ethnicity, Color or National Origin Initiative Constitutional Amendment.