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Is state ready for Racial Privacy Initiative?
Alameda Times-Star
by James Q. Wilson
We all believe that everybody should be judged on his or her own merits, but many people, including a majority of Supreme Court justices, say race should be used as a "plus factor" in admitting students to public universities. And though everybody says we should strive for a colorblind society, some people still use racial and ethnic categories to describe why some people are different from others.
One way to end the problem, in the opinion of University of California Regent Ward Connerly, is to abolish the use of race and ethnicity as identifying factors. His Racial Privacy Initiative, slated to be voted on in October, would prohibit any government agency in California from collecting data on race, ethnicity, color or national origin and using it to classify those involved in public education, public contracting or public employment.