After the victories of 2008—WHAT NEXT IN THE FIGHT TO DEFEND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?—By: BAMN

The year 2008 has put the new civil rights movement on the edge of victory in our 12 year fight to defend affirmative action.

By our independent mobilization, we kept Ward Connerly off the ballot in three crucial states. In Oklahoma, Connerly withdrew his petitions in the face of challenges to his fraudulent signatures filed by BAMN and by the ACLU. In Missouri, a coalition, including SEIU, ACORN, BAMN and others, organized signature blocking on a statewide basis—which prevented Connerly from even filing in that state.

Most importantly, in Arizona, BAMN, acting almost alone, organized the effort to block Connerly's signature gatherers. By our campaign, we forced those petition gatherers to resort to even more fraudulent tactics than usual. The state election authorities then disqualified almost half of the signatures submitted by the Connerly's Arizona Civil Rights Initiative—resulting in the ACRI being kept off the 2008 ballot, where it could have served as a rallying-cry for every racist inside and outside of the McCain-Palin campaign.

In the wake of the massive publicity over Connerly's fraud—and in the wake of the tide of votes for Obama—Connerly's attempt to ban affirmative action then lost in a fourth state—Colorado. In what Connerly had billed as Super Tuesday, his dishonest attempt to ban affirmative action won only in Nebraska. Even there, it won only because BAMN did not have enough resources to launch its own campaign against it.

Having seen the results in Colorado and the massive celebrations over the election of our first black President, Connerly drew the appropriate lessons. He fell on his sword and announced his planned retirement. If he follows through on the retirement, his unlamented departure will leave the anti-affirmative action movement without its most effective fund raiser, speaker, and front man. While there are a few pretenders to his racist throne, it seems likely that his rich backers will not want to fund a renewed effort in 2010, after the failures of 2008, after the pro-Obama celebrations, and after the drubbing that the Republican Party took because of its racism.

We must, of course, be vigilant. If Connerly or some pretender attempts to gather signatures for the 2010 elections, we must respond with a signature-blocking effort that is faster, stronger, and more widespread than the victorious efforts we made in 2008. We now know how to beat him—and we should vow that never again will he or anyone else succeed in their fraudulent signature gathering.

But even if there are no new petitions in 2010, Connerly has left with one poisonous parting shot. With media fanfare that is richly undeserved, Connerly has proclaimed that the election of Barack Obama shows that we no longer need affirmative action. Beyond the far right, few really believe this myth. But it is dangerous and must be combated—in part because the media and every racist force in the country so rapidly repeat it.

The simple truth, however, is that Obama would never have been at Harvard Law School without affirmative action. Even more fundamentally, tens of millions of white voters would never have voted for Obama or any black candidate if the way had not been paved by tens of thousands of black and Latino doctors, lawyers, teachers and political leaders. These products of affirmative action shattered the myth of racial inferiority that the old Jim Crow had spread. In a word, the election of Barack Obama shows that we need more—not less—affirmative action.

What Barack Obama himself does is now of crucial importance. If he carries through on his stated opposition to the attempt to ban affirmative action through state referenda, we can reverse the bans that now exist. On the other hand, if he is silent, it will make it possible for the right wing to snatch a future victory from the jaws of their current defeat. We can profoundly influence the choice Obama makes by continuing our fight to defend affirmative action.

Much remains to be done. In three crucial states—California, Washington and Michigan—all forms of affirmative action have been outlawed. In almost every other state, political and legal threats by Connerly and his supporters have scared timid college and university administrators into cutting back almost every existing affirmative action program. And the Supreme Court has made affirmative action almost illegal in contracting, employment, and elementary and secondary education. Though Connerly has been defeated, separate and unequal—the new Jim Crow—retains a powerful hold on American law and on American politics.

We must use our victories to roll back the right-wing's achievements. We must redouble our demands that colleges and universities use every lawful means to maintain and increase the enrollment of black, Latino/a, Native American and other minority students. In the same year that we have elected a black man as President, we can not let our universities continue excluding tens of thousands of qualified black, Latino, and Native American students. Nor can we continue the scandalous under-representation of women students in the sciences, engineering and other areas where sexism remains especially strong.

We must also fight on a national basis to reverse the bans on affirmative action in California, Washington and Michigan. President-elect Obama rightly spoke out against these bans—and he won because of the hope for racial equality that he came to symbolize. Every student organization, every student government, and every educational or political leader should publicly ask President Obama to make his opposition to Connerly real by issuing an executive order or regulation banning state initiatives that prevent local governments from maintaining or enacting affirmative action programs. We can not let a national civil rights policy be thwarted by state's rights initiatives. Nor can we leave the fate of Michigan's Proposal 2 in the hands of courts that have been packed by George W. Bush.

The experience of the last year shows that we can defend affirmative action if we fight. In fact, the new civil rights movement is powerful now precisely because we fought and won when the liberals said it was impossible. They said affirmative action was dead when the right filed suit against the University of Michigan. But we built a mass campaign—culminating in the march of 50,000 on April 1, 2003—and won the great victory in Grutter.

They said we should not—or could not—keep Connerly off the ballot in Michigan. But our fight against his fraud kept him off the 2004 ballot and almost succeeded in keeping him off Michigan's 2006 ballot. His electoral victory in November 2006 showed how right we were to attempt to keep him off that ballot.

In 2008, the terrain had shifted in a positive direction. Many beyond BAMN recognized the importance of keeping Connerly's proposals off the ballot. Especially in Missouri, some organizations even attempted to block Connerly's petitioners. But the liberals still said we should not mention affirmative action or directly attack the racism of his petitions.

However, in every state—including in Missouri and in the crucial state of Arizona—BAMN's young volunteers were the most effective signature-blockers because we told petitioners and voters the plain truth about the racist and segregationist aim of his petitions.

For twelve years, BAMN has led the way forward because it has recognized that Connerly could only be defeated by an integrated, mass movement led by the most militant young fighters from the black, Latino, Native American communities. To build that movement, we have to call racism by its right name—and fight it, in all its forms.

Our method is battle-tested. Our victories are real. We now have the power to defeat the new Jim Crow and to move towards the dream of an equal and integrated Nation that so many have fought for so courageously and for so long. In their names and for our future, it is time for us to move forward.

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)