Connerly, Ward(ell) (Anthony) 1939-

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CONNERLY, Ward(ell) (Anthony) 1939-

PERSONAL:

Born June 15, 1939, in Leesville, LA; married Ilene Crews, 1962; children: two (a son and daughter). Education: Attended American River Junior College; Sacramento State College, B.A. (with honors), 1962.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Connerly & Associates, 2215 Twenty-first Street, Sacramento, CA 95818.

CAREER:

Civil rights activist and businessman. Worked for Sacramento's redevelopment agency and the California Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1962-69; California State Assembly Committee on Urban Affairs, Sacramento, CA, chief consultant, 1969-70; California Department of Housing and Urban Development, Sacramento, deputy director, 1971-73; Connerly & Associates, Sacramento, founder, president and chief executive officer, 1973—; American Civil Rights Institute, Sacramento, founder and chairman, 1997—. University of California Board of Regents, member, 1993—; California Chamber of Commerce, board of directors. Has appeared on numerous television programs, including NewsHour, Crossfire, Meet the Press, Dateline, and Politically Incorrect.

MEMBER:

California Civil Rights Initiative (chairman, 1995-96).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Patrick Henry Award, Center for the Study of Popular Culture and Individual Rights Foundation, 1995; National Columbia Award, Washington Institute for Public Policy Studies, 1996; Lincoln Award for Leadership, Independent Women's Forum, 1997; Courage in Leadership Award, Black America's Political Action Committee, 1997; Lt. General Edward J. Bronars Defender of Freedom Award, Freedom Alliance, 1997; Spirit of Lincoln Award, Log Cabin Republicans, 1998; State Achievement Award, Conservative Political Action Committee, 1998; Thomas Jefferson Award, Council for National Policy, 1998; Ronald Reagan Award, California Republican Party, 1998; Racial Harmony Hall of Fame Award, A Place for Us, 2000; Black Students Association Award, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, 2001; Individual Freedom Award, Sovereign Fund, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Creating Equal: My Fight against Race Preferences, Encounter Books (San Francisco, CA), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

A prominent and highly controversial civil rights activist, Ward Connerly gained national attention in 1995 while leading the political fight to end affirmative action in California. Connerly, an African American, argued against affirmative action, a legislative program designed to rectify discrimination against blacks and other racial minorities through the use of minority-inclusive quotas in college admissions, hiring practices, and the distribution of government contracts.

Despite harsh criticism from the African-American community, including many who condemned Connerly as a race turncoat, Connerly asserted that affirmative action was a degrading and debilitating policy that did more harm than good for African Americans and other minorities.

Connerly has often cited his own life as an example of self-reliance and determination. As described in his 2000 memoir, Creating Equal: My Fight against Race Preferences, Connerly was born in Louisiana and raised in poverty by relatives, after his father abandoned the family and his mother died of a brain tumor before he was five years old. Connerly's maternal grandmother, who supported the family by raising chickens and selling their eggs, gained legal custody of Connerly when he was twelve. Though growing up in a segregated society and witnessing the suffering wrought by racial discrimination, Connerly chose to focus on the kindness of individual white people and refused to accept charity. When a welfare officer visited his home, Connerly, then thirteen, was so embarrassed that he immediately took a low-paying janitorial job to keep the family off of public assistance.

Despite such disadvantages, Connerly completed high school and enrolled at American River Junior College. He later transferred to Sacramento State College and graduated in 1962 with a degree in political science. In 1959, while a student at Sacramento State, Connerly gained attention as the leader of a protest against local housing discrimination. During this time Connerly also met his wife, Ilene Crews (a Caucasian), and they experienced discrimination as an interracial couple.

Connerly began his career working for Sacramento's redevelopment agency and California's Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he befriended Republican legislator and future California governor Pete Wilson. In 1969 Connerly was tapped by Wilson to serve as chief consultant to the California State Assembly Committee on Urban Affairs. Connerly returned to the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1971 after the Republicans lost their majority in the Assembly. In 1973 he left his post as deputy director to found his own land-use consulting firm, Connerly & Associates.

In 1993 Connerly was appointed by Governor Wilson to the University of California Board of Regents, a twenty-six member group charged with overseeing the state's public higher education system. In this role Connerly observed the impact of affirmative action on the state's admission policies and came to the conclusion that such policies represented reverse discrimination against prospective Caucasian and Asian-American students. In 1994 Connerly formulated a proposal focused exclusively on academic merit, eliminating race—though not necessarily socioeconomic background—as an admissions consideration. Amid a groundswell of protest involving high-profile activists such as Jesse Jackson, Connerly's proposal to end race preferences in admissions, hiring, and contracting was approved by the Board of Regents later that year.

In 1995 Connerly became chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative, an organization formed to advocate for Proposition 209, a ballot measure to abolish the use of racial preferences in any decision made by the state—from hiring and promotions to contracts and admissions. After months of heated public debate, Californians passed the proposed constitutional amendment with a 54 percent majority in a November, 1996, referendum. In effect, the vote ended affirmative action in California. The victory, however, came at great personal cost to Connerly, as he was vilified as an enemy of his own race by opponents of the proposition. Defending his position in a 2003 American Enterprise interview, Connerly asserted that "a modern civil rights movement should focus on making sure that every American understands that civil rights are not just for black people. They're for everybody."

Critical reaction to Connerly's memoir was, unsurprisingly, split largely along ideological lines, with conservatives extolling Connerly's courage and wisdom and liberals condemning him. Praising his activism and integrity, Commentary reviewer Dan Seligman noted that Connerly's "principled determination" to address race issues left him virtually alone among conservative public figures. Observing the left-leaning news media's lack of critical comment regarding Creating Equal, Seligman stated that "after years of rehearsing the arguments for affirmative action, its apologists would evidently prefer to dodge a confrontation with so articulate and forceful a critic as Ward Connerly." Summarizing Connerly's character and cause in Academic Questions, Christopher Flannery wrote, "He is an intelligent, practical, hard-working citizen, who has become a public leader by circumstance. He is guided … in his public advocacy by simple and firm moral principle mingled with what may be a statesmanlike understanding of political realities."

Connerly's detractors were quick to note that his business and legislative success stemmed in large part from his connection with Pete Wilson and his important role as a co-opted "black crony" among wealthy white Republicans. Nation commentator Philip A. Klinkner wrote that "while Connerly denies having ever benefited directly from affirmative action, the claim seems implausible given his work with California agencies, contractors, and lobbyists over the past four decades." While acknowledging that Connerly has been the subject of "unconscionable" personal attacks, Washington Monthly reviewer Richard D. Kahlenberg concluded that the central failure of Creating Equal was Connerly's inability to offer any alternative solutions to affirmative action. "In writing this book," wrote Kahlenberg, "Ward Connerly had an opportunity to demonstrate precisely what he would do for disadvantaged children. Unfortunately, he missed the chance." Angela Dodson, writing for Black Issues Book Review, similarly regarded Creating Equal as a "missed opportunity" for Connerly to find "common ground." Though noting that the memoir offered interesting insight into Connerly's rise and political battles, Dodson added that any serious critique of affirmative action is "lost among irrelevant personal asides and diatribes against mock enemies."

In 2003 Connerly engaged a new political crusade as a leading advocate for Proposition 54, known as the Racial Privacy Act. The proposition, which would prohibit the collection and use of racial statistics by state or local agencies in California, was touted by Connerly as a bold step toward achieving colorblindness in American society. Drawing attention to the arbitrary and often ambiguous nature of racial categorizations, Connerly told American Enterprise that his own heritage is African American but also includes Choctaw, French, and Irish. Connerly added, "For me, checking these racial-identification boxes is rather personal. I don't like it. I don't buy into it. I say I'm black for the sake of not spending the whole interview quarrelling about classification.… It's a term we use because we're lazy. It's easier to put somebody into a box and use that as a shortcut for something. But it's not useful." On the other hand, opponents of Proposition 54 asserted that the abolition of such data-gathering would seriously impede government efforts to identify and redress health, education, crime, and discrimination issues that effect racial minorities disproportionately.

Though Proposition 54 was ultimately rejected by Californians in an October, 2003, referendum, Connerly remained an outspoken advocate for the elimination of what he views as discriminatory practices of racial categorization and policies of race-and gender-based preference. In 2003, following a split U.S. Supreme Court decision on affirmative action at the University of Michigan, Connerly joined forces with the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. The organization, modeled on Connerly's California Civil Rights Initiative, sought to abolish affirmative action in Michigan by forcing a state referendum vote on the issue. Connerly's cause suffered a setback in April, 2004, when a Michigan circuit court struck down the ballot initiative. However, Connerly continued to press forward. As he told American Enterprise, "I think we're very close to the highest court in the land saying 'racial classifications are suspect.' Who's black? How many black ancestors do you have to have in order to be black? You get rid of that and you eliminate a lot of social problems."