Michigan League of Women Voters Supports Affirmative Action

Group opposes Connerly Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Lansing, MI (July 6, 2004) – The mission of the League of Women Voters is to promote the informed and active participation of citizens in government and also to influence public policy through education and advocacy.

The League supports equal access to education, employment and housing and efforts to bring laws into compliance with the goals of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Michigan League has long supported affirmative action both by filing amicus briefs in key affirmative action lawsuits and in supporting legislation at the federal level. Affirmative action helps to break down traditional barriers that have denied women and people of color the opportunity to pursue the same education and careers as white men.

Affirmative action works; since the need for affirmative action was acknowledged in the 1960s, women and people of color have made great strides in education and careers, and society is better for this change. Even with affirmative action, however, they lag behind white men in terms of executive and managerial level positions and in median pay for doing the same job. To say that we no longer need affirmative action runs counter to the facts and misses the point.

Anyone benefiting from affirmative action must be qualified for the position, and many women who have had the opportunity have risen to the top of their fields. By their successes, they refute the notion that gender by itself is a disqualifier.

Before affirmative action, doors were automatically closed on the dreams of women – simply because they were female. Times have changed for the better thanks in part to affirmative action, but we are not close to a society of equal opportunity in which people are valued not for the color of their skin or their gender, but for the content of their charcter and their contributions to society.

Ward Connerly's plan is one that would revert to a society in which women and people of color are routinely discriminated against. The Michigan League of Women Voters rejects the effort to amend the Michigan Constitution to address the whims of a California carpetbagger and others who want to turn the clock back.

We believe that this amendment would be bad for Michigan, particularly for Michigan's women, and we stand united with women and men from across the state in making people aware of the adverse implications of the Connerly proposal.

The Michigan League believes that California's folly should not be transplanted to Michigan and that those who are trying to do this are not acting in the best interests of Michigan's citizens.

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