Campus Progress alum Dana Goldstein has a new article up on the American Prospect’s website on a subject of interest to CPers:  Anti-affirmative action activist Ward Connerly is launching five more state ballot initiatives against race conscious admissions in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma during the 2008 elections, and Dana did the reporting to break down the potential results.

Connerly’s latest tactic is emphasizing his support for socio-economic affirmative action—focusing on the poor instead of marginalized racial groups—because he and other critics think affirmative action does too much to help advantaged minorities. But, as I argued in recent piece of my own, affirmative action isn’t just about giving the disadvantaged the opportunity for higher education (though that’s an important and even overlapping goal), it’s about social justice—fixing serious, continuing problems of access for ethnic groups who face discrimination.  And it’s also a feminist issue, as Dana reports, and one that reaches beyond the college campus:

Linda Meric, co-chair of Colorado Unity, a labor, business, civil-rights, and religious coalition opposing the anti-affirmative action ballot initiative …  stressed that white women are major beneficiaries of affirmative action. "Women still face a significant wage gap when compared to men, and we believe that Coloradans support pay equity and programs that help women and girls get into nontraditional fields such as science and engineering," she told the Prospect.

Although affirmative action is understood primarily as a policy used in college admissions, a ban against it would affect a variety of state programs, some of which wouldn't be called "affirmative action" at all. The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Simply the Best program offers after-school technology enrichment, field trips, and visits to college campuses for African American and Latina teen girls. Colorado gives special health-care training to minority and bilingual professionals, which ensures more patients have access to culturally competent care. And the Colorado Minority Business Office helps people of color understand how to apply for state contracts.

But the wording of the initiative is designed to prey on economic and other insecurities of white voters who might fear—erroneously—that affirmative action could hurt them and other whites, despite endorsements of affirmative action from religious groups, the U.S. military, businesses, and politicians on both sides of the aisle.  The challenge, Dana writes, is “convincing white voters that these policies are more about helping women, people of color, and the poor than about hurting white men.”

Perhaps a larger challenge that Dana only touches on briefly in her piece is how the initiatives will affect voting patterns. In 2004, anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives brought conservative voters to the polls, hurting progressive candidates, especially in Ohio. Like gay marriage bans, anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives could serve as a get-out-the-vote mechanism for conservative voters; with it, we're likely to see success for other conservative candidates and policy proposals. But there is some hope: Dana thinks that white voters who might feel insecure enough to vote for Connerly's proposals might also support progressive economic policies and candidaes.