Gale hosts hearing on affirmative action

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BY MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star

New venue, same arguments.

A constitutional ban on race- and gender-based affirmative action is necessary to ensure equality for all Nebraskans, proponents of the ban said Thursday evening at a hearing hosted by Secretary of State John Gale at the state Capitol.

The ban could dismantle scholarships and programs that help historically underrepresented groups, opponents countered.

“The programs we have in the state of Nebraska merely provide opportunity,” said David Kramer, campaign lawyer for Nebraskans United, the group fighting the affirmative-action ban.

“What people do with that opportunity is up to them.”

On Nov. 4, voters are scheduled to weigh in on the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, known as Initiative 424. It would put a constitutional ban on racial and gender preferences in public hiring and admissions decisions.

Similar bans already have passed in California, Washington and Michigan, and are alive this year in Nebraska and Colorado. All those efforts have largely been bankrolled by the California-based American Civil Rights Institute.

Ending affirmative action here is “part of a national agenda,” Kramer said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we don’t have the kinds of problems these guys are alleging,” he said.

But discrimination does exist, Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative supporters said.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for example, has a history of hiring women and minorities without competitive searches, two UNL faculty testified Thursday.

Such practices, commonly called opportunity hiring, punish white and Asian men and amount to “reverse discrimination” that’s become a “cancer” at UNL, said Dwayne Ball, an associate professor of marketing.

Administrators and the Board of Regents have ignored complaints about opportunity hiring, said chemistry professor Gerard Harbison.

“This is a public university,” he said. “The public of Nebraska deserves to know what we’re doing.”

UNL leaders have said their use of opportunity hiring has been narrow and that the process not only targets women and minorities, but also potential hires who might slip away if long searches were conducted, such as award-winning researchers.

And nobody who isn’t qualified is hired, administrators say.

University leaders and a number of business and education groups have come out strongly against the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, saying it could endanger programs that level the playing field at NU and elsewhere.

A program that aims to increase the number of men in nursing, for example, would be at risk, opponents say.

Supporters point to the presidential candidacies of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the vice-presidential nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as evidence that society is embracing equality for all groups.

Lucas Peterson, a 24-year-old Doane College graduate, doesn’t believe society has yet reached that point.

Had the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative included a ban on preferences based on sexual orientation, Peterson testified, he might have considered lending his support.

But because the initiative doesn’t include sexual orientation, Peterson, who is openly gay, isn’t on board.

He says he’s been the victim of harassment and hate crimes, and Nebraska’s touted “good life” doesn’t yet apply to him.

“I’m sorry. It is not there for me,” he said. “I just don’t buy it. I seriously don’t.”

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.