Colorado Senate to Vote Soon on Whether to End Affirmative Action
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 3/23/2004
Legislation that would ban affirmative action programs in Colorado passed the state's Senate Education Committee on March 18. The state senate could vote on the bill as early as this week.Sponsored by Colorado state Senator Ed Jones, R., and state Rep. Shawn Mitchell, R., the "Colorado Civil Rights Act" (SB 194) aims to ban affirmative action programs in public hiring, contracting, and admissions to public colleges and universities.
Almost 300 people attended the committee's hearing, where 34 people testified in support of affirmative action and against SB 194, including local representatives from the League of Women Voters, League of United Latin Americans Citizens, Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce, Colorado State Board of Education, Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and Colorado Unity. Only five individuals testified in favor of the legislation, including representatives from the Mountain States Legal Foundation and the Equal Opportunity Alliance.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, D., called on the committee to oppose Senate Bill 194.
"Frankly, this bill is utterly unnecessary because the courts have already carefully defined the circumstances under which government can take race and gender into account when making hiring and contracting decisions," Hickenlooper said.
Affirmative action supporters believe that the bill's introduction was prompted by statements made by Colorado Governor Bill Owens, R., following the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which reaffirmed that universities may take race into consideration as one factor among many when selecting incoming students. After the Grutter decision, Governor Owens had said, if passed by the state legislature, he would sign into law legislation banning the use of affirmative action in higher education.
Although the measure is being called the "Colorado Civil Rights Act," civil rights advocacy groups, including Colorado Unity, a diverse statewide coalition of civil rights and social justice organizations, maintain that SB 194 does not protect Colorado citizens' civil rights, particularly those of women and minorities. Further, they say, SB 194 would hurt progress that had been made in increasing access to opportunities for women and minorities.
SB 194's enactment would nullify affirmative action plans currently in place at public universities, therefore hurting minorities who already are under-represented at Colorado's higher education institutions, opponents of the bill say. Passage of the legislation also would obstruct affirmative action plans currently in-place for employment and government contracting.
Before SB 194's introduction, Colorado Unity formed in order to defend and protect affirmative action programs in the state. In January, the group organized a statewide summit in Denver to promote a greater understanding of and need for affirmative action programs. At the summit, they also discussed strategies to defeat anti-affirmative action efforts that could roll back progress Colorado has made.
