Dymally Says He’ll Appeal Court Ruling On “Race Bill”

By Betty PleasantSpecial to the NNPA from Wave Community Newspapers SACRAMENTO (NNPA) –Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally has vowed to appeal a Sacramento Superior Court judge’s ruling that his “racial discrimination definition” law is unconstitutional. Judge Thomas M. Cecil, responding to a lawsuit by anti-affirmative action activist Ward Connerly, struck down a 2003 law intended to help minorities win government contracts and employment despite the prohibitions of Proposition 209, which bans consideration of race and gender in public employment, education and contracting. The “race bill,” AB 703, was written by Dymally, passed by both houses of the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis. It was intended to allow government agencies the authority to perform outreach to help racial and ethnic minorities and women-owned businesses gain access to information leading to employment, contracting and educational opportunities by defining the term “racial discrimination” in accordance with the definition adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1965. AB 703 seeks to clarify “racial discrimination” and “discrimination on the basis of race” in terms of paragraphs 1 and 4 of Article 1 of Part I of the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” as adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, signed on behalf of the United States in 1966 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994. While Paragraph 1 of the article clearly describes and defines racial discrimination, the more salient Paragraph 4, which speaks directly to the state’s purpose, reads: “Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination, provided, however, that such measures do not, as a consequence, lead to the maintenance of separate rights for different racial groups and that they shall not be continued after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.” Judge Cecil rejected the legality of AB 703, ruling that state lawmakers “improperly and unconstitutionally” adopted it and that it is in conflict with Proposition 209, the ballot initiative passed by California voters in 1996. Cecil issued his ruling after Connerly, a former University of California regent who authored Proposition 209, filed a lawsuit shortly after the measure was enacted. Connerly, an African-American crusader against racial identification, argued that AB 703 was “an end run” around Proposition 209 and hailed Judge Cecil’s ruling, declaring: “This is a happy day for me, personally, and for all of us who are identified with the Proposition 209 campaign.”