Proposition 54, also known as the Racial Privacy Initiative, is currently scheduled for the Oct. 7 recall ballot. As written, the measure “prohibits state and local governments from using race, ethnicity, color or national origin to classify current or prospective students, contractors, or employees in public education, contracting or employment operations,” though it does not prohibit classification by sex. Though the measure is touted as a simple effort to prevent discrimination, in an interesting twist, Prop. 54 has stirred up fierce opposition from liberal groups and support from some surprisingly right-wing sources.

According to AJ Davis-DeFeo, public policy coordinator for The Center, there are several reasons the GLBT community should be concerned about Prop. 54.

“One of the main reasons is that it takes away information that we really need,” Davis-DeFeo told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “Infor-mation such as the fact that there’s one new AIDS case in San Diego every day, and 54 percent of those cases are among men of color. If we don’t have that information because agencies aren’t allowed to report race, then we’re not going to know how to target our outreach, or where we need to be allocating resources. The other reason the LGBT community needs to be concerned is that the same people behind Prop. 54 are the people that are consistently anti-youth, anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant. It’s the right wing that we are always up against.”

The Coalition for an Informed California calls Prop. 54 “dangerous, deceptive and irresponsible,” stating that it makes tobacco and other prevention programs less effective, blocks enforcement of hate crime laws, hampers efforts to stop the spread of disease, undermines school accountability, offers a false promise of privacy and more. The website lists nearly 50 medical associations that oppose the legislation, ranging from the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum and the California Black Health Network to Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the Breast Cancer Fund.

“We have seen a series of initiatives on the ballot that target one particular group,” said ACLU Public Affairs Officer Dale Kelly Bankhead, who is also a board member of The Center. “We had 187 that targeted Latinos, Prop. 209, which was largely anti-African-American, and Prop. 22, which was the anti-gay marriage initiative that was carried by Senator Pete Knight.… It’s easy for the right to beat a small group of people, and all of these communities are minorities, numerically, except perhaps Latinos. The only way we’re going to succeed is by working together. Discrimination against one is discrimination against all…. Today it’s African-Americans and Latinos, tomorrow it will be the LGBT community, the week after that it will be the Asian community, and on and on unless we come together. It’s very much a situation of united we stand, divided we fall.”

The Racial Privacy Initiative Campaign website states that, “Passage of RPI will do many things: save our state budget over $10 million, end government’s preferential treatment based on race, and junk a 17th-century racial classification system that has no place in 21st-century America.… The California Constitution forbids state government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any citizen based on race. Therefore, since government has no reason to classify persons by race, why should it even ask us for the data? Like religion, marital status or sexual orientation, race should become a private matter that is no business of government’s.”

Supporting the proposition are University of California Regent Ward Connerly, who initially proposed the legislation and is known for his vocal opposition to affirmative action, the Association of Concerned Taxpayers, the California Congress of Republicans, California Federated Republican Women, Sacramento Chapter, and a sizeable list of individuals and anonymous donors.

Prop. 54 is vehemently supported by such groups as V-DARE — a member of the ring of conservative websites — which features mainly anti-immigration articles.

On the V-DARE website, Steve Sailer, founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute, writes, “The Racial Privacy Initiative would make it more difficult for the bureaucrats to carry on illegally discriminating by race in the name of affirmative action, since they couldn’t demand that, say, University of California applicants check off race and ethnicity boxes.… This data collection ban may seem like a minor obstacle to government officials intent on privileging some groups over others, but it could be startlingly effective.”

Sailer went on to cite one outcome of denying the collection of such statistical data that he felt has been positive — that the absence of such data on sexual orientation has served as a roadblock in the movement for GLBT equality.

“Consider how the otherwise powerful gay lobby has never won preferences for homosexuals,” writes Sailer. “With no good data on what percentage of the population is homosexual, quotas for gays have been a nonstarter.”

“We have to come together against things like Prop. 54 — in order to stop these people from oppressing all of us,” stressed Davis-DeFeo. “Ward Connerly claims that this is going to make the state colorblind, but all it’s going to do is blindfold us.”

There will be a forum on Prop. 54 at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 25, at the Malcolm X Library. For more information, contact Davis-DeFeo at (619) 692-2077, ext. 212.