State News & The Connerly Initiatives
| Affirmative Action Project Home | State News & Connerly Initiatives Home | |
| Arizona | California | Colorado |
| Florida | Michigan | Missouri |
| Nebraska | Oklahoma | Texas |
| Washington | Initiaves Generally | Ward Connerly |
One of the major, nationwide campaigns to end equal opportunity programs is led by Ward Connerly and his conservative backers. Connerly has introduced ballot initiatives in several states that aim to amend the state constitution to eliminate affirmative action. Connerly began in California, where the initiative passed in 1996, and went on to promote initiatives in Washington and Michigan that were also approved by voters.
In 2008, Connerly and his supporters targeted five states: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Many national advocacy organizations, including the Kirwan Institute, provided support to state organizations that headed campaigns to oppose these initiatives. In Missouri, Connerly’s supporters failed to collect the required number of signatures to place the initiative on the ballot, and in Oklahoma Connerly’s group withdrew their initiative after the ACLU and NAACP filed a legal challenge to their signature count. In Arizona, the Secretary of State disqualified the initiative in late August 2008. Thus, in three of the five states targeted, the initiative failed to even make it onto the ballot. In Colorado and Nebraska, the initiative did make it to Election Day. In Colorado the initiative was defeated for the first time, in a meaningful victory for affirmative action advocates, but in Nebraska the initiative was approved. The Kirwan Institute has issued a report on the 2008 initiative campaign.
These web pages provide information about the state of affirmative action and equal opportunity in each state where the Connerly initiative has been introduced, as well as information on the status of equal opportunity programs in several other states where the issue has been prominent.
