Affirmative Action

S. Stephen Nakashima, a World War II relocation camp survivor and longtime attorney who voted with the conservative majority on the UC Board of Regents that banned affirmative action in UC hiring and admissions in the mid-1990s, has died. He was 86. The former regent died of natural causes Dec. 11 at his San Jose home, according to his son, Lex. Nakashima was appointed to the UC governing board in 1989 by Gov. George Deukmejian and was reappointed in 1993 by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Intent on dismantling affirmative action, activists in five states have launched a coordinated drive to cut off tax dollars for programs that offer preferential treatment based on race or gender. The campaign aims to put affirmative action bans on the November ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. The effort is being organized by California consultant Ward Connerly, who has successfully promoted similar measures in California, Michigan and Washington.

Sen. John McCain told a largely black and not particularly receptive audience of National Urban League members Friday that it was time for affirmative action to end. "We should provide equal economic opportunities for all Americans, and I think Americans have rejected a quota system," he said. Silence greeted his comments at the league's convention in Orlando, Fla. With race as a backdrop to the presidential campaign, the Arizona senator and his Democratic opponent, Sen.

For activists who seek to change the law, nothing works better sometimes than losing a big case in the Supreme Court. This year saw two small, public-interest law firms convert losses in the high court into wins in the court of public opinion. The Institute for Justice, a libertarian group based in Arlington, Va., made a cause out of the "abuse of eminent domain," referring to the government's power to seize and condemn private property.

A leading opponent of affirmative action said Tuesday that he expects to expand his campaign by putting measures on the ballot next year to ban racial preferences in as many as five more states. Ward Connerly, who helped lead the successful anti-affirmative action Proposition 209 campaign in California in 1996 and the election victory for a similar measure in Michigan two months ago, said the political tide has turned against affirmative action.

In a rare interview, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas described himself as a high-achieving student who was mentored by a prominent priest when he enrolled in a Catholic college in Massachusetts in the late 1960s. But he bitterly rejected the idea that he benefited from affirmative action because he was black. "That was the creation of the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say, and your industry," Thomas told a writer for Business Week magazine.

In 1969, when nearly every student at Beverly Hills High School was white, school officials went looking for some help diversifying the campus. They found it in the polyglot Los Angeles school system that surrounds the tony, iconic city. Under a system of "diversity permits," the high school began enrolling scores of minority students from Los Angeles each year. For decades, the permit program aimed to bring in a deliberate mix of black, Latino and Asian students from outside the city limits.

In a case that could determine the future of the Los Angeles Unified School District's popular magnet schools, attorneys met in court Tuesday to argue whether race and ethnicity are valid criteria for determining whether students are selected for the prized spots.

Re "Who's the hypocrite?" Opinion, Oct. 15 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas cannot be considered an "affirmative action hire." Affirmative action takes past discrimination into account in order to level the current field for minorities. The goal is to help those who were mistreated in the past.

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that the Los Angeles Unified School District can continue to base admissions to its popular magnet school system on the race of the students, sharply rejecting a conservative legal group's argument that the system violates California law.