The Issue at a Glance

On the Road to Equal Rights (10.1007/s12129-008-9064-8)

Ward Connerly, American Civil Rights Institute

In his keynote address at “Race and Gender Preferences at the Crossroads,” a January 2008 conference organized by the California Association of Scholars, Ward Connerly confidently asserts that the era of explicit race preferences will soon be “deader than a doornail.” However, it is up to those who remember (in the words of John F. Kennedy) that “race has no place in American life” “to bury it”—hardly an easy task. In convincing the American people that a better vision exists than “diversity,” our strongest asset will be their belief in the fundamental principle of fairness.