A 'march to the arch' for civil rights
NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin, third from right, with the NYSUT/AFT delegation in St. Louis.
NYSUT members participated in a solidarity march to the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis in May to support the efforts of AFT Missouri and a broad coalition of labor and community groups to defeat the state's anti-affirmative action ballot measure.
On the surface, the Orwellian-named "Civil Rights Initiative" (CRI) seems to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity or national origin. But its unstated intent is to end affirmative action in employment and education, and return to the so-called "colorblind" policies that effectively disadvantaged women and minorities for much of the country's history.
The march to the arch was organized as part of the annual convention of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. A delegation of twenty NYSUT members attended the convention to advocate for improvements in education, health care, affordable housing and labor issues.
The NYSUT delegation, led by Executive Vice President Alan Lubin and AFT Black Caucus National Chair Zina Burton-Myrick (UFT), also hosted an event to honor retiring AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour.
For more information:
What is the civil rights initiative?
THE CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE (CRI) is a ballot measure that does the opposite of what its name suggests. It undoes policies created to ensure the civil rights of those whose access to full opportunity in the United States has been blocked by the vestiges of long-term discrimination.
The CRI amends a state's constitution to explicitly outlaw affirmative action programs in public hiring, contracting and college admissions. To date, the initiative has passed in three states: California (1996), Washington (1998) and Michigan (2006). Signature-gathering campaigns are under way to put it on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska. (In Oklahoma, a challenge to signatures on the petitions resulted in the initiative being taken off the ballot.)
The operative language of the initiative reads: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."
- Source: AFT.org