The Associated Press is reporting that Affirmative Action slayer Ward Connerly survived a prickly, mixed reception at Truman State University Thursday.
He was mocked. He was cheered. And there were a whole lot of chips flying off shoulders.
At one point Connerly had to ask a woman to “please just shut up.â€
During his two hour speech he was confronted by a mostly hostile crowed that jeered and interrupted him, even laughing at some of his statements.
”What we’re doing in our nation now … is preparing for the day when race-based affirmative action won’t be around,” he said. ”Clearly, it’s living on borrowed time.”
Connerly was speaking to an audience of several hundred students, professors and community members about Affirmative Action no longer being necessary.
He is in Missouri pushing a ballot initiative that would ban race-based preferences in public hiring and college admissions.
Connerly successfully pushed ballot initiatives banning Affirmative action in California, Washington state and Michigan. He’s now pushing the measure in four other states besides Missouri.
Critics have argued that large inequities still exist between whites and blacks and discrimination remains a pertinent issue.
Connerly acknowledged that eliminating or reducing minority scholarships ”will probably have a negative effect. But that’s a public policy decision that has to be made.”
